Month: November 2022

The midterms in the US on November 8 could be a turning point in the war in Ukraine. Should the Republicans prevail, as current forecasts suggest, this could also have a significant impact on continued support for Ukraine.

The US media portal Axios, which is close to the Republicans, believe this to be the case.

The platform quoted US politicians who have registered a change of mood in the American public. This change is seen “a little on social media and with some of our representatives,” Axios quoted Republican representative Don Bacon.

Bacon’s colleague Kelly Armstrong also told Axios: “When people see food prices rise 13 percent, energy and electricity bills double…Like you live in a border community and you’re inundated with migrants and fentanyl, then Ukraine is the furthest away in their minds.”

Many Republican senators had similar messages. “Because of Joe Biden, fentanyl, cartels, human traffickers pour across our border,” Ohio state Senator Matt Dolan (R) stated in his US Senate campaign while Colorado state Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer (R) in her swing-seat US House campaign blamed “woke liberals”.

“Woke liberals are killing Coloradans, and Republicans helped them do it,” said Kirkmeyer.

Axios also quoted a senior Republican in the House of Representatives. After May’s $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, many Republicans are now saying, “This was the last time I supported funding Ukraine.”

Rep. Jim Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), hinted at an imminent shift in policy focus. After the elections on November 8, interest could generally turn to domestic political issues. You have to “secure your borders and get America back on its feet by tackling energy costs and inflation,” Banks is quoted as saying.

So far, the United States has been Ukraine’s biggest supporter. US military aid to Kiev alone has so far been estimated at more than 16,8 billion US dollars. It could all come to an end after the midterms – especially if the expected major Russian winter offensive start creating facts on the ground which become impossible to ignore.

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/11/03/what-will-the-midterms-in-the-us-mean/

According to Dawn, unknown individuals allegedly vandalized a statue of a symbolic warrior woman that was installed in the Kachnar Park of Islamabad, Pakistan. The issue was brought to light on Wednesday morning by park visitors who also manage a Facebook page called ‘Friends of Kachnar Park.’

Twitter user Tahir Malik shared about the incident in a tweet. He wrote, “Shameful act of Vandalism in Kachnar Park,1 /8 Islamabad this excellent sculpture has been vandalized. The sculpture was presented by a great artist in Islamabad whose art is exhibited at public places.”

Shameful act of Vandalism in Kachnar Park,1 /8 Islamabad this excellent sculpture has been vandalised . Sculpture was presented by a great artist in Islamabad whos art is exhibited at public places. #CDA Islamabad police should take strict action .@CDAthecapital@ICT_Police pic.twitter.com/3P4T21djAv

— Tahir Naeem Malik (@TahirNaeemMalik) November 2, 2022

The monument was supposedly destroyed by someone at night and was in a good condition until Tuesday, according to Malik, who spoke to Dawn. Although the Capital Development Authority (CDA) claimed that the monument had fallen, he said that it could not be ruled out because other vandalism incidents had recently been reported in several other parts of the nation.

Unknown persons allegedly vandalised the sculpture of a symbolic brave woman, installed in the city’s Kachnar Park in I-8 sector.https://t.co/1ad07xaHO1

— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) November 3, 2022

Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue was damaged in Lohore in December 2020

A nine-foot-tall statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore, Pakistan, was vandalized in December 2020. The statue, which was located outside the Haveli of Rani Jindan Kaur, wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, at Lahore Fort, was vandalized on December 11 by a person identified as Zaheer Ishaq. After breaking the left arm of the monument, Ishaq was apprehended on the scene by a security guard.

Zaheer Ishaq said that Ranjeet Singh had killed several Muslims and harmed the sentiments of the Muslim community, which is why he damaged the statue. The culprit, who was said to be a staunch follower of the late Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi, was reportedly opposed to the placing of statue of the brave Sikh king at Lahore fort because he had converted the Badshahi mosque into a horse stable.

Idol worship is Haram in Islam

Worship of Idols and celebrating personalities through statues is considered Haram in Islam. The Quran states that idolatry is a grave sin, a violation of the first commandment in all of God’s teachings, and an impenitent sin if continued until death.

Surah 31 verse 13 says, And remember when Luqmân said to his son, while advising him, “O my dear son! Never associate anything with Allah in worship, for associating others with Him is truly the worst of all wrongs.”

