RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15815/iran-coronavirus-nuclear-program

The Iranian regime now has enough enriched uranium to refine and build a nuclear bomb if it desires to do so. Approximately 1000 kg of uranium enriched at just 5% can be refined to create one nuclear bomb…. Moreover, “the agency identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three locations in Iran,” according to a recently published second report by the IAEA.

It is important to point out that the three undeclared nuclear locations to which the IAEA is referring are in addition to another, fourth, clandestine nuclear site in Iran that was first revealed by Israel.

The Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, admitted , as reported on March 3, 2020, “The fact that we found traces (of uranium) is very important. That means there is the possibility of nuclear activities and material that are not under international supervision and about which we know not the origin or the intent. That worries me.” … Iran is also breaching several UN resolutions by not allowing the IAEA to inspect its nuclear sites.

If the Iranian government is advancing its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, why has Tehran repeatedly failed to report its nuclear facilities, including those at Natanz and Arak, to the IAEA? Also, why does the Iranian government keep refusing to answer the IAEA’s questions regarding its secret nuclear facilities?

The United Nations needs to break its silence and, before it is too late, take seriously Iran’s latest rapid nuclear escalation.

While many governments around the world are focusing on how to halt the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the Iranian regime appears to be concentrating on another issue: rapidly advancing its nuclear program.

Amid the coronavirus, Iran has crossed a major threshold concerning its nuclear plans. The United Nations’ atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported that Tehran has increased its enriched uranium stockpile, which now stands at the equivalent of 1,510 kg. Iran is allowed to possess 300 kg of low enriched uranium — a substantial increase in Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile in a short period of time.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-path-to-venezuelan-democracy-11585645210?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

As the coronavirus spreads around the world, it’s easy to forget the Venezuelan people’s suffering at the hands of Nicolás Maduro’s regime. The Trump administration hasn’t. Today we are announcing a Democratic Transition Framework to help Venezuelans escape from the national crisis that falling oil prices and the coronavirus have now deepened.

We present this framework as a path for Venezuela to emerge from years of repression and political conflict. It proposes that both Mr. Maduro, the former president who has clung to power, and Juan Guaidó, the interim president, step aside so that the elected members of the National Assembly from both sides can create a Council of State to serve as the transitional government, which would hold free and fair presidential elections. In last year’s negotiations, the team representing Mr. Guaidó and the National Assembly proposed this path forward toward the restoration of democracy.

Democracy isn’t only about elections. A new, balanced and independent National Electoral Council is also critical, and an independent Supreme Court must replace the current one, which is but an arm of the Maduro regime. A vibrant democracy also demands a free and independent media with an end to the regime’s pervasive censorship.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-common-sense-dictates-prudence/#slide-1

Uncertainty still reigns, so prepare for the worst. A lockdown would be prudent, not the end of the world.

As of today, half of mankind is confined at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, although the severity of the confinement varies greatly depending on countries and regions. This situation must be all the more disconcerting given that, less than a month ago, many government officials and public-health experts were still claiming that Western countries would be able to weather the storm without any difficulty and encouraging people not to change their behavior because of the virus. On that point, Trump’s handling of this crisis has been atrocious, but as Zeynep Tufekci recently pointed out, he’s hardly the only one to have underestimated the seriousness of the threat.

Although I think people underestimated the seriousness of the threat until recently, many now seem to underestimate how much uncertainty there is about what is going to happen. To be clear: No matter where we are headed exactly, this is no flu. As of March 29 in France, 2,606 people who tested positive for COVID-19 had died in hospitals alone. Perhaps even more worrisome, there were already 4,632 people in intensive-care units, up from approximately 1,500 one week earlier. Between the number of people who left intensive care because they had died and those who left because their condition had improved, it means that probably almost twice as many people have already required admission to intensive care since the beginning of the outbreak in France. By comparison, during the entire 2018–19 season, 490 people who had the flu died in hospitals, and 2,915 people required admission to intensive care. Not only are we already way past that with the COVID-19 pandemic, but, even in the most optimistic scenario that I consider plausible, those figures will be at least 15 times higher.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/29/pandemic-plague-and-protests-will-chile-join-the-sh-hole-country-club/

Lower-case, doctrinaire democrats in America doggedly conflate the “will of the people” across the world with liberty. This Disneyfied view of democracy ignores that, in a democracy, the right to vote gives one man control over another’s life and livelihood.

Before the coronavirus pandemic and the plague of locusts came the protesters.

From the affluent locales—Chile, France, Britain, Hong Kong, Catalonia—to the impoverished ones—Algeria, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and more the world was on fire (to borrow from Amy Chua’s brilliant book).

The reasons cited for a worldwide conflagration ranged from the evils of free-market capitalism (says the Left) to the “socialist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela” (says the Right), to “economics, demography, a sense of powerlessness . . . and social media.”

Some experts spoke of a “youth bulge” of overeducated young people chasing too few jobs. In truth, this was more like ill-educated youngsters with useless degrees who thought it chic to don a balaclava and lob hard objects at the police and the property they were protecting.

Chile is the jewel of Latin America. In 2014, it even surpassed the United States on the Index of Economic Freedom, ranking seventh to America’s 12th. Since 1990, economic growth in Chile has been as steady as the stability of its institutions. Poverty rates had plummeted and social services had been extended to the needy.

On the Right, Pat Buchanan has described Chile as “the country with the highest per capita income and least inequality in all of Latin America.”

On the Left—yet still on the side of a competitive market economy—the Economist agrees. Chile “is the second-richest country in Latin America, thanks in part to its healthy public finances and robust private sector.”