RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272088/where-can-asia-bibi-go-hugh-fitzgerald

Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman who spent eight years on death row in a Pakistani jail, having been convicted of “blasphemy” on the testimony of Muslims, has at last been freed by a decision of the Pakistani Supreme Court. But her latest ordeal has only just begun, for she cannot possibly live safely in Pakistan, where massive crowds have been calling for her to be executed and where, during this past year, two high officials of the government who had criticized her prosecution were, as a consequence, murdered by Muslim fanatics.

The United Kingdom has refused to offer Bibi asylum, prompted by fears of violence by Muslims. The UK high commissioner in Islamabad is reported to have warned he could not protect his staff if asylum were granted by the UK. This led the Foreign Office, in turn, to ask the Home Office not to grant Asia Bibi’s request. And there was another fear as well. That was the concern that if Bibi were granted asylum by Her Majesty’s Government, Muslims could well riot in the U.K. itself.

In a demonstration of widespread pusillanimity, no country has yet stepped forward to offer this woman asylum.

So where can Asia Bibi go? There are two places where she just might be safe.

The first is the United States, where she could be offered not just asylum, but a place in the Witness Protection Program. Between 1971 and 2013 (the latest year for which figures are available), that Program has successfully protected 8,500 people (“witnesses”), along with 9,900 family members. The American government is unlikely to be worried about possible Muslim unrest should Asia Bibi be given asylum. While Muslims in the UK make up 5% of the population, in the US they make up only 1%, where, likely as a consequence, they are better behaved. The U.S is also 40 times bigger than the U.K. Should Asia Bibi come here, there’s more room to disappear in, with a government that has a ready network of safe houses, new identities, and, if need be, plastic surgery.

The second place where Asia Bibi should consider requesting asylum is the Vatican. By doing so, Asia Bibi would be putting the islamophilic Pope Francis on the spot. He who has been insisting that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” would be confronted with the reality of a Christian woman who, living in a Muslim land, falsely accused by Muslim coworkers of blasphemy against Muhammad, was sentenced to death. After spending eight years of her life in prison waiting for that sentence to be carried out, she was finally acquitted by the Pakistani Supreme Court. Two high-ranking Pakistani officials who had criticized the prosecution of Asia Bibi, the Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer, and the Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, were both assassinated as a result.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13359/switzerland-eu-accession

The EU has now increased the pressure by resorting to blackmail: Brussels is making its recognition of Switzerland’s SIX Swiss Exchange, the fourth-largest stock market in Europe, contingent on Swiss acceptance of the framework agreement.

The measure was opposed by a coalition of Swiss business groups, which convincingly argued that it was a question of economics and access to international markets for the export-dependent country. “Ultimately, it is about maintaining prosperity in Switzerland and keeping the companies and jobs here,” said Monika Rühl, director of the business group Economiesuisse.

“The SVP rejects a one-sided submission to EU institutions, aimed at establishing an institutional connection of Switzerland to the EU apparatus, with a dynamic EU legal takeover and, ultimately, the subordination of Switzerland to the EU Court of Justice. A dynamic adoption of EU law would be another massive erosion of our direct democracy.” — Swiss People’s Party.

Swiss voters have resoundingly rejected a referendum calling for the Swiss Constitution to take precedence over international treaties and law.

Two-thirds (66.2%) of voters in the November 25 referendum opposed the “self-determination” initiative, put forward by the eurosceptic Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP), the largest party in the Swiss parliament.

SVP leaders had argued that the new law was necessary to safeguard national sovereignty from further encroachment by supranational organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations.

The Swiss government countered that the proposal would undermine Switzerland’s economic stability as it would require Bern to amend existing bilateral agreements with the EU, the country’s largest trade partner, to bring them into compliance with the Swiss Constitution.

