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Ruth King

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pakistan: The Latest Victim of Communist China’s BRI Debt Trap? by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on September 9th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21856/pakistan-china-bri-debt-trap

Pakistan, which possesses nuclear weapons, is nevertheless almost totally dependent on the People’s Republic of China for military weapons systems, infrastructure improvement and energy projects.

Pakistan is also in debt to China, its largest creditor, to the tune of $29 billion. Without continued Chinese financial assistance, Pakistan would fail to meet scheduled repayments of its international debt, which now amounts to $130 billion.

China’s financial rescue of its South Asian ally probably saved Pakistan from having the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declare it global credit risk. Such a declaration by the IMF could have resulted in the severe curtailment of foreign investment, as well as to decreased access to additional international loans. Consequently, if this had materialized, even China, might not have been able to stabilize the government of Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, which already is struggling to survive amidst soaring inflation, a weakening currency, high unemployment and dwindling foreign reserves.

China might initially have hoped that Pakistan would serve as a model to attract interest from other states to embrace its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China has sponsored 122 BRI projects in Pakistan, and might also have hoped, as with other BRI investments, to create a debt trap for Pakistan, as it has for other nations…. As of 2021, according to The Guardian, “Researchers have identified debts of at least $385bn (£286bn) owed by 165 countries to China for ‘Belt and road initiative’ (BRI) projects…”

Two interconnected flagship projects of China’s BRI program in Pakistan significantly threaten to reduce Pakistan’s national sovereignty: the “China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and the Gwadar Port Facility in Southwestern Pakistan along the coastline of the Arabian Sea…. Both projects appear to serve China’s interests more than they do Pakistan’s.

Pakistan’s latest sovereignty-concession is its caving to China’s insistence that it improve relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban regime…. The TTP’s primary objective is to overthrow the government of Pakistan, replacing it with a strict Islamist state. Despite this bloody feud between the Kabul and Islamabad, Beijing has agreed to extend the CPEC BRI project to include Afghanistan.

Gwadar is likely eventually to serve as a Chinese naval base, which will help challenge India’s prominence in the Indian Ocean. Gwadar also would provide China with increased power projection in the Indo-Pacific Region. China’s aggressive intrusion into its permissive ally Pakistan, certainly, violates Beijing’s stated “Principle of Non-Interference” that supposedly governs its diplomatic relations.

This latest projection of power in the Indian Ocean region is similar to what China has already achieved off the Horn of Africa, with its naval base at Djibouti, and — take notice, United States and its Latin American allies — what Communist China could be planning for Peru’s new mega-port on the eastern Pacific.

Pakistan, which possesses nuclear weapons, is nevertheless almost totally dependent on the People’s Republic of China for military weapons systems, infrastructure improvement and energy projects.

Pakistan is also in debt to China, its largest creditor, to the tune of $29 billion. Without continued Chinese financial assistance, Pakistan would fail to meet scheduled repayments of its international debt, which now amounts to $130 billion.

Pakistan’s foreign policy decision-making is also reportedly hostage to Chinese influence. Islamabad has even established joint border security programs with Chinese paramilitary teams, an arrangement that additionally threatens Pakistani sovereignty.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Most Dangerous Man in the World Today And America has just the answer occupying the Oval Office right now. by Louie Gohmert

By on September 9th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world-today/

One of the most amusing comments international observers can make is on the order of wondering what Russian President Vladimir Putin is thinking. He is one of the most transparent leaders in the world today. He is former KGB. He misses the old Soviet empire. He wants it back. He resents the west for helping create its dissolution. He fails to understand that a socialist system is always going to fail, no matter how many people are murdered or imprisoned who get in the way.

President Vladimir Putin does, however, know his Russian history. He knows the following:

– In September, 1739, the Russo-Turk War ended with Russia ceding claims to Crimea, Moldavia, and the Russian navy being barred from the Black Sea.
– In September 1829, the Russo-Turk War ended with Russia gaining the eastern Black Sea and the mouth of the Danube River.
– In September 1905, Russia signed a treaty in the Russo-Japanese War after the destruction of the Russian navy at Tsushima.
– In September 1915, Tsar Nicholas II assumed command of the Russian Army contributing to Russia’s defeat in World War I.
– In September 1917, the minority party Bolsheviks gained control of the Duma leading to the October Revolution.
– In September 1918, the Red Terror began: the campaign of political executions by Bolshevik Cheka secret police.
– In September 1939, the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland. Tens of thousands of Polish were killed or disappeared.

