Displaying posts categorized under

WORLD NEWS

Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity Perpetrated against helpless black Africans in the Sudan by well-armed Arabs. by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/ethnic-cleansing-and-crimes-against-humanity/

Not in Gaza, where there has been no ethnic cleansing and no crimes against humanity, though there were war crimes committed by Hamas on October 7 in the kibbutzim and at the Re’im Music Festival. Ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have been committed, and are still being committed, in the Sudan, carried out on helpless black Africans by well-armed Arabs. Tens of thousands have been killed, and 7.5 million people have fled their homes. Half the population of 49 million now face famine. Half a million of these Africans have fled into Chad to escape the murderous Arab militias. More on this ethnic cleansing, and these crimes against humanity, that receive almost no attention in the world media, fixated as it is on Gaza, can be found here: “Ethnic killings in one Sudan city left up to 15,000 dead – UN report,” Reuters, January 20, 2024:

The war has left nearly half of Sudan’s 49 million people needing aid, while more than 7.5 million people have fled their homes – making Sudan the biggest displacement crisis globally.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city in Sudan’s West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militia, according to a United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday [Jan. 19].

Within just a few days, in just one city, as many civilians were murdered in the Sudan as have died during more than three months of war in Gaza, where the IDF has estimated that of the 25,000 Gazans Hamas has so far declared dead, at least 10,000 were combatants, leaving 15,000 civilian deaths in Gaza, which is the upper estimate of the number of civilians killed in the Sudan.

In the report to the UN Security Council, independent UN sanctions monitors attributed the toll in El Geneina [Sudan] to intelligence sources and contrasted it with the UN estimate that about 12,000 people have been killed across Sudan since war erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese army and the RSF.

The monitors also described as “credible” accusations that the United Arab Emirates had provided military support to the RSF “several times per week” via Amdjarass in northern Chad. A top Sudanese general accused the UAE in November of backing the RSF war effort.

In a letter to the monitors, the UAE said 122 flights had delivered humanitarian aid to Amdjarass to help Sudanese fleeing the war. On Saturday, a UAE official told Reuters that it extended an invitation to the UN monitors to visit a field hospital in Amdjarass “to learn firsthand about the humanitarian efforts undertaken by the UAE to help alleviate the suffering caused by the current conflict.”

Silencing a Piano Man In London, a group of Chinese Communists test their power to crush freedom. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/silencing-a-piano-man/

In London these days, if you’re lucky enough not to be hounded on the street by mobs of virulent pro-Hamas protesters, you just might find yourself assaulted by a gaggle of arrogant Chinese Communists. At least, that is, if you make your living by playing boogie-woogie on public pianos.

That’s what happened the other day to British piano man Brendan Kavanagh, whose YouTube channel has 2.4 million subscribers. Until this dustup occurred, I was unfamiliar with him. He comes off as a totally easygoing type, a middle-aged bloke who enjoys his music, loves sharing it online, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. In brief, a free spirit.

Alas, there are people moving among us in the Western world who, far from being free spirits, are agents of the planet’s largest terror regime. The other day Kavanagh was livestreaming while tickling the ivories at St. Pancras Station in London – on a Yamaha upright donated to the station, as it happens, by Elton John – when a half-dozen or so of them approached him. They were all wearing identical red scarves and carrying small Chinese flags.

At first it appeared as if one of them wanted to play the piano. But no: she said something in broken English about a “disclosure form” and about recording for Chinese TV. Then one of her male comrades told Kavanagh to turn off his camera, insisting that it was the group’s “right” not to have their images recorded. Kavanagh replied, firmly but pleasantly, that “we’re in a free country…..We’re not in Communist China.” To which the young man shot back: “Sorry, this is racist now!” And when Kavanagh’s hand grazed against one young woman’s flag, the Chinese guy exploded: “Don’t touch her!”

Suddenly he’d become a totalitarian commissar, giving orders and expecting to be obeyed. Kavanagh, to his credit, refused to back down, and even dared to say: “Are you in the Communist Party?…You’ve got a Communist flag in your hand.” In reply to which the commissar accused him of “discriminating a different country,” told him to “educate yourself,” and again hurled the word “racist.”

Summoned by the Chinese group, two cops turned up. One of them, a middle-aged woman named Kerry, told Kavanagh to turn off his camera. He refused, as was his right.

When genosuicide feels like genocide Muslim world is largely modernizing but a few tragic holdouts like Hamas will fight to the death to maintain backward traditional societies David Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/2024/01/when-genosuicide-feels-like-genocide/

An American coalition consisting mainly of Iraqi forces destroyed the city of Mosul in northern Iraq in 2017, with civilian casualties estimated at somewhere between 2,500 and 40,000. The Associated Press count was 11,000 civilians dead but it might have been much higher. ISIS fighters prevented civilians from leaving as the US and its allies bombarded the town, and no one knows to this day how many are buried under the rubble.

