Category: zerohedge

Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute,

• The continued defiance of Hong Kong’s people in the face of Chinese repression is inspiring resistance in Taiwan.

• “In the early 1980s the ‘one country, two systems’ concept was created for Taiwan, not for Hong Kong,” said Ma Ying-jeou to Al Jazeera when he was Taiwan’s president in September 2014. “But Taiwan has sent a clear message that we do not accept the concept.”

• Xi Jinping, the current Chinese ruler, once held the Hong Kong portfolio in the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. He certainly knows that one of the signs of Chinese regime failure is trouble on the periphery, and he is determined that the open defiance in Hong Kong does not spread to other areas far from the center of Chinese power. Xi has no effective response to Hong Kong, however.

A court in Hong Kong on Sunday sentenced eight of nine democracy activists for their role in the massive “Occupy Central” protests in 2014. The prosecution was seen, both in Hong Kong and elsewhere, as a sign of Beijing tightening its control over the city. Pictured: Democracy protesters hold umbrellas to support the arrested activists of the “Occupy Central” movement, on December 3, 2014 in Hong Kong. (Photo by Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images)

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Hong Kong on Sunday to protest planned changes to the city’s extradition law. Many believe new rules facilitating the sending of suspects to China would effectively allow Beijing to grab people at will and thereby completely control the city. “You will be screwed,” said a marcher, a law clerk, to Reuters.

The turnout was high — organizers said 130,000 people took part — in part because the demonstration followed the sentencing of democracy activists for their role in the massive “Occupy Central” protests in 2014. On Wednesday, a lower court handed out prison terms of between eight to 16 months to four of the “Umbrella Nine.” Three others received suspended sentences. One person was given 200 hours of community service.

The eight individuals — the sentencing of a ninth person was postponed for medical reasons — were convicted of public nuisance offenses in a closely watched proceeding on April 9. The prosecution of the 9 figures was seen, both in Hong Kong and elsewhere, as a sign of Beijing tightening its control over the city.

“It’s indeed one of the darkest days in Hong Kong history,” Tak Ho Fong, host of “Peking Hotel” on Hong Kong-based digital radio station D100, told the Gatestone Institute in e-mail comments.

Dark indeed. Nobody strangles democracies like communists, and no communists are more relentless in this regard than Chinese ones. Beijing, with methodical ruthlessness, is trying to bring Hong Kong to heel, and this is a hint of weakness at the center of Chinese politics and governance. China’s communists, whether or not they succeed in Hong Kong, will undermine their efforts to win over Taiwan.

Hong Kong, once a British colony, was “handed back” to China on July 1, 1997 pursuant to the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. In the Joint Declaration, a treaty with Britain, Beijing promised to afford Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy” for 50 years. Hong Kong since July 1997 has been designated a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and governed under the “one country, two systems” formula. Pursuant to this formula, Hong Kong governs itself, except it does not maintain diplomatic relations and does not provide for external defense.

Beijing this month proved it could put activists in jail — prison sentences of other Occupy Central activists were earlier overturned — and in response to the Wednesday sentences human rights organizations issued warnings. “The long sentences send a chilling warning to all that there will be serious consequences for advocating for democracy,” noted Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch.

Relief was nonetheless evident when Judge Johnny Chan Jong-herng of the West Kowloon Court handed down his decision. The activists could have received seven-year prison terms stemming from the 79-day “Umbrella” demonstration, so named because protestors used umbrellas to shield themselves from tear gas. Many of the extradition marchers on Sunday carried umbrellas, not only to block out the sun.

A total of 1.2 million people participated in the 2014 demonstration — peak numbers exceeded 100,000 at times — to stand against Beijing severely restricting the field of candidates for the office of chief executive, the successor post for the colonial governor. As a result of Beijing effectively dishonoring promises of universal suffrage, none of the chief executives — Carrie Lam, the current one, is the fourth since the handover — has been considered legitimate except by supporters of Beijing.

The perceived lack of legitimacy has made the chief executives ineffective. Beijing has responded by infringing on the self-rule it had promised. For one thing, it has rejected, despite the clear wording of the agreement with Britain, the notion that there are any restrictions on its power over Hong Kong like its promise of autonomy for the city.

“The Sino-British Joint Declaration, as a historical document, no longer has any realistic meaning,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang in June 2017. “It also does not have any binding power on how the Chinese central government administers Hong Kong.”

Moreover, China, from behind the scenes, has infringed on Hong Kong’s autonomy by, for instance, arranging the removal of legislators, disqualifying candidates, even outlawing a political party.

