RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-calls-for-brotherhood-amid-covid-19-pandemic-11601806766

“Pope Francis’ major targets include what he calls the dogma of neoliberal economics and its promises of trickle-down prosperity. “The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he writes. He calls for strengthening the United Nations and other multilateral structures to rein in a globalized economy beyond the power of nation states to regulate.”

ROME—Pope Francis offered his prescription for a host of ills plaguing societies around the world, including poverty, terrorism and racism, in a major document written in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Fratelli tutti” (“Brothers, all”), released by the Vatican on Sunday, is only the third time Pope Francis has written an encyclical, one of the most authoritative genres of papal writing. The 43,000-word text echoes some of the major themes of his social teaching, including the rights of migrants and the poor, with a special urgency inspired by Covid-19.

“Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egoistic self-preservation,” the pope writes. “If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as result of the dismantling, year after year, of health-care systems.”

But he writes that the experience of the pandemic also offered hope in the examples of ordinary people—cleaners and supermarket workers as well as doctors, nurses and priests—who risked their lives to keep society going: “They understood that no one is saved alone.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/china-seeks-greater-control-over-united-nations-international-organizations/

As the U.N. approaches a century of existence, its chief challenge will be to grapple with authoritarian attempts to remake it from within.

D uring the U.N. General Assembly opening debate last month, the Chinese Communist Party’s effort to assume greater control over international organizations was on full display.

This year, “UNGA Week,” as the high-profile general debate of the assembly is called, took place primarily over video conference, and the in-person gatherings that make up the bread and butter of U.N. diplomacy prevented many important interactions. No matter for the Chinese delegation: In addition to general secretary Xi Jinping’s address to the Assembly, he participated in a side event on the U.N.’s 75th anniversary, and other Chinese foreign-affairs officials participated in other meetings throughout the week.Xi set the tone of the Chinese delegation’s message. Sadly, it’s been accepted by too much of the U.N. system, and by some smaller states that have yet to awaken to the brutality of the Chinese regime. As the U.N. turns 75 this year, the CCP made its case for why the country it rules over is a leading defender of the multilateral order. “When in competition, countries should not breach the moral standard and should comply with international norms,” Xi said, during his UNGA speech. “In particular, major countries should act like major countries.”

The CCP, of course, is gaslighting the world, and the authoritarian regime’s grip on international organizations is perhaps the biggest threat facing the principles laid out in the U.N. Charter. “How China Is Taking Over International Organizations, One Vote at a Time” was the title of a Wall Street Journal front page article this past Thursday morning. The piece described precisely what the headline suggests it would: the Chinese government’s co-optation of U.N. organizations, often by coercion, over the past several years.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16589/global-concerns

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.  From a briefing to Gatestone Institute on July 29, 2020.

Now, I believe, the US is taking measures to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from dominating the world, stealing American secrets, further imposing their system on the US and benefiting from US trade in a way that they do not allow the US to benefit…. People realize this is an evil, dark regime that many people have been deluded about for many years. People are now realizing their error…. I only hope that we, in Britain, in Europe, and in the US and other countries, are able to do that more in earnest.

Another thing that is coming into question is that we — in my view foolishly — have plans to allow China to construct a series of nuclear power stations in Britain. We hope that Britain will review these plans and stop them from happening.

The situation with Lebanon and Hizbollah is all tied up with Iran. Hezbollah is a creation of Iran, directed by Iran and funded by Iran. It is basically an extension of the Ayatollah’s right arm…. If the current US administration were to lose the election, there would probably be a policy similar to what the previous administration had, with every effort made, probably, to try and resurrect the nuclear deal. This action would certainly help enable Iran to have nuclear weapons.

The ICC are also trying to investigate Britain for war crimes in Iraq — as well as the US for war crimes in Afghanistan. Of course, it is the usual three suspects, Britain, US, and Israel, they firmly have in their sights…. The International Criminal Court is no longer a legal body. It is now a political body. It has turned itself into something it was never intended to be.

There are a few global concerns that affect us all. The first is the current situation with Iran and its various ramifications. The second, connected with Iran, is the current situation in Lebanon, with Hezbollah in particular, which is also in Syria.

The next is the International Criminal Court, from which we are imminently expecting a decision that could have a potential impact on Israel as well as on the rest of us.

Iran, I believe, is under enormous pressure right now — the greatest pressure since the creation of the Islamic Republic during its Islamic Revolution back in 1979.

The leaders of Iran, the Ayatollah and the various others who run the country, are doubtless deeply worried about the survival of their regime. Regime survival for them is, of course, everything. Keeping their flame alive in Iran is the number one imperative of all that they do. To maintain that regime, they carry out large numbers of extreme activities both there and around the world.

First, their economy is reeling in a great depression with little sign of hope, due mainly to the United States’ “maximum pressure” campaign.

The US has imposed severe sanctions on Iran and also encouraged other countries not break those sanctions, and, in some instances, to take their own measures against Iran. These strictures have caused Iran an enormous problem.

They follow, of course, the repudiation by the current US administration of the dreadful Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, which was supposedly intended to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed state, but which actually paved the way for Iran to become a fully nuclear-armed state.