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China’s Islamophobia New repression in Xinjiang risks a Uighur backlash.

Posted By on June 16th, 2017

It’s Ramadan, and Beijing is again restricting the peaceful practice of Islam in its western territory of Xinjiang. This year government employees are required to ensure that friends and family aren’t fasting or otherwise observing the Muslim holy month. Under the “Together in Five Things” campaign, cadres are even living in the homes of the Uighur minority, according to the World Uyghur Congress.

This escalation may be due to the arrival of Chen Quanguo, who took over as Xinjiang’s Communist Party secretary in August after running Tibet for five years. He has introduced the system of “grid-style social management” he pioneered in Tibet that allows the government to closely monitor households.

According to state media, Xinjiang’s security budget increased 19.3% in 2016 to more than $4.4 billion, and 30,000 new officers were hired. In February Mr. Chen described security as “grim” and urged the People’s Armed Police to “bury the corpses of terrorists and terror gangs in the vast sea of the people’s war.” So much for winning hearts and minds.

New “Regulations on Anti-Extremism” that came into effect in April outlawed veils or “abnormal” beards. Parents can’t give children “overly religious” names such as Muhammad or encourage them to follow the Muslim faith. All Xinjiang residents were forced to turn in their passports late last year and must give a DNA sample when they apply for a new one.

Other measures include antiterror drills, shows of force by the security services and the installation of satellite tracking devices in cars. Mandatory activities for students are deliberately scheduled on Fridays to prevent them from attending mosque services, and rewards are offered for reporting men who wear a beard or women who wear a veil.

Control over the Uighur population goes far beyond religion. The use of their native language is discouraged in schools, and economic opportunities are limited. The best jobs go to Han Chinese settlers, who are given incentives to move to Xinjiang. Peaceful dissent is not tolerated. The Uighurs’ most articulate spokesman, Minzu University Professor Ilham Tohti, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for promoting separatism.

Sporadic attacks by Uighurs on Han Chinese have continued since riots in the capital Urumqi killed almost 200 people in 2009. In the city of Hotan, three men ran amok with knives and killed five people in February after a family was punished for praying at home. Most attacks appear to be spontaneous and poorly planned, despite Beijing’s claims that overseas terrorist groups are directing the violence.

Yet China’s fears of a Uighur terrorist movement may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Uighurs flee the country and some become radicalized, Islamic State issued a video in February in which a Uighur fighter threatened China with “rivers of blood.” The government’s anti-Islamic policies are also causing anger among Muslim nations such as Indonesia.

Chinese officials continue to respond to every outbreak of violence in Xinjiang with greater repression. By restricting even the peaceful practice of Islam by historically moderate Uighurs, Beijing is traveling a dangerous path that threatens domestic stability.

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Ex-CIA Operative Is Caught Up in a Montenegrin Mystery Why was Joseph Assad in Montenegro as alleged Russian-backed coup plot unfolded? By Julian E. Barnes And Drew Hinshaw

Posted By on June 16th, 2017

U.S. congressional investigators want to know what an ex-CIA operative was doing in Montenegro last fall at the time of an alleged Russian-backed coup plot against NATO’s newest member.

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer Joseph Assad is celebrated in Washington for helping extract dozens of Iraqi Christians from Islamic State territory in 2015‎. Last October, days before a hotly contested national election in Montenegro, Mr. Assad flew to the tiny Balkan country that has been the subject of tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

Why Mr. Assad went is a focus of an espionage trial in Montenegro—and now a congressional inquiry in Washington.

The imbroglio is a sign that old East-versus-West spy games are alive again in Europe. Current and former U.S. and Russian officials acknowledge privately that their operatives are at work in the Balkans and in Montenegro in particular.

Montenegro’s most recent troubles began to unfold when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said it would admit the country, a setback in Moscow’s efforts to block further expansion of the military alliance. Russia immediately declared its opposition, and Western officials say it began a campaign to derail the country’s entry.

U.S. and Montenegrin officials say the campaign culminated in a Russian-backed plot that was thwarted at the last moment. The government’s opponents say the events amounted to a fake coup intended to rally the people to the ruling party’s side.

