WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Aims to Become the World’s Leading Space Power by 2045 by Judith Bergman

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17306/china-space-power

“China is taking steps to establish a commanding position in the commercial launch and satellite sectors relying in part on aggressive state-backed financing that foreign market-driven companies cannot match.” — US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in its 2019 Annual Report to Congress.

“Chinese and Russian space activities present serious and growing threats to U.S. national security interests. Chinese and Russian military doctrines also indicate that they view space as critical to modern warfare and consider the use of counterspace capabilities as both a means of reducing U.S. military effectiveness and for winning future wars.” — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, written testimony prior to his confirmation hearing. Space.com, March 19, 2021.

“The PRC continues to strengthen its military space capabilities, despite its public stance against the weaponization of space…. the PRC is developing electronic warfare capabilities such as satellite jammers….and China probably intends to pursue additional ASAT [Anti-Satellite] weapons capable of destroying satellites….” — Pentagon report about China’s military capabilities, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020.

Given the chance, China will also move ahead to use space to dominate not only the US but also the rest of the planet. Any defense budget cuts or flatlines in the in the US military budget — or any monetary transfers out of it — should be regarded as suicidal.

Shortly after becoming president in March 2013, Xi Jinping made his ambitions for China’s space power clear. “Developing the space program and turning the country into a space power is the space dream that we have continuously pursued”, he said. “The space dream is part of the dream to make China stronger”. China aims to become the world’s leading space power by 2045: “China will become an all-round world-leading country in space equipment and technology. By then, it will be able to carry out man-computer coordinated space exploration on a large scale,” wrote China Daily in 2017.

One cornerstone of China’s space program is the Beidou Navigation Satellite system (BDS), a global navigation satellite system that provides positioning, navigation and timing, in addition to data communication. The People’s Liberation Army created the program in order not to be dependent on the US-controlled GPS network. “In recent years, the PRC has actively sought to promote the image of Beidou as a civilian-led program intended primarily for commercial and scientific purposes,” stated a report by the Jamestown Foundation. “However, the program is under overall military direction, with the PLA in charge of Beidou’s senior-most program management organizations,”

Beidou is also known as China’s “Space Silk Road”, which expands China’s land-based “Silk Road Economic Belt” and sea-based “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” — better known collectively as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — into space. Beidou makes participants in the Belt and Road Initiative dependent on China for precision navigation and other space based services. According to a report by Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2017:

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Being a journalist in Iran is one of the world’s most dangerous jobs By Hassan Mahmoudi

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/being_a_journalist_in_iran_is_one_of_the_worlds_most_dangerous_jobs.html

According to the United Nations, May 3 was World Press Freedom Day. That makes this a good time to stop and contemplate how dangerous it is to be a real journalist in Iran. There, a journalist takes his life into his hands if he tries to report facts with honesty and transparency. This regime has no qualms about using repression, censorship, and imprisonment to control the flow of news. Put simply, there is no press freedom in Iran

Although Iran has always been a dangerous place for journalists in the past decade it’s become increasingly risky to try to report the truth there. It is common for journalists and bloggers across Iran to be summoned, arrested, and sentenced to prison for expressing facts and real news.

Because the Iranian regime, like all tyrannies, is inherently unstable and it is currently facing serious economic problems, the mullahs are terrified that real news could act as a spark in a society on the verge of explosion. The last thing they want is another uprising such as the ones in 2018 and 2019. One way to try to deter uprisings is to cut off the Internet and sensor news, which it did during the recent uprising in Balochistan.

Even without the Internet, though, Iran fears those people within the country who may tell the truth. Reporters Without Borders ranks it as one of the world’s most oppressive countries for journalists:

Iran is still one of the world’s most repressive countries for journalists, subjecting news and information to relentless control. At least 860 journalists and citizen-journalists have been prosecuted, arrested, imprisoned and in some cases executed since the 1979 revolution. 

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden’s SecState brims with misplaced optimism on China By Gunnar Heinsohn

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/bidens_secstate_brims_with_misplaced_optimism_on_china.html

On May 2, 2021, Sixty Minutes (CBS) interviewed U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken on the future of America’s competition with China.  Blinken expressed confidence because the Middle Kingdom “has an aging population,” whereas “we’re in a much better place to maximize … human potential than any country on Earth.”

