China Moving Beyond Counterfeit Technology

"The recent ZTE incident made us see clearly that no matter how advanced our mobile payment is, without mobile devices, without microchips and operating systems, we can't compete competently [with the United States, in advanced technology]."
Pony Ma, chief executive, Tencent Holdings (Chinese Internet giant)

"Self-reliance is the foundation for the Chinese nation to stand firmly in the world, while independent innovation is the only way for us to climb the peak of the world's science and technology."
Chinese President Xi Jinping

"After the ZTE incident, we realize how important it is to be able to make chips on our own."
"[The chipsets Gree Electric Appliances develops may not be as good as the American ones] but we've got to have a Plan B."
Tang Xiaohui, senior executive, Gree smartphone and chip development

Image credit: 123RF

Traditionally, China has found it to be enterprisingly successful to leapfrog over other nations' inventions, using their technology on which to base their own, and in this way cutting out a laborious, long route to designing and owning their very own innovative expertise. China has built its runaway success in producing technology-based products on the fundamental technology base available resulting from mostly American breakthroughs.

Copying formulae that have been copyrighted has created tensions between China and the United States for the production giant's penchant for industrial spying to take advantage of the work of others. But nothing has stopped the juggernaut that is Chinese entrepreneurial expertise from expanding upon the work of others. In China, high-speed trains take people everywhere in record-speed time. With their Chinese-produced smartphones people buy and pay for everything they need.

China preened itself on its technological smarts, ahead of the world in just about every indice of technological development. And then the other shoe dropped. The Chinese corporation employing 75,000 workers, the No. 4 producer of telecom gear internationally, had violated U.S. sanctions and agreed to pay the $1-billion fine imposed  by the Trump administration which also insisted that American monitors be permitted access to its headquarters.

This proud symbol of Chinese technological progress and engineering techniques as a result will be permitted to purchase U.S.-made microchips, software and other tools on which its entire enterprise has been built. The incident has brought the stark reality of Chinese dependence on American technology to enable it to boost its own, to stunning realization and acknowledgement. "We realized that China's prosperity was built on sand", admitted Dong Jielin, adjunct professor at the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Zte Smartphones

 

The China model, built on the country's tech industry whose mantra is that people can rise and prosper under government management in control, has now been exposed as a sham. The Chinese consumer society has been awarded by its government greater choices than ever, excepting individual liberties. Despite which, technology is viewed in China as elsewhere as a global, liberating force. Even there, China's sovereignty rules with a high degree of government control.

Because of the ZTE exposure to reality, a new atmosphere of urgency has gripped China forward in a bid to increase its technological abilities. Its Made in China 2025 initiative struggles with failing trade relations between China and the United States. ZTE's $17-billion 2017 revenue spurs the Chinese leadership to ensure the nation achieves self-reliance. Beijing is wedded to its vision of national rejuvenation where innovation and entrepreneurship have become national policies backed by government finances in enormous investments at the ready.

Gree Electric Appliances of Zhuhai, as the world's largest industrial air conditioner manufacturer of residential units, began designing its own chips three years ago for use with air conditioners in an effort to reduce its costs and control its supply chain. The corporation is prepared to spend $7.8 billion on chip research and development in the next three years. As China moves upwards and onward on its independent and self-reliant future in technology it now resorts to the authenticity of conducting its own research and development.

Infiltration Through Stealth of Numbers

"According to a Harvard University study, the Islamisation of a country cannot be stopped once the Muslim population reaches 16 percent of the total population. This is what Islam expert, Nikoletta Incze, said on 22 June, on Hungarian public television".
"Incze is a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Political Islam, a foundation of American Islam critic Bill Warner, which is active in several countries."
"The interview with the Islam expert was broadcasted as part of a morning magazine report that focuses on the spread of Islam in Europe and bears the title “Islamic Advance – Already 44 Million Believers in Europe."

Muslim women in Paris - Photo Credits: Zoetnet / Flicrk.com CC BY 2.0

"The main issue is ... about what the people believe what should be done."
"[The move to return migrants to where they came from represents the beginning of a] new period when we try to reconstruct the European democracy."
"[No more migrants should be admitted, those that entered Europe and remain there] should be sent back."
"The invasion should be stopped, and to stop the invasion means to have a strong border."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

"It seems as if today [at the European Council Brussels summit to place deterrence and EU border protection at the forefront of EU migration policy] we will manage a shift in migration policy."
"[No longer should being rescued in the Mediterranean] automatically become a ticket [into central Europe]."
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz

"Some may think I am too tough in my proposals on migration."
"But trust me, if we don't agree on them, then you will see some really tough proposals from some really tough guys."
European Council President Donald Tusk

"We all face a simple choice: do we want national solutions or do we believe in European solutions and co-operation?"
"For my part, I will defend European solutions."
French President Emmanuel Macron

The "European solutions" that Emmanuel Macron speaks of so fondly, in support of central decision making that all EU members must adhere to for conformity of purpose and design and strengthening of the union which has been noticeably fraying at the edges when Eastern European nations began their dissent over accepting the tens of thousands of mostly North African but also Middle East refugees comprised mostly of single, young men has come at a time when some member-nations have absorbed a presence of Muslim immigrants who have failed to integrate into the prevailing values, customs and laws of the nations they burden with their presence.