Moreover, Beijing, represented in the city by its “Liaison Office,” is now pushing for a law to punish disrespecting the “March of the Volunteers,” the Chinese national anthem.

Beijing’s heavy-handed tactics have not been particularly effective, however. The more it has clamped down, the less popular it has become.

Polls on self-identification carry a chilling message for Beijing. Less than four percent of Hong Kong’s young self-identify as “Chinese” or “broadly Chinese.” That’s down from around 30 percent in 1997. The widely followed Hong Kong University poll shows that fewer people in Hong Kong are proud of their new Chinese nationality than at the handover — 38 percent versus 46.4 percent — and that younger age cohorts are less proud than the population as a whole.

Senior Chinese leaders, by overreaching, have managed to create both an independence movement in Hong Kong and a campaign to return the city to British rule. For now, Hong Kong people express this latter sentiment by, among other things, carrying colonial-era flags and sporting Union Jack-adorned clothing. All this suggests increased activism in Hong Kong.

The continued defiance of Hong Kong’s people in the face of Chinese repression is inspiring resistance in Taiwan. Beijing maintains that the self-governing island is part of the People’s Republic and, going back to the era of Deng Xiaoping, has proposed to rule it under the same “one country, two systems” approach. Yet as Chinese leaders smother Hong Kong, 1C2S, as the plan is known, becomes even less attractive to Taiwan.

“Today’s Hong Kong, tomorrow’s Taiwan” has become the rallying cry of young Taiwanese. The 1C2S idea has united most of Taiwan, including the pro-China elements there, in the belief that becoming part of the People’s Republic would be a nightmare. “In the early 1980s the ‘one country, two systems’ concept was created for Taiwan, not for Hong Kong,” said Ma Ying-jeou to Al Jazeera when he was Taiwan’s president in September 2014. “But Taiwan has sent a clear message that we do not accept the concept.”

Xi Jinping, the current Chinese ruler, once held the Hong Kong portfolio in the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. He certainly knows that one of the signs of Chinese regime failure is trouble on the periphery, and he is determined that the open defiance in Hong Kong does not spread to other areas far from the center of Chinese power.

Xi has no effective response to Hong Kong, however, and the growing rejection of China there must be of great concern, especially since harsh rule has already lost hearts and minds in China’s west, in both Tibet and what the Chinese call the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Traditional inhabitants of Xinjiang, the Muslim Uighurs, say their land is a separate country, East Turkestan.

“We do not give up,” Chu Yiu-ming, one of the Umbrella Nine, declared from the defendant’s dock on April 9. Chinese dynasties unravel at the edges, and Beijing looks desperate to keep the increasingly resistant Hong Kong, at China’s southern edge, from drifting too far from its control.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2ZPE9iN Tyler Durden

American defense contractor giant Lockheed Martin has blasted Germany over its refusal to buy its F-35 stealth fighters, in the latest row over the future of NATO defense readiness. 

In early February it was confirmed that Germany snubbed Lockheed’s cutting edge and expensive joint strike fighter, knocking the American stealth fighter of out of a tender worth billions of euros, as Germany’s military considers how to replace its aging Tornado warplanes, for which Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and Airbus’ NATO Eurofighter Typhoon remain prime alternate contenders.

Lockheed Martin’s vice president for Europe, Jonathan Hoyle, told FT that knocking the F-35 out of contention will only hold Germany back in terms of ability to keep pace with NATO readiness. 

Hoyle described a resulting situation in Europe where “Germany’s position going forward” has been questioned, citing personal conversations with diplomats. These conversations revealed deep “disappointment” with the further criticism that “Germany, which has the biggest defense budget, has just taken this retrograde step and isn’t going to be there”.

“So when we go off and collaborate together operationally, if you are flying stealth, fifth-generation jets, you don’t want a fourth-generation jet in the middle of your operations because everyone can see that”, he told FT. The Lockheed executive still touted Europe as a “key area of growth,” however, especially Poland, which has recently vowed to increase its defense spending. 

Multiple reports since the German Defense Ministry’s decision earlier this year have described it as a major setback for Lockheed: 

The decision was seen as a big setback for Lockheed, the top US arms maker, which had hoped to add to recent F-35 sales to other European countries, including Belgium.

Its European vice-president Jonathan Hoyle said Berlin’s failure to opt for the F-35 had raised concerns among allies and prompted the question: “What does it mean for NATO?”

A final decision will be made pending delivery of detailed information from from Boeing and Airbus about their respective aircraft, which must be able to carry and deliver US nuclear weapons in accord with Germany’s NATO obligations, and which further must be certified by Washington to carry the nukes.

