RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/10/24/londons-khan-establishes-25k-grants-rename-streets-latest-blm-push/

London’s leftist mayor Sadiq Khan is making £25,000 grants available to change street names in a Black Lives Matter-inspired diversity drive.

The so-called “Untold Stories” grants are to be backed by a £1 million fund of public money, which campaigners will be able to use to hire consultants, remunerate impacted residents, and so on throughout the renaming process — which is not as simple as might be supposed, having an expensive knock-on effect on emergency and postal services, for example.

They will be administered by the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, established by Mayor Khan after the BLM violence sparked by the death of George Floyd in America crossed the Atlantic to decide whether monuments and memorials to historic figures deemed “problematic” by the modern left should be removed.

“London’s diversity is its greatest strength but for far too long our capital’s statues, street names, and buildings have only shown a limited perspective on our city’s complex history,” Khan asserted, in comments reported by The Telegraph.

“I’m determined to do everything I can to ensure our public realm presents a more complete picture of everyone who has made London the incredible city it is today,” he vowed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/united-nations-open-door-to-taiwan-unification-recognition-china-diplomacy-11635104046?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Taiwan wasn’t always a pariah at the United Nations. For more than 20 years the Taipei-based government represented China there, including on the Security Council. That changed on Oct. 25, 1971, when the General Assembly voted to admit delegates from the People’s Republic of China. The Republic of China lost its seat and has been on the outside looking in ever since. Resolution 2758 marked the beginning of Beijing’s assault on Taiwan’s international status.

In 1970 Beijing’s supporters in the U.N. faced an uphill battle. Only a year later the proposal passed in a landslide. What changed? In July of that year, President Richard Nixon revealed that national security adviser Henry Kissinger had visited Beijing, that Nixon himself would do so before May 1972, and that the latter meeting would “seek the normalization of relations between the two countries.”

In 1971 there was a reasonable case for the Beijing government’s inclusion in the U.N. It had all the qualifications of statehood, and the 850 million people living on the mainland had no representation. It also seemed increasingly untenable to exclude a nuclear power.

There was no such case, however, for excluding Taiwan. At the time, it had diplomatic relations with 54 countries, including the U.S., Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, West Germany, Israel and South Africa. Its mutual defense treaty with the U.S. would remain in force for the rest of the decade. Taiwan, a founding member of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, remained a member of those organizations until losing its seats to China in 1980. A true reckoning would have recognized the existence of two states, each with a right to U.N. membership—a solution not unlike those later reached to admit both North and South Korea and both East and West Germany.

Instead, the U.N. has only compounded its 1971 error in recent decades. In the early 2000s, to explain why he had blocked a Taiwanese diplomat from speaking to the U.N. Correspondents Association, Secretary-General Kofi Annan invented a U.N. “one-China policy.” His successor, Ban Ki-moon, went even further, invoking Resolution 2758 and claiming that “the United Nations considers Taiwan for all purposes to be an integral part of the People’s Republic of China.”

But Resolution 2758 says nothing of the sort—it doesn’t even refer to Taiwan. The U.N. charter doesn’t give the U.N. the power to make territorial decisions, nor does international law recognize a U.N. vote as a legitimate means of drawing sovereign boundaries.

So what explains the U.N.’s legal and moral malfeasance in its treatment of democratic Taiwan—preventing it, for example, from even participating as an observer in World Health Organization meetings? The obvious answer is the U.N.’s deference to China. Beijing’s diplomats throw temper tantrums, mobilize partners to advance China’s interests, and have been especially successful at putting Chinese officials in positions of authority in various U.N. bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/eric-zemmour-is-france-s-margaret-thatcher?utm_medium=email&utm_source=

“He decried political correctness, wokeness, the obsession with transgenderism. He demanded the expulsion from France of those who betray the principles of the Republic. He also spoke passionately against the imposition of lockdowns during the Covid crisis, a policy he denounced as having been inspired by China.”

It’s a book tour, mais pas comme des autres. Last night, Eric Zemmour, rising star of the French right and undeclared candidate for the presidency, rocked up in Béziers to promote La France n’a pas dit son dernier mot (France hasn’t yet had its final say), his book which has sold 250,000 copies in a month. A political campaign rally? Perish the thought.