Congressional officials said they want to learn want to learn if Mr. Assad, intentionally or unwittingly, was dragged into the alleged Russian plot. Russia denies backing any coup attempt. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Don’t Blame Trump When ObamaCare Rates Jump California’s insurance commissioner discovers an ‘uncertainty’ that eluded him last year. By Chris Jacobs

Posted By on June 16th, 2017

Insurers must submit applications by next Wednesday to sell plans through HealthCare.gov, and these will give us some of the first indicators of how high Obama Care costs will skyrocket in 2018. ObamaCare supporters can’t wait to blame the coming premium increases on the “uncertainty” caused by President Trump. But insurers faced the same uncertainty last year under President Obama.

Consider a recent press release from California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. He announced that “in light of the market instability created by President Trump’s continued undermining of the Affordable Care Act,” he would authorize insurers to file two sets of proposed rates for 2018—“Trump rates” and “ACA rates.” Among other sources of uncertainty, Mr. Jones’s office cited the possibility that the Trump administration will end cost-sharing reduction payments.

Those subsidies reimburse insurers for discounted deductibles and copayments given to certain low-income individuals. Congress has never enacted an appropriation for the payments, but the Obama administration began disbursing the funds in 2014 anyway.

Thus the uncertainty: The House filed a lawsuit in November 2014, alleging that the unauthorized payments were unconstitutional. Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled in the House’s favor and ordered a stop to the payments. As the Obama administration appealed the ruling, the cost-sharing reduction payments continued.

The House lawsuit and the potential for a new administration that could cut off the payments unilaterally should have been red flags for regulators when insurers were preparing their rate filings for 2017. I noted this in a blog post for the Journal last May.

To maintain a stable marketplace regardless of the uncertainty, regulators should have demanded that insurers price in a contingency margin for their 2017 rates. It appears that Mr. Jones’s office did not even consider doing so. I recently submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to his office requesting documents related to the 2017 rate-filing process, and “whether uncertainty surrounding the cost-sharing reduction payments was considered by the Commissioner’s office in determining rates for the current plan year.” Mr. Jones’s office replied that no such documents exist.

What does that mean? At best, not one of the California Insurance Commission’s nearly 1,400 employees thought to ask whether a federal court ruling stopping an estimated $7 billion to $10 billion in annual payments to insurers throughout the country would affect the state’s health-insurance market. At worst, Mr. Jones—a Democrat running for attorney general next year—deliberately ignored the issue to avoid exacerbating already-high premium increases that could have damaged Hillary Clinton’s fall campaign and consumers further down the road.

The California Insurance Commission is not alone in its “recent discovery” of uncertainty as a driver of premium increases. In April the left-liberal Center for American Progress published a paper claiming to quantify the “Trump uncertainty rate hike.” The center noted that the “mere possibility” of and end to cost-sharing payments would require insurers to raise premiums by hundreds of dollars a year. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Scalise Remains in Critical Condition After Shooting House majority whip injured in ball field attack undergoes another procedure By Louise Radnofsky and Peter Nicholas

Posted By on June 16th, 2017

WASHINGTON—Rep. Steve Scalise underwent surgery again and remained in critical condition Thursday evening, a day after the House’s third-ranking congressman was shot during a baseball practice.

Mr. Scalise was at MedStar Washington Hospital Center after suffering a gunshot wound to the hip that led to extensive internal damage as the bullet crossed his pelvis. The hospital had said Wednesday night that the lawmaker had had two procedures and blood transfusion.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.) Photo: Ron Sachs/CNP/Zuma Press

The hospital said Thursday evening that Mr. Scalise’s surgery was related to his internal injuries and a broken bone in his leg, that he remained in critical condition but had improved in the last 24 hours, and that he would require additional operations and be in the hospital “for some time.”

“It’s been much more difficult than people even thought,” President Donald Trump said in comments at a White House event Thursday. “He’s going to be OK, we hope.”
The Capitol largely returned to business Thursday, with the House holding votes it had suspended a day earlier and GOP senators returning their focus to health-care negotiations. But lawmakers from both parties spoke about how unsettled they felt after Wednesday’s shooting on both the House and Senate floor and the need to ratchet down the partisan rancor.