This presents a number of potential fault lines that could crack open wide the US-German relationship, and with implications for broader NATO defense, especially related to German Air Force ability to carry American nuclear warheads.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GVwoAs Tyler Durden

Authored by Guillaume Durocher via The Unz Review,

The recent fire which destroyed much of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris has led to a great outpouring of emotion. Social media were also ablaze and the government was quickly able to raise a €1 billion in donation pledges to rebuild the iconic monument. Some people I know were quite affected by the sight, being practically reduced to tears. Others were less moved. Quite a few people have been indignant about the money raised: Why not spend such sums on poverty or the environment rather than a mere pile of stone? One person even joked that the edifice should be razed to the ground to make way for something new.

Yet, Notre-Dame resonates. Partly, no doubt, for shallow reasons: Paris is the most-visited city in the world and Notre-Dame is one of the City of Light’s most-visited attractions. As such, millions of frequent-fliers, however godless or anti-Christian they might otherwise be, feel some emotional connection to this great cathedral.

And yet, I think there is something more. Notre-Dame is simply and objectively a national and earthly masterpiece: the intricately semi-controlled chaos of the the Gothic, the delicacy of “stone made into lace” (in the words of Jean-Yves Le Gallou), those gloriously Christian and European luminous flowers of stained glass, so suggestive of the transcendent . . . all this expresses, more viscerally and better than any book, the best that the French soul has had to offer to the world. Notre-Dame is a collective work of art, meticulously built up and maintained from generation to generation.

In much the same way, a nation is a collective work of art, each generation having a responsibility to protect and pass on this inheritance, and add their piece to the edifice. The Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran, a perceptive observer of national character if there ever was one, once said: “France is Notre-Dame Cathedral reflected in the Seine . . . a cathedral which spurns the sky.” We will have occasion to meditate on the meaning of these words.

Notre-Dame has a significance going beyond France however. Given France’s remarkable contribution to humanity’s cultural heritage, it is not too surprising that the art historian Kenneth Clarke chose Notre-Dame for the opening of his classic 1969 BBC documentary series Civilisation.

“What is civilization? ,” Clarke rhetorically asks. “I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms yet. But I think I can recognize it when I see it . . .” He then turns to Notre-Dame, adding: “. . . and I’m looking at it now.”

Notre-Dame burning then is a symbol, a shocking reminder, of the impermanence not merely of old monuments, but of nations and civilizations. Growing up, I had the firm feeling that France was a living, vigorous, and timeless nation, and I was often moved reading the old Gaullist rhetoric of the need to fight for la France éternelle. When I saw those great monuments of brick and stone found in all major European cities, I had a feeling of solidity, of an immovable heritage, of a stable world. But all this is an illusion. Nothing is eternal, least of all nations and civilizations, although we may present things otherwise to reassure our selves. That is also why Notre-Dame burning was such a shock: there is the most graphic reminder that France is mortal and indeed Western civilization itself is mortal. This is not a new observation of of course, as the philosopher Paul Valéry said in 1919: “We civilizations now know that we are mortal.”

I must then admit that I was not particularly moved by Notre-Dame burning. I’ve already made my peace with impermanence. I already know that the rot that is consuming France will in all likelihood kill this fair nation within my lifetime. My heart has already been broken. I have already wept for this. Who can claim, in all sincerity, that in a mere hundred years a nation will still exist on this soil – let alone a nation worthy of the name “France”?

And I have wept and raged at my countrymen and my fellows who would persecutethose wish to prevent this. How then may I cry for Notre-Dame? This is the despair of all identitarians, most often a silent despair. And I’ve not done much to express my concern, besides a few scribblings and conversations. But others have. You may be crying for Notre-Dame, but others have wept long before you, at the prospect of our nation, indeed our entire European civilization, sleepwalking into nothingness. It is not a coincidence if Dominique Venner, a great historian and European patriot, took his own life in Notre-Dame Cathedral, the spiritual heart of France, in May 2013, in one final effort to awaken the French people. But how many listened then? That was then. We have today, and tomorrow.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2ZR1kt1 Tyler Durden

As rank-and-file Tory members conspire to finally oust Theresa May from No. 10, the party is facing a donor rebellion that will restrict its ability to campaign during the upcoming EU Parliamentary vote, and also leave it in a difficult position if the opposition succeeds in its push for a general election.

Donors from the business community, who in the past have been a significant source of financing for the Tories, are abandoning the party and instead donating to either campaigns for a second Brexit referendum, or Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party (which is leading the Tories in the EU Parliament elections polls) or Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign, according to Business Insider.

