RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/while-america-promotes-freedom-and-human-rights-abroad-we-must-uphold-those-values-home

Iran is hosting an “I Can’t Breathe” international cartoon exhibition, with seventy-two pieces from twenty-seven countries, mocking America for its racial unrest and portraying its leaders and police as Nazis and Klan members.

In China, officials are blasting America for its racism while the People’s Daily, the communist party’s official newspaper, ran a cartoon of a crumbling Statue of Liberty and a White House soaked in blood and tear gas. In Moscow, Russian president Vladimir Putin said on state TV that “if this fight for natural rights, legal rights, turns into mayhem and rioting, I see nothing good for the [United States].”

The hypocrisy is breathtaking, for Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow are among the world’s leading human rights abusers, and they don’t even pretend to respect the freedoms that Americans take for granted.

Tehran is crushing pro-democracy demonstrations in increasingly harsh fashion, killing hundreds and arresting thousands as recently as November, while jailing and torturing journalists, human-rights lawyers, labor leaders, and other activists. Beijing is jailing lawyers, censoring the internet, holding Uighurs in concentration camps, and curtailing freedom in Hong Kong. The oligarchs, journalists, activists, and opposition leaders who challenge Putin often wind up jailed, attacked, or dead.

Nevertheless, the autocrats’ attacks on America remind us that due to the ideals we promote around the world – freedom, democracy, equality rights, pluralism-we pay a price abroad when we don’t live up to them at home. We invite attack from our autocratic adversaries, divert attention from their human rights horrors, and make ourselves a less effective advocate for human rights.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/us-research-scientists-under-fire-for-ties-to-china/

National Institutes of Health recently fired dozens of scientists, mostly Asian men, for having secret financial links to Beijing

Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was formally indicted this month on two counts of making false statements to federal authorities regarding his participation in China’s Thousand Talents program and his involvement with the Wuhan University of Technology.

His arrest in January made headlines, but Lieber proved to be only a harbinger of more than 300 similar cases. All are related to US government research contract conditions and requirements, and all are now in the process of public exposure.

Even more worrisome than the number, all of the cases including Lieber were uncovered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), although Lieber held contracts from both NIH and the Department of Defense (DOD).

There is no record of similar impropriety uncovered by the DOD itself, or any broader investigation as yet by the Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, State, Education, or other federal government agencies.

But if the US government looked into all contracts across all agencies it is quite likely that the number of cases could easily reach the thousands. The national security ramifications are frightening.

Lieber, the principal investigator of the Lieber Research Group at Harvard, specialized in the highly sensitive area of nanoscience and was funded with more than $15 million in federal grants.

These grants require the disclosure of all sources of research support, potential financial conflicts of interest and all foreign collaboration.

According to the indictment, “Beginning in 2011, Lieber became a ‘Strategic Scientist’ at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China. He later became a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from at least 2012 through 2015.”

In the first count of the indictment, Lieber is alleged to have told the Defense Department’s Criminal Investigative Service that “he was never asked to participate in the Thousand Talents Program” and that he “’wasn’t sure’ how China categorized him.”

The second count concerned his contracts with NIH. “Lieber allegedly caused Harvard to falsely tell NIH that Lieber ‘had no formal association with WUT’ after 2012, that ‘WUT continued to falsely exaggerate’ his involvement with WUT in subsequent years, and that Lieber is not and has never been a participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16143/will-iran-appeasement

Germany, Britain and France also appear to have turned a blind eye to a recent statement made by the IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who raised serious concerns about possible clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran.

Germany, Britain and France must put a stop to their mercenary appeasement policy and corrupt loyalty to the Iranian regime. It is the equivalent of enriching the Third Reich during WWII or Soviet Russia during the Cold War. It would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to stop Hitler before he crossed the Rhine. The more the EU kisses up to the ruling mullahs, the more it empowers their rogue, soon-to-be-nuclear regime.

The ruling mullahs of Iran are being handed yet another gift courtesy of the leaders of Europe. On June 19, 2020, Germany, Britain and France issued a statement that they will not support the United States’ plan to extend the United Nations arms embargo on the Iranian regime. The arms embargo is set to expire in October 2020. Germany, Britain, and France, known as E3, were members of Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which, revealingly, Iran never signed.

