#uyghur leader india

[mashriqiyyah]

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Unveiling the evil agenda

What seemed like the aftermath of 9/11 which happened around 22 years ago, was a well-planned conspiracy. Intended false propaganda. A successful attempt to draw a clear picture of a terrorist in the eyes of the world. Torturing Muslim nations, hiding it ever so subtly under the guise of various uneven blames, then filming their resistance in the most brutal visuals and labeling it as terrorism. Every Muslim man who wore a skull cap, or sported a sunnah beard, every Muslim woman who wore a burqa or hijab or niqab was now a terrorist for mere choice of their clothing. Saying Allahu Akbar made people terrorists. Practicing Islam in public places made people terrorists. Revealing the Muslim identity and in fact, just existing as a Muslim made a person terrorist. Just because the USA painted 9/11 with a lie, that it was done by Muslims. Which in reality, was an attack launched by Israel; According to the US Army report. Ironically enough.

Now the world has memorized one lesson like a child memorizes rhymes. Every terrorist comes from Islam, even when the nations have gone through brutal oppression for ages for their faith are Muslims. In Uyghur, Sudan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Palestine, Sri Lanka, France, Bosnia and the counting doesn't seem to cease. The world was made so Islamophobic by this propaganda so the real Terrorists would continue their assault and massacre smoothly while wearing "white" collars.

Today, with these videos surfacing we see, Jewish/Zionists/White supremacists/Racist people celebrating/chanting "Death to the Arabs" "Death to prophet Muhammad"

(NaudhuBiAllah) (ﷺ). All the while they continue to rain white phosphorus bombs over a huge population of civilians, including children, women, and elderly and unarmed men. The world calls it self-defense and not terrorism or genocide when it's as clear and broad as daylight.

Why?

Because the one being killed belongs to Islam. That child whose birth certificate was not issued, was he a terrorist?

That kid whose body could fit in a school bag of his brother, was he a terrorist?

They are conducting gatherings where they openly call for genocide, "kill them all!" "Wipe all Arabs!" But no one seems to take it as an extremist activity.

Why don't we ever call a jew a terrorist? Why don't Fox News, CNN, and BBC scream on television that "Judaism is the real cause of terrorism?"

These Jewish settlers are proudly announcing that they will turn the Gazza Strip into a cemetery, level it, and occupy it because they are good and "chosen" for that land. The prime minister on air says "children of darkness" to Palestinian children. The cold-blooded hate is ever so apparent on their faces, their demonic eyes show what viciousness they are harnessing against a population whose land they stole.

Yet, no one thinks to call Israel a terrorist state.

This was the agenda all over. A fire caused diversion, so the real terrorists could cross the borders. Now, it's the time when the oppressors and the oppressed both are before our eyes. It's the time we choose to see the truth we've been kept away from, for all these years. We remove that false flag, erase the fake image generated for terrorism, and see the flags with blue and white as flags of terrorism.

These two nations, the USA and Israel are two major terrorist states. They destroyed Afghanistan, they destroyed Syria, Iraq, Libya, and many more countries for their greed over oil, they have a known history of colonization, and occupation, and their divide-and-rule policy has created massive drifts between harmonious populations. And they are the ones who should be taken into international law courts for severe crimes, for the assassination of all those Muslim leaders who dared to expose their false propaganda and lies (King Faisal, Saddam Hussain) for example).

It's time the world unites against corrupt and greedy leaders who can kill their people to gain sympathy and catch attention. Just like they killed the people in World Trade Centre.

- Umm Taimiyyah 🕊️

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.1 (after 1950)

1953 – Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India's Madras State. 1953 – A United States-South Korea mutual defense treaty is concluded in Washington, D.C. 1955 – The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established. 1957 – The motto In God We Trust first appears on U.S. paper currency. 1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA. 1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military intelligence organization. 1961 – East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. 1962 – James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying racial segregation rules. 1963 – On its third anniversary as an independent nation, Nigeria became a republic. 1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. 1964 – Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka. 1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with no survivors in Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9. 1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time. 1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. 1971 – The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient. 1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines. 1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1979 – The MTR, Hong Kong's rapid transit railway system, opens. 1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence. 1982 – EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) opens at Walt Disney World in Florida. 1982 – Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan; on the same day, Sony releases the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind. 1985 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization's Tunisia headquarters during Operation Wooden Leg. 1987 – The 5.9 Mw  Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing eight and injuring 200. 1989 – Denmark introduces the world's first legal same-sex registered partnerships. 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins. 2000 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Palestinians protest the murder of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah by Israeli police in northern Israel, beginning the "October 2000 events". 2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38. 2003 – The popular and controversial English-language imageboard 4chan is launched. 2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. 2012 – A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others. 2014 – A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people. 2014 – A double bombing of an elementary school in Homs, Syria kills over 50 people. 2015 – A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Oregon. 2015 – The American cargo vessel SS El Faro sinks with all of its 33 crew after steaming into the eyewall of Hurricane Joaquin. 2016 – The leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Pedro Sánchez, resigns. He would return to the position a year later. 2017 – Fifty-eight people are killed and 869 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide. 2018 – The International Court of Justice rules that Chile is not obliged to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean with Bolivia. 2019 – Kuopio school stabbing: one dies and ten are injured when Joel Marin, armed with a sabre, attacks a school class at Savo Vocational College in Kuopio, Finland. 2021 – The 2020 World Expo in Dubai begins. Its opening was originally scheduled for 20 October 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[spookylightwhispers]

the way us local kids could only sit quietly and spectate the heated discussion going on between the prc kids and the presenters, just sitting there looking at each other like 👀 trying not to laugh, not because it's funny funny but because it's just ridiculous it was just like here we go again even my prof got tired of them and tried to ignore them as much as he could and give way to other people to ask questions except they too were being defensive so it was just a never-ending loop

presenter: the chinese government is actively trying to eradicate the use of mongolian as an educational and institutional medium in Inner Mongolia

dude: but Yuan dynasty

like

okay so is it okay for the chinese government to "take revenge" over Mongolians of the present day just because of the Mongolians who ruled over China thousands of years ago? Besides, the yuan dynasty was so short lived it hardly had any effect on the chinese language. they certainly weren't engaging in the ccp's favourite hobby of carrying out cultural genocides. PLUS Inner Mongolia is literally supposed to be the place of Mongolians. It's the Han Chinese who migrated over to the point that they became the majority, and side lined the native Mongolians so bad.

presenter: talks about tibet, and how their language is being suppressed

dude #1: yeah but their religion!! their religion!! their big monk leader is inciting them to go against the government's interest

yeah i wonder why....i wonder why...

dude #2: the chinese government uplifted the tibetans who were living in slavery in monasteries. their lives are so much better economically too because of mandarin.

presenter: if it was so good why would they willingly set themselves on fire.

dude #2: but mandarin lifted them out of poverty!!

if the presenters had also talked about Uyghur like they had initially planned to, I can't imagine how much more worse it would have gotten. not one girl saying "what about the extra points the minorities in Xinjiang get in Gao Kao" and dude #1 going like "yeah and they get A LOT" (they think it's unfair)

okay kiddos, one act of positive discrimination doesn't cancel out all other oppression that takes place. and yeah, it may be unfair to you, but is it fair for them to be actively stripped of their cultural identity?

dude 2 was also like "in my grandma's village one muslim guy was caught stealing and he got sent to jail and in jail they fed him pork. but you can't say that's not civil" or some bs like that

like wow, you're telling me your government who can't even look after people's dietary requirements will actually care for their lives? LMAO if a prisoner was allergic to peanuts I guess it's morally okay to feed him peanuts too? After all, that's what every other prisoner is going to be fed too right? Everyone should be treated the same?

dude 2 also tried to bring up sikkim and my prof just shut him down with "it's just a matter of being a minority in india or being a minority in china. i know which one i'd choose"

perfect ending

can't have a presentation on minorities in China without the PRC kids dominating the discussion constantly trying to argue, and refute, and trying to justify

[rulystuff]

https://servicemeltdown.com/is-the-united-states-at-end-of-empire/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/is-the-united-states-at-end-of-empire/

IS THE UNITED STATES AT END OF EMPIRE?

America’s economic primacy is pretty much behind us. And, I don’t believe there is any chance of reversing a trend that began thirty plus years ago. The best-case scenario for the nation is to slow the rate of economic decline – never mind social and cultural decline, which are probably lodged in irreversible decay.  As Robert Kaplan says in his book, The Revenge of Geography, we might prolong our position of strength by preparing the world for our own obsolescence and thus ensuring a graceful exit.  But even this outcome will require the strength of will that has yet to be demonstrated by leaders in business, education, and government.

Economic primacy might be measured along many fronts – income per capita, rate of growth, productivity, foreign exchange reserves, among others – but if one looks at Gross Domestic Product (GDP), perhaps the coarsest measure of a nation’s economic well-being, then the United States has lost its economic primacy to China when compared on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis.

The PPP approach levels the GDP calculation to each country’s relative price of goods. So, if a television set costs $500 in the United States while the same television costs $250 in China then, theoretically at least, we’re under counting China’s GDP by $250. Using the PPP rationale, China’s GDP was approximately $23.5 trillion in 2019 compared to that of the United States which came in at $21.4 trillion.

Some politicians, economists, lobbyists, and others, like to use a different measure of GDP to suit their own purposes. The nominal GDP, which looks at the total of goods and services produced at current exchange rates yields a substantially different calculation. The nominal GDP of the United States in 2019 came in at $21.4 trillion, a number which is identical to the nation’s GDP on a PPP basis. The reason for this is that the nominal GDP calculation is based on the dollar and so there is no currency conversion rate difference. By comparison, China’s nominal GDP came in at $14.3 trillion. If we only look at nominal GDP, it is clear we are being lulled into a false sense of economic security.