The shortage of funds has reportedly left the Tories with just £1.5 million ($2 million) in the bank.

The situation has grown so dire that the CEO of the party, Mick Davis, has reportedly been forced to dip into his own pockets to cover some of the costs of the upcoming EU Parliamentary vote. He has reportedly told MPs that supporters have refused to donate because of the infighting over Brexit, which has threatened to tear the party apart.

“There’s a lot of money sloshing around, but most of it isn’t going to the Conservatives,” said one source who spoke with BI. “The conservative party is struggling because people don’t think they’re delivering on their promises,” another said.

The support for another referendum comes as Labour has reportedly re-committed to supporting a second referendum if they can’t secure a general election.

“Donors have identified other vehicles for their particular cause. If you’re a hedge fund manager who’s a keen Brexiteer, you will donate to Boris’s campaign. If you’re a business which backs a second referendum, you will donate to Right to Vote.”

The new Tory-backed referendum campaign, “Right to Vote”, has poured money into polling showing overwhelming support for another referendum. It has also been running ads in local media. It had reportedly spent £40,000 ($45,000) during its first month.

Right to Vote CEO Mark Holdsworth said the public is tired of being told “half-truths” by politicians who have so far failed to deliver on the promise of the Brexit referendum.

“Right to Vote was formed in January this year by a group of centre, centre-right parliamentarians looking to set out a clear way forward for the country.”

“Then as now, the public is sick and tired of politicians on all sides telling them half-truths – and in some cases, blatant untruths – about Brexit, and we have campaigned for the last three months to seek a final say in the Brexit process.”

“This has involved an on-going campaign across TV, radio, newspapers, online and social media, together with regional campaigning on the ground.”

“Since we formed, our group is now cross-party, after Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston and Anna Soubry famously quit the Conservative party to join Change UK – but what unites them all is their, and our, desire to offer the public a final say on Brexit.”

One donor who recently defected from the conservatives said that while he’s ‘still a conservative;’ he doesn’t want to donate now because the party’s pro-hard-Brexit stance is ‘anti-business’, he said.

One donor to the campaign, City Pub Group chairman Clive Watson, which operates 44 sites across England and Wales, told Business Insider that he has donated £35,000 in a personal capacity, having previously donated £25,000 to the Conservative party through his business.

“I am still a Conservative party member, but I wouldn’t donate at the moment because I think their European stance is anti-business,” he told Business Insider.

“Brexit is the unknown. It could seriously dislocate supplies to the hospitality industry. Why would I donate to a party that is facilitating that situation?”

 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VaU3pg Tyler Durden

Authored by Dr. Ana Scheer via Off-Guardian.org,

The Balkan Peninsula is known as the “gunpowder barrel” of the European continent. In Albania, this “gunpowder barrel” seems to explode quite often due to frequent political conflicts. For any foreign observer the continuous political crisis in this country seem absurd but for the Albanian people it is a harsh reality that effects them socially, economically as well as jeopardizes the European integration of the country in EU.

What is happening in Albania? Why the gunpowder barrel has exploded again? And why, Albanians are frightened that this political conflict might escalate into a civil conflict?

During the parliamentary elections of 2017, the three leading parties achieved these results:

• Socialist Party of Albania – 764,791 votes – 48.34% – 74 seats

• Democratic Party of Albania – 456,481 votes – 28.85% – 43 seats

• Socialist Movement for Integration – 225,975 votes – 14.28% – 19 seats

The Socialist Party secured enough seats to rule as majority in government. But the election process was recently disputed by the Democratic Party and the Socialist Movement for Integration due to the exposure of investigating files 339 and 184 in which ministers, mayors and other key important figures of the Socialist Party were involved into collaborating with organized crime in order to intimidate the voters and manipulate the results.

As the local elections of June 30, 2019 were approaching, the opposition parties withdrew their mandates from parliament, i.e.: 60 out of 140 seats letting the majority (SP) to seat and rule alone in parliament. The two opposition parties, representing 43% of the voters are already out of parliament asking for the resignation of Albanian premier Edi Rama, whose prompt political maneuver did not involve resignation, nor talks, but replacement of the parliamentary seats with freelance candidates who rushed to cease such an opportunity, thus creating the new opposition designed by the premier himself.

Despite the addition of the new MP-s the Albanian Parliament is still not in its full capacity because there are many unoccupied seats, a fact that legally raises many constitutional questions.

In addition, in order to avoid the failure of the forthcoming local elections, Rama is encouraging and supporting, and even raising small parties, to register in the Electoral College. With such a maneuver, without the opposition, the SP will ensure the wining of every single municipality in the country. With the central and local government under total control, and a parliament under his rule, premier Rama might as well enjoy the attributes of an ancient monarchy.

Therefore, during the recent weeks thousands have rallied in the streets of Tirana, especially in front of the prime-ministry and parliament asking for the resignation of Edi Rama as the only solution of free and fair elections.

During the first mandate of the Edi Rama premiership Albania has received frequent negative reports from the State Department and several foreign institutions regarding the high level of corruption, organized crime, cultivation of cannabis and smuggling of heavy drugs. The world media has raised many alerts about the nation spread cultivation of cannabis. The state police has been allegedly involved in such activities and up to the present several district heads of police have fled the country, wanted by the authorities, and are still at large.

In 2016 an Italian and German report indicated that there were 363 cannabis areas spread throughout the country. This report was kept secret by the government and when exposed by the few independent media it was denied, however, the former Minister of Interior, Saimir Tahiri went under investigation accused of drugs trafficking and collaboration with organized crime. The financial income from the cannabis activity was estimated in 5 billion euros, half the country’s GDP. The opposition parties claimed that this money was used in ensuring victory in parliamentary elections as well as money laundry. It was this past bitter experience that forced the opposition parties undertaking the radical decision of boycotting the parliament and sabotaging the forthcoming local elections.

Albania seems to be heading toward a civil conflict. In June the European Commission is expected to refuse once again the opening of the negotiations for the Albanian membership in EU. This will be an added fuel to the present situation. The international institutions are observing patiently, awaiting the Albanian political storm to cease. A storm that seems to end only by the decision to step down of one man: the Albanian premier, Edi Rama.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WiIokZ Tyler Durden

Following Julian Assange’s UK court sentencing early Wednesday where he was hit with 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail, which we noted earlier is close to the maximum sentence, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson slammed the “vindictive” punishment as having caused “shock and outrage” in statements to reporters. 

However, Hrafnsson said after the court that the “real battle” begins Thursday, which marks the start of US extradition hearings for Assange, set to begin at 10AM (UK) at the Westminster Magistrate Court. He called it a matter of “life and death” for Assange, and ultimately for the journalistic profession itself. 

Hrafnsson noted that the outcome of the US extradition hearing could prove a watershed moment for the future of journalism: “Tomorrow is the first step in a long battle, so the fight will certainly continue. This is the fight for press freedom, primarily, as we’ve always stated.”

Hrafnsson stressed further: “That is a real battle, it’s not just for Julian Assange – even though for him it’s a question of life and death – it is most certainly a question of perseverance [over] a major journalistic principle,” in statements made after Assange’s sentencing stemming from the 2012 bail related charges. 

Concerning Wednesday’s stiff sentence for skipping bail – close to one year in prison – WikiLeaks later issued the following statement:

Julian Assange’s sentence, for seeking and receiving asylum, is twice as much as the sentencing guidelines. The so-called speedboat killer, convicted of manslaughter, was only sentenced to six months for failing to appear in court.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 1, 2019

Reuters summarizes the specific charges the US will seek to extradite him on as follows: 

The U.S. Justice Department said Assange was charged with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of a 2010 leak by WikiLeaks of hundreds of thousands of U.S. military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and American diplomatic communications.

Last week WikiLeaks and a German online magazine published the contents of a letter sent by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to a former WikiLeaks staff member which suggests US officials are attempting to put together a case against Julian Assange based on the Espionage Act. 

The DOJ letter addressed to former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg for the intent of requesting an interview outlined “possible violations of United States federal criminal law regarding the unauthorized receipt and dissemination of classified information,” according to a translation from the German, later published to WikiLeaks’ official social media.

Crucially, conviction under the 1917 law geared toward protecting the nation’s military secrets and most sensitive security matters could result in life in prison or even the death penalty for Assange.

But all of this is of course conditioned on whether or not the UK ultimately grants the Untied States’ extradition request, the first step in the process of which comes Thursday morning. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2vy2lbK Tyler Durden

Authored by JD Heyes via NaturalNews.com,

The Democrat Party has joined the globalist Left in their quest to wipe out all remaining bastions of freedom and liberty throughout the West which, if they are successful, will plunge the world into chaos, war, and destruction.

In Europe, freedom fighters like Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin are fighting Leftists in Britain and throughout the European Union as they attempt to build political opposition to what is very obviously an anti-libertarian and anti-democratic campaign of suppression and censorship.

Robinson, demonized by the European Left as a “far-right extremist” who has been attempting to speak the truth about the virtual invasion of anti-Western Muslim “refugees” from war-torn segments of the Middle East, was jailed in 2018 for essentially expressing his views.

Since his release, he continues to be targeted for censorship and silencing by EU and British government authoritarians as well as the social media giants — so much so that he now feels his only recourse is to become a Minister of the European Parliament (MEP) in order to retain a platform. 

Jake Lloyd of Infowars notes:

“He and others are doing this in an attempt to take over the EU from the inside…”

“Now, you might not know that,” Lloyd continued, “because, within hours of setting up an account to represent his campaign on Twitter, it was removed. Why it was removed, nobody knows. No explanation has been given.”

In other words, Robinson was treated just like American conservatives, pro-constitutionalists, and supporters of our “America First” president, Donald Trump.

“This is following the trend that’s been happening on social media for quite a long time,” Lloyd said, noting that his own employer, Infowars, was systematically removed from Twitter, YouTube, PayPal, and other big tech platforms last year ahead of the 2018 elections.

For Robinson, it’s his warnings about Muslim destruction of Western culture that landed him in hot water throughout Europe, not just in Britain. In the U.S., Trump supporting Americans who oppose Democrats and their obsessions — abortion, gun control, high taxes, and demand for conformity — who are under assault.

THE GLOBALIST DEMOCRATIC LEFT HAS BECOME UN-DEMOCRATIC

But also, a man who describes himself as a classic liberal — Sargon of Akkad, or Carl Benjamin — has also been targeted by the Left because he’s not Left-wing enough.

“He doesn’t toe the line for globalist organizations like the EU or the United Nations,” Lloyd noted, adding that Benjamin has also launched a campaign to become an MEP.

“They’ve attacked him in a lot of ways much like they have Tommy Robinson,” said Lloyd. “They’ve also removed his campaign account – he’s running as a member of UKIP, the United Kingdom’s Independence Party – for no real reason.”

The silencing of political opponents, Lloyd noted, is nothing new, as it’s been happening throughout world history. But typically, suppression of speech, political points of view, and expression have been associated with authoritarian governments and tyrannical leaders like kings and dictators — not havens of democracy like Britain and the U.S.

Lloyd said that in Benjamin’s case, “he has made some controversial comments in the past,” though in reality, they’re really not that controversial that he should be banned from the public square.

Indeed, America’s founding fathers were so offended by such tactics that, in the very first amendment to the Constitution, they recognized an inalienable right for humans to speak, think, and express themselves freely — without having to be ‘approved’ for certain speech while other speech is banned because it’s been deemed ‘offensive’ or ‘wrong-headed.’

Despite complaints by consumers and platform users throughout the Western world, however, the social media behemoths aren’t budging: Like Democrats and the global Left, they are demanding groupthink, conformity of speech and thought, and the quashing of dissenting voices. 

They are anti-Democrats, in other words, and they won’t stop until they shut down all opposition.

“Free speech is a myth. Technically we’re allowed to say what we want and won’t get arrested for it, but we constantly have to self-censor our speech, including our political opinions, for many reasons. You’re allowed to express some opinions, so long as they’re the right opinions. But if you lose your ability to pay your bills as a result of your honest and open speech, then you’re not really free.”

–I Am Turtle Boy, book description

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XZikvt Tyler Durden

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced Sunday it would expand its brokerage operations into Middle Eastern markets by opening Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Gulf Properties, reported Reuters.

The new unit will be led by Chairman Ihsan Husein Al Marzouqi and Chief Executive Officer Phil Sheridan. The team will consist of 30 advisers and support staff, according to a company statement. “Gulf Properties aspires to grow quickly by tripling its advisor count and opening a second office in Abu Dhabi within a year,” it said.

“We are excited to enter the UAE and Dubai with such experienced and respected leaders as Dr. Ihsan Husein Al Marzouqi and Phil Sheridan,” said Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chairman Gino Blefari. “Dubai has been a top priority for our network’s global expansion as it represents innovation among world leaders and is a top global center for trade, logistics, tourism and finance. Gulf Properties will connect our growing brokerage network between East and West and will provide unrivaled access to one of the world’s most exciting real estate destinations.”

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices partnered with London-based Kay & Co. last year, its second overseas franchise in Europe, after Rubina Real Estate in Berlin. The company expects to add Milan, Vienna, and Dubai to its international book. Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance recently began operations in Dubai.

Buffet is entering the Dubai property markets as prices have fallen 25% since the 2015 peak.

Lower oil prices, weaker currencies in nearby countries (UAE’s currency is pegged to the USD), a global synchronized slowdown, and political turmoil in the Middle East have all contributed to the downward pressures on price.

Property development is a vital part of Dubai’s economy, so the fall in prices has slowed the city’s economy.