No one called this genocide because it didn’t feel like genocide. Muslims killing Muslims is a tragedy but Jews killing Muslims feels like genocide in the mind of the Muslim world and some who sympathize with it. Humiliation equals death in traditional society, and it is not the death count in Gaza but the humiliation of Hamas that elicits the charge of genocide.

When Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said, “We love death like our enemies love life! We love martyrdom, the way in which [Hamas] leaders died,” the world should have taken him at his word. Hamas leaders might experience martyrdom vicariously from hotel suites in Qatar but they are sincere about martyrdom and do not care how many martyrs they make among non-combatants. This is not genocide but rather genosuicide.

The purging of ISIS from Mosul parallels Israel’s efforts to root Hamas out of Gaza after the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis accompanied by unspeakable sexual and other atrocities, and the abduction of another 240 Israeli hostages. 25,000 Gazans are alleged by the Hamas-controlled health ministry to have died, of which almost 10,000 are Hamas fighters by Israel’s count.

The civilian death toll is about the same as Mosul’s. With 2 million residents in 2014, Mosul had roughly the same population as Gaza so the per capita death rate of civilians is roughly the same—assuming that the unverified figures circulated by Hamas and echoed by the United Nations are accurate.

An Internet search for items posted before 2020 shows that the term “genocide” appeared frequently in connection with Mosul but only and exclusively in association with ISIS, which perpetrated genocide against the Yazidi religious minority, according to a UN commission. There is barely a single instance in which the term “genocide” was used to characterize the destruction of Mosul itself, apart perhaps from the heading of a 2017 Arab Center Washington DC think tank report.

Why then accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza for collateral damage among civilians in a similar campaign to extirpate a terrorist army? The charges brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice are absurd on the face of it.

Daniel Greenfield: Iran Backed Terrorists Kill 3 American Soldiers, Injure 30 “The killing of three American soldiers is a message to the American administration,” a Hamas senior official said.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iran-backed-terrorists-kills-3-american-soldiers-injure-30/

Drone and rocket attacks by Iran and its Jihadist militias across the region have killed and injured American soldiers, but not this many, and this attack took place not in Iraq, but in Jordan, which is supposed to be safe territory and not a war zone.

The current reports are that three American soldiers were killed and over 30 wounded in an attack on a position known as Tower 22. This was a position that the United States was using to coordinate attacks on ISIS in Syria. (Jordan, with the typical fidelity we can expect of allies in the Muslim world, already declared that it considers the area to be Syria and has nothing to do with it.)

The drone was reportedly launched from an Iranian-backed Jihadist militia in Syria. There’s plenty of those since the Syrian government is effectively non-functional and a puppet of Iran and Russia which bailed it out during the civil war. Hezbollah and every bunch of Shiite Jihadists in the region have a presence in Syria.

The actual attack was labeled as coming from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq which is a name for an umbrella group of Shiite Jihadists which have been used by Iran to attack American targets providing some plausible deniability for the PMUs and Shiite militias linked to the Shiite regime in Baghdad which are actually behind it. But while the militias and Jihadists have previously aimed attacks at Israel, this is the first attack in Jordan. American forces were clearly not expecting an attack in Jordan.

The Biden Administration and the Iranian Regime’s Nuclear Weapons by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20341/iran-nuclear-weapons

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads.

The regime has been actively supporting Hamas against Israel, providing assistance to Yemen’s Houthi terror group to attack ships in the Red Sea, escalating tensions with Pakistan, and providing weaponry to Russia for use against Ukraine. These multifaceted engagements in regional and global conflicts indicate the regime’s likely view of nuclear weapons as a means to further its strategic objectives.

In the midst of these ongoing conflicts, the last thing we need is an aggressive regime, with terrorist inclinations — and clearly no intention, despite every opportunity the West has given it, of “coming in from the cold” — possessing nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration’s nuclear policy concerning Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to acquire nuclear weapons is a complete disaster. Under the Biden administration’s leadership, Iran has made significant advances in its nuclear program that surpass the progress achieved under any previous administrations.

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads. This development, reported by Bloomberg on January 18, prompted IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to denounce Iran’s actions. Grossi also told The National newspaper, “Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state which is enriching uranium at this very, very high level”.

The U.N.’s War on Israel While the International Court of Justice dignifies a blood libel, Unrwa has to fire staff over Oct. 7.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/united-nations-unrwa-israel-hamas-gaza-international-court-of-justice-south-africa-a806157a?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

What a day for the United Nations. Its International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a preliminary ruling Friday in South Africa’s case against Israel that managed to be both outrageous and meaningless. At the same time, its special forever-refugee agency for the Palestinians, Unrwa, had to fire staff accused of involvement in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. Our global moral beacon in action.

