RUTHFULLY YOURS

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a massive car bomb that exploded overnight in the heart of one of Baghdad’s busiest commercial areas, killing 72 people and wounding at least 150 others, Iraq’s interior ministry said.

The explosion in the upscale central neighborhood of Karrada went off around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, setting nearby buildings ablaze as young people and families packed the streets, reveling after sundown and the breaking of the Ramadan fast. It was the terror group’s first major attack on the heavily patrolled area since May 2015.

Islamic State, a Sunni militant group, said in a statement distributed online that it had targeted a gathering of Shiites. It and other Sunni extremists reject Shiism, calling it polytheism.

Civil defense teams worked through the night pulling bodies from the debris. Families of those missing gathered in the street, looking for their relatives and shouting and cursing at security forces they said had failed to keep the area safe.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi toured the site hours after the explosion, promising to punish those responsible, according to a statement from his office. Angry crowds there jeered him, calling him a thief.

“Leave, leave, don’t let him stay here,” they said.

Mr. Abadi has faced months of political uncertainty partly caused by frequent attacks on Baghdad and other cities that have exposed gaps in Iraq’s security infrastructure. A protest movement this year questioned his leadership and called for immediate government reform.

Minutes after the Karrada bombing, an improvised explosive device detonated in the crowded east Baghdad neighborhood Al Shaab, killing four people and wounding 16 others, the interior ministry said. It targeted young Iraqis who were out shopping for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, which begins this week.

No group has claimed responsibility for the second attack.

Islamic State in May claimed a series of bombings that left 88 people dead across Baghdad, one of the deadliest days of insurgent violence in the country’s history and a stark reminder that the government had failed to uproot the extremist group despite dealing it a number of recent setbacks on the battlefield.

The Iraqi army reclaimed full control of Fallujah from Islamic State on June 26. The Anbar province city some 40 miles west from Baghdad had served as a command center for the terror group, and was one of its last major strongholds in Iraq following losses in Ramadi and the northern city of Sinjar. CONTINUE AT SITE

A new generation of Biafrans is now peacefully advocating for an independent Biafra. Muhammadu Buhari, the Muslim president of Nigeria, is fighting the nascent independence movement with military force.

“I saw one boy trying to answer a question. He immediately raised his hands, but the soldiers opened fire …” — Witness to the shootings, to Amnesty International.

As for IPOB’s leader, Nnamdi Kanu, director of London-based Radio Biafra, he was arrested in October 2015 and has been held since, illegally, despite meeting bail conditions.

It is noteworthy that a peaceful situation, such as that of the pro-Biafra movement, apparently requires a “military option”, whereas a lethal terrorist group, such as the Muslim Fulani herdsmen, who murder innocent civilians, does not. This tactic furthermore brings into question whether Buhari’s efforts at curbing Boko Haram in the country are genuine or merely a play he puts on half-heartedly for the benefit of the international community.

On paper, the plight of Biafrans — whose state in what is today southeastern Nigeria, lasted for only three years, 1967-70, before the Nigerian authorities ended it with a genocide against them — should, for the international community, be an open-and-shut case.

Journalists, human rights activists, social justice warriors on campuses throughout the West, and organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, all ostensibly claim to care deeply about human rights, especially for people whom the Europeans once colonized.

Biafra constitutes a textbook example of British colonization. The country’s brief existence was cut short by the Nigerian government’s genocide, which crushed all hopes for independence and self-determination. Biafrans, today, are denied their fundamental rights of assembly and free expression — rights that are guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution. The Nigerian government continues murderously to oppress them and their movement for sovereign freedom.

The international community, headed by the UN, which preaches the gospel of human rights and self-determination, persistently ignores their national aspirations.

The territories that constitute present-day Nigeria came under colonial occupation as British protectorates around 1903. Nigeria is essentially an artificial construct, created as a colony by Great Britain in 1914, when it merged the protectorates. The country is made up of a number of different indigenous African peoples, among them the Biafrans, who are ethnically predominantly Igbo.

After Nigeria’s independence from Great Britain in 1960, Biafra seceded from Nigeria, and in 1967 declared its own state. The Nigerian government refused to accept the secession and responded by launching a war on Biafra. The assault included a blockade of the nascent state, and resulted in the murder of more than two million Biafrans, many of whom were children who starved to death because of the blockade.

The Biafrans, watching the dissolution of their young state, surrendered to Nigeria in January 1970. They realized, perhaps, that the world’s abandonment of them did not warrant any future for their cause.

