RUTHFULLY YOURS

London

I’m choosing choice
So are my girls and boys
Choice is king, there’s no denyin’
Cut my choice, and I’ll start cryin’

So runs one of the many catchy tunes in “Assisted Suicide: The Musical.” The title and subject are dark, but British theatergoers don’t seem to care. “Assisted Suicide” has received rave reviews since it was first shown last year, and when I saw it in January a packed house gave it a standing ovation. That’s all the more remarkable given the musical’s anti-euthanasia message, at a time when voters on both sides of the Atlantic are making their peace with the practice.

“We’ve become used to clapping along and thinking that choice is good,” the musical’s creator, Liz Carr, tells me in a recent interview at the Southbank arts center in London. “It’s like a mantra: the right to die, the right to die, the right to die. We just clap along, and we don’t know what assisted suicide means or what the consequences are—that we’re essentially asking the state to be involved in people’s death.”

Euthanasia will likely be on the legislative agenda in Australia, Finland, Portugal and Sweden this year. In jurisdictions where medically assisted suicide is already permitted—Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and six U.S. states among them—the definition of who qualifies keeps expanding.

Holland and Belgium have the world’s most permissive laws. In November, a doctor in the Netherlands euthanized a 41-year-old father of two who had struggled with alcoholism; the Dutch government is considering a draft law to legalize euthanasia for perfectly healthy people who hold “a well-considered opinion that their life is complete.” Belgium in 2014 removed the minimum age for euthanasia, and in September a terminally ill 17-year-old became the first minor to take advantage of the change. Both countries routinely euthanize patients with dementia and depression.
The stakes are especially high for people with disabilities, like Ms. Carr, who suffers from a genetic disorder that prevents her from extending her muscles, among other impairments. Such people watch the assisted-suicide movement’s recent strides and wonder what it all means for their future in societies where the government is the main, often the sole, health-care provider.

Yet a steady stream of uncritical coverage in the media continues to push the euthanasia movement along. Such coverage usually takes the form of TV documentaries that follow, and gently cheer, a disabled or terminally ill patient’s journey to the death chamber. Thanks but no thanks, says Ms. Carr.

“I was really, really angry at the media portrayal of this subject matter and the amount of bias and the amount of propaganda,” she says. Watching the documentaries, “I’d say, ‘But it’s not that simple! Why is nobody looking for alternatives or talking to other people?’ ”

So she created a musical. Much of “Assisted Suicide” involves Ms. Carr taking on her alter ego, a character named Documentary Liz. Film footage shows Documentary Liz living a humdrum disabled life, while a lachrymose melody plays and a narrator dourly describes the scene: “Liz feels trapped, imprisoned by her difficult circumstances. Liz has few freedoms, few choices on a day-to-day basis.” CONTINUE AT SITE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This analysis argues that Iran is steadily making progress towards a nuclear weapon and is doing so via North Korea. Iran is unwilling to submit to a years-long freeze of its military nuclear program as stipulated by the July 2015 Vienna Nuclear Deal. North Korea is ready and able to provide a clandestine means of circumventing the deal, which would allow the Iranians to covertly advance that nuclear program. At the same time, Iran is likely assisting in the upgrading of certain North Korean strategic capacities.https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iran-progressing-nuclear-weapons-via-north-korea/

While the Vienna Nuclear Deal (VND) is focused on preventing (or at least postponing) the development of nuclear weapons (NW) in Iran, its restrictions are looser with regard to related delivery systems (particularly nuclear-capable ballistic missiles) as well as to the transfer of nuclear technology by Iran to other countries. Moreover, almost no limits have been placed on the enhancement of Tehran’s military nuclear program outside Iran. North Korea (NK) arguably constitutes the ideal such location for Iran.