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Lessons of the Energy Export Boom Steve Bannon owes Paul Ryan an apology on the oil-export ban.

Posted By on June 16th, 2017

Sometimes politics changes so rapidly that few seem to notice. Remember the “energy independence” preoccupation of not so long ago? The U.S. is now emerging as the world’s energy superpower and U.S. oil and gas exports are rebalancing global markets. More remarkable still, this dominance was achieved by private U.S. investment, innovation and trade—not Washington central planning.

Thanks largely to the domestic hydraulic fracturing revolution, the U.S. has been the world’s top natural gas producer since 2009, passing Russia, and the top producer of oil and petroleum hydrocarbons since 2014, passing Saudi Arabia. By now this is well known.

Less appreciated is the role that energy exports are now playing in sustaining U.S. production despite lower prices. Since Congress lifted the 40-year ban on U.S. crude oil exports in 2015, exports are rising in some weeks to more than one million barrels of oil per day. That’s double the pace of 2016 when government permission was required, according to a recent Journal analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data.
The U.S. still imports about 25% of petroleum consumption on net, mostly from Canada and Mexico, but lifting the ban has resulted in a more efficient global supply chain. Most domestic refineries are configured to process heavy crudes, but fracking tends to produce light sweet crudes. Exporting the light and importing cheaper heavy oil results in lower prices for gasoline and other petro-products, and the larger world market has allowed U.S. drillers to revive production after prices fell from close to $90 a barrel in 2014.

Then there is the surge in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Since the first LNG shipment from the lower 48 left a Louisiana port in 2016, the EIA expects exports will climb by about 200% over the next five years.

What is responsible for this progress? Well, producers are responding to a modest recovery in commodity prices after the price bust amid rising demand, and break-even costs for production continue to fall as technology and cost-management improve. But better policy decisions have also been crucial.

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Can You Obstruct a Fraud? Maybe Trump objected to the fraudulent notion, which Comey led the world to believe, that Trump was under investigation for collusion. By Andrew C. McCarthy —

Posted By on June 16th, 2017

On March 30, 2017, by his own account, then-FBI director James Comey told President Donald Trump that Trump himself was not under investigation — the third time he had given him that assurance. In fact, Comey told Trump that he had just assured members of Congress that Trump was not a suspect under investigation.

Think about that.

This was fully six weeks after the then-director’s Oval Office meeting with the president, during which Comey alleges that Trump told him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Flynn, of course, is Michael Flynn, the close Trump campaign adviser and original Trump national-security adviser, whom Trump, with pained reluctance, had fired just the day before.

Interesting thing about that. Most of the time, when public officials obstruct an investigation, there is a certain obsessiveness about it. Because, in the usual situation, the official has been paid off, or the official is worried that the subject of the investigation will inculpate the official if the investigation is allowed to continue. There is great pressure on the official to get the case shut down.

But not Trump, he of the notoriously short attention span.

Trump was feeling remorse over Flynn. What he told Comey, in substance, was that Flynn had been through enough. A combat veteran who had served the country with distinction for over 30 years, and who had not done anything wrong by speaking with the Russian ambassador as part of the Trump transition, Flynn had just been cashiered in humiliating fashion. The one who had done the cashiering was Trump, and he was still upset about it.

That, obviously, is why he lobbied Comey on Flynn’s behalf. And as I have pointed out before, it was an exercise in weighing the merits of further investigation and prosecution that FBI agents and federal prosecutors do hundreds of times a day, throughout the country. That matters because, as their superior and as the constitutional official whose power these subordinates exercise, Trump has as much authority to do this weighing as did Comey — who worked for Trump, not the other way around.

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MY SAY: THIS SONG COULD NOT BE PLAYED TODAY

Posted By on June 15th, 2017

“The Sheik of Araby” is a song that was written in 1921 by Harry Smith and Francis Wheeler with music by Ted Snyder. It was composed in response to the popularity of the Rudolph Valentino movie ” The Sheik.” It was recorded and sung by almost 100 famous performers and even included in “The Muppets” and the Beatles.