The proposal’s defeat comes ahead of pending decisions by the Swiss government over whether to sign a wide-ranging EU “framework agreement,” and a controversial UN “migration pact.”

https://digitaledition.telegraph.co.uk/editions/edition_YJ2uq_2018-11-28/data/580436/index.html?share=1&
Thanks to e-pal Fred M……An obituary of a Great Dame of the British realm…..rsk

BARONESS TRUMPINGTON, who has died aged 96, was a former mayor of Cambridge and became the oldest and second longest-serving member of John Major’s administration; she was also by far the most popular.

Built to last, forthright and formidable, Jean Trumpington made up for any lack of intellectual brilliance with a capacity for hard work combined with down-to-earth common sense and an engaging habit of telling jokes against herself.

First recruited into Government ranks in 1983 as a Lords whip, her first job was to act as “keeper of the gate” by placing her imposing form next to the most popular exit to persuade errant Conservative peers to vote. But in fact she became far more effective in this role as a government minister; the prospect of a vintage performance by Jean Trumpington was usually enough to pack the chamber.

In 1987, as a minister at the Department of Health and Social Security, in answer to a question about whether Aids could be transmitted by insects, she replied: “I have replies to questions on bed bugs and monkeys, but I regret that I do not have fleas.”

In 1992, as an agriculture minister, she gave an answer to a question in which she referred to “the Commission’s proposals for reforming the CAP would replace existing support arrangements by a system of compensatory aid, linked directly or indirectly to the cultivated area or the number of animals kept by each farmer,” ending with: “And if you understand that, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.”

In October 1993, shortly after her appointment as a spokesman at the Department of National Heritage, she confessed to finding it difficult to master her brief and during one flustering question session she admitted: “I had been worried I might get my knickers in a twist,” she admitted.

The following year, wearing a stout woollen suit that evoked her career in naval intelligence, she struck an incongruous figure as the department’s representative at rock music awards: “I am here to collect autographs for my secretary,” she announced. “Is Elton John here?”

“I seem fated,” she protested unconvincingly. “When I’m trying very hard to be dignified, something always goes hideously wrong.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/28/pretender-pulls-ahead-crucial-hustings-decide-angela-merkels/

The pretender came out fighting on Wednesday night at the most important hustings in the race to succeed Angela Merkel. Friedrich Merz, an old rival of the German chancellor, is vying to make a remarkable comeback by replacing her as leader of her Christian Democrat party (CDU).

And he didn’t hesitate to attack her record as leader, claiming she has abandoned the party’s conservative profile.

“You don’t need to copy every single Social Democrat policy, that just doesn’t have to happen,” he said, referring to the Germany’s main centre-Left party.

By the time Mr Merz had finished a speech in which he appealed for more funding for the Germany military, several audience members leapt up in a standing ovation.

Wednesday’s hustings in Düsseldorf was make-or-break for Mr Merz, who retired from politics in 2009 after losing to Mrs Merkel in a battle for control of the party.

He is locked in a three-way race to take over as CDU leader when Mrs Merkel stands down next month and, if polling is to be believed, he is neck-and-neck with Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the current party chairman and a Merkel loyalist.

The third candidate, Jens Spahn, is lagging far behind.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/the-bafflegab-of-the-wests-dhimmi-wits/

The West is almost completely saturated with “Dhimmi Wits.” This term is self-explanatory, I think. Unfortunately, I can’t claim authorship. I need to confess to flagrantly purloining it from the brilliant Religion of Peace website. It is too good and apt to be confined. Incidentally, do visit the site. Among heaps of information and statistics about the religion of supremacism, sexism, homophobia, discrimination, discord, hate and war it contains this gem:

Finally, please don’t send us a death threat unless you’re serious about carrying it out. The editor is tired of hearing from wimps who are all talk. In the event that you do want to submit a death threat, we have a special form for that.

