RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19673/report-from-ukraine

I asked what they now needed most from our countries. Of course more guns, more ammo, more tanks, more rockets plus combat planes always featured. But another consistent answer was striking even if not surprising: please do not try to force our country to make peace with the invaders.

The government in Kyiv has so far documented 19,393 kidnapped children, and there are most likely many more that are as yet unidentified.

Like the torture and murder of civilians in Izium and elsewhere, and the summary execution of prisoners of war, these kidnappings are war crimes. It is for these abductions that the International Criminal Court in March issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and his so-called Children’s Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova.

Putin’s forces and civilian bureaucrats have seized children from orphanages and children’s homes, removed them directly from their parents or taken them into “care” after killing their families. Some have been forcibly fostered or adopted in cities including Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Rostov. Names and dates of birth are sometimes changed to render them untraceable.

While torture and murder cannot be undone, Russia’s child kidnapping can, and it is inexplicable that so far there has been no large scale international outrage.

[K]nowledge of these wicked depredations is why they fight; and why they and the fighting men on Ukraine’s other battlefields remain determined to keep attacking, holding the invaders from their families’ doors until they drive them back beyond their borders, no matter what the personal cost might be.

This week, near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, I spent time with commanders and soldiers who have been fighting the Russian invaders in the shattered city, sometimes for months on end. This has been one of the longest battles anywhere in the world since 1945 and by far the most brutal in this war, with Russians and Ukrainians often fighting at close quarters, artillery hammering the city into Stalingrad-like rubble and a level of slaughter unequalled anywhere else in Putin’s vicious war.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-economy-needs-to-get-its-growth-back-group-of-seven-developing-countries-debt-financing-yield-curve-private-sector-innovation-4113e720?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The global economy is facing dangerously slow growth of 2% or lower. As I near the end of my term as World Bank president, I’m discouraged by the lack of resolve and action. I worry that slow growth may persist for years.

The world is digesting the huge buildup of government debt relative to gross domestic product, normalization of artificially low interest rates, and a system allocating capital away from small businesses and toward bond issuers, especially governments and the largest businesses. The result is reduced dynamism at home and fragility abroad.

The challenges are unprecedented. Government debt levels, both current and projected, are an order of magnitude larger than in previous crises, undercutting growth. The U.S. national debt is projected to grow toward 200% of GDP, not counting the excessive debt of some state and local governments and their opaque public pension liabilities. Governments in Japan and Europe also have large debt overhangs, especially troubling given their declining populations.

Excessive government debt raises doubts about whether the private economy can produce enough output and profit to carry the burden. Central banks in advanced economies have delayed the day of fiscal reckoning through postmonetarism—borrowing from the private sector to buy trillions in government bonds to flatten the yield curve. But this leaves them with monumentally oversized balance sheets and costly losses on their bonds. The distortions may delay recovery for years.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19647/turkey-sanctions-rewards

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tirelessly struggles to harm Western interests. He should be punished and sanctioned for doing that. Instead, the UN, under U.S. direction, rewarded Turkey by appointing a close Erdoğan confidant to a critical Afghan post, and the Biden administration rewarded Erdoğan by requesting Congressional authorization to sell critical fighter jet parts to Turkey.
In an effort to help Putin evade sanctions, Turkey agreed to pay 25% of its natural gas bill to Russia in rubles. In return, to help Erdoğan find a way out of a punishing economic crisis, Putin deferred repayment Turkey’s $20 billion gas debts to Russia until 2024.
By contrast, Turkey’s relations with the West have seen one bottom after another.
Erdoğan’s request for the extradition [from Sweden and Finland] of “terrorists” does not fit into the judicial system of any democratic country: he insists that everyone who opposes his rule is a “terrorist” — therefore more than half of 85 million Turkish citizens are terrorists.
On April 17, the Biden administration officially notified Congress about the planned sale to Turkey of critical avionics software upgrades for its current fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft. “Turkey is a longstanding and valued NATO ally,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “The Biden administration supports Turkey’s efforts to bring the avionics of its F-16 fleet up to standard.”
Anything for a sale?
Perhaps the Turkish foreign minister was right to call Biden “charlatan.”

Some Western governments, in particular the U.S. administration, have a bizarre way of sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest allies: by flooding them with rewards. Take for instance, Putin’s not-so-secret Trojan Horse in NATO, Turkey.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19672/turkey-elections-nationalist-identity-politics

There will be a second round for the presidential vote on May 28, but an opposition victory seems unlikely.

Turkey is a country where average schooling is 6.5 years. In other words, the average person is a 7th grade drop-out. Ninety-five percent of Turkish citizens have never travelled abroad.