The nuclear and ballistic interfaces between the two countries are long-lasting, unique, and intriguing. The principal difference between the countries is that while NK probably already possesses NW, Iran aspires to acquire them but is subject to the VND. Iran has the ability, however, to contribute significantly to NK’s nuclear program, in terms of both technology (i.e., by upgrading gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment) and finance (and there is an irony in this, as it is thanks to its VND-spurred economic recovery that Iran is able to afford it).

This kind of strategic, military-technological collaboration is more than merely plausible. It is entirely possible, indeed likely, that such a collaboration is already underway.

This presumption assumes that Iran is unwilling to lose years to the freeze on its military nuclear program. It further assumes that NK is ready and able to furnish a route by which Iran can clandestinely circumvent the VND, thus allowing it to make concrete progress on its NW program. And finally, it assumes that the ongoing, rather vague interface between the two countries reflects Iranian advances towards NW. The following components and vectors comprise that interface.

From the 1990s onward, dozens – perhaps hundreds – of NK scientists and technicians apparently worked in Iran in nuclear and ballistic facilities. Ballistic missile field tests were held in Iran, for instance near Qom, where the NK missiles Hwasong-6 (originally the Soviet Scud-C, which is designated in Iran as Shehab-2) and Nodong-1 (designated in Iran as Shehab-3) were tested. Moreover, in the mid-2000s, the Shehab-3 was tentatively adjusted by Kamran Daneshjoo, a top Iranian scientist, to carry a nuclear warhead.

Furthermore, calculations were made that were aimed at miniaturizing a nuclear implosion device in order to fit its dimensions and weight to the specifications of the Shehab-3 re-entry vehicle. These, together with benchmark tests, were conducted in the highly classified facility of Parchin. Even more significantly, Iranian experts were present at Punggye-ri, the NK nuclear test site, when such tests were carried out in the 2000s.

Syria served concurrently as another important platform for Iran – until the destruction by Israel of the plutonium-based nuclear reactor that had been constructed in Syria by NK. According to some reports, not only were the Iranians fully aware of that project in real time, but the project was heavily financed by Tehran. Considering Iranian interests, it was probably intended as a backup for the heavy water plutonium production reactor of Iran’s military nuclear program, and possibly as an alternative to the Iranian uranium enrichment plant in Natanz in the event that it is dismantled.

“Now that Islamophobia has been condemned, this is not the end, but rather the beginning…” — Muslim Brotherhood affiliate Samer Majzoub, Canadian Muslim Forum.

The motion still does not offer any definition or any statistics to support its claim that “Islamophobia” is a problem in Canada.

However, it should hardly shock anyone that the first motion condemning Islamophobia has so swiftly been followed up by a new motion demanding concrete government measures.

The West is submitting to blasphemy laws. Denmark, for example, has apparently decided that now is the time to invoke a dusty, old blasphemy provision. Denmark still has a provision in the penal code against blasphemy, but until now, it has only been used three times. The last time was nearly half a century ago, in 1971. Denmark’s Attorney General has nevertheless just charged a man for burning a Quran.

In the West, blasphemy as a criminal offence has for centuries generally been considered a relic of the past. In a largely godless society, few people take offense to blasphemous comments or acts. Christians do not descend upon alleged blasphemers with guns and knives, and publishers do not worry about “offending” Christians.

In 1997, Danish public service radio financed an artist burning a Bible and broadcast it on national television. No one was charged, even though there were complaints and the state prosecutor investigated the case.

Yet, a Danish man will be prosecuted. He burned his own Quran in his own garden and then posted the video in a public Facebook group, “Yes to freedom, No to Islam,” with the accompanying text, “Consider your neighbor, it stinks when it burns”. Attorney General Jan Reckendorff stated:

“It is the prosecution’s view that the circumstances of the burning of holy books such as the Bible and the Qur’an implies that in some cases it may be a violation of the blasphemy provision, which deals with public mockery or scorn against a religion. It is our opinion that the circumstances of this case require that it should be prosecuted in order for the courts to have the opportunity to take a position on the matter.”