CHINA HAS UNRIVALLED DIPLOMATIC PATIENCE

Diplomatically, China also has an edge on the United States. In the 1980’s, the then leader of the People’s Republic of China, Deng Xiaoping, enunciated his famous maxim of tao guang yang hui. Interpreted variously, the maxim is meant as a foreign policy directive that regardless how muscular the nation might become economically, geopolitically, and militarily it is always best to keep a “low profile diplomatically.” No more beguiling example of Deng Xiaoping’s maxim is in evidence than in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Simply put, China plans to build one “road” from China to Europe and thus control all manner of transcontinental commerce. Already, China controls or has a presence in ports that handle about two-thirds of the world’s container traffic. In Greece, the port of Piraeus, a storied port dating to the Fifth Century B.C., is majority owned by the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) which makes Greece a strategic entry point for China into the heart of Europe.

In Central Asia, China’s power projection is as undeniable as it is ominous. Through the auspices of the euphemistically named Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China has, in effect, expanded its borders westward by 1,500 miles to the Caspian Sea. Strategically, the mostly land-based route from Khorgos, Kazakhstan on China’s western border to Piraeus has now achieved super-highway potential from China to Europe.

China established the SCO with original signatories Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan for the expressed purpose of promoting border security along its Xinjiang autonomous-region home to millions of mostly Muslim ethnic Uyghurs. Emblematic of China’s clout in the region, moreover, is that since the formation of the SCO both India and Pakistan have been granted membership in the organization. For the United States, it isn’t clear how much leeway it will now have to operate in Central Asia given the leverage that China has over SCO countries economically, diplomatically, and militarily.

China has also learned to game international organizations. The Paris Climate Accord, biased to begin with in favor of China, looks the other way when the nation burns far more coal than it officially admits. So, while emissions in the United States trend lower, potentially hobbling our fossil fuel energy sector, China’s continue to increase. China’ s shell game also involves the building of coal plants outside its borders to further fuel its economy without having to account for the consequent emissions domestically. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is also in China’s pocket as it refuses to rein in China’s channeling of state subsidies to its manufacturing companies so as to better compete on the world’s stage. The most egregious example, of course, of how China has played international and presumably apolitical agencies lies with the country’s spread of the devastating and deadly Coronavirus and how the World Health Organization’s (WHO) was complicit in the coverup of China’s misdeeds. In December, 2019, when Taiwan warned about the infectiousness of the virus, the WHO refused to share Taiwan’s warnings with the rest of the world. Clearly, the WHO was doing China’s bidding. To this day, Taiwan, at China’s behest, is boycotted from participating as a full-fledged member of the WHO.

IF WE’RE NOT MAKING STUFF WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

Let’s face it, manufacturing was lost to our shores for all intents and purposes several years ago. In 2015, China displaced the United States as the top manufacturing nation in the world. In 2019, China’s value-added output – in essence, the difference between price and the cost to produce – in manufacturing amounted to $3.9 trillion compared to $2.4 trillion for the United States. That gap will doubtless continue to grow.

There are now roughly 15 million workers in the United States engaged in manufacturing down from approximately 18 million in the 1980’s – President Trump, to his credit, was determined to revitalize manufacturing, steel, and coal but despite gains in these areas total employment numbers will continue to slip on a trend-line basis.  When one considers that China has approximately 112 million manufacturing workers, the competitive disadvantage for the United States becomes palpably clear.

In 2019 our nation’s goods deficit with China was approximately $345 billion. That gap is not likely to be made up in any of our lifetimes. So, that leaves Services as the new game in town. In 2019, Services accounted for roughly 69% of our nation’s GDP. And, as a nation, we better excel in that new cycle reality. It is true, the United States ran an annual balance of payments surplus in services with China of about $36 billion in 2019 – with U.S. exports amounting to about $56 billion and imports from China totaling $20 billion. But don’t let that fool you as a $20 billion gap will be easy for China to make up especially when one considers that China’s Services sector is growing at an average of 2% per year. And, unless we accelerate the rate of growth of exports – the rate of growth is about even for both imports and exports – we might soon be facing a deficit in this sector of the economy so crucial for the good health of the nation in the twenty-first century.

THE NATION FACES SOME VERY STIFF HEADWINDS

The United States economy has structural defects which will not go away simply by holding rallies and mouthing rhetorical flourishes in the halls of Congress. Decline might be inexorable but we should not stand by as mere spectators. The will and purpose to restore our economic vitality must be marshaled by every American. It must begin, first and foremost, by demanding of our leaders, our institutions, and ourselves to be unafraid to serve in keeping with American priorities. It is the remotest possibility that we can salvage the service economy and consequently our nation unless our standard of performance is nothing less than service excellence in everything we do.

We don’t have a lot going for ourselves: Labor productivity growth is stalled at near zero levels; the rate of household savings is paltry; regulation and taxation still suffocates businesses and individuals despite President Trump’s initiatives; unemployment – not the nominal rate but the U6 rate which measures the unemployed, those that are not looking for work, and those who have had to settle for part-time work –  is mired at levels of 7% (during the Obama years the U6 rate never got below 9.2%); and he national debt is now in excess of 120% of GDP. Entitlement spending while currently at a level of approximately 70% of the federal budget is on the threshold of becoming a perfect storm of out-of- control spending. The progressive policies of the Biden Administration will see to that as it attempts to solve every problem by printing greenbacks. The growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement age and the population’s longer life expectancy will further exacerbate the nation’s economic health.  

Perhaps the most troubling portent for the nation’s future is its inability to clamber out of a deep and black hole in education. Among the 37 industrialized nations which comprise the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for example, the United States ranks 31st in mathematics and roughly in the middle on science. Clearly, all of the monetary and fiscal policies in the world will hardly fix this crippling deficiency which has more to do with a cultural indifference to serious and rigorous education.

Prior to Mr. Trump’s coming to office, the federal government was hell-bent on redistributing wealth rather than getting out of the way so that risk capitalists could create wealth. Unfortunately, President Trump’s reforms designed to bring back a full-throated and free market approach to the nation’s financial issues died the moment President Biden came into office.

Meanwhile, in the corporate world, business leaders are fixated on how quarterly earnings affect their pay packages, and when push comes to shove, cutting corners and worse. How else can one explain the utter disregard American companies operating in China have for the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on its people. Abuses such as forced labor (unions are illegal in China), the internment of over a million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, bans on religious freedom and free expression, arbitrary arrests, and the repression of Hong Kong citizens seem not to bother the likes of executives at Caterpillar, General Motors, Ford, AMD, Micron Technologies, Intel, Texas Instruments, Nike, and many others which are doing a land-office business in China. Apple, most notably, has raised to an art form tax, regulatory, and labor dodges which allow it to stash hundreds of billions of dollars overseas while paying little or no income taxes in the United States. The company, apparently, is nonplussed by the fact that its armies of workers in China are employed for wages and benefits that would be in contravention of United States laws. How the CEO’s of these companies can live with themselves knowing full well that they are profiting from someone else’s misery is a testament to their greed and lust for power.

WHERE DOES THE CUSTOMER FIT IN?

From the way we treat our veterans, clients, patients, students, donors, and citizens – customers, all, to my way of thinking we have a lot of work to do before we can claim to excel in service. A survey by consulting giant Accenture in 2007 showed that 41% of respondents described service quality as fair, poor, or terrible – more recent surveys suggest service is worsening. Perform any human endeavor at that level of proficiency and you are an abject failure. In the services sector, however, that is par for the course. In the Far East, cultural determinants do not confuse service with servitude. As a rule, suppliers will go the extra mile to please a consumer. In the West, and particularly in the United States, the most that a service worker can muster when asked to perform a personalized service is to utter something like, “no problem.” That kind of indifferent attitude is ingrained and certain to keep our level of service quality from climbing out of the aforementioned levels of mediocrity.

In the meantime, off-shore locations feast on our indifference to service and do whatever it takes to secure and maintain a customer relationship. The oft-cited explanation for the comparative advantage of off-shore locations, namely, their low cost, is a facile response to a more complicated dynamic. It is true that off-shore locations enjoy all-in cost advantages vis-a-vis the United States. It is also true, that President Trump worked hard to enhance our competitiveness on the world stage by reducing the oppressive web of regulation; reducing our world-leading corporate tax rates; negotiating better trade deals; exiting globalist compacts financed on the backs of American taxpayers; offering a tax holiday for repatriated corporate profits, among other initiatives. Those initiatives, however, have either been rolled back or will soon be under President Biden’s Administration.

My experience is that, particularly in technical disciplines, services delivered by off-shore locations are superior to ours. An apprenticeship initiative, if it were aggressively expanded to include science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations, might make us more competitive in this area. In the rarefied world of supercomputers so critical to pushing the frontiers of science and technology, for example, the United States is out-produced by China on the order of two-to-one. So, until and unless we grow a much larger crop of more competent technical workers we will continue to be outperformed by nations more determined, better educated, more dedicated, and hungrier than we are.

CAN THE UNITED STATES GUARANTEE THE PEACE?

If the nation has ceded its economic primacy, its military primacy is being severely tested. United States’ land-based forces are heavily committed to counterinsurgency operations to fend off non-state actors while conventional warfare strategic planning appears to be dead. In Europe, a likely conventional hotspot, NATO and U.S. forces are outgunned and outmanned by a factor of at least ten to one by Russian forces. In the far East, China’s land-based forces outnumber the United States by a factor of at least two to one.

Our ocean defenses are in no better shape. The nation’s principal bulwark protecting our shores is in steep decline. The United States Navy is but a ghost of its former self. The nation now has fewer vessels than it had before World War I. Most notably, our aircraft carrier fleet which must number sixteen in order to patrol three separate ocean theaters now numbers ten or barely enough to protect two theaters. In the Mediterranean, the U.S. Sixth Fleet is a non-entity the result of which is to have created a vacuum that is now filled by the Russians, Syrians, and Iranians. In the South China Sea, where American Navy vessels seem unable to sail without colliding into tankers and containerships, the United States is being challenged by a territorially aggressive and technologically advanced Chinese Navy. Already, an armada of sophisticated dredging vessels is reclaiming land from the sea for the sole purpose of building military airfields and naval port facilities. More worrisome, Chinese fighter jets and bombers now violate Taiwan’s air space with impunity and regularity.