Islam’s intolerance toward idol worship was most visible in the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, the famed 6th-century massive sculptures of Gautama Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in central Afghanistan’s Bamyan valley. It was by far the most barbaric attack on Afghanistan’s historical and cultural legacy by the Taliban, eliciting harsh condemnation from nations around the world.

The world’s largest standing Buddha statues had survived for a millennium and a half—until the Islamists of the Taliban ordered their destruction. On 27 February 2001, Talibani leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, issued a decree ordering the elimination of all non-Islamic statues and sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

https://www.opindia.com/2022/11/pakistan-statue-of-symbolic-warrior-woman-vandalised-in-islamabad/

By Tanya Berlaga

In her recent article in The Atlantic, a Brown University professor, Emily Oster, is calling for “pandemic amnesty.”  She is telling me to “forgive and forget” everyone who was yelling obscenities at me for not wearing a mask in a public park or calling me a mass murderer for posting a picture with a friend visiting.  I must forget all this, the author insists, because all those people had nothing but my well-being in mind!

The author admits that many (if not most!) measures imposed on us by “the experts” were harmful and destructive.  But “dwelling on those mistakes” is “counter-productive.”  After all, people who made these mistakes had only good intentions.

“As we now know,” the author concedes, cloth masks are practically useless.  People who got vaccinated spread COVID as easily as those who did not.  Keeping children locked up at homes had disastrous consequences on their development.  And some of the COVID “mitigation” measures — like beach closures in California — were outright dumb.  But let’s not “dwell” on them — because those were “complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty.”

“We didn’t know!”  the author laments.

After three years of living through the pandemic, the author all but admits that “the experts” were just as clueless about how to approach it as your next-door neighbor.  “The experts” did not know even the most obvious things.

They didn’t know that wearing a dirty piece of cloth over your face would not amount to anything other than a sinus infection.  Seemed like even a third-grader could’ve figured that one out — and many did.

They didn’t know that walking on the beach was the safest activity one could do during a pandemic.  Sunshine and fresh air are the best disinfectants known to men, and a beach in early spring is the best place for “social distancing.”  You don’t need a crystal ball to understand that surfing in the ocean is not “a super-spreader event.”

They didn’t know that being away from school causes learning delays, especially for kids who don’t have a parent in the home.  For many kids, a school is the only environment conducive to education.  To learn online, kids require constant supervision — I got a firsthand experience with that when my high school–age son was tutoring during COVID.  He had to call the parents multiple times a day to return their kids back to the computer screen.  What about the kids who didn’t have a parent around, or access to a personal tutor?  It wasn’t a difficult conjecture to know that these kids would fall desperately behind.

After almost everything “the experts” told us has been proven false, they demand “amnesty” because of the “uncertainty” they were facing.  Yet, back then, they denied that any uncertainty existed.  Back then, they claimed they knew exactlywhat to do — until they didn’t.  Back then, they claimed that everyone who contradicted them, or doubted them, was “spreading misinformation.”  They proclaimed themselves “THE SCIENCE,” and they ordered everyone to follow their orders, or else.

You don’t need to know the future — only the past — to know that science does not require “blind following.”  Science involves debate, experimentation, and inquiry.  “The experts” and their admirers replaced real science with THE SCIENCE, also known as dogma.  And every time it clashed with reality, they turned around on a dime, and they absolved themselves of responsibility, citing “the evolution of THE SCIENCE” without providing any evidence as to how the science had “evolved.”

Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic.  And on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong.

Even in the face of uncertainty, the author admits, “some people got it right, for whatever reason.”  Yet she is willfully uncurious as to what that reason is.  That reason was that some leaders made decisions based on common sense, not politics.  They consulted with scientists and health professionals of differentpersuasions, not just the ones who promoted the party line.  They answered questions correctly because they asked questions in the first place.  These were the reasons they got it right — but these reasons, the author argues, are unimportant.  All that matters is that we do not blame “the experts” for their failure.

Some people got it right because they wanted to get it right.  “The experts” did not — but still, they should get “amnesty” because they “meant well.”  The author argues that some people made the right choices because they “had a hefty element of luck.”  We are supposed to believe that for three years, Ron DeSantis magically guessed all the right cards, while Doctor Fauci just kept guessing wrong.  And that’s why we all should cut the good doctor some slack.  Sure, he was heavily compensated for his “expertise” that involved repeating whatever talking points his puppet masters were giving him.  But he didn’t mean any harm, so let’s give him another million-dollar participation trophy.