The Attorney General may have been mentioning the Bible only out of politeness. After all, no one has been prosecuted for burning the Bible in Denmark, as not even burning it on national television was considered sufficiently offensive. The Quran is clearly a very different matter.

The decision has caused renewed debate about abolishing the blasphemy provision in Denmark — an issue that regularly pops up.

In Norway, the provision against blasphemy was abolished in 2005. A poll conducted in January showed that 41% of Norwegian Muslims believe that blasphemy should be punished, and 7% believe that the penalty for blasphemy anywhere should be capital punishment.

In Britain, at least one man has been prosecuted and sentenced for burning the Quran (in 2011) and several arrested in 2010 and 2014 .

The enforcement of blasphemy provisions, so out of place in a largely post-Christian Europe, brings back the Middle Ages, when blasphemy was ferociously prosecuted by the Church. Is that really an era for modern European society to be aspiring to after centuries of fighting for freedom of speech?

In Canada, meanwhile, anti-Islamophobia motions, aiming gradually to prohibit all criticism of Islam — and part of Muslim blasphemy laws — are being passed. The Ontario Provincial Parliament unanimously passed an anti-Islamophobia motion in February. The motion called on the legislature to “stand against all forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance; rebuke the… growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments” and “condemn all forms of Islamophobia.” Needless to say, no such motions were introduced to protect Judaism or Christianity.

Women Defend Yourselves – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbXZ6uWEsAQ&feature=youtu.be

BRUSSELS—The European Union’s parliament on Thursday asked for the bloc to scrap visa-free travel for U.S. citizens within two months in retaliation for the U.S. continuing to exclude five EU countries from its no-visa regime.

While the request is nonbinding and unlikely to change EU policy, it reflects hostility among some European politicians to the Trump administration.

Under EU visa-reciprocity rules, countries allowed visa-free travel to the EU must replicate the no-visa regime to all EU countries.
However, the U.S. Visa Waiver program allowing visa-free travel to citizens from 38 countries is based on a country-by-country analysis of how many of their citizens overstay or are declined visas.

In the EU, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania continue to be outside the Visa Waiver program, years after joining the EU. Cyprus and Poland became members of the EU in 2004, Romania and Bulgaria 10 years ago, and Croatia in 2013.

A two-year deadline that lapsed in April 2016 obliging the EU executive to scrap visa-free travel for U.S. citizens has been pushed back last year, as the outgoing Obama administration didn’t commit on the issue before the presidential elections that took place in November.

European home-affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who traveled to Washington last month, spoke to U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security John Kelly and explained the time constraints and the pressure from the European Parliament to resolve the issue. But with the new administration still defining its policies, EU officials don’t expect the matter to be advanced soon. CONTINUE AT SITE

The document does not contemplate a scenario in which the European Union faces collapse, or in which major member states decide to follow the British example and exit the bloc.

The European Commission, in a rare instance of candor, admits that European federalism risks “alienating parts of society which feel that the EU lacks legitimacy or has taken too much power away from national authorities.”

The Commission does not consider the possibility that in 2025 it may not even exist.

The European Commission has published a document outlining five scenarios for how the European Union could evolve within the next ten years.

The so-called White Paper on the Future of Europe, which will be presented at the Rome Summit on March 25, 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the European Union, is intended to be “the starting point for a wider public debate on the future of our continent.”

Each of the five scenarios is based on the premise that “the 27 Member States move forward together as a Union.” The document does not consider the possibility that the EU could collapse or break apart, or even that the powers of the EU be significantly curtailed. The document states:

“Too often, the discussion on Europe’s future has been boiled down to a binary choice between more or less Europe. That approach is misleading and simplistic. The possibilities covered here range from the status quo, to a change of scope and priorities, to a partial or collective leap forward.”

Nevertheless, for the European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, publicly to even consider alternatives to full-blown European federalism is a testament to the growing power and influence of anti-EU political movements in Europe.

