RUTHFULLY YOURS

What to expect when the ABC teams four climateers with a talk-show hostess who believes that 11.7% of the population represents a majority? Why, The Drum Weekly, whose latest edition should prompt new Managing Director Michelle Guthrie to implement reforms. Not that it will, of course.
Under new Managing Director Michelle Guthrie, balance remains a rare commodity at Their ABC. For example, take Sunday’s episode of The Drum Weekly, which looked at climate change. In the introduction we were promised a panel of four experts. You’d think there might be room for one sceptic in any quartet of talking heads, wouldn’t you? Or at the very least, one global warming believer who does not subscribe to the view that throwing good money after bad in order to support rent-seeking peddlers of “renewable” technology is the best and only way forward. Someone like Bjorn Lomberg, perhaps?

Alas, no. What we got was Adjunct Professor Nick Rowley, former climate adviser to Tony Blair; Professor Lesley Hughes, ex-climate commissioner; science reporter and ABC in-house catastropharian Robyn Williams and, last but not least, economist Professor Ross Garnaut. If you have a spare moment, check the links attached to the names above. What do they have in common, apart from an eager willingness to proclaim that the end is nigh? Can’t guess? Let me put it this way: in terms of work, public prominence and job opportunities, the climate-change scare has bestowed handsome bounties on each and every one.

Right at the start, presenter Julia Baird made reference to a May 26 Reachtel poll that listed voters’ primary concerns as follows:

reachtel pollThe take-home message from our host on all this was that climate change ranked fourth!!! among the concerns of voters, conveniently ignoring the fact that other concerns for the environment — the spread of feral weeds in the bush, for example — does not necessarily mean subscribing to Robyn Williams’ assertion that sea levels might soon rise 100 metres. And even if every single respondent represented in that 11.7% fervently believes mankind’s influence is ruining the planet, the fact remains that it is a small segment of the population — roughly the same percentage that votes for The Greens. What a surprise!

The rise of an Islamic State affiliate in Egypt is altering the security landscape in a critical corner of the Middle East, according to Israeli and Western officials.

Militants with Sinai Province, which has pledged allegiance to the extremist group, have developed ties with the Palestinian movement Hamas that rules the neighboring Gaza Strip, the officials said—despite deep ideological differences between the two Islamist groups.

The ties include help with smuggling and medical care, they said. Officials in Israel, which has likened Hamas to Islamic State, said the cooperation has also extended to military training. Hamas officials denied any involvement with Sinai Province.

Egypt’s and Israel’s shared concern about Sinai Province’s growing threat is spurring deeper security cooperation, according to the officials. Israel, for example, has let Egypt bring more sophisticated weapons into its restive Sinai Peninsula than allowed under their 1979 peace treaty, in a bid to help counter the group, they said.

“The relationship has probably never been stronger in terms of assistance in military operations to attack ISIS in Sinai,” Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said after meetings with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and other Egyptian security officials in Cairo recently. ISIS is another name for Islamic State.

The developments show that Islamic State is able to build relationships and shape events far afield even as the group’s control over territory in Syria and Iraq is weakening, just as the recent attacks in Brussels and Paris linked to the group demonstrated its lethal reach.

Sinai Province was created by up to 1,000 jihadists with a group previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis that pledged allegiance to Islamic State in November 2014. The group, based in Sinai, has launched a number of deadly attacks in Egypt and claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian jet in October, killing 224 people.

The group is in regular contact with Islamic State’s leadership, which helps fund the local affiliate and promote it through Islamic State’s extensive social-media network, according to Israeli officials, Egyptian security officials and independent researchers. The extent to which Islamic State is involved in coordinating operations with Sinai Province is unknown.

Sinai Province and Hamas are both Sunni Muslim-led groups, but Hamas doesn’t share the same strict interpretation of Islam.

Sinai Province operates in territory on the peninsula where the entrances of smuggling tunnels that lead to Gaza are located, according to smugglers and diggers who work on tunnels. That has led to a pragmatic arrangement between Sinai Province and Hamas, according to Israeli and Western officials. Egypt’s defense and interior ministries have said the ties between the two groups have included coordination on attacks in north Sinai. Spokesmen for the ministries didn’t comment.

Egypt shared intelligence with Israel last year about cooperation between Sinai Province and members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, according to a Western official. Israel was surprised to learn of the ties given previous clashes in Gaza between Hamas and Islamic State sympathizers, the official said.