But in spring and summer 2020, we had only glimmers of information. Reasonable people — people who cared about children and teachers — advocated on both sides of the reopening debate.

Now that “the alarming figures” are coming out, we must admit there were “reasonable people on both sides.”  However, back in the day, only one side was viewed as “reasonable.”  Anyone who dissented was known as “the science deniers” and “the grandma-killers.”  People who claimed they “cared” did notadvocate for debate.  They advocated for shutting down anyone who disagreed.

Because of “the experts,” millions of kids suffered severe learning loss and developmental delays.  Cancer patients missed life-saving treatments.  Many did not attend the diagnostic tests that could have saved their lives.  Gravely ill people died alone without saying goodbye to their loved ones.  Because of “the experts,” elderly people went into the crowds believing that a stupid mask would protect them.  So many lives needlessly lost.  And now, “the followers of the science” demand absolution because they meant “no harm.”  Fair enough: Let’s not be mean to the celebrities wasting their lives on Twitter.

In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing.

“The experts” admit they “didn’t know then,” so getting it wrong “wasn’t a moral failing.”  Not knowing is, indeed, not a moral failing — but refusing to learn is.  It is because of “the experts” that we didn’t learn from this tragic event that impacted a generation.  And we still don’t know.  We don’t know why the first wave of COVID was so deadly, and why the one still around is not.  We don’t even know how deadly each new variant is.  We don’t really know how COVID spreads, and how to mitigate the spread.  We don’t have a definite answer about the efficacy of masks.  We don’t know if COVID vaccines protect you, and for how long.  We don’t know why older people seem to be more in danger than the young.  We could have answers to all of these questions by now if we were allowed to ask them.  There is no excuse for why we don’t know.

Because of “good intentions,” we wasted millions of lives, and millions of livelihoods, and we chose to learn nothing from this horrible event.  And that is why, should the new pandemic come tomorrow, instead of relying of what we have learned, “the experts” will revert to the same game plan they used during COVID, needlessly wasting more lives.  If we let it slide, more people will die.

“The experts” failed us when we needed them most.  Then they demonized us for doubting their “expertise.”  And now they admit they weren’t “the experts” at all — only “well-wishers.”  After ruining our lives, they cry for “amnesty.”  If we learned one thing from a three-year pandemic, it’s that we should not give it to them.  We should hold “the experts” accountable so that all the future experts take notice.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/now_the_disgraced_covid_experts_want_amnesty.html

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has apparently learned nothing from Germany’s fatal mistake of becoming dependent on Russian gas.

On October 26, Germany’s government decided to let the Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO Shipping Ports, which has links to China’s People’s Liberation Army, buy a stake in the Port of Hamburg. COSCO is the world’s third-largest container carrier measured by capacity, and the fifth-largest port terminal operator in terms of the amount of cargo and vessels that it handles, according to German think-tank Merics. The Port of Hamburg is Germany’s largest port and the second-largest port in Europe, making it part of Europe’s most critical infrastructure.

The deal will let COSCO have a 24.9% stake in the port and is a compromise following a dispute within the government between Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and six of his government ministers. The original plan was to give COSCO a 35% stake in the port, in addition to taking over shares in the port operator Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA).

Scholz wanted to forge ahead despite opposition to the deal from all six ministries that have been involved in reviewing the deal and have rejected it because the deal concerns critical infrastructure. Instead, Scholz was looking for a “compromise” so the deal could still go ahead, which Scholz has now managed to accomplish.

The original deal was made back in September 2021, but subject to regulatory approval. Prior to the deal, the European Commission reportedly warned Germany not to approve COSCO taking the 35% stake in Hamburg’s port, saying that sensitive information could reach China if it did.

“We have learned that dependencies from countries which then might use their own interests in order to blackmail us are no longer just an abstract phenomenon,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who opposed the deal, said. “We shouldn’t repeat these mistakes.”

