RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16016/china-coronavirus-how-the-eu-is-betraying-europe

Chinese ambassadors, particularly those based in Western capitals, simply resort to blackmail, threatening to deny governments vital medical supplies to cope with the pandemic if they do not comply with Beijing’s wishes.

All these countries have good reason to want to stand their ground against Beijing. Italy has been the target of a skilful fake news campaign by Beijing with cleverly edited videos that show Italians showing their gratitude for China’s help in the pandemic when no such demonstrations took place.

The French government was outraged after the Chinese embassy in Paris accused French care-workers of abandoning their posts, thereby causing elderly residents to die; while Germany has complained that Chinese diplomats tried to pressure officials to make positive statements on how Beijing was handling the coronavirus pandemic.

As the EU, by constantly capitulating to Beijing’s demands, has shown it is totally incapable of protecting the interests of member states, the governments of Europe are finally waking up to the reality that, in order to defend themselves against China’s bully-boy tactics, they will have to look after themselves.

The latest capitulation by the European Union in the face of Chinese intimidation demonstrates that, when it comes to protecting the interests of member states, the Brussels bureaucracy is no match for Beijing’s new breed of warrior diplomats.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the more notable features of China’s response has been the willingness of senior Chinese diplomats to intervene forcibly in defence of China’s interests.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15995/new-nuclear-threats

At present, exactly zero percent of America’s nuclear platforms are modernized.

Worse, when, in 2017, General Hyten… warned of the Russian threat, a common counter-narrative in the U.S. arms control community – and shared by some members of Congress — was that simply by proposing to modernize a then-rusting nuclear deterrent, the United States was “leading an arms race.”

Even these critics, however, had to know that it takes years to research, develop, test, and then build highly complex nuclear forces, so that no new U.S. nuclear deployments would even be able to start until 2029.

Russia has already completed 87% of its arms race while the US is just putting on its track shoes. The door to an arms race was opened long ago — but by Russia, not the United States.

Without nuclear modernization, unfortunately, the United States cannot keep a credible nuclear deterrent against its nuclear armed enemies — not only Russia but also China, whose nuclear arsenal is scheduled to double in the next decade, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Now that 184 countries are grappling with the medical and economic convulsions of China’s CCP coronavirus that seems to have originated in a bio-warfare laboratory in Wuhan, what other catastrophes might be headed our way, especially ones we have been forewarned about?

What if America’s adversaries might start to believe that because the US has a Covid-19 crisis on its hands, the nation might be distracted and vulnerable, so that now might be a good time to strike? If such adversaries think the US does not have a strong deterrent, does that make it an even more tempting target?

Last month, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said that by the end of 2020, Russia will have modernized 87% of its nuclear arsenal, up from its current 82%.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16015/sudan-bashir-secret-cash

Sudan’s former dictator reportedly siphoned off “millions of dollars” from one of the world’s poorest nations and sent it to bank accounts in Qatar and Iran.

Sudan’s foreign debt is estimated at $62 billion and the transitional government is desperately trying to locate funds to deal with a worsening economic crisis and treat its nation’s Covid-19 patients. Sudan has long been ranked as one of the world’s poorer nations by United Nations measurements; a quarter of Sudanese live in extreme poverty.

Sudan’s transitional government is doing its best, despite the shortcomings and contradictions, trying to improve human rights, provide greater transparency, and address many of the most odious policies of the previous regime. This fragile yet real reformist approach, coupled with Sudan’s strategic geopolitical position and importance for US national security, needs a stronger and more tangible response, in terms of assistance, from the West and especially the United States.

American pressure on Qatar and other states to seize any Bashir regime funds and return them to the Sudanese people can and should be part of a new pact to promote reform…

The overthrow of Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 brought to an end an almost 30-year regime notable for its brutality, skill in weathering political storms and adapting to be able survive for decades.

Sudan’s former dictator reportedly siphoned off “millions of dollars” from one of the world’s poorest nations and sent it to bank accounts in Qatar and Iran.