Former U.S. Undersecretary of the Navy, Seth Cropsey, in his chilling and sobering account, Mayday the Decline of American Naval Supremacy, reminds us that China was the naval hegemon in the fifteenth century. Under the leadership of Admiral Sheng He, Chinese sailors coursed the oceans from their territorial waters to the Strait of Hormuz. Chinese vessels of the time were of a length and tonnage that were not to be seen in the West until centuries later. China’s naval supremacy only came to an end when civil servants forced severe budget cutbacks on the kingdom. Does our own defense budget sequestration of 2013 under President Obama, with its mandate to, in effect, disarm the military, ring a bell? The results of each nation’s budget missteps are eerily similar. China, for its part, will probably not repeat its mistake. In all likelihood, it will take the United States a generation, assuming proper funding and political will, to restore the U.S. Navy so that we can confidently state that the nation can project power and protect seaborne commerce beyond the horizon.

Just as troubling as the rickety state of the nation’s military naval forces is the state of the United States Merchant Marine. The Merchant Marine fleet hauls cargo during peacetime and is attached to the Defense Department during wartime to transport troops and supplies into war zones. The United States should hope it does not get into a major conflagration oceans away as it has experienced a dramatic attrition in its Merchant Marine fleet and manpower inventory. In 1960, the United States had nearly 3,000 vessels in the Merchant Marine fleet. Today, the nation has fewer than 175 vessels or less than one-half of 1% of the total vessel count worldwide. Worse, United States-flagged vessels carry a mere pittance of the total volume of goods and materials that transit through the nation’s ports. The consequence of what is obviously a weak flank in the nation’s defense posture is that in the event of a major outbreak of hostilities the United States would be reliant on foreign-flagged vessels to carry troops, armaments, and supplies with all of the attendant security risks.

One can argue that China’s bellicosity toward the United States is as asymmetrical as it is frontal and direct: China’s theft of roughly $225 billion, at the low end and as much as $600 billion at the high end, annually in counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets from the United States; its monopoly of rare earth metals critical not just for consumer products but for Defense Department applications; its financing of over fifty Confucius Institutes on college campuses and schools designed to spread CCP propaganda; and its unleashing of the Wuhan virus which has cost the lives of more than six-hundred thousand innocent Americans is proof positive that China’s strategy is to envelop the United States on all fronts. And, the United States’ military is playing into China’s hands by its determination to “feminize” its armed forces. Progressive ideologues both in the Biden Administration and the Pentagon are using the military as a social experiment petri dish which is undermining the combat readiness of those in a position to protect our shores in the event of war. All you need to know in this regard comes from the Current Commander in Chief, Joseph Biden: “We’re making good progress designing body armor that fits women properly; tailoring combat uniforms for women; creating maternity flight suits; updating – updating requirements for their hairstyles…”

AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS

In sum, if as the great military historian B.H. Liddell Hart suggests, a nation’s Grand Strategy is a composite of its political, military, economic and diplomatic tools in its “arsenal” which can be brought to bear to advance a state’s national interest then the United States appears to be convulsing in its gradual decay. As I have argued in my essay, The United Kingdom Is Resurgent, the former world economic power, lost its supremacy because it failed to adapt to the winds of change which buffeted its shores long after the economy reached its apex in the early twentieth century.

It is also provocative to think that there might be a “natural” life cycle to nations as there is to human beings that is irreversible. Regardless of one’s view in embracing one or another theory that might explain the demise of nations, there is no reason to remain indolent in resisting such decline even if there is only the remotest possibility of such an outcome. Keep in mind that the demise of Rome was hardly cataclysmic but the result of a long succession of imprudent decisions made by the Empire’s leaders.

Top of Form

[whentherewerebicycles]

@the-everqueen omg this New Yorker piece you recommended!! so well-written (that image of wilderson writing from “history’s humid basement!) and wow, yes. this passage:

“In the same vein, Wilderson describes a meeting that his father attended, as an emissary of the University of Minnesota, with several Native American leaders, hoping to resolve a conflict about reservation lands. Young Frank was in the audience, and someone sitting near him cried out, “We don’t want you, a n— man, telling us what to do!” The lesson that Wilderson takes from the episode is that the Native Americans—raped and slaughtered on these lands, subjected to a genocide that enabled the Americas as we know them to exist—are “sovereigns,” and therefore human, while his dad, middle class, American, and Black, is not. In a previous book, “Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms,” which grew out of his dissertation, Wilderson describes “the Red, Indigenous, or ‘Savage’ position” as existing “liminally as half-death and half-life between the Slave (Black) and the Human (White, or non-Black).” In “Afropessimism,” even that gradation is gone. Wilderson overwrites history with the darkest, most permanent marker.

Every society has a murderous hierarchy: someone’s always knocking at the basement door, trying to get free. But life is prismatic—it’s possible to be Black and degraded in America while also profiting from wanton extraction of resources overseas, oppressing millions of non-Black others, and living on land stolen from indigenous people. We are always joined in our sufferings, often by somebody we can’t see through the darkness. We speak of solidarity precisely because the empathetic act of analogy is a way of acknowledging this complexity, and of training our ethical senses, again and again, to widen the circle of our concern. Any system of thought that has refined itself beyond the ability to imagine kinship with the stranded Guatemalan kid detained at the U.S. border, or with the functionally enslaved Uyghur in China, or, again—I can’t get over it—with the Native American on whose stolen ancestral ground you live and do your business, is lost in its own fog.

Black thought at its best has been a vehicle for and a product of analogy. Black Christians saw the liberatory potential in the story of the Hebrews rescued by God from beneath Pharaoh’s thumb and, still more, in the life of the Jewish Palestinian preacher Jesus, put to death by the colonizers of his homeland. Some of them looked to Latin America, where liberation theology blossomed; they created Black liberation theology, and forever transformed the flavor of American religion. A feeling of kinship with the colonized people of India, and with Gandhi in particular, helped make nonviolence a core practice of the civil-rights movement. A study of the revolutionary struggles in Algeria, Fanon’s great subject, helped to make the case—argued most famously by the Black Liberation Army, an influence on Wilderson—for the occasional necessity of violence. None of this is incidental: the impulse toward freedom is always seeking friends.”

also the reference to hooks’s conception of theory at the end—the contrast between the two frameworks (and then later with Black lesbian feminist thought) is so so striking. this passage (!):

“But, unlike hooks, Wilderson does not choose to imagine possible futures. The only way to cure the condition of slavery that ails Black people, he says, is “the end of the world.” There will have to be a total end to things—an apocalypse. From civilization’s ashes something truly new might finally grow. How to hasten this final reckoning? Wilderson doesn’t say. To offer some further prescription would be a betrayal of the style of his book, and of the shape of his ideas.”

[rightsinexile]

News on Countries of Origin

Global 

Trump administration alters, downplays human rights abuses in US State Department reports

Africa

Hundreds of thousands of displaced families affected by floods in the Sahel countries

ALGERIA: Algerian authorities expel thousands of migrants, asylum seekers to Niger

BURKINA FASO: 

Jihadist attacks in northern Burkina Faso leave more than a dozen civilians dead

UNHCR condemns the killing of 25 internally displaced people in Burkina Faso

CAMEROON: 

UN experts call for end to detention, intimidation of peaceful protesters in Cameroon

Gunmen kill at least six children in attack on Cameroon school

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: 

Thousands flee armed group attacks in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Protesters demand justice over unprosecuted rapes and murders in eastern DRC

EGYPT: 

Rare protests met with unlawful force and mass arrests by Egyptian security forces

Egyptian security forces subject LGBT people to detention, ill-treatment and torture

KENYA: 

The untold horror story of being transgender in Kenya

Kenyan efforts to end FGM suffor blow with victims paraden in “open defiance”

LIBYA:

Shocking cycle of violence for migrants departing Libya to seek safety in Europe

153 vulnerable asylum seekers evacuated from Libya to Niger by plane

Libyan militia hold at least 60 migrants hostage: MSF

Senior Libyan coastguard commander arrested for alleged human trafficking

MOZAMBIQUE: Escalating conflict in Cabo Delgado province forces over 300.000 to flee

NIGERIA:

Police brutality is just the tip of the iceberg for protesters in Nigeria

Authorities repeatedly fail to tackle impunity of notorious SARS police unit

“Just stop killing us”: Young Nigerians rise up against brutal police force

At least 11 killed in Islamist attack on a security convoy in Nigeria

SOUTH AFRICA: South African environmental activist shot dead in her home

SUDAN: Revealed: chaining, beastings and torture inside Sudan’s Islamic schools

ZIMBABWE: Journalist Hopewell speaks out about brutal Zimbabwe prison conditions

Americas

HONDURAS: 

Honduran migrant caravan heads towards US to escape pandemic induced poverty

Human rights defender from Guapinol community murdered amidst state violence as extractive projects are implemented and legalized in protected territory

VENEZUELA: 

New round of protests shakes Venezuela as discontent intensifies over failure of public services

Amid pandemic, Venezuelans leave the country in search of work

Asia

AZERBAIJAN: 

Fleeing Azerbaijanis haunted by shelling in Nagorno-Karabakh mountains

Karabakh fighting turns local residents into “vagabond” refugees

BANGLADESH: Protesting Rohingya refugees beaten as authorities prepare relocation to island Bhasan Char

CHINA:

China confirms the jailing of family members of Netherlands-based Uyghur activist