Before its official presentation by one the EU presidents, Jean-Claude Juncker, this afternoon at 15.00, the White Paper that presents the EU Commission’s vision of the future of the EU has already been leaked. Politico has been able to get a hold of what looks like a final draft version of the document and published it (PDF). The report offers five possible scenarios.

Scenario 1, carrying on, mostly means ‘more of the same’. Especially a sentence such as “there is incremental progress on improving the functioning of the single currency in order to drive growth and prevent shocks starting at home or abroad” indicates the same sort of ‘creeping barrage’ of further centralisation we see now.

Scenario 2, is nothing but the single market, in which the EU would secede federal control over immigration, security and defence. However, it should be called ‘nothing but the single market, and the shared currency that’s dragging it down’, because it says “the euro facilitates trade exchanges but growing divergence and limited cooperation are major sources of vulnerability.” Those that were hoping for construction similar to the EEC will be sorely disappointed.

Scenarios 3 and 4 are more or less hybrids, where the EU either divests itself from tasks, or from countries.

In scenario 5, the so-called “Verhofstadt option,” the sovereignty of member states is severely limited, with the EU taking over foreign policy and building up a European Defence Union.

This scenario also claims a “significantly modernised and increased [EU budget], backed up by own resources; a euro area stabilisation function is operational,” effectively leading to the formation of some sort of European Superstate at the EU level.

Commenting on the White Paper, Pieter Cleppe, the head of the Brussels office of the Open Europe think-tank, is summarised in the Telegraph as saying:

“the Juncker blueprint was shaping up to be a repeat of tired old EU dogma, rather than a genuine attempt to address the EU structural issues,” and quoted as saying it presents “a lost opportunity for the EU to reinvent itself after Brexit. Turning it into a mere trade-facilitating arrangement could have increased popular support.”

According to Reuters, Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that

“After [the March 25 summit in] Rome we want to launch a public debate on these options (…) this has to be about the people and we very much hope that the leaders will launch such a process.”

Which is a bit rich, coming from a Commission that has time and time again, decided to ignore the wishes of the people made clear in referenda. The people have already spoken and it does not seem they will be taken in by these five scenarios.

Dorsa Derakhshani may be today’s bravest feminist. As the 18-year-old Iranian chess grandmaster competed at a January tournament in Gibraltar, she refused to don a hijab, in defiance of her country’s Islamic authorities. She was later removed from the national team. Her 15-year-old brother, Borna, was also booted, for facing off against an Israeli chess player.

It would be nice to report that Western feminists rallied to Ms. Derakhshani’s defense, but they didn’t. America’s liberal feminists have been busy planning a “Day Without a Woman” to protest President Trump’s alleged misogyny.

In Iran, the Interior Ministry investigates more than a million women every year for refusing to cover their heads. In 2014 several bareheaded young Iranian women posted a video of themselves dancing and singing to Pharrell Williams’s “Happy.” They were arrested for “hurting public chastity” and sentenced to a year in prison and 91 lashes. (The sentences were suspended contingent on three years of good behavior.)

Feminists and progressives have a habit of ignoring Islamism’s female victims, preferring to focus on phantom reports of Islamophobia in the West. Enormous attention has been paid to “burqa bans” in European countries. But how many readers have heard of Ms. Derakhshani?

Sweden claims it has a “feminist foreign policy,” yet during an official trip to Iran last month several female cabinet members covered their heads. How will Iranian women escape Islamism’s chokehold if European feminists submissively bow to men who refuse even to shake a woman’s hand?

Days before that state visit, an Islamic court in Iran’s Lorestan Province sentenced a man and woman to death by stoning for adultery. The Swedish feminists issued nary a peep in protest of this gross violation of human rights.

In the guise of cultural relativism, Western feminism appears to have evolved into a new kind of racism. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems not to apply to women in certain Islamic countries. CONTINUE AT SITE