Sudan’s foreign debt is estimated at $62 billion and the transitional government is desperately trying to locate funds to deal with a worsening economic crisis and treat its nation’s Covid-19 patients. Sudan has long been ranked as one of the world’s poorer nations by United Nations measurements; a quarter of Sudanese live in extreme poverty.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds

China placed 50 million people under quarantine in Wuhan Province in January. Since then, many liberal democracies have taken aggressive authoritarian measures of their own to fight the novel coronavirus. By mid-March, almost all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries had implemented some combination of school, university, workplace, and public transportation closures; restrictions on public events; and limits on domestic and international travel. One country, however, stands out as an exception in the West.

Rather than declare a lockdown or a state of emergency, Sweden asked its citizens to practice social distancing on a mostly voluntary basis. Swedish authorities imposed some restrictions designed to flatten the curve: no public gatherings of more than 50 people, no bar service, distance learning in high schools and universities, and so on. But they eschewed harsh controls, fines, and policing. Swedes have changed their behavior, but not as profoundly as the citizens of other Western democracies. Many restaurants remain open, although they are lightly trafficked; young children are still in school. And in contrast to neighboring Norway (and some Asian countries), Sweden has not introduced location-tracing technologies or apps, thus avoiding threats to privacy and personal autonomy.

Swedish authorities have not officially declared a goal of reaching herd immunity, which most scientists believe is achieved when more than 60 percent of the population has had the virus. But augmenting immunity is no doubt part of the government’s broader strategy—or at least a likely consequence of keeping schools, restaurants, and most businesses open. Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, has projected that the city of Stockholm could reach herd immunity as early as this month. Based on updated behavioral assumptions (social-distancing norms are changing how Swedes behave), the Stockholm University mathematician Tom Britton has calculated that 40 percent immunity in the capital could be enough to stop the virus’s spread there and that this could happen by mid-June.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/germany-constitutional-court-accelerates-euro-zones-slide-toward-crisis/

The existential questions that the European Project’s stakeholders have spent decades avoiding can’t be ignored much longer.

 O ne of the reasons that the euro zone has survived for as long as it has is the impressive ability of its leaders to postpone dealing with a series of questions that are as fundamental as they are inconvenient. Is it possible to sustain a monetary union without a fiscal union? (Probably not.) Is it possible to establish a fiscal union without genuine democratic consent? (We may yet find out.) And suddenly pressing: What is the relationship between the EU’s law and Germany’s?

For half a century the conflict hinted at by this last question could mostly be treated as theoretical. Then, last week, the German constitutional court (BVG) challenged the legality of the Public Sector Purchase Program (PSPP), the $2 trillion-and-counting quantitative-easing scheme first launched by the European Central Bank (the ECB) in 2015 to prop up the euro zone’s faltering economies, and restarted in 2019. The BVG’s ruling does not concern the ECB’s Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP), a new, smaller quantitative-easing regimen under which the ECB will buy up to €750 billion in bonds to help stave off the effects of the mess that COVID-19 has left in its wake. But it may affect how the PEPP is run: Already widely considered inadequate for the task that lies ahead, the program may be hobbled by restrictions flowing from the BVG’s judgment, and that’s before another wave of German litigation tries to bring it down.

To the EU, the BVG’s intervention was both unwelcome and insolent. So far as the EU’s jurisprudence is concerned, EU law is supreme in every member state in a manner approximately analogous to the relationship between federal and state law in the U.S. In an English case from 1974, one of that country’s most distinguished — and quirkily eloquent — judges, Lord Denning, explained that the EEC Treaty (the EEC was a precursor of the EU) was “like an incoming tide. It flows into the estuaries and up the rivers. It cannot be held back.” The treaty, he wrote, was “equal in force to any statute,” and the European Court of Justice (the ECJ) was “the ultimate authority” when it came to interpreting EEC law; even England’s highest court had “to bow down to it.”