This was a choice that France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Norway made, generously opening their doors to Muslims harbouring a wish to live elsewhere than in their countries of birth. Ostensibly to find greater freedoms elsewhere, along with opportunities to advance their interests, which includes taking advantage of generous social assistance programs in 'progressive', democratic nations. Despite which, these are populations which have often held themselves apart from the general population, failed to respect national laws and impose their religious-cultural practices on others.

Poland and Hungary among other countries have refused to dilute their heritage and values in this same way and they have been joined by the Netherlands and Austria, Italy, Greece and Spain, however tardy that has been with their populations already swelling with the presence of strangers at their gates, entitled, resentful, regarding themselves as victims and imposing their cultural values and demands on the indigenous populations, dismayed at the fraying of their nations' valued culture. Europe has been swamped.

And it is slowly, but inadequately realizing that it is imperilled, turning toward the potential of transforming itself to "Fortress Europe", a situation imposed upon it through the unending tide of hopeful economic migrants under the guise of refugees from oppressive and dysfunctional governments, sectarian and tribal conflict, resulting in mass unemployment and corruption. Leading tens of thousands of young men to abandon their countries rather than embrace the more difficult route of political activism demanding change.

Now, with the EU forced into action to protect its borders from continued incursions of the magnitude seen in the past several years which saw invasions of millions, Italy finally sees some relief on the horizon: "We hope these words will be translated into action. Italy no longer has a need for words and statements, we need concrete acts", emphasized Italian Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte in the wake of the country's spat with France and Spain over its refusal to absorb migrant rescue ships' cargo of human traffic.

Syrian migrants after crossing the border between Macedonia and Serbia in August 2015. ‘The EU’s agreement with Turkey ... ultimately led to the shutting down of the Balkan route.’

Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

"Europe has many challenges but migration could end up determining Europe's destiny", remarked German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose own decision to open wide Germany's frontier to a million migrants in a gesture of virtuous generosity, ended up with her countrymen and women expressing frustration and rejection at the unwelcome flood of mostly young men for whom social welfare was extended and toward whom civil respect for women had to be emphasized in the wake of mass sex assaults. Another cultural importation.

Europe now imagines it can have a partnership with the very African nations from which migrants are endlessly streaming, by convincing them to agree to accept those migrants back into the African fold. And what's more to agree to hosting EU immigration stations to legalize entry through normal, civilized means of making application to emigrate in circumstances where the EU will be enabled to evaluate suitability for immigration and make those determinations either denying or accepting applications at their source.

Donald Tusk visualizes increasing border forces in Europe to maintain order and control of borders to ten thousand personnel, in tandem with forging return agreements with the migrant-source African states. As well, "hot-spot camps" to be set up in North Africa to be established to ensure that the ongoing floods of human beings entitling themselves to haven, could be controlled outside Europe. The African reception of these novel, civil and normalized solutions has not, however, been very welcoming.

"That's not a solution", Morocco's migration and border surveillance director Khalid Zerouali, scoffed, referring to the "regional disembarkation platforms". Morocco has been increasingly in use as a jumping-off point to access Spain, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangiers on unseaworthy boats or clambering over high fences to reach enclaves in Morocco: Melilla and Ceuta, Spanish enclaves.

Europe has struggled to react to, absorb and attempt to control approximately 1.8 million sea arrivals of migrants since 2014, with thousands of migrants losing the battle for safe arrival, to a watery grave. Morocco, it seems, has not come up with a workable solution of its own, since its country serves as a major transit point. Africa seems not to mind its citizens searching elsewhere for personal fulfillment thanks to its own mismanagement of its human resources.

Migrants rescued at sea in the Mediterranean. [Irish Defence Forces/Flickr]

 

 

 

 

Prosperity Through Peace?

"Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shared some interesting news with England's Prince William during a meeting in Ramallah on June 27. He informed the royal visitor that the Palestinians are 'serious about reaching peace with Israel.' Abbas also said that the Palestinians were 'committed to combating terrorism'."
"What makes this news interesting is that as Abbas was speaking to Prince William in his Ramallah headquarters, known as the Mukata, the Palestinian government issued a statement praising Palestinian terrorists imprisoned by Israel. The Ramallah-based government also vowed to continue paying salaries to Palestinians convicted of murdering and injuring Jews, defying Israeli and American demands to stop the payments."
"It seems that Abbas and Israel have different views on how terrorism should be combated. Abbas seems to think that paying salaries to convicted terrorists and their families is a good first step in that direction."
"Palestinian prisoners are our national icons and symbols of defending freedom and dignity and confronting oppression and subjugation."
Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, International Policy Council 

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during an official visit to in Ramallah, on June 27, 2018. (Photo by Joe Giddens - Pool/Getty Images)

"The world has moved forward while you have been left behind. Don't allow your grandfather's conflict to determine your children's future."
"We will release our peace plan and the Palestinian people will actually like it because it will lead to new opportunities for them to have a much better life."
Jared Kushner, White House senior adviser to the Middle East

In this Thursday, June 21, 2018 photo, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, center, meets with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, second left, and Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt on the latest stop in a regional tour to discuss a blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, in Cairo, Egypt. (MENA via AP)

Special U.S. envoy Jared Kushner had an interview published in the leading Palestinian newspaper Al Quds in which he emphasized that the peace process could move ahead as soon as the Palestinian Authority decided to declare that the war with Israel is finished. The Palestinian issues that they place at the core of any negotiations; the return of refugees, a sovereign state that would include East Jerusalem and ending Jewish West Bank settlements should be regarded as negotiating "talking points"; negotiable in other words, not demands.