The ICJ tribunal indulged South Africa’s genocide libel by going ahead with a trial and trashing Israel for self-defense against Hamas. But the justices rejected Pretoria’s request to order Israel to stop the war. The court instead instructed Israel to prevent acts of genocide, punish incitement and facilitate aid to civilians—which Jerusalem is already doing. Israel will have to report back in a month, and the court could take years to decide on the merits.

As law professor Eugene Kontorovich writes, “That’s Jewish joy—they defamed us, treated us like no other democracy, undermined our right to self-defense, put the victim on trial—but it could have been worse!” All true, and an order to halt the war while Hamas holds territory and 136 hostages would have put Israel in a tight spot.

The U.N.’s credibility is also on trial, especially through Unrwa, whose reports the court relied on. After Israel brought evidence that 12 Unrwa employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack, the U.S. State Department announced on Friday a pause in funding to the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency pending investigation.

A new U.N. Watch report, to be released and discussed in Congress on Tuesday, shows “how a Telegram group of 3,000 UNRWA teachers in Gaza celebrated the October 7th Hamas massacre.” The message group’s administrators, identified by name and Unrwa contract number, are seen praising Hamas’s “holy warriors” and praying for them to murder Israelis: “O God, tear them apart,” “kill them one by one,” “leave none of them behind,” “execute the first settler on live broadcast.” One urged that Gazans stay in place to help Hamas.

A hollow Holocaust Remembrance Day January 27. 2024 Jonathan Tobin

https://www.jns.org/a-hollow-holocaust-remembrance-day/?_se=

Those who support a ceasefire to allow a genocidal antisemitic movement like Hamas to commit more slaughters of Jews shouldn’t pretend to mourn the Six Million.

It’s an important date on the international community’s calendar. Every year, the United Nations and many other institutions and organizations hold ceremonies on Jan. 27 commemorating the Holocaust. It’s long been clear that much of the world did so without actually thinking seriously about what allowed the Nazis’ campaign of extermination of European Jewry to succeed as well as it did. Nor do most of those going through the motions of mourning the systematic murder of 6 million Jews or making empty promises about “never again” think much about how a supposedly civilized people like the Germans, with the help of various collaborators from other nations, convinced themselves that it was not only acceptable to kill that many people but justified to do so.

But this year, perhaps they shouldn’t bother to pretend to care about the subject. After the Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 and, even more importantly, the reaction of much of the civilized world to what happened, the meaninglessness of most of what passes for the commemoration of the Shoah by the international community and the West has become painfully obvious.

It goes beyond hypocrisy

To describe those who are indifferent to the mass slaughter of Jews today but still prepared to mouth words of indignation about those killed by the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s as merely hypocritical is insufficient.

The willingness of the world, including many of the educated elites in the West to dismiss the importance of the crimes perpetrated in southern Israel three months ago, to be effectively neutral about the murders, rapes, torture and kidnapping committed by Hamas and the Palestinians—or actually to take the side of the murderers, rapists, torturers and kidnappers—isn’t just shocking. It’s a seminal moment in modern history that not only illustrates the moral bankruptcy of a significant segment of contemporary opinion but also provides an explanation for how the Holocaust happened. As hard as it may be for us to accept, this demonstrates that Holocaust commemorations or even education programs about the destruction of European Jewry in the mid-20th century either don’t make people less likely to support more Holocausts; even worse, all this might be counterproductive.

The surge in antisemitism throughout the West in the aftermath of Oct. 7—with mobs marching in the streets of major cities and on college campuses proclaiming their support for the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet (“from the river to the sea”) and for terrorism against Jews in Israel and everywhere else (“globalize the intifada”)—and the support such positions have received in much of the corporate media was surprising to those Jews who thought such sentiments were only held by marginal extremists. Nor can they be explained as an understandable reaction to a supposedly disproportionate Israeli response to terrorism or as sympathy for Palestinians caught up in a war that Hamas started.

Davos 2024 Agenda Revealed – and Now in Crosshairs of U.S. Congress Americans are finally waking up to the dark agenda of the global elite. by Scott S. Powell

https://www.frontpagemag.com/davos-2024-agenda-revealed-and-now-in-crosshairs-of-u-s-congress/

“Rebuilding Trust” was the theme of the 2024 five-day meeting at Davos of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which just adjourned on January 19. No doubt Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of WEF, produced that theme as a good faith attempt to appease a growing number of regular Davos attendees who can no longer support WEF’s incredulous agenda. That agenda is all about draconian control over people’s lives and replacing individual nation-states with some kind of unwieldy and unaccountable new world order.