Israeli officials said they learned in April of 2015 that Hamas was allowing Sinai Province fighters to be treated in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital. The hospital declined to comment.

Later last year, Hamas operatives spent a month in the Sinai region teaching the militants how to fire antitank missiles, Israeli officials said. The officials declined to provide more details. Hamas subsequently received Russian-made antitank missiles via the smuggling network Sinai Province controls, an Israeli defense official said.

Hamas officials have been meeting with Egyptian officials to improve ties and attempt to open the border crossing from Egypt in Gaza. Earlier this year, Hamas stepped up patrols along Gaza’s border with Egypt, a move the Palestinian group said was meant to assure its powerful neighbor it isn’t working with militants in Sinai. CONTINUE AT SITE

The sheer volume of polygamous marriages shows that such marriages are also entered into in Europe, in secret, through Islamic marriage ceremonies conducted by imams. In most European countries, imams are not required to report these marriages to the authorities.

Daham Al Hasan fled from Syria to Denmark, leaving behind his three wives and 20 children. Under the Danish rules of family unification, one of his wives and eight of his children have joined him in Denmark. But Al Hasan wants all his children with him, as well as all his wives. Lawyers estimate that the remaining wives will be able to join their children in Denmark. The case has caused a shock not only because of what it will cost the Danish state just in child allowance, but because Al Hassan claims that he is too ill to work or even learn Danish. “I don’t only have mental problems, but also physical problems…” He has admitted that his “mental illness” consists of missing the children he voluntarily left behind.

Even if theoretically women can go to the police or press charges, they run the risk of being beaten or possibly divorced. Women’s shelters are “full of Muslim women.”

The spokeswoman of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency said that the establishment of a central registry of Islamic marriages would be helpful for investigating claims of fraud.

A few years ago, Sweden’s Center Party, one of the four parties in the center-right governing coalition at the time, proposed legalizing polygamy. The idea caused outrage; the proposal was dropped. The party’s youth division, however, refused to let go: “We think it is important for the individual to decide how many people he or she wants to marry,” said Hanna Wagenius, head of Center Youth, predicting that polygamy would be legal in ten years, when her generation would enter parliament and make sure of it.

On June 23, UK voters will decide if they stay or turn their backs on the EU. Today, as that plebiscite approaches, Quadrant Online presents the first installment in an extended examination of the issues and factors at play — an appraisal, it should be noted, by an ardent advocate of the Leave cause.
As of June 23′s Brexit vote, 2016 could well prove to be a date of enduring and historic significance — one of those years made famous by the events they encompass. Actions of genuine significance in history, like The Great Reform Act of 1832 or The Glorious Revolution of 1688. Of course it could equally go down as an 1848, a year of possibilities unrealised; a footnote chiefly of interest to counter-factual historians who ask ‘what if?’

In the spirit of hypothesis contemplate this notion: if you were an extraterrestrial looking down dispassionately at the Earth, wondering who is your best bet for first contact, you would chose Britain. You would observe that it is the most liberal and tolerant advanced civilisation on the planet. You would notice that its language and culture have spread across the globe. That its politics, law, science, engineering and inventions had shaped the modern world. Throughout its history it had welcomed and assimilated peoples and today its capital could claim to be the most diverse, cosmopolitan metropolis anywhere. You would find that its system of government had the longest pedigree, greatest number of disciples and that its Head of State is respected wherever she goes, cordially received and gracious to all world leaders she welcomes in return. Yes, our alien would conclude, Britain might no longer be top dog, but it is our best bet at a fair hearing.

Britons are faced with a historic choice in this year, one that goes beyond membership of the European Union. They are asking a question that all mature democracies in the early 21st Century should be asking themselves. Unlike a general election there are no tactical votes to be had, no safe seats, no shades of grey. You are either In or Out or you couldn’t care less.

The Brexit referendum, in a nutshell, is a vote on Big Government. If you believe the problems the world faces can only be solved by unelected officials making decisions on your behalf, you will vote to stay in. If you believe you are better able to face the challenges of this young century by trusting a system of representative government, vote to get out.

And that’s it!

Economics, security, trade, immigration, emigration, they are all part of a long history. They were there before the EU and will be part of the future whatever the result. The debate itself, however, is another matter.

With so many social issues in the United States being traced back to antebellum American slavery, it’s easy to forget that slavery still exists. This week an Australian human-rights group called the Walk Free Foundation released a study of contemporary global slavery: the Global Slavery Index. Everyone ought to read it.