Many Turks are captivated by identity politics: Ideology over everything else. Erdoğan’s Islamism and nationalism still matter to tens of millions of starving Turks. This is their make-believe world: that Erdoğan will one day rebuild the glorious days of our Ottoman ancestors.

Under pressure from the Erdoğan government, which apparently feared opposition propaganda on social media, Twitter announced on May 12, two days before the elections, “In response to legal process and to ensure that Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.”

“This [a likely Erdoğan victory] is not only bad news for Turkey but also for other democracies around the world … I don’t know how Turkey will cope with a total economic collapse.” — Daron Acemoglu, a Turkish-American economist who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993. – Cumhuriyet, May 16, 2023.

A Turkish collapse is likely — but the Turks will probably blame it on the Crusaders while worshipping the man who caused it.

https://bit.ly/3MOJa5G

Shavou’ot (Pentecost) guide for the perplexed, 2023

Shavou’ot is one of the three liberty-oriented Jewish pilgrimages to Jerusalem:  Passover, Shavou’ot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Tabernacles), which constitute game-changing milestones in the formation of Jewish history, documenting the 4,000-year-old Jewish roots in the Land of Israel, and the unique linkage between the Land of Israel, Judaism and the Jewish people.

Shavou’ot is a historical, national, agricultural and spiritual extension of Passover. Passover highlights the physical liberty from slavery in Egypt; Shavou’ot highlights spiritual liberty, embracing the values of the Torah, the Ten Commandments and six chapters of The Ethics of our Fathers (Pirkey Avot). The eve of Shavou’ot is dedicated to an all-night study of Jewish values.

Shavou’ot is also called the Holiday of the Harvest (ביכורים), since it concludes the harvesting season, which starts during Passover.

Shavou’ot (שבועות) means “weeks” in Hebrew and its spelling is identical to the Hebrew word “vows.”
Shavou’ot commemorates the 40 years of the Exodus, which entailed tough challenges on the road to the Land of Israel, forging the state-of-mind of the Jewish people and the Jewish State.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19659/persecution-of-christians-april

“The Taliban are offering money for Afghans to turn in any Christians they know. And Afghans are desperate, further heightening the security risk [to] Christians.” — mnnonline, April 3, 2023, Afghanistan.

[P]olice raided a large group of Christians, mostly college students, as they “gathered to sing and record video clips for social media.” One-hundred-and three of them, “mainly students,” were arrested and sent to prison. “This latest arrest puts the number of Christian prisoners detained indefinitely without trial in Eritrea to more than 500…. Mai Serwa [prison]…is … known for its use of torture and other forms of mistreatment, including beatings, starvation, and denial of medical care. The Eritrean government detains individuals without charge or trial and has held many in detention for years without access to legal representation or the due process of law.” — International Christian Concern, persecution.org, April 24, 2023, Eritrea.

[I]n one night of unfathomable horror … men, women, and children were slaughtered like chicken….” — persecution.org, April 28, 2023 — Democratic Republic of Congo.

The “pure genocide” of Christians, as it has been characterized by several international observers, reached new levels, according to an Apr. 10 report, which found that since 2009, 52,250 Christians in Nigeria “have been butchered or hacked to death.” – Nigeria.

“Political Islam replaces the laws or interprets them differently so that they restrict the practice of other religions. It also works to change the culture of society — which puts it under great pressure — so that it becomes more radical and extreme, not only toward other religions but also toward other Islamic sects.” — catholicnewsagency.com, 2023, Libya.

[P]olice arrested two illiterate cleaners—a Christian widow and a Muslim gardener—on the accusation that they had intentionally burned pages from the Koran, thereby committing “blasphemy.” — morningstarnews.org, April 24, 2023, Pakistan.

“Don’t tell me that if you entered a church your faith would waver. Every other person of a different religion here hears the [Islamic] call to prayer five times a day [and their faith doesn’t waver].” — Syed Saddiq, Malaysian politician, christiantoday.com, April 7, 2023, Malaysia.

“Indonesia’s Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 (SKB) makes requirements for obtaining permits nearly impossible for most new churches. Even when small, new churches are able to meet the requirement of obtaining 90 signatures of approval from congregation members and 60 from area households of different religions, they are often met with delays or lack of response from officials. Well-organized radical Muslims secretly mobilize outside people to intimidate and pressure members of minority faiths.” — morningstarnews.org, April 6, 2023, Indonesia.

The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of April, 2023:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19648/murdered-like-animals-the-genocide-of-christians

[S]ince the Islamic uprising began in 2009, 52,250 Christians “have been butchered or hacked to death” in Nigeria. — Report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (“Intersociety”), April 10, 2023.

In just the first 100 days of this year [Jan.1-April 10], “no fewer than 1,041 defenseless Christians were hacked to death by Nigeria’s Jihadists …” — Report by Intersociety, April 10, 2023.

[R]oughly 15-20% of the slaughters were attributed to “Nigerian security forces, particularly the Nigerian Army.”

By far, however, the worst killers are the “Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen who specifically target and massacre Christians and wantonly destroy or burn down their sacred places of worship and learning; homes and farmlands.” — Report by Intersociety, April 10, 2023.

The Intersociety report makes clear that the jihadists are fervently trying to cleanse Nigeria of any Christian presence….

“This Jihad is based on the Doctrine of Hate taught in Mosques and Islamic Madrasas in northern Nigeria as well as the supremacist ideology of the Fulani. Using both conventional (violent) Jihad, and stealth (civilization) Jihad, the Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. … We want a Nigeria, where citizens are treated equally before the law at all levels….” – Christian Association of Nigeria, May 4, 2018.

Turkey…, once a bastion of ancient Christianity with churches everywhere, has, after the Turkish conquest, become so thoroughly Islamized, that its ancient basilicas, such as Hagia Sophia, now serve as mosques.

Although the report appeared on April 10, the massacres and atrocities have continued relentlessly since.

Sunday, Apr. 16…. One 5-year-old boy was beheaded.

[N]ews outlets—including the Catholic News Agency—fail to identify the religions of either the murdered or their murderers. This video, which otherwise captures the tragic aftermath, refers to the Muslim terrorists as “bandits” and their Christian victims as “villagers.”

Esther Duniya, a 14-year-old Christian girl, was abducted from school and forcibly converted to Islam. Instead of helping her father and aunt recover her, police handed the girl “to Daawa, the Islamic group in charge – of converting and indoctrinating Muslims converts….” — The Guardian, May 10, 2023.

[T]he government of Muhammadu Buhari, the Muslim president of Nigeria, has only “protected” the “Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen” to “the extent that the Jihadists now invade any Christian Community of their target at will and slaughter its natives and takeover their lands and properties at will.” — Report by Intersociety, April 10, 2023.

According to several Christian leaders in Nigeria (see below), the reason formerly simple Fulani herdsmen have, since Buhari became president in 2015, managed to kill nearly twice as many Christians as the “professional” terrorists (Boko Haram, ISWA, etc.), is “because President Buhari is also of the Fulani ethnic group.” — Breitbart, June 27, 2018.

“Under President Buhari, the murderous Fulani herdsmen enjoyed unprecedented protection and favoritism… Rather than arrest and prosecute the Fulani herdsmen, security forces usually manned by Muslims from the North offer them protection as they unleash terror with impunity on the Nigerian people.” — Rev. Musa Asake, the General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria, January 16, 2018.

“What Obama, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton did to Nigeria by funding and supporting [current president Muhammadu] Buhari in the 2015 presidential election and helping Boko Haram in 2014/2015 was sheer wickedness and the blood of all those killed by the Buhari administration, his Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram over the last 5 years are on their hands.” — Femi Fani-Kayode, Nigeria’s former Minister of Culture and Tourism, churchmilitant.com, February 21, 2020.

Despite all this, the American “mainstream” remains committed to describing the jihad in Nigeria as a byproduct of “inequality” and “poverty,” to quote former US President Bill Clinton, who once explained what was “fueling all this stuff” (the “stuff” being a reference to the genocide of Christians in Nigeria).

In their quest to blame anything and everything but Islamic, specifically jihadist, ideology, even climate change has been added to the mainstream arsenal of reasons fueling the genocide of Christians.

Worst of all has been the Biden administration’s response. In 2020, Trump placed Nigeria on the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern—that is, nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Under Biden, however, the State Department removed Nigeria—this nation where one Christian is butchered every two hours—from the list.

For mainstream media and politicians, black lives—52,250 now and counting—do not matter — at least not when those lives are Christians’ being slaughtered by Muslims.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/05/chinas-great-plan-coming-to-a-country-near-you/

“China is not interested in invading Australia. It is not a threat to anyone,” the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said in a National Press Club interview on March 15. It was an astonishing statement from a man who usually displays a sound awareness of national and global affairs, because the course of events shows that China is intent on being the dominant world power. Indeed, it has unwaveringly and determinedly followed a plan and a process to that effect for almost fifty years.

