RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16060/political-correctness-britain-trevor-phillips

Political correctness, whatever its commendable origins in a wish to protect minorities on a basis of race, sexuality, or religious belief, has come to do great damage in its sometimes neurotic condemnation of anything its advocates find offensive.

Among some individuals, the word “Islamophobe” seems to have replaced the word Communist as sort of a new form of McCarthyism with which to smear, defame and neutralize anyone with whom one might disagree — presumably to shut down any kind of discussion before it can even start.

While it is appropriate to… bring in balanced Muslim opinions about how to define “Islamophobia,” organizations with links to more radical Muslim groupings are probably not the most helpful partners.

Without a serious debate on these issues, no one… can engage in comprehensive discussions about how Western societies should handle the problems of discrimination, integration, citizenship, free speech, secular values, human rights and all the areas of our collective lives that have come to the fore… in recent years.

Trevor Phillips is uniquely placed to bring light to these discussions. A well-respected man in both British and international society, he should never be shut down by anyone, especially for the ostensible sake of political correctness.

For many years now, Trevor Phillips OBE has been one of the most prominent individuals of black ancestry in the United Kingdom. He is a multitalented individual who has played significant roles in business, politics, journalism, and more throughout a long life (he is now 66). A full list of his achievements would take up most of this article. Here are only a few examples:

He was, until June 2018, the President of the John Lewis Partnership, Europe’s largest employee-owned company. He has also Chairman of Index on Censorship, the international campaign group for freedom of expression, and was founding chair of both the Greater London Authority, and of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission. Originally chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, and as head of the EHRC, Phillips was a controversial figure: he was an opponent of multiculturalism, apparently preferring a more constrained policy towards integration, a view he still maintains. Although a member (until recently) of the left-wing Labour party, he is still a senior fellow with the leading Conservative think tank, Policy Exchange.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16097/iran-nuclear-weapons-breakout

Importantly, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has failed on several occasions accurately to detect Iran’s nuclear activities. For instance, in a November 2018 speech to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke a story stating that Iran had a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.” Although Iranian leaders insisted that the nuclear warehouse was a carpet cleaning facility, traces of radioactive uranium were detected at the site; Israel’s warning and other reports have proved accurate.

Are the US and the UN happy to keep sitting idly by while the ruling mullahs of Iran inch dangerously closer to a nuclear weapons breakout?

The Iranian regime is now comfortably violating all the restrictions of the nuclear deal it never signed, according to the latest report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The ruling mullahs have increased their total stockpile of low-enriched uranium from 1,020.9 kilograms (1.1 tons) to 1,571.6 kilograms (1.73 tons), as of May 20, 2020. This is approximately eight times more than what the regime was allowed to maintain under the misbegotten nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Tehran had been permitted to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds) according to the terms of the JCPOA, and enrich uranium up to 3.67%. Iran is now enriching uranium up to the purity of 4.5% and possesses more heavy water than would have been permitted under the nuclear agreement.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15720/france-post-pandemic-disaster

France was, in addition, paralyzed from any kind of growth by a proliferation of regulations and an omnipresent bureaucracy.
During France’s lockdown, a law was passed to fine heavily (250.000 euros, $275,000) any social network that published what a judge might consider “hateful”; people are also now asked to report to the justice department any suspicious statement they read or hear about. Since schools and high schools have reopened, teachers were invited by the government to listen to the conversations of their students and immediately to report any comment criticizing the government.
“At the source of French misfortune, there are French traitors who bear French first names. They have been abusing the voters’ trust for more than 40 years. They lied about the real state of society and ransacked the country”. — Ivan Rioufol, columnist, Le Figaro, February 19, 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic in the northern hemisphere seems starting to subside — perhaps just temporarily.

Many journalists wonder if Italy, one of the eight countries most affected in Western Europe, will leave the EU. Another country of concern is France — not in great shape.