Here are the lyrics:
“I’m the Sheik of Araby,
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you’re asleep
Into your tent I’ll creep.
The stars that shine above,
Will light our way to love.
You’ll rule this land with me.”

In November 1936, Don Albert’s band recorded the first version with the chant “Without no pants on” between the lines of lyrics. This got Albert’s record generally banned from radio.

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Palestinians’ Real Tragedy: Failed Leadership by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on June 15th, 2017

Under the regimes of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, Palestinians are free to criticize Israel and incite against it. But when it comes to criticizing the leaders of the PA and Hamas, the rules of the game are different. Such criticism is considered a “crime” and those responsible often find themselves behind bars or subjected to other forms of punishment.

This, of course, is not what the majority of Palestinians were expecting from their leaders. After the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the PA more than 20 years ago, Palestinians were hoping to see democracy and freedom of speech. However, the PA has proven to be not much different than most of the Arab dictatorships, where democracy and freedom of expression and the media are non-existent.

Given the current state of the Palestinians, it is hard to see how they could ever make any progress towards establishing a successful state with law and order and respect for public freedoms and democracy.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip may be at war with each other, but the two rival parties seem to be in agreement over one issue: silencing and intimidating their critics. Of course, this does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the undemocratic nature of the PA and Hamas.

Under the regimes of the PA and Hamas, Palestinians are free to criticize Israel and incite against it. But when it comes to criticizing the leaders of the PA and Hamas, the rules of the game are different. Such criticism is considered a “crime” and those responsible often find themselves behind bars or subjected to other forms of punishment.

This, of course, is not what the majority of Palestinians were expecting from their leaders. After the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the PA more than 20 years ago, Palestinians were hoping to see democracy and freedom of speech. However, the PA, first under Yasser Arafat and later under Mahmoud Abbas, has proven to be not much different than most of the Arab dictatorships, where democracy and freedom of expression and the media are non-existent.

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Qatar’s Comeuppance Putting Doha on the Well-Deserved Defensive by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on June 15th, 2017

Qatar’s extensive ties to terrorism and abetting of financiers to bolster it are well-documented.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain issued a statement designating 59 individuals and 12 organizations as having terror ties to Qatar. According to the statement, Doha “announces fighting terrorism on one hand and finances and supports and hosts different terrorist organizations on the other hand,” and harbors “terrorist and sectarian groups that aim to destabilize the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Daesh [ISIS] and Al Qaeda.”

Ironically, pressure from this new anti-Iran Muslim bloc in the Middle East has done more to call the world’s attention to Qatar’s key role in the spread of Islamist terrorism than years of cajoling on the part of previous administrations in Washington to get Doha to live up to its signed commitments.

A mere two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his first major foreign policy speech in Riyadh to delegates from dozens Muslim/Arab countries, Bahrain announced on June 5 that it was halting all flights to Qatar for being a sponsor of radical Islamist terrorists. Immediately, Saudi Arabia joined the boycott, as did the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Yemen, all of which also shut off access to Al Jazeera, the anti-American, anti-Semitic Qatari television network established in 1996 and operating since then to foment unrest across the Middle East and bolster the terrorist organization the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas.

The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and other officials in Doha fiercely denied the charge that their government has been backing terrorism, blaming a “fake news” report on the website of the state-controlled Qatar News Agency for the eruption of the Gulf crisis.

The report, which the FBI and other U.S. security agencies believe was the result of a Russian hacking attack, quoted Al Thani calling Iran an “Islamic power,” referring to Hamas as “the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” and saying Qatar’s relations with Israel were “good.”

Although the report did turn out to be a hoax, Qatar’s extensive ties to terrorism and abetting of financiers to bolster it are well-documented. A Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) study, titled “Qatar and Terror Finance: Private Funders of al-Qaeda in Syria,” shows that while Doha has pretended for more than a decade to be partnering with the United States to defeat Al Qaeda, the monarchy, in fact, has taken no action whatsoever against the Qatari financiers of the terrorist organization’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, which continues to plot attacks against the West. One of the reasons that this group eluded U.S. strikes operating in Syria was that it, like America, has been fighting ISIS. Another was that it changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS or the Front for the Conquest of Syria), in an effort to distance itself from Al Qaeda. This effort was led by Qatar.