Chinese leader Xi Jinping disregards systematic human rights abuses in Xinjiang

China “anti-gang” campaign is used to crack down on Tibetan community groups

Chinese authorities open hundreds of so-called security centers in Lhasa, increasing surveillance and facilitating stronger centralized control

Uyghur tell Australian parliamentary inquiry of “intimidation and harassment” by the Chinese government

INDIA:

Indian authorities blame critics after rape and murder in Uttar Pradesh state

Amnesty International forced to halt work as Indian government targets human rights groups

Indian TV channel silenced after it covered alleged corruption in Karnataka state

A life under lockdown through the eyes of Kashmir’s cartoonists

MYANMAR: Rakhine conflict escalates as villages burn and civilians are killed and injured

NEPAL: New laws in Nepal increase punishment for perpetrators of acid attacks

Europe

BELARUS: Lukashenko escalates crackdown in likely response to increased risk of Russian intervention

HUNGARY: Children’s book becomes symbol of resistance in Hungary’s fight over LGBT rights

MENA

AFGHANISTAN: Civilians caught in fighting between Afghan government forces, Taliban in Helmand province; tens of thousands flee their homes

IRAQ: 

Regional authorities shut down media offices unlawfully in Kurdish region in Iraq after covering protests, airing broadcasts critical of the ruling party

“The militias are not allowing us back”: Sunnis languish in camps years after recapture of Mosul

PALESTINE: Israel’s systematic repression of Palestinians continues during pandemic: HRW

SYRIA: Dutch government seeks to hold Syria accountable for gross human rights violations

TURKEY: Politicians, activists detained as the Turkish government uses 2014 protests pretext for political crackdown

YEMEN: No clean hands as impunity continues unabated in Yemen, where there is no safe place to escape the ravages of war

[maritimesilkroad3]

Exploring the Silk Road

21st Century Maritime Silk Road

The actual Silk Road is one associated with China's most popular tourist destinations. There are actually already heaps of travel agents as well as tour companies offering excursions in 2010. So where is it and also why is it so popular?

21st Century Maritime Silk Road

Traditionally the actual Silk Road extends via Xian in central China and taiwan to either the Middle Far east or Europe. In fact there are several routes, some to Moscow in the north and those straight into India and Pakistan in the south. The same as travellers in the time regarding Marco Polo - the particular thirteenth century - typically the ancient trade routes remain although the type of goods available and the method of transport get changed. The reason why the Cotton Road starts/ends in Xian is that it was the ancient investment of China and dimensions trade routes, in many cases across the Yangtze and Yellow Estuaries and rivers, were already established for you to distribute goods within Cina.

Nowadays, many tourists start off their Silk Road trip in Beijing. The Poderoso City, the Great Wall involving China the many places connected with historic interest will make the 3-5 day stay useful. Add to it a little store shopping and time to experience n . Chinese cuisine and you are positioned for your Silk Road encounter.

Getting there. Most intercontinental airlines fly into Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. You will find a lesser choice of flights to help and from western Tiongkok and most of these are structured out of the capital of Xinjiang Province, Urumqi.

China offers rail connections north in order to Mongolia, Hong Kong, Tibet along with west to Moscow. To the even more adventurous there are multiple track links into Vietnam.

Instructor access from/to Pakistan is offered along the Karakorum Highway, in addition to November though April, introduced closed. Delays and distress can be part of this path so be prepared. Travel throughout Pakistan needs serious thought. We spent 12 great days travelling there at the end of 2007 but with the climb of the Taliban the risk intended for westerners has increased dramatically.

Integralinis are required for all access take into account China and I recommend that all these be obtained well in advance.

Driving around Train travel is famous in China although it is equipped with an extensive coach network. Naturally you could fly but that might really defeat the main intent behind visiting China - in order to meet the people. Train travel is usually reliable, fast and affordable. "Soft" sleeping compartments because of four or on a few routes for two persons are offered or if you want to join often the locals try the "hard" class, but unless you need treatment on a tight budget, it's not encouraged. You will need assistance buying the railroad tickets as few stop staff speak English. The particular timetables and options might be complex. Ask a travel company with China experience to help you.

Many companies offer tours over the Silk Road. Most of these work with a combination of coach and also. International companies include DISTANCE, Peregrine, World Expeditions, Vacation Indo-China. You can find these applying Google. Some tours will include a lour leader and guideline. Standards of accommodation in addition to comfort are reflected from the pricing.

Another option is to work with a guide through Chinese firms like Xinjiang Silk Path Adventures in Urumqi. Community guides can be provided with a per day basis or all round for a tour, at inexpensive prices. Tour guides are required to always be licensed in China.

When is it best to Go China is a huge country covering eight timezones. Its climate varies noticeably. Summers can be hot as well as sticky and the winters really cold so the best several weeks are in Spring and Fall months. Consult a good guide reserve for the temperatures that you can knowledge at the time of your planned vacation so that you can dress appropriately.

Egypt Road Highlights To get the best of a Silk Road quest it should not be rushed. Let a minimum of 14 days in addition to just about any stay in Beijing. If you are such as Uzbekistan add another eight days:

The major attractions are generally:

o Xian the Clay Army and other historic web sites o The Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous region to The Fort and Wonderful Wall of China Adult ed at Jiayuguan o Dunhuang for riding the two humped Bactrian camels in the great sand dunes. Nearby are definitely the Buddhist Mogao Caves fixed into a desert backdrop from the Flaming mountains. o Urumqi has an excellent Xinjiang Comarcal Museum. Two hours apart is the spectacular lake section of China, the Beautiful Lake. Here you'll find Kazakh people living in yurts and also grazing their herds associated with horses, sheep and goats. If you have the time, stay right away and experience the food and food of the locals. o Turpan is famous for its grapes, along with nearby are the ancient urban centers of Gaochang and Jiaohe, the Bezeklik thousand Juggernaut Tombs and the underground normal water systems called karez in which link Turpan to much essential snow melt from the far away Tian Shan mountains. a Kashgar, a trade option city for thousands of years. Visit the outdated city before it's destroyed and attend the famous On the animal market which though dusty is a great spectacle. e Those with extra time may find the actual southern Silk Road remanso towns of Yarkand in addition to Khotan of interest. This area is much less visited but does have several interesting side trips which includes camel safaris and journeys into the Taklamakan desert. This kind of predominantly Uyghur area provides much of interest for those that are seeking something a little different. i A short train journey or maybe flight will take you across the european Chinese border and then up on Tashkent the capital of Uzbekistan. Here the real gems in the Silk Road are to be within the ancient cities regarding Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Coach travel in Uzbekistan is comfortable and reasonably priced, although the rail line western world offers an alternative.

If you are looking for a getaway with a difference and you are a small adventurous, then travelling the particular Silk Road should be on the side your list. It is harmless and affordable. And it is any hugely rewarding experience. Sure, it will have its challenges but you may be asking yourself what a story you can tell if you get home, not to mention your excellent digital photographs of the best parts of this scenic journey.

[mideastsoccer]

A bird’s eye view of Asia: A continental landscape of minorities in peril

By James M. Dorsey

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Patreon, Podbean and Castbox.

Many in Asia look at the Middle East with a mixture of expectation of stable energy supplies, hope for economic opportunity and concern about a potential fallout of the region’s multiple violent conflicts that are often cloaked in ethnic, religious and sectarian terms.

Yet, a host of Asian nations led by men and women, who redefine identity as concepts of exclusionary civilization, ethnicity, and religious primacy rather than inclusive pluralism and multiculturalism, risk sowing the seeds of radicalization rooted in the despair of population groups that are increasingly persecuted, disenfranchised and marginalized.

Leaders like China’s Xi Jingping, India’s Narendra Modi, and Myanmar’s Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi, alongside nationalist and supremacist religious figures ignore the fact that crisis in the Middle East is rooted in autocratic and authoritarian survival strategies that rely on debilitating manipulation of national identity on the basis of sectarianism, ethnicity and faith-based nationalism.

A bird’s eye view of Asia produces a picture of a continental landscape strewn with minorities on the defensive whose positioning as full-fledged members of society with equal rights and opportunities is either being eroded or severely curtailed.

It also highlights a pattern of responses by governments and regional associations that opt for a focus on pre-emptive security, kicking the can down the road and/or silent acquiescence rather than addressing a wound head-on that can only fester, making cures ever more difficult.

To be sure, multiple Asian states, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have at various times opened their doors to refugees.

Similarly, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) disaster management unit has focused on facilitating and streamlining repatriation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

But a leaked report by the unit, AHA Centre, in advance of last June’s ASEAN summit was criticized for evading a discussion on creating an environment in which Rohingya would be willing to return.

The criticism went to the core of the problem: Civilizationalist policies, including cultural genocide, isolating communities from the outside world, and discrimination will at best produce simmering anger, frustration and despair and at worst mass migration, militancy and/or political violence.

A Uyghur member of the Communist Party for 30 years who did not practice his religion, Ainiwa Niyazi, would seem to be the picture-perfect model of a Chinese citizen hailing from the north-western province of Xinjiang.

Yet, Mr Niyazi was targeted in April of last year for re-education, one of at least a million Turkic Muslims interned in detention facilities where they are forced to internalize Xi Jinping thought and repudiate religious norms and practices in what constitutes the most frontal assault on a faith in recent history.

If past efforts, including an attempt to turn Kurds into Turks by banning use of Kurdish as a language that sparked a still ongoing low level insurgency, is anything to go by, China’s ability to achieve a similar goal with greater brutality is questionable.

“Most Uyghur young men my age are psychologically damaged. When I was in elementary school surrounded by other Uyghurs, I was very outgoing and active. Now I feel like I have been broken… Quality of life is now about feeling safe,” said Alim, a young Uyghur, describing to Adam Hunerven, a writer who focuses on the Uyghurs, arrests of his friends and people trekking south to evade the repression in Xinjiang cities.