Germany’s Foreign Ministry had also reportedly warned that an investment by COSCO “disproportionately expands China’s strategic influence on German and European transport infrastructure as well as Germany’s dependence on China… considerable risks… arise when elements of European transport infrastructure are influenced and controlled by China — while China itself does not allow Germany to participate in Chinese ports. In this respect, the acquisition of the container terminal does not only have an economic, but especially a geopolitical aspect.”

The Foreign Ministry clearly fears that in a time of crisis between the countries, China’s investment in the port would allow it “to possibly instrumentalize part of Germany’s – and therefore Europe’s – critical infrastructure.”

Marcel Fratzscher, the head of the German Institute for Economic Research denounced the compromise:

“The German government is repeating the mistake of many previous federal governments by prioritizing short-term economic interests over long-term prosperity and prosperity and stability.”

According to Politico:

“The acquisition is part of a broader strategic gambit by Beijing to gain control over infrastructure critical to its globe-spanning Belt and Road trade initiative, a network of transport connections intended to link China’s factories with rich Western markets.

“Cosco already owns stakes in Europe’s two largest ports at Rotterdam and Antwerp, while it also controls the port of Piraeus in Athens and is behind a scheme to expand an inland rail terminal at Duisburg where the Ruhr and the Rhine rivers meet and which is a focal point for overland freight arriving from China’s industrial hubs.”

In China, COSCO is designated as one of 53 “important backbone state-owned enterprises,” according to a February 2021 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The report states:

“COSCO’s status as an important backbone SOE [state-owned enterprise] means that it’s uniquely beholden to the CCP in a way that other SOEs aren’t… COSCO’s organisational structure includes paramilitary capabilities that can be mobilised by the Chinese regime to defeat threats to the CCP’s interests. One such capability is the company’s in-house militia…”

Furthermore, COSCO has been described as the People Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN’s) “leading supplier, providing Beijing with built-in shore-based support for the PLAN through a commercial enterprise structured to align with Chinese naval strategy, to an extent that leads some naval analysts to refer to COSCO as the fifth arm of the PLAN.”

Several members of Germany’s government coalition, which consists of the Green Party, the Free Democrat Party (FDP), and Scholz’s Social Democrat Party (SPD) had denounced the proposed deal with COSCO.

Green Party Co-Chair Ricarda Lang said that Germany “should learn from mistakes and not create new dependencies” and that she has “no understanding” of why Scholz would move ahead with the deal when relevant government ministries have criticized it.

“The Chinese Communist Party must not have access to our country’s critical infrastructure,” FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai said. “That would be mistake and a risk.”

The opposition also criticized the deal.

“Against the advice of his ministers, the chancellor apparently wants to increase dependence on China,” Jens Spahn of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party said. “This sell-out of German infrastructure would be a mistake. German ports do not belong in Chinese hands, especially since Europeans can’t take a stake in ports in China.”

China declared as its ambition in 2012 that it wishes to become a global “maritime power” and China’s investments in and ownership of ports worldwide should be seen as part of achieving this ambition by expanding its global maritime reach. As of July 2020, Chinese firms reportedly “(partly) owned or operated some ninety-five ports across the globe.”

Out of the 95 ports, 22 are in Europe, 20 in the Middle East and North Africa, 18 in the Americas, 18 in South and Southeast Asia, and nine in sub-Saharan Africa. Just three Chinese companies, among them COSCO Shipping Ports, account for the operations of 81% of those ports.

According to an April 2022 report from Clingendael, a Dutch think-tank:

“Chinese state-owned companies such as COSCO and China Merchants, as well the Hong Kong based private firm Hutchison, have invested in most of Europe’s largest ports.”

In Greece, COSCO has completely taken over Piraeus, Greece’s largest port.

“In many instances these investments are in container terminals. The exception is Piraeus, Greece’s largest port. In this case, COSCO took a majority stake not only in a container terminal, but also in the port authority that operates the whole port, including activities such as cruise and ferry shipping.”

China’s investments in various European ports can also be used to play the ports against each other. Hans-Jörg Heims, a spokesman for HHLA, which COSCO is supposed to take shares in according to the deal, had argued that unless the deal was allowed to go through, Hamburg would be disadvantaged compared to the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, competitors with the port of Hamburg that are already partly owned by COSCO.

“Our competitors Rotterdam and Antwerp will be very pleased if this deal falls through,” Heims told Politico.