I got there early and spent an hour talking to dozens of Zemmour’s fans, lining up to enter the hall. Many had come hundreds of kilometers. There were scores of students. All were disillusioned with Marine Le Pen. Many admitted they’d previously voted for Nicolas Sarkozy. This was not a traditional National Front crowd in their blue smocks, driving those battered Renault vans that look like garden sheds on wheels. The car park was filled with Audis, BMWs, top-line Peugeots and a Jaguar or two. The crowd was well-spoken and smartly dressed.

The Zinga Zanga conference hall was filled to the rafters and hundreds more stood outside as Zemmour took the stage, an hour late, to thunderous applause and chants of ‘Zemmour président.’ The night before, he’d been in Nîmes where he’d had an equally supercharged reaction. Versailles is next, to be followed by Rouen, Caen, Rennes and Nantes. He spoke fluently for 25 minutes and took questions for another 25 minutes.

Afterwards he spent an hour signing copies of his book and met scores of journalists. I grabbed just a moment with him and asked him how he viewed the threats of Macron’s government to cut off electricity supplies to Britain in retaliation for the squabble over post-Brexit fishing rights.

Zemmour is lazily labelled a racist and right-wing extremist by corporate journalists in both France, Britain and the United States but he resembles above all the Margaret Thatcher that France never had. He’s a conservative, combative, fearless and lucid.

Ever the intellectual, he noted that Anglo-French relations have been worse – a reference to the Napoleonic wars, doubtless — and then put the blame firmly on Europe and particularly the negotiations led by Michel Barnier, who has himself subsequently declared that he’s a candidate for the presidency.

‘The French fishermen thought they could continue as always, the English that they’d get everything back. This was the result of holes in Barnier’s dossier, the consequence of poor negotiation.’

On stage, repeatedly denying he has decided to present himself as a candidate for the presidency next year, Zemmour’s elocution was nevertheless in every respect a campaign speech.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17874/syria-geopolitical-tragedy

[W]hat is planned isn’t the actual writing of a new constitution but “drafting” unspecified “reforms” to a non-existent constitution. If this sounds like diplomatic gesticulation, don’t be surprised because it is exactly that.

Syria today isn’t a constitutional problem.

[W]hat is still lacking is a clear American strategy for reviving Syria as a nation-state, the only outcome that can contribute to regional peace and help the long-term interests of the United States and its allies. Without US leadership, the European powers won’t be able to play the crucial role they could and should claim in helping end the Syrian tragedy.

If Syria is recognized for what it is, that is to say an ungoverned territory, the UN’s role would have to help restore sovereignty to the Syrian people who should have the final say on how they wish to be governed and by whom. And that can’t be done by diplomatic gesticulations in a hotel suite in Switzerland.

Desperately trying to retain a modicum of relevancy in the Syrian imbroglio, the United Nations has shaken an old ghost out of slumber to claim a few headlines. The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, has brought the so-called “Constitution Committee” out of its two-year hibernation to “start drafting for constitutional reform.”

Notice the words “to start”, “drafting” and “constitutional reform”. This means that after two years of real or imagined deliberation, the committee is no further than the starting point. Even then, what is planned isn’t the actual writing of a new constitution but “drafting” unspecified “reforms” to a non-existent constitution. If this sounds like diplomatic gesticulation, don’t be surprised because it is exactly that.

To reduce the role that the United Nations could potentially play in helping bring Syria out of the current deadly impasse to mere gesticulation is regrettable to say the least.

Syria today isn’t a constitutional problem.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17875/persecution-of-christians-september

“[T]he humanitarian crisis that is developing as the Taliban returns to power is likely to become a genocide against Christians if the Biden Administration does not act….” — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, American Center for Law and Justice, August 27, 2021.
“[T]he possibility of there being a genocide against Christians in the wake of this withdrawal is extremely high. Already, the Taliban is compiling lists of known Christians and their communities. They are going door to door searching Afghan homes for Bibles, even searching smartphones for Bible apps.” — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, American Center for Law and Justice, August 27, 2021.
“We allowed the Fulani Muslims who are migrants to settle among us on our lands for free. Now, Christians who welcomed and accommodated them have become targets of their attacks.” — Dominic Gambo Yahaya, local leader, Morning Star News, September 29, 2021, Nigeria.
“A human rights activist [Patrick George Zaki, a 30-year-old Christian graduate student] who wrote about his experiences as a Coptic Christian in Egypt has gone on trial on the charge of spreading false news.” — BBC, September 28, 2021, Egypt.
Anas Khalifa—for 20 years one of the most influential Salafist preachers in the nation—now calls Salafist Islam (fundamentalist Islam) “a cancer” and “a worldview that is spreading rapidly among young people.”…Anas also said that “They [Salafists] spread hatred against Christians and Jews, strong prejudices about other groups. The basic message is hatred.” — Anas Khalifa, influential Salafist preacher, svt.se, September 22, 2021, Sweden.

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of September 2021:

Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Afghanistan: Muslims linked to the Islamic State murdered four Christians. While trying to escape the country, a Christian family was intercepted by the jihadists. According to a local source:

“ISIS asked them, ‘we have tape about you that you are no longer Muslims. So is it true that you are not Muslim?’ They said, ‘Yes, we are not Muslims anymore. We are Christians.’ So the men of this family were killed at the spot. The children and women, they let them go.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/21/empire-lost/

According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently announced, “Just like the overwhelming majority of other countries, Russia views Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China. This is the premise we proceed from and will continue to proceed from in our policy.” At the time of this statement, Russian forces were conducting joint naval exercises with Chinese forces in the Pacific—culminating in a 10-ship joint formation sailing through Japan’s Tsugaru Strait on October 18. 

This, following a series of unprecedented Chinese military aircraft incursions into Taiwan’s airspace, has rattled Taiwan and America’s other allies in the region, namely Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia. During the first week of October, over 150 aircraft, including advanced SU-30 fighters and H-6 heavy bombers, flew into Taiwanese airspace. An unprecedented 56 tactical aircraft penetrated Taiwan’s airspace in a single 24-hour period on October 4, the highest single day total to date. 

China has already taken control of multiple islands claimed by these allies in an effort to access vast oil and natural gas resources, as well as project its military power in the contested territorial waters of the South China Sea. China’s ongoing trade dispute with Australia has also ratcheted up tensions in the region. 

The U.S. foreign policy establishment has rushed to assure Taiwan and its other allies that the United States intends to honor its regional security agreements. Of late, Joe Biden has publicly pledged to defend the Japanese Senkaku islands, which China claims as its territory. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on October 7 that several small U.S. Special Forces and Marine Corps detachments have been quietly training Taiwanese special military units to bolster the island nation’s defensive capabilities . . . a move which has all the appearances of an intentional U.S. tripwire in Taiwan. 

Recent Pentagon estimates have warned that China could retake control of Taiwan by force as early as 2027, but current events suggest a much shorter timeline. Much of America’s foreign policy establishment is convinced that China wouldn’t put at risk the 2022 Beijing Olympics scheduled for February, and that it fears the international sanctions and pariah status that would likely result if China invaded Taiwan. 

The problem with this analysis is that it is based on a Western worldview, which is to say one that does not account for actual Chinese interests. There is no guarantee that China is using the same equation or making the same calculations that western diplomats and intelligence agencies are making vis à vis Taiwan, or for that matter, the geopolitical status quo in the Pacific. 

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/eric-zemmour-french-jewish-trump

by MITCHELL ABIDOR AND MIGUEL LAGO

With his ability to control his own narrative, the one-man show is a symptom of the Americanization of French politics

In the space of only a few weeks, the bestselling, right-wing Jewish author Eric Zemmour has doubled his polling numbers for next year’s presidential elections in France, reaching an astonishing 17%. He is ahead of all other right-wing candidates, including Marine Le Pen, longtime standard bearer of the right, who has lost half of her support to Zemmour—himself now running second only to incumbent Emmanuel Macron. All this despite the fact that Zemmour does not lead or belong to a political party and has not even officially announced his candidacy. And yet the only topic of public debate six months before the election seems to be: Will he run? France’s right-wing and far-right parties are all looking over their shoulders, and even Macron is demonstrating concern, attacking Zemmour in public forums.

Zemmour is in some ways France’s Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, an outsider who claims to say what everyone else merely thinks. He wants to ban all immigration; he claims Muslims have “colonized” entire swaths of French cities; he considers France to be in a state of civil war with its Muslim population. Islam, for Zemmour, is by its nature a religion of terror.