The city is also suffering from a glut, having overexpanded in the last decade. It was a strategy that powered the city after the 2008 financial crisis, brought developers from around the world to build tens of thousands of homes.

The glut is expected to depress prices for several more years. Dubai is one of the world’s biggest ongoing construction sites, with nearly 1,200 cranes active across the city, constructing an estimated 31,000 homes this year, far exceeding demand.

“We are excited for the future and honored that our franchise agreement makes Dubai the first Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices location outside the U.S. and Europe,” said Al Marzouqi. “The presence of such an iconic global brand is further testament that Dubai is indeed a global destination when it comes to commerce and real estate investments.”

Chris Stuart, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, said their Duabi unit has “experienced leadership, talented agents and an ambitious growth plan for Dubai and the UAE.”

S&P Global Ratings warned in February that Dubai home prices could drop by at least 10% this year due to a continued imbalance in the market, before bottoming out in the early 2020s. Seems like Buffet’s next big move into the Gulf region is to capitalize on an extremely dangerous bet that Dubai’s housing could bottom soon. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2PG8vQe Tyler Durden

Authored by Patrick Cockburn via Counterpunch.org,

Western governments have been swift to pledge action to strike at Isis, as it becomes clear that the organisation was behind the suicide bombings that killed 253 people in Sri Lanka.

A video released by Isis after the attacks shows Zahran Hashim, an Islamic preacher and alleged leader of the bombers, pledging allegiance together with six other men – also thought to be bombers – to the self-declared caliph and leader of Isis, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Western leaders, as is usual, are proposing easy or unattainable action that will do little to damage Isis capabilities – such as trying to limit its access to social media – while steering clear of potentially more effective but difficult to implement policies to eradicate Isis that might be contrary to their national interests.

The best way to weaken Isis to the point where it can no longer orchestrate or carry out mass slaughter, like that in Sri Lanka last Sunday, is to bring an end to the wars in the Middle East and North Africa which over the last forty years have produced al-Qaeda and its clones, of which Isis is the most famous and most dangerous.

Governments deny that they are in any way responsible for Isis staying in business and point to the western-backed offensives against it which led to the last piece of the Islamic State being over-run on 23 March.

As a territorial entity Isis has been eliminated, but that does not mean that it cannot carry out guerrilla and terrorist attacks, as has happened in the last few months in Iraq and Syria. These are little reported because they take place in the vast deserts on the Iraq-Syrian border or they target regimes we do not like, such as the Syrian government in Damascus.

Isis was born out of war. In 2001, at the time of 9/11, al-Qaeda – out of which Isis was to emerge – consisted of a network of fanatics and a few hundred fighters in camps in Afghanistan. They were so few that they had to hire local Afghan tribesmen to fill out their numbers in propaganda videos.

It was the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 that turned the al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into a powerful military movement. When forced out of its strongholds by a reinforced US presence and weakened by opposition from within the Sunni Arab community in 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq retreated to its hideouts, waiting for better times.

These were not long in coming with the advent of the Syrian civil war in 2011 which the movement had the resources in men and weapons, to turn to their advantage. I remember Iraqi leaders in Baghdad telling me in 2012/13 that unless the war in Syria was quickly brought to an end, it would reignite the insurgency in Iraq.

They were soon proved right. Isis, as it was now called, astonished the world by emerging from its fastnesses to capture Mosul in 2014 and sweep through western Iraq and eastern Syria.

Western powers certainly wanted to defeat Isis but also did not want to do anything that would enable rivals and opponents – Russia, Iran and Bashar al-Assad – to win a clear victory in the Syrian war. They demanded that Assad go long after it was obvious that he was going to win after receiving Russian military support in 2015.

Stirring the pot in Syria in order to thwart Russia, Iran and Assad was much in the interests of Isis which could exploit the fact that opposition to it was fragmented.

Opportunities exist for Isis wherever government authority is weak or non-existent and it can put down roots. When defeat looms in eastern Syria this year, Isis moved thousands of surviving fighters next door into western Iraq. In Mosul and Raqqa, once the de facto Isis capitals in Iraq and Syria, assassinations and suicide bombings have started again. Kurdish-led forces are regularly ambushed. In Syrian government held territory near Palmyra, a series of Isis attacks in April killed 36 and captured ten pro-Assad soldiers.

In Iraq, Isis cells are reactivating in Sunni areas that surround Baghdad which, in the not-so-distant past, were the staging posts for the prolonged and devastating suicide bombing campaign that killed thousands.