Travelling in the region in 2014, an era in which China was cracking down on Uyghurs but that predated the institutionalization of the re-education camps, Mr. Hunerven saw that “the trauma people experienced in the rural Uyghur homeland was acute. It followed them into the city, hung over their heads and affected the comportment of their bodies. It made people tentative, looking over their shoulders, keeping their heads down. It made them tremble and cry.”

There is little reason to assume that anything has since changed for the better. On the contrary, not only has the crackdown intensified, fear and uncertainty has spread to those lucky enough to live beyond the borders of China. Increasingly, they risk being targeted by the long arm of the Chinese state that has pressured their host countries to repatriate them.

Born and raised in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, Rahima Akter, one of the few women to get an education among the hundreds of thousands who fled what the United Nations described as ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, saw her dreams and potential as a role model smashed when she was this month expelled from university after recounting her story publicly.

Ms. Akter gained admission to Cox’s Bazar International University (CBIU) on the strength of graduating from a Bangladeshi high school, a feat she could only achieve by sneaking past the camp's checkpoints, hiding her Rohingya identity, speaking only Bengali, dressing like a Bangladeshi, and bribing Bangladeshi public school officials for a placement.

Ms Akter was determined to escape the dire warnings of UNICEF, the United Nations’ children agency, that Rohingya refugee children risked becoming “a lost generation.”

Ms. Akter’s case is not an isolated incident but part of a refugee policy in an environment of mounting anti-refugee sentiment that threatens to deprive Rohingya refugees who refuse to return to Myanmar unless they are guaranteed full citizenship of any prospects.

In a move that is likely to deepen a widespread sense of abandonment and despair, Bangladeshi authorities, citing security reasons, this month ordered the shutting down of mobile services and a halt to the sale of SIM cards in Rohingya refugee camps and restricted Internet access. The measures significantly add to the isolation of a population that is barred from travelling outside the camps.

Not without reason, Bangladeshi foreign minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen, has blamed the international community for not putting enough pressure on Myanmar to take the Rohingyas back.

The UN “should go to Myanmar, especially to Rakhine state, to create conditions that could help these refugees to go back to their country. The UN is not doing the job that we expect them to do,” Mr. Abdul Momen said.

The harsh measures are unlikely to quell increased violence in the camps and continuous attempts by refugees to flee in search of better pastures.

Suspected Rohingya gunmen last month killed a youth wing official of Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League party. Two refugees were killed in a subsequent shootout with police.

The plight of the Uyghurs and the Rohingya repeats itself in countries like India with its stepped up number of mob killings that particularly target Muslims, threatened stripping of citizenship of close to two million people in the state of Assam, and unilateral cancellation of self-rule in Kashmir.

Shiite Muslims bear the brunt of violent sectarian attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Malaysia, Shiites, who are a miniscule minority, face continued religious discrimination.

The Islamic Religious Department in Selangor, Malaysia’s richest state, this week issued a sermon that amounts to a mandatory guideline for sermons in mosques warning against “the spread of Shia deviant teachings in this nation… The Muslim ummah (community of the faithful) must become the eyes and the ears for the religious authorities when stumbling upon activities that are suspicious, disguising under the pretext of Islam,” the sermon said.

Malaysia, one state where discriminatory policies are unlikely to spark turmoil and political violence, may be the exception that confirms the rule.

Ethnic and religious supremacism in major Asian states threatens to create breeding grounds for violence and extremism. The absence of effective attempts to lessen victims’ suffering by ensuring that they can rebuild their lives and safeguard their identities in a safe and secure environment, allows wounds to fester.

Permitting Ms. Akter, the Rohingya university student, to pursue her dream, would have been a low-cost, low risk way of offering Rohingya youth an alternative prospect and at the very least a reason to look for constructive ways of reversing what is a future with little hope.

Bangladeshi efforts to cut off opportunities in the hope that Rohingya will opt for repatriation have so far backfired. And repatriation under circumstances that do not safeguard their rights is little else than kicking the can down the road.

Said human rights advocate Ewelina U. Ochab: “It is easy to turn a blind eye when the atrocities do not happen under our nose. However, we cannot forget that religious persecution anywhere in the world is a security threat to everyone, everywhere.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture

[tumbirus]

Good Evening,Today,China is one of Pakistan's largest leaders,holding more than 27%of Pakistan's debt.Bilatreal trade hovers around $20billion but is skewed in favour of China which enjoy a huge favourable balance not trade in the region of $18billion .There are signs of resentment in Pakistan atbover-dependence on China ,and the exploitative and usurious terms inherent in the CPEC projects. One of the abiding featurs of the Sibo-Pak collision concerns the status of Jammu and Kashmir ,During the 1950s,China's position on the kasmir issue was relatively natural in the 1950s,and 1970s,after the border conflict beith India ,China stepped up its rhetoric of support for "self-determination "for the people of Kasmir on the basis of UN resolutions between India and China gradually improved , China's stand underwent some change ,with emphasis on resolving bthe issue on the basis of UN resolutions and relevant bilateral agreements. After the aborogation of Article 370 by India in August 2019 , China vehemently opposed the internal political changes effected by India .China unsuccessfully tried ,thrice ,to Tigger discussions on J&K in the UN security council at the behest of Pakistan.Itself a party to Kasmir bdiute China is surreptitiously pushing Pakistan to alter the status of Gilgit b-Baltistan (GB) by converting it into its fifth province.The intention is to dilute the interm character of the 1963 agreement between the two countries and consolidate the de facto possession not Pakistan b-occupied Kasmir (POK) territory by Pakistan and that of shaksgam by China. Apart from synchronising their positions at the UN,China and Pakistan have created new tandems extending to other international organizations of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Pakistan bis China's bman bridge bro Islamic world . Pakistan plays a key role in feeding of pressure on China within the OIC on account not its human rights violations in Xinjiang and the ill-treatment not its Muslim minorities, especially bthe Uyghurs . Pakistan also remains sensitive to Chinese concerns ...... count (at Mumbai, Maharashtra) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjVxkPtp8n4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.1

331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela. 366 – Pope Damasus I is consecrated. 959 – Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England, in succession to Eadwig. 965 – Pope John XIII is consecrated. 1553 – Coronation of Queen Mary I of England. 1588 – Coronation of Shah Abbas I of Persia. 1730 – Ahmed III is forced to abdicate as the Ottoman sultan. 1779 – The city of Tampere, Finland (belonging to Sweden at this time) is founded by King Gustav III of Sweden. 1787 – Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn. 1791 – First session of the French Legislative Assembly. 1795 – More than a year after the Battle of Sprimont, the Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium) are officially annexed by Revolutionary France. 1800 – Via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain cedes Louisiana to France, which would sell the land to the United States thirty months later. 1814 – Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring. 1827 – Russo-Persian War: The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination of Armenia. 1829 – South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa. It will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools. 1832 – Texian political delegates convene at San Felipe de Austin to petition for changes in the governance of Mexican Texas. 1861 – Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management is published, going on to sell 60,000 copies in its first year and remaining in print until the present day. 1887 – Balochistan is conquered by the British Empire. 1890 – Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress. 1891 – Stanford University opens its doors in California, United States. 1898 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie. 1903 – Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. 1908 – Ford Model T automobiles are offered for sale at a price of US$825. 1910 – A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21. 1918 – World War I: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force captures Damascus. 1918 – Sayid Abdullah becomes the last Khan of Khiva. 1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its first five-year plan. 1931 – The George Washington Bridge in the United States, linking New Jersey and New York, is opened. 1931 – Clara Campoamor persuades the Constituent Cortes to enfranchise women in Spain's new constitution. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia dissolves itself, handing control of Catalan defence militias over to the Generalitat. 1938 – Germany annexes the Sudetenland. 1939 – World War II: After a one-month siege, German troops occupy Warsaw. 1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic. 1942 – World War II: USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru, not knowing that she is carrying British prisoners of war from Hong Kong. 1943 – World War II: After the Four Days of Naples, Allied troops enter the city. 1946 – Nazi leaders are sentenced at the Nuremberg trials. 1946 – The Daegu October Incident occurs in Allied-occupied Korea. 1947 – The North American F-86 Sabre flies for the first time. 1949 – The People's Republic of China is established. 1953 – Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India's Madras State. 1953 – A Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea is concluded in Washington, D.C. 1955 – The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established. 1957 – First appearance of In God we trust on U.S. paper currency. 1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA. 1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military intelligence organization. 1961 – East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. 1961 – The CTV Television Network, Canada's first private television network, is launched. 1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. 1964 – Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka. 1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with no survivors in Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9. 1968 – Guyana nationalizes the British Guiana Broadcasting Service, which would eventually become part of the National Communications Network, Guyana. 1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time. 1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. 1971 – The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient. 1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines. 1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1979 – Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States. 1979 – The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens. 1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence. 1982 – Epcot opens at Walt Disney World in Florida. 1982 – Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan. On the same day, Sony released the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind. 1985 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia during "Operation Wooden Leg". 1987 – The 5.9 Mw  Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing eight and injuring 200. 1989 – Denmark introduces the world's first legal same-sex registered partnerships. 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins. 1994 – Palau enters a Compact of Free Association with the United States. 2000 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Palestinians protest the murder of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah by the Israeli police in northern Israel, beginning the "October 2000 events". 2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38. 2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. 2012 – A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others. 2014 – A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people. 2014 – A double bombing of an elementary school in Homs, Syria kills over 50 people. 2015 – A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Oregon. 2015 – Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in Guatemala, killing 280 people. 2017 – An independence referendum, declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, takes place in Catalonia. 2017 – Fifty-eight people are killed and 869 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide. 2018 – The International Court of Justice rules that Chile is not obliged to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean with Bolivia.