For one thing the UNHCR unique recognition of Palestinian 'refugees' as representing not only the original Palestinians who fled the geography but all their descendants (original: an estimated 700,000; including later generations: five million-plus) a 'return' that would obviously swamp Israel with an Arab/Muslim population equal to the Jewish presence, minus the one and three-quarter million Arabs who have Israeli citizenship, comprising over 21 percent of the population. 'Return' would spell the end of the Jewish state -- which is the actual goal.

It's one of those "not gonna happen" issues, imperilling Israel's survival. What Kushner speaks of is hopes of a new day dawning, when the younger generation of Palestinians finally understand the check-mate situation that solves nothing which the Palestinian Authority has engineered in long-term aspiration of having Israel disappear. This is the proposed rational against the imposed embittered emotions of anti-Zionism. The hope may be there that young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will tire of the 'resistance' shtick that gets them nowhere and begin to seriously look at a more promising future.

One that, with a peace agreement, Muslims will finally achieve some of their goals, presumably the more modest ones of sovereignty, recognition, an end to conflict and the beginning of prosperity and pride. An opportunity as Kushner states "to leapfrog into the next industrial age" through participation in the ecosystem of "Silicon Valley of the Middle East, Israel". It makes eminently good sense to imagine that young, opportunistic Palestinians would want to take that chance and reap the future.

But to do so, frays the fabric of heritage and culture, defying the imposed PA strictures against 'normalization' with the 'Zionist enemy'.

It would mean the youthful generation separating their interests from their elders, and in the process rejecting the national narrative of 'occupation', 'resistance', and 'martyrdom'. These are the values, after all, that they've grown up with, from cradle to grave as it were. In the cradle and beyond the lullabies whisper hints of martyrdom and the glory and fame achieved by the time the cradle gives way to 'resistance', when martyrdom merits a street named after the heroic action that led to Jewish lives surrendered to vengeance, rage and victimhood.

As ever, the Government of Israel makes overtures, invites cooperation, offers opportunities. Palestinians may regard Jews as oppressors and occupiers as is drummed into their consciousness but they are also more than willing to take employment in Israel and a recent announcement of 7,500 work permits issued to West Bank residents to counter the 20 percent unemployment rate speaks volumes. By no means is this considered a risky security threat since an estimated 100,000 West Bank Palestinians work in Israel as it is, with few untoward incidents arising.

Palestinians' lives are engraved with hardships. International investments in the Palestinian economy never did eventuate in the wake of the second intifada signalling to the international investors that their trust in a serene social environment securing their investments was unsound. The endemic corruption of Palestinian authorities and the bureaucracy is understood and deplored by Palestinians. Amid fears of accusations of collaboration, even Israeli entrepreneurs willing to invest in the West Bank came to nought.

The question is whether practical discourse and determination can prevail over emotional passion of blame, victimhood and rage, to attempt the Trump administration's "peace through prosperity" plan. Where once the Palestinian leaders could count on support from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States, that support has been reduced to statements and nothing more in an atmosphere where majority Sunni states fear the consequences of a rampaging Shiite Iran threatening stability in its conquest bid.

Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Heart

"If we find them, the first thing is to provide first aid and food before thinking of how to bring them up."
"We will not stop, we will work 24 hours. We're racing against time and we want them to be safe."
"The SEAL team will be working non-stop because it's already dark here too. So night and day doesn't make a big difference. They'll just need to rotate."
Thailand Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda

"We  hope this [electricians working to install electricity in the cave] will provide lights for work and fans for ventilation for the SEAL team."
"Also, it means we can use electric engines to pump water out of the cave as well."
Chiang Rai Governor Narongsak Osottanakorn

Rescue workers and park officials at Tham Luang Nang Non cave. Photograph: Chaichan Chaimun/EPA

Twelve boys, part of a soccer team, aged between 11 and 16, under the care of their 25-year-old coach had embarked late Saturday on an adventure that took them into the famed Chiang Rai province geological wonder represented by the Tham Luang cave. That the cave complex with its many large open chambers and tunnels is often flooded during monsoon season that takes in the month of June was perhaps something the coach was oblivious to.

But information published online by the tourist bureau makes it quite clear that entry to and exploration of the caves should be avoided during this vulnerable flooding period. Local authorities and rescue teams have become accustomed to the plight of tourists trapped during these floods in the caves and having to be rescued, on occasion after having been forced to spend days stranded before rescue could be safely completed.