For decades after 1939, the Soviets blamed the Polish losses on the Germans. My college history professor Dr. Betty Unterberger, in the 1970’s did research claiming the Soviets killed many Polish and took thousands of prisoners to work camps inside the Soviet Union, for which report she was banned from ever reentering the U.S.S.R. I wondered about that issue as I traveled in the Soviet Union as an exchange student in the 1970’s. It was not until after the fall of the Soviet Union we learned that Dr. Unterberger had been exactly right.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Another Crack Appears In The Global Warming Narrative

By on September 9th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/09/09/another-crack-appears-in-the-global-warming-narrative/

Editor’s note: It is likely that by the time you read this editorial, the leftist thought police at Google will have deemed it “dangerous” and “misleading” — because it blasphemes the climate religion—and stripped its AdSense ads from the page. This is why we mounted our Kill the Ads campaign. It’s our small way of trying to stick it to Big Tech. Readers can help counter attempts to suppress our speech with a direct donation to I&I.

Al Gore famously warned that sea level rise caused by man’s use of fossil fuels was going to kill us. Barack Obama implied that he had magic powers that would control surging sea levels. A fresh study shows just how dishonest this pair and the many others who did their best to misinform the public have been.

Gore’s 2006 propaganda film told us to beware of sea levels rising by 20 feet, devastating New York and Florida. The uber-narcissistic Obama promised an adoring crowd that his nomination to be the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nominee “was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” California Gov. Jerry Brown predicted a little more than a decade ago that collapsing glaciers would submerge both the Los Angeles and San Francisco international airports.

These of course are just three of many examples of alarmists, hacks, globalist busybodies, NASA eggheads, academic ideologues and true believers fear-mongering over sea-level rise.

Obama, no climate refugee he, was later roasted for buying oceanfront compounds in Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii. The purchases clearly show he didn’t believe what he said – he was just another political hack appealing for votes and hoping to burnish a legacy before he even set foot in the White House.

But how can we know it’s just fear-mongering?

Actual science, not Gore’s junk variety, now tells us that “approximately 95% of the suitable locations” researchers looked at showed “no statistically significant acceleration of the rate of sea level rise.” This “suggests that local, non-climatic phenomena are a plausible cause of the accelerated sea level rise observed at the remaining 5% of the suitable locations.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Brendan O’Neill The slow death of the genocide lie Israelophobic claims about the ‘genocide’ in Gaza are finally crashing against the shores of truth.

By on September 8th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/08/the-slow-death-of-the-genocide-lie/

Now we know: Gaza must be a genocide because Adolf Hitler says it is. And that man knows a thing or two about genocide. His name crops up in the list of experts behind the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), which last week decreed that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. He seems to have moved, though: he’s now ‘Adolf Hitler of Gaza City’ rather than of Berlin. Yet there he is, alongside Emperor Palpatine and the Cookie Monster, proudly aligning himself with this organisation whose latest ‘resolution’ says Israel has engaged in ‘systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide’.

It’s not actually Hitler. He’s been dead for 80 years. It’s not even some Nazi fanboy in Gaza City who’s taken his favourite murderer’s name. No, it’s an online wag who wants the world to know that the IAGS is not all it’s cracked up to be. For a start, any chump can become a member for $30. Hence why, for a period of time last week, this esteemed gathering of human-rights boffins included not only the usual tenured worthies who think their word counts for more than everyone else’s, but also the Cookie Monster, sporting a fetching, Hamas-style bandana.

When future historians look back on the Israelophobic delirium of the post-7 October moment, last week might strike them as the week the genocide lie finally died. For it started with media outlets across Christendom reporting with naked glee that ‘the experts’ have ruled that Israel really is the genocidal loon of world affairs. And it ended with those experts looking damn foolish, not to mention partisan, opportunistic and cynical. As the Free Press put it, the lesson is that when you see the phrase ‘experts say’ in a headline, it’s a sign to think twice and for yourself’.

The closer one looks at the IAGS and its resolution, the more it smacks of a self-appointed kangaroo court of academic smartarses desperate to pin the sickest of crimes on the Jewish State. First, there’s the make-up of the IAGS. Salo Aizenberg of HonestReporting, which challenges media prejudice against Israel, found not only that fictional baddies from Star Wars have joined the IAGS, but also that 80 of its 500 members are based at universities in Iraq. Is Iraq well known for its genocide scholarship, so much so that its professors account for nearly 20 per cent of a global association of genocide oracles?

Then there’s the tiny numbers involved. Israelophobic hotheads spent last week crowing that ‘86 per cent’ of the world’s ‘leading genocide scholars’ now say Gaza is a genocide. If you deny this is a genocide, then you’re ‘as much in denial of reality as a climate denier’, said Owen Jones – only ‘far more depraved’.

But it isn’t true that ‘86 per cent of genocide scholars’ backed this resolution. In fact, it was 86 per cent of those who could be arsed to vote.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s New War Production Board? Trump is enlisting tech titans to secure U.S. dominance in AI, biotech, and national security—reviving a modern-day War Production Board for the 21st century. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on September 8th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/08/trumps-new-war-production-board/

The left weighs in on anything that Trump is against, which drives it to lionize criminals like Abrego Garcia, champion open borders, and oppose increased oil and natural gas production. And they are against anything Trump is for. So often, they did not care much about big-city crime rates, supported biological men’s usurpation of women’s sports, and opposed taking out the Iranian nuclear threat.

