RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2019/11/21/prince-andrew-fiasco-has-exposed-palace-power-struggle-heirs/

There has been an almighty power struggle going on all week and it has got nothing to do with the general election.

As Boris Johnson and his rivals have been relegated to the inside pages with the Duke of York sex scandal continuing to dominate the headlines, the brutal world of Westminster appears to have nothing on the internal politics of the Royal Family.

As the driving force behind her second, and some say ‘favourite’ son stepping back from public duties for the “foreseeable future”, the Queen’s decisive action in a face-to-face meeting at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday serves as a salient reminder that the royals will stop at nothing to preserve the institution of monarchy – even at the expense of those in it.

Alarm bells were said to be raised behind palace gates when the question of whether the House of Windsor was still fit for purpose came up during Tuesday night’s ITV debate. 

The problem was not Jeremy Corbyn’s “in need of improvement” response or even the lacklustre reaction to Mr Johnson’s claim that the institution of monarchy was “beyond reproach” – but rather that the topic was even up for discussion in the first place. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/21/us-china-conflict-reaches-fever-pitch-trump-prepares-sign-hong/

Congress passes bill that will remove special status if ‘one nation, two systems’ model is overthrown

The US diplomatic gun is locked and loaded. Both houses of Congress have passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act by a veto-proof majority. 

The bill sets in motion a legal process that would – if later triggered – lead to Hong Kong losing its special status under US law and its recognition as an independent member of the World Trade Organisation.

The enclave would be treated like any other Chinese city, posing an existential threat to its business model as a global financial and trading hub. The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said it feared “unintended, counterproductive” consequences that could spin out on control.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign it by the end of the week. He has little choice even if this complicates his quest for a skinny ‘Phase One’ trade deal with China before Christmas.  

“I don’t think Trump wants the bill because he has never shown any interest in human rights and it is happening at a very difficult moment, but he’ll have to accept it,” said William Reinsch, ex-chief of the US National Foreign Trade Council.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15081/sweden-migration-price

“The industries have a very limited need for people without experience and education.” — Johanna Odö, municipal councilor; Aftonbladet, October 3, 2019.

Now, to save money, the Ystad municipality will no longer serve hot meals to the elderly and cleaning services will be limited to once every three weeks.

Motala municipality had said that it would lower the heat in buildings managed by the city, including old age homes, to save money. “We will take care of the elderly; they will not be freezing, they can have blankets,” the message went.

Meanwhile, in June, the Swedish parliament voted in favor of a law that is likely to increase immigration to Sweden based on family reunification.

New figures from the European Union’s statistical bureau, Eurostat, show that unemployment is rising in Sweden. According to Eurostat, unemployment there was 7.4% in August, whereas the EU average for August was 6.2 %. This leaves Sweden, on Eurostat’s unemployment ranking of countries, at number 24 out of 28. According to the daily newspaper Expressen, one of the main reasons for Sweden’s high unemployment happens to be the large number of immigrants that the country has taken in.

As late as February 2019, Sweden’s Minister of Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, mocked those who worried that migration would lead to mass unemployment: “Do you remember when the doomsayers were squawking that migration would lead to mass unemployment?,” he tweeted. “Now: unemployment continues to fall among foreign-born and young people. For domestic-born it is at a record low”.

He cannot mock anyone now. In 2013, Social Democratic leader Stefan Löfven, who has been prime minister since 2014, said he would ensure that by 2020, Sweden would have the lowest unemployment in the EU. That is evidently not about to happen.

The disproportionately large influx of people who do not have the educational or language skills to work in the Swedish economy was never likely to help bring about the lowest unemployment in the EU. As previously reported by Gatestone, the small Swedish city of Filipstad exemplifies a place where the influx of non-Western migrants, some of them illiterate, with little or no education, has meant that the unemployment rate in that group is at 80%: they depend for their livelihoods on the municipality’s social welfare program.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-natos-new-command-whose-job-stop-russian-attack-97932

Key point: NATO needs to ensure it can quickly rush forces to the poorly-defended Baltic states.

NATO has stood up a new command whose job it is to speed alliance troops and tanks around Europe in order to defend against a Russian invasion.

The new Joint Support and Enabling Command, based in Ulm, Germany, achieved initial operating capability on Sept, 17, 2019, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu announced.

The command has its work cut out for it. A recent report revealed just how vulnerable NATO’s eastern flank is to a sudden Russian assault — and how important armored forces could be in the alliance’s defensive efforts.

Russia keeps around 760 tanks in units within quick striking distance of NATO’s Baltic members. NATO countries together keep around 130 tanks in the same region — and around 90 of those are American M-1s on their temporary rotation.

In 2016 RAND war-gamed a Russian invasion of the Baltics. In RAND’s scenario, the Russian forces quickly overrun lightly-armed NATO forces. The Western alliance quickly deploys helicopters and air-mobile troops to confront the Russian advance. But NATO tanks are too slow to arrive.

“What cannot get there in time are the kinds of armored forces required to engage their Russian counterparts on equal terms, delay their advance, expose them to more-frequent and more-effective attacks from air- and land-based fires and subject them to spoiling counterattacks,” RAND explained.

Across NATO there’s no shortage of tanks and other heavy forces. But very few of NATO’s tanks are available on short notice to defend the alliance’s eastern flank. RAND counted just 129 NATO tanks that realistically could participate in a “short-notice Baltic scenario.”