Hopes were high that the thirteen stranded people -- the boys and their coach -- would be quickly recovered and brought to safety. But as the days passed and the boys' families stationed in tents outside the cave forlornly view their children's bicycles, backpacks and soccer equipment resting beside the cave entrance, to be retrieved when the group emerged, time goes slowly and hope becomes fragile. The boys are believed to have made their desperate way to the back of the cave as the flooded area continued to expand and rise.

Thai Navy Seal divers are leading the search, handicapped by muddy water which in some of the cave's chambers has reached as high as the ceilings. They need breathing space to be enabled to proceed with safety, and water is being pumped out, but the rains have continued and the flooded areas continue rising, although the main cave entry remains dry. Special oxygen tanks that will enable the divers to remain under water for longer periods are being brought in.

Thai rescue officers search for alternative entrances during the rescue operation for missing football players in Tham Luang cave. Photograph: DNP/EPA

Electricians had worked continually in the light of day and the dark of night to ensure that light and ventilation for divers was available. In a situation where flood waters rise up to seven metres inside the underground complex they are desperately working to penetrate deep into the area in hopes of finding the stranded group. The divers, facing such difficult conditions, have been forced to suspend operations on several occasions, hampering their search to find a way forward through the cave complex.

Two fissures in the rock on the mountain where the cave is located were thought to represent another option for use as a "chimney" to be descended to gain cave access but turned out not to be an entry point, after all. With the aid of the power line extended inside the cave the divers are able to communicate with those waiting and hoping on the outside. When the boys ventured into the cave late Saturday afternoon, their failure to return alarmed a mother who reported her son missing after soccer practice.

Thus began the desperate search and rescue operation. Off limits during the rainy season as a result of experiences with flooding in the past, the caves nonetheless presented as a lure to the adventurous sense of exploration lodged deep in the psyches of young boys and older men alike. "We are still optimistic they are alive", commented Thai deputy prime minister Prawit Wongauwon.

People pray near the Tham Luang caves during a search for members of an under-16 football team and their coach, in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

The Unstoppable Migrant March : Solution? Expulsion, Abandonment

"Women were lying dead, men .... Other people got missing in the desert because they didn't know the way."
"Everybody was just on their own. I lost my son, my child."
Janet Kamara, Liberian migrant, Niger

Janet Kamara, from Liberia, was expelled from Algeria and left stranded in the Sahara while pregnant. Her baby did not make it.Al   AP Photo/Jerome Delay

"There were people who couldn't take it. They sat down and we left them. They were suffering too much."
"They [Algerian military] tossed us into the desert, without our telephones, without money."
Aliou Kande, 18, Senegalese migrant

"You're facing deportation in Algeria -- there is no mercy. I want to expose them now... We are here, and we saw what they did."
"And we got proof [phone videos of the process of directing migrants to cross the desert on foot, no food, no water, no directions]."
Ju Dennis, Liberian migrant, filming deportation

"They come by the thousands. This time the expulsions that I'm seeing, I've never seen anything like it."
"It's a catastrophe."
Alhoussan Adouwal, IOM (International Organization for Migration) official, Assamaka, Algeria

In this Tuesday, May 8, 2018 photo provided by Liberian migrant Ju Dennis, Algerian gendarmes carrying AK-47 assault rifles load migrants onto trucks to drop them off near the Niger border. Dennis filmed his deportation with a cell phone he kept hidden.   AP Photo/Ju Dennis

The flood of African migrants appears unstoppable. By word of mouth alone there is little doubt that those setting out to leave their places of origin are aware their presence in other countries where they hope to find sanctuary from the oppression, poverty, corruption, violence and conflict they have been subjected to, will be anything but welcome. Even those villages where they cross borders whose residents' compassion has been stirred to give aid, soon find they are suffocating with the presence of strangers whose needs consume their paltry resources and resentment soon sets in.

The desperately vulnerable men, women and children of Africa are setting out resolutely to find an elusive future of opportunity for themselves and their children. On the way they find indifference and resistance to their presence in neighbouring African countries so they dream of somehow making their way through to Europe, already saturated with the presence of other, earlier migrants and refugees calling upon humanitarian impulse to come to their aid. The generosity of strangers has its limits and those limits are reached when hardship is imposed through sheer strength of numbers.

Algeria now stands charged by the world community of deliberately abandoning over 13,000 people in the great heated, hostile environment of the Sahara Desert, left there to fend for themselves in search of haven and ultimately security. Over a fourteen-month period, men, women -- including those pregnant -- and children have been expelled and left without food or water, forced to trek, occasionally at gunpoint, under a pitiless sun. By the hundreds they march listlessly, attempting to escape the vastness of the overheated desert where death looms large under temperatures up to 45C.

The desolation is mind-numbing, and not all those who set out are sufficiently physically fit to reach safety. Hungry, thirsty, burning from the atmospheric conditions, they head for Niger to the border village of Assamaka. For some, a rescue team representing the UN, relieves their march; if they can be found before they perish, but still thousands have. The European Union, in desperation to solve the dilemma of the unwanted arrivals of millions of migrants, has pressured North African countries to counter migrants heading for Europe via Libya and the Mediterranean or breaching the barrier fences with Spain.