The Australian gave more space last week to someone who seems to be on the right side of the argument yet inevitably fails at the final hurdle and joins the inglorious order of Dhimmi Wits. This time it was Jason Thomas who teaches risk management at the Swinburne University of Technology. His emphasis was on dealing with violent terrorism. Fair enough. And I thought at one point that he’d got it. Listen to this:

The only way this [terrorism] can occur is for a web of supporters and sympathisers to continue to believe that the non-violent dimension of Islam is compatible with Western democratic values. It is not. As T E Lawrence said: “Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent active force and 98 per cent passively sympathetic.”

Then we get to his remedy and everything falls apart in a blither of jargon. I will spare you the full account and summarise. Basically, we have to conduct Einstein-like thought experiments on what the borderless Islamic threat looks like and to employ “asymmetric tactics…to deeply penetrate and destroy the movement from within.” Hardly believable? That’s exactly right. Academic bafflegab at its most iconic.

Terror comes out of Islamism, but Islamism is a product of Islam. Islam has 1.8 billion Muslim adherents and rising. Penetrate that if you can. Sure, you can cut one head off but given time it will grow again and, in the meantime, there are plenty more. Hydra doesn’t do it justice and, when I look around, I can’t see Hercules in the wings.

Consider all the hype that surrounded ISIS, as though it defined the problem. Get rid of ISIS, vintage 2013, and all will be well. Never mind the fourteen uninterrupted centuries of Islamic conquests, incursions and terrorism that went before. But you must see the trick.

The Dhimmi Wits, making up almost all of the political and media class, liked to focus exclusively on ISIS. That way they attempted to blinker you and me from focusing on the religion of 1.8 billion, which will forever continue to seed mayhem. Find a Muslim majority society which has internal harmony and prosperity and which doesn’t trouble its neighbours. Hard, isn’t it?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13332/sweden-rapes-police

According to Mikaela Blixt, after a man attacked her in the street and tried to rape her, the police did nothing, even though she knew where her attacker lived and could easily have identified him.

The Swedish mainstream media outlet, Expressen, wanted to interview Blixt, but, according to her, only on condition that she not mention that her attacker was an Afghan migrant.

Not only women, but almost one out of three Swedes, do not feel safe in Sweden, according to a new poll that asked 6,300 Swedes how safe they feel in their homes and communities.

It is curious that the Swedish police not only have sufficient resources to charge people who attend peaceful demonstrations, but also people who allegedly commit thought crimes.

“Sweden,” stated its government in November 2015, “has a feminist government. We place gender equality at the heart of both national and international work… The overall objective of the Government’s gender equality policy is equal power for women and men to shape society and their own lives. This is ultimately a question of democracy and social justice.”

Wait a minute. Shouldn’t women living under a “feminist government” be able — at a bare minimum — to leave their homes without the fear of becoming victims of sexual assault?

22,000 sexual crimes were reported in 2017 to the Swedish police, 7370 of them rapes, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet, or Brå). That number corresponds to an average of 20 reported rapes per day — twice as many as in 2005. Those are just the reported rapes. In 2012, for instance, only 20% of all rapes were reported to the police, according to Brå.

Unlike what the Swedish media has been preaching for years — that most rapes occur in private settings and are committed against victims who know already their attacker — the large majority of rapes are, in fact, committed in the public sphere by men who have never previously met their victim, according to Brå. Out of the 842 men sentenced for rape or attempted rape in the past five years, noted a report by Svt Nyheter (Swedish Television) 58% were foreign-born — from the Middle East and North Africa, southern parts of Africa and other places outside of Europe. When it came to men sentenced for attempted rape, as well as violent rape, where victim and perpetrator did not know each other beforehand, 80% of the men were foreign born and 40% had only been in Sweden for a year or less.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272076/russia-ukraine-confrontation-sea-raises-stakes-joseph-klein