Unlike others at that time, such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Biafrans did not engage in hijacking and bombing airplanes, taking hostages and other forms of terrorist attacks against innocent civilians to further their cause. The international community responds obediently to terrorism. Whereas the PLO has now become the Palestinian Authority (PA) and is among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid, with a plethora of “human rights activists” championing its cause (as well as a UN body, UNRWA, exclusively for Palestinians), it would be hard to find a diplomat at the UN who even knows how to pronounce “Biafra”.

The question inevitably comes to mind, why the ostensibly anti-racist, pro-self-determination international community of opinion makers and human rights advocates has neither the political goodwill, nor the treasure to spare for the Biafrans.

Although the genocide effectively ended Biafran independence, a new generation of Biafrans is now peacefully pressing for an independent Biafra again. In an example of extreme hypocrisy, Muhammadu Buhari, the Muslim president of Nigeria, has declared himself fully committed to a Palestinian state, while his military fights the Biafran movement for self-determination with brutal force.

On May 30, Biafrans commemorated Biafra Heroes Remembrance Day. According to Amnesty International, the only major human rights organization that has interested itself in Biafra,

We are ecstatic to announce our 500th Episode Celebration and we are immensely grateful to all of our fans for their help in keeping the show going — since the Glazov Gang is a fan-generated program and could not exist without you.
To mark this special anniversary we are running the highlights of our episodes that dealt with our main focus, that our government and media won’t dare discuss: the truth about the Left and its alliance with Islamic Jihad.
http://jamieglazov.com/2016/07/02/the-leftist-islamic-alliance-exposed-on-the-glazov-gang-2/

Life’s tough for a warmist think-tank. Look what just happened in Germany (via the great Andrew Bolt):

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) are warning that Europe may be facing “a mini ice age” due to a possible protracted solar minimum.

The news comes from the Berliner Kurier, which adds:


That’s the conclusion that solar physicists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research reached when looking at solar activity. For an institute that over the past 20 years has steadfastly insisted that man has been almost the sole factor in climate change over the past century and that the sun no longer plays a role, this is quite remarkable.

The Berliner Kurier reports that the PIK scientists foresee a weakening of the sun’s activity over the coming years. That means that conversely it is going to get colder. The scientists are speaking of a little ice age.

According to the PIK scientists, the reduced solar activity will, however, not be able to stop the global warming and only brake the warming up to 2100 by 0.3°C.

This warmist hotbed is admitting that solar activity drives climate so strongly that, even sticking to their models as accurate forecasts, they see only a 0.3-degree change by the next century. As Andrew Bolt prompts us:

Remember when we were warned it could be 6 degrees – and at least 3 degrees?

The West should be proud of what the Islamists call “decadence.” For the West, “decadence” is synonymous with freedom. The problem is that we, postmodern Westerners, have sacrificed the very values that ensure our survival, and have exchanged them for “decadence.”

The problem is that the West does not desire life. The West is ready to surrender its love of life to those who want to take it away from them.

“Islam manifests what Nietzsche called ‘great health’: there are young soldiers ready to die for it. What are the values of our civilization? Supermarket and e-commerce, trivial consumerism and egotistical narcissism, vulgar hedonism or scooters for adults?” — Michel Onfray, French philosopher,

In the Netherlands, the minister of education decided to impose the teaching of LGBT courses in migrant centers. Germany has published guidelines, leaflets and cartoons to communicate to immigrants the new sexual norms to follow. Is that all we have to offer to these people?

Omar Mateen did not choose the Pulse gay nightclub because it had few security guards or because it was an easy target. He could have targeted a supermarket or a school. No, Mateen chose Pulse because it is a nightclub, where he slaughtered 49 “infidels” and wounded 53 more.

Before murdering 2,977 people, the leader of the 9/11 terrorists, Mohammed Atta, along with four of the other hijackers, made several trips to Las Vegas during the summer before the attack, where they were entertained by dancers in nightclubs.

Fifteen years later, there was another country, another jihadist cell, another nightclub. Salah Abdeslam was dancing in a nightclub in Brussels with his brother, Brahim, and flirting with a blonde woman. A few months later, Brahim blew himself up in Paris at a concert in the Bataclan Theater. Nightclubs haunt the Islamist imagination with their mix of alcohol, sexual promiscuity, drugs and music. ISIS labelled Paris “the capital of prostitution and obscenity.”

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has warned the United States of the “gravest consequences” if Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any other Muslim prisoner is executed.

