The Success of Engaging and Re-Engaging the Islamic Republic of Iran

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif meet in 2016. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

"The most recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear program paints a bleak picture of the agency’s current ability to monitor Tehran’s nuclear activities and the new Iranian government’s willingness to cooperate with the agency. Newly inaugurated Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi may think intransigence and ambiguity over the status of Iran’s nuclear program will build leverage in negotiations to bring Tehran and Washington back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal—which would reimpose on Iran the most stringent monitoring regime ever negotiated—but his administration’s failure to get off on the right foot with the agency is not only jeopardizing Tehran’s relationship with the IAEA, but also the prospects for restoring the accord."

"IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned in the Sept. 7 report that Iran’s failure to fully cooperate and communicate with the IAEA “is seriously compromising” the IAEA’s ability to maintain continuity of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear activities, which is necessary if the agency is to resume the monitoring and verification activities required by the 2015 nuclear deal. The agency’s confidence that it can maintain that knowledge continuity “has now significantly further declined” and will continue to do so “unless the situation is immediately rectified by Iran,” the report says."

Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson, Arms Control Association

 

"Although our stance on nuclear weapons based on the supreme leader's explicit fatwa regarding nuclear weapons being forbidden is quite clear, Fakhrizadeh created this system and his concern wasn't just the defence of our own country."

Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, former head, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization

 

"Our demands are clear."

"Other parties and especially Americans should decide whether they want this deal to be revised or not."

"The United States should return to it and lift all sanctions."

Iranian official

Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in an ambush near Tehran  Reuters

On the one-year anniversary of the targeted killing of Iranian chief nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, by Israel's Mossad spy agency, in an effort to delay the Islamic Republic's steady march to achieving the wherewithal to build nuclear weaponry, the former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, divulged that a "system" was in place by Iran to develop an atomic bomb. This is the theistic regime that time and again has expressed its end goal as the destruction of the State of Israel.

 

The State of Israel is just as determined to head off the threats posed by a malign regime seeking to dominate the Middle East, in the process creating a formidable grouping of like-minded states that include Syria and Qatar, and its proxy Shiite militias, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Sunni Hamas terrorists governing Gaza, all dedicated to aiding Tehran's goal of extinguishing Israel from the Middle East.

 

While Iranian officials declared time and again its intention to destroy Israel, it also maintains itself to be innocent of plans to build nuclear facilities for any reason other than civil purposes; a country rich in oil, ostensibly seeking other means of energy production, such as nuclear energy. The paradoxical anomaly of Iran shipping oil off to China and Venezuela while itself producing nuclear energy for interior consumption is the very image of covert subterfuge, a clumsy cover for its nuclear ambitions.

 

A general view of Abadan oil refinery in southwest Iran, is pictured from Iraqi side of Shatt al-Arab in Al-Faw south of Basra, Iraq September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo

 Negotiations to restore the West's agreement with Iran over its nuclear ambitions in the nuclear agreement are being resumed. Iranian negotiators have stated the talks cannot resume without an agreement to remove all sanctions. The regime is innocent of conspiring to create nuclear weapons, they emphasize, just as has always been iterated and reiterated time and again. Iran has been unfairly targeted with suspicion over its nuclear programs. 

 

Yet although Iranian authorities assured the world it had no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, citing a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that would prohibit the development of nuclear weapons because only civilian purposes for nuclear power was envisioned by the state, research went beyond that civilian purpose with the intention of turning the Republic's long-term plans into a short-term reality with a military purpose. It took a truly naive mindset to believe the regime had no military purpose for their enrichment of uranium.

 

Iran's oil exports - the government's principal source of revenue - were hit by the reinstated US sanctions  AFP

The Islamic Republic News Agency aired the interview with the former nuclear chief that effectively undermined official denials that the Islamic Republic's nuclear  research was for peaceful purposes only, and did so just before the re-start of talks. In the close aftermath of the original signing of the agreement that appeared on the surface to satisfy all sides; the West that it had managed to 'contain' Iran's future nuclear research and uranium enrichment for a year; the regime that it had managed to hoodwink the West.

 

The issue of conventional military arms was never discussed as part of the agreement, and it took no time for Iran to develop technically advanced ballistic missiles whose only real purpose would be to carry a nuclear warhead. Iran's currying of terrorist groups, its interference with the affairs of other Middle East countries, its instructions to Hezbollah to mount terrorist attacks abroad continued, as did its involvement in Syria's civil war. 

 

Iran had at first denied preparedness to meet directly with the United States under its new hard-line president Ebrahim Raisi, accused by Iranian expatriates and human rights groups of having been responsible for violent human rights abuses on his own account. Former President Donald Trump had abandoned the agreement, stating it failed to limit Tehran's nuclear program, and he was certainly correct on that score. Tehran never did stop enriching uranium to a point far exceeding what it would need for peaceful civilian purposes.

 

It has now stockpiled highly fissionable uranium, close to what it would take to produce atomic bombs; its stockpile enriched to 60%, aiming for 90%, a level of enrichment that has one purpose only; the production of nuclear weapons. It has far outpaced the agreement-allowable uranium enrichment not to have exceeded the 3.67 agreed-upon limit reflecting the 2015 agreement. Experts emphasize no legitimate applications exist for the high levels of enrichment that Iran has achieved.

 

Rot At The Pinnacle

"I was told I could come back into the Canadian Forces as a captain, maybe a major. When I was told that, I felt the contributions I had made were of no value. I was completely disgusted by an organization I once loved."

"He [Chief of the Defence Staff] excoriates the mid-level leadership of the forces for leaving but does nothing to hold general officers to account."

"This says a lot about the current state of affairs."

Lt.Col. Mark Popov, retired Canadian Forces officer

 

"I acknowledge the personal toll events toward the end of his career at RMC [Royal Military College] have likely had on LCol(ret'd) Popov and thank him for his contributions to the Canadian Armed Forces through his many years of service."

"I acknowledge that he was not afforded procedural fairness in all circumstances."

"The CAF took a series of restorative steps to address the issues raised in that grievance [Lt.Col Popov's grievance brought against the military command when he was removed from his command position at the RMC]." 

General Wayne Eyre, Chief of Defence Staff

The official flag for the Royal Military College. The flag looks as disgracefully ragged as the RMC reputation ...  Photo by IAN MACALPINE /Postmedia

For years the scandalous behaviour of top echelon Canadian military elites in all branches of the service has raised an undercurrent of outrage among victims of sexual harassment and assault in the military, both women and men. Official enquiries were launched, resulting reports rife with recommendations, lauded for a formula that would bring the Forces out of the dark ages. And then the top brass simply shelved such reports.

But not without assuring Parliament, Canadian troops and the public at large, that work was underway to change the culture of sexual harassment, and to hold perpetrators fully responsible, meting out justifiable punishment in consequence of their actions. That victims of sexual abuse would be heard and their testimony used to launch related investigations. At the time of the latest revelations, the-then retiring Chief of Defence Staff was himself accused of sexually abusing an officer under his command.

And then his replacement too, before he had adequately warmed the seat of CDC, was also the subject of an accusation, and he stepped away from the position. A series of revelations unfolded, one after another, with high-echelon military officers shrouded in accusations, relieved of duty temporarily as the military investigated itself, and leaving the impression that no one in high office in the Canadian military honoured an equitable, respectful code of conduct.

Before all this unfolded, in 2015, one conscientious officer charged with the directorship of cadets at RMC acted in good faith in an effort to hold military cadets accountable for conduct unbecoming decency. Officer cadets in July of 2015 disgraced themselves by harassing a group of 17-year-old female sea cadets visiting Royal Military College. These future leaders of the Canadian military saw fit to hang out of windows shouting at the girls, threatening rape, sodomy and forcing the minors to perform oral sex.

 

Officers present at the time attempted to intervene only to be told to "f---off". When Lt.Col. Popov got wind of what had occurred he rushed over to the scene ordering the officer cadets to their barracks. Then he addressed them with scathing remarks on their conduct, reading back to them the documented sexual provocations and threats they were responsible for. Adding some of his own curses at them for good measure in an effort to have them acknowledge their behaviour. Not one among the several hundred cadets expressed regret.

 

Some of these future military leaders were the sons of current Generals and they lost no time complaining to their fathers of the humiliating treatment they had been subjected to. As senior officers at National Defence Headquarters damned Lt.Col. Popov, who had served for 27 years, he soon found himself ostracized. Then-RMC commandant Brig.Gen.Sean Friday removed his subordinate from his command, focusing on his use of profanity when addressing the cadets.

"During my time as Commandant of RMC, we did our utmost to ensure that our future CAF leaders could thrive in a healthy and safe learning environment. I worked with my team to disseminate a comprehensive 'RMC Operation Order — OP HONOUR' that contained specific and detailed orders directing all staff, faculty and students to act with Character, Courage and Compassion in responding to and eradicating all forms of sexual harassment and misconduct.” 

“This order contained a newly developed [over the first three months of my time as Commandant], detailed multi-year Action Plan for providing a safe, healthy and harassment-free environment for students, staff and faculty and contributing to CAF efforts to achieve permanent improvement in this regard."

Brig.-Gen. Friday, then-commandant, Royal Military College

By 2018 his position had become untenable; his career track was broken, he had no support among the generals, and he was diagnosed with PTSD, linked to the toxic environment he was exposed to. Three years previously, when he had been removed from his command, he had filed a grievance, but it took four  years for his complaint to be addressed, and that happened a year after Lt.Col. Popov's withdrawal from the military. He was forced by mental stress to retire prematurely, without so much as an apology from the department.

The-then Chief of Staff had finally responded: "These breaches are certainly regrettable" .. the career-ending actions of superior officers. The decision to remove Lt.Col. Popov from command was deemed "null and void". The disciplinary action placed on record by the-then commandant against Lt.Col. Popov was ordered removed. $25,000 was made available by the military to Lt.Col. Popov to pay for the legal bill he had incurred defending himself.

As for his PTSD, he was offered referrals to website links where he might receive information how to deal with his ailment. He was also given the offer of re-enlisting if he accepted a demotion and as long as  his medical condition improved. In the aftermath of the situation being reported in the news, soldiers anonymously praised Lt.Col. Popov's officer-rank abilities, judging his treatment as yet another example of failed leadership at the elite levels of the Canadian Forces. 

In particular, it was noted that to protect a group of entitled officer cadets, a combat veteran had been sacrificed.

“The lack of action and the fact the senior leadership looked the other way sends a message to the perpetrators that they have a free hand to do what they want."

“I tried to do something about it, but the chain of command didn’t have my back."

"These individuals are now officers in the Canadian Forces. The predators, the creeps, they are the ones who won."

"You have a situation where the leadership talks about being serious in dealing with sexual misconduct and issues statements like that. But their actions never support that talk. It is a failure of leadership." 

Lt.Col. (retired) Mark Popov

A graduating class of officer cadets stand in the square at the Royal Military College of Canada during a graduating ceremony in Kingston, Ont., Friday, May 20, 2016. (Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press)

To Boycott Or Not, That Is The Question ... No Question

"We're calling on the Trudeau government to work with democratic allies to diplomatically boycott the Games."

"We think at this juncture, that's the most effective way to signal to the Beijing leadership that their bellicose behaviour and violations of international law cannot be allowed to stand."

"Too often Canada has been late in joining other democracies in putting in place multilateral action."

Conservative Foreign Affairs Critic Michael Chong, Ottawa

 

"If it were up to me, it would be cause enough [to drive the Liberal caucus to implement a boycott]."

"I don't know how any self-respecting country carries on a relationship with the government of Beijing, where they kidnap your citizens and treat your prime minister like dirt."

Liberal MP John McKay

 

"We will see non-governmental organizations speaking out more intensively in the coming months, increasing the pressure on national governments."

"In that case, the Olympics would certainly be damaged, and the Chinese government would not achieve what it actually hoped to gain from these Games: a positive presentation and thus, above all, stronger support of the country."

Jürgen Mittag, sports policy expert, German Sports University, Cologne

Countries are mulling a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics

There are nations of the world seriously considering implementing an official diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Games. Canada is not yet one of them, but a growing number of Members of Parliament are becoming restive over the matter with the approach of the Olympic date. A boycott of this nature could see federal dignitaries declining attendance at any portion of the Games. Alternately, they could boycott the opening and closing ceremonies. In this manner governments would be addressing the Chinese Communist Party directly, expressing their censure.

At the same time the International Olympics Committee which has been unmoved by entreaties to move the Games elsewhere, satisfied with their having granted China yet another opportunity to showcase itself to the world at large as it did with the Summer Olympics previously, looks on impassively. Its self-aggrandizement matches that of China's; their business association sidesteps the messy pile of ordure reflecting China's human rights abuses, its threats toward Taiwan and Hong Kong, its work-enslavement of its Uyghur minority and oppression of Tibetans.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons in Britain declared there would be no tickets booked for ministers to attend the Winter Games. Expectations are that the United States will announce a diplomatic boycott of the Games when they open with great fanfare on February fourth. Australia too is seriously considering a boycott of the games being  held in the country that has punished it relentlessly through trade strictures for its audacity in questioning China's human rights abuses and the origin of COVID.

 Beijing Winter Olympics protest in Sydney, Australia

As for Canada, one might anticipate that the illegal three-year imprisonment of two Canadians on spurious charges of espionage to punish Canada for having detained Huawei's CFO on a US extradition request, might spur the government of Justin Trudeau to join his closest collegial democracies in expressing their disapproval of China's threats to world stability, interfering with other nations' internal affairs, engaging in cyber-espionage, imprisoning hundreds of thousands of minority Chinese Muslims for 're-education' purposes.

And then concerns emerged in the sports community over the well-being and whereabouts of a Chinese sports star, tennis player Peng Shuai, after she publicly accused a former elite-level CCP official on social media of having subjected her to years of sexual assaults. "Time is of the essence", If Canada fails to act and should Beijing decide to pre-empt any possible embarrassing boycott by the international community by itself cancelling opening ceremonies, there could be no effective boycott.

Last February the House of Commons unanimously passed an all-party motion recognizing China's human rights violations, inclusive of mass internment and allegations of torture imposed on Uyghurs, likening it to a genocide. Despite the show of universal Parliamentary support for the motion Liberal Cabinet ministers led by the prime minister abstained from voting, unwilling or fearful to commit themselves; in line with the Liberals' penchant for walking softly with Beijing.

Also in February, thirteen Members of Parliament from all parties signed a letter with their demand to the International Olympics Committee that the Winter Olympics be moved elsewhere. China has since sanctioned outspoken Canadian Members of Parliament for their objectionable views on human rights in China. The Conservative Foreign Affairs Critic Michael Chong was one of those. 

There has been another number of bills with proposals regarding the situation in Xinjiang. Conservative Senator Leo Housakos has proposed a bill in the House of Commons with the purpose of banning imports into Canada from the Xinjiang (East Turkestan) region targeting concerns related to forced labour by Uyghurs, producing products for international export.

During a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office, U.S. President Joe Biden said a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games was 'something we are considering.' (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

 

 

Canada Is "Woke" Central

"We will hire the most qualified people based upon their skills and mutual interests. I've had two people say that was the kiss of death. I thought I was trying to be nice saying that if you were interested and able I'd hire you and that's all that mattered. I don't care about the colour of your skin. I'm interested in hiring someone who wants to work on the project and is good at it."

"I believe this is an important stand to make. I will not be silenced any more."

"I think what's happened is the woke and the social justice warriors have made a moralistic argument the way the religious right used to make moralistic arguments. And now people are afraid to challenge them. But I think it's okay to say I believe that equality is a morally valid position. I believe that meritocracy is a morally valid position."

"People do different things. They have different abilities. They have different interests. To me, the whole point is to treat people as individuals, so that's what I do in my life. My way of dealing with racism, or sexism, or any other 'ism' is to treat people as individuals.

"[As scientists] we don't believe in EDI [equality, diversity, inclusion]. We believe in merit, fairness and equality. You should be fair in your procedures and treat people as equals."

Patanjali Kambhampati, professor of chemistry, McGill University, Montreal

Patanjali Kambhampati, a scientist at Montreal's McGill University turned down twice for government grants related to inclusive, equity and diversity provision 'hoops;. John Kenney, National Post

 

As an award winning Canadian scientist Professor Kambhampati has decided to speak out after his request for funding of two projects a year apart were refused one after another, two years running. As a man of great integrity and an expert in his field of scientific research accustomed in the past to receiving federal government research grants, he was being punished for his lack of commitment to "diversity"; doublespeak for giving breaks to unqualified people simply on the basis of their colour or ethnicity.

It doesn't seem to matter to the funding authorities who decided to set his requests aside as not worth evaluating when he emphasized that it was expertise as a qualification that moved him to make his hiring choices, not the colour of an applicant's skin. As himself a man of colour, born in India, living in a 'white' society with ample experiences of his own in the past as a recipient of overt racist discrimination. It is the scientist in him, not the man of Indian origins who responded to pointed questions on his funding application that displeased the funding arbiters.

He committed himself to hiring on merit, nothing more, nothing less. Merit as in scientific qualifications, not the merit based on diversity and considerations of 'inclusiveness'. When his first research funding request was turned down on patently obvious rejection linked to the critical hiring questions, he put it down to new criteria he had no interest in and set it aside. When it happened for a second time, he decided to make it a public issue.

His field of scientific expertise explores super-fast laser science at its cutting edge, a field spanning every issue from telecom to medicine. He applied for a $450,000 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [NSERC]. NSERC responded that "the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion considerations in the application were deemed insufficient", and they rejected his application. His previous application went to the federally funded National Frontiers in Research Fund a year earlier "to support world-leading interdisciplinary, international, high-risk, high-reward, transformative and rapid-response Canadian research"; turned down on similar grounds.

 

This is the same government that refuses to give summer-student employment grants to any employee-applicant that refuses to sign a commitment to never support groups or are themselves involved in denying abortion rights to women. The result of which was that critical hiring in many areas of social services for summer student jobs for the past several years stumbled and failed when church groups, for example, could not affirm the demand.

It was at the first-stage bureaucratic level that both Professor Kambhampati's applications were stalled. Neither proceeded to the next step where other scientists would review the proposals for their scientific merit and immediacy. Then it came to light that at roughly the same time another arm of government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, approved a grant to Dr.Lana Ray, professor at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, of $1.2 million to study cancer prevention with the use of traditional Indigenous healing practices. 

 

Professor Ray commented when the award was announced: "We need to stop framing prevalent risk factors of cancer as such and start thinking about them as symptoms of colonialism."

Professor Kambhampati took up his position in Montreal in 2003 at McGill. Born in India, the now-50-year-old had lived in the United States since age four, working in Minnesota, Texas and California before taking up his Canadian professorship. "In childhood I used to get constant beatings and name calling. Two years ago, I had eight police officers break into my house because I was sitting on my porch while brown. That happened on Canada Day", he said in an interview.

He treats everyone equally and fairly, led by his own experiences. He now believes that woke ideology prevalent on campus has leached into government, creating two major problems: self-censorship and a resistance to asking meaningful questions. "There's a lot of self-censoring. And certainly you see it among young people in the university. So young people in the university self-censor a lot. Now they are afraid to talk. That's no way to advance our understanding of the world."

As a child, he said, his mentors were "old, white World War II vets" who taught him all about radio-controlled airplanes. "And that's what led me to build lasers 30 years later". As a mentor now, the Professor explained he has been of assistance to both men and women of different cultures and religions. "I've mentored minorities, I've mentored women. I myself am a Third World minority. And I have mentored people who have catastrophic illnesses. And I have mentored people who are LGBTQ, and not for any reason other than to treat people as equal."

Woke ideology, in his experience, has accelerated in the last several years. "And now it's the prevailing culture. It's 90 percent of the normal people against 10 percent of the vocal minority that has shamed everyone into self-censorship", he said. 

 

"As a scientist our job is to think about how nature works, ask questions, and find answers without prejudice. We cannot do that anymore. We cannot ask how humans work, and how science and nature work, because the woke are interfering with us and saying, 'You can't ask those questions. You're a racist. You're a sexist. You're a homophobe. You're a colonialist. You're a something'. There's some way in which the woke are trying to get people [so they're' no longer asking meaningful questions]."

Fine-Tuning The Migration Crisis

"I will ... say very clearly that our security forces are mobilized day and night. Maximum mobilization [of French forces with reservists and drones will be watching the coast]."

"But above all, we need to seriously strengthen cooperation -- with Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and the European Commission."

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"Yesterday is sad and it is scary [the drowning of 31 migrants attempting to cross the Channel in an overloaded dinghy that deflated], but we have to go by boat, there is no other way."

"Maybe it's dangerous, maybe we die, but maybe it will be safe. We have to try our chance. It's a risk, we already know it is a risk."

Manzar, 28-year-old Kurd from Iran

Fire trucks arrive at Calais harbour Wednesday after at least 31 migrants died in the sinking of their boat off the coast of Calais.

 

When questioned why they would risk their lives on such a dangerous venture, some of the young men opting to leave Kurdistan (Iraq) in hopes of reaching the United Kingdom, speak of their disappointment of their country of origin. The large unemployment figures, the lack of opportunity, the corruption at high level, blaming prominent clans for their role in leading the autonomous region, the inequities and the misery they face in a geography rich with natural resources.

Their anger at their leaders and their determination to seek out opportunities for their futures elsewhere made them ripe for exploitation as human victims to ideological disparities and the ire felt by the president of Belarus at the condemnation heaped upon him, along with sanctions for the role he played in violating the voting and human rights of his population many of whom took to the streets in protest against a sham election returning him to power.

 

Mass protests over the discredited election led to a government crackdown, with people sent to prison or exiled   Getty Images

 

Belarusian President Lukashenko promised those anxious to cross into Europe that if they travelled to Minsk, a way could be found. That way was  to bus them in their hundreds to the border between Belarus and Poland, where they were encouraged to cut through the wire fencing and make their way through. The migrants made it clear their destination was not Poland, but the United Kingdom. Not just anywhere in Europe would do; the UK was their choice.

What resulted was a humanitarian tragedy, as all such movements of mass migration end up, with their destination country closing its borders to the masses of humanity camping out beyond their borders hoping for a miracle to transpire, that they would be welcomed, housed, fed, found employment and prosper, leaving their pasts of yearning for such opportunities behind in a fantasy reality that achieved all they had dreamed of.

The scene shifts from that catastrophe with its loss of lives and hopes and collapsed dreams, to the English Channel where for years, migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere gather with the determination to puncture Europe's defences and gain entry to the opportunities they are convinced awaits their arrival. The same spirit of hope and defiance that people from failed Central American states, Africans and Haitians bring with them when they gather at the border between Mexico and the United States.

France has pledged once again to increase its surveillance of its northern shores to ensure that migrants fail in their attempts to cross the Channel to Britain, their preferred destination. The migrants are unimpressed. Huddling in their makeshift camps they vow that no measure of security to keep them from realizing their aspirations will defeat them. And nor would fear of the venture before them, crossing a waterway full of commercial traffic nor weathering conditions at sea in small inflatable dinghies.

These are watercraft meant to carry no more than ten people, and double and  triple that number are ushered into the boats at a time by unscrupulous people smugglers doing their brisk business with no inconvenient thoughts of placing people in dire danger disturbing the more important thoughts of their extortionate fees. Desperate people leaving behind poverty and war in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the world of Islamic social incompetence, corruption and violence view the potential dangers of a sea crossing as nothing compared to the miseries of life they have endured.

When the 31 men, women and children drowned in their failed crossing, relations between France and Britain, already strained, took a deeper dive of anger and resentment; no one likes to take credit for the deaths of vulnerable people fleeing misery and finding death. Prime Minister Johnson feels France to be at fault, while President Macron understands the responsibility for the situation to be entirely Britain's. Finally it seems to have occurred to them that cooperation might achieve more.

Britain has set out five steps for the two countries to embark upon in an effort to ensure there are no further migrant deaths. 

• Joint patrols to prevent more boats from leaving French beaches;
• The use of sensors and radar;
• Immediate work on a returns agreement with France;
• A similar deal with the European Union.

Having left the EU in Brexit, Britain was no longer part of the bloc's system of returning migrants to the first member-state that was entered. 

"My thoughts and sympathies are, first of all with the victims and their families, and it's an appalling thing that they have suffered."

"But I also want to say that this disaster underscores how dangerous it is to cross the Channel in this way. And it also shows how vital it is that we now step up our efforts to break the business model of the gangsters who are sending people to sea in this way, and that's why it's so important that we accelerate if we possibly can all the measures contained in our borders ... so that we distinguish between people who come here legally, and people who come here illegally."

"[Authorities would] leave no stone unturned to the business proposition of the human traffickers and the gangsters ... who are literally getting away with murder."

"[It was time for Britain, France and Europe to] step up [and work together]." 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

A boat from a French volunteer sea rescue organization, Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer, arrives Wednesday at Calais harbour carrying the bodies of migrants.

Black And Dead : Vigilantism Lives

"[The three men had] no badge, no uniform, no authority [and were] just some strange guys in a white pickup truck."

"You can't make a citizen's arrest because someone's running down the street and you have no idea what they did wrong."

"Standard stuff: malign the victim, it's the victim's fault. You can't claim self-defense if you are the unjustified aggressor. Who started this? It wasn't Ahmaud Arbery."

“I was hopeful based on the evidence that we presented in the case that we put forth that the jury would see the truth of what actually took place and bring justice for the Arbery family. After we picked the jury, we looked at them and realized that we had very, very smart, very intelligent, honest jurors who were going to do their job which is to seek the truth."

"And so, we felt that putting up our case, it doesn't matter whether they were black or white, that putting up our case that this jury would hear the truth, they would see the evidence and that they would do the right thing and come back with the correct verdict which we felt they did today."

Cobb County Lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski 

Arbery's case put a spotlight on racial injustice against African Americans

"Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers will be held accountable, but a historic civil rights mobilization was necessary for the killers to face prosecution at all. There was nearly impunity for this murder, and further investigation is necessary to determine how and why officials initially refused to pursue the case."

"The circumstances of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder and the struggle required to secure a prosecution demonstrate profoundly the urgency of reforms to make equal justice real in America.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff, of Georgia

He was 25 years old, a young Black man who enjoyed jogging. For whatever reason on February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery happened to be in a white neighbourhood, jogging in the suburban community of Satilla Shores, in Brunswick, Georgia. As it happened on that night, 65-year-old Gregory McMichael watched the black man running down their street. His son Travis, 35, joined his father as he made a 911 emergency call to inform an operator "there's a Black male running down the street". 

 

An untoward episode of black-and-white that propelled the two men and their neighbour, William Bryan, 52, into action.

 

Father and son reached for shotguns. This was no jogger, they convinced one another, this was someone who had invaded their neighbourhood, committed a crime and was now running away. They got into their pickup truck and sped after the jogger. The chase went on for an estimated five minutes through looping streets. The victim, Ahmaud Arbery, was not available this week to testify how terrified he was at being followed by three white men trying to corner him in the darkening streets of an unfamiliar neighbourhood.

But the jury at the three men's trial, viewing a graphic cellphone video that Bryan McMichaels happened to shoot as his son pumped three bullets into the captured black man's chest left nothing to the imagination. That Sunday afternoon jog didn't turn out as Ahmaud Arbery assumed it would; a refreshing run to cap off a good day. That Sunday was not a good day for anyone. But justice took its time. None of the three was immediately taken into custody. Until the video surfaced and the public howled.

At a trial that took two weeks in coastal Brunswick city, the case revolved around whether the three defendants were right to confront the unarmed jogger, based on the supposition he was running away after having committed a crime. The neighbourhood, the defence stressed, had suffered a number of break-ins. They argued on behalf of their clients that there was justification for the shooting after Mr. Arbery ran past the McMichaels' driveway. The defence of property trumping a human life.

The jury was comprised of eleven white men and women, and one Black man. They listened to the prosecution and the defence, asked to hear the 911 call again and to view that damning video and two days later delivered their verdict. All three convicted of murder for chasing and shooting Ahmaud Arbery; rejecting the self-defence claim. The three were charged with murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony.

To teach an uppity Black man who imagined himself a proud American citizen, free to exercise his limbs on a public street, a lesson he might never forget to ensure his error would never be repeated. In the process making certain the man would never run again, never have the opportunity to irritate and inflame the minds of whites who view Blacks as looters and criminals, they proved themselves to be  killers and will pay the price.

 

Life in prison, perhaps with the possibility of parole.

It took two months before action was taken to apprehend the three after the cellphone video came to public notice. There is another trial scheduled for the three men who see a looter every time they see a Black face. A federal trial next year, on hate-crime charges.

 

.

Beware Moscow's Eagle Eye

"Russia is not harbouring any aggressive plans. It would be wrong to suggest otherwise."

"Complying with the Minsk agreements will certainly be the best security guarantee since the lack of progress in their implementations remains a significant irritant and a catalyst that leads to heightened tension in Europe."

Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin spokesman

Ukrainian border guards patrol their country's frontier with Belarus in the Volyn region.

 

That's certainly reassuring, a good thing to know, since for years outside observers have commiserated with Ukraine over what appeared on the surface, and even under the surface, was that the Kremlin was actively engaged in undermining Ukraine's sovereignty, claiming eastern Ukraine as Russian territorial entitlements. To the extent that the world has been under the impression that Vladimir Putin ordered peculiarly-uniformed members of the Russian military to the Donbass to encourage ethnic Russian-Ukrainians to rebel against Kyiv, to separate the region and return it to Russia.

So that when the Kremlin declared the return of Crimea to Russia correcting a historical error in state judgement, this event, so inconvenient for Ukraine and so unsettling to international law was not destabilizing at all and an affront to neighbourly relations in East Europe, but a realignment long overdue awaiting correction. And nor was the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger airliner over Ukraine's eastern region the fault of separatists by the misuse of a Buk missile, merely a 'misunderstanding'.

Separatist forces in Ukraine's east are being roused from their years-long passive waiting period for action, with Russia now initiating a new chapter in its sinister war against Ukraine by leading "large-scale military exercises", Kyiv once again noted with intensifying concern over a near-future invasion of Russian forces. In the Donbass region areas under the separatists backed by Russia there were flare-ups as Moscow began moving troops toward the border with Ukraine.

Ukrainian military intelligence alerted that separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas were mobilizing forces, drawing in their reservists to participate in drills under the direction of the Russian military. But no attack was being planned, the Kremlin said reassuringly. Just some war-games rehearsals. Nothing much to see here, after all....

On the other hand, Moscow is annoyed with Kyiv, chiding the government of Ukraine for not being serious enough in implementing the 'peace accords' forced on it by the Kremlin to put a temporary halt to the grim business of military hostilities between Ukraine and the ethnic-Russian separatists in the east. There is always the reality that both adversaries from time to time disturb the peace of the 'peace' accord launching missiles at one another to the great displeasure of civilians living between the demarcation line.

 

Russian tanks and equipment in the Pogonovo training area near Voronezh, Russia    Source: Maxar/Getty Images

Of course Moscow denies any military presence in eastern Ukraine. Simply that Russia deploys forces in the Donbass and has dispatched senior officials so that local forces can be properly trained in best wartime techniques, does not ipso facto represent 'evidence' of anything whatever. And it is nothing short of incidental that Russia and China have agreed to boost military co-operation; their territorial ambitions do happen to coincide as do their methods of softening up the 'enemy' before leaping into the fray.

It is not their actions that are disruptive and threatening, but the provocative actions of other countries incapable of minding their own business in their own geographic areas that cause unrest and chaos. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu pointed to an "increased number" of American aircraft patrolling close by his country's eastern border; a decided threat to both Moscow and Beijing. Neither Ukraine nor Taiwan are anyone's business but Russia's and China's.

The underlying threat of the U.S. bombers 'rehearsing nuclear strikes' on Russia from two locations another point of contention, with the planes flying within 21 km of the border. The Kremlin also excoriated Washington for its plans to forward weapons and military advisers to Ukraine, as a symbol of solidarity. This would "definitely lead to a further escalation on the front line", warned Dmitry Peskov.

Russian units have been on exercises in Crimea    Getty Images

Six Dead, 48 Injured, A Psychopathic, Criminal Terrorist With BLM

"Last night our wonderful Waukesha parade became the scene of a  horrific tragedy. Last night that parade became a nightmare." 

"[This was a] horrible and senseless [atrocity]."

"I am deeply saddened to know that so many in our community went to a parade but ended up dealing with injury and heartache."

Shawn Reilly, mayor, Waukesha, Wisconsin

"There were pom-poms and shoes and spilled hot chocolate everywhere. I had to go from one crumpled body to the other to find my daughter."

"My wife and two daughters were almost hit. Please pray for everybody. Please pray. My family is safe but many are not. I held one little girl’s head in my hand; she was seizing and she was bleeding out of her ears. I held her mother as she collapsed. Please pray."

Corey Montiho, father of dance team member hit by vehicle

"Online court records showed a person named Darrell Brooks, with a birthdate making him 39, has two open criminal cases in Milwaukee County. In one case, filed Nov. 5, he is charged with resisting or obstructing an officer, reckless homicide, disorderly conduct, bail jumping and battery. Records show $1,000 bond was posted on Friday.?

"In the other case, filed in July 2020, Brooks is charged with reckless endangering and illegal possession of a firearm. In the other case, filed in July 2020, Brooks is charged with reckless endangering and illegal possession of a firearm."    Associated Press report

Video posted online showed the vehicle as it was about to hit the parade in Waukesha   City of Waukesha/Facebook via Reuter

Relief, it was not an act of 'terrorism'. Reality: This was a terrorist act committed by an unstable criminal psychopath with a long record of violent crimes, an avid adherent of Black Lives Matter. An American citizen who was a dangerous offender and should have been imprisoned indefinitely rather than penalized with prison stays and then released. He had a roster of criminal acts in his background, did Darrell Brooks Jr.

A sex offender released from jail as recently as several days before he drove his vehicle at speed deliberately and with intent into a crowd of people celebrating the oncoming Christmas season with a traditional Christmas Parade. Waukesha, Wisconsin was the location where five people initially died, victims of vehicular homicide and another 48 were injured in this act of terrorism.

Over the past three decades this man racked up an exhaustive list of charges. He is familiar to police, and he has familiarity with the prison system. Now charged with five (six) homicides he will be incarcerated for a lifetime, somewhat too tardily. The dead included members of a local group, the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies. Eighteen children from age three to 16 were hospitalized, their injuries ranging from scrapes to broken bones and serious head injuries, with six in critical condition.

The psychopath had left the scene of a domestic dispute "minutes" earlier, a dispute that was in reality a knife fight. He drove at speed through a closed-off parade route on the town's main street Sunday, veering into people gathered for the Christmas parade, an annual event. One shot was fired at the speeding vehicle by a police officer who then refrained from firing any more in view of the crowds in the near vicinity.

As a part-time rapper appearing in a music video waving a gun, he stood in front of the same car involved in the terrorist assault, a red Ford Explorer SUV. "We are confident he acted alone. there is no evidence that this is a terrorist incident", explained Waukesha's police chief Dan Thompson, of the man facing five criminal charges, including domestic abuse and battery, released two days earlier on a $1,000 bail bond.

According to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, the bail recommendation was "inappropriately low in light of the nature of recent charges and the pending charges" against him. Among which would have been an earlier event where he ran over a woman while she was walking through a parking lot after having followed her. The woman was hospitalized. He is also on the sex offenders register in Nevada.

A vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter, a since-deleted Facebook page showed his dislike of the verdict that set Kyle Rittenhouse free from a murder charge after killing two people at a protest that took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Perhaps he imagined that if a gun-rights-entitled teen could murder two protesters with an automatic weapon and be found innocent of murder, he could slaughter five (six) with an automobile and pay no penalty.

He drove his vehicle directly and at speed  into the back of a marching band and several dance groups. Small children, elderly women, a priest, all were targets. The dead: Virginia Sorenson, 79; LeAnna Owen, 71; Tamara Durand, 52; Jane Kulich, 52; and Wilhelm Hospel, 81. On Tuesday, 8-year-old Jackson Sparks also died of his injuries.

Emergency responders and passers-by attended to injured people    JESUS OCHOA/via REUTERS

"[I was marching in the parade when I heard a loud bang]. Then I heard deafening cries and screams. It was very gut-wrenching."

"People were running away, leaving their belongings behind, sobbing. When the crowd cleared out, it looked like there were people on the ground who might have been struck by the vehicle."

Angelito Tenorio, alderman, candidate for state treasurer

China's Territorial Claims

"The European Union is going through this moment of self-reflection."

"'What kind of relationship do we want to have with China?' and 'What kind of relationship are we willing to have with Taiwan?'"

"These are the two big questions that still need to be addressed."

Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, former political adviser to the European Parliament

China’s increasingly aggressive posture in East Asia has begun to move Europeans closer to Taiwan.  Getty Images

 

A switch in attitudes appears to be unfolding, where once the nations of Europe kept Taiwan at arm's length, careful not to provoke the People's Republic of China into raised hackles to maintain smooth relations with an autocratic leadership that notoriously prefers 'harmony' in the sense that no moves counter to Beijing's interests would be countenanced on anyone's part with the equanimity of a shrug and tolerance for other opinions. There can be no other opinions once Beijing has expressed its position. On anything.

 

And Beijing's oft-repeated insistence that the island state of Taiwan is part of greater China is one of those non-negotiable positions China is not prepared to discuss anywhere with anyone, since it is a strictly internal matter for China. Now, however, Europe is abandoning its placatory position toward China. Perhaps the decision of the Chinese Communist Party to harass and threaten Taiwan by sending fighter jets over Taiwan's airspace doesn't sit particularly well in Europe.

 

A shift has been noted with Europe reconsidering its relations with both China and Taiwan. China's aggressive tactics has won it no admiration abroad, and is serving to alert European governments to the CPC's perceived entitlement to bully and threaten those who fail to adjust their idea of international law to Beijing's interpretations. 

 

Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, speaking during a visit to Prague last month.  Credit...Petr David Josek/Associated Press

The European Parliament has overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling for more robust ties with Taiwan, describing it as a "partner and democratic ally in the Indo-Pacific". Parliament sent its first formal delegation on a visit to the island, despite Beijing's threats of retaliation for spurning its interests. Raphael Glucksmann, the delegation's leader, a French member of the European Parliament, informed Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen: "Europe is standing with you. We came here with a very simple, clear message: 'You are not alone'."

A year ago, Europe and China were finalizing a long-dormant agreement to operate on each other's territory, considered a geopolitical victory for Beijing. China's increasingly vitriolic assertion of authority under Xi Jinping has led to an aura of suspicion against the trade colossus. European lawmakers took steps to block the investment agreement, and as they did, citing China's human rights violations.

China's brutal Hong Kong crackdown on democracy, its coronavirus inception and communication  chapter leading to the international community's struggle to cope with a resulting wholesale social, political, business and economic meltdown, with China's lack of forthcoming alerts, its intimidation of Taiwan and its reputation for social genocide of the Uyghurs in East Turkestan, have all blackened its reputation as a reliable partner in any international sphere of endeavour. 

 

And then, there is the strictly business component of closer ties with Taiwan, a source of semiconductor chips where Taiwan has a vital role in the global supply chain for the chips, used to power iPhones and cars and everything in between. Taiwan is understandably interested in fostering firmer ties with Europe, to be recognized as a sovereign state which it is, and to promote business ties to its advantage.

 

A plaque at the Taiwanese representative office in Lithuania. China has downgraded its ties with Vilnius over the opening of the office. Photograph: EPA

 

Beijing's response has been to threaten it would take countermeasures focusing on each act of outreach to Taiwan. Its ambassador to Lithuania was recalled in August, for starters, diplomatic ties downgraded in response to Lithuania permitting Taiwan to open a de facto embassy. To which Lithuania's Foreign Minister expressed "regret" over China's decision.

China's responses and its fury over any acceptance of Taiwan as an independent country will only serve to see other nations gradually distance themselves from the CPC, the process even leading to China losing access to the European market. According to Shi Yinhong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing, China will not willingly back down on such core issues as Taiwan and Xinjiang, both representing foci of the tensions.

What Went Wrong, Australia?

"In April 2015, in Beijing, China, President Xi Jinping assured me that China and Australia did not have historical animosities or conflicting fundamental differences. Chinese investment in Australia was growing year by year, over 200,000 Chinese students were at Australian universities and 133 flights went from Chinese cities to Australian cities every week."

"The president acknowledged our two countries had different values and would differ on issues from time to time. But any differences could be dealt with in a constructive fashion."

Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Prime Minister, 2015/2018 

La Trobe University’s Bec Strating, right, in conversation with former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull, left, and Kevin Rudd (Supplied)

 

What went wrong with this neighbourly live-and-let-live arrangement of prosperous trade and academic cooperation? Australia, an independent sovereign nation with the courage to find fault where it exists and to comment negatively on it, viewing China's aggression from the perspective of other neighbours bearing the brunt of a powerful nation's territorial aggression victimizing them in disputed territories, found a champion in Australia. And Australia found an enemy in China.

In 2017 Beijing took great umbrage at Australia's criticism of its unilateral and illegal building and militarization of islands in the South China Sea, giving it the impetus and bold impulse to suggest that the neighbourhood bully think again, consider its relations with its neighbours and consult with them. Much less respect the decision of the International Court of Arbitration and abide by the internationally recognized law of the sea.

China has a long, unforgiving memory; it will not tolerate being slighted criticized, or confused with a country that just shrugs off constructive advice. A year later Australia passed new laws that would prohibit corrupt, coercive or covert interference in the country's political arena. A law that looks and sounds and appears by all metrics as a descriptive of China. Recognizing the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department which establishes itself comfortably in other countries to direct and coerce Chinese expatriates living as citizens of other countries.

China does not recognize citizenships gained by Chinese expatriates. It expects and calls upon all Chinese to honour their land of birth as an imperative, and to collaborate and cooperate with Beijing's values, to the extent of betraying their adopted countries' values and laws in favour of China's. Beijing strenuously objected to this new Australian law, enacted to honour and protect Australian sovereignty. China recognizes only its own sovereignty.

Still in 2018, the Australian government, as one of the Five Eyes intelligence group comprised of the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, made the decision that Huawei telecommunications would be banned from participating in Australia's 5G communications networks, in the knowledge this was the right step to take in mitigating the real risk of cyber espionage. 

The final death knell to smiling relations between China and Australia was struck two years later when Mr. Turnbull's successor as Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, proposed the intelligence-gathering utility of an independent enquiry into the origins of the Wuhan virus. Leading to a deep freeze in the two countries' relations and to crippling trade sanctions, imposed by China as punishment for unforgivable audacity on the part of Australia.

 

Canberra sees suffering economic repercussions for “standing up to China” as a badge of honor. Brendon Thorne—Bloomberg/Getty Images

 

Australia winced but would not backtrack while their exporters looked for other markets to ensure the economic impact would be marginal. Ironically, China is now in the throes of an energy crisis and took steps to resume its imports of Australian coal. Beijing's obnoxious aggressiveness has led to the Australian public, like the public in Canada, regarding China in a far less favourable view than it formerly enjoyed. 

That view has been spreading to others within the international community and for very similar reasons; Beijing's aggressive entitlements from its territorial imperative that land, sea and air whose borders are in question and as yet unresolved, are China's to possess. Added to China's relentless search for control of rare earth minerals, and other natural resources in international markets hugely reliant on them for their future technical advances.

 

Chinese detention facility for Uyghurs in Xinjiang (East Turkestan) Province  NYT

“'Chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes'," That’s how Hu Xijin, the editor of the Chinese Communist Party–run Global Times, described Australia last year. The disparaging description is typical of the disdain that China’s diplomats and propagandists have often shown toward governments that challenge Beijing—like Australia’s."

"China is now the great power of Asia—or so Beijing believes—but those pesky Australians, mouthing off about human rights and coronavirus investigations, refuse to bend the knee. Beijing has turned to economic pressure to compel Australia to fall in line. 'Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off', Hu wrote, of the gum and of Australia. But the Australians have proved impossible to shake, and have instead caused some embarrassment for their image-obsessed tormentor."

The Atlantic