What it says, in short, is this: According to Gallup surveys of 167 countries, there are 45.8 million slaves worldwide. Walk Free defines a slave as someone owned, someone working as a forced laborer or prostitute, someone in debt bondage or in a forced marriage.

In a single country — India, which is the worst offender — there are currently 18 and a half million slaves. To put that into perspective, there are six and a half million more slaves in India right now than were imported to North America, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands combined during the entire history of the transatlantic slave trade — 373 years, from Columbus’s discovery of the Americas to the end of the Civil War.

This is an unbelievably serious problem, which virtually no one is discussing. Most modern slaves are held in Central and East Asia, and Central Africa. The top ten countries on the list, in total slaves, are India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, North Korea, Russia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia. Among them, they have 30 and one-quarter million slaves. Which is roughly 100 times more than the total number of slaves imported to the U.S., and territory that would become part of the U.S., between the founding of Jamestown and the end of the Civil War (258 years). Those American slaves were enough to trigger America’s bloodiest war — and, I dare say, one of its proudest moments: the abolition of American slavery. But since slavery was abolished in the United States, none of us seems to be interested any more.

And we should be interested. Who but us will do anything about it? Certainly not the U.N. After all, two of the ten largest slave-holding countries — China and Russia — are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Those who wish Britain to remain in Europe are given to depicting Leave supporters as ill-educated simpletons, not to mention crypto-fascists and, inevitably, vile racists to boot. Perhaps they haven’t noticed that elitist disdain is driving a global wave of populist rebellions
The referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union will be held on June 23, so much of what I write here in mid-May may be falsified by intervening events. At this mid-point, however, the campaign seems to have settled into a surprisingly stable pattern.

Downing Street (which for practical purposes is HQ for Remain) initially expected that it would establish an early commanding lead over Leave with an artillery barrage of attacks on a range of vital issues. But only one of those issues reflected an optimistic European theme: namely, that David Cameron had brought back from Brussels a reform package that would safeguard Britain from future excessive regulation in a freer and more flexible Europe. And that was laughed out of court when Cameron’s reform package was revealed to be both trivial and reversible by European courts. It now barely features even in the speeches of loyalist cabinet ministers.

That has left Remain dependent on a series of arguments that are less pessimistic than outright defeatist in a campaign that even its supporters label “Project Fear”. Its central theme is that Britain is too small and unimportant to survive as an independent state in a dangerous world and that to believe otherwise is neo-imperial nostalgia. Accordingly, when the campaign opened a few weeks ago, Remain supporters deluged the voters with a series of predictions that Brexit would mean losing cheap air fares, losing second homes abroad, losing millions of jobs, losing inward investment, losing various amounts of money per family, losing national security guarantees, losing intelligence on terrorism, losing control of immigration, and losing anything that had popped into the speaker’s head a moment before.

Insofar as these claims raised anything of general intellectual interest, it was that a Tory Prime Minister was heading a political campaign that was passionately left-wing in its contempt for patriotism, its dismissal of the possibility that the British people could prosper through their own efforts, and its assertion that salvation was to be found only in undemocratic supra-national institutions.

Otherwise, most of the particular arguments—losing cheap air fares, for instance—evaporated as soon as uttered. Still, Downing Street thought that it had a strong runner in Brexit as a threat to Britain’s national security. Cameron declared in a major speech in early May that Brexit threatened the country with a third world war. This was so over-the-top that it discredited the larger argument completely. Commentators weighed in to claim that Cameron couldn’t possibly believe it himself. By degrees, the security argument vanished from Project Fear.

Haifa (TPS) – Hundreds of international researchers and healthcare
professionals gathered at the Rambam Hospital in Haifa this week for a
conference dubbed “State of the Heart.”

The conference addressed global challenges in cardiovascular treatment
and highlighted innovative changes in the field as a result of
cutting-edge technology. The Rambam Health Care Campus is a 1,000-bed
academic hospital serving over two million residents of northern
Israel.

The conference culminated with the Rambam Award ceremony, which
“recognizes remarkable individuals for their contributions to
medicine, science, and technology as well as their passion and special
generosity to the State of Israel.”
Awards and honorable recognition were given this year to Professor
Eric Topol of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Sandor
Frankel of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, and to
Professor William Brody, the former president of the Salk Institute.

Brody was recognized for innovations in the treatment of
cardiovascular disease. He specializes as a physician and engineer in
imaging technologies—an aspect of cardiovascular treatment that has
come a long way with MRI and CT scan capabilities.