China’s port investments create obvious leverage for the country and increase international dependence on China. Scholz, regardless of the hard lessons that Germany has had to learn with regard to German dependence on Russian gas, has a state visit to China coming up in early November with a German business delegation; letting the COSCO deal fall through would not look good when trying to attract lucrative business deals. China is an key trading partner for Germany: In 2021, it was Germany’s top trading partner for the sixth consecutive year.

Some EU leaders, who say that Scholz should not be making separate deals with China and that the EU should speak with a “single voice” to China, have criticized Scholz’s upcoming trip.

“It is in their interest that we are divided. It’s in our interest that we are united,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. Latvia’s Prime Minister said the EU must take a “united approach to China.”

Even French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to be criticizing Scholz, who will be the first Western leader to visit China since the start of the Covid pandemic.

“We have made strategic errors in the past with the sale of infrastructures to China,” Macron said. “We’ve been naive because we considered that there was a public-finance issue to fix — and that Europe was an open supermarket.” The EU, Macron concluded, needs to establish a framework on what it considers “sensitive points.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19077/germany-infrastructure-china

How seriously do the Greens take the fight against Jew-hatred?

From January 2023, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (aged 45) is to head the Berlin “House of World Cultures” (HKW). But in the past, the designated director has attracted attention for his hostility towards Israel.

The renowned “House of World Cultures” (HKW) – an exhibition venue for international art in the middle of Berlin’s government district – is directly financed by the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Claudia Roth (aged 67, Greens). Roth is also chairwoman of the supervisory board of the HKW.

Why do Claudia Roth (see tweet above) and the Foreign Ministry led by Annalena Baerbock (aged 41, Greens) support an Israel-hater?

► In an open letter from the Ndikung-directed “Sonsbeek” Art Festival 2021, Israel is accused of “apartheid” and called for the “liberation of Palestine”, among other things.

Apartheid referred to the racist discrimination against black people in South Africa. The comparison with South Africa is repeatedly used to unilaterally demonise Israel. In fact, in democratic Israel, Arabs are seated both in parliament and in the Supreme Court – this would have been unthinkable in South Africa.

As early as 2014, Ndikung fantasised about the “liberation of Palestine”, writing: “They will pay a million fold for every drop of blood in GAZA! Palestine shall be free …” (They [Israel] will pay a million fold for every drop of blood in GAZA! Palestine shall be free …”)

Gaza is ruled by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas. Israel returns regular rocket fire from Gaza with counter-attacks on Hamas positions. The desire for Israel to “pay by the millions” for every drop of blood in Gaza would lead to the deaths of millions of Israelis.

▶︎ The accompanying text to a 2018 exhibition curated by Ndikung at Berlin’s “Savvy” gallery says (translated) about one artwork: “[It] stands as a symbol of an ongoing violence whose local and historical urgency stretches from World War II to today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

According to Elio Adler, chairman of the German-Jewish “Values Initiative”, the text suggests that Jews are now inflicting the violence they experienced under the Nazis on the Palestinians – a popular relativisation of National Socialism among Israelophobes and anti-Semites.

Adler explains: “Ndikung’s positions on Israel are shaped by an anti-Semitic worldview. He speaks of apartheid, a colonialist settler state and draws continuities between Israeli actions and National Socialism. In doing so, he is serving up the basics of Israel-related anti-Semitism.”

▶︎ In addition, Ndikung is one of the supporters of the “Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit”, which had opposed the German parliament’s resolution against the BDS campaign.

BDS stands for “boycott, divestment, sanctions” and is an international hate campaign that more or less openly calls for the abolition of Israel and glorifies terror against Israelis. A resolution passed by the German Parliament in 2019 stipulates that it should not be funded with tax money.

Ex-Green politician Volker Beck, executive director of the Tikvah Institute and president of the German-Israeli Society, is alarmed. He warns in the newspaper BILD: “Since the Documenta at the latest, we know that if it says BDS, it usually says anti-Semitism. Those who are already issuing no-objection certificates “could fall flat on their faces just as they did with Documenta”.

Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor (64) and the anti-Semitism commissioner of the German government Felix Klein (54) also criticised Ndikung’s positions.

But Minister of State Roth defends Ndikung. She thinks he is the suitable director. “He should then be judged above all on his artistic performance,” she told the Funke Media Group. She assumes that Ndikung will stand up against anti-Semitism.

Ndikung himself rejected criticism and explained that he had not supported the BDS movement and does not support it now.

Frank Müller-Rosentritt (40, Free Democratic Party), member of the Bundestag, criticises in BILD: “I wish that those responsible at the Greens would learn from the unspeakable experience of Documenta. Even before Documenta began, Minister of State Roth was warned in vain that its curators were uncritical and in part openly supportive of BDS and anti-Israeli statements. She should certainly not ignore such warnings again now.”

▶︎ As a reminder: Roth was sharply criticised for her dealings with the anti-Semitic Documenta curators by, among others, the Central Council of Jews and numerous politicians and experts. In the German Parliament, she did NOT want to classify the BDS movement as anti-Semitic in 2019.

BILD asked Foreign Minister Baerbock what she thought of the criticism of Ndikung and how it should be prevented that Ndikung attracts attention with hostility towards Israel in the name of German cultural diplomacy. After all, the HKW, which Ndikung is supposed to run, is also funded by the Foreign Office. As a so-called intermediary organisation, it is part of German cultural diplomacy.

However, Baerbock remains silent on the accusations, and a spokesperson merely refers to Claudia Roth’s statement and says that the decision on Ndikung’s post as director had already been made in the last legislative period.

Müller-Rosentritt is outraged. He told BILD: “It is the task of the Foreign Minister, as the person responsible for intermediary organisations in the Foreign Office, to put a stop to these goings-on instead of standing behind Ms Roth. We must finally ensure that no anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel is promoted with federal funds in the cultural sector.”

Elio Adler agrees with this criticism: “Politicians are walking with their eyes wide open into the next anti-Semitism scandal in the German art and culture sector.”

Ndikung should never be allowed to run the tax-funded HKW. It can still be prevented – “but only if the decisive authorities act quickly,” says Adler.

https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/ndikung-warf-dem-juedischen-staat-apartheid-vor-warum-finanziert-roth-diesen-isr-81771956.bild.html

The US government has opened a new chapter in the propaganda and disinformation war against Hungary. It now supports an allegedly “independent” media portal, whose sponsors, however, make it quite easy to see the goals which are being pursued against the country.

According to its own statements, the Internews platform focuses “on promoting a strong independent media sector” in Hungary. There will be further activities in Armenia, Georgia, Poland, Romania and the Ukraine. The aim is to “resist powerful interests trying to manipulate, isolate or control the press”.

The US embassy recently even produced a video listing Hungarian politicians and journalists who have allegedly made “anti-American” statements by name. Essentially these voices either criticized globalist policies to foment the Ukraine war or spoke out against the futility of sanctions.

In recent weeks, several senior Hungarian government figures and government-funded commentators have made harsh anti-Western and anti-American statements. Hungary and the United States are Allies. As Russian aggression threatens us all, we must stand together, not move apart. pic.twitter.com/lG1Rmi74tc

— US Embassy Budapest (@usembbudapest) October 17, 2022

The list of sponsors for the news portal is revealing. On it one will find, among other things, the well-known Open Society Foundations (OSF) by George Soros, the Rockefeller Foundation and Freedom House, which is financed by the US government. US-based global tech giants like Facebook and Google are also among the backers.

Those in the know recall that Internews is not the US government’s first attemptto reshape the Hungarian media scene. As early as 2017, the US State Department launched a support program right before the elections for “independent Hungarian media in the countryside”. At the time, the government in Budapest accused the US State Department of interfering in Hungarian domestic politics. The programme was later de facto scrapped, presumably because ex-President Donald Trump valued good relations with Hungary.

Under the Biden administration, however, “democracy” exports are back in fashion. Just a few months ago, the Hungarian opposition’s prime ministerial candidate caused a scandal when he admitted that he had received a substantial sum of money for his election campaign from a US foundation.

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/11/03/biden-administration-sponsors-yet-another-campaign-against-orban/

Weeks after the full opening of Berlin’s contentious Humboldt Forum, a new row has hit the ethnological museum complex housed in a replica of the old Kaiser palace.

After fights over its Prussian restoration architecture and its exhibits’ colonial providence, the latest row concerns Christian details added to the building’s prominent dome.