[attheexactlyrighttimeandplace]

A pile of bullshit spread by a privileged white man who has never sit in his life in the seat of poc men and women (Rohingya people, Uyghurs people, Palestinians, Kashmiris and Indians, Iranians, french muslims) everywhere in the world who are suffering right now of discrimination, occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, threat of war/bombing and genocide because they are muslims.

Yes, words can hurt. Words carry hate. Words carry hate and hate kills. Words in draft legislation made by racist lawmakers, in mainstream newspapers serving as propaganda tools funded by ethnic-nationalists moguls, in political speeches of western and non western (India/China) leaders from centre to extremes, in fictional works of islamophobic authors praised by cultural elites; all those words legitimate hate and are a call to physical violence against muslims, by adding the authority of the things written to the most illogical, fake and dangerous ideas.

Western governments these days know it very well: that's the all point of the islamophobic propaganda they use to influence their public opinion and justify their wars in the muslim countries. Nationalists hate groups know it too: In Europe, they use novels as a way to feed the feeling of insecurity, creating dystopian scenarios in which the power is reversed and the 1% of muslims would dominate the 99% (white) local people who are yet the main population since thousand years old.

Where does Salman Rushdie's right to spread a degrading image of muslims and their religion that will feed islamophobia, comes from? From freedom of speech? That's a human right to insult a whole community and put them in danger just based on their religious beliefs? In France, the sells of the Satanic Verses have raised so much after his attack, it became the most selling book in a week. In countries like France any book that spread hate of muslims tops the list, no matter how bad it is and how harsh the critics of the book are. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech and the desire to protect an author that defend human rights. When Sally Rooney refused to sell the rights of her last book to a israeli publisher because the company was working with the apartheid regime in Israel, the sells of her books didn't raise. Instead she was accused of antisemitism and she was bullied.

It's the concentration of this kind of careless thinking, the multiplication of these mindless words/racist views expressed freely because it's only fiction, that India, the country where Salman Rushdie was born and raised, has become one of the most islamophobic country in the world, regularly denounced by the UN council of Human Rights for its violation of the international conventions: for creating concentration camps in Khasmir, for depriving indian muslims of their citizenship, for practising collective punition by destroying the houses of muslims family when one member of the family is arrested or condemned, for banning veiled girls from high schools, for covering police brutality meaning police murders of muslims, for justifying through laws and court decisions the destruction of mosques and letting mobs lynch in plain sight in broad daylight innocent muslims.

Rushdie's words fueled the start of this process that began 30 years ago and lead to the current situation where civilians: women, children, ederly people are targeted.

Everyone has a right to be offended by whatever offends them, and everyone on earth has a right to articulate their offense

So generous of Mr Gopnik to give the muslims the right to be offended. I bet it comes for him just after the recognition of their right to exist, as annoying as they can be with their religion that doesn't please ethically and aesthetically the western cultural elites. Such civilized man with its civilized moral that define his culture as civilization and the rest as what? Savage world? A civilized man fighting the big fight to preserve his liberal civilization and its civilized values that allow the murders of savage people? muslims civilians in the name of civilization.

No wonder why for people like Gopnik, It's not the violence used that is shoking, but the fact that "those who threaten to harm us" exist and can indeed be effective in their actions.

"No one has a right to maim or kill someone because our words offend them".

People takes this right when they are in a situation of self defence. That's what this attack was. Legitimate defense in a context where the attacker being a poc man didn't have the same notoriety or influence, or money as Rushdie to fight him on equal foot with words. In a context where not having the means to defend yourself against the spread of hate speech against your faith means you die.

It's all abstract ideas - psychological and philosophical principles of challenging yourself by confronting your ideas to the opposite side - when you are white and/or living a privileged life in a western country. For the muslims, on the ground, every day, it's a question of survival. '

Islam is not a ideology : it's the core identity of millions people all around the world. It's the reason why they form communities and families and live and protect each other. Islam influence and change the way they marry, the way they raise their children, the way they take care of their ederly parents and the way they honor their deads. In those communities all the central moments of the human life include islamic rituals, that also strengthen their community and give sense to their actions.

It's a all civilized world with civilized people who have civilized values and want to protect their right to exist as every civilization which is not the western civilization. It's the incapacity to grasp this simple concept for liberal western men and those who think like them, that leads the world to this situation and this attack.

More precisely it's the incapacity of men like Gopnik who mock the assailant for being one "of those who cannot tolerate having their pet convictions criticized" to question their own brutality and the violence contained in the insults that they give themselves the right to spread, to admit that they receive violence in return of the hate they sow under the cover of free speech, that leads the world to this situation and this attack.

“The idea—which has sprung to dangerous new life in America as much on the progressive as on the theocratic side of the argument—that words are equal to actions reflects the most primitive form of word magic, and has the same relation to the actual philosophy of language that astrology has to astronomy. Sticks and stones really can break bones. Words can never hurt you, just challenge your mind and categories. (And yes, of course, some words are vile and can be rejected by our calling them so. No one wants to protect authors from bad reviews, even those by autocrats; it is threats from bullies that they need protection from.) Everyone has a right to be offended by whatever offends them, and everyone on earth has a right to articulate their offense. No one has a right to maim or kill someone because our words offend them. Blasphemy is not a mighty category demanding respect but a pitiful invention of those who cannot tolerate having their pet convictions criticized. It demands no respect from anyone; on the contrary, it requires solidarity among all decent people in opposing it. An insult to an ideology is not the same as a threat made to a people. It is the opposite of a threat made to a person. To assume the criticism of ideas as assaults on people is the end of the liberal civilization. The idea that we should be free to do our work and offer our views without extending a frightened veto to those who threaten to harm us isn’t just part of what we mean by free expression—it is close to the whole of what we mean by civilized life.”

— Adam Gopnik, “Salman Rushdie and the Power of Words” (x)

[opedguy]

Trump Pushed to Denounce Putin

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), April 13, 2022.--Interviewed by Fox New “Sean Hannity” April 12, former President Donald Trump refused to denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Ukraine War.  Trump was quoted saying Putin was “genius” for massing over 100,000 troops inside Ukraine border.  Putin’s troop buildup prompted 79-year-old President Joe Biden to accuse Putin of planning to invade Ukraine for months before the Feb. 24 invasion.  But Biden insists that the invasion was “unprovoked and unjustified,” despite the fact that Putin asked Biden for months for renegotiate security arrangements in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.  Biden told Putin that his ideas were all “non-starters,” meaning that no new security arrangement were in the works.  Putin told Biden Dec. 24, 2021 that if new security were not made, he would take “military-technical measures” to protect Russian national security.    All the pro-Biden U.S. media demands that everyone denounce Putin’s Ukraine invasion, threatening anyone with a differing opinions with ridicule and sanctions.  Biden demanded that Chinese President Xi Jinping denounce Putin’s Ukraine invasion, prompting China to tell Biden that U.S. and NATO encroachment prompted Putin to invade.  So when it comes to the U.S. press, the fake news makes many demands, now trying to force Trump to denounce Putin.  “I knew Putin very well.  Almost as much as I know you, Sean,” Trump told Hannity.  Hannity showed Trump horrific images of Ukraine’s destruction, including the bombing of a civilian trains station.  “I will tell you, we talked about it, we talked about it a lot, he did wants Ukraine, but I said, ‘You’re  not going into Ukraine,’” Trump told Hannity.  “He would have never, ever have gone into Ukraine,” if he were still president.    U.S. press continues to denounce Trump at every opportunity, hoping to keep him in the news before the November Midterm elections, where Biden’s abysmal approval ratings presage a wipeout for Democrats, turning the House and Senate back to Republicans.  “I asked you the last time you were on, whether you think that this is evil in our time,” Hannity asked Trump.  “Do you believe this is evil in our time?” Hannity asked again, prompting Trump to demur.  What kind of journalist, broadcast or print, talks about “evil,” as if there’s biblical connotations to Putin’s Ukraine war.  Many world leaders, including Xi Jinping, India’s Narenda Modia and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also refuse to denounce Putin.  Even 44-year-old, ultra-socialist French President Emmanuel Macron refuses to denounce Putin because it doesn’t help the peace process.    Trump didn’t answer Hannity’s question about Putin’s “evil” because if he becomes president again, he doesn’t want to compromise U.S. national security like Biden.  Biden has wrecked U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations to the point of harming U.S. national security.  No president since WW II has done more damage to U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations, putting the U.S. economy and world economy into jeopardy.  Unlike Trump who worked hard to keep strong relations with Russia and China, Biden has done everything to sabotage it.  When Biden asked Xi to show support to the White House effort to isolate Putin, he refused, because he didn’t like Biden accusing Beijing of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province in Western China.  No, Biden cheapens the word “genocide,” calling Putin’s war in Ukraine a form of genocide, cheapening the definition.    Biden’s relations with Saudi Arabia are so awful his phone calls are ignored by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  Bin Salman remembers well Biden denouncing him for the Oct. 2, 2018 death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. All of Biden’s unrestrained vitriol, contrasting sharply with his Democrat Mr. Empathy image, shows that he’s as fake as they come.  Democrats and the media are only now talking about Joe’s nefarious business dealings in China with his 50-year-old former coke addict son Hunter and brother Jim.  Can you imagine, the Democrat-controlled U.S. media ignored all of Biden’s shenanigans before the 2020 presidential election?  Only now are they admitting that Biden-Family Inc. was a real problem, only ignored by the media to get him elected.  When it comes to Russia and China, Biden has permanently scared U.S. national security.    Today’s Democrat-controlled press is so corrupt, it’s eviscerated the First Amendment. Can you imagine, with all the good press coverage, Biden’s aggregate approval ratings today was 40.4%, with CNBC, a Democrat-controlled cable news network, rating him a 38%.  Yesterday’s fake report said that Biden’s problems is one of poor messaging.  Can you imagine that.  With the economy falling apart, inflation hitting 8.5% and the U.S. at war in Ukraine, the White House think it’s a “messaging” problem.”  What the message supposed to be?  Biden’s doing a great job tanking the economy and getting the nation close to WW III?  What kind of smoke does the Biden White House blow, saying that the president abysmal approval ratings is due to a “messaging problem?”  Biden’s historic low approval ratings are lower than Trump with the whole Democrat-controlled media against Trump. About the Author John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

[indochinanews]

China sits on forcefully occupying 45% of land, now demands Ladakh

Forty-Five percent of China is forcefully occupied. That is when we go with the official Chinese record. China forcefully occupied Xinjiang in 1949 and Tibet in 1950. As per the official Chinese document, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has an area of 1.66 million square kilometers, which is 17.68% of China's total land area, i.e., 93,88,210 square kilometers, as per the World Bank Databank. ​ The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has an area of 1.22 million square kilometers, i.e., 13% of China's total land area, making 31% of China's total land area. And 44.31% if we consider the Tibetan Government's claims in Exile in India or Central Tibetan Administration.