The foreign ministers of these three European countries pointed out in a statement that “We firmly believe that any unilateral attempt to trigger UN sanctions snapback would have serious adverse consequences in the UN Security Council”. They added, “We would not support such a decision, which would be incompatible with our current efforts to preserve the JCPOA.”

Did Germany, Britain and France fail to read the latest report from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which highlighted that Iran is violating all the restrictions of the JCPOA?

The European Union has refrained from criticizing the Iranian regime even though, as of May 20, 2020, it has increased its total stockpile of low-enriched uranium from 1,020.9 kilograms (1.1 tons) to 1,571.6 kilograms (1.73 tons). That is approximately eight times more than what the regime was allowed to maintain under the misbegotten JCPOA “nuclear deal.” According to the terms of the JCPOA, Iran had been permitted to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds), and enrich uranium up to 3.67%. Iran is now enriching uranium up to the purity of 4.5% and possesses far more heavy water than permitted under the nuclear agreement.

The EU has remained silent about all that, as well as the dangerous fact that Tehran regime now has enough enriched uranium to refine and build a nuclear bomb if it desired to do so. Approximately 1000kg of uranium enriched at just 5% can be further refined to create one nuclear bomb. Moreover, according to the IAEA report, Iran is still not allowing the IAEA to inspect its sites.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/06/21/major-canadian-jewish-group-expresses-concern-after-supporter-of-terrorism-appointed-secretary-of-fatah-movement-in-canada/

A major Canadian Jewish group expressed deep concern after it was announced that a supporter of terrorism would be the new head of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ political party in Canada.

Nabil Nassar, who has repeatedly glorified terrorists on social media, was recently appointed Secretary of the Fatah Movement in Canada.

A major Canadian Jewish group expressed deep concern after it was announced that a supporter of terrorism would be the new head of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ political party in Canada.

Nabil Nassar, who has repeatedly glorified terrorists on social media, was recently appointed Secretary of the Fatah Movement in Canada.

In 2018, Nassar praised terrorists Karim Younis, Raed al-Karmi, and Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, the last of whom killed an Israeli rabbi.

In 2019, Nassar called Dalal al-Mughrabi, who participated in the murder of 37 Israelis, including 12 children, in 1978, “The epitome of the Palestinian woman … a symbol of resistance and pride.”

In January 2020, Nassar expressed support for Ali Hassan Salameh, who planned the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Earlier this month he mourned the death of Ramadan Shalah, an ex-leader of the Islamist terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/06/rioters-germany-shout-allahu-akbar-daniel-greenfield/

Once upon a time, we lived in a world in which terrible things generally stayed  within certain borders, but with the magic of the internet, terrible ideas spread everywhere. Like, let’s riot, burn, smash, and loot. And so America’s riots became Europe’s riots.

Here’s the party scene in the German city of Stuttgart.

Sunday, midnight. The violence explodes. “Windows were demolished, the pavement torn open, the stones thrown at police officers,” said local resident Matthias Grohe. “It was a war-like situation.”

Rioters, masked with balaclavas and scarves, break shop windows, carry away what they can carry. Alarm systems howl, glass splinters.

 A man in a green vest throws in the rear window of a police car and pulls out equipment. The crowd cheers and applauds. When an officer wrestles a riot to the ground, a hooded man comes running and kicks the policeman off the suspect with full force.

Police deputy Thomas Berger said yesterday: Of the 24 detainees, 12 were Germans, three with a migration background. The other half comes from. a. from Bosnia, Portugal, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. They are “from the party scene”, which has been boasting of aggressive behavior against the police on social media for weeks.

A video shows how rioters shout “Allahu Akbar!” In the city center. 

The war continues. Sometimes it goes under various names such as mental illness, drug use, or riots, but it’s one war.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/south-korea-says-boltons-memoir-on-trump-kim-summit-is-distorted_3397006.html

SEOUL—Accounts by former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton of discussions between leaders of the United States and the two Koreas in his upcoming book are inaccurate and distorted, South Korea said on Monday.