However, recently, some former and, no doubt, current Trump opponents now seem to support both what Trump is for and what he is against—at least in a few areas. So this past week, Donald Trump hosted some of the richest, most powerful—and most liberal—high-tech CEOs in the country at the White House.

Their shared goal ostensibly is to ensure U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence, robotics, genetic engineering, cryptocurrency, and nearly every other breakthrough field that has both sparked global competition and involves U.S. national security.

In this regard, Trump seems to be channeling Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, during the early years of World War II, enlisted his ideological foes, mostly the nation’s CEOs, to rearm the virtually defenseless U.S. He tasked them to jump-start the moribund American economy to produce in a matter of months the best and most plentiful ships, planes, vehicles, communications, and new military technologies.

Despite their ideological differences, both FDR and Trump knew that only private enterprise could rearm and reboot the nation, and only if the captains of industry were infused with patriotic zeal, guaranteed freedom to innovate and adapt, and able to make a profit on their investments, would they become partners with and not adversaries of the government.

So last week, Trump assembled Michael Kratsios, the administration’s director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, along with David Sacks, the billionaire investor and Trump’s cryptocurrency and AI czar. Joining them were Big Tech CEOs like Google’s Sundar Pichai, Arvind Krishna of IBM, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Elon Musk was not there, though he said he was invited but had a scheduling conflict.

Their joint challenge is to ensure that the U.S. dominates these emerging fields and thereby ensure American prosperity and national security.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinian Journalists Attacked – By Whom? by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on September 8th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21892/palestinian-journalists-attacked

Reporters Without Borders also ignored allegations that many of the Palestinian journalists targeted by the Israel Defense Forces were affiliated with Hamas and other terror groups.

The silence of the international community has empowered Hamas to get rid of most of its political critics, as well as journalists who dared to criticize the terror group and its leaders. Consequently, the only Palestinian journalists who were free to operate in the Gaza Strip for nearly the past two decades were those working for Qatar’s Al-Jazeera (Arabic) television empire, serving as Hamas’s unofficial mouthpiece, or those whose reporting was limited to attacking and smearing Israel.

Several international news agency journalists received telephone threats and warnings against covering Hamas’ suppression of the protests.

Those who continue to ignore Hamas atrocities and human rights abuses against Palestinians are doing a great disservice to the Palestinians: they are allowing Hamas to get away with its crimes against its own people.

A recent international campaign to express solidarity with Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip has pointed an accusing finger at Israel, while ignoring the suffering they have experienced under Hamas’s rule during the past two decades.

The global media campaign of more than 150 outlets from 70 countries, coordinated by a group called Reporters Without Borders, also ignored allegations that many of the Palestinian journalists targeted by the Israel Defense Forces were affiliated with Hamas and other terror groups.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Thousands march in London against rising anti-Semitism

By on September 8th, 2025

Around 60,000 people marched through central London to combat a wave of anti-Semitism they see becoming ‘normalised’ in British society.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove, Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis united to lead the march to Parliament Square the day after 200,000 pro-Palestine activists took over the area.

Addressing the crowd in Parliament Square, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis urged Britain to ‘wake up’.

He said: ‘Since the attack on Israel on the 7th of October 2023, we have seen an explosion of hatred right across the UK. A government-backed report recently told us that antisemitism has now become normalised within middle-class Britain.

‘You can expect to see anti-Jewish prejudice in our professional life. Within our cultural life and in the public centre. Antisemitism is rife right across the UK.

‘You will see it, you will hear it, you will feel it.’

A minute’s silence was held in memory of the 1,200 killed on October 7 2023 and to maintain awareness of those who remain captive in the dungeons of Gaza.

One activist blew a shofar (ram’s horn), which is customary on the approach the Jewish New Year.

Campaign Against anti-Semitism said, on X: ‘It is a clarion call to wake up, and no message is more important right now for Britain.’

Michael Gove told The Jewish Chronicle: ‘I think it’s absolutely vital that people from every background stand with the Jewish community at this time.

‘There’s been an unprecedented level of hatred and prejudice directed towards the Jewish community, both on our streets and online. And we need to send a clear message that we’re against prejudice and against hate and in favour of inclusivity and tolerance.

‘And it’s particularly important that we do so because history tells us that the health and safety of the Jewish community is invariably aligned to how strong, free and warm a society is.’

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

California woman facing felony charges for registering her dog to vote, casting 2 ballots Landon Mion

By on September 8th, 2025

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/california-woman-facing-felony-charges-013053910.html

A California woman illegally registered her dog to vote and cast two ballots under the canine’s name, according to officials.