France’s Socialist Party government has unveiled a new legislative program designed to decrease the likelihood of further Islamic atrocities, largely it seems that would have ensured the success of the jihadist attacks committed so far.

In the measures revealed, proactively combatting criminals appears to have taken a back seat to placating the communities from which they are drawn.

Whereas protests by French people against Islamization or government policy, have been rigorously curtailed by the authorities, migrant gangs have still felt able to terrorize French towns, stampede French motorways, or conduct mass armed brawls in Paris, with little fear of intervention from either security services or the law.

In 2014, an ICM poll discovered that 27% of French citizens aged 18-24 supported ISIS.

Last year Muslim jihadists murdered more people in France, than were killed by terrorism in the country during the entire 20th century.

In response, the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, has announced a range of innovative legal measures, introduced in response to the terrorist outrages which struck France in 2015.

On January 7, of that year, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi stormed the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, massacring twelve and injuring eleven others.

It is hard to root for a nation whose popular President was a Nazi criminal Kurt Waldheim the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria from 1986 to 1992.

As the column states: “Austria is a country where the “greatcoat of silence” was draped over the past for far too long, as author Karl-Markus Gauss once wrote. One of the founding myths of postwar Austria is that the country was not first-and-foremost an accomplice of Nazi Germany, but rather that it was the first victim of Hitler’s aggression.” rsk

Rise of the Populists: Protecting the Homeland from Islam .

Suntinger, a member of the FPÖ, proudly claims to have once stood atop the Grossglockner, Austria’s highest peak, together with the late FPÖ leader Jörg Haider, who died in late night car crash in 2008. He tells the story as though it were a religious experience.

Suntinger is a farmer, a mountaineer and the father of two. In the last municipal elections in 2015, he was elected with around 80 percent of the vote. There was no other candidate.
His lecture on the state of the world begins. “Essential to the Koran is that the woman is a subject — and that in the 21st century,” he says, before reading out suras pertaining to sexuality and identifying women as a “place of sowing of seed.”

“The Koran sees only dead Christians as good Christians,” he says. Europe only makes sense, he goes on, “if it focuses on preventing the Islamization.”

He then presses his index finger onto the identification photo of one of the Syrian women. He says: “That is supposed to be the mother.” Impossible, he says, the children are much too old.

“The West is colliding with the East!” Suntinger calls out. “The people have to wake up!”

By that point, his presentation was only 10 minutes old.

The economy of the Möll Valley was long dependent on mining and agriculture, but is now trying to attract tourists — foreigners with money — as well. As part of that effort, Suntinger has overseen the several-million-euro construction of a new recreation park, complete with a hall where you can shoot at virtual deer. “It’s a big hit,” says Suntinger. “Because of the overpopulation of foreigners, many more people have weapons here.”

When Suntinger says foreigner overpopulation, he means migrants — and he would like to keep them away. Because as the FPÖ says: “Protect the homeland from Islam.”

This talk we hear of inter-faith amity and understanding, how does Islam meld with that kumbaya narrative? Not well, or so it strikes me. As Mohammed denied Christ’s divinity, the Trinity and Resurrection, what common ground is it possible to find?
Francis Kalifat, the newly elected president of France’s Jewish communities, said this: “The fight against anti-Semitism is our main cause because French Jews are in the most difficult situation they have experienced since World War II.” I wonder why? My goodness, don’t we need to build religious harmony!

Who could possibly object to building harmony? Well, unless I am mistaken, harmony is what appeasers have sought down the ages. So count me as one of those who retains a healthy degree of scepticism about pursuing harmony. Don’t misunderstand me. I am all for harmony between those of goodwill. It’s harmony with the bad guys and the perpetually precious that worries me.

Interfaith dialogue is about harmony. One description of the process is Christians kowtowing to discordant Muslims. What else is it about? Without Muslims, interfaith dialogue these days would be a movement with a substantive cause. Here are just a few of the many examples of Christian overtures:

Established in 2003 by the National Council of [Christian] Churches in Australia, the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims and Jews provides “opportunity for the national bodies of each faith to come together to build understanding and harmony in the Australian context.”

In 2014 Pope Francis called for interfaith dialogue to help end fundamentalism and terrorism during his first visit to Turkey. And only with considerable distaste is it possible to bring to mind Pope John Paul II kissing the Koran in 1999 at the Vatican. No doubt this was observed with satisfaction by his Muslim visitors.