RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/05/01/as-world-economic-crisis-worsens-societies-begin-to-fall-apart-n387379

The unprecedented world economic crisis will inevitably lead to social chaos and the breakdown of law and order and unknown consequences.

Lest you think this is an exaggeration, look at what’s happening in Lebanon.

Demonstrators in northern Lebanon have attacked banks and clashed with security forces for three consecutive nights, re-energizing a protest movement launched in October against a political class the activists deem inept and corrupt.

The government unanimously approved the economic plan after minor amendments, the presidency said on Twitter following a cabinet meeting in the presidential palace in Baabda.

Details were unclear but Prime Minister Hassan Diab was expected to reveal more during an address to the nation at 5:30 pm (1430 GMT).

President Michel Aoun called it a “historic day” for Lebanon.

Lebanon was in dire straits before the pandemic hit, with a serious economic crisis, rampant corruption, and political instability. But there are dozens of countries around the world where the same could be said of conditions prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the recession/depression promises to deepen considerably, debtor nations will be holding out their hands for huge bailouts from the international community.

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/
The German government has pulled the plug on Hezbollah, labeling it a terrorist organization – its political “wing” as well as its military “wing” – and banning its activity on German soil; associated organizations will also be outlawed. What took so long? Surely there was no benefit to Germany in the relationship, except perhaps, to irritate Israel.

Or was there?

Some German politicians claimed relations with Hezbollah were necessary to maintain relations with Lebanon, where the party leads the government. A Foreign Ministry official had called it a “relevant factor in Lebanese society and part of the complex political landscape in the country.” But with the Beirut government in default on its debts and facing revolution in the streets, allowing terrorist cells to operate in Germany seems unduly sympathetic.

But Hezbollah is a subsidiary of Iran, and through a different prism, Germany’s decision may be the reordering of its relationship with Tehran under the stresses of U.S.-led sanctions, plus the Russia-Saudi oil price war, the Wuhan virus, and the not-often-mentioned rebellion that has been going on in the Islamic Republic since late 2017. In other words, through the prism of money and a distinct unconcern for the people who suffer under tyrannical rule.

The 2015 “Iran deal” made Germany Iran’s primary European trading partner and primary political defender. In 2016, according to the German government, Germany sold Iran 2.9 billion euros worth of machinery and equipment, cars, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and medical products. Iran sold Germany 300 million euros worth of dried fruits, pistachios, rugs, and industrial raw materials. “Machinery and equipment” for fruit. Sounds safe.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15964/germany-hezbollah-partial-ban

The ban is in fact a compromise measure between German lawmakers who want to take a harder line against Iran and those who do not. As a result, the ban falls far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah and appears aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allows Germany to claim that it has banned the group even if it has not.

According to the German Parliament, the Bundestag, a complete ban of Hezbollah is impossible because the group’s structures in Germany are “not currently ascertainable.”

It is utterly implausible that Germany, one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries in Europe, is unable to ascertain the organizational structure of Hezbollah within its own borders. More plausible is that Germany wants to project a public appearance of cracking down on Hezbollah while maintaining direct access to its leadership.

“Your resolution has two central weaknesses. The first weakness is that you are asking for only an activity ban (Betätigungsverbot). We want a specific organizational ban (Organisationsverbot). According to the Crime Fighting Law (Verbrechensbekämpfungsgesetz) of 1994, the activity ban is the weaker legal means when compared to an organizational ban. There is no reason in the world why you would fight a terrorist organization with the weaker means and not the stronger.” — Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.

“What is needed is the complete ban of Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s propaganda and terror financing in Germany must be stopped. The mosque associations that exist must be disbanded, and most importantly, Hezbollah supporters must be deported. This, by the way, is also demanded by the Bundestag’s Anti-Semitism Resolution, which expressly calls for the deportation of supporters of anti-Semitism. If this does not apply to supporters of Hezbollah, which wants to send Jews to the gas chambers, and wants to destroy Israel, then to whom could it apply?” — Beatrix von Storch.

“Today’s completely late action by the federal government is primarily a symbolic gesture. If the government were really serious about annihilating Hezbollah in Germany, it should have established a special commission and provided the security authorities with financial and human resources to identify and dismantle the group nationwide.” — Stefan Schubert, German security expert.

The German government, after years of equivocating, has announced what amounts to a partial ban on the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah — Arabic for “The Party of Allah” — in Germany.

The so-called ban — supported by the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, the two parties that make up Germany’s ruling coalition, and also by the classical liberal Free Democrats — has been hailed as “important,” “significant,” and “long overdue.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/mystery_in_north_korea.html

Since September 1987, millions of children, old as well as young, have amused themselves by searching in a series of puzzle books titled Where’s Waldo (Wally in England and Charlie in France) to find a young man, wearing a red and white striped shirt, decorated ski hat, and glasses, hidden in the group of people and surroundings in the text.  As the books continue, Waldo becomes smaller and harder to find.