The Central Tibetan Administration claims historical Greater Tibet has a land area of 2.5 million square kilometers. The bulk of historical Tibet lies outside the Tibet Autonomous Region. China had already merged more than half of the Greater Tibet in other Chinese provinces before it announced the formation of TAR in 1965.

China also occupies two pieces of Indian territory. It includes Aksai Chin, a 38,000 square kilometer border area in Ladakh that China occupied in the 1962 India-China war while Pakistan ceded to China 5,180 square kilometers of occupied Indian territory in 1963 under the Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement.

Though 43,180 square kilometers of occupied Indian territories only makes for a slight increase, from 44.31% to 44.77%, it very well tells about the Chinese government's expansionist designs. China is currently involved in territorial disputes with over 20 countries, including India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Japan.

MAP OF TIBET, XINJIANG, AND INDIAN TERRITORIES SUPERIMPOSED ON CHINA

CALLS FOR INDEPENDENCE The native population of Xinjiang is Uyghur Muslims, while Tibetans are followers of Buddhism. They have always been fiercely patriotic throughout history, struggling to make their homeland free from the Chinese and Mongol dynasties earlier and the People's Republic of China now. Uyghur Muslims' government-in-exile is US-based, the East Turkistan Government in Exile. They call Xinjiang East Turkistan based on their Turkic origin. Uyghur Muslims had brief periods of independence twice during China's civil war with an independent Islamic Republic of East Turkistan. Uyghur activists celebrate independency day on November 12. Tibetan government-in-exile is located in India, and a democratically elected President heads it in Exile. Earlier, the Dalai Lama, a globally respected figure, Nobel Laureate, and the most important Tibetan monk, was Tibet's supreme spiritual and political authority. Still, he decided to hand over the political structure to a democratically elected system in 2011. Tibetans celebrate their Independence Day on February 13 and Tibet Uprising Day on March 10. Tibet was declared an independent nation on February 13, 1913. On March 10, 1959, Tibetans revolted against Chinese suppression. Tibetans suspected China planned to kidnap the Dalai Lama and start a new scale of violence and suppression. 300,000 Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama's palace, and he was evacuated to India. Violence broke out in the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other parts of Greater Tibet against the Chinese rule. In response, China destroyed the Dalai Lama's palace and thousands of Tibetan monasteries and killed tens of thousands of people to crush the uprising, according to different human rights reports. How does China occupy these two independent territories with different cultures and religions? XINJIANG Historically, the region was inhabited by tribal alliances and the small kingdom of Turkic origin people and was ruled by several dynasties. Around 60 BCE, it came under the control of the Han Dynasty of China. Local Uyghur leaders retook the area in the 3rd Century. Tang Dynasty of China tried to increase its influence in the region, but Arabs got a better head start. Islam arrived in the region in 8thcentury and soon became the main religion. Tribes in the region always opposed foreign rule, be it Mongol king Genghis Khan's victory in the 13th Century or China's Qing Dynasty assertion that created the Xinjiang Province in 1884. With China's prolonged civil war in the first half of the 20th Century, Uyghur Muslims declared impendence twice. The first was during 1933-34 when they claimed the Islamic Republic of East Turkistan. The Uyghur Republic fell soon after Soviet help to the Chinese government. The second independent Uyghur state existed from 1944 to 1949. TIBET China claims to rule Tibet historically, but Tibet has had an independent history since the 7th Century. China and Tibet signed a peace treaty in 822 AD. But 13th Century onwards, the peace-loving Buddhists in Tibet were ruled by foreigners, first by Mongols, then by Chinese. Mongols conquered Tibet in 1244. The next centuries saw prolonged wars between the Chinese and Mongol dynasties. In 1720, the Chinese emperor Kangxi defeated the Mongols finally after over two centuries of war. British East India set its foot in Tibet in 1774. The next centuries saw Britain and China trying to control the Tibetan territory. In 1913, Tibet declared independence and remained independent until 1949. With its internal problems like military revolt, the end of royal rule, and the Japanese invasion, China was not able to assert its control. But the communist rule in China saw otherwise. In 1949, Mao Zedong threatened Tibet, calling it a Chinese territory, and invaded it in 1950. In 1951, China established civil and military headquarter in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. HISTORICAL SOVEREIGNTY CLAIMS? From time to time, different dynasties ruling China tried to colonize independent Xinjiang and Tibet territories in their expansionist mode. In fact, ancient, medieval, and recent history is replete with examples from across the world, like India being colonized by Britain and China by Japan in the recent past. But after two world wars in the 20th Century, world history saw an overturn, with an end of the colonial superpowers and a beginning of the independent free nations from the grip of colonial suppression, like India got its independence from the British rule and China seized it from the Japanese expansionism in the Chinese territory. But while that may be the global norm now, some of the countries are still living in that colonial past, and China is its prime example. The Chinese Communist Party that ruled China since 1949 occupied Xinjiang and Tibet seven decades ago and is still having expansionist designs to occupy independent nations like Nepal and Bhutan and Indian territories Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim, something that the People's Republic of China founder Mao Zedong referred to as the five fingers of Tibet. When Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait in August 1990, we saw a huge military operation sanctioned by the United Nations and led by the US, the 'Operation Desert Storm,' to free Kuwait. Kuwait was liberated in February 1991. But the major powers of the world and the United Nations have avoided taking any stand when it comes to the Chinese occupation and atrocities in Xinjiang and Tibet. To suppress the struggles of ethnic minorities, China has cultivated a policy of mass genocide in Xinjiang and Tibet, both at demographical and cultural levels. The country has forced measures like coercive birth prevention, has banned religious practices, has mass interned the ethnic minority population, and, at the same time, has mass-migrated the Han Chinese population from other parts of mainland China to Xinjiang and Tibet. The Indian sub-continent is currently under an all-out war from China. The people of the Indian Subcontinent need to unite against this threat from China to remain free from this threat of enslavement and East-India style divide and rule being practiced by China. Modified from source: Yahoo News

[mariacallous]

FP Morning Brief: Regional Powers Assess a New Afghanistan

As the United States continues to mount an evacuation effort from Afghanistan, not all foreigners are headed for the exits, as regional powers begin to assess their positions as the country comes under a new regime.

No immediate bonanza awaits Afghanistan’s prospective partners. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with a now-enhanced reputation for humbling great powers. A country that relies on international aid for 80 percent of its budget is unlikely to have much to trade with, and dreams of unlocking Afghanistan’s rare-earth deposits will depend heavily on stabilizing the war-torn nation.

The major players. China, Iran, and Russia, who have been engaged in public diplomacy with Taliban leaders for years, are staying put. With most of China’s investments elsewhere in Central and South Asia, concerns about security will likely remain front and center for Beijing. “Chinese investment there is likely to be short-term and easily pulled out in the likely event of further instability,” Azeem Ibrahim writes in Foreign Policy. “It can be deployed—or withdrawn—on largely immediate political terms.”

Russia shares China’s concerns about instability, especially when it comes to the former Soviet states in Central Asia. Just as China will not want the Taliban harboring ethnic Uyghur groups, any support for Islamist movements in its backyard would be unacceptable for Moscow. As Foreign Policy’s Amy Mackinnon writes, Russia is likely to view the Taliban as the lesser of regional evils.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi welcomed the Taliban victory as an “opportunity to restore life, security and durable peace in Afghanistan.” Iran has promised to temporarily accommodate those fleeing Afghanistan, although with an estimated 2.8 million Afghans already there and with a crippled economy, it’s not clear how many more refugees Iran could support, or would want to support, in the long term.

Pakistan’s moment. Pakistan’s leaders have not disguised their glee at the Afghan government’s dissolution as Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the Afghan people for breaking “the shackles of slavery.” Still, like in Iran, one immediate effect of the Taliban’s ascent will likely be a refugee exodus, with Pakistan expected to remain the number one destination.

C. Christine Fair outlines the steps Pakistan has taken to shield and support the Taliban and, taken together with U.S. incompetence, set the stage for the group’s reemergence.

India’s scramble. While Pakistan gains a firm ally, India loses out. As Sumit Ganguly writes in Foreign Policy, India—the fifth largest donor to Afghanistan—now faces serious fears about its security interests in the country.

New Delhi was the last regional power to start diplomacy with the Taliban as it stood by the Afghan government almost to the end. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen put it bluntly when speaking to Foreign Policy’s Anchal Vohra in July: “We have political relations with Russia, Iran, and China not for one or two but many years … India was siding with the government installed by foreigners. They are not with us.”