However, the CIA Factbook reports a median age of 38.4 years for China’s 1.44 billion citizens (2020), but a slightly higher 38.5 for the 330 million Americans.  For the ca. 200 million “whites,” with a 2019 total fertility rate of 1.6 (children in a woman’s lifetime) against China’s 1.7, it is 44 years.  America’s white majority, thus, is aging faster than, for example, the Swiss (42.7) and hardly slower than Austrians (44.5) or Germans (45.7).

In terms of human capital development, these three Central European countries are well ahead of Blinken’s homeland.  In the 2018 PISA tests, published at the end of 2019, among 1,000 children (younger than 15), there is the following ranking for top achievers and failures: Switzerland (49/168), Germany (28/211), Austria (25/211), and the USA (15/271).  China, on the other hand, plays in a higher-skilled league, with 165 scholastic aces and only 24 failures.

It could be argued that only four Chinese provinces with a population of less than 200 million took part in PISA, and that Beijing conducted an unfair selection process.  But even if one only applies South Korea’s scores (69 at the top and 150 at the bottom) to China, there are more than 17 million of its 249 million children (in 2019) who will be able to perform exceptionally well as adults.  Among some 61 million American children, there are only 915,000 who reach this level, many of them hailing from East Asia.  With the odds almost 19:1 in favor of the People’s Republic, one could wish the U.S. had better informed advisers for its most senior politicians.

As for Europe, even if we add the finest pupils, who are under the aegis of Berlin (320,000), Vienna (32,000) and Bern (64,000), things hardly look better for the core economic regions of the Western world.  The 455,000 talented young students among 50 million South Koreans alone surpass those three.

Even among the best, there seem to be differences in quality between East Asia and Europe or North America.  South Korea demonstrates this in the strictly screened PCT patent applications of 2020, when it clearly outpaced Germany with 20,060 to 18,643.  In 1994, the balance of patent applications was still 4,294 to 190 in favor of the Federal Republic.  That curious higher cognitive intensity is confirmed by the 2019 SAT tests, in which 37 percent of Asians but only 10 percent of whites scored at the top proficiency level.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

If There’s Nothing to Hide, Why Are Democrats Freaking Out about the Arizona Audit? By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/if_theres_nothing_to_hide_why_are_democrats_freaking_out_about_the_arizona_audit.html

If you have been keeping an eye on the election audit taking place right now in Maricopa County, Arizona, then you also know that Democrats, news propagandists, and “concerned” NeverTrump Republicans are beginning to sound more and more like trapped rats squeaking in fear.  An army of lawyers — many of the same political operatives who manipulated the November election by contravening existing election laws and flooding battleground states with uncontrolled and unverified mail-in ballots — are begging state and federal courts to stop the audit midcourse and petitioning Arizona’s Democrat secretary of state and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice to intervene under the absurd pretense that ensuring election integrity somehow deprives voters of their civil rights.  Arizonan and Biden-supporter Cindy McCain has publicly called the vote recount “ludicrous” because “the election is over.”  And MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is so terrified of what the auditors might find that she insists that the whole exercise is not only “dangerous,” but also the “end of democracy.” 

Even though the entire audit is being conducted with unprecedented transparency and live video feeds that invite viewers anywhere in the world to watch the process, reporters and adverse political agents have been repeatedly caught attempting to infiltrate the well run operation or laboring to expose the identities of workers.  If there is a reason for inserting spies into an already open process other than to later cast doubt upon the integrity of the auditing process itself, I don’t know of it.  And if there is a reason to expose workers’ identities to the public other than to make them targets for campaigns of harassment and intimidation, reporters have made no attempt to provide it.

Compare the highly professional audit taking place in Arizona to the orchestrated chaos of the presidential election.  It took five days last November for vote-counters to find enough mail-in ballots for Joe Biden for the Democrat press corps to declare him the winner, and in the voting precincts where Trump leads disappeared over those days, transparency was nowhere to be seen.  Vote-counters covered windows with cardboard to block outside observation of any kind; counting paused and restarted in secret; and ad hoc procedures were established on the fly and without consistency from one precinct to the next when determining whether to include ballots lacking legally required voter identification metrics, including even the rudimentary safety protocol of a loosely matching voter signature.  If “free and fair” elections require basic security, verification of ballot authenticity, and consistently applied standards at least across the precincts and counties of any one state, then there was obviously nothing free or fair about the 2020 election.  