Nigerians and third-country migrants head toward Libya from Agadez, Niger, on June 4. (Jerome Delay/Associated Press)

Algeria has responded by expelling their migrants, scooping them up by the hundreds, loading them on trucks and driving them for hours to a central point in the Sahara where they are released to find their way to Niger. Some simply head back toward Algeria. Some will never reach any destination beyond death. According to the International Organization for Migration, the march survivors total 11,276 men, women and children. Another 2,500 accounted for entry on their desert trek to Mali. It is unknown how many altogether simply succumbed to conditions not conducive to human survival.

In the group of a thousand people wandering the Sahara that included Aliou Kande from Senegal, he reported the trek from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. seeing a dozen people collapse in the sand, surrendering to weariness, hunger, thirst. They are among the 'missing' never to be seen again. One man, Ju Dennis, hid his cellphone from the military which had removed them from peoples' possession so they would have no means of communication. Dennis filmed the deportation process, those being expelled and the armed gendarmes.

The IOM estimates that of the tens of thousands who have died crossing the Mediterranean, twice as many may have found their death in the vast Sahara desert. Their figure is upwards of 30,000 dying in the desert since 2014.  Adouwal with the IOM stationed himself in Assamaka from where he alerts his organization at the arrival of new groups out of the desert, at which time rescuers fan out to look for those remaining in the desert. An IOM bus takes them to the town of Arlit, six hours to the south, then on to Agadez, the city in Niger known as a crossroad for African trade and migration.

From there, the migrants will ultimately be returned to their home countries on flights sponsored by the IOM. And as they return south they come across others making the trip north toward Algeria and Europe. Like clockwork each Monday evening, pickups crammed with hopeful migrants pass through a city checkpoint, the migrants carrying water and walking sticks, determined to reach their future.

Migrants from across sub-Saharan African - Mali, the Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and more - are part of the mass migration toward Europe, some fleeing violence, others just hoping to make a living. (Jerome Delay/Associated Press)

And to the Most Deserving Canadidate -- Goes the Win!

"I accept the election results, [despite some votes being stolen, the overall result was not in question]."
"We will live the consequences of having one-man rule in the legislature, judiciary and government. I will keep up the fight as someone who got the approval of one person among every three in Turkey."
“If you have lost, you have lost. To say, I don’t accept this result, so let’s take to the streets is not democracy."

"A single person is becoming the head of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary and this is a concern for a threat to the survival of the country. Turkey has departed from democratic values and Turkey has broken its ties with the parliamentary system which it had."

"We're now in a one-man rule -- there's no mechanism to prevent arbitrary rule. We continue to have great concerns about this situation."

Muharrem Ince, social democratic (Republican People's Party) presidential runner-up

"The winners of the June 24 elections are Turkey, the Turkish nation, sufferers of our region and all oppressed (people) in the world."
"Turkey has decided to take the side of growth, development, investment, enrichment and a reputable, honorable and influential country in all areas in the world."
"I would like to congratulate our nation once again. This has been another test of democracy and we have passed this test successfully."
Turkey's President-for-Life Recep Tayyip Erdogan 

Turkey's President and leader of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses supporters

"The issues of Jerusalem and Gaza, while conducive to Erdogan’s campaign were not a critical factor. The opposition was in concurrence with his position on these issues and even challenged him to adopt a tougher approach to Israel."
"The question is broader in my view — what approach will Erdogan adopt after the elections both inward and outward — combative or more conciliatory?"
"From the little we can see already, it seems he will remain a tough critic of the West and, partially as a byproduct, also of Israel."
Gallia Lindenstrauss, research fellow, Tel Aviv University-affiliated Institute for National Security Studies (INS)

After sixteen years in power, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP: strange how dictators love the words 'justice' and 'development') are firmly ensconced to continue to lead Turkey in the direction and in the manner that continues the stranglehold they manipulated themselves into with their first majority when Erdogan was Prime Minister and followed the example of Russia's Vladimir Putin to exchange positions and finally alter their constitutions to enable them to become presidents-for-life, squashing opposition and streamrolling the political process.

Their goals realized, they reign unopposed, but not without resorting when they see the need of it, to coersion, violence and corruption. All of which provides them with their aspirational goals fulfilled. That both had sumptuous, costly palaces built to reflect their exalted status as the heart and soul and tyrant of their countries speaks as well to the prideful conceit of their self-image. Even so, Erdogan left nothing to chance with his eye on achieving the majority he wanted to secure his future. His alliance with the Nationalist Action Party MHP was his insurance against failure.

So when the vote was declared in his favour with a 52-percent majority that was only attained with the MHP's winning seats included. Erdogan had wanted 55 percent for a more unequivocal majority, not the 42 percent the AKP got, but he will settle for what he has. The far-right party with which his own is now twinned has an agenda not completely unlike his own. Neither can be too pleased that the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party managed close to 12 percent of the vote, enough to seat them in Parliament, a goal higher than any other party was required to gain.