Today, millions are looking for clues in the serious game of Where’s Kim Jong-un, the 36-year-old supreme leader of North Korea, who has not been seen publicly since April 11, 2020, when he chaired the meeting of the Workers’ Party politburo. He was conspicuously absent from the commemoration event at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, honoring his grandfather Kim Il-sung on April 15, the most important day in the Korean political calendar.  The international community is searching for him, or wondering where he is.  Commercial satellite images are being used.

In a speech and broadcast on October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill referred to the Soviet Union as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  North Korea may not be as difficult to discern as the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, though it does resemble the former country in a number of ways, especially by its misleading or deceptive state media reports and by giving clues of the existence of power struggles.  The deaths of the two preceding supreme rulers in 1994 and 2011 were not immediately reported, and the world was not informed until several days after.  Nevertheless, the non-appearance of Kim resembles the Churchillian riddle of the hidden ideological debates and power struggles that may be occurring in North Korea.  On the other hand, the fact that other senior N.K. personnel have also not been seen in public suggests a simple explanation: they may all be trying to escape COVID-19 by social distancing.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/dedicated-emily-jones-age-7-katie-hopkins/

Dear Mrs Jones,

I am sitting in my kitchen in my dressing gown, waiting for my little world to wake up. And I am thinking of you, as I often do. Worrying for you, worrying about you.

You don’t know me, of course. I am just a mum like any other, sitting here looking down at my dressing gown, reminded that it could probably do with a wash, listening for little footsteps padding down the hall stairs. Sat waiting for my sleepy little boy who will come and snuggle in for reassurance at the start of another day.

I think of you listening out for those little padding feet, knowing they will never come. Waiting for the soft face to appear from behind the kitchen door, looking at you like you are the answer to everything. Except now all those questions can never be asked.

It is over a month since your daughter was killed. You know, I am never sure under this infernal lockdown whether time stands still or is passing at breakneck speed. Days have lost all meaning for the rest of us; I feel sick thinking what they now mean for you.

Most people will avoid talking to you about Emily’s death because it is too terrible. The things we know are too shocking to mention in front of a grieving mum.

That your child was a happy little thing playing on her scooter in the park with her family on Mothering Sunday when she was stabbed to death, her life ended in one blow by a Somali woman, a stranger to you and to this land.

If these words are too brutal for the grieving, how is it possible these things can happen to the living, on an otherwise normal day?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rising-u-k-death-toll-from-coronavirus-draws-scrutiny-11588273558

The U.K.’s official death count from the new coronavirus is rapidly rising toward that of Italy, Europe’s worst-hit country so far, intensifying the scrutiny of the government’s efforts to tackle the disease.

Critics have linked the high death toll to government decisions to delay imposition of a lockdown until March 23, after many other countries took action.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, appearing Thursday at his first press conference in weeks after being absent for most of April with a serious case of Covid-19, vigorously defended his government’s record. “I think, broadly speaking, we did the right thing at the right time,” he said.

He said that the peak of the pandemic had passed and that he would outline a road map to ease restrictions next week. The number of daily deaths has been falling since about April 8, but the decline has been slow, with 674 new fatalities reported Thursday.

In mid-March, while much of mainland Europe went into lockdown, the British government held off, arguing that it was only worth taking such steps once the virus had started to take hold in communities. It also delayed building out mass-testing capacity.

In other European countries “lockdowns were a lot more serious and a lot earlier,” said Matthias Matthijs, a professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  The deaths of Britons who likely caught the disease in late March while the country waited to lock down is now buoying the death toll being recorded today, he said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-allied-plan-to-depend-less-on-china-11588288513?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

The Covid-19 pandemic is prompting reconsideration of issues that were thought to be settled. One is the wisdom of China as a hub in vital supply chains, a reality driven by cost considerations and the belief that integrating China into the global economy would moderate Beijing’s behavior. Unfortunately, China hasn’t moderated. Beijing has been an unreliable supplier that pressures trading partners.

Roughly three-quarters of American companies report supply-chain disruptions in China, according to a spring survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management. The Japanese and Australian economies have been severely hurt by China’s lockdown of Hubei province and other supply interruptions. China’s official Xinhua News Agency has threatened to exploit Beijing’s control over medical supply chains as retaliation against U.S. efforts to hold China accountable for its actions during the pandemic.

A re-examination is overdue. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set aside $2.2 billion of Tokyo’s stimulus package to assist Japanese companies in relocating production from China to Southeast Asia. The White House’s Larry Kudlow has suggested that the U.S. government could pay moving costs for U.S. companies that leave China. South Korea appears to be planning to shift several important factories from China to India.

Washington and its partners in Asia should set up new supply chains, restructure trade relations, and start to create an international economic order that is less dependent on China. A multilateral “coalition of the willing” approach would better align trading ties with political and security relationships. It would also help India and nations in Southeast Asia develop more rapidly, becoming stronger U.S. partners.