Topped by a crucifix, the dome carries around its circumference, in golden letters, a Bible quote: “Under heaven, no other name is given but that of Jesus, before whom every knee will bow”(photo above).

Federal culture minister Claudia Roth of the Green Party says the inscription “is perceived as a claim of a dominant culture”.

On Wednesday she presented plans for a light installation to obscure the inscription with “reflective texts” she says will be more in keeping with the multicultural nature of the museum complex beneath.

“The inscription will be preserved, it will only be made clear that the Humboldt Forum is critical of this statement,” she said.

Ms Roth said the intervention would address a “politically and religiously interpretable restoration of the monarchical and Christian symbolism on the building”, which was built at a cost of €700 million with largely public money.

As well as temporary projections permanent plaques will be erected explaining the dome and its inscription.

Among the critics of the dome’s Christian touches is Berlin-based curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (see tweet above). Originally from Cameroon, he argues that “the extreme violence of Christianity during colonisation cannot be forgotten”.

Erecting Christian symbols at the museum’s highest and most public spot, he told Deutschlandfunk radio, was an “incredible display of superiority”.

Plans to alter the inscription have come under fire from Germany’s opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which accuses Ms Roth of leading a culture war against Germany’s Christian heritage.

They have consulted with Prussian historians and theologians, who say the proposals ignore the context of the inscription twice over.

After the Germans’ failed 1848 revolution against their autocratic monarch, Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV added the crucifix and inscription in thanks to God.

“The king felt he must give an account of his actions and actions before God, that is the meaning of this quote,” said Dr Richard Schröder, a Berlin-based theologian. “Now it’s being made out that the king apparently somehow wants to force people to bend their knees … to Christianity.”

Berlin’s Catholic archbishop Heiner Koch says the quote, in part from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, does not reflect any ideas of religious superiority. Instead, it expresses a Christian belief that “people should only bow before God and not give that honour to any earthly power”.

Even the Bild tabloid has rowed into the debate, arguing: “Christianity is being pushed back. That is sanctimonious and unfair.”

Wilhelm von Boddien, whose lobbying and fundraising kickstarted the palace reconstruction, criticised the inscription plan as a “cultural rupture” with Germany’s Christian roots.

The row has sparked heated debate online. One of Ms Roth’s Twitter followers suggested she replace the Bible quote with a line from philosopher Immanuel Kant: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-inflicted immaturity.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2022/11/02/protest-over-plans-to-obscure-berlin-palace-bible-quote/

By Andrea Widburg

When Democrats think of the endpoint of their green plans to fight climate change, they imagine a pastoral world in which happy, well-fed people frolic in fields of food and flowers, while their wise and benign overlords govern all wisely for the good of people, animals, and Mother Gaia herself. This is because Democrats are completely ignorant.

Once Democrats drain America’s dependence on fossil fuels, we will revert to a Hobbesian world in which, for most, life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Fossil fuel is responsible for everything in our world: food, clothing, shelter, medical care, transportation, heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, and the end of human chattel labor by substituting machines for slaves. Add in the deliberate breakdown of our transport sector in the form of air and rail strikes, and we Americans are in deep doo-doo.

The latest Democrat disaster to hit America is airline and railway strikes. Delta is America’s second-largest airline. It currently looks as if the pilots—close to 15,000 of them—are about to strike. Add to that the imminent breakdown in America’s diesel supply and a threatened railway strike, and it’s hard to calculate the scope of the disaster about to descend upon America’s airports and stores.

Flying Magazine reports:

Amid a protracted labor dispute over a new contract, nearly 15,000 Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) pilots have voted to authorize a strike.

The airline’s unionized pilot group, which is part of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), said that 96 percent of the pilot group participated in the vote, and that 99 percent voted in favor of strike authorization. According to the group, it was the first such vote in 16 years, emerging after negotiations for a more lucrative contract stalled.

This shouldn’t surprise us. In response to COVID, the airlines offered early retirements to many pilots to ease the burden on airline payrolls, and a lot of pilots took them up on that offer. With Americans flying again, the airlines can fill their planes but are struggling to find people to staff their cockpits. During a recent trip, my flight was delayed several hours Delta staff desperately hunted for an available pair of pilots.