Part of the genius of Davos has been cultivating the elite with a myriad of private receptions, glitzy parties, and boundless opportunities for wheeling and dealing, which provide a smokescreen of legitimacy for the radical global agenda of WEF. Attendees are certainly disinclined to speak ill of such a lavish host and his swanky resort venue that makes bringing together the rich and famous possible. And Klaus appears beyond reproach with his disarming, cute, contrived, broken English accent.

But for those paying attention to the specifics of the Davos pronouncements and agenda, there is more reason than ever to distrust the WEF. Schwab stated the quiet part aloud—openly dissing common citizens and dismissing the need for elections. He said such choices should not be left to the people but rather to elites and their artificial intelligence (AI). “You do not even need to have elections anymore,” said Schwab, “because you can already predict… because we know the results.” Thus, Schwab, speaking for Davos 2024, justified the subversion and cancellation of the U.S. election in November.

Indeed, when one surveys WEF goals for 2024, there is more reason than ever for alarm. Americans face many dangers, including the flood of illegal migrants—now approaching ten million; domestic terrorist attacks from fifth column cadre among that massive number of migrants; elite capture and corruption; breakdown of law and order and civil unrest; demoralization of the American military; economic recession; and accelerating growth of national debt. Another reason for pause and distrust of WEF is its close collaboration with the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) and its director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus.

Islamists are wreaking havoc in British schools Secular education is under concerted attack from hardline Muslim activists. Frank Furedi

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/23/islamists-are-wreaking-havoc-in-british-schools/

Maintaining authority in the classroom is difficult at the best of times. But it’s even harder when schools are being turned into sites of political conflict. In recent years, many of these conflicts have involved Islamist activists and Muslim parents who wish to impose their cultural and political ethos on the classroom. Their aim is to refashion schools in their own image. Those who stand in the way often court the risk of being accused of Islamophobia.

The battle over the future of Barclay Primary School in Leyton, east London is the latest example of a school under severe pressure from activists and parents. Its troubles began last November, when it asked parents to stop sending their children in wearing Palestinian flags, badges and stickers. This decision was furiously contested by a group of parents and pro-Palestinian activists. They launched a campaign to force the school to reverse this decision. It soon turned into a campaign of intimidation against the teachers and the school authorities.

In the run-up to Christmas, masked men climbed the school’s fence at night to hang Palestinian flags around its perimeter. During the day, protesters gathered outside the school gate and chanted ‘Barclay, shame on you’. There were also arson and bomb threats made to the school and individual staff. The school was forced to close two days earlier than planned before the Christmas break.

Since then, the situation has deteriorated further. Facing allegations of Islamophobia and threats of violence, teachers at Barclay have said they fear for their safety. Police officers have had to be stationed at the school, such has been the level of hostility towards staff. The school has since sent a letter out to parents saying that it might be forced to ‘revert to online learning’ if it feels that it cannot guarantee the safety of children and staff. There are reports that it may even be forced to close.

Women’s Rights in Iran An appalling testament to the regime’s deeply entrenched misogyny – and disregard for human dignity. by Struan Stevenson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/womens-rights-in-iran/

The Iranian regime’s approach towards women’s rights is an appalling testament to their deeply entrenched misogyny and disregard for human dignity. Through systematic repression and abuse, the regime has created a society where women are subject to discrimination, restriction, and the denial of basic human rights. For far too long, the international community has opted for appeasement when dealing with the Iranian regime, pursuing a futile policy of ‘constructive engagement’. This approach of compromise and negotiation has only emboldened the mullahs, allowing them to pursue their destructive and repressive agenda unchallenged. It is time to break free from the shackles of appeasement and acknowledge the necessity of regime change as the only viable solution for lasting peace in the region.

The Iranian regime’s systemic oppression of women has long been a cornerstone of their rule. From forcing women to adhere to strict dress codes to limiting their access to employment, and political participation, the regime acts as an enforcer of patriarchal oppression. Such practices not only violate the principles of equality and freedom, but also undermine progress and opportunity for women in Iran. Perhaps one of the regime’s most odious acts is the constant denial of women’s basic human rights. Women in Iran are subjected to domestic violence, sexual discrimination, and arbitrary arrests without due process. Add to this the grossly unfair legal system, where women face unequal treatment, harsh punishments, and a lack of legal recourse, and it becomes painfully evident that change is long overdue.

In January, a young woman, Roya Heshmati, 33, was sentenced to the vicious punishment of 74 lashes, on the fictitious charge of improper veiling. She was accused of encouraging permissiveness by refusing to cover her hair. Showing incredible courage, Ms. Heshmati continued to defy the strict dress code even as she was taken to be whipped in Tehran, refusing to wear the veil. This cruel and degrading punishment was simply the latest manifestation of the repressive treatment of women by the theocratic regime. The brutal murder in custody of the young Kurdish girl, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, by the so-called ‘morality police’ in September 2022, again for the alleged offence of not properly covering her hair, ignited a nationwide uprising that raged for almost nine months.