RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.us/norway-health-chief-lockdown-tame-covid/

Norway is assembling a picture of what happened before lockdown and its latest discovery is pretty significant. It is using observed data — hospital figures, infection numbers and so on — to construct a picture of what was happening in March. At the time, no one really knew. It was feared that virus was rampant with each person infecting two or three others — and only lockdown could get this exponential growth rate (the so-called R number) down to a safe level of 1. This was the hypothesis advanced in various graphs by Imperial College London for Britain, Norway and several European countries.

But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered. ‘It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on March 12, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1… We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down.’ Here’s the graph, with the R-number on the right-hand scale:

https://spectator.us/xi-using-fear-covid-crush-hong-kong-autonomy/

The Hong Kong government has recently extended its COVID regulations banning gatherings of more than eight people until June 4. How convenient. Last year, according to organizers, 180,000 people gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4, 1989. In future, being an organizer may well land you in court under a new national security law, which Beijing announced last week at its annual National People’s Congress.

Perhaps we should have expected it. After all, the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s ‘constitution’, lays down that the Hong Kong government should enact such a law, and the big party meeting in October told us that the ‘legal systems and implementation mechanisms for protecting national security’ would be set up. But given the recent protests, now did not seem the time to add fuel to the fire. In 2003, the then chief executive Tung Chee Hwa tried, but backed down in the face of 500,000 protesters. Later he resigned on the grounds of ill health, although he is still curiously vigorous in his support of Beijing’s interests.

The General Secretary in Beijing is not for turning. Xi Jinping is a man who doubles down. The attempt to introduce an extradition law in Hong Kong led to massive protests. Beijing allowed HK Chief Executive Carrie Lam to agree only to withdrawing the extradition bill. It gave instructions that continuing protests were to be met with increasingly fierce police tactics — ruining the excellent relations ‘Asia’s finest’ had hitherto enjoyed with the people.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16075/germany-richard-grenell-legacy

Richard Grenell arguably has done more than any other American official, with the possible exception of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, to call out the duplicity, hypocrisy and recklessness of Germany’s foreign policy establishment.

Closely related to the defense spending issue is Germany’s increasing energy dependency on Russia…. while the United States is spending billions of dollars annually to defend Europe against growing threats from Russia, German energy policies are increasing Russia’s grip over Europe.

Grenell’s greatest achievement during his roughly two years as ambassador was his tireless pursuit of the American interest and his unwillingness to appease Germany’s anti-American establishment.

On April 30, 2020, after years of equivocating, the German government announced a compromise measure between German lawmakers who want to take a harder line against Iran and those who do not. The ban falls far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah and appears aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allows Berlin to claim that it has banned the group even if it has not.

“With @RichardGrenell, Germany is losing one of the best US Ambassadors to our country ever. Whether it was pressure to stop NordStream2, rethink German-Iranian regime (love) affairs or increase our defense expenditure – he was always on point and acting in the best interest of the United States and Germany. THANKS SO MUCH!” — Julian Röpke, political editor of Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper

Richard Grenell is stepping down from his role as U.S. ambassador to Germany. The move ends one of the most effective American ambassadorships to Berlin in recent memory.

Grenell arguably has done more than any other American official, with the possible exception of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, to call out the duplicity, hypocrisy and recklessness of Germany’s foreign policy establishment.

On a wide range of geopolitical issues — from relations with China, Iran and Russia to anti-Semitism, climate change, defense spending (NATO), energy dependence (Nord Stream), globalism, Hezbollah, Huawei and mass migration — Grenell embarrassed German leaders by showing that their words and actions do not match.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16076/china-devours-hong-kong

Beijing just imposed a raft of new security measures that will completely undermine the independence of Hong Kong’s own legislature. The new measures will apparently be announced in a few weeks — but one can assume that they include extradition to the mainland and imprisonment.

“In China they never really define what exactly is ‘national security’. So the law could change according to political expediency or political necessity,” Johannes Chan, a legal scholar in Hong Kong, told public broadcaster RTHK, according to The Guardian.

The measures will allow Beijing control over issues such as secession, foreign influence and terrorism which, in the view of pro-democracy activists, is little more than a blatant attempt by Beijing to suppress the anti-government protest movement that brought the territory to a standstill last year.

China’s imposition of a new security law on Hong Kong today is yet another attempt by the country’s communist rulers to make a blatant power grab by exploiting the coronavirus pandemic.

