RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/03/when-the-left-lies-conservatives-plead-guilty/

A distinguished journalist once confided to me what he admitted was a worrying thought: whenever he had appeared in a newspaper report as opposed to writing one, at least one fact in how he was reported turned out to be wrong. He didn’t think it was bias, since the errors were mostly about such pedestrian matters as his name or age. He had decided it was simply carelessness: standards were slipping. Maybe, though (he concluded sadly), it was just that he was getting older and grouchier.

Well, yes. And no. In the last week I’ve had good proof that my late friend was onto something, but something more complicated than carelessness. For I too was mentioned in the newspapers, this time as attending a conference in Rome at which “far right”, “hard right”, “anti-Semitic” and “homophobic” figures in European politics were speaking. And that came as a surprise.

The story began when the Guardian published a piece warning that a Tory MP, Daniel Kawczynski, was planning to attend a conference on national conservatism at which the leading speakers would include hard-right and anti-immigration figures such as the Hungarian prime minister “and a niece of Marine Le Pen”. In the Spectator Kawczysnki disputed this account and said he would go to Rome anyway. After which the story exploded with adjectives flying in all directions.

Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, condemned Kawczynski for consorting with “some of Europe’s most notorious far-right politicians” and called on the Tories to suspend him. The BBC’s World at One repeated the “far right” slur. Labour front-bencher Andrew Gwynne said that Kawczynski would be sharing “a platform with anti-Semites, Islamophobes, and homophobes”.

The Rome conference took place despite this disapproval, and the Associated Press reported it here under the following headline: “Nationalists in Rome cheer Brexit, honour Pope John Paul II”. That headline was a good summary of the report, which was accurate about the facts, and not uncritical but fair-minded in its account of different speeches and opinions. It described the participants as “right-wing” and “conservative”, concluding with the information that “the conference was organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation based in the United States and other conservative intellectual and political groups”.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/03/un-nuclear-watchdog-admonishes-iran-for-denying-access-to-two-sites/

The UN watchdog policing Iran‘s troubled nuclear deal with major powers admonished Tehran on Tuesday for failing to answer its questions about past nuclear activities at three sites and for denying it access to two of them.

Reuters first reported on Monday that the IAEA planned to issue a second report in addition to its regular quarterly update on Iran‘s nuclear activities, rebuking Iran for less than full cooperation in general and for failing to grant UN inspectors access to one or more sites of interest.

The regular report showed Iran‘s stockpile of low-enriched uranium nearly tripling since November to more than a ton, as Tehran continues to breach key limits of its steadily eroding nuclear deal in response to renewed US sanctions against it since Washington pulled out of the accord in May 2018.

The extraordinary second report delved into the International Atomic Energy Agency’s open questions and Iran‘s denial of access to sites which a senior diplomat said are believed to have been active in the early 2000s.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15559/muslim-women-denmark

“We don’t have specific courts for Muslims… the essence of Danish society is that we have courts that apply to everyone… There are many democratic Muslims, who lead normal lives and are well integrated in Danish society…. I know it is easier said than done, but then we as a society must support them.” — Minister of Integration Mattias Tesfaye, Berlingske Tidende, February 2, 2020.
One imam, Mostafa Chendid, estimates that 2,000-3000 Muslim women in Denmark are trapped in Islamic marriages they cannot get out of.
“It is a big problem and many men hold the women hostage in marriages they do not want. They won’t accept a divorce from a Danish court — only from a religious one”, he said. “I know women who have tried in vain for ten years to find an imam that will accept their divorce… 80-90 % of the imams will not recognize that a divorce from a Danish court is also valid… And at the same time, the women’s husbands and families tell them that they are not divorced until they have the imams’ approval.” — Imam Mostafa Chendid, Kristeligt Dagblad, January 16, 2020.
It was four years ago that Danish television first exposed sharia councils and imams that help keep Muslim women in abusive marriages and in parallel societies. How is it possible that Danish politicians are still “shocked”?

In March 2016, a three-part television documentary, “The Mosques Behind the Veil,” was aired on Danish TV2. The documentary sent two young Muslims undercover, as Fatma and Muhammed, to a number of “parallel” Muslim societies in Denmark.

For the purpose of the documentary, Fatma was given a personal cover story — based on real-life dilemmas — for which she would seek advice from the different imams: Her husband was violent, and she did not wish to have sex with him. She could not get pregnant and his family had found a second wife for him. All the Danish imams with whom she consulted in the documentary told her to put up with the violence. When she pleaded for divorce at a sharia council in the Fredens mosque in Århus, Denmark’s second largest city, the imams there refused and told her — ten times — that she must go back to her husband and try again.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15645/iran-qaani-quds-force

The new head of the Quds Force, Gen. Esmail Qaani, is someone who not only desires to kill Americans but also boasts about killing Americans.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department Qaani covered “financial disbursements to IRGC-QF elements, including elements in Africa, as well as to various terrorist groups, including Hezbollah.”

It is incumbent on the international community immediately to cut the flow of funds to Iran’s Quds Force and General Qaani.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani as the new head of the Quds Force after Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike ordered by President Donald J. Trump. It is important to know who Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani is and what his policies are: his actions will have consequences for US national security interests and the lives of many Americans and the Free World.

The Quds Force, which the new Iranian General is now leading, has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US Department of State, and has been responsible for killing hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. According to a statement by the US Department of Defense, the Quds Force was “responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more”.

The Quds Force also deploys its proxies and militia groups to attack the interests and assets of the US and its allies in the Middle East, as well as the soft underbelly of the US, Latin America. The Quds Force exerts significant influence, direct or indirect, through a conglomerate of more than 40 militia groups, which operate under the banner of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The organization is, furthermore, in charge of Iran’s extraterritorial operations, which include organizing, supporting, training, arming and financing Iran’s predominantly Shiite militia groups in foreign countries; launching wars directly or indirectly via these proxies; fomenting unrest in other nations to advance Iran’s ideological and hegemonic interests; attacking and invading cities and countries; and assassinating foreign political figures and prominent Iranian dissidents worldwide.