Laura Lee Yourex, 62, of Costa Mesa, faces five felony charges, including perjury, procuring or offering a false or forged document to be filed, casting a ballot when not entitled to vote and registering a nonexistent person to vote, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Yourex submitted mail-in ballots under her dog’s name, Maya Jean Yourex, during the 2021 gubernatorial recall election and the 2022 primary, the District Attorney’s Office said.

The recall ballot was counted, but the primary ballot was rejected.

The woman reported herself in October of last year to the Orange County Registrar of Voter’s Office, which reported her to the District Attorney’s Office.

An investigation into the incident revealed she posted about her dog’s voting activity on social media.

In January 2022, Yourex posted a photo of her dog wearing an “I Voted” sticker and posing with the ballot.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Don’t UK the USA Kurt Schlichter

By on September 8th, 2025

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2025/09/08/dont-uk-the-usa-n2662867

Woe to the British, particularly the British who are actually British and are today being forced by their ruling class to be unwilling cattle subject to the unrestrained exploitation, looting, and raping of the Third World barbarians their betters imported. There’s a lot of raping going on, and the real problem seems to be that normal British people don’t want their daughters raped. But their rulers do; it’s reasonable to assume that you want the foreseeable consequences of your actions. Recently, when one girl pulled a knife on some scumbag who was trying to molest her, someone got arrested. You’re not going to be surprised to find that it was the girl who was defending herself and her sister. Britain is now a classic anarchy-tyranny, where the catspaws of the ruling class are free to pillage and abuse while the full weight of the once legitimate government comes down on those who would protest or resist. Raise the flag of your own country? That’s a hate crime but fly high the pride and Palestinian banners.

Don’t get your hopes up about the British people casting off their chains anytime soon, because I’m sorry to say it’s not going to happen. And there are a lot of reasons for it, reasons we should understand here in America to avoid the UK’s sorry fate of tumbling down the slippery slope into nanny state fascism with sensible shoes, crushing its subjects’ faces forever.

I use the term “subjects” because that’s what they are, not citizens, not men. A subject is subject to the will of others. A citizen is subject to his own will while also participating as an equal member of the polity. In Britain, the idea of being a subject is firmly ingrained because it is a monarchy, even though the monarch is a neutered, doddering buffoon who was the shame of his hard-as-nails mother. But again, the British accept this. They don’t have to be a monarchy. They could be a republic, but they don’t want to be for whatever reason. The idea of royalty is remarkably silly, but you need to understand that there are actually people out there who yearn to be ruled, who want to be subjects. Being a citizen is hard. It requires many things of you. But being a subject is easy. It requires only your obedience.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Malaysia has become an Islamists’ paradise This once-moderate nation is now in the grip of religious extremists: Kunwar Khuldune Shahid.

By on September 8th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/author/kunwar-khuldune-shahid/

Malaysia’s slide towards Islamic fundamentalism appears to be unstoppable.

In Terengganu, a state on the west coast governed by the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), two-year prison terms and fines of up to 3,000 ringgit (£527) are to be imposed on men who skip Friday prayers. The authority for these punishments comes from the Hadith, or sayings of Muhammed – a source of much of the Sharia law that governs Malaysia’s approximately 20million Muslims.

This new law is extreme even by Islamist standards. Not even theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia imprison and fine prayer-dodgers. The Taliban, which is the most oppressive Islamic regime in the world, limits the offence to government employees.

This turn towards radical Islam in Malaysia, a popular destination for Western tourists and long considered a moderate Muslim country, has been decades in the making. In the 1980s, Malaysia’s ‘Islamic Revival’ was led by its longest-serving prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir’s 1981 manifesto, ‘The Malay Dilemma’, merged nationalism with Islam, and emphasised the difference between native and Chinese Malays. He oversaw the Islamification of Malaysia’s politics and, critically, its education system.

Only now are we beginning to comprehend the impact of Mahathir’s reforms. In Malaysia today, prison sentences are enforced not only over missed prayers, but for eating during daylight hours in Ramadan. In 2019, a man was handed a 10-year prison sentence for ‘anti-religious activity’ online – effectively a blasphemy offence. Last year, a father of five was publicly caned at a mosque in Terengannu for the Sharia crime of ‘close proximity between unmarried couples’. Police in Kelantan – a state also governed by the PAS – arrested 20 men for hosting what the authorities described as a ‘gay party’ just last month.

It isn’t just sexual minorities under threat in Malaysia. Shia Muslims – of whom there are roughly 200,000 – were referred to as a ‘national security threat’ by a prominent Sunni cleric in 2018. Religious extremists have marched under banners that urge the government to ‘eradicate Shias from Malaysia’. A government fatwa that designates the sect as ‘deviant’ gives police the authority to harass and persecute Shias almost as they please.

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