It is telling that congratulations to Erdogan did not pour forth effusively from the European Union members, who remain quietly glum over Erdogan's success, speaking little of the alleged corruption that brought him his win. The matter of European Union membership for Turkey has been an issue that has chafed relations between Turkey and the EU for decades, the EU waiting for Turkey's human rights record to reach the point of acceptance. And now, of a surety, it never will.

Erdogan's uncontested, expanded powers as newly re-elected president with a majority will see Turkey's transition from a parliamentary system of government to what Erdogan has long pined for; a presidential system giving him vastly expanded powers with the authority to impose states of emergency and to issue decrees, all of which Erdogan has promised voters would result in prosperity and stability for the country.

Turks themselves certainly felt strongly enough about the issues -- which sees the people strongly in opposite camps -- to bring out a hefty percentage of potential voters.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the presidential palace in Ankara. Photo: Reuters / Kayhan Ozer

Islamofascism in Indonesia

"His role was very important in spreading religious outreach online that made his followers conduct bombings."
"[Abdurrahman's] speeches, teachings and instructions have inspired his group [Jemaah Anshorut Daulah] and followers to commit criminal acts of terrorism in Indonesia."
Chief Judge Ahmad Zaini, Indonesian court, Jakarta

"This [his sentence of death] will turn him into a martyr. Much better to give him life imprisonment."
"If he had been given a long prison sentence, it's possible his ideological differences with the most extreme militants could have been used to divide the movement."
"But now that chance has been squandered."
Sidney Jones, director, Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta

Islamic cleric Aman Abdurrahman is surrounded by security personnel in a courtroom after his verdict was announced in Jakarta. (Darren Whiteside/Reuters)

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, is considered to be a democracy. Travel some distance from the capital Jakarta and in the provinces the kind of Islam that is practised is not moderate as Indonesia likes to think of itself, but fundamentalist, practising medieval-era Islamic principles, the religious culture given to punishment of sexual transgressions dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond, and those accused of blaspheming Islam can anticipate a death sentence from the village council of elders.

At one time, not so distant, it was the Islamist militants from Jemaah Islamiyah that constituted Indonesia's greatest public threat, as when in 2002 on the island of Bali 202 people were killed when tourists were targeted by nightclub bombings. Indonesian security forces managed to crush the al-Qaeda-linked network over a ten-year period of extermination that saw the extra-judicial killing of the JI network leaders and bomb makers, when hundreds were arrested and the group fizzled out.

Like the multiple-headed hydra of Greek legend, however, Islamofascism is a monster that cannot be slain. The vacuum created by the destruction of the al-Qaeda linked JI was replaced by jihadist groups sympathetic to the allure of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Aman Abdurrahman was instrumental in forming yet another violent group of radicals driven by the primary Koranic precept of jihad. "Praise be to God", he murmured when he heard the verdict pronounced by the chief judge.

It was a scene of chaos in downtown Jakarta when gunfire and bomb explosions hit the city   Getty Images

The 46-year-old cleric responded directly to the judge that the verdict of a court whose authority he did not recognize inspired no fear in him, rather it inspired the religious fervour of gratitude that he would thus become a martyr, and he emphasized that by bending to kiss the floor. In recognition of the loyalty that this man could command among his followers dedicated to the ISIL ideology of unsparing brutality, caution was taken to ensure that hundreds of paramilitary and counterterrorism police were able to secure the Jakarta court.

The suicide bombings that took place this year in Surabaya, Indonesia's second most populous city which had been the result of whole families, children included involved in carrying suicide vests to create deadly mayhem spoke more than adequately of this cleric's capacity to inspire the tenets of the Islamist death cult in his followers. Even from prison serving a sentence related to terrorism, he was able to instruct his network of militants to carry out attacks in 2016 and 2017.

The court could see no possible reason for leniency to be extended to this man whose goal was to replace Indonesia's secular style of government with one in which Sharia law was paramount. Adhe Bhakti, an analyst at the Center for Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies in Jakarta spoke of the potential for Abdurrahman's death sentence to spark reprisal attacks across the country. "His words alone have been able to incite followers to carry out terrorism. The security forces must raise awareness and all intelligence services in Indonesia must co-ordinate well", he cautioned.

The Indonesia cleric is considered to be the de facto head of IS supporters in the country   EPA

!WOT! Canada's Feminist Prime Minister?

"[Trudeau] remembers being in Creston for the Avalanche Foundation, but doesn't think he had any negative interactions there."
"As the PM has said before, he has always been very careful to treat everyone with respect. His first experiences with activism were on the issue of sexual assault at McGill [University in Montreal], and he knows the importance of being thoughtful and respectful."
Matt Pascuzzo, spokesman, Prime Minister's Office

"Shouldn't the son of a former prime minister be aware of the rights and wrongs that go along with public socializing?"
"Didn't he learn, through his vast experiences in public life, that groping a strange young woman isn't in the handbook of proper etiquette, regardless of who she is, what her business is or where they are?"
Editorial, Creston Valley Advance, August 2000, community newspaper, British Columbia