It is probably only a matter of time until Isis succeeds in staging a Sri Lanka type multiple bombing once again in the Iraqi capital. The last big bomb in Baghdad was on 3 July 2016, when a refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up killing 340 civilians and injuring hundreds more. This should be a moment when the US could do all it can to resist the coming onslaught. Instead Washington is giving priority to pressuring the Iraqi government to impose US sanctions on Iran – something that is bound to divide Iraqis and aid Isis.

There is a similar pattern across the wider Middle East and North Africa where no less than seven wars, large and small, are being fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and north east Nigeria. These flare up or die down on occasion but they never come to an end.

The reason for these wars – the true breeding ground for Isis and its kin – is that foreign powers have plugged into local civil wars and want to see their proxy either to come out on top or, at worst, avoid defeat. Libya is a good example of this: would be leader of Libya General Khalifa Haftar, backed by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, France and Russia are fighting a government in Tripoli supported by Qatar, Turkey, Italy, Tunisia and Algeria.

Such divisions and rivalries are repeated in conflict after conflict and mean that Isis will always be able to lodge itself somewhere in the chaos.

At the same time, one needs to keep a sense of proportion about Isis’s capabilities: the atrocities it carries out in Colombo, Baghdad, Paris, Manchester, Westminster and elsewhere are geared to dominate the news agenda, provoke fear and project strength. But none of these things win wars and the defeat of the caliphate earlier this year was real and irreversible.

This does not mean that Isis will not try to resurrect itself as a guerrilla movement relying heavily on terrorist attacks on soft targets. It is, at bottom, a military machine led by experienced military men who adapt their strategy and tactics according to circumstances. Talk in the west about cutting Isis off from the social media as if that would be a mortal blow misses the point.

Social media may be a powerful tool for Isis but it would survive without it. Savage cult-like movements similar to Isis such as the Nazis in Germany and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia existed long before the internet and were able to spread their toxic message without use of it..

The only effective way to bring an end to Isis is to end the wars that produced it. A large part of the Middle East and North Africa have become a zone of conflict where international and regional rivalries are fought out through local proxies. So long as that goes on Isis will continue to exist.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2PPrdFn Tyler Durden

It looks like McDonald’s new-and-improved “hot” Hamburglar might have some competition.

The CBC reported on Tuesday that a mysterious ‘hamburglar’ has been victimizing users of a new digital payments app rolled out in Canada by McDonald’s called ‘My McDs’. Hackers have apparently found a way to infiltrate the app and wrack up large bills on unsuspecting users’ credit cards.

The story was again brought to the media’s attention after a tech writer got hit with a $2,000 bill for food he didn’t order that was charged via the app. When he contacted McDonald’s to complain about the fraudulent charges, the company told him to resolve the issue with his credit card company and refused to issue a refund – an experience that was apparently shared by dozens of others.

The fraudster pulled off the fast-food scam by infiltrating O’Rourke’s McDonald’s mobile app account, which was linked to his debit card.

The scammer then used the app to order more than 100 meals for pick-up between April 12 and 18. The smorgasbord included McFlurries, Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets and poutine.

“It could be one guy who was able to hack my account and he shared it with a bunch of his friends across Montreal, and they all just went on a food spree,” said O’Rourke, who’s baffled by the crime.

Since McDonald’s wouldn’t issue immediate refunds, forcing impacted customers to wait weeks for their banks to resolve the issue, some complained that the charges, which typically amounted to hundreds of dollars, put them into a difficult financial position.

Lauren Taylor says she has no idea how someone in Montreal spent $483.65 using her McDonald’s app.

The Halifax woman said she received dozens of order confirmations in her email inbox with the last four digits of her Visa debit card between Jan. 25-29.

“It’s amazing to see how quick someone can just breach your privacy…rent is three days away and now I have to find the money,” Taylor said. “It’s a good thing that I live with family. Otherwise I’d be out.”

As customers congregated online to complain about the security breach, which they blamed on the flaws with the app, McDonald’s issued a statement apparently blaming the app’s users for their own misfortune.

McDonald’s Canada told CBC News that it’s only aware of “some isolated incidents” involving compromised app accounts. The company said it keeps personal information secure and that it’s confident in the security of its app.

McDonald’s didn’t say how fraudsters have infiltrated customer accounts, but it recommended that customers practice due diligence by beefing up their passwords and keeping them secure.

“If guests notice any unauthorized purchases, we recommend they contact their bank and change their password immediately,” said spokesperson Adam Grachnik in an email.

So far, the dollar-value of food stolen has climbed into the thousands of dollars.

That’s a lot of McDoubles.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GUXVSK Tyler Durden