Ever since the deadly Covid-19 virus was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year, China’s ruling communist party (CCP) has been busily exploiting the pandemic to further Beijing’s strategic goals.

The Chinese have, for example, been particularly busy in the South China Sea where, apart from harassing less powerful neighbours such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, Beijing last month unilaterally passed measures to strengthen its control over a number of disputed territories, including the Spratly and Paracel Islands, where China’s People’s Liberation Army has constructed a network of illegal military bases.

Beijing has most lately turning its attention to the former British colony of Hong Kong where, in the face of stiff opposition from the territory’s 7.5 million inhabitants, the CCP aims to pass a new set of security laws that critics say will severely undermine Hong Kong’s quasi-autonomous status.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/voice_of_america_or_voice_of_the_mullahs_in_iran.html

I began working at VOA in Washington, D.C. following three years on the newly established ‘Radio Farda’ (the Persian language ‘Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’), in Prague. I did not know that my fate as a journalist would be again decided by the people connected to the Islamic regime in Iran, as happened before at the ‘National Iranian Television’ — only this time a mile away from the White House and even less from the United States Congress.

At the VOA, I was hopeful that my abilities and years of experience would be directed towards “a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thoughts” in line with the kind of values enshrined in the charter of the organization. In October 2006 and with the help of other colleagues, I launched a program titled ‘Tafsir Khabar’ (meaning ‘News Talk’) that was to have the highest ratings of any Persian-language TV show outside Iran for the next five years.

However, with the advent of the Obama administration and the start of a policy of appeasement towards the Iranian regime, there was a general change of atmosphere at the VOA and as such, entry into the Persian section for those with known affiliations to the Islamic republic were facilitated. This approach was justified on the grounds that it would help attain the compromise needed with Iran to secure a nuclear agreement with the ‘5+1’.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-is-a-natural-u-s-ally-in-the-new-cold-war-11590600011?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

It’s been an interesting week in India. A heat wave took temperatures up to 117 degrees in the sweltering north. An earthquake shook the northeastern state of Manipur as a massive cyclone slammed into coastal Odisha. Swarms of locusts have descended on cities and farms across the northwest. Record numbers of new cases were reported in India’s rapidly escalating Covid-19 epidemic. Meanwhile, villagers in Kashmir spotted and captured a “spy pigeon” with a coded message attached to a ring on its leg. As the code has not yet been broken, the pigeon’s mission remains unknown. Despite both a costly lockdown and a continuing surge in new Covid cases, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to dominate the political scene, with approval ratings of 80% or more in recent polls.

With the emerging cold war between the U.S. and China threatening to become the new central axis of world politics, the subcontinent has been pulled into the storm. Chinese and Indian troops have clashed this spring and the standoff continues. Pakistan is among the largest recipients of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative investments. Swallowing whatever qualms the Islamists among Pakistan’s leadership have about the plight of the Uighurs, the country has turned increasingly to China for aid, trade and diplomatic support. That is hardly surprising. With a population of 212 million and a gross domestic product of $325 billion, Pakistan can only maintain its rivalry with India (population 1.35 billion, GDP $2.7 trillion) with the help of a great-power ally.

American strategists, meanwhile, are anxiously—and correctly—keeping a close watch on India’s development. A wealthy, powerful and democratic India would help frustrate China’s hegemonic ambitions and substantially offset Chinese influence in Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. The stronger India becomes the less the U.S. must contribute to a balancing coalition of India, Japan, Australia and Vietnam that keeps Chinese ambitions in check.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/a-china-india-border-clash-as-beijing-aims-for-regional-hegemony/

Surrounded on all sides by foes, Xi Jinping faces mounting obstacles to his goal of ‘national rejuvenation.’

As China reopens its economy after months of lockdowns, the country’s leadership has initiated a broad offensive to expand its influence at home and abroad. A new Hong Kong security law that attemps to stamp out dissent in the autonomous region sparked another round of anti-Mainland protests. Meanwhile, China has scaled up military exercises in the Yellow Sea, which will extend into the South China Sea this summer. Now a standoff between forces on the Sino–Indian border has opened a new front in Beijing’s offensive. This latest development in a decades-old dispute between the world’s two most populous countries underscores the myriad obstacles that Chinese president Xi Jinping faces in his goal of “national rejuvenation.”