"It's pretty bizarre. [There are] no doubts [the described groping incident occurred]. I consider [her -- the complainant] to be of sound character and that she would not have made this up."
"It wouldn't have come to light at all, I'm sure, if the person in question hadn't gone on to become the prime minister of Canada. If he wasn't prime minister, I'm under no illusions that people would be scouring the archives of the Advance to find the great journalism that we did [back then]."
Creston Valley Advance then-editor, Brian Bell

Justin Trudeau gets inducted into the Order of Sasquatch Hunters at the Columbia Brewery’s Kokanee Summit Festival in Creston, B.C. on Sunday August 6, 2000. Postmedia file

Back then, a 28-year-old teacher of drama at a private school in Vancouver arrived in the southern interior of British Columbia for a special fund-raising event whose proceeds would help fund a memorial named for his late brother, Michel Trudeau, who had died in an avalanche accident several years previously. A female reporter in her early 20s was on scene to write a story and take photographs for her community newspaper. And that was the occasion when Justin Trudeau made inappropriate, rude and offensive physical overtures described as "groping" when the two interacted.

Trudeau had arrived in Creston for a music festival raising funds to help build a backcountry ski lodge to honour his brother's memory. The paper's publisher and then-editor verified the-then reporter's experience as she had related it to them immediately after the event had taken place. A day later that same reporter wrote the anonymous editorial chastising Trudeau for his decided lack of moral courtesy. "I know that she told me about it when I got back [from vacation] and I don't doubt she spoke to the publisher about it", affirmed Brian Bell.

That transgressor in the guise of a dedicated feminist is now the Prime Minister of Canada. Away back then he was merely a morals-challenged scion of a former Prime Minister of Canada. A political gossip/satire magazine, Frank, based in Ottawa, chose to publish that old editorial verbatim in April; perhaps to be viewed as a little jolt of reality, in a mood of mischief. Seeing in it a far greater lapse in character, however, political commentator and Trudeau critic Warren Kinsella posted the editorial on Twitter, stirring the Twitterverse to a virtual storm of condemnation/indignation/defense.

To be picked up elsewhere and everywhere on American websites such as Breitbart and The Daily Caller, and at home in the Toronto Sun, rating a post on BuzzFeed, coverage in Britain and France and even popping up in The New York Times. This, at a time when the #MeToo movement has been bringing down the high and the mighty (and suddenly defenceless) and garnering for ill-treated women a little payback for the insults, assaults and humiliations they have suffered since time immemorial. And which Justin Trudeau has personally condemned, committing to a reversal of women's place in global society.

Starting with dismissing two Liberal MPs from the Liberal caucus after being made Liberal leader, for their sexual harassment of two NDP MPs. Going on from there to condemn his former Minister of Veterans' Affairs Kent Hehr for alleged sexual harassment, consigning him to the back benches to nurse his humble regrets in isolation. Another MP from Calgary resigned from caucus for similar misdeeds as did Trudeau's deputy director of operations in the PMO. Deny the allegations they might, but repercussions were firm, administered by the feminist avenger.

And Trudeau? Well, he's awfully, awfully special. Isn't he? Who else has insisted that women's equal entitlements would rule whether or not Canada signs vital trade deals with the EU, the TPP, China, etc.?  Winning him no great applause from those incredulous sources who seem to believe, as the male chauvinist pigs they are, that women's rights have nothing to do with trade and economic ties between nations, but enabling his preening credentials to signal how very virtuous this sanctimonious child of fortune is.

But wait! He did apologize, yes he most certainly did. The day following the unfortunate incident when he must momentarily have gone stark, raving berserk soaked to the core with the brew of the unwashed masses where at the festival "thousands of people cruised the grounds", drinking, eating, taking in the music and some ungrateful women wrote inconsequential things like "It wasn't a good place to be if you're female. It was a ten-to-one ratio of men and women. I got my ass grabbed I don't know how many times. It was scary. I've never been so disgusted in my life".

A woebegone Trudeau had proffered his sincere and unreserved apology to the reporter whose sanctity of person he had transgressed by humbly informing her: "I'm sorry. If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward", having become privy to the reality that the reporter was covering festival events for the Advance, but also for the National Post and Vancouver Sun, part of the same news chain, and understanding just how vulnerable to outing as a grubby little predator he might be.

The apology was clearly contingent on the high visibility brought into focus by the realization that a national newspaper had the potential of publishing his stupid behaviour back in 2000. Some apology, that. The reporter rated an apology on the basis of who and how far her reportage reached. Not on the fact that he had violated her space and uninvited to do so, manhandled her physically. Some apology. Little could he know that it would take eighteen years for the dreaded story to be published in that same national-circulation newspaper to reveal the man's hypocrisy.

But hey, if Bill Clinton won't be held in a state of jeering condemnation for his penchant for forced sex, why should Justin Trudeau, whose admiring public will only shrug off any accusations as petty and vindictive, his actions only those of any red-blooded male? He is, of course, an embarrassment to himself, yes, but also to men who would never dream of forcing their unwanted attentions on women, much less shrugging off the incident, then going on to destroy the political lives of other men for the very same infractions he indulged in.

"The standard applies to everyone." Justin Trudeau "When women speak up it is our duty to listen to them and believe them."

Overwhelming Jihad

"Islamist preachers use the population’s poverty to expand their flocks."
"They’re banking on the fact that the schools are almost free of charge and have no minimum education requirements. In exchange, they only demand that pupils convert to Islam."
"And schoolgirls are required to wear a veil."
Henrilys Rakotounarivo, school inspector. Vohipeno, Madagascar

"They’re takfiris [the new piously Salafist clerics entering the country]! They call anybody who doesn’t think like them apostate."
"They’re under the influence of preachers from Pakistan, building mosques and madrassas everywhere, without government authorization."
Mohamed Zubaïr, Amadiyya imam, Manakara mosque

Noor Mosque Antananarivo Madagascar

"It’s very easy for a child to convert and become a Muslim for life: He only needs to come here, take a shower and pronounce the Shahada [the Islamic profession of faith]."
"Things are easy for me. I am a servant of truth. It’s my life. And the only truth is in the Koran." 
"[Women] complement men, but are not equal to men. Sure, women are technically capable of driving a car, but it’s the freedom they’re given to do so that is a problem. Women don’t know how to handle their freedom."
Nadeem Dolip, Mauritian head, new Islamist school (madrassa)

Madagascar, known historically as one of the 'spice' islands is the major source of the world's supply of vanilla beans. It has little industry, and it is an impoverished African country in the Indian Ocean, a population of 23 million, with electricity provided to 15 percent of the island's homes. The Malagasy people arrived on the island originally from South East Asia, so this is the origin of the population but it's considered to be an African nation, the size of France or Belgium. 

Extreme poverty and a weak government and its strategic placement between Africa and the India subcontinent makes it a target for Islamization.

The country is about 85 percent Christian with a long-established Muslim component representing a mere six percent of the population. Moderate Amadiyya Muslims who have no wish to contest the island's major religion have always existed side by side with their Christian counterparts with no friction. That is changing. Saudi Arabia which financed the building of Salafist orthodox Islamist madrassas teaching Wahhabist Islam in Arabic installed these schools in Pakistan, Somalia, Turkey, Europe and elsewhere around the world. Where young boys are taught the fundamentals of medieval Islam in a language they neither speak nor understand.

It is these schools which have largely produced Islamist jihadis with the instruction to go out into the world and convince non-believers to convert to Islam by any means that will work; missionary work to terrorism. In Madagascar where parents cannot afford to send their children to schools operated by the state and through churches, Islamist organizations offer to educate their children at no cost to the parents, but their children must convert to Islam and practise all the precepts of the faith. 

And so conversion becomes a simple matter of offering something of value at a price that seems negligible. 

As an example, the mayor of a small town on Madagascar was born into a poor Catholic farming community. As a student he made his community proud as he completed his education. But university was out of bounds until a proposal arrived from Saudi Arabia offering him university study for a four year period at no charge. As long as he converted to Islam.

Saudi Arabia has become a destination of choice for students from Madagascar to study abroad; in the process they become Muslims. And Vohipeno’s young mayor is Muslim. As a former colonial power France also offers tuition for students.

Since the 19th Century Madagascar has been predominantly Christian. The island, dependent on tourism and entrepreneurs in the food industry has seen some alarm being expressed in the recognition that Islam is being spread wholesale, thanks to the vigorous interference and investments being made by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Both of which are building mosques away beyond the need for them in relation to the numbers of Muslims, most of whom were Amadiiya and well served in the past by their own mosques.

The spread of Salafi Islam has alarmed the Amadiiya Muslims as well, who live in harmony with their Christian counterparts, and whose women eschew the veil, demanded by Wahhabist Islam. The proliferation of mosques and madrasses on Madagascar's southeast coast and the northwest side of the island has not brought peace of mind to this minority sect of Islam traditionally persecuted by their orthodox brethren.

And as young boys from age seven to 14 sit on the floor of madrassas wearing skullcaps and djellabas reciting verse after verse from the Koran in a language foreign to them (Arabic or Urdu) these ultra-strict boys-only schools, the producers of jihadists, represent a real subject of concern. "Ten years ago, there wasn't a single veiled woman to be seen. Now they're everywhere. They get subsidies in exchange for wearing a veil", noted a 60-year-old nurse doing her local rounds. In her district alone, she said, over one hundred mosques unauthorized by the government have been opened.

A challenge to the tolerant, traditional syncretic form of Madagascan Islam which dates to the 13th Century, representing six percent of the population.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States spend vast financial resources on the spread of Wahhabist Islam pursuing their duties as pious Muslim leaders to ensure that Islam grows by leaps and bounds using whatever techniques work; in this instance, extolling the virtues of Islam in providing free 'educations' to poor children. Yet they will not sully their own territories by absorbing any of the countless refugees that dysfunctional Islamic governments are producing all over the world. By ignoring the needs of Muslim refugees and economic migrants ensuring that those Muslims relocate to Europe further spreading Islam.

The devil is in the details.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI, accompanied by Prince Moulay Ismail, performed the Friday prayer at the Antananarivo Mosque in Madagascar.