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

New England Journal of Medicine Pushes Open Borders By Wesley J. Smith

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-england-journal-of-medicine-pushes-open-borders/

I always say that if you want to see what will go terribly wrong in the country, read the professional journals. Radicalism. Woke perspectives. Transgender ideology. Critical Race Theory in health care. Socialized medicine. “Nature rights” advocacy. It’s all there in the world’s foremost professional publications, along with advocacy for policies reflecting those views.

That matters because the people who write for and publish these journals are part of the ruling elite who exert tremendous influence on legislation, executive decision making at federal and state levels, court rulings, business practices, etc..

The radicalization of the intellegentsia is a major factor in the hard-left shift we see in political advocacy and policy. In the latest example, the New England Journal of Medicine offers an article advocating for open borders for illegal alien children and their families. Literally. From, “When Undoing is Not Enough,” (the “undoing” refers to Trump border polices–which the authors claim was legal “torture,” and the goal is to reduce “trauma.”):

First, under the Biden administration’s leadership, the United States could minimize the amount of time that migrants spend in Mexico and in detention. We believe that unaccompanied children, pregnant women, and families should never have to wait to cross the border.

That would sure slow the flow, wouldn’t it? But not just “children:”

Second, the Biden administration could carefully consider the unintended consequences of allowing children, but not entire families, to enter the United States. This policy forces parents to choose between prolonging their children’s exposure to life-threatening trauma in Mexico and sending them into the United States unaccompanied.

And to sweeten the pot, free health care for all!

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Thomas Sowell :The Great Elucidator By Kyle Smith

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/review-thomas-sowell-common-sense-in-a-senseless-world/

An inspiring one-hour documentary about the conservative public intellectual Thomas Sowell serves as a superb intro to his thinking.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago, and a racist today.” Thomas Sowell, who combines a Mark Twain-level gift for apothegms with the rigor of a data scientist, said that back in 1998, but like many of his sparkling one-liners, it’s more strikingly true now than ever.

At 90, Sowell remains “one of the great minds of the past half century,” as host Jason L. Riley puts it in the one-hour PBS documentary Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World, which can be viewed here, but fair warning: This film is a gateway drug. You are bound to get hooked on Sowell, just like many others interviewed in the film. These include podcaster Dave Rubin, a Silicon Valley executive with Overstock.com; a Dallas rapper named Eric July from the band Backwordz; and Sowell’s friend Steven Pinker, the Harvard professor and linguist. Riley, a Wall Street Journal columnist and author, makes a perfect guide because he is the Sowell whisperer: His new book Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell, is about to hit shelves.

In a film written and produced by Tom Jennings, Riley takes us through how Sowell, who lost his dad before he was born and his mother when he was a small child, rose from poverty. His early years he spent in a house with no electricity in North Carolina, then an apartment in Harlem, where a family friend guided him to a love of the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library when he was eight years old. At the University of Chicago, one of his professors was Milton Friedman, who proved unable to talk him out of being a Marxist. What did the trick was a government job. In the Department of Labor, Sowell found that increased minimum wages reduce employment, but this fact interested no one. “People in the government didn’t give a rip whether it worked or not. They were simply implementing the policy,” notes another black intellectual, columnist Larry Elder.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The DOJ’s Abusive Indictment of the Police Who Killed George Floyd By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-dojs-abusive-indictment-of-the-police-who-killed-george-floyd/

Federal prosecution of these defendants makes no sense — except as a political matter.

A t best, the Justice Department’s indictment of Derek Chauvin and the three other former Minneapolis cops involved in George Floyd’s killing nearly a year ago is overkill. At worst, it is an exercise in political zeal that could undermine the accountability being achieved by state prosecutions. In the meantime, it is abusive — ironically so given that the charges are brought under the guise of upholding civil rights, though it obviously has not dawned on the Civil Rights Division’s social-justice warriors that police have civil rights, too.