Over the past month, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has reportedly moved at least 5,000 troops to the “Line of Actual Control,” which demarcates the border between China and India. The mobilization of troops to the Galwan River valley, on the westernmost border between the two countries, led to a clash on May 5, when Chinese and Indian forces engaged in fisticuffs and stone-throwing. In keeping with Sino–Indian border protocols, both sides were unarmed, but the skirmish — and another in the Naku La region near Tibet on May 12 — left several troops injured.

http://www.settimananews.it/politica/italy-and-its-productive-or-parasitic-new-left-thinking/

Perhaps there is a broader and deeper theoretical design behind the daily havoc caused by the ruling coalition in Italy, made up of the M5S (Five Star Movement) and the PD (Democratic Party): the effort to rebuild a new left.

In fact, with the end of the Cold War, the idea of an overall change to the production system that would abolish capitalism disappeared. From here, the drive of Western social-democratic groups that had asked for and obtained a part of redistribution of income also gradually slowed down.

In the past, on the one hand, the social-democratic groups had freed “the proletarian masses” from the lure of the communist sirens. On the other, they increased the standard of living of the middle class, which had become the backbone of the West.

The end of the communist alternative also weakened the pressure on Western business classes to redistribute wealth. The social divide has deepened, and the search for continuous uninterrupted economic growth is the only task entrusted to politicians. Once growth stops, the temporary social pact between voters and a political leader is broken, and other politicians are voted in.

These are the themes dear to a neo-Marxist like Thomas Piketty but also to the Church and to the great religions that almost institutionally care about the poor masses.

Perhaps this is the opinion of PD guru Goffredo Bettini, who is also fascinated by and a scholar of the experience of the neo-populist party of Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand. Clinging to the populism of the M5S, strengthening it in the PD, and transforming it into popular thought can be an interesting strategic idea. It would seek to embolden and expand an endangered middle class.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-war.html

The Taliban stand on the brink of realizing their most fervent desire: U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan. They have given up little of their extremist ideology to do it.

ALINGAR, Afghanistan – Under the shade of a mulberry tree, near grave sites dotted with Taliban flags, a top insurgent military leader in eastern Afghanistan acknowledged that the group had suffered devastating losses from American strikes and government operations over the past decade.

But those losses have changed little on the ground: The Taliban keep replacing their dead and wounded and delivering brutal violence.

“We see this fight as worship,” said Mawlawi Mohammed Qais, the head of the Taliban’s military commission in Laghman Province, as dozens of his fighters waited nearby on a hillside. “So if a brother is killed, the second brother won’t disappoint God’s wish – he’ll step into the brother’s shoes.”

It was March, and the Taliban had just signed a peace deal with the United States that now puts the movement on the brink of realizing its most fervent desire – the complete exit of American troops from Afghanistan.

They have outlasted a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war. And dozens of interviews with Taliban officials and fighters in three countries, as well as with Afghan and Western officials, illuminated the melding of old and new approaches and generations that helped them do it.

After 2001, the Taliban reorganized as a decentralized network of fighters and low-level commanders empowered to recruit and find resources locally while the senior leadership remained sheltered in neighboring Pakistan.

The insurgency came to embrace a system of terrorism planning and attacks that kept the Afghan government under withering pressure, and to expand an illicit funding engine built on crime and drugs despite its roots in austere Islamic ideology.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16064/iran-knockout-punch

There are five actions the Trump administration must take: (1) extending the UN arms embargo on Iran; (2) snapping back economic sanctions on Iran (they were originally loosened as part of the JCPOA); (3) shutting down the smuggling and trafficking networks of Hezbollah in the Americas; (4) stopping the Chinese-Iranian oil and gas pipeline developments through Pakistan; and (5) interdicting if possible Iranian tankers filled with gasoline and headed for Venezuela.

The embargo on Iran selling or importing high-technology military equipment, especially ballistic missile technology, must also be one of the administration’s highest priorities. Particularly worrisome is that Russia and China want to sell equipment to Iran that, when combined with Iran’s indigenous missile capability, would greatly accelerate Tehran’s ICBM development program.

The US administration has let it be known that it could still sanction any entity selling Iran advanced weapons, especially ballistic missile technology.

Iranian tankers laden with gasoline are now traveling to Venezuela. The US Navy could easily capture those tankers still at sea. There is ample precedent. Both the US and Great Britain have legally seized Iranian ships bringing missiles to terrorists in Yemen. With a similar action, the US could both deny funds for Iran’s terrorist and nuclear activities and energy desperately needed by the oppressive Maduro regime in Venezuela.

In 2015, the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and China signed an agreement that was named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA. The agreement (which Iran serially violates) ostensibly curtailed Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons — for a short time — in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran.