HISTORIANS ARE CONTESTING PUTIN’S INTERVIEW CLAIMS

Researchers say Putin’s vision of Russia amounts to a selective abuse of history to justify the ongoing war in Ukraine. (Credit: Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin began his interview with US talk show host Tucker Carlson with a 30-minute lecture on Russian and Ukrainian history. But historians tell the BBC the Russian leader’s claims are nonsensical.

On the establishment of Russia and Ukraine

Mr. Putin claimed that 862 – when Scandinavian prince Rurik was invited to rule over the city of Novgorod, the capital of the Rus – was the year of the “establishment of the Russian state.” He contrasts this with Ukraine, which he insists was “created” as late as the 20th Century. But Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says the claim is “a complete falsehood.” “You could equally say that Ukraine as a state began its development in the ninth Century, exactly with the same kind of evidence and documents,” he said.

On Poland’s ‘collaboration with Hitler’

Mr. Putin claimed Poland – which was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 – “collaborated with Hitler.”  Anita Prazmowska, a professor emerita at the LSE, says while it’s true the first treaty Hitler signed after coming to power was a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934, Mr .Putin is conflating diplomatic outreach to a threatening neighbour with collaboration. “The accusation that the Poles were collaborating is nonsense,” she says. “It just so happened that the Soviet Union also signed treaties with Germany [at the same time].”  (BBC, 2/9/2024)

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TRUMP SENDS EUROPE INTO A PANIC

Speaking at a South Carolina rally on Saturday, Donald Trump said he would “encourage” Russia to attack NATO members that don’t meet their financial obligations. “No I would not protect you, in fact I would encourage them to do whatever they want,” the former president and likely GOP 2024 nominee thundered. “You gotta pay.”  (Gzero Signal, 2/12/2024).

950 million people live within the NATO alliance.  (Scripps News, 2/12/2024)

NATO CHIEF WARNS AGAINST TRUMP’S POSITION ON ALLIANCE

What happened 
The NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said that any assault on the Western military alliance would be met with a “collective and robust reaction” after Donald Trump threatened to encourage Russia to attack countries that have not contributed enough money.

Who said what
“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” Stoltenberg said. His statement came in response to Trump’s comments at a rally in South Carolina that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to any European countries he deemed to be in arrears.

The commentary 
This is “not the first time Trump has singled out NATO,” said The Times. Indeed, he spent much of his four-year presidency “undermining it while strong-arming members into keeping their commitments to spend more on their own militaries,” said the New York Times, with the threat that “he would not come to their aid otherwise.”

What next? 
Despite NATO’s alarm, further attacks by Moscow do not appear imminent. In his interview with Tucker Carlson last week, Vladimir Putin said that while Russia would fight for its interests “to the end” it had no desire to expand its war in Ukraine to other countries. Putin’s reticence is understandable, considering Russia’s military is already “overextended” in Ukraine, The Guardian said.

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CHINA PREPARES FOR US TAKEOVER

China’s Communist Party is at this moment putting in place the infrastructure in America to attack America.

In Reedley, California, near Fresno, authorities found a secret Chinese biological weapons lab with at least 20 pathogens, including the one for Ebola, and almost a thousand mice that had been genetically engineered to spread disease.

Chinese agents, in addition to hobbling Americans with disease and gunning them down, could bomb power stations, attack military bases, start wildfires, poison reservoirs, or create terror in dozens of ways.

These tactics come straight out of Unrestricted Warfare, a 1999 book written by two Chinese air force colonels and first published by the PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House in Beijing. The colonels argued that China can and should employ any tactic in attacking a militarily superior United States. Now, Americans can see how Beijing is operationalizing the suggestions in this how-to manual.   (Gordon Chang, Gatestone, 2/13/2024).

12 FEBRUARY 1912 — The last Qing Emperor of China, Puyi (aged six), abdicates after losing the support of the Chinese people. Modern day China often harks back to the Qing dynasty when making claims to lands including Taiwan, which it calls an inalienable part of its territory. Historians, in turn, recall that even under Qing rule there were more than 100 recorded rebellions in Taiwan, highlighting the island’s complex history.  (The Week, 2/12/2024)

Chinese Influencer Zhou Zheng: Never Believe What The Jews Say; We Only Hear About The Holocaust, But Not About How The ‘Filthy Rich Jews’ Previously Betrayed ‘Kind’ Germany; The Jews’ Crimes Against China Are Even Worse Than Those Against Germany (MEMRI, 2/9/2024)

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THE EXPLAINER

What are the Regency Acts?

As the nation absorbs the news of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis, what happens if he becomes unable to fulfil his constitutional duties is another concern.

“Much of his private work will continue,” according to the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason, and the monarch will still “receive his red boxes, the daily exchange of paperwork at the heart of his role.”

But if he were to become seriously ill, a piece of legislation called the Regency Act could come into play.

What is the Regency Act?

The Regency Act of 1937 was introduced during the reign of King Charles’s grandfather, King George VI. It states that if the monarch “by reason of infirmity of mind or body” is “incapable for the time being of performing the royal functions,” a “regent” would be appointed to take their place until they have recovered.    (The Week, 2/12/2024)

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MEDIA BIAS

One can understand why Al-Jazeera and Arab media journalists are so anti-Israel that they do not want to provide a platform to any Palestinian to criticize Hamas. Yet, one cannot understand why the foreign media is turning a blind eye to the critical voices coming out from the Gaza Strip and Palestinians and Arabs living outside the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.  Why? These journalists are busy searching for stories that reflect badly only on Israel.  (Bassam Tawil, Gatestone, 2/12/2024)

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5 FEBRUARY 1944

The “Captain America” serial film premieres, starring Dick Purcell. The film was the first appearance of a Marvel superhero outside a comic. Today, Marvel movies loom large over the film industry. However, “superhero fatigue” is beginning to set in, Forbes said, with the last major Marvel Studios film, “The Marvels,” underperforming at the box office.  (The Week, 2/5/2024)

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Biden has opened the floodgates of Hell. Although nothing is inevitable, we are fast approaching the point where, as a practical matter, he will not be able to stop China and Russia, directly and through proxies, from merging existing conflicts and turning them into the next global war.  (Gordon G. Chang, Gatestone, 6/6/2023)

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A 13-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted in a public toilet while the gang of thugs made her boyfriend watch.  Police say that seven suspects were involved in the horrific attack that took place last Tuesday in Sicily, Italy, The Sun reports.

Cops have now arrested seven young Egyptian migrants – four adults and three minors, aged between 15 to 19.   (The Sun, 2/6/2024)

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Scripture Reading — Revelation 1:9-16

I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.  (Revelation 1:9)

John explains to his first readers that he understands what it means to suffer for the cause of Christ. He is imprisoned on the island of Patmos “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” John confirms that anyone who follows Jesus is not excused from persecution. In fact, Jesus told his followers to expect it. As Jesus’ enemies did to him, they will do to his followers (John 15:18-20, 33). But Jesus also rose victorious from death and ascended to the Father’s right hand. And the church will follow. “Patient endurance” is needed through trials and suffering for God’s kingdom while his people live here on earth, but full life with God forever is promised for all who keep serving him. Next John notes that Jesus announces himself with a trumpet-like voice, telling him to write to the seven churches. John turns around to see who is speaking, and a man is standing there among seven lampstands, dressed in a royal robe, with hair and eyes reflecting images of the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel 7:9, and with a voice like the sound of rushing waters (see Ezekiel 43:2). This “son of man” can be trusted despite what his enemies might do, for this is Jesus, the Lord of his church! (Evan Heerema, Our Daily Bread, 2/6/2024)

RUSSIA AND CHINA IN ANTI-WESTERN GROUPING

Russia and China are drawing closer together, though they have not signed a treaty.   I suspect this may be because China does not want to be seen supporting the loser in the world’s biggest on-going conflict.   They will, however, back Russia with armaments.  Of course, with Russia and China supporting each other, the threat to the West has increased.  There is also a financial threat here – for some time, both countries have not liked the fact that much of their trade is in US dollars.  Expect them to try and change that.  Also, expect the “alliance” to grow.  Iran and North Korea are two other countries that will help the big 2.  Lots of smaller countries may also be added.  Russia and China staged naval manoevres in the Indian Ocean, with South Africa, a country that has noticeably not condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine.  The conflict is not over, and the risk of nuclear war has increased in recent weeks, if only because the Russians will not lose!

China warns of inevitable US conflict

China’s new foreign minister said that his nation and the US are heading towards inevitable conflict if Washington does not “hit the brake.”  In a press conference described as “fiery” by The Guardian, Qin Gang presented China and its relationship with Russia as a “beacon of strength and stability,” and the one between the US and its allies as “a source of tension and conflict”, said the paper. CNN noted that “ties between the world’s two largest economies are at their worst in decades.”  (The Week, 3/7/2023)

The German Bundeswehr is preparing to dispatch ground forces to a major exercise in the Asia-Pacific region. The Bundeswehr announced that “alongside troops from the sea battalion and the air force” an infantry company from the army will also be dispatched this summer, for the first time, to Australia to participate in the Talisman Sabre 2023 combat exercises. The Talisman Sabre maneuvers are being held every two years and are reputed to be Australia and the United States’ largest joint training operations. Participants include Japan and South Korea and, according to reports, also France, whose colony New Caledonia is not far away from the exercise region, which covers areas of Australia’s state of Queensland and the Coral Sea. Over the past two years, Bundeswehr units have been dispatched to combat exercises in the Asia-Pacific region: From August 2021 to February 2022 the frigate Bayern, in the summer of 2022 an air force squadron. Both will be continued next year. The Asia-Pacific exercises are being conducted alongside new NATO operations in the region – and are intensifying the escalation of the power struggle against China.   (German Foreign Policy)

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IRAN PLANNING DEATHS OF PROMINENT AMERICANS

Amid the report that a top Iranian regime military official on Friday urged the murders of the ex-commander of the United States Central Command General Kenneth McKenzie, former President Trump, and former Secretary State of Mike Pompeo, a new report asserts that Iran is likely behind a “kill list” targeting law enforcement agencies in Boston.

Amirali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace, declared during a televised interview last week that, “Inshallah (God willing) we will be able to kill Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo (former) CENTCOM chief Kenneth McKenzie, and others who ordered killing of Qasem Soleimani.”

The U.S. military killed Soleimani with a drone strike in January 2020 because the EU and U.S.-designated terrorist was planning an attack and was responsible for the murder of over 600 American military personnel.  (MEF, 3/1/2023)

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 Fighting the airlines for pilots

The Air Force’s efforts to bolster its number of pilots is hindered by two factors. First, the service spent more than two decades of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, where pilots were worn out by nonstop deployment. At the same time, Air Force leaders must counter the headwinds of robust civilian-sector employment.

Second, most active-duty pilots head into the private sector in their mid-30s, after amassing about 10 years of flight experience, Riley said. At that point in their career, airmen make about $63,000 a year, plus bonus and combat pay. This can make them attractive candidates for commercial airlines, which are also starving for workers. There, former airmen can fly for higher pay and less paperwork and other extraneous duties.

The 12 major U.S. airlines — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Atlas, Delta, FedEx, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, United and UPS — hired more than 13,000 pilots in 2022, according to data compiled by the consulting firm Future and Active Pilot Advisors.

That’s more than the previous three years combined, and the largest single-year hiring spree since 1990.

About 25% — or 3,280 — of the pilots hired by those 12 companies last year came from the military, the advisory firm told Air Force Times.

But money isn’t the only factor. Airmen leave for any combination of reasons, such as a desire for more stability at home, to avoid being shuffled into office jobs, or, simply, burnout. Others may feel like they got what they wanted out of military service, or that it’s time for a new challenge, Air Force leaders and former troops have said.   (Air Force Times, 3/3/2023)

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Filthy Seam of Sabotage – how thieving cartels are plunging South Africa into darkness.

Intelligence reports obtained by Daily Maverick link two senior members of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet to four criminal cartels operating inside Eskom. This is the story of how they steal from and destroy the infrastructure meant to be keeping your lights on.  (Daily Maverick, 4 March 2023, by Ethan van Diemen)

New intelligence reports obtained by Daily Maverick outline how four cartels, allegedly with links to two senior members of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet have been able to infiltrate the entire power value chain for personal enrichment and to meet political ends. Although we cannot yet reveal the names of the Cabinet members for legal reasons, and many of the sites, tactics and other detailed specifics of how the cartels operate are deliberately left vague because investigations are ongoing, we can begin here to paint a picture of how Eskom is being sabotaged.

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TO THE POINT

• The World Obesity Federation has warned that more than half the world’s population will be classed as obese or overweight by 2035 if authorities do not act now. The report says that more than four billion people will be affected, with rates rising fastest among children, and in low or middle-income countries in Africa and Asia. The organization forecasts that the cost of obesity will rise to more than $4tn (£3.3tn) annually by 2035. It comes as the demand for obesity drugs continues to skyrocket in the Western world. (The Week, 3/3/2023)

• Art and gardening classes will replace codeine and antidepressants as part of an NHS drive to help millions stop using prescription drugs, said The Times. Under new national guidance, GPs are asked to stop writing repeat prescriptions for those who have become dependent on common medications. The NHS England plan, which “aims to avoid a US-style opioid crisis,” recommends that patients be sent to art, music or gardening classes, instead of being prescribed painkillers. Pharmacists will be asked to watch for people who frequently buy codeine over the counter.  (The Week)

• Rising living costs meant UK consumers “sharply cut back” spending in February, reported The Guardian. Although total sales rose by 5.2% in February compared with a year earlier, up from January’s annual growth rate of 4.2%, much of the rise was a result of high inflation pushing up the value of goods sold, said the British Retail Consortium. A separate report from Barclays found the weakness in sales was because of a reduction in discretionary purchases due to the cost of living squeeze.  (The Week, 3/7/2023)

• Prince Harry is close to “being exiled” from the royal family after “self-sabotaging” his relationship with his brother, according to Lady Victoria Hervey. The model compared the relationship between the two brothers to Cain and Abel, the biblical brothers. In the story, Cain murders his brother after God showed favour to Abel’s sacrifice. “It’s becoming a bit of a blood sport,” Hervey said of the royal siblings. “Harry is getting himself closer and closer to being exiled. I think he’s only one or two steps away from that happening.”

PERSONAL COMMENTS

For months media have been warning that we are all going to starve.   Then, this morning came the warning that within a few years half of the people are going to be obese.   You can’t have it both ways!

It’s hard to believe but it’s exactly 34 years since the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan.

The Soviet Union collapsed two years later.   Could history repeat itself?   Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, answered questions at the G20 in India, and actually said the war in Ukraine was the result of provocation from Ukraine.   The audience (Indians and others) laughed. 

In Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has stepped down as First Minister.   A replacement now must be found.   There are three candidates:  Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan.   Predictably, Katie Forbes has been attacked.  She is a conservative Christian who believes that sex should only be within marriage.   Interestingly, Mr. Yousaf’s Islamic religion has not been questioned.  You can be anything you want in the West today, except a conservative Christian.

I decided not to buy a copy of Prince Harry’s book.   Partly because it was $36, and partly because I don’t believe a word he says.  So, I requested a copy from the library.  I got to page 16 and asked myself why am I reading this?  I don’t believe a word he says.  So I returned the book to the library, where I suggested they put it in the fiction section.

7^th March. Adolf Hitler breaks the Treaty of Versailles by sending troops into the Rhineland.   We’ve made no real progress in the 87 years since then.  Then, it was Hitler; today it’s Vladimir Putin.  Dictators never learn.

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ANGLICAN SPLIT

This morning, I was able to watch an Anglican priest speak to the Oxford Union (the word’s best debating society), encouraging the Church of England to return to its traditional teachings on sex and the sanctity of marriage.  Calvin Robinson is clearly a conservative when it comes to morality.  He spoke on the subject watched by hostile eyes trying to push the church toward “diversity” and “inclusivity’.   Mr. Robinson can be seen regularly on GB News.  (In the US, via YouTube. Try and watch Mr. Robinson’s presentation.  I saw it this morning on YouTube.)

There aren’t any scriptures which justify today’s liberal values.   He quoted the Apostle Paul and Christ Himself in support of his conservatism. 

The Church is falling apart over this issue, with thousands of people staying home rather than hear the liberal views of the church hierarchy.

Acts 5:29 tells us to obey God rather than men.  This means keeping God’s Laws on morality, regardless of what modern interpretations put on things.   This age is only temporary.   Given time, people will go back to God’s way of doing things, because nothing else works.

GERMANY THIRD BIGGEST MILITARY POWER

The boost in defense spending comes after the public circumspection of former German defense leaders who have said the military is unprepared for the challenges confronting European security after Russia invaded Ukraine. (https://www.dw.com/en/germany-commits-100-billion-to-defense-spending/a-60933724)

According to al-Jazeera, after Germany spends the additional $100 billion on rearming, it will be the third biggest military power in the world. Even if al-Jazeera is wrong, the conclusion is a reflection of Germany’s growing military strength.

The German government is planning coercive measures to downscale German companies’ business activities in China. According to reports, the German Ministry of Economics is not only preparing to severely restrict the usual government guarantees for foreign business ventures for business in the People’s Republic. Introducing compulsory notification for investments in China is also in discussion – with the possibility of rejection. Similar measures in the USA serve as a model. Berlin is reacting to the fact that it has not yet succeeded in downscaling business activities in China. According to a recent study, German investments in – as well as exports from – the People’s Republic have reached all-time highs in the first half of 2022. This has resulted from German companies not discontinuing, but rather “localizing” their activities in China, to make them crisis-proof. The People’s Republic is considered an indispensable market of the future. The coercive measures being pursued by Berlin, particularly by the Green-led ministries, are likely to drive German industry into decline.   (German Foreign Policy, 8/29/2022)

Germany’s north-south divide flares up over energy crisis – The war in Ukraine has enflamed north-south rivalries among the German states, as Bavaria and Lower Saxony swap barbs over energy policy.  Upcoming regional elections have heightened the political stakes.  (Deutsche Welle, 28 Aug 2022)

Sky News reports today, Tuesday, August 30^th, that Germany is to reopen a number of coal mines, closed years ago for environmental reasons.  This is due to Russia’s turning off the gas to Germany.   Germans will need heat during the coming winter.  Coal is the world’s dirtiest fuel.

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BRITAIN UNDER SIEGE

In 1941 the English Channel proved very effective in preventing an invasion by Adolf Hitler’s Germany, but it has proved much less effective in 2022 in deterring an invasion of illegal migrants from North Africa and the Middle East.

On one day last week almost 1300 of these migrants reached the English coast in 27 boats. These took the total number of arrivals for the eight months of this year to almost 23,000, close to double the number who had crossed the Channel by the same time last year.

All of these arrivals presumably will claim asylum as political refugees in Britain, thereby sparking legal proceedings that will take many years to determine, if ever. What they know is, once they have landed in Britain, the overwhelming likelihood is they will never be forced to leave. They are, of course, not political refugees but economic immigrants.

This is an issue of sovereignty. Britain has left the EU but is still subject to a court in Strasbourg, France. Why the British government is prepared to accept such a situation is difficult to answer.

The problem with the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees is that it defines a refugee as a person who has left their country because of a well-founded view of being persecuted in that country by reason of race, religion, nationality, membership of a political social group or political opinion. It no doubt was thought in 1951 that there would be individuals from time to time in this category but no one envisaged a situation where millions of people in some regions wanted to leave their countries and move to more attractive ones.

It also was assumed in 1951 that refugees would seek asylum in the first country in which they arrived after leaving their own unsafe regime. But, as in the case of those crossing the Channel, it is now possible to move. (“Britain besieged by economic migrants,” Michael Sexton, The Australian, 8/30/2022)

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SWEDEN’S CRIME WAVE

• Sweden has in just two generations gone from being one of the safest countries in the world to being one of the most dangerous countries in Europe. During the same time, mass immigration has dramatically altered Sweden’s population. 1.2 million of those eligible to vote in the elections in September 2022 were born outside Sweden…
• Basem Mahmoud is an imam operating in the heavily Muslim-dominated area of Rosengård in Malmö. He has called Jews “the offspring of pigs and apes,” said he was “only quoting the Koran,” and is looking forward to “the great battle” when all non-Muslims will be forced to submit themselves to Muslims.
• In a sermon in February 2022, Mahmoud went on the attack against Swedish schools and social services and stated that Muslims are taking over the country. “Sweden is ours,” he said. “It is ours, whether they [Swedes] like it or not. In ten to fifteen years, it is ours.”
• Sweden has one of the world’s worst recorded rape rates. In 2018, the state broadcaster SVT revealed that 58% of men convicted in Sweden of rape and attempted rape over the previous five years were born abroad. Some of the most brutal rape cases have involved Muslim or African immigrants.  (Peder Jensen, Gatestone, 8/25/2022)

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FRANCE

CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

• Comparing only the weekly frequency of Friday prayers in the mosque and Sunday Mass in the church, the future is clear: 65% of practicing Catholics [in France] are over 50 years old. By contrast, 73% of practicing Muslims are under the age of 50.

• “[A] mosque is erected every fortnight in France, while a Christian building is being destroyed at the same rate.” — Edouard de Lamaze, president of the Observatory of Religious Heritage in Paris; Catholic News Agency, May 4, 2021.   (Gatestone, 8/28/2022)

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A DOUBLE STANDARD

“If Pelosi and Biden see the world struggle as between autocracy and democracy, a question arises:  As leader of the democracy camp in this world struggle, why do we not insist that our allies in places like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, the UAE and Oman begin to hold regular elections to bring to power legitimate democratic rulers, rather than the autocrats that currently occupy the seats of power?”  (Pat Buchanan, 8/23/2022)

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TO THE POINT

• Liz Truss has been accused of “running scared” after she pulled out of an interview with the BBC. Just weeks ago, the foreign secretary agreed to a prime time interview with Nick Robinson on BBC One. However, she has now cancelled. Rishi Sunak, her Tory leadership rival, has already been quizzed by Robinson. “Ms. Truss’s team say she can no longer spare the time to appear on Our Next Prime Minister,” said the BBC. “We regret that it has not been possible to do an in-depth interview with both candidates despite having reached agreement to do so.” (The Week, 8/30/2022)

• The planning minister in Pakistan said early estimates showed that devastating floods have caused at least $10bn (£8.5bn) of damage. Pakistan received a $1.1bn bailout from the International Monetary Fund yesterday, intended to help the cash-strapped economy avoid defaulting on its debts. All four of the country’s provinces have been hit by unusually heavy rains, with more than 30m people affected. (The Week, 8/30/2022)

• Ukraine has broken through Russia’s first line of defence in the occupied Kherson region. Officials said military operations to retake Russian-held areas of the south are underway, with a source telling CNN that Ukraine’s troops had taken back four villages near the city of Kherson. The BBC said the development appears to form part of a “long-awaited counter-offensive” being launched by Kyiv in an attempt to retake the country’s south.  (The Week, 8/30/2022)

• Drinking tea could be associated with a lower risk of mortality, a study has found. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health found that compared with those who do not drink tea, people who consumed two or more cups each day had between a 9% and 13% lower risk of death. Last year, The Guardian reported that drinking coffee or tea may be linked with a lower risk of stroke and dementia, according to the largest study of its kind.  (The Week, 8/30/2022)

• Palestinian Islamic Jihad Official Bassam Al-Agha: Arab Schools Should Teach The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion; Students Should Learn How The Jews Think (MEMRI, 8/30/2022)

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FINAL THOUGHT

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is turning out to be a major game changer.

It has led Russia to ally itself with China, Iran and North Korea.    Also included in the latest military exercises are India and Mongolia. 

The West has imposed economic sanctions on Russia.   Russia is now imposing their own sanctions on western countries, denying them sales of natural gas and gasoline.

Europe, meanwhile, has never been so united.   Virtually all the countries on the continent are now members of NATO and are pledged to help each other in the event of a Russian invasion.  Ukraine has applied to join the EU.

Germany has decided to increase military spending by $100 billion.   It’s taken 77 years for Germany to overcome its reluctance to rearm following World War II.

It could still be a few years before we see the ten nations come together in a closer union.

“The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”   (Revelation 17:12-14 NKJV: New King James Version)

But we are seeing Europe come closer together – and all because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT UKRAINE

Of course, it’s about Ukraine.  But it’s also about Europe and Europe’s biggest economy, Germany.  

Europe was powerless to stop the invasion of Ukraine. 

For seventy years, it has not been spending enough on defense.   Now it sees clearly that it must spend more.   The West has been delusional, thinking everybody wants peace and all disagreements can be talked through.

The biggest problem is German guilt over World War II.  Germany has held back from spending more on defense lest neighboring nations get the wrong idea.

Wednesday’s headline in Metro, a London paper, is “Shunned by the World,” purporting to show the world united against Putin.  But consider:  According to Wikipedia only 6.4% of the world’s people live in a real democracy.  A further 40% live in partial democracies.   That still leaves over half that are not free.  These figures show that Putin doesn’t have to worry too much about sanctions – there are plenty of nations that will trade with him.

Is Germany solidly democratic?

When Germany put out feelers to end World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson insisted on the Kaiser being removed before the US would consider any agreement with Germany.   But by removing the Kaiser, the Americans opened the door for Adolf Hitler.

At the end of World War II, NATO was established to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down,” to quote the first Secretary General of NATO, General Ismay. Now, the Germans are being encouraged to rearm.  Who knows what it will lead to?

The Bible speaks of a final European based union of ten nations, which will only make things worse.   Revelation 17:12-14 says:

^“ “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. ¹³ These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴ These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”

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NOW, THE BIGGEST SPENDER ON DEFENSE

• The measures represent a complete reversal of Germany’s post-Cold War Russia policy – which focused on pursuing economic ties rather than confrontation with Moscow – and mark a definitive end to the era of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
• “We are living through a watershed era. And that means that the world afterwards will no longer be the same as the world before. The core question is whether power is allowed to prevail over the law. Will we allow Putin to turn the clock back to the 19th century and the age of great powers? Or can we muster the strength to keep warmongers like Putin in check. That requires strength of our own. Yes, we fully intend to secure our freedom, our democracy and our prosperity.” — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Bundestag, February 27, 2022.
• The significance of the German U-turn cannot be overstated: Germany will become the biggest spender on defense in Europe.  (“Germany abandons pro-Putin policy,” Soeren Kern, Gatestone, 3/1/2022)

NATO is uniting. Germany has voted to raise its defense budget and send its own anti-tank weapons and Stingers to Ukraine.  (Pat Buchanan, 3/1/2022)

A New Era in Berlin:  Germany Goes Big on Defense Spending

For years, Germany has starved its military of money.  But on Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced massive new defense spending.  Der Spiegal has learned what the money will be used for.

Whenever things get serious, the chief of defense, Germany’s senior-most military officer, calls a meeting of the Military Command Council, the most powerful body of Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr. The most important generals and admirals in the country then gather in a bug-proof room at the Defense Ministry in Berlin for a face-to-face.

Such a meeting was called for Monday afternoon, and this time, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), joined the group as a guest. It was a clear sign that she and her top generals had some difficult decisions to make.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has completely upended the fundamental constants of German security policy. German troops are being rapidly sent to Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank. At the same time, six German warships have set off to strengthen the alliance’s northern flank. And since Sunday, the country’s military leadership finds itself facing a problem that they didn’t expect at all. The country’s defense forces, which have struggled for years to make ends meet, suddenly has money. A lot of money. In his speech on Sunday to a special session of German parliament, Scholz announced emergency funding of the German military to the tune of 100 billion euros while also pledging to boost defense spending to above 2 percent of gross national product. (Matthias Gebauer and Konstantin von Hammerstein, Der Spiegal, 1st March, 2022, Germany)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has inadvertently achieved what Western allies have long struggled to:  get Germany to step up to its role as a major global power with an assertive foreign policy backed by a strong military despite its World War guilt.   German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a dramatic hike in military spending in what is being heralded as a historic speech that marks a paradigm shift in German foreign and defense policy.  (Reuters Daily Briefing, 28 Feb 2022)

Satellite images are showing that a 40-mile Russian military convoy is advancing towards Kyiv. Other images have shown additional deployments and helicopter units in southern Belarus, around 20 miles north of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. At least nine people were killed and 37 injured in the city of Kharkiv on Monday after Russian forces launched multiple rocket strikes in civilian areas. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague said he wants to investigate Russia for possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine.  (The Week, 3/1/2022)

“Whatever we may think of Putin, he is no Stalin. He has not murdered millions or created a gulag archipelago. Nor is he “irrational,” as some pundits rail. He does not want a war with us, which would be worse than ruinous to us both. Putin is a Russian nationalist, patriot, traditionalist and a cold and ruthless realist looking out to preserve Russia as the great and respected power it once was and he believes it can be again.”  (Pat Buchanan, 2/25/2022)

ASSASSINATE ZELENSKY

Private militia known as the Wagner Group ‘flown in from Africa five weeks ago’. It is run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of the Russian president. Highly trained operatives have a 23-strong kill list including the PM and cabinet. (Daily Mail, UK)

According to the Times, the army-for-hire, run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin – a close ally of the Russian president who is often dubbed ‘Putin’s chef’ – was flown in five weeks ago and is being offered a huge sum for the mission. The highly-trained operatives are said to be waiting for the green light from the Kremlin to pounce, with their hit list also including Ukraine’s prime minister, the entire cabinet, mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir – both boxing champions who have become iconic figures on the front lines of the capital.

However, the plans were rumbled after they reached the upper echelons of the Ukrainian government on Saturday morning. A source with knowledge of the Wagner Group’s activities told the Times that between 2,000 and 4,000 mercenaries had actually arrived in Ukraine in January, but with different missions. Some were sent to the rebel-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east of the country – while the 400 tasked with taking out Zelensky headed to Kyiv from Belarus.

The group are said to be tracking Zelesnky and his colleagues via their mobile phones – claiming to know where they are at all times.

(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10558749/Kremlin-sends-400-mercenaries-Kyiv-assassinate-President-Zelensky.html)

Ukraine crisis prompts former Japan PM to make nuclear suggestion

Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has controversially suggested his country should consider allowing the US to base nuclear weapons in his country, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  He made the remarks while discussing the impact of the Ukraine crisis during a television interview.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has drawn immediate parallels in Japan with a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan or takeover of Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea.  The BBC’s Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says that politically this is one of Japan’s biggest taboos. Since World War Two, Japan has committed to never possessing, producing or deploying nuclear weapons on its territory.  Mr. Abe also said he believes the US should make it clear to China that it will defend Taiwan if Beijing attacks the island.  (BBC, 28 Feb 2022)

MOST STUPID COMMENT

“We beat the Russians back in 1853. We can do it again!”  (UK Defense Secretary)   In 1853 Britain was the greatest military power on earth.  Today it is not.  Note the following:

The Russian Armed Forces are one of the world’s largest military forces, with around a million active-duty personnel, which is the world’s fifth-largest.  (Wikipedia)

The British military is only slightly bigger than that of Ukraine, at 198,000 personnel.  Ukraine has 196,000.

The Crimean War was actually 1854-56.  Wrong again!

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TOO MUCH DEBT

“A critical part of the State of the Union should be the financial state of the Union, but the president will most likely fail to mention that the government’s spending is on an unsustainable path and that, while the government has promised our seniors Social Security and Medicare benefits over the next 75 years, Congress and the president have no idea where the money will come from to pay $71 trillion of those benefits,” she continued.

Weinberg also said she doubts “the president will mention that in order to maintain the spending projected without borrowing even more money, taxes would need to increase by more than 32 percent or spending, including promised Social Security and Medicare benefits, would have to be cut by 25 percent.”  (Mark Tapscott, Epoch Times, 3/1/2022)

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AUSTRALIA

Sydney has suffered its wettest summer in three decades and the most humid season in ten years, with life-threatening weather expected in New South Wales and Queensland. Heavy rain and flooding has already led to two deaths in Queensland and one in New South Wales, said The Guardian. A meteorologist has predicted that some areas from Byron Bay to Fraser Island could receive more than 300mm of rainfall over the next few days. “This is a dangerous setup as very heavy rainfall falls over already saturated soils,” they told the paper.   (The Week, 2/25/2022)

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IMMIGRANTS DESECRATE CHRISTIAN SITES

“As a deeply religious society, these attacks on churches are shocking to the Greek people and calls to question whether these illegal immigrants seeking a new life in Europe are willing to integrate and conform to the norms and values of their new countries.” — Greek City Times, May 16, 2020.   (Raymond Ibrahim, 2/27/2022)

Before Christmas, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, where more than a million Muslim migrants reside, some 50 public statues of Jesus and other Christian figures were beheaded and crucifixes broken.    (Ibrahim, 2/27/2022)

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TO THE POINT

• Rome:  Pope Francis visited the Russian Embassy on Friday to personally “express his concern about the war” in Ukraine, in an extraordinary, hands-on papal gesture that has no recent precedent.     (Lansing State Journal, 2/26/2022)

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has sounded a fresh alarm bell, warning that climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly, many of its impacts will be worse than predicted and there is only a slim window to avoid its worst effects. In a report described as the IPCC’s “bleakest warning yet,” the global authority on climate science said that human actions are causing dangerous and widespread disruption, threatening devastation to swathes of the natural world and rendering many areas uninhabitable, reported The Guardian.  (The Week, 3/1/2022)

• A man in Pakistan has been found guilty of murdering the daughter of a distinguished diplomat. Noor Muqaddam, 27, was beaten, raped and beheaded by Zahir Jaffer, the son of one of Pakistan’s richest families, after she refused his offer of marriage. The killing shook the nation last year and underlined the widespread violence facing Pakistani women, campaigners said. The BBC noted that hundreds of women are killed in the country each year and thousands suffer violence, with many cases going unreported.   (The Week, 2/25/2022)

• Florida’s House of Representatives has passed a bill that bans the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in primary school classrooms. Governor Ron DeSantis had previously signaled support for the legislation and is expected to sign it into law. Activists and parents have warned the bill – dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics – could stigmatize and isolate LGBTQ+ youth. Joe Biden has described the bill as “hateful.”   (The Week, 2/25/2022)

CHINA VERY CONFIDENT OF BEATING THE US

Chinese Professor Jin Canrong. Image Source: thestraitstimes

China is … very confident about its ability to stand up to the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific, as is evident in the way that Chinese experts describe the balance of power between China and the U.S. For example, when prominent Chinese Professor Jin Canrong discussed the possibility of an American reaction to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, he said: “We have complete confidence in our ability to beat any opponent within 1,000 nautical miles, including the United States and its coalition forces… We have superior electronic warfare capabilities [and] China leads the world in medium- and medium-long-range conventional missiles. There is no force on the planet that can compete with us. The United States has fallen far behind us [and] we are the best in hypersonic missiles… The United States has a single 300m dock that can build one aircraft carrier. How many do we have? 49 of them! We have nothing to be afraid of.”   (MEMRI, 1/1/2022)

. . . it seems to be what the Taliban leadership had in mind this summer when they occupied Kabul and immediately began arresting and murdering Afghan officials and civilians. Financial collapse was looming, but they didn’t care. As one Western official working in the region told the Financial Times, “They assume that any money that the west doesn’t give them will be replaced by China, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia.” And if the money doesn’t come, so what? Their goal is not a flourishing, prosperous Afghanistan, but an Afghanistan where they are in charge.  (“Autocracy is winning,” The Atlantic, 12/21/2021)

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Emmerson Mnangagwa calls for Cecil John Rhodes to be exhumed
The Zimbabwean president wants the remains of the colonialist to be exhumed and repatriated to Britain (21 Dec 2021, by Sharon Mazingaizo, Business Live)

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has called for the remains of colonialist Cecil John Rhodes to be exhumed and repatriated to Britain. Rhodes died in 1902. His self-chosen burial place is at Matobo Hills National Park, south of Bulawayo.

Mnangagwa told traditional leaders on Friday in Harare that Rhodes’ remains should be returned in exchange for Zimbabweans’ ancestors’ remains in the UK. “We still have Rhodes’ remains in Matobo. What do you think about it?

If you go to the shrine, you don’t know whether you are talking to Rhodes or our ancestors.   His remains must be returned to where he hailed from and we can also have our ancestral remains which are being kept in Europe,” said Mnangagwa.

Calls for Rhodes’ exhumation date back to 2012. The late former president Robert Mugabe blocked war veterans and Zanu-PF politicians from exhuming his remains, saying his legacy was part of the country’s history. The veterans had blamed his grave for the lack of rain in the Matobo area.  The gravesite is a tourist attraction, visited by thousands of tourists both local and foreign. It lies at the summit of a hill known as the “World’s View.” Locals call the hill where Rhodes lies “Malindadzimu,” a word meaning “burial place of the defied [openly resisted] ancestors.”

Zimbabweans are charged ZWL$40 entry to the national park and an additional ZWL$25 to see Rhodes’ grave. Foreigners pay US$15 (R237) for admittance and an extra US$10 (R158) to view the site.  In 2003, the sacred Matobo Hills was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site and the gravesite is under the custodianship of the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.  Rhodes was a colonialist and politician who played a dominant role in Southern Africa in the late 19th century. A business-person who made his fortune in SA’s diamond fields, he founded the De Beers diamond firm.

(https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/africa/2021-12-21-emmerson-mnangagwa-calls-for-cecil-john-rhodes-to-be-exhumed/)

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• HITLER APPROVED OF THE ROMANIAN IRON GUARD’S RUTHLESSNESS
  Romania’s ‘homegrown’ Holocaust: 80 years since forgotten.  Bogdanovka massacre In the final days of 1941, Romanian authorities massacred 40,000 Jews in a chapter of the genocide in which 420,000 Jews were killed in ‘broad daylight’ with collaborators’ help.   by Matt Lebovic, Times of Israel, 1-1-2022

When typhus broke out at a Romanian concentration camp 80 years ago, authorities at Bogdanovka decided to murder 40,000 Jewish inmates and burn down the camp.  Carried out in Romanian-occupied Ukraine by Romanian soldiers, Ukrainian regular police, and local ethnic Germans, the Bogdanovka massacre has largely been ignored by historians, along with Romania’s “distinct” role in the genocide of Europe’s Jews.  “I’m embarrassed to say, that I had no knowledge of that atrocity,” Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, told The Times of Israel in reference to Bogdanovka.  In Romania, Hitler’s stalwart ally dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu expanded his borders after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Hitler gave Antonescu a free hand to solve Romania’s own “Jewish question,” and an estimated 420,000 Jews under Antonescu’s control were murdered relatively early in the war.

(https://www.timesofisrael.com/romanias-homegrown-holocaust-80-years-since-forgotten-bogdanovka-massacre/)

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For the first time in U.S. history, more fentanyl than heroin has been intercepted by federal law enforcement at the country’s borders.  According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, 11,201 pounds of fentanyl was seized in fiscal year 2021, compared to 5,400 pounds of heroin. Other drugs seized include 319,447 pounds of marijuana, 190,861 pounds of methamphetamine, 97,638 pounds of cocaine, and 10,848 pounds of ketamine. 2,158 pounds of fentanyl has been seized in fiscal year 2022 to date, compared to 277 pounds of heroin.  …. As The Daily Wire noted, from May 2020 to May 2021, America reached a deadly milestone. 100,255 Americans died of drug overdoses, the first time more than 100,000 people died in such a way, with much of the increase being driven by the stream of fentanyl flooding the country.  “Fentanyl or other synthetic opioids are involved in 64% of all overdoses, according to the CDC. Over the same period, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized twice as much fentanyl — which is between 80 and 100 times stronger than morphine — than it did last year,” The Daily Wire explained.  . . . In January 2021, the Congressional Research Service stated that China remains a major producer of illegal fentanyl, which is smuggled into the U.S. by traffickers, often through the mail.

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Fire damages South African Parliament – A massive fire broke out in Cape Town Sunday morning, spreading to South Africa’s Parliament complex and causing one building’s roof to collapse. The National Assembly chamber was also damaged. The blaze, which began only hours after the state funeral of anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, started in a nearby office building. Government officials originally said the fire was contained, but soon after it spread to the new Parliament building. Local officials say the building’s sprinkler system appears to have malfunctioned. Parliament is currently on its holiday recess, and no injuries have been reported. Police have brought in one person for questioning. (CNN, The Associated Press, 2 Jan 2022)

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Germany and the EU are at risk of losing out in the world’s most significant growth region, business representatives warn, regarding the world’s largest free trade agreement RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), which became effective on January 1, and is still hardly known in Germany. RCEP is a free trade agreement (FTA) between 15 countries of the Asia-Pacific region, which includes the world’s second and third largest economies – China’s and Japan’s respectively. Together, the RCEP countries represent nearly a third of the global GDP. RCEP has the potential of consolidating international supply chains within its member countries, luring production sites away – also from Germany, for example – and to set globally important trade norms and industrial standards. The new free trade alliance is a structural consequence of the shift in the balance of forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific and of former colonies turning their backs on their former colonial powers. German business representatives are calling for swift action to prevent potential losses to the German industry.  (German Foreign Policy, 1/6/2022)

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TO THE POINT

• “Hegel would not have been possible but for Kant, who would not have been possible but for Plato.  These three, more than any others, are the intellectual builders of Auschwitz.”   (page 44, “The Ominous Parallels,” 1982, Leonard Peikoff)

• According to Bill C-4, which goes into force on January 8th, the Bible’s teaching on sexuality and gender is defined as a “myth” under Canadian Law. The promotion and sharing of biblical teaching on such topics will be a jailable offence that officially “causes harm to society.”  (Prophecy News Watch, 1/8/2022)

• Sadiq Khan is set to decriminalise drugs in London as part of a plan to end the prosecution of young people caught with cannabis. The mayor of London will allow under-25s caught with Class B drugs to be offered “speeding course-style classes or counselling instead of arrest,” The Telegraph said. The scheme would mean police officers would be told not to arrest young people caught in possession of drugs including cannabis, ketamine or speed.  (The Week, 1/4/22)

• Emmanuel Macron has said he intends to make life difficult for people in France who have not been taken the Covid vaccine. “I really want to hassle them, and we will continue to do this – to the end,” the French president told France’s Le Parisien newspaper. Opponents have condemned his sentiments, with Bruno Retailleau, Senate leader of the centre-right Republicains, saying:  “No health emergency justifies such words.”   (The Week, 1/5/22)

FINAL THOUGHT

Only one British prime minister was ever assassinated.  Spencer Perceval was shot on May 11, 1812, by a merchant with a grievance.

“Perceval was opposed to Catholic emancipation and reform of Parliament; he supported the war against Napoleon and the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. He was opposed to hunting, gambling and adultery; he did not drink as much as most MPs at the time, gave generously to charity, and enjoyed spending time with his thirteen children.” (wikipedia)

What is particularly interesting here is not the assassination itself so much as what happened afterwards.  

He was shot by John Bellingham.   Within one week, there was a trial and, a week to the day after the incident, he was hanged.  

There was a great deal of sympathy for the man and donations from the public enabled his wife and children to live a better life than they had before.  

There’s a verse in the Bible that is interesting here.  In Ecclesiastes 8:11 we read: “When a crime is not punished quickly, people feel it is safe to do wrong.”  (New Living Translation)

Bellingham’s crime was the only time a prime minister has been murdered.   The death penalty was meant to be a deterrent.  This time it certainly was.

Today, people on death row wait an average of 21 years before their sentence is carried out.   That is “cruel and unusual punishment.”  

There is little to deter anybody from any crime today.   A quick trial and execution would go a long way toward reducing the murder rate in our societies.   Over 200 years ago, they knew that.  Over 200 years ago they knew their Bible.

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FEAR OF NEW EUROPEAN CONFLICT

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Image source: © РИА Новости / Пресс-служба МИД РФ)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that Europe could be returning to what he called the “nightmare of military confrontation.”

At a European security conference in Sweden, Mr. Lavrov floated the idea of a new European security pact to try to stop Nato from expanding further east.   US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of “serious consequences” if Russia sought conflict with Ukraine.

The meeting comes as Russia boosts its military near Ukraine’s border.   Ukraine says Russia has amassed more than 90,000 troops there.   Moscow denies it is preparing an attack on Ukraine and accuses Kyiv of its own military build-up.  (BBC 12/2/2021)

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Trump ally calls for ‘one religion’

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser has called for “one religion” in the US to win a battle of good versus evil. CNN said Michael Flynn made the comment during a speech to a conservative Christian audience on the ReAwaken America tour in Texas. “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion,” he said. “One nation under God and one religion under God, right? All of us, working together.” 

Flynn is a Catholic. (The Week, 11/16)

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Emad Al Swealmeen: the motivation for Liverpool taxi bomb examined

The suspected terrorist who appeared to blow himself up outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday has been named as 32-year-old Emad Al Swealmeen. Officers from Counter Terrorism Policing North West have said that they “strongly believe” Al Swealmeen was the passenger who was proclaimed dead at the scene when the taxi he was in exploded. The driver, named locally as David Perry, managed to escape before the vehicle burst into flames at a drop-off zone near the hospital’s entrance. It was claimed that Perry, who has been heralded as a hero, locked Al Swealmeen in the cab.   (The Week, 11/16/2021)  (https://dennis.slgnt.eu/optiext/optiextension.dll?

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Move to Jerusalem, or Else!Government threatens financial sanctions against ministries that fail to move their offices to the capital by Ryan Jones, 15 Nov 2021, Israel Today

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It’s a fact that much of the rest of the world is belatedly accepting.   If only Israel could get its own government ministries to do the same. 

Israel Today has in the past spoken to Israelis who complained that it was no use trying to convince the rest of the world that Jerusalem was the capital of the State of Israel when its own Ministry of Defense and other major government bodies remained in Tel Aviv.  Israel’s new “government of change” is looking to, well, change that.  Cabinet ministers on Sunday voted in favor of a plan requiring all ministries and government offices within the next 120 days to either obtain a special exemption or submit a detailed plan to move to Jerusalem.  Ministries and government offices that fail to meet the deadline will have their budgets for furniture and renovations revoked, and will start paying rent on the Jerusalem properties earmarked for their use, even if those properties remain unused.  Currently some 100 government units operate outside the capital, including the Israel Prison Service, the Health Ministry’s food division, the police fraud and traffic units, and the tech divisions of the ministries of transportation and education.  “The government decision passed today is another part of correcting Jerusalem’s status as the capital and governing city of Israel, and it is extremely important,” Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion told Ha’aretz.  Some are worried that the influx of government offices will exacerbate Jerusalem’s traffic problems and make the capital even more overcrowded. 

But others insist that strengthening the Holy City’s status as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel trumps all other concerns.(https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/move-to-jerusalem-or-else/)

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‘Experts’ told you if you complied with lockdowns, censorship, masks and vaccinations — life would return to normal. ‘Conspiracy theorists’ told you Covid was never going to end, and governments would use it to usher in a totalitarian new world order. Who do you believe now? — Candace Owens

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KEEP YOUR EYES ON GOVERNMENT SPENDING

“Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending,” Milton Friedman once said.  Today his eyes would be popping.   Governments have spent $17 trillion on the pandemic, including loans and guarantees, for a combined total of 16% of global GDP.  On current forecasts government spending will be greater as a share of GDP in 2026 than it was in 2006 in every major advanced economy.   America is about to put $1.8 trillion into expanding its welfare state; Europe is doling out a 750 billion euro  ( $850 billion) investment fund; and Japan is promising a “new capitalism,” with even more government largesse.”  (“The triumph of big government,” The Economist, 11/20/2021)

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THE END OF US DOMINANCE IN THE PERSIAN GULF

The incoming German government should intensify its efforts to gain influence at the Persian Gulf, thereby assuring that the EU can be “an actor” in the “global contest” for obtaining regional power. This demand is raised by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in its current position paper, due to the power vacuum that is developing from the US focus on its power struggle against China, and therefore withdrawing from the Middle East. The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, is strengthening its position, not only in Iran, with which it had concluded a 25-year “strategic partnership” last March and is seeking means for circumventing US sanctions, but in Arab Gulf countries as well. Beijing, for example, is also expanding its activities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and in Saudi Arabia – and is supplying them with 5G technology from the Huawei corporation, that Washington is so fiercely opposing. Appeals to Berlin and Brussels to strengthen the EU’s position in the region have so far been in vain. The DGAP warns that, in light of the global “rebalancing of power, ” raising the question of whose order will prevail.  (German Foreign Policy, 11/23/2021)

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CHINESE SAVING FACE DEMANDS TAIWAN

There is an error in the excerpt from Memri below.   Taiwan was separated from China in 1895.  It was ruled by Japan until the end of World War II, then was briefly reunited with China.

The Kuomintang government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after the Communist Party seized power in mainland China. Since then, Taiwan and mainland China have been divided for 72 years. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has yet to achieve its cherished “reunification,” and this is its biggest concern, since not achieving the annexation would mean a “national humiliation.” Consequently, to seize Taiwan is a matter of “honor” (荣耀) for the CCP, which cannot afford to lose its national prestige as well as its legitimacy as the sole representative of the Chinese people. In fact, the concept of “honor” is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. An ancient Chinese saying goes: “A man can be killed but not humiliated.”

In Chinese culture, the notion of “honor” is connected to the “face” (面子). The “face” concept is so important that “losing face” may even be more frightening than the loss of life itself. Hence, “saving face” is a very important factor affecting judgment and choices.  (MEMRI, 11/29/2021)

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THE BAD GUYS ARE WINNING

“If the 20th century was the story of slow, uneven progress toward the victory of liberal democracy over other ideologies — communism, fascism, virulent nationalism — the 21st century is, so far, a story of the reverse,” Anne Applebaum writes in this tour de force for The Atlantic. From Venezuela, to Belarus, to Russia, to China, she details the myriad ways in which the “bad guys” are winning. “If America removes the promotion of democracy from its foreign policy, if America ceases to interest itself in the fate of other democracies and democratic movements, then autocracies will quickly take our place as sources of influence, funding, and ideas,” she concludes. “If Americans, together with our allies, fail to fight the habits and practices of autocracy abroad, we will encounter them at home; indeed, they are already here. If Americans don’t help to hold murderous regimes to account, those regimes will retain their sense of impunity. They will continue to steal, blackmail, torture, and intimidate, inside their countries—and inside ours.” (The Atlantic, 11/17/2021)

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Holocaust Museum removes photo of Mufti of Jerusalem with Hitler   (Jihad Watch, 11/29/2021)

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AMERICA IN TROUBLE

 “America is still the world’s greatest power.  But since the late 2000’s its ability to deter foes and reassure friends has waned.   George Bush’s invasion of Iraq ended in failure.  Barack Obama drew a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons but did nothing when Bashar al-Assad crossed it in Syria.  Donald Trump scorned America’s allies. Joe Biden ditched Afghanistan.

“Other countries sense, not exactly a vacuum, but many areas of the world where American power is unlikely to be deployed vigorously.  Mr. Biden said he had to ditch Afghanistan to concentrate on China.  If all his attention is on China, other regimes may calculate that they are free to flex their muscles elsewhere.”   (Geopolitics, The Economist, 11/27/2021).

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POINTERS

• “Indeed, of all of the Black folks who will have died of homicide or murder in D.C., Baltimore, Philly and New York this year, how many will have been shot or stabbed by Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, white vigilantes, white supremacists or rogue white cops?”  (Return of ‘law and order’ issue, Pat Buchanan, 11/30/2021)

•   So many people nowadays are described as heroes, I thought I would look for a definition of the term. . .  Here it is.  A definition of “hero”:  a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.  With that definition in mind, could somebody please explain why the singer Rihanna was called a hero when she attended celebrations in her homeland of Barbados?  The event was the birth of the Republic of Barbados, which has now ceased to be a Commonwealth Realm.   The event on the 300,000-population island was also attended by Prince Charles.

• COVID-19 is a serious disease, but it bears constant repeating that the recovery rate now is between 97% and 99.75%.   (Gatestone, 12/2/2021)

• Call the Midwife” has been consistently one of the most heartwarming shows on television.  Now in its tenth year, it seems set to go on indefinitely.  It’s only just reached 1966 so it has a long way to go.  Unfortunately, a recent episode dealing with abortion, legalized in the UK in 1967, suggested that all the Anglican nuns at Nonnatus House supported the change in the law.   In the same episode, when a young mother from India turned out to have been traumatized during Partition, the doctor in the series remarked on how it was all Britain’s fault, and that it was due to “arrogance and stupidity.”   And there was me thinking it was due to the fact that the Hindus and the Muslims hated each other.  Silly me!

• UK army to leave Canada base – British armed services are to leave Canada after 50 years and move their biggest training base to the Middle East. The British Army Training Unit Suffield in Alberta, western Canada, has been in operation since 1972. The thousand-square-mile base, seven times the size of Salisbury Plain, has trained thousands of soldiers. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce that the military will open a training area in Oman to take its place.  (The Week, 11/24/2021)

• Hamtramek   becomes first US city to have an All-Muslim council

•   “[We are being more effectively challenged militarily today than at any other time in our history.” — US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, September 20, 2021.   (Gatestone, 11/16/2021)         

• An ancient philosopher is attributed to once observing that a nation can survive deprivation or even a battlefield defeat but it cannot survive the loss of confidence in its leadership.  (Gatestone, 11/29/2021)

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FINAL THOUGHT

In a book on European history, The Forge of Christendom, by Tom Holland, published in 2008, I came across the following quote: “The faith is Europe.  And Europe is the faith.”   (Hilaire Belloc 1870-1953;  Mr. Belloc was a famous historian, writer and satirist.   He was also a committed Catholic.)

This statement reminds me of certain passages in scripture.   Daniel 7 and Revelation 17 are all about the church-state relationship that has been the norm for 2,000 years.   Prophecy shows that this system will rise again to form a powerful political and military system at the time of the end.

¹² “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. ¹³ These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴ These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”

DON’T RUN WITH THE HERD

WEIMAR PRECEEDED HITLER

When we lived in Africa, I used to advise people that, if they wanted to live a long life, they should stay out of politics.   I’ve now started to do the same in the United States.

Demonstrations and riots all too often end in violence.  Rise to prominence and there’s always the prospect of assassination.   Play it low key and you might live to old age.

I’ve never been one to run with the herd.   The fate of the herd is too likely to be that of the gadarene swine.   In the biblical account, two demon-possessed men have the demons cast out of them by Jesus Christ.  The demons then ask to enter a group of pigs.  The pigs then head straight for a cliff and instant death.

Politics is a bit like that.  Certainly, it is right now.

Most people, companies, even churches, are tripping over themselves trying to distance themselves from the wrongs of the past; asserting how they are not racist and proclaiming their love for Black Lives Matter.   Past American leaders are out of favor.  Even the British Empire has come under attack (would they rather be goose-stepping?   The British Empire was the only force standing up to Hitler while the US and Russia continued to sleep.  Historians have shown that, if Britain had fallen, the US would have followed and we would now all be speaking German.)

When we consider the tenor of the times, people need to remember that Weimar preceded Hitler, with a Depression in between; that a very liberal and decadent brief period of history was quickly followed by an administration of the extreme right.  Economists are already talking about another Depression, with our economies in a collapsed state through the corona virus.  Could history repeat itself?  Of course it could.  In America?  Of course.  As fascism consumed many countries in Europe, the US saw a big expansion of government power during the same period.

When people are hungry and have no jobs, they look for alternatives.

The Bible talks about an end-time combination of ten nations.  These have the hallmarks of a fascist conglomeration, embarking on world conquest.  You can read about it in Revelation 17:12-14.  (Incidentally, when European nations in the past went down a similar path, it was the British Empire that defeated them.   It will be different next time as the British Empire is no more.)

So, avoid the herd.  You never know where the herd will be a few months from now.  Robespierre or Napoleon (another “nut job”  who was defeated by the British Empire!)?   Liberal or Very Conservative?  It doesn’t depend on an election.   The herd is emotional.   Like those pigs, there’s very little thought, just an instinct that drives them toward the cliff.  Today, it’s liberal socialism.  Tomorrow?  Who knows?

Remember the pigs in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”?   They started out liberal.  But after over 100 pages, they were very different!

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ANOTHER TERROR ATTACK IN UK

Three men were killed (and three injured) in Reading, outside of London, when a Libyan asylum seeker stabbed them.

The British government said they will learn from this.   The most important lesson is the risk in allowing asylum seekers into the country.  Once again, this asylum seeker is a follower of the “Religion of Peace”.

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AMERICA IS SOCIALIST, DUMMY

“Every American state decrees that all its children shall be educated at state expense, no matter how rich or poor.  The idea began with Horace Mann in Massachusetts back in the 1830’s and eventually caught on nationwide.”

“Second, the entire American highway system is built, paid for, and maintained by the state and federal governments.

“Third, estate taxes were introduced in 1916, in the name of equality and to prevent the children of successful parents from becoming a parasitic leisure class.

“Fourth, in the 1930s Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal established the principle that the federal government should intervene on behalf of distressed citizens everywhere.  It introduced Social Security (old-age pensions) and a growing array of farm subsidies to prevent rural depopulation.   In the 1960’s Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs went further, introducing healthcare for the poor (Medicaid) and for the elderly (Medicare).  Poor citizens in every city gained access to public housing complexes and were offered food subsidies and welfare benefits.

“During wartime emergencies in 1917 and 1942, the major industries were organized and run by central government departments in the name of efficiency and to prevent wasteful duplication.”  (“America is socialist, dummy,” Patrick Allitt, Spectator US edition, April 2020)

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WHITE LIVES MATTER

Burnley Football Club bosses have vowed to slap lifetime bans on supporters who flew a “White Lives Matter” banner over the Etihad Stadium on Monday.

A light aircraft towing the banner appeared in the skies shortly after players from Burnley and Manchester City had kneeled in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) ahead of kick-off.

Speaking to reporters after the game, which ended in a 5-0 defeat for his side, Burnley captain Ben Mee said that he and his teammates “were embarrassed, disappointed, upset” about the stunt.  (The Week, 6/23/2020)

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NEXT PHASE FOR COVID-19

Covid-19 has thus far taken its most serious toll on rich, peaceful countries.  America, Britain, Italy, France and Spain, five of the six worst-affected, have collectively borne over half of recorded deaths from the virus worldwide.  But the disease is now rippling through less stable places.  What will happen as it does?  There are reasons to fear not only that conflict will help the virus to spread, but also that its’ spread may worsen wars.  The two could feed upon each other, creating a cycle of misery it is difficult to arrest.

At the outset of the Peloponnesian war with Sparta, which raged from 431bc to 404bc, Athens was ravaged by a plague that swept through the city for three years, killing thousands of soldiers and a third of its inhabitants.  “Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without,” recalled Thucydides, a Greek historian and general.  The Spanish flu of 1918, another world-shaping pandemic, festered in the trenches and barracks of the first world war and killed more people than the conflict itself.  Over 36,000 American soldiers died before ever reaching France, with 12,000 dying on troop transports.  In total, more American soldiers, sailors and Marines died of flu and pneumonia than bullets and bombs.  (“Covid 19 raises the risk of global violence,” The Economist, 6/23/2020)

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ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY OVER WEST BANK                                             TV:   Trump, top aides to decide this week whether to back Netanyahu’s annexation ‘Decisive’ White House meeting, to be attended by Pompeo, Kushner, Friedman, said set to determine whether US okays PM’s July 1 plan for sovereignty over settlements, Jordan Valley.  (Times of Israel, 20 June 2020)

The White House will this week hold a “decisive” meeting on whether to approve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared plan to start from July 1 annexing the 132 West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley — the 30 percent of the territory allocated to Israel under the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, Israel’s Channel 13 reported Saturday night.

Citing unnamed American and Israeli sources, the report said US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is to fly home on Sunday for the pivotal meeting, which is scheduled for Monday or Tuesday, and which is also to be attended by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; and National Security Adviser Richard O’Brien.  Friedman may meet with Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz before he leaves.

Trump himself is “likely” to join the session, the report said, since “he’s the one who will ultimately decide” on whether to approve Israeli annexation, and if so on what scale.

A central issue in the White House meeting is likely to be the internal disagreement in the Israeli coalition over annexation now, which Netanyahu is vigorously championing, while Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi have said the Trump plan should be implemented in coordination with Jordan and the Palestinians.

A joint US-Israel committee has been mapping out the West Bank areas set to come under Israeli rule, and has not yet completed its work, having been delayed in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Times of Israel was told earlier this month that the committee was weeks away from finishing the job, and that the US was “highly unlikely” to green-light annexation by Netanyahu’s July 1 target date.

Netanyahu’s vows to push ahead with unilateral annexation have been condemned internationally, with European and Arab states, as well as senior members of the US Democratic Party, warning the Israeli government against doing so.

(https://www.timesofisrael.com/tv-trump-top-aides-this-week-to-decide-whether-to-back-netanyahus-annexation/)

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Worst of crisis now behind us, says Germany’s chief banker
Germany has turned the corner on the worst of an economic crisis sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and is now on the path to recovery, the central bank chief of Europe’s biggest economy said Sunday.  (AFPnews, thelocal.de, Germany, 21 June 2020)

“We experienced in the last months the deepest economic slump in Germany’s (post-war) history,” Jens Weidmann told Sunday’s edition of the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.  “The good news is:  the trough should be behind us by now, and things are looking up again. But the deep slump is being followed only by a comparatively gradual recovery.  “Weidmann, who has never minced his words against expansionary policies ramped through in the past by the European Central Bank, on Sunday also voiced support for the unprecedented economic rescue and stimulus packages unleashed by Berlin to shield German companies and jobs.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government had stunned observers in March when it unveiled a rescue package worth 1.1 trillion euros, smashing through a long-held no new debt dogma to fund the measures.  Earlier this month, it said it would plough another 130 billion euros into various schemes, including a cut in VAT, to stimulate the economy.  Reacting to comments that Germany, once known as a “frugal” nation, was now dramatically loosening its purse strings, Weidmann said:   “The image of the Swabish housewife is often wrongly portrayed.  “She is not saving for the sake of saving, but so that there is money that can be spent sensibly and in case there are difficult times.  And that is precisely the case here.

“Like nations across Europe, Germany shut schools, shops and sent workers home from mid-March to halt transmission of the coronavirus.  The impact of the health crisis has pushed the economy into a deep recession believed to be the worst since World War II.  After the rate of new infections dropped sharply, Europe’s biggest economy began easing restrictions in early May although social distancing rules are still in place and huge events banned.  Nevertheless, the improved health situation and the huge government support have helped lift sentiment, with a closely-watched survey showing confidence among investors surging to its highest level since before the financial crisis.”

(https://www.thelocal.de/20200621/worst-of-crisis-now-behind-us-says-germanys-chief-banker)

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NATO EXPANDS INTO ASIA

NATO should systematically expand its military exercises and operations into the Asia-Pacific region, an expert of Washington’s Atlantic Council think tank proposes in the intensifying debate on the posture the western war alliance should assume in relationship to the People’s Republic of China.  China’s “presence in the Arctic, in Africa and in the Mediterranean” calls for a response, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.  Think tanks suggest that NATO should more closely monitor Chinese investments in the European infrastructure, because “civilian roads, ports and rails” under construction with Chinese participation “are an integral part of NATO’s plans for military mobilization.”  NATO is also strengthening its relations with “global partners” such as Japan, South Korea and Australia.  For the first time, Australia’s defense minister participated at the meeting of the NATO Ministers of Defense that ended yesterday.  The Atlantic Council is also suggesting the establishment of a NATO military headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region.   (German Foreign Policy, 6/21/2020)

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WHEN EVERYONE KNEELS, WHO WILL STAND UP FOR THE WEST?

“We are afraid that anything we do is colonial. There’s plenty of countries willing to step into that global governance gap: China, Iran, Russia, Turkey.” — Bruce Gilley, The Times, May 10, 2018.

British post-colonial guilt is, however, having repercussions far larger than statues.  There is, for instance, still total silence about persecuted Christians, according to a UK bishop leading a government review into their suffering.

Western history is seemingly being remade to portray all of Western civilization as just one big apartheid.  It is as if we should not only pull down statues but also pull down ourselves.  A successful democracy, however, cannot be built on just erasing the past.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”  (George Orwell, 1984)

(“When Everyone kneels, who will stand up for Western history and culture?” Guilio Meotti, Gatestone, 6/21/2020)

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US military in Germany:   What you need to know

A decision to move US troops out of Germany would mark a major change in the defense relationship between the two countries and reshape the basis of American military presence in Europe since World War II.  (Deutsche Welle, 16 June  2020, by Ben Knight)

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UK DEBT EXCEEDS SIZE OF ECONOMY

The UK’s debt is now worth more than its economy after the government borrowed a record amount in May.

The £55.2bn figure was nine times higher than in May last year and the highest since records began in 1993.  The borrowing splurge sent total government debt surging to £1.95trn, exceeding the size of the economy for the first time in more than 50 years.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the figures confirmed the severe impact the virus was having on public finances.

“The best way to restore our public finances to a more sustainable footing is to safely reopen our economy so people can return to work.

“We’ve set out our plan to do this in a gradual and safe fashion, including reopening high streets across the country this week, as we kickstart our economic recovery,” he added.

Income from tax, National Insurance and VAT all dived in May amid the coronavirus lockdown as spending on support measures soared.

This is the first time debt has been larger than the size of the economy since 1963, but it is not as high as the post-war peak of 258% in 1946-47.  (BBC 6/19/2020)

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STATUES AND RHODES

“I come from a country with no statues.

“It is not that Morocco never had statues.  Not that long ago it had statues of French officials – of which only one remains, hidden in a consulate garden.  It had, a bit earlier, statues of Christian saints and Roman dignitaries, of which there is no trace. Before that, it must have had statues of Phoenician deities.  All have been destroyed, and with them visible proof of the complex history of North Africa.

“There is nothing new about submitting statues to the trial that their subjects escaped.  In the Roman Empire, when a Caesar fell out of public grace and was murdered, his successor’s first thought was about statues.  Faces were erased, then redrawn in the new emperor’s image.  Tearing down statues is not new, either.  People re-evaluate the past, but when it comes to re-evaluating individuals, things get trickier.  How much did a person’s representation owe to its own time?  Frankly, almost everything.

Cecil Rhodes was not particularly loved in his own day; his wealth was admired, but not his half-avowed homosexuality.   He might have been too forward-thinking, for what business of his was it to create a scholarship that could be awarded regardless of race or creed?  The language of his will is clear and obvious:   “no student shall be qualified or disqualified for election to a Scholarship on account of his race or religious opinions.”

If Rhodes was the racist we assume he was, then surely he knew what “race” meant?  Five years after Rhodes’s death, in 1907, in the wake of the election of the first black Rhodes Scholar, Alain LeRoy Locke, the Rhodes Trustees argued that when Rhodes used the term “race” he might have meant “Dutch, English, Jew, and the rest.”  Perhaps Rhodes was simply more progressive than his trustees, and than most people of his time.

Rhodes endowed my college at Oxford, Oriel, with the means to further its work and fulfill its vocation as “The Provost and Scholars of the House of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford, commonly called Oriel College, of the Foundation of Edward the Second of famous memory, sometime King of England.”  Rhodes is included in the daily college prayer said after dinner in hall, and in the yearly benefactors’ service.  Does that mean that we, as a community, condone the horrors he engaged in?

It is alright for hands to be dirty.  No hands are clean in history.

The first colonizers of North Africa wiped out all its Christian and Jewish heritage, and thrived on the slave-trade.  They had black slaves as well as white slaves.  Any neutral view of history tells us that oppression is a matter of military power, and not of race.  (6/19/2020)

(Marie Daouda is a stipendiary lecturer in French at Oriel College, Oxford)

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TO THE POINT

• Sajid Javid warns against a return to austerity
  Former chancellor Sajid Javid has warned against a return to austerity.  With the government grappling with the effects of the coronavirus crisis, Javid has called for low taxes on business to aid the UK’s recovery.  He said “early hopes of a V-shaped recovery” had “proved optimistic.”  Javid also predicted that “some long-term damage to the economy” had become “unavoidable.”  (The Week, 6/23/2020)
• Pulling U.S. troops from Europe won’t save any money but it will make America less safe.  (Bloomberg 6/22/2020)
• At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a fight with Chinese troops on a disputed border, though no shots were fired.  The incident took place during what India had described as a “de-escalation process,” more than a month into a series of punch-ups in Ladakh, a Himalayan region over which the two countries fought a war in 1962.  Today both armies are nuclear-tipped; senior Indian and Chinese officials met to discuss the situation.  (The Economist, 6/17/2020)
• “The British relied on Indians to carry out the heavy lifting of imperial occupation and governance.  As late as 1921, there were only 156,000 British citizens living in India, one for every 1,500 Indians (Copland 3).”    (How can one oppress 1500? MR)
• “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”   (Leo Tolstoy)
• Vera Lynn, the singer who entertained British soldiers during the second world war, has died at the age of 103.   Known as the “Forces’ Sweetheart,” she made the white cliffs of Dover a symbol of home in a popular song.   The Queen referenced another, “We’ll Meet Again,” in an address to the country during the covid-19 lockdown.  (The Economist, 6/18/2020)
• For his first foreign trip since France went into lockdown, President Emmanuel Macron will head to London today, where he will be welcomed by Prince Charles.   The official purpose is to mark the 80th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s “appeal from London,” a BBC broadcast in which the general urged the French to resist Nazi occupation, as well as to award the British capital the Légion d’honneur.   But Mr. Macron will also squeeze in a meeting with Boris Johnson, the prime minister, at a time of tension over unresolved Brexit negotiations.  The French president was keen to keep this trip in the diary, even though Britain is still largely under lockdown and had to exempt him from its 14-day quarantine rule.   Macron hopes the visit will remind the French of the resistance spirit embodied by de Gaulle, even if historical figures—le général included—have recently become objects of conflict rather than conciliation.

PERVERSE LIBERAL THINKING

Flowers are left following Friday’s terror attack on London Bridge in London, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019. A man wearing a fake suicide vest was subdued by bystanders as he went on a knife rampage killing two people and wounding others before being shot dead by police on Friday. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)    (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Two young Cambridge University graduates are dead, murdered by a supposedly rehabilitated terrorist, in London last Friday.   The Cambridge University students were part of “Learning Together,” a project that aims to bring rehabilitated terrorists back into mainstream society.   This is liberalism gone mad!

A major weakness of western liberalism is the idea that we’re all the same, whatever culture or background we come from.   We should know better.   ISIS fighters are not going to repent – as they come back to western countries following the defeat of ISIS they will bring their ideology with them, and kill people.   Anybody who thinks otherwise is a misguided fool.

The young male victim had written his dissertation on why minorities account for a disproportionate percentage of people in prison.   The answer is simple – they commit more crimes.

It’s sad as more innocent lives are likely to be lost as we pursue rehab.   Years ago, I remember reading in Psychology Today that 92% of sex offenders are never rehabilitated.   When they leave prison, they commit the same acts again.   Do we really think that terrorists will do better?

As Piers Morgan wrote in the Daily Mail, “Most terrorists don’t change their evil spots so it’s time Britain stopped going soft on hate-filled jihadis to please the PC hand-wringing brigade and does what Americans do – lock them up forever.” (12/2/2019 Daily Mail)

Even this may not work.   Terrorists in prison might encourage fellow terrorists to seize hostages until they are released.

What would be more appropriate (and final) is the death penalty.

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KING OF THE NORTH?

Following the opening, on September 30, 2019, of the Al-Bukamal-Al-Qaim border crossing between Syria and Iraq, which had been closed for five years due to the Syria war, Abu Al-Fazel Salehiniya, a culture advisor at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, published an article in the pro-regime Syrian daily Al-Watan, in which he presented the opening of the crossing as a step towards the realization of Iran’s vision of a new Middle East.   He explained that Iran planned to establish a political, economic and cultural bloc consisting of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, which will impact the power-balance in the region and world, and thwart what he called the American and Western plan to fragment the Middle East into tiny states under Western control.   For many years, he said, the U.S. and Israel have been working in various ways to prevent the creation of this bloc, including by instigating protests in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; however, they have failed thanks to the resistance axis, which is now stronger than ever and has attained impressive achievements.   (MEMRI 12/4)

Editor’s note: The four countries were roughly the borders of the biblical king of the North, in the second century BC.

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GERMAN MILITARY EXPANSION                                                                        by Johannes Stern, 29 Nov 2019, World Socialist Web Site

(Extracts) . . . Kramp-Karrenbauer replied:  “We know we have to do more, but we are on the way.”   In 2031 the German army would “realistically” be able to take over ten percent of NATO’s military capacity.   Until that date at the latest, Germany would also reach the NATO target of two percent of gross domestic product for military spending.   In fact Germany will make substantial steps towards this goal as early as next year, as the pact to form the grand coalition laid out.   According to a report by the German Press Agency, the German government has reported to the military alliance its intention to spend 50.25 billion euros [$US55.3 billion] in 2020.   “We are complying with our international obligations.   The NATO defense rate is 1.42 percent,” boasted Social Democratic Finance Minister Olaf Scholz at yesterday’s presentation of the budget for 2020 in the Bundestag . . .   Five years after the German government announced the end of military restraint at the Munich Security Conference in 2014, the ruling class can no longer hide the fact that it is basing its foreign and great power politics on the militaristic traditions of the German Empire and the Nazis.   In his major lecture on foreign policy at the end of October, the president of the German parliament, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), described 1945, i.e. the date of the downfall of the Third Reich and the defeat of Germany in World War II—as a “catastrophe”       (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/29/kram-n29.html)

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GERMANY TO MATCH US CONTRIBUTION TO NATO BUDGET

From 2021, Germany will increase its contribution to the NATO budget to be in line with what the US pays.                                                                  NATO officials hope the move will diffuse tensions surrounding the cost of maintaining the military alliance.             (https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-match-us-contribution-to-nato-budget/a-51446211)

German army sorry for ‘retro’ post

BERLIN, Germany — The German army on Wednesday apologized for posting a photo on Instagram of a military uniform complete with two Iron Crosses bearing the Nazi swastika and appearing to celebrate it as “retro.”   After media reports sparked outrage, the army removed the picture of the Nazi-era Wehrmacht uniform and explained that it was an “unacceptable mistake.”   The Bundeswehr said it was seeking to do a photo-essay on the influence of military uniforms on fashion through the ages but failed to provide the correct historical context in its captions.   The Bundeswehr has over the years repeatedly come under fire over embarrassing associations with Germany’s militaristic past (https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-army-sorry-for-retro-nazi-uniform-post/)

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Global Survey of 18 Countries Finds Hardcore Anti-Semitic Attitudes Remain Pervasive                                                                                 One in four Europeans polled fall into most anti-Semitic category.

Among the 2019 ADL Global 100 Index’s key findings:  Negative attitudes in Argentina, Brazil, Poland, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine have seen marked increases since the last ADL Global 100 survey.  Anti-Semitic attitudes remain pervasive in Europe. Roughly one out of every four residents of the 14 European countries polled by ADL fall into the most anti-Semitic category, subscribing to a majority of the anti-Semitic stereotypes tested in the index.

Stereotypes about Jewish control of business and the financial markets are among the most pernicious and enduring anti-Semitic beliefs.   These are especially widespread in the Central and Eastern European countries surveyed.   Asked whether they agreed with the statement that “Jews have too much power in the business world,” a staggering 72 percent of Ukrainians agreed, as did 71 percent of Hungarians, 56 percent of Poles, and 50 percent of Russians.

Jewish “disloyalty” is a widespread anti-Semitic stereotype in the Western European countries surveyed. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, more than 40 percent of the public believes that Jews are more loyal to the State of Israel than to their own country.   This canard also scored high in Brazil (70 percent), South Africa (60 percent), and relatively high in Canada (25 percent) compared to its overall index score of 8 percent.

“Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust” was a statement supported by large segments of the populations of many of the European countries polled, even in Germany, where 42 percent of the population agreed.   This sentiment was also prevalent in Austria (44 percent), Belgium (40 percent) Italy (38 percent) and Spain (37 percent).(https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-global-survey-of-18-countries-finds-hardcore-anti-semitic-attitudes-remain)

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Zimbabwe ‘on brink of man-made starvation’, UN warns               (BBC, 28 Nov 2019) 

More than 60% of the country’s 14 million people are considered food-insecure, according to the findings.  Hyperinflation, poverty, natural disasters and economic sanctions were among the identified causes.  Women and children were “bearing the brunt of the crisis” with 90% of children aged six months to two years not consuming enough food.  Hilal Elver, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, reported her findings following an 11-day visit to the country.  “I cannot stress enough the urgency of the situation in Zimbabwe,” she said, adding that the crisis continues to worsen.   She said many of the people she met could only afford one meal a day and that most of the children she met were stunted and underweight.  “The harrowing stories I heard from resilient grandmothers, mothers or aunts desperately trying to save their children from starvation, in the midst of their daily hardships, will remain with me.”

She also noted Zimbabwe was among the four highest food-insecure nations, alongside conflict-ravaged countries.(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50586514)

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SOUTHERN BAPTISTS CHANGE ON ABORTION

To Christians, there are few issues more important than fighting against abortion.  The millions of unborn children are made in the image of God, making it personal to Christians.

And millions of American might switch churches after what one denomination said about abortion.

If one were to ask virtually any Southern Baptist churchgoer, they would be strongly against abortion and supportive of the fight to end it.

But as it turns out, the Southern Baptist Convention doesn’t agree with that sentiment.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), which is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, just came out stating that Christians should not preach against abortion from the pulpit, on the street corner, or in bumper stickers or social media posts.

They claim that it is “hurtful to women.”   (Culture wars, 11/19)

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LETTER FROM A UK FRIEND

“Channel 4 hosted a leaders debate on climate change yesterday. Boris Johnson. and Nigel Farage did not appear, and their vacant podiums sported ice sculptures instead.   The problem is that Boris is not good responding to tough questioning.   Boris is being shielded from scrutiny as much as possible, he may feel that he’s ‘Churchill like’ but in reality he’s no orator.   In contrast Jeremy Corbyn is a rabble-rouser and whips an audience up to ‘cheers and chanting.’ Very popular with younger voters too.   The Election is for Boris to lose.   According to the opinion polls his lead is slipping back.   I’m fearing another hung parliament.”

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EU DECLARES “CLIMATE EMERGENCY”

The European Parliament declared a “climate emergency,” by a vote of 429 to 225.   The decision is symbolic but important (the European Union is the world’s largest economy) ahead of the UN climate summit to be held in Madrid next week.  The incoming head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has promised a package of ambitious green measures on December 11th.   (The Economist, 11/29)

Britain’s ruling Conservative Party reacted furiously after Channel 4, a national broadcaster, replaced the prime minister with an ice sculpture during a debate on climate change.   While most other leaders of Britain’s main political parties took part, Boris Johnson refused.  The editor of Channel 4 News accused Mr. Johnson of trying to avoid scrutiny during the election campaign “like Donald Trump.”  (Economist, 11/29)

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Italy busts neo-Nazi ring, ‘Miss Hitler’ pageant winner

Prosecutors in Sicily have announced 19 arrests, exposing a nationwide network of would-be fascist militants.  Police have uncovered weapons, explosives, and extremist propaganda in a series of raids.

Italian police have arrested at least 19 people in connection with a militant neo-Nazi ring, national media reported on Thursday. Although the investigation was based in Sicily, several of the suspects hail from all over the country.   One of the arrested included a 26-year-old Milan resident who had been the winner of an online beauty competition called “Miss Hitler.”   She also spoke at an extreme-right conference in Portugal last August that attempted to unite the so-called “National Socialist movements” of Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France.

During the operation, led by prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, and dubbed “Black Shadows,” police undercovered troves of weapons, explosives, Nazi memorabilia and texts praising fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, in a series of raids carried out across Italy.
   On top of possible weapons charges, promoting fascism is a crime in Italy.
   The supposed leader of the group is a 50-year-old public employee from the city of Padua, in the northeastern region of Veneto.   She was not known to authorities prior to her detention, police have said, adding that they recovered anti-Semitic material at her home.
   Another suspect is an offender with multiple convictions and ties to the ‘Ndrangheta, the elusive Calabrian mafia, one of the richest organized crime syndicates in the world and by some estimates responsible for 3% of Italy’s GDP.   The man, Italian media said, had turned informant for the police against the mafia but was apparently acting as the chief “trainer” for the violence the neo-Nazi group hoped to carry out.   Specific center-left politicians were named as possible targets.
   The group used a Russian chat app to communicate and try to avoid detection, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported.   A Russian social media platform called VK was also used to host the “Miss Hitler” competition.(https://www.dw.com/en/italy-busts-neo-nazi-ring-miss-hitler-pageant-winner/a-51458025)

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TO THE POINT

• CHINA FINANCIAL WARNINGS                                                                    From rural bank runs to surging consumer indebtedness and an unprecedented bond restructuring, mounting signs of financial stress in China are putting the nation’s policy makers to the test. Xi Jinping’s government faces an increasingly difficult balancing act as it tries to support the world’s second-largest economy without encouraging moral hazard and reckless spending.   While authorities have so far been reluctant to rescue troubled borrowers and ramp up stimulus, the costs of maintaining that stance are rising as defaults increase and China’s slowdown deepens.  (China financial warning; Bloomberg, 11/28/2019)

• HONG KONG IN REVOLT                                                                            “When Mao Zedong’s guerrillas seized power in China in 1949, they did not take over a clearly defined country, much less an entirely willing one.   Hong Kong was ruled by the British, nearby Macau by the Portuguese.   Taiwan was under the control of a Nationalist government Mao had just overthrown.   The mountain terrain of Tibet was under a Buddhist theocracy that chafed at control from Beijing.   Communist troops had yet to enter another immense region in the far west, Xinjiang, where Muslim ethnic groups did not want to be ruled from afar.”  (“Hong Kong in revolt,” The Economist, 11/23/2019).

• Applying pressure on China is the top priority for the newly elected German EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She announced that, on Sunday – her first day in office – she plans to call Beijing to discuss “human rights.”   The People’s Republic of China is being accused of human rights violations in the context of its “war on terror” against jihadism in Xinjiang province.  The German chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, David McAllister (CDU) announced that the EU Parliament also plans to discuss the situation in Xinjiang, in its upcoming plenary session (December 16 – 19). In Berlin, the transatlantic-oriented opposition plans to call for sanctions to be imposed on either Chinese politicians or Chinese high-tech-companies, already affected by US sanctions. Commentators in the USA, as well as in Germany, are equating China with Nazi Germany. According to a former liberal-oriented German daily, “there can be no long-term peaceful coexistence” with the People’s Republic of China.   (German Foreign Policy, 11/29/2019)

• ZAMBIAN COUPLE GET 15 YEARS FOR SEXUAL ACT                      A homosexual couple has been given 15 years for a crime “against the natural order,” citing the fact that they are a very religious Christian country.   They also happen to have one of the highest incidents of HIV in the world, reflecting widespread immorality. They should take a look at I Corinthians 6.  Fornication, adultery and sodomy are all condemned equally, a fact that Zambian churches have failed to notice.  In Africa, AIDS is invariably a heterosexual disease.

•  A video has emerged from the Nato summit in London, which appears to show Boris Johnson,  Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Princess Anne and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, laughing about the US president during a reception at Buckingham Palace.   The meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nato alliance began inauspiciously, with tensions on full display between Macron, Trump and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.    It seems that other countries are more likely to ridicule Mr Trump, expecting that he will be impeached next year.

• PRINCE ANDREW                                                                                                    As a former navy pilot, Prince Andrew would normally be present at a Nato shindig, but the disgraced duke has been stripped of his duties, leaving his mother to host the reception.  Meanwhile, Trump’s claim not to know Andrew is contradicted by extensive photographic evidence.  (Guardian, 12/4)

 

 

 

GOAL IN AFGHANISTAN IS AN ISLAMIC STATE

Muhammad Nabi Omari also claimed that the U.S. cooperates with Ghani’s government to transport ISIS members between Afghanistan’s provinces . . . (MEMRI)

Former Taliban Official Muhammad Nabi Omari Claims U.S. Supports ISIS In Afghanistan, Says: 60-70% Of Afghanistan Controlled By Taliban; Our Goal Is To Establish An Islamic State

Muhammad Nabi Omari, the Taliban’s border police chief from 1996 to 2001, said in a July 9, 2019 interview on Russia Today TV that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani controls less than half of Kabul and that he cannot operate in other provinces or districts in Afghanistan because the Afghan people do not listen to him or recognize his authority.   Omari said that every province in Afghanistan has its own independent government and that 60-70% of Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban.   Omari also claimed that the U.S. cooperates with Ghani’s government to transport ISIS members between Afghanistan’s provinces, and he said that there are rumors that the U.S. has opened camps for ISIS throughout Afghan territory. He also said that Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies support, arm, and finance ISIS.   Omari added that the Taliban’s goal in fighting America is to establish an Islamic state.   Omari was held for 12 years in Guantanamo Bay and was released in 2014 in an exchange for Bowe Bergdahl. (MEMRI #7372)

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ALAN TURING TO BE ON NEW 50-POUND NOTE

At first this decision may seem like PC gone crazy.

Alan Turing was the subject of the movie “The Imitation Game.”   No exaggeration, he saved hundreds of thousands of allied lives and cut World War Two short by an estimated two years.   Turing was a British cryptanalyst who decrypted German intelligence messages for the British government during the Second World War.

“Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war.”  (Wikipedia. “Alan Turing).

“After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology.   He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.” (Wikipedia)

After the war, a homosexual offense led to the penalty of chemical castration.   Some time after his release, he committed suicide, although this is disputed.

In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a public apology for the British government’s treatment of Turing.   Four years later, he was posthumously pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II.  It was announced this month that he will be featured on future Bank of England 50 pound notes.

It raises an interesting question:   How many other talented individuals have been lost due to a sexual problem?

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JAMESTON REVISITED

July marked the 400^th anniversary of the birth of American democracy.

Only twelve years after the initial settlement of Jamestown, the people exercised their right as Englishmen to have their own parliament. In time, this became the Virginia House of Burgesses (from 1643), which remained active in Williamsburg until the American Revolution, giving Americans 157 years to practice democracy.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were all members.

Sadly, 1619, when democracy was introduced, was also the year that slavery was introduced into English America, with the arrival of the first slave ship from Africa, in August.  Four centuries later, demands for reparations are growing.

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Letter From Jerusalem 

Trump’s Camp David Moment                                                                                  by Raf Sanchez, Jerusalem Correspondent, Telegraph UK, 31 July 2019

We woke up this morning to reports that Donald Trump will lay out his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan at Camp David in the coming weeks.

According to Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Trump will invite Arab leaders to the presidential retreat but not Netanyahu or the Palestinians. 

Every indication is that the plan will propose autonomy for the Palestinians but will deny them an independent state.

In what seems to be a related move,   David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel appeared on CNN yesterday and essentially endorsed Netanyahu’s position on the Palestinians.   “We believe in Palestinian autonomy,” he said.   “We believe that autonomy should be extended up until the security of Israel is at stake.”

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Is Germany Becoming Germany — Again?                                    by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (National Review)  https://www.nationalreview.com/author/victor-davis-hanson/    June 4, 2019 6:30 AM

Merkel’s evident anti-Americanism is a familiar refrain.

The more things change, well, the more they . . .   So it is with the perpetual German resentments of the U.S.

Recently German chancellor Angela Merkel reminded us of that German fixation, when she made some astounding statements to the German media that revealed what many Americans had long ago surmised.

Merkel all but announced that Germany, or for that matter Europe itself, is no longer really an ally of the United States:   “There is no doubt that Europe needs to reposition itself in a changed world. . . . The old certainties of the post-war order no longer apply.”

She insisted that Germany views the democratic United States as not much different from autocratic Russia and Communist China: Urging Europe to present a united front in the face of Russia, China, and the U.S., she said, “They are forcing us, time and again, to find common positions.”   And Merkel concluded that therefore Germany must find “political power” commensurate with its economic clout to forge a new independent European path.

In other words, in the calculus of the supposedly sober and judicious Merkel, the democracy that saved Europe twice from a carnivorous Germany — and Germany once from itself and once from becoming a Soviet vassal — is now similar to the world’s two largest authoritarian dictatorships, nations that not so long ago murdered respectively 30 million and 70 million of their own citizens.   And how odd a sentiment for someone who grew up in Communist East Germany, a nightmarish state whose collapse was largely attributable to the Reagan-era effort to bankrupt and roll back the Soviet empire.

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THAT HAMILTON WOMAN

That Hamilton Woman was Winston Churchill’s favorite movie.   One source says that he watched it over 80 times.   He certainly watched it every night he was sailing across the Atlantic for a historic meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.   It was made at a crucial time for England, in 1941.   America was neutral and every nation in western Europe had been conquered by Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union was still neutral.   So England stood alone against the forces of fascism.

“Throughout the centuries England has built up a Commonwealth committed to freedom . . . every few years she must sent out her ships to stop a dictator conquering the world.”   So says the British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars.   England fought alone at that time, too, against Napoleon.

This has been the course of European events.   Every so often one nation on the continent of Europe achieves domination over the others.   Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler are the most famous dictators, who all, in turn, tried to conquer democratic England, but lost.

It’s happening again. Germany is the dominant power, as it was twice in the last century.   This time it’s different.   There’s no military rivalry involved (not yet, anyway), but Germany has achieved the ascendancy and wants to hold its position.   Anybody who threatens it will earn the enmity of the teutonic state.

That’s what Brexit is all about.

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“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

 

GLOBAL DEBT AT 317% OF GDP

The world’s debt burden stands at a staggering 317 per cent of global gross domestic product, just shy of its all-time high in 2016, according to the Institute of International Finance.   Years of low and negative interest rates have fed the debt habit:   since the 2008 financial crisis, the world has added an extraordinary $70tn in debt, or 25 per cent of GDP, with sovereign debt accounting for nearly 40 per cent of that increase.

“To be clear: responsibly incurred debt can play an important and constructive role in economic development.   Long-term investments that enhance productivity can foster a more prosperous future. Amid subdued growth in many parts of the world and a critical need for infrastructure, there are arguments to be made in support of using debt to foster growth.

“But too much debt is a risk for lenders and borrowers alike, as history has shown time and again.”

(“We need transparency to keep countries out of a debt spiral,” Axel Weber, Financial Times, 6/18)

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CURRENCY WARS

Europe has been warned. Any use of monetary levers to hold down the euro exchange rate will be deemed a provocation by the Trump administration.

Further cuts in interest rates to minus 0.5pc or beyond will be scrutinized for currency manipulation.   A revival of quantitative easing will be considered a devaluation policy in disguise, as indeed it is, since the money leaks out into global securities and depresses the euro.

The Bank for International Settlements says €300bn of Europe’s QE funding reached London alone between 2014 and 2017.

If the ECB copies the Swiss National Bank and starts to amass foreign assets directly to cap currency strength Europe will face certain retaliation.

(“Currency war is the next phase of global conflict and Europe, the chief parasite, is defenceless,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph, June 19^th)

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BRUSSELS BRIEFING

Donald Trump’s found someone else in Europe he doesn’t like.   The US president launched a Twitter tirade against Mario Draghi after the ECB president said he was ready to inject new stimulus into the eurozone, sending the euro tumbling against the dollar.  (Brussels Briefing, Financial Times, 6/1)

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 TRUMP’S WAR

“President Donald Trump cannot want war with Iran.

   Such a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world’s seaborne oil travels.   It could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump’s re-election.

   It would widen the “forever war,” which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large as Iraq.   It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush’s presidency.

 And if war comes now, it would be known as “Trump’s War.”

In conclusion:

“Who wants a U.S. war with Iran?

   Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and who oppose every effort of Trump’s to extricate us from those wars.

   Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked region that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that.”    (“War with Iran would become “Trump’s War,” Pat Buchanan, 6/18)

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Iran shoots down US drone aircraft

Oil prices jump after action by Revolutionary Guard escalates tensions between Tehran and Washington (Financial Times, 6/20)

“Iran shoots down US military drone to send “clear message” to Trump”   (Independent, 6/20)

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GERMAN POLITICIAN ASSASSINATED BY NEO-NAZI

Germany’s federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation into the murder of Walter Lübcke, indicating that the killing of the Kassel district president on June 2 is being treated as a politically motivated terrorist act.

If indeed the murder is shown to have been politically motivated, it would be the first such assassination on a sitting German politician since the 1970s.

Trail included death threats, weapons.

A number of German outlets have reported details of the alleged far-right ties of the suspect arrested in the central city of Kassel in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Monday that the 45-year-old man, named only as Stephan E., had a long criminal record, had already issued death threats via his YouTube channel, and that weapons were found during the search of his home.

According to the paper, Stephan E. had written a comment on YouTube in 2018 under his alias ‘Game Over’ that read, “Either this government abdicates soon or there will be deaths.”  ( “Walter Lubcke murder raises specter of neo-Nazi terrorism,”   Deutsche Welle news)

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“Xenophobia stokes extreme-right activism

Puls has also noticed that neo-Nazis became more and more vocal in the last few years, following the influx of refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015 and 2016, which led to more anti-immigrant sentiment in the mainstream political debate and hate speech on social media.

As a supporter of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy, Walter Lübke himself was on the sharp end of much of this.

“One can certainly say that the propensity for violence has certainly risen following the right-wing debates around immigration,” he said. “The case of Lübcke is certainly very revealing here.   Walter Lübcke faced an enormous amount of hatred in 2015.   That does raise the question:   how much does it take before one person says ‘I’ll reach for a weapon?’   In certain circumstances, not much.”

( “Walter Lubcke murder raises specter of neo-Nazi terrorism,” Deutsche Welle news)

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Stand up to far right, Germany’s Angela Merkel tells Europe

The resignation of Austria’s vice chancellor led German politicians to warn against alliances with populists.   Chancellor Merkel spoke out against right-wing populism as many are now demanding new Austrian elections.   (DW)

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NEO-NAZIS IN AMERICA

The definition of a neo-Nazi is someone who belongs to an organization that is similar to the German Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler.

“Frontline” (PBS) this week showed the growth of neo-Nazis across America.   It showed synagogues that are now doing everything they can to prepare for further mass shootings.

It also interviewed members of neo-Nazi groups and showed a perverse link with the current Administration.    “To make America great again, you would have to make America white again”,  is a direct quote from a leader of the neo-Nazi movement, the Waffen.

“FRONTLINE and ProPublica continue reporting on the resurgence of white supremacist groups in the United States.   “Documenting Hate:   New American Nazis” investigates a violent neo-Nazi group that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military, and examines the group’s terrorist objectives.” (Frontline).

Overlooked here is the major contribution made by liberals, in the growth of Nazism.   The massive influx of immigrants since 1965 has led directly to anti-immigrant feeling.   The 2008 financial crisis contributed greatly to anti-semitism.

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ZUCKERBERG LAUNCHES NEW CURRENCY

“He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has ^[a]the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Rev 13:16-17)

“Zuckerberg’s $538 billion social network on Tuesday announced plans to create a new digital currency and financial system that it claims will revolutionize banking. Facebook announced the new currency, called Libra, in a 12-page white paper that promised vast improvements on bitcoin and other volatile digital coins.” (New York Post, 6/18)

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THE DARK SIDE OF ZUCKERBERG’S POWERFUL NEW CRYPTO COIN

“In its quest for world domination, Facebook has already disrupted everything from the media industry to American democracy, drawing scrutiny for things like its pitiful handling of user data, its monopolistic tendencies, and a “digital gangster” mentality along the way.   Now, as regulators in Washington, D.C., bear down on Facebook, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has acquired a new target: the global financial system.

“On Tuesday, Facebook announced plans to debut Libra, a cryptocurrency it has been developing for more than a year. Described by the company as “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that can empower billions of people,” Libra will partner Facebook with Mastercard, Visa, Uber, and an array of other high-profile companies in what the New York Times called “the most far-reaching attempt by a mainstream company to jump into the world of cryptocurrencies.”

“David Marcus, who is leading Facebook’s blockchain technology research, is stoked.   “It feels like it is time for a better system,” Marcus told The Times. “This is something that could be a profound change for the entire world.”   Even Zuckerberg, who has spent much of the last two years on a sort of apology tour, sounds like he’s regained his change-the-world mojo.   “Being able to use mobile money can have an important positive impact on people’s lives because you don’t have to always carry cash, which can be insecure, or pay extra fees for transfers,”    Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.   “We aspire to make it easy for everyone to send and receive money just like you use our apps to instantly share messages and photos.”   (Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair, 6/18)

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THREAT TO US FOOD SUPPLY

“US beekeepers lost 40% of colonies over past year” – The Guardian 6/19