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Babette Francis: Multicultural Mythology

Posted By on June 15th, 2017

When a Senate committee sought perspectives on the future of multiculturalism I shared the thought that, given some of the odious and appalling customs and beliefs made immune to criticism by official policy, it shouldn’t have a future. Here is what our elected representatives refused to accept.

The recent atrocious behaviour of the Saudi national team at the World Cup football qualifying match in refusing to observe a minute’s silence in remembrance of Australians killed in the London terrorist attack has rightly been criticized in our media. However the issue goes beyond the Saudi team’s insult to innocents who have been killed. During the apartheid era in South Africa, that country was not allowed to participate in international sport because of its racial discrimination. Many Islamic countries practice total gender discrimination — their women are not allowed to participate in international sport, indeed in some of these countries women, particularly in Saudi Arabia, are not allowed to participate even in domestic sport but spend their lives in any public area encased in all-encompassing black burqas.

Why are men’s teams from these countries allowed to participate in international sport? Isn’t gender discrimination as serious as racial discrimination?

International sporting federations need to examine this issue. And that brings me to the issue of multiculturalism and the myths surrounding this latest cult of the Left’s intelligentsia. Yes, I know “Left’s intelligentsia” is an oxymoron, but let it pass for the moment.

Recently, an Australian Senate Committee, dominated by ALP and Greens, called for submissions on strengthening multiculturalism. I put in a submission expressing the view that multiculturalism should not be promoted; rather, it be rejected as it implied promoting a number of obnoxious cultural practices alien to Australia.

My submission was initially accepted, but I was informed it had been rejected as it did not comply with the terms of reference. The rejection is, I suppose, technically correct because the Senate Committee had called for submissions on strengthening Multiculturalism, and my submission rejected the concept.

Now that my submission is rejected, I am free to circulate it so here it is:

To: the Senate Select Committee on Strengthening Multiculturalism

Dear Committee,
This is a submission on behalf of Endeavour Forum Inc. which is a women’s NGO having special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN. We are opposed to the “strengthening” or promotion of multiculturalism. This does not mean disrespecting ethnic groups other than those of British origin, but it does mean that the unsavoury aspects of some other cultures should be acknowledged.

1/ I was born in India and lived there until my marriage to an Australian, after which I came to live in Australia.

2/ India is a fascinating “laboratory” for multiculturalism because it is probably the most multicultural country in the world. India has 15 main languages, about 150 dialects and several religions. This has not created harmony; and, in fact, led to the Partition of India in 1947 into India and Pakistan, because the Muslim-majority provinces could not tolerate the idea of living in a secular democracy.

Islamic culture does not give priority to democracy, freedom of speech or freedom of religion, with death sentences prescribed for apostates and blasphemers. Currently there are several prisoners, both Muslims and Christians, on death row in Pakistani jails on spurious charges of blasphemy.

3/ Even nearer to home, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, the popular former governor of Jakarta in moderate, supposedly secular Indonesia, has just been sentenced to two years in jail on a charge of blasphemy. Similarly in Turkey, a member of NATO and supposedly democratic and moderate, has arrested and jailed hundreds of journalists, generals in the army, and civilians from all walks of life, on charges alleging treason.

4/ All this should enable you to understand that that the culture of Islam is simply incompatible with democracy and basic human rights.

Islam mandates death for infidels, apostates, homosexuals, and for Christians and Jews who will not convert or cannot pay an additional tax. Some of the “multicultural” aspects of Islam include polygamy, child marriage (following the example of their “Prophet”), female genital mutilation, requiring rape victims to produce four pious male witnesses to the assault or if unable to do so, be stoned for adultery, and sex-slave taking by the victors in any tribal war.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are the main examples of Sunni Muslim culture and Shia Muslim culture respectively. In Saudi Arabia women are forbidden from driving cars, and women in Iran are forbidden from cycling in public as these practices will allegedly damage their “virginity”.