Chauvin, of course, has just been convicted by a Minnesota jury on two murder counts, as well as a manslaughter charge. He faces up to 40 years’ imprisonment — the maximum sentence on the most serious charge, second-degree felony murder — when he is sentenced, which is scheduled to happen on June 16. State prosecutors have asked Judge Peter Cahill to apply penal-law enhancements that would push Chauvin’s term close to the maximum. Even if the court does not apply all of them, Chauvin’s sentence is bound to be severe — probably 20 years or more, maybe a lot more.

And make no mistake: That will be a very tough stretch, assuming the 45-year-old survives it. Chauvin is a notorious ex-cop convicted in a case that is racially charged, notwithstanding the absence of racial-bias evidence. He will be a target for gangs and other violent inmates. Holding him in the general prison population would not be responsible in the short term, if ever. There is no harder time than time in isolation. That is not a defense of the excessive force that resulted in the jury’s verdict; it is simply a realistic observation of what lies ahead.

The other three former cops charged by the Justice Department are Chauvin’s partner, Tou Thao, a 35-year-old veteran of the force, and a pair of rookies, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, 38 and 27 respectively, who were brand new to the job when they encountered Floyd last Memorial Day. The three are scheduled to be tried jointly in state court, starting August 23, on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter. Furthermore, prosecutors are pushing to add a third-degree “depraved indifference” murder charge, just as they controversially did in Chauvin’s case. In less than two weeks (May 20), a state appellate court will hear arguments on whether that should be permitted.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The G7 and Its Dicey Clichés by Amir Taheri

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17347/g7-cliches

The real bad news, however, is that the London conference failed to develop a coherent and mutually agreed analysis of the international situation, without which no serious policy-making is possible. The Americans came to London with a set of clichés used during their presidential campaign last year, notably the catch-all “America is back!”, but were unable to say where that “back” was or whether it was necessary to go there.

They also talked a lot about “multilateralism” without making it clear what it was they wanted to be multilateral about. Multilateralism is a method of doing things, not the substance of policy. You could do both wise and foolish things multilaterally. The Libyan disaster resulted from President Barack Obama’s “leading from behind” multilateralism. The latest example of foolish multilateralism is the cut-and-run policy the Biden administration is marketing on Afghanistan.

What seems clear is that both China and Russia are trying to project power in a 19th-century colonial style… Putin’s strategy… copying General Paskevich’s warning: “to keep the land you grabbed today, you will have to grab more land tomorrow.”

Does anyone believe that, short of a shock-and-awe operation, Kim Jung-on could be leashed in without help from China? And could the G7’s habitual cat-and-mouse game with the Khomeinist regime in Tehran produce positive results while Russia plays cheerleader for the mullahs?

The current G7 position could only persuade Beijing and Moscow to set their differences aside and promote a low-intensity global war against the democratic world.

Even if the so-called G7 group of industrial democracies is no longer as powerful and/or relevant as it was when it was first launched more than four decades ago, it is still capable of making a difference on the global stage where a difference is necessary. It is therefore good news that the group, consisting of the US, Canada, Britain, Germany France, Italy, and Japan managed to convene a face-to-face conference of its foreign ministers in London, the first in two years.

The ministerial conference, also attended by the European Union foreign policy spokesman, had the task of preparing the agenda for a full summit of the seven nations, again in Britain, next month. The planned summit will provide Joe Biden with his first foray into the international arena as US President.

While the holding of the London conference was good news, it also contained an element of bad news. To start with, the British host tried to promote one of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s many brainwaves by inviting India, Australia, and South Africa as guests with a wink and nod in the direction of the Commonwealth.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

Today is Mothers’ Day so it is fitting to celebrate the mothers of Hadassah and other pioneer women who went to Israel in the first decade of the last century. Some established villages tilling the soil with bare hands. Others created schools and hospitals and social institutions which are the pride of Israel today. Their role in the epic post war rescue of the traumatized survivors of the Holocaust is legendary. They provided housing, schooling, counseling, vocational training and hands on guidance and support. Their memory and story is a blessing. If only they could read Michael Ordman’s weekly news and see the fruits of their labor.   rsk

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Success in trials of multiple myeloma treatment. Israel’s BioLineRx (see here previously) has reported positive results in the Phase 3 trial of its Motixafortide treatment in combination with G-CSF for multiple myeloma. The treatment demonstrated improvement from five-fold to 14-fold compared to the control.