Bolton gives details in the book of conversations before and after three meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, including how their second summit in Vietnam fell apart.

The book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” is scheduled for publication on Tuesday but some media outlets have released excerpts.

Reports have cited Bolton as writing that Moon, who is keen to improve relations with North Korea, had raised unrealistic expectations with both Kim and Trump for his own “unification” agenda.

“It does not reflect accurate facts and substantially distorts facts,” South Korea’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, said in a statement referring to Bolton’s description of top-level consultations.

Chung did not elaborate on specific areas South Korea saw as inaccurate but said the publication set a “dangerous precedent.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-france-police-tactics-are-less-lethalbut-still-stir-controversy-11592777408?mod=hp_lead_pos13

PARIS—When armed Chechens descended on the provincial city of Dijon this month and occupied a predominantly North African neighborhood, the French police broke up fighting with locals when they could and called in reinforcements—but kept their guns in their holsters.

Over several days, the armed men—seeking revenge for a Chechen teenager allegedly beaten in the area—fired their guns as they assaulted people and damaged businesses. When the violence subsided, police began to detain suspects, including Dijon residents and Chechens in cities across France.

The strategy outraged local officials, who accused the police of allowing ethnic groups to settle scores on the street.

“These are rival gangs, armed groups, that are taking justice into their own hands under the eyes of the state, with no reaction,” said Thierry Falconnet, mayor of a Dijon suburb hit by violence.

But French authorities and policing experts have defended the response as a textbook case of police restraint. No one died during the unrest. On Friday, Bernard Schmeltz, prefect in charge of the Dijon region, including police forces there, said officers faced “high-tension situations that could at any moment devolve into even more serious trouble.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/06/21/three-dead-in-terrorist-stabbing-attack-by-libyan-man-in-a-park-near-london-n558484

British police are saying that a Libyan refugee, Khairi Saadallah, is responsible for the terrorist attack in a park in Reading about 40 miles outside of London. Three people were killed and 3 injured.

The attack occurred on Saturday night where people were mingling in Forbury Gardens after the government lifted lockdown provisions. The attacks were apparently random and brutal.

CNBC:

The attacker seemed to strike his victims at random, police and witnesses said. One witness, speaking to the BBC, described the man moving from group to group stabbing people who were talking and drinking with one another in the park.

The police say the attacks were not connected to the Black Lives Matter protests held earlier in the day in the park.

Neighbors of Saadallah say he was recently released from prison and that he had no known mental health issues. Sources told Sky News that he had been granted asylum.

Is this another “known wolf” attack?

Saadallah’s full background has still to be revealed, but early indications are that he did come to the attention of security services last year.

He was briefly assessed and deemed to be low risk and no formal investigation launched.

A bystander described the horror.

Laurence Wort, 20, who was visiting Reading for the day, told the BBC he was about 10m away when the attack started.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16092/turkey-erdogan-conquests

In Turkish jargon, the difference is simple: It is “conquest” when we do it and “invasion” when others do it.

In this year’s celebrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan raised the stakes when he spoke of the conquest prospectively not just retrospectively. “I am wishing that God grant this nation many more happy conquests,” he said….

A serious question remains to be asked: When Erdoğan wished God to grant Turks “many more happy conquests” which non-Turkish lands is he hoping to “conquer”?

In Turkey, every May 29 brings up the country’s “conquest fetish.” Turks are proud that their Ottoman ancestors, in 1453, “conquered” (not “invaded”) then-Constantinople, today’s Istanbul. It is bizarre enough that a proud nation is commemorating, every year, the capture from another nation of its biggest city by the “force of sword.” This year’s 567th anniversary was no exception: The celebrations euphemistically referred to the fall of Constantinople as “conquest” — not “invasion.”

In Turkish jargon the difference is simple: it is “conquest” when we do it and “invasion” when others do it. In this year’s celebrations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan raised the stakes when he spoke of the conquest prospectively not just retrospectively. “I am wishing that God grant this nation many more happy conquests,” he said at a celebration where he recited from the Quran.