RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-election/taiwan-president-wins-landslide-victory-in-stark-rebuke-to-china-idUSKBN1ZA009

Anti-government unrest in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong took center stage during a campaign in which Tsai held up Taiwan as a beacon of hope for protesters in the former British colony and rejected Beijing’s offer of a “one country, two systems” model.

China claims Taiwan as its sacred territory, to be taken by force if needed, a threat President Xi Jinping reiterated a year ago while saying he preferred a peaceful solution.

“One country, two systems,” which gives a high degree of autonomy, much as Beijing uses in Hong Kong, has never been popular in Taiwan and is even less so after months of protests in Hong Kong.

China made itself even more unpopular in Taiwan in the run-up to the election by twice sailing its newest aircraft carrier through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, denounced by Taipei as an effort at military intimidation.

“We hope that the Beijing authorities can understand that a democratic Taiwan with a government chosen by the people will not give in to threats and intimidation,” Tsai told reporters.

Beijing needs to understand the will of Taiwan’s people, and that only Taiwan’s people can decide its future, she added, repeating her firm opposition to “one country, two systems”.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/how-fragile-is-irans-regime-2/

Smartphone videos of anti-regime protests in Tehran circulated in global news media this weekend, after the Iranian government admitted it shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner. The latest demonstrations followed a national wave of protests last November in which up to 1,500 demonstrators were killed. Hard information about the origins and extent of the anti-regime protests is difficult to find. But there is a good deal of evidence of extreme dissatisfaction with the regime due to economic stress.

Iran’s average monthly after-tax wage was US$318.53, according to the website Numbeo, which tallies thousands of user inputs to arrive at wage and price data.

Using Numbeo’s prices I constructed a monthly survival budget in US dollar equivalents:

amgreatness.com/2020/01/11/of-causation-and-emojis/

My favorite literary expostulation from the last couple of days came from Javad Zarif, foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It entered the world in the form of a tweet, that contemporary answer to the haiku, and concerned the fate of Ukrainian flight 752, which met its end shortly after taking off from the Tehran International Airport last week. Everyone on board was killed, all 176 people, including 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, and a handful of Swedes, Afghans, Germans, and Brits.

When the news of the disaster was first flashed, there was some speculation that a fault in the plane—a Boeing aircraft, much in the news of late because of problems with its 737 Max—might have been responsible. Iran itself initially insisted that the plane had crashed because of a technical fault.

But it soon transpired that the plane (a Boeing 737-800) did not simply crash. On the contrary, it had been shot down.

Iran initially denied any involvement. Suggestions to the contrary were part of a “big lie.” “No one will assume responsibility for such a big lie once it is known that the claim had been fraudulent,” said one Iranian spokesman on Friday.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15321/turkey-islamized-christians

“The Turkish persecution of Pontian Greeks and other Christian peoples began after the fall of Trabzon, starting slowly at first and gradually becoming more widespread and terrifying… Many Christians reluctantly converted to Islam to avoid oppression… and merely to survive. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, approximately 250,000 Pontian Greeks were forced to convert…. and speak Turkish.” — The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, 2014.

The conquests by Turks resulted in the violent and destructive Islamization of the Byzantine civilization.

The Turkish people need to learn the truth about the history of both the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. Only the truth can liberate the people of Turkey from the past that haunts them to this day.

A recent statement by a Turkish mayor belonging to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was particularly noteworthy in the wake of the US Senate’s December 12 resolution to “commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance.”

Mayor Hayrettin Güngör of Kahramanmaraş was caught on camera telling a woman from Trabzon, “We made you Muslim.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15423/soleimani-death-iran-plan

Soleimani had his own network of lobbyists in many Arab countries and some Western democracies. Hundreds of Iranian and Arab militants have enrolled in Western universities with scholarships from the Quds Force.

Soleimani, who loved making and publishing “selfies” showing himself close to battlegrounds in the Middle East, was never present anywhere near a battle but was always to come after the dust had settled, to take “selfies” and claim the credit.

Some analysts in Tehran believe that Khamenei was planning to promote Soleimani further by making him President of the Islamic Republic in 2021. An image-building campaign started last year as Soleimani was marketed as “the Sufi commander”…. A committee of exiled Iranians in Florida also started campaigning to draft Soleimani as president. If that was Khamenei’s game plan, there is no doubt that Soleimani’s demise will lead to more uncertainty regarding the future course of Iranian politics.

While analysts and policymakers are busy speculating on ways that Tehran’s ruling mullahs might avenge the killing of their most hyped general, the real question that needs considering may be elsewhere.

The question is: what effect Soleimani’s death might have on the power struggle that, though currently put on hold, is certain to resume with greater vigor in Tehran.