In 1976 Mao Zedong died and was replaced in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping. Deng never held the posts of chairman or president, but nevertheless he was the de facto supreme leader for over a decade and his government commenced a process and implemented a broad-brush plan which established the principles and the basis for all its actions ever since. The process has been applied in a resolute, methodical and single-minded fashion. Because of the secretive nature of China’s government it is not clear if a definitive original plan exists in a single document, but its key elements are clear from the trajectory of the nation’s development in recent decades. Countless papers have been written about China, but this article summarises the core features of the process and the plan as evidenced by the way they have been implemented. The plan and the process of implementation have been modified and refined over time, but there are several key elements that have remained steadfast.

The aim of the plan is simple and straightforward: to establish China as the pre-eminent nation in the world. This objective was prompted by the sense of national humiliation that Chinese people felt they had experienced at the hands of Western countries since the early nineteenth century. Also, it stemmed from the self-belief that China had always been a great nation and that it should become great again. The plan requires that everything—everything—must be dedicated to that end, and all the actions of the Chinese government, Chinese corporations, individuals, and all social and cultural agencies are expected to contribute. Moreover, all international activities undertaken by China, including those which appear to be benign and benevolent (such as foreign aid and Confucius institutes), must be seen as contributing in some way to the progress of the mother country.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/15/iranian-women-fight-to-the-end/

As the nationwide uprising in Iran enters its eighth month, the bewildered mullahs, bereft of ideas on how to control their infuriated population, have reverted to their time-worn acts of vicious oppression.

The inappropriate wearing of the hijab by women has become front and center the key issue of the uprising, which began with the killing in custody by the morality police, last September, of the young Kurdish girl, Mahsa Amini, for not wearing her hijab properly. For the theocratic regime, the oppression of women and their status as second-class citizens, is fundamental to their survival.

Schoolgirls who joined the demonstrations led to a sharp rebuke from the Supreme Leader, the elderly and deluded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who told a Friday prayer meeting that the girls should be punished for their disrespectful behaviour. Hardliners have interpreted this as an open invitation to act and there have been repeated reports of toxic chemical attacks on primary and secondary schools in towns and cities throughout Iran. Thousands of girls have been hospitalized with nausea and severe breathing problems, while two young girls have died.

In an attempt to appease the demonstrators, it even seemed as if the morality police had been reined in for a few weeks. Their notorious green and white vans, which regularly patrol the streets, had disappeared from view. But the new police chief – Ahmadreza Radan, appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in January after his predecessor was sacked, has reversed those commands, and ordered a renewed crackdown on women who violate the hijab rules.

CCTV cameras have been installed in public spaces and shopping malls to identify unveiled women. The mullahs have announced the closure of dozens of businesses that served women not wearing the hijab. Last week, the state-linked Tasnim news website reported that the sprawling Opal Shopping Center in western Tehran was facing closure because it had become a common meeting place for young women not wearing the hijab.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19642/china-embraces-brazil-partner

Chinese President Xi Jinping also apparently persuaded Lula to support the use of China’s yuan to replace the dollar as the global standard currency…. China also might want Brazil to grant permission to purchase additional farmland. China already owns more than 200,000 hectares of Brazilian land.

The Brazilian leader’s fifth visit to China on April 14 was a stark contrast to his cool visit to the US this past February.

Brazil’s warming ties to China also have an economic purpose. China is Brazil’s largest trading partner, and Brazil exports a great deal of agricultural produce to China. Brazil appears hopeful for increased Chinese investment to modernize its industrial plants as well as technology transfer for its semiconductor production.

Above all, Lula has praised China’s rhetoric favoring the establishment of a new, non-US led international order based on multipolarity. China has acknowledged Lula’s support by emphasizing Brazil’s prominent role in the multinational “BRICS” alliance consisting of Brazil. Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

The Chinese triumph, however, may prove short-lived. Bolsonaro — who condemned China as a “predator” and infuriated the CCP by visiting Taiwan in February 2018 when he was campaigning for the presidency — remains popular and may run against Lula in Brazil’s next presidential election.

The mid-April visit to China of newly inaugurated Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) is an apparent triumph for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its effort to broaden its influence in Latin America. The visit also seems to have served Lula’s legacy dream of being perceived as a moral beacon and advocate for the impoverished “Global South.”

Lula, now 76, is serving his third term as Brazil’s president, after barely defeating the pro-US and conservative nationalist former President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula has long been an advocate of a socialist model of economic development. He once expressed his respect for the CCP, on an earlier visit to China, “for having created this grand miracle.” According to Wang Yi , CCP Director of Foreign Affairs, Lula also expressed admiration for China’s having brought millions out of poverty and hunger.