But in saying these things out loud, Zemmour maintains important differences from the Le Pen dynasty: He has long positioned himself as the thinker of the right, producing bestsellers that delve into French history with a classically far-right slant, presenting a France facing decline, degeneration, and even national suicide by way of leftist ideology and the presence of large immigrant communities. He is a firm believer in “The Great Replacement,” which sees les Français de France supplanted by a new, Muslim French population, following an Islam that he believes is incompatible with “French values.” French universalism for Zemmour is an outgrowth of Christian universalism; and it is Catholicism that is the founding doctrine of the French nation. Despite this focus on Christianity, Zemmour is himself a Jew of Algerian Berber ancestry, the son of observant Jews who fled Algeria in 1958 during that country’s war of independence.

How is it that Zemmour’s improbable rise has already come to seem inevitable? The explanation can be found in the role of French media in the country’s political life, in Zemmour’s own ideas, and in the interaction of all this with his personal history.

Eric Zemmour’s Jewishness is a weapon he uses in disconcerting ways. Though he doesn’t hide his ancestry, it is not something that he foregrounds. He has defined his vision of Jewishness as that expressed in 1789 in the Comte de Clermont-Tonerre’s speech on religious minorities (“Nothing for the Jews as a nation, everything for the Jews as individuals”) and by Napoleon: “Henceforth you should consider Paris to be your Jerusalem.” And yet Zemmour’s Jewishness is always at his disposal, granting him license to make statements it would not be possible for a non-Jew to make.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17862/huawei-long-game

“It’s simply not reasonable to expect that Huawei would refuse a direction from the Chinese Communist Party.” — Simeon Gilding, former head of the Australian Signals Directorate’s signals intelligence and offensive cyber missions.

It is essential for business leaders to understand this: there is no such thing as a private company in China…. all Chinese companies and individuals must assist with intelligence efforts if asked.

Huawei is hardly slowing down. Despite still being under telecom restrictions…. Huawei was granted hundreds of applications to purchase chips for its automotive supply business by the Biden administration. The company, according to a spokesman, aims to be a component provider for “intelligent connected vehicles.”

In July, Democratic super-lobbyist Tony Podesta signed up as a “consultant” for Huawei. A Huawei company message board posting noted that the hiring was part of an “expanded U.S. influence operation.”

Huawei also employs a white shoe Washington law firm, Sidley Austin, to handle its interests in the capital. This firm was also representing Meng Wanzhou in her successful battle to avoid extradition to the US. Christopher Fonzone, a partner in that law firm, was recently confirmed over Republican objections as the Biden administration’s choice to be the top lawyer for the office of the Director of National Intelligence. An Obama administration veteran…. his LinkedIn profile… goes on to note, “He also has particular experience assisting clients in the management of crisis situations.”

In late September, Meng Wanzhou stepped off the Air China plane in Shenzhen to a hero’s welcome. It was the triumphant return of an innocent Chinese tech executive from wrongful imprisonment by the West. The truth is far different.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/uk-celebrates-diversity-somali-muslim-stabs-mp-robert-spencer/

A little after noon on Friday, Sir David Amess, a 69-year-old British MP, entered Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex for a meeting with constituents, which he held regularly. Shortly after Amess walked into the church, a Muslim whom AFP described as “a British national with Somali heritage” approached the MP. According to a local councillor, John Lamb, “there were people waiting to see him, and one of them literally got a knife out and just began stabbing him.” Amess died of his wounds a few hours later. The Metropolitan Police announced Saturday “the early investigation has revealed a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism.” So Britain once again has a manifestation of the glories of multiculturalism and mass Muslim migration – not that any of the obvious lessons will be drawn.

According to the BBC, “Whitehall officials say the suspect was not on their database of ‘subjects of interest,’” which is simply an indication of the fact that there are so many jihadis in Britain, authorities are finding it impossible to keep track of them all. This is the result of Britain’s longstanding immigration policies, as well as an absolute unwillingness on the part of British officials to confront jihad recruitment and activity head-on, for fear of appearing “Islamophobic.”

Even after the murder of Amess, there is no indication of any change at the top in Britain. Instead, the usual platitudes were issued, and the usual promises made. Britain’s hopeless Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and Marxist-in-waiting, Keir Starmer, visited the site of Amess’ murder to leave flowers. Former Prime Minister Theresa May, who is responsible for so much of the chaos of modern Britain, said it was “a tragic day for our democracy” and called Amess “a decent man and respected parliamentarian, killed in his own community while carrying out his public duties.” She did not, of course, say anything about the person who killed him, or his motives.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the killing was “absolutely wrong and we cannot let that get in the way of our functioning democracy.”