World Issues
2022-05-13: Zerohedge: Mapping the State of Global Democracy in 2022, by Raul Amoros
Full democracy in 6.4% of countries, topped by Norway, New Zealnd, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland. Canada, Germany, the UK, Australia and Japan are also full democracies, but with a lessor rating. The U.S., Chile, and South Africa get a "flawed democracy" rating. Two years after the pandemic, we can see that global democracy is in a downward trend.
2022-03-08: JWR: Ukraine Invasion Brought to You by ... Environmentalists, by Dennis Prager
Were it not for the green movement, Putin would not have been confident that he could get away with invading Ukraine. Under Trump, the U.S. became independent of foreign oil. Biden made America revert to dependence on foreign oil, including Russian oil. So Putin got the message from those 'useful idiots' in the West.
2022-03-08: Zerohedge: The Sanctions Boomerang and Putin's Options, by James Rickards
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S., the U.K., EU members and others placed severe financial sanctions on Russia. But like a boomerang, those same sanctions can hurt the U.S. economy, which is on shaky ground as it is. It's almost like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The Russian economy will muddle through, but global financial system will not be spared.
2022-03-05: Zerohedge: When Normality Is Exposed As A Ponzi, by Alasdair Macleod
Putin erred in invading Ukraine, but the West's financial retaliation could backfire. Russia has a healthy economy with government debt at less than 20% of GDP, and with significant gold reserves. The West's financial sanctions will likely cause Russia to demand gold in exchange for Russian oil and gas, destabilizing not only the global economy, but its major fiat-based currencies as well.
2022-03-04: Epoch Times: US Meddling Helped Trigger Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Although Russian President Vladimir Putin is rightly deserving of blame, top U.S. officials over the past decade have played important roles in critical events that undermined U.S. relations with Russia and resulted in the destabilization of Ukraine.
2021-03-12: Epoch Times: The Age of Postman - Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Joshua Charles
Written in 1985, Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" provides insights that have become more and more relevant and ominous. He argues that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was a more accurate framing of societal changes than George Orwell's 1984. Orwell feared those who would ban books. Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
2020-12-19: ZeroHedge: 2020, The Year We Became Infantilised And Dehumanised, by Rob Slane
Millions of people humiliated by the Marketing Team of Covid-19 and their infantile slogans. Millions of people dehumanised by having their faces, their smiles, their laughter, their thoughtfulness etc covered to make them into expressionless drones. That was the year we just lived through. Will 2021 see us try to escape the Kindergarten and return to being human?
2020-07-28: ZeroHedge: Covid-19 epidemic largely over in no-lockdown Sweden, by Mike Whitney
While the Covid-19 epidemic continues to drag on in the United States, it's largely over in Sweden where fatalities have dropped to no more than 2 deaths per day for the last week. So Sweden, without lockdowns, was on the right track from the very beginning and is rapidly returning to normal while the US sinks deeper into a crisis of its own making.
2020-05-21: WT: Australian researchers say Covid-19 designed to infect humans, by Bill Gertz
The Australian team did not find easily recognizable artificial gene inserts that would signal virus engineering. But laboratory technicians could take a bat coronavirus that is not infectious to humans and force its evolution by culturing the virus with cells that have the human receptor. That process was used to culture SARS coronaviruses in laboratories.
2020-03-20: Uncover DC: Why was Italy hit so hard by Wuhan Coronavirus?, by Tracy Beanz
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants now live both legally and illegally in Italy. Along with an ageing population who may not be the healthiest, there is also a government now beholden to China, who acting at their behest, took extreme measures to the opposite of social distancing.
2020-01-06: Summit News: 183 Australians Arrested For Deliberately Starting Bushfires
Authorities in Australia have arrested close to 200 people for deliberately starting the bushfires that have devastated the country, yet the media and celebrities continue to blame "climate change" for the disaster. The fires have caused at least 18 deaths, destroyed thousands of homes, millions of hectares of land and killed hundreds of millions of animals.
2019-12-09: WT: China set to roll out 'Orwellian' mass surveillance tool, by Bill Gertz
China is developing a new high-tech system of mass surveillance and coercion aimed suppressing political dissent among its 1.4 billion people, while forcing American and Western businesses to conform to the government's communist policies if they want to operate there.
2019-11-13: WT: Martin Luther goes to Riyadh, by Sam Faddis
For decades, if not centuries, experts on the Middle East have talked about the need for the "reformation" of Islam. They envisioned a change like that of Christianity in the late Middle Ages that accelerated development of the Western world. Changes precisely of that scale are occurring right now in Saudi Arabia.
2019-10-22: Daily Mail: Horrors of Chinese 're-education camp' revealed, by Chris Pleasance
An Uighur Muslim woman who escaped from a Chinese 're-education center' after five months, told of punishing conditions which turned people 'into bodies without a soul'. Inmates slept 20 to a room with just a bucket for a toilet, were routinely tortured and raped, and were given injections that made them infertile, she said.
2019-09-01: Epoch Times: Ontario's Sex-Ed Curriculum Now Includes Marriage, by Peter Mitchell
Including marriage education in sex-ed will seem strange to some people. But marriage education empowers students to make informed decisions about their future. The new Ontario curriculum could hardly be considered marriage education, but at the very minimum, it grants permission for a conversation. That's progress.
2019-07-19: Frontpage Mag: Jihadi Stabs 3 Canadian Soldiers, Court Sends Him to College
By all means, let him go to college. What could possibly go wrong? But again, fear not. If Mohawk College is like most colleges and universities today, Ayanle Hassan Ali will find himself among friends.
2019-07-13: AFP: In Paris, cars forced to make way for e-Scooters, by Francois Guillot
With the wind rushing through their hair, they zip past on bikes, electric scooters and mono-wheels, effortlessly passing lines of hot-and-bothered drivers stuck in the endless Paris traffic. In the French capital, the new mobility revolution has caught on fast, with locals and tourists embracing the growing array of app-based ways to get around.
2019-06-05: Epoch Times: New US Tariffs Spell Doomsday for China's Economy, by Wang Shangyi
The additional 25 percent tariff imposed by the United States on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods will trigger a new round of factory closures in China, driving economic collapse. (This runs counter to China's official line that the United States will suffer more losses than China, and that Trump would not dare to overdo the trade war.)
2019-05-19: JoNova: Australia votes, Climate action bombs, Pollsters crash.
Against all the polls, the money, advertising, and the non-stop media coverage, against all expectations and the betting agencies -- the Extreme Climate Fix was a flop. The Labor Plan to cut Australian emissions by 45% percent is now gone. Labor was tipped to win decisively in every poll. So people told pollsters one thing, then voted the other way. Bullying works in public, but people vote alone.
2019-04-10: The Week: There is no Left left in Israel, by Damon Linker
The most far-reaching consequence of the 2019 Israeli election may well be that it verified, beyond any reasonable doubt, that there is functionally no Left left in Israel. It has become a country with a center, a right, and a far right, but no electorally viable left to speak of.
2019-03-21: Epoch Times: US-Brazil Summit: 'We Don't Want Socialism Anymore', by Emel Akan
Brazil and the United States have formed a new relationship based on their presidents' shared rejection of socialism. In a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden, President Jair Bolsonaro said socialist regimes had "nearly conquered power throughout Latin America in recent times", but that Brazil and other South American countries have finally broken free from its grip.
2019-02-21: MIT Tech Review: Chinese twins had their DNA edited, by Antonio Regalado
The brains of two genetically edited girls born in China last year may have been changed in ways that enhance cognition and memory, scientists say. The twins, called Lulu and Nana, had their genes modified before birth by a Chinese scientific team using the new editing tool CRISPR. The goal was to make the girls immune to infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
2019-02-01: Epoch Times: China Will Grow Old Before It Grows Rich, by Steven W. Mosher
China is in the grip of its deepest economic downturn since "the reform and opening" to the outside world began some 40 years ago, and the Chinese people have suddenly decided that now is not the time to have children. Like Japan in 1992, Chinese society is characterized by ever fewer births, a shrinking number of workers, and a surging elderly population. But unlike rich Japan, China is still poor.
2018-12-06: Epoch Times: The European Prison House of Nations, by Paul Adams
The EU, as Russian newspaper Pravda put it, not without irony, was the reincarnation of the USSR. It was a new prison house of nations, a triumph of empire over nations, the replacement of an order of sovereign nations and democracies by a supranational empire.
2018-10-16: Epoch Times: Global Economy Not as Strong as It Looks, by Daniel Lacalle
When societies are based on promoting spending and debt, not saving and making prudent investments, we are always going to throw ourselves into a bigger problem based on the conviction that nothing bad is going to happen. When it bursts, governments and central banks will blame anyone except themselves. And repeat.
2018-06-02: LifeZette: Tommy Robinson's Arrest => UK's National Suicide, by Brigitte Gabriel
When anti-Islamist Tommy Robinson was arrested recently in Britain, it was the direct result of cultural suicide and a rejection of western Judeo-Christian values -- in place of political correctness and Islamic appeasement.
2018-05-15: Epoch Times: The European Project and Karl Marx, by Miriam Lexmann
Europeans recently commemorated the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx, the creator of modern communism, unveiling a gigantic statue of him at his birthplace in Germany, sponsored by the Chinese regime. What does it mean, or portend, when the European Commission President honors an architect of collectivist tyranny and oppression at a time when many democracies are struggling?
2018-04-18: Epoch Times: China Uses Industrial Warfare to Fight w/o Fighting, by Amar Manzoor
Chinese companies not only did this to the United States, but also launched similar programs of theft, copying, and industrial attack in countries throughout the world. This resulted in a powerhouse economy in China that played by its own rules and could force its competitors to follow a different set of rules.
2018-04-18: Breitbart: Iran, Hezbollah Radicalizing in Latin American, by Edwin Mora
Iran has "converted and radicalized thousands of Latin Americans" throughout the years by dispatching imams to the region and establishing mosques and cultural centers" that Hezbollah used as recruiting tools, an expert on the Islamic Republic indicated while testifying before a House panel.
2018-04-03: Guardian: Swedes resist being 100% cash-free, by David Crouch
It is hard to argue that you cannot trust the government when the government isn't really all that bad. This is the problem facing the small but growing number of Swedes anxious about their country's rush to embrace a cash-free society. ... "When you have a fully digital system you have no weapon to defend yourself if someone turns it off."
2018-03-21: WT: EDITORIAL: The reign of the elites is crumbling in Europe, too -- Editorial
The natives are restless everywhere, and they're frightening the elites. The political parties of the social democrats, and even the Socialists, are crumbling all across Europe. A new version of class war is shaping a new kind of politics, and the implications are worldwide.
2018-03-20: Daily Caller: 'Offensive Jokes' now a Criminal Offense in UK -- Editorial
On Tuesday, Scottish YouTuber Mark Meechan -- better known as "Count Dankula" -- was found guilty of the hate crime of being "Grossly Offensive" for teaching a pug how to imitate a Roman salute. Whether you find the joke offensive or not, it's hard to argue how a sieg-heiling pug is a threat to anyone. This dog is not going to create a Woofen-SS division just because he can raise up his paw in return for a treat.
2017-12-14: Epoch Times: Saudi Arabian Reform Includes Shunning Islamism, by Joshua Philipp
Saudi Arabia's new leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is initiating major reforms and leading anti-corruption efforts to clean out its own 'Deep State'. This article describes a brief history of the country, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the evolution of Sayyid Qutb's socialist form of Islam (which he described as "Islamism").
2017-11-17: WaPo: Life in North Korea under Kim Jong Un, by Anna Fifield
In six months of interviews in South Korea and Thailand, Anna Fifield, the Washington Post's Tokyo bureau chief, talked with more than 25 North Koreans from different walks of life who lived in Kim Jong-un's North Korea and managed to escape.
2017-09-30: Epoch Times: Communism's (and Democrats') Secret Tool, by Joshua Philipp
To understand why communism still lingers, we need to understand its most fundamental tool for creating violent revolution -- convincing people to turn against one another -- and how it uses this tool to manufacture political issues. This then gives its followers the ability to gradually seize control. This tool is the communist dialectic, known as dialectical materialism.
2017-09-20: Telegraph: British supermarket offers 'finger vein' payment, by Katie Morley
A UK supermarket has become the first in the world to let shoppers pay for groceries using just the veins in their fingertips. It works by using infrared to scan people's finger veins and then links this unique biometric map to their bank cards. Shoppers bring only their hands to make payments in just three seconds.
2017-08-18: Epoch Times: Communist Origins of the 'Antifa' Extremist Group, by Joshua Philipp
The extremist anarchist-communist group Antifa has been in the headlines because of recent violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia. But the label of "fascism" as pushed by Antifa often does not refer to actual fascism, but is merely a label assigned to "capitalism". This has been going on since 1922, when the Soviets first formed this organization.
2017-07-12: Epoch Times: 200 Million Women and Girls Forced with Female Genital Mutilation
More than 200 million women and girls in at least 30 countries have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The practice, often performed to ensure premarital virginity and marital fidelity, is common in African countries, the Middle East, and Indonesia. The CDC estimates 503,000 women and girls are affected by FGM in the United States, though the procedure is outlawed.
2017-06-28: Ars Technica: Petya-2017 ransomware is actually a disk wiper, by Dan Goodin
Tuesday's massive outbreak of malware that shut down computers around the world has been almost universally blamed on ransomware, which by definition seeks to make money by unlocking data held hostage only if victims pay a hefty fee. Now, some researchers are drawing an even bleaker assessment -- that the malware was a wiper with the objective of permanently destroying data.
2017-05-13: Guardian: 'Accidental hero' finds kill switch to stop spread of WCry ransomware
An "accidental hero" has halted the global spread of the WannaCry ransomware, reportedly by spending a few dollars on registering a domain name hidden in the malware. More than 45,000 attacks by this Windows malware have been recorded in 74 countries, including the UK, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, India, China, Italy, and Egypt. Microsoft is providing patches to prevent future infection.
2017-04-06: ANC Report: The Long Stench of Syria's "Gas Attack" Fake News, by Michael Darr
It's not yet clear what happened in the al-Qaeda occupied Syrian city of Idlib on Tuesday, but that's not stopping establishment media outlets and White House officials from swiftly condemning it as a gas attack by President Bashar al-Assad against his own people, including children. This accusation might be believable if we haven't heard it countless times before, only to find it to be discredited later.
2017-01-06: Epoch Times: Another Chinese Billionaire Entrepreneur Leaves China, by Dao Feng
For a long time, China's per capita income growth has been lower than the country's GDP. GDP growth has been lower than tax growth. Burdens increasing for enterprises is an indisputable fact, and in the long run, capital escape is inevitable.
2016-12-28: JW: Islamic Terrorists Operate, Raise Cash in Latin America to Attack U.S.
Latin America is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism where groups like ISIS and Hezbollah operate freely and raise large sums of money to finance terrorist activities in other countries, mainly the United States, according to a new report released by Spain's Defense Ministry.
2016-11-13: Irish Indep: Irish Reflection on 2016 Election in the Colonies, by Ian O'Doherty
It was exactly [the media's] condescending, obnoxious sneer towards the working class that brought them out in such numbers, and that is the great irony of Election 16 -- the Left spent years creating identity politics to the extent that the only group left without protection or a celebrity sponsor was the white American male.
2016-09-12: Epoch Times: Dr. Doom explains folly of central bank intervention, by V. Schmid
They call him Dr. Doom and for good reason. Dr. Marc Faber, author, investment adviser, and publisher of the Gloom, Boom Doom report, usually emphasizes the risks in the financial system and never minces his words. He speaks here about central bank manipulation of financial markets, the reasons for income inequality, and how to invest in this environment.
2016-09-04: WT: An unabashed EU cash grab, by Alexander Hendrie
U.S. companies have left stranded an estimated $2.1 trillion in overseas accounts, awaiting lowering of the current 35% U.S. corporate tax rate before bring it home. Now the European Union wants to retroactively tax a piece of that money, going after large companies like Apple, Starbucks, Amazon, and McDonalds.
2016-08-31: WT: Like peas in a pod: ISIS and Palestinians, by Ziva Dahl
Both groups indoctrinate children to kill Israelis. The West rightly expresses horror at ISIS' exploitation of children. When the same horrific abuse of children is perpetrated by Palestinians, the West's response is deafening silence.
2016-08-23: Epoch Times: 'The Private Sector Will Never Recover', by Valentin Schmid
Macquarie strategist Viktor Shvets' brutal assessment of the world economy is fascinating, but not for the faint of heart. His main theme is the "declining return on humans," which means that in today's digital world, normal humans don't grow productivity fast enough to justify more jobs and higher wages as the machines are taking over.
2016-08-22: JPost: George Soros' campaign of global chaos, by Caroline B. Glick
The thrust of Soros' efforts from Ferguson to Berlin to Jerusalem is to induce mayhem and chaos as local authorities, paralyzed by his supported groups, are unable to secure their societies or even argue coherently that they deserve security.
2016-07-01: MarketWatch: Economist says China headed for 1929-style depression, by Sue Chang
Andy Xie, who was a top economist at the World Bank and Morgan Stanley, found notoriety a decade ago when he left the Wall Street bank after a controversial internal report went public. Today, he is among the loudest voices warning of an inevitable implosion in China, the world's second-largest economy.
2016-06-30: JWR: Trump? Brexit? Elitism creates a new populism, by Victor Davis Hanson
The taxpaying middle classes on both sides of the Atlantic, who lack the romance of the poor and the connections of the elite, have become convenient whipping boys of both in order to leverage more government social programs and to assuage the guilt of the elites who have no desire to live out their utopian theories in the flesh.
2016-06-29: WT: Trump? Brexit? It's the freedom, stupid!, by Monica Crowley
It took a quarter-century, but the British people finally put their collective feet down. They want their independence, economic liberty and national sovereignty restored. Similarly in America, the seismic shift away from globalism and "multiculturalism" has given rise to Republican nominee Donald Trump and continues to fuel his campaign.
2016-06-26: WT: The world turned upside down after Brexit (In U.S. too) -- Editorial
A consensus, as we have learned to our sorrow in America, is deadlier than a conspiracy. The elites will get over their pout, perhaps having learned a lesson. Their world that was turned upside down will be set aright, but it will be a different world. They might as well get used to it. That's the lesson of Brexit.
2016-06-07: Infowars: Bilderberg 2016 to talk Trump, Riots, Migrants & BREXIT
Globalists are panicking about the populist revolution sweeping the West. This week's influential meeting of bankers, politicians, media heads and business moguls has released its official participant list and agenda for 2016. We can easily infer from the agenda and some of the names on the participant list what the group will be discussing in more detail.
2016-05-31: Open Univ: Iceland completes its miracle economic escape, by Alan Shipman
In contrast to eurozone countries (core as well as periphery) that remain deeply constrained by excessive external debt, Iceland has just paid down its foreign obligations by a cool US$61 billion, returning them to the safe 2006 level. Iceland responded to their meltdown in the opposite way from the rest of Europe -- and against the received wisdom of most economists.
2016-05-26: JWR: Britain's chance to break free (Brexit), by George Will
Money, said Ralph Waldo Emerson, is the prose of life. The E.U. is the culmination of a grand attempt to drain Europe of grandeur, to make it permanently peaceful by making it prosaic -- preoccupied and tranquilized by commerce. European unity has always been a surreptitious political project couched in economic categories.
2016-05-22: JPost: 'Son of Hamas' tells Jerusalem Post conference: Islam is the problem
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, helped the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) thwart attacks from 1997 to 2007. He later went on to write an autobiography published in 2010 titled 'Son of Hamas'. He converted to Christianity and fled to the U.S. where he was granted political asylum.
2016-05-05: BW: The Book That Will Save Banking From Itself, by Michael Lewis
A former governor of the Bank of England thinks we need to change the relationship between our banks and our society, and fast. Most of us would be better off if we took his advice.
2016-04-26: WT: The high cost of subsidized credit, by J.T. Young
Once distorted, the market becomes dependent on the subsidies distorting it. Why seek paths other than those encouraged by subsidies offering lower risk and higher return? The process' final step is market atrophy. Diverted from its proper course, the market becomes unable to pursue another -- ceasing to operate as a free market at all.
2016-04-26: WT: China's water hegemony in Asia, by Brahma Chellaney
Before the communists seized power, China had only 22 dams of any significant size. But now, it boasts more large dams on its territory than the rest of the world combined. If dams of all sizes and types are counted, their number in China surpasses 90,000. And China has rebuffed the idea of a water-sharing treaty with any neighbor.
2016-03-31: WT: Identifying the enemy - Islam itself, by James A. Lyons
The late political scientist, Samuel Huntington, pointed out that Islam is totally incompatible with Western culture and traditions. They can never coexist. Islam is at war with the West. It is a clash of civilizations.
2016-03-29: Politico: Europe's Muslims hate the West, by Leon deWinter
"Occidentophobia" expresses a refusal to accept the essential concepts of life in the West. Young Muslim men have often refused to embrace the social codes of European life. They were raised on the idea that their religious ethics trump the ethics of the infidels. Their second-rate socioeconomic status was therefore a humiliating affront, an indignity to be destroyed.