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-biolinerx-soars-on-positive-phase-3-blood-cancer-trial-results-1001347840

https://ir.biolinerx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/biolinerx-announces-positive-top-line-results-genesis-phase-3

Cancer-fighting bacteria to begin Phase 2 trials. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s NeoTX Therapeutics (see here Mar 2020) has had FDA approval to begin Phase 2a human trials of its Naptumomab Estafenatox (NAP) treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. NAP binds bacteria to the tumor while activating tumor specific immune cells.

https://neotx.com/neotx-announces-fda-clearance-of-ind-for-phase-2-clinical-trial-of-naptumomab-estafenatox-nap-its-lead-tumor-targeted-superantigen-candidate/

Brain stimulation approved for major depression. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BrainsWay (see here previously) has received US FDA clearance for its 3-minute Theta Burst treatment protocol for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Patients demonstrate meaningful reduction in depression scores after the treatment.

https://www.brainsway.com/news_events/brainsway-receives-fda-clearance-for-three-minute-theta-burst-treatment-protocol-for-major-depressive-disorder/

Machine learning to identify antiviral molecules. Scientists from Israel’s Technion Institute and Ben Gurion University are discovering molecules to fight viruses. They trained a neural network using known treatments and then reversed the process to identify previously untested molecules that bind to and disable virus proteins.

https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2021/04/machine-learning-for-antiviral-drugs/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21578-6

Molecular tweezers to destroy bacteria. Researchers from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University and elsewhere have developed “molecular tweezers” to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The tweezers destroy the biofilm that protects the bacteria against the immune system. Bacteria cannot develop resistance to this method of attack.

https://americansforbgu.org/bgu-molecular-tweezers-battle-bacteria/

https://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/fulltext/S2451-9456(21)00152-5

Smart training for medical personnel. Israel’s Edocate has developed an app to help educate Health Care Professionals (HCPs) in the management of patients with chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes). Its virtual patient simulation platform allows HCPs to “learn by doing” and “learn by making mistakes” in a no-risk environment.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3906554,00.html https://edocate.com/

Digital systems keep Americans healthy. Israel’s Aidoc (see here) is to provide its CT image analysis AI system for Radiology Partners, whose radiologists work in 10% of all US hospitals. Another Israeli startup DayTwo (see here) has had much success in the US with its microbiome analysis program for diabetics.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-startups-improve-americans-health/

Nephrologist donates his own kidney. Dr. Aharon Bloch of Hadassah Medical Center is the first Israeli nephrologist to donate a kidney to a stranger. He decided after the passing of Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber, the founder of the NGO “Gift of Life” (see here) whom he treated.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/305405

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Human Rights Watch did a one-sided takedown of Israel By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on May 9th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/human-rights-watch-did-a-one-sided-takedown-of-israel-opinion-667590

“Israeli authorities do face legitimate security challenges,” Human Rights Watch acknowledged after accusing Israel of committing two “crimes against humanity” – apartheid and persecution – against Palestinians.

It was a grudging, and altogether disingenuous, admission in a new 217-page report about Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem that ignores history and belies reality, all to paint a strikingly one-sided picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The admission, in fact, seems designed to present a facade of balance in a report that is anything but. In describing Israeli behavior, over the course of decades and today, the report all but ignores the very same “legitimate security challenges,” thus painting a picture of gratuitous Israeli oppression.

Moreover, the report comes as Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza erect more barriers to peace with Israel, and as they themselves degrade the human rights of the Palestinian people. But you’d never know that from the tone of the report, or from what it includes and what it leaves out.

“Israel,” the report declares, “has maintained military rule over some portion of the Palestinian population for all but six months of its 73-year history.” Nowhere does the report note that Palestinian leaders have rejected multiple offers of a state since 1947, or that most Palestinians oppose the very notion of an Israel that occupies any land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.