Tsarnaev, named in a new online video message from Zawahri, was sentenced last year to death by lethal injection for the 2013 bomb attack, which killed three people and injured more than 260.

“If the U.S. administration kills our brother the hero Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any Muslim, it … will bring America’s nationals the gravest consequences,” Zawahri said.

Zawahri, who became al Qaeda’s leader after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, urged Muslims to take captive as many Westerners as possible, especially those whose countries had joined the “Crusaders’ Campaign led by the United States”.

The veteran Egyptian-born Islamist, shown wearing white robes and sitting in front of green velvet drapes, said the Western captives could then be exchanged for Muslim prisoners.

Western powers “are criminals and they only understand the language of force”, he added.

This is how assorted nuts and tyrants spend their time….see no Islam or Jihad, see no terror, see no forced famine and massacres in African , see no nuke buildup in North Korea and Iran, see no Russian threats to Eastern European nations….see nothing but Israel bashing….rsk

Report released at the U.N. identifies threats for reaching a two-state solution in the Middle East

UNITED NATIONS —A highly anticipated report on the Middle East peace process, released here Friday, criticized both Israelis and Palestinians for policies that fuel war and not peace.

The report identified three main threats for reaching a deal to create two separate Israeli and Palestinian states: the glorification of violence and terrorism; Israel’s settlement expansions in the West Bank; and the Palestinian Authority’s lack of control in Gaza.

The report was issued by the international diplomatic group known as the “Quartet”— composed of the U.N., U.S., Russia and the European Union—which holds a mandate to find a road map for peace in the Middle East.

Diplomats and U.N. officials said the report was significant in that it lays out concrete steps and suggestions on how to revive peace talks.

Just when you thought this week couldn’t get any stranger, it did.

Boris Johnson, an architect of the Leave campaign, has long been considered one of the frontrunners for the leadership of the Tory party, even before Prime Minister David Cameron announced his eventual resignation last week. Johnson is the most popular politician in the country, a goofy and accessible man of the people, well placed to continue the Tories’ domination of the United Kingdom’s politics.

Until this morning, that is. When Johnson stood behind a podium, journalists viewed it as a speech to declare his entry into the leadership race against home secretary and Remain campaigner Theresa May. But it wasn’t. Instead, after ten minutes spent discussing the necessary policies of the next prime minister, and how and why Cameron’s successor must extricate the U.K. from the clutches of the European Union, Johnson announced that he would not stand – that he would not mount a challenge for the leadership.

The shock was palpable. After Johnson uttered the decisive line — “I have concluded that person cannot be me” — the cameramen in the room went into overdrive, clicking rapid-fire to document the moment of defeat in the face of the man once destined for 10 Downing Street. Johnson stumbled over his next line. For the following minute, he vowed to support a “moderate, conservative, one-nation approach” for his party and his country; it sounded more like an affirmation of David Cameron than anything else. Soon after, Johnson exited the stage, to applause and general clamor. The Guardian’s liveblog of the speech had begun with the headline “Boris Johnson launches his leadership bid.” Ten minutes later: “Johnson pulls out of Tory leadership contest.”

Various theories have circulated around the journosphere in the week following Britain’s vote to leave the E.U. The triggering of Article 50 is considered a “poisoned chalice,” political quicksand destined to doom the career of whichever politician is foolish — or hubristic — enough to tread down that path. The process of actually leaving the E.U. would be so destructive, would embroil the country in so much turmoil, that only a political ignoramus would do it. Johnson knows this, the theory goes, as encapsulated in this well-circulated but analytically flawed Guardian comment. Johnson, valuing himself above all else and (it is thought) only tenuously committed to the Brexit cause in the first place, sought to wash his hands of the mess he had created. Johnson appears as a cynical, unethical mastermind, always looking out for himself and ignoring any obligation to the situation he had done so much to engender.

That’s a compelling read of the situation. It plays to what so many already suspect about Johnson: that he cares only for himself and is willing to ruin the economy and his friends’ careers for the sake of advancing his own. For many in the press corps who already detest the man, it fits nicely with the image they hold of Johnson in their preconceptions.

As Noah Daponte-Smith has explained over on the home page, Boris Johnson has, as The Sun put it, been ‘Brexecuted’, his bid for the Conservative leadership destroyed just before lift-off by the announcement that Justice Minister Michael Gove, his ally in the battle of Brexit, had, well, decided to put in for the job for himself.

Anyone who enjoys House of Cards will enjoy the instant take by Iain Martin, writing for the splendidly named Reaction.