A military confrontation erupted directly between Ukrainian and Russian military forces last Sunday off the coast of the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula when two Ukrainian cutters and a tugboat heading from one Ukrainian port to another attempted to pass through a narrow sea passage known as the Kerch Strait. The strait is close to the Crimean Peninsula that separates the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Russia would not let the ships pass, blocking them with a grounded tanker under a bridge Russia had constructed linking the Crimea Peninsula it had illegally annexed in 2014 with the Russian mainland. Not able to proceed to their destination because of Russia’s blockage, the Ukrainian cutters reportedly turned around. According to Ukraine’s account, Ukraine’s vessels were heading back to where they came from when Russia fired on the ships, injuring several sailors. Russia then seized the vessels, with what has been reported to be either 23 or 24 sailors on board. A Russian court on Tuesday ordered 12 of the captured sailors to remain in Russian custody for at least two months. The other captured sailors could meet the same fate when they are expected to appear in Russian court on Wednesday. If convicted on charges of colluding to cross Russia’s border illegally, the sailors could be jailed for as long as six years.

Although all-out war has not broken out yet, the region is on edge as Russia tries to leverage its control over Crimea on the ground to establish its claims of territorial dominion over the surrounding waters. Russia is also demonstrating its power over Ukraine’s economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin is ratcheting up pressure on Ukraine’s economy by limiting its freedom to send ships to ports on the Sea of Azov. Freedom of passage is necessary for Ukraine to support heavy industry on which thousands of Ukrainians depend for their livelihood. By land and sea, Russia is tightening the noose around Ukraine’s neck.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared martial law in the troubled areas of his country bordering Russia for 30 days after receiving approval from Ukraine’s parliament, a move that Russia condemned as a provocation. “The imposition of martial law in various regions potentially could lead to the threat of an escalation of tension in the conflict region, in the southeast” of Ukraine, President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/the_russians_and_the_kerch_bridge_what_would_reagan_do.html

Every story has a starting point. Don’t start with the Russian capture this week of two (or three) Ukrainian ships and the injury to three (or six) Ukrainian sailors. The Russian habit is to do as it likes with smaller countries and then announce that the other guy did it (or it never happened at all). That is the story of the Russian war in Ukraine and the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, and that is the Russian story of the Ukrainian ships – two ships, not three, three injured not six; anyhow, Ukraine was sailing out of its lane.

Start instead with the bridge over the narrow Kerch Strait that opened earlier in 2018. It is the only entrance to the Azov Sea from the Black Sea, spanning the Taman Peninsula in Russia and the Kerch Peninsula in Crimea. Earlier plans for the bridge were completed between Russia and Ukraine, but that was before the Russians occupied Crimea. There is an agreement for Ukrainian passage to its two ports along the Azov Sea, but Ukraine has complained that the bridge is the beginning of a blockade that would ultimately control or end Ukrainian shipping. There have been delays for Ukrainian ships passing through, sometimes days, and oh, by the way, the bridge is very low – nearly flat – over the water, meaning that Ukrainian ships over 115 feet can’t pass at all. And now there is a Russian ship parked under the bridge, blocking traffic.

It is estimated that Ukrainian shipping through the strait is down nearly 25% since the bridge opened – as the Ukrainians feared and as the Russians planned.

Now what?

Neither the U.S. nor NATO has an obligation here – Ukraine is not a member – but freedom of navigation is one of the defining principles of international law. The U.S. faces countries chipping at the edges of it elsewhere – China in the South China Sea and Iran in the Persian Gulf, with plans for Yemen on the Red Sea. Giving Russia a pass will make the other cases more difficult.

WWRRD? What would Ronald Reagan do?

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Iran attacked Kuwaiti, then other Gulf State, then other non-combatant tankers and merchant ships. Shortly thereafter, Iraq took the same steps. In 1986, Kuwait asked to have the U.S. Navy escort its tankers as protection, but U.S. law forbids escorting civilian vessels under a foreign flag. So the ships were reregistered and reflagged, and both Iran and Iraq decided that the cost of attacking American-flagged ships outweighed the benefits. The operation lasted until late in 1987.

President Donald Trump has proven, as Ronald Reagan did, that he is willing to take measures commensurate with the scope of an international problem.