Not long after, I spoke with a Delta pilot who said he wasn’t at all surprised; being short-staffed is now a common problem. No wonder pilots want better wages and working conditions. They’re currently a valuable commodity, and the airline is driving them hard.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil is sounding the alarm about an imminent railway workers’ strike (after Biden got workers to promise to wait until after the mid-terms) which, when combined with the imminent end of available diesel fuelin America, will bring shipping to a halt.

“It’s incredibly concerning,” Steil said Tuesday on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “We got to remember this is just weeks after President Biden told us that he had this all under control, and the trains would be running on time.

“We’re now learning it’s anything but that. It’s another game where the Biden administration has kicked the can down the road and kicked it past this election.”

[snip]

Steil said the impact of the railroad strike could be exacerbated by ongoing shortages of diesel fuel, which power everything from tractor trailers to harvesting tractors.

“The shortages that we’re seeing around the country is concerning,” Steil continued.

Going into 2020, we were an energy-independent, affluent country, with low unemployment, and warehouses and shelves filled with goods for people who had money to buy them. We then got hit with the Democrats’ opportunistic response to COVID.

The Democrats’ policies were designed to drive Trump from the White House, destroy the working- and middle-classes, shut down free speech, end unfettered travel, accustom Americans to shortages, and tighten government control over every aspect of American life. With Biden successfully in the White House, Democrats heightened the effect of their disastrous policies by stifling oil production and refining, along with opening our border to millions of welfare-dependent illegal aliens.

We’re on the precipice of the net result of these policies: A return to the pre-modern era. If events proceed as predicted (airline shutdowns, railway shutdowns, running out of diesel, rapidly increasing fuel prices once Biden finishes draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, etc.), we’re going to experience the wonders of the pre-modern era: A Hobbesian world in which human lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Our modern world is built on fossil fuels for comfort, manufacturing, farming, and transport. Take away fossil fuel and add in the chaos from strikes in fundamental, infrastructure industries, and we’re in the fast lane to Hobbes-land.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/biden_fasttracks_us_to_a_solitary_poor_nasty_and_brutish_world.html

Due to poor filtering mechanisms, UK police forces are allowing criminals and sex predators to join their ranks, a report has claimed.

A report into “vetting, misconduct, and misogyny in the police service” conducted by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has said that certain forces in the UK are inadvertently allowing criminals and sex predators to join their ranks.

The investigation was launched as a result of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, who was abducted by an off-duty police officer under the false pretence that she was breaking COVID lockdown rules.

According to the report published on Wednesday, a significant number of police forces in the country are not properly filtering out applicants who have been accused of serious offences, including sexual assault, in the past.

In particular, the report outlines two case studies where police applicants were granted clearance despite being accused of committing acts that could constitute sexual assault, one of which involved a police officer transferring to another force, with another involving an individual attempting to become a member of law enforcement for the first time.

With such instances of alleged sex offenders falling through the cracks when it comes to security vetting, the report warns that UK law enforcement is risking the safety of the general public.

“It’s far too easy for the wrong people to get in,” the head of HMICFRS, Matt Parr, told the BBC.

“I think police leaders need to understand that unless they’re much tighter with who they recruit, much tighter with who they transfer between forces, and have a much lower tolerance for the normalised, sexualised bad behaviour towards women, both members of the public and in the force… they’re going to keep getting scandals and public trust is going to continue to erode,” he continued.

While Wednesday’s report was sparked by the brutal rape and murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of an off-duty officer, such a killing does not represent the first time a member of the UK police committed a sexual offence against a member of the general public.

UK Cop Used Cover of Covid Lockdown to Kidnap and Murder Sarah Everard, Says Prosecutor https://t.co/VAFruvwJuO

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 29, 2021

Noted within the report is a case from 2011 where an officer was jailed for life after “carrying out sex attacks on vulnerable women he met while on duty”.

According to the report, the officer involved was eventually “convicted of two charges of rape, three indecent assaults and six counts of misconduct in public office”.

Another officer was jailed for 19 years after being found guilty of “ten rapes, two offences of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, one offence of sexual touching and two common assault”.

The report notes that, despite the long rap sheet, not all of the allegations against the imprisoned officer actually ended up in court.

There have also been repeated allegations against officers that they have in some way been involved in Muslim child rape gangs operating in Britain, though such accusations are often disputed by the accused.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/11/02/uk-police-allowing-sex-predators-to-join-their-ranks-report/