Here’s an extract:

At 9am this morning, Boris Johnson was pretty sure that he was going to become Prime Minister, or at least make the final two in the leadership contest and be in with a 50-50 chance. Then, at 9.02am an email landed that signalled he was done for, ruined. Johnson and his team had no warning – no call, no text – from Michael Gove that he was about to declare Boris unfit to be Prime Minister and run himself. The explosive email went to reporters direct….

Almost instantly around forty Tory MPs switched straight to Gove. It was almost as though it had been planned…

Almost. As you will see if you read the rest of the article, Martin is good with the stiletto.

And so Johnson abandoned his bid for the leadership, a mistake: Going down with all flags flying would, over the longer term, have been seen as a more dignified exit, but there we are.

We could discuss how Johnson had left himself so vulnerable. Part of the problem was that, never the most organized of characters (although less chaotic than he pretends), Johnson had, in the confused aftermath of the unexpected win for the Brexit team, forgotten that in politics, like real estate, it’s necessary to always be closing.

Amongst Johnson’s errors was his decision to use his column in the Daily Telegraph as the venue for his first considered (too kind an adjective) comment on the referendum triumph he clearly had not expected, a column that was widely seen as a disaster. Gove, a journalist himself, apparently added a few editing touches to help his pal out. How kind.

The favorite to become the next Tory leader (and thus prime minister) now becomes Theresa May, the Home Secretary (interior minister). The Guardian’s Martin Kettle (no fan of Johnson, as you can see if you read the full piece) approves:

Johnson’s eclipse makes a May versus Gove contest in the final round likely. In the past, May’s chances tended to be dismissed because, in Westminster terms, she is like Kipling’s cat that walks by itself. She rarely works the room or the studios. She frequently does her own thing, which made Cameron suspicious. Though her leadership ambitions have never really been in doubt, she does not have much of a machine. The result is that she had relatively few committed supporters until now.

Expect the Labour Party under a new leader to oppose Brexit, despite the popular vote. At question is whether the new leader of the Conservative Party will manage to unite Conservative MPs into ratifying the popular vote. Now that Boris Johnson is out of the race.
I see markets rebounded from their funk at the temerity of the British people to vote for Brexit. There is no deep explanation required. The people and institutions involved in swinging markets on a daily basis are complete know-nothings, like the rest of us. They had overbought on an expectation of a market bounce once the UK had voted to stay in the EU. They then had to square their positions by selling once reality hit. And, as is the way with markets, selling begets selling. Overshooting on both the up and downsides is commonplace. It can be explained by human psychology or be the setting of computer trading programs. Take your pick; both are right.

What I find interesting is the way reactions to irrelevant market perturbations or the pronouncement of self-interested corporate leaders are taken to be instructive commentaries on world affairs. The decision taken by the British people is about the character of the life of a nation as it evolves. What happens in the next five minutes or the next few years is largely by the way.

Netanyahu put it well when speaking at the UN about the nuclear deal with Iran, in which most restrictions on Iran are lifted after ten years. “A decade may seem like a long time in political life, but it’s the blink of an eye in the life of a nation.” It would be unfortunate if the worst happened and the UK experienced a recession because of Brexit, but exactly what effect would that have on life in the UK in 2030? None is the answer.

I like to think that those who voted to leave the EU had in their mind what kind of country they wanted to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in. Certainly, as someone who was English-born, my support for Brexit was about the very long run. I do not hold any lower expectations for the mindsets of the vast majority of those who voted to leave. I don’t think it was about a migrant taking their particular job or taking their particular place in a hospital queue. I think it was borne of patriotism. Patriotism is essentially about the long run; not what is good for the next five minutes.

This brings me to the young and old. The young predominantly voted to stay, the old to leave. I have noticed something about the young now that I am in the older category. They tend to put greater emphasis on the present than on the past or future. I suppose this is because the present is the key to their future. As you get older and have less and less personal future to worry about you develop, I think, a broader perspective on time both backwards and forwards.

Some young people who voted to stay have accused older people of being selfish in voting to leave. This seems to me to be the kind of naïve reaction that the old expect the young to come up with. They didn’t disappoint. In fact, the only evident selfishness on display was on the part of those people who were prepared to put their country’s interests behind their own personal aspirations, which they felt would be adversely affected by the UK’s exit from the EU. I am not delegitimizing this rationale for voting to stay, but nor should it be lauded. At the same time, laudable or not, perceived self-interest should never be underestimated.