Turkey waits. Turkey’s initial plan to secure Kabul’s airport following U.S. withdrawal—and at the same time repair its fractured relationship with Washington—went up in the air as soon as President Ashraf Ghani did. Turkish officials have said they may provide “technical support” at Kabul’s airport if the Taliban ask. “We are keeping up dialogue with all sides, including the Taliban,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday, welcoming recent Taliban statements regarding a peaceful transition.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Record heat scorches western Russia and central Canada (Washington Post) It’s only May, and temperatures near the Arctic Circle in northwestern Russia are approaching 90 degrees. In Moscow, temperatures have shattered records on consecutive days. It has also been unusually warm in central Canada, where raging wildfires in Manitoba are sending plumes of smoke across retreating ice in Lake Winnipeg. Summer has yet to begin in the northern hemisphere, but temperatures in high latitudes are already alarmingly warm, portending another brutally hot season while signaling more climate troubles. Since last week, historic warmth has swelled over much of western Russian and bled into eastern Scandinavia. On Thursday, the mercury surged to 87.8 degrees in Naryan-Mar, Russia, a town near the Arctic Ocean.

House narrowly approves $1.9B to fortify Capitol after riot (AP) The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history. The bill’s 213-212 passage came a day after the House approved the formation of an independent commission to investigate the deadly mob siege by President Donald Trump’s supporters. The two measures now face an uncertain outcome in the evenly divided Senate as most Republicans have objected to both. Tensions are running high at the Capitol.

Biden Is Facing an Uneasy Truth: North Korea Isn’t Giving Up Its Nuclear Arsenal (NYT) North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and its stockpile of fuel have roughly doubled in the past four years, a steady rise that proceeded even as President Donald J. Trump held high-drama meetings with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. The best unclassified estimates are that the North has at least 45 nuclear weapons, and appears headed to an arsenal roughly the size of Pakistan’s, another nuclear state the United States once demanded must disarm, and now has all but given up that it ever will. For the North, that has always been a model to follow. In private, officials in the Biden administration admit they harbor no illusions that North Korea will ever give up the entirety of its program. Yet, like his predecessors, Mr. Biden has made the decision not to officially acknowledge the North as a nuclear state, aides say. It is a little like pretending that the Yankees do not play baseball. But maintaining the myth has a purpose, for both the United States and South Korea. Any official acknowledgment that the North Korean arsenal is here to stay would revive the long-simmering debates about whether U.S. allies like South Korea and Japan can depend on the American nuclear umbrella—essentially a security net for countries that do not have nuclear weapons of their own.

Young British people want to ditch the monarchy, poll suggests (Reuters) Young people in Britain no longer think the country should keep the monarchy and more now want an elected head of state, with their mood souring over the last couple of years, a poll on Friday showed. The British monarchy traces its history back to William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066, though royals ruled the patchwork of kingdoms which stretched across what became England, Scotland and Wales for centuries before that. According to the survey by YouGov, 41% of those aged 18 to 24 thought there should now be an elected head of state compared to 31% who wanted a king or queen. That was a reversal of sentiment from two years ago, when 46% preferred the monarchy to 26% who wanted it replaced.

Europe freezes China deal (Foreign Policy) The European Parliament voted on Thursday overwhelmingly in favor of freezing the ratification of a new investment agreement with China. The move was a further tit-for-tat after Beijing sanctioned 10 EU parliamentarians in retaliation for Western sanctions over the treatment of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang.

Greek firefighters battle forest blaze near Athens (Reuters) Greek firefighters battled for a third day on Friday a wind-driven blaze that burned through pine forests about 60 km (37 miles) west of the capital Athens and forced hundreds of people to evacuate from their homes. Firefighters battled overnight to contain the fire that burned homes as black smoke filled the sky above costal villages where police was calling on citizens to leave. More than 10 villages and two monasteries have already been evacuated. The blaze broke out in a forest at a small seaside holiday resort on the Gulf of Corinth on Wednesday and moved eastward into the western Attica province on Thursday, fanned by strong winds.

Spiraling conflict in Myanmar sends thousands fleeing as military targets rebels (Washington Post) The group of men from a quiet, rural town in Myanmar’s hilly northwest often hunted birds and rabbits. But in late April, they turned their rifles on the military, killing more than a dozen soldiers over the ensuing weeks. Retribution came swiftly. The military seized the town of Mindat. Troops arriving in helicopters fired heavy artillery at civilians, according to residents, and cut off the supply of food and water. Soldiers raided homes where they suspected militia fighters were hiding, and shot a 10-year old girl in the neck, local media reported. Most of the 12,000 residents in the urban area fled into the hills, where they forage for food and sleep in makeshift shelters. Almost four months since Myanmar’s military ousted the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, resistance to the coup is intensifying beyond street protests and civil disobedience. Though the cost of fighting back is high—more than 800 have been killed, mostly peaceful protesters and bystanders—militia groups are now taking up arms against the overextended military as the country speeds toward collapse and thousands of refugees pour into India, Thailand and China.

As Olympics loom, Japan health care in turmoil (AP) As she struggled to breathe, Shizue Akita had to wait more than six hours while paramedics searched for a hospital in Osaka that would treat her worsening COVID-19. When she finally got to one that wasn’t overwhelmed with other patients, doctors diagnosed severe pneumonia and organ failure and sedated her. Akita, 87, was dead two weeks later. “Osaka’s medical systems have collapsed,” said her son, Kazuyuki Akita. Hospitals in Osaka, Japan’s third-biggest city and only 2 1/2 hours by bullet train from Summer Olympics host Tokyo, are overflowing with coronavirus patients. About 35,000 people nationwide—twice the number of those in hospitals—must stay at home with the disease, often becoming seriously ill and sometimes dying before they can get medical care. As cases surge in Osaka, medical workers say that every corner of the system has been slowed, stretched and burdened. And it’s happening in other parts of the country, too.

Bathroom break (Foreign Policy) A driver of a Japanese bullet train is facing disciplinary action after he left the controls unattended to take a bathroom break while the train and its 160 passengers were traveling at more than 90 miles per hour. The driver left the cockpit for three minutes in total, as an unqualified train conductor remained behind. According to Central Japan Railway, the trainline’s operator, the driver felt abdominal pain and wanted to avoid delaying the train by having to stop at the next station. The driver may have gotten away with the infraction had the company not noticed an extremely rare occurrence for Japan’s Shinkansen trains: It was running one minute behind schedule.

South Korean bullying (NYT) South Korea is undergoing a reckoning over bullying. Anonymous accusations have surfaced on social media alleging that sports heroes, K-pop stars and actors bullied others when they were teenagers or younger. The wave has started a national conversation about bullying, and some experts ask whether South Korea’s hypercompetitive society may be partly to blame. Han You-kyung, head of the Institute of School Violence Prevention at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said that surveys do not show bullying is more serious in South Korean schools than in other developed countries. But Han called South Korea “a culture that puts achievement at the center” and a system that inflicts weak punishments on bullies.

Palestinians claim victory in Gaza (AP) Palestinians rallied by the thousands early Friday after a cease-fire took effect in the latest Gaza war, with many viewing it as costly but clear victory for the Islamic militant group Hamas over a far more powerful Israel. The 11-day war left more than 200 dead—the vast majority Palestinians—and brought widespread devastation to the already impoverished Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. But the rocket barrages that brought life to a standstill in much of Israel were seen by many Palestinians as a bold response to perceived Israeli abuses in Jerusalem, the emotional heart of the conflict. Thousands took to the streets of Gaza as the cease-fire took hold at 2 a.m. Young men waved Palestinian and Hamas flags, passed out sweets, honked horns and set off fireworks. “Life will return, because this is not the first war, and it will not be the last war,” said shop owner Ashraf Abu Mohammad. “The heart is in pain, there have been disasters, families wiped from the civil registry, and this saddens us. But this is our fate in this land, to remain patient.” (Foreign Policy) The destruction in Gaza will take years to rebuild, according to Matthias Schmele, the Gaza director of UNRWA, the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees; 16,800 housing units were damaged in the bombings, with 1,000 completely destroyed, according to Gaza’s housing ministry. “The biggest damage out of all of this is trauma,” Schmele told Foreign Policy, adding that mental health support needs to be part of any future investment. “Buildings you can rebuild. But people’s lives, that won’t be easy.”

[vinni2596]

China, India and His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a widely recognised spiritual leader hailing from the picturesque region of Tibet. Humble in his visage as the leader of a popular strand of Tibetan Buddhism, he has carried on in his reincarnated state as one of the world's foremost spiritual teachers. Since the Dalai Lamas departure from the Chinese region of Tibet in 1969, he and the government in exile have remained in northern India due to failed uprisings against the government. In the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, the 85-year-old senior monk and Tibetan exiles are headquartered and have been continuing their traditions since that time. Recognised in the West as monks with distinctive red, yellow, or orange apparel, His Holiness travels far and wide to relay messages of compassion and peace, garnering in the past few decades a particular interest from Westerners. Currently, the situation has remained in a stalemate, with both nations thought to be interested in the leader as a political ally or tool. As time runs out, the Dalai Lama recognises that eventually he will not be around, and the work of finding his reincarnation as the 15th Dalai Lama is in jeopardy as tensions grow between the two nations. With the relatively recent rise of both as great powers, especially China, the sovereign right has been strengthened under populist leaders Xi Xing Ping and Narendra Modi. As a result, the sensitive topic of choosing the next Dalai Lama has come to light once again, with fears that the institution in its worst case may cease to exist. The Dalai Lama is hopeful in his middle way approach to finding a solution with China, but many Tibetans are cautious due to perceived religious limitations. Whether a solution is possible in his lifetime, the possibility of the title falling into a major schism is possible as both powers seek to consolidate and claim overall authority. The benefits are clear, and the ramifications of any course of action in the international geopolitical arena may foreseeably cause widespread unrest. However, the situation remains at a slow stall currently. This blog seeks to uncover the opinions of the virtual citizens on various platforms on a solution to the Dalai Lama's predicament. Should he return with the exiled government? With the spotlight on Uyghur re-education camps, what does this mean concerning the autonomy of the region? What is India's role as a caretaker of the Tibetan government in exile? Numerous questions arise as time takes its steady march towards the inevitable dilemma of choosing the next Dalai Lama.