2016-03-23: WT: It's the civilizational jihad, stupid, by Monica Crowley
Hijra is a core part of jihad going back to the Prophet Muhammad that involves Islamic conquest through migration. The objective is to overwhelm non-Muslim territories with Muslim populations until they achieve domination through sheer numbers. No weapons necessary -- until they gain enough control.
2016-03-21: Daily Mail: Documentary on Saudi Arabia brutality to air in UK, by Peter Osbourn
The film, Saudi Arabia Uncovered, contains harrowing footage of beheadings. A woman dressed in black is held down at the side of a public road by four Saudi policemen, after she has been convicted of killing her stepdaughter. She is executed with a sword blow to the neck, as she screams: 'I did not do it.'
2016-03-10: WT: Tracing the roots of Islamic jihad, by James A. Lyons
The Islamic jihad against Christendom started more than four and a half centuries before anyone had even heard of a Crusade. The crusaders forced jihad into remission for a brief period from around 1100 to 1350, after which it resumed its full assault.
2016-02-22: WT: Central bank policies have turned global economy upside down, by Richard Rahn
What the world's major central banks have been doing is not working. Rather than go back to the tried and true, they are now digging in deeper on policies that are bound to fail, such as the move to negative interest rates, which many will find personally harmful.
2016-02-08: WT: When Stone Age comes to town, by Tammy Bruce
It's the 21st century, and while Germany is dealing with the importation of a rape culture, they're also finding if you have disdain for basic norms in the civilized world, you apparently also don't like using toilets.
2016-02-04: Epoch Times: A Chinese Hospital Built for Murder, by Matt Robertson Sophia Fang
Tens of thousands may have been killed so the Tianjin First Central Hospital in China could transplant organs for profit.
2016-02-02: ACT: Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon - Parts 1, 2, 3, by Jacques Neriah
Almost all of those who join the armed Jihad, Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State fall into two primary categories: 1) Criminals, often recruited in prison by radical imams; and 2) The "exalted" and the "deranged" who dream of war and action, seeking to assert their manhood and who are in search of violence and epic adventure to express it.
2016-02-01: Heritage: 2016 Index of Economic Freedom - Country Rankings, plus Video
Free - Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia.
Mostly Free - includes the U.S. at #11.
2016-01-28: WT: France finally cracks down on Islamic radicalism, by Rowan Scarborough
"France is still very slow to understand the vast majority of Islamic centers/mosques are the problem, not just a few extremist ones." -- John Guandolo, a former FBI agent
2016-01-14: Epoch Times: For China's Economy It's Reform or Bust, by Valentin Schmid
A frank analysis of how China's economy got to where it is, and the pitfalls that will slow future growth. Needed reforms go against the vested interests of Communist Party elites. On the other side are the millions of people who will lose their jobs as the old investment model is phased out, waiting for the new consumption model to arrive.
2015-11-20: WT: Amphetamine drug Captagon fuels Syrian fighters, funds war, by Kellan Howell
According to new investigations by both Reuters and Time magazine, the illegal drug is being used both to keep Syrian fighters on their feet and is likely being used to fund the weapons trade in the region. The drug quickly produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing fighters to stay up for days and attack with reckless abandon.
2015-11-18: Market Oracle: Cashless Society - Totalitarian Dream Come True, by Nick Giambruno
Central planners around the world are waging a War on Cash. They want to eliminate hand-to-hand currency so that governments can document, control, and tax everything. This is why they're lowering the threshold for mandatory reporting of cash transactions and, in some instances, simply making it illegal to pay cash.
2015-11-16: WT: The West and Islam, by Robert W. Merry
The late Samuel P. Huntington, probably the greatest political scientist of his generation, had this to say about the relationship between the West and Islam. "Some Westerners have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise."
2015-11-12: WT: Factually inaccurate maps distort Jewish and Arab land claims
When MSNBC used inaccurate and misleading maps in October to illustrate Jewish and Arab land claims in the Holy Land, it took only hours for it to admit their error. Church groups have been using the same set of maps for many years, with no sign of slowing down.
2015-11-11: MarketWatch: Ireland is making Paul Krugman eat crow, by Nicholas A. Vardy, CFA
With GDP expected to grow at a Tiger-like 6% this year, and another 4.3% in 2016, Ireland today is the European Union's fastest-growing member state. Paul Krugman, a dedicated Keynesian, was clearly wrong about the Irish economy and the success of its austerity policies in pulling its economy out of a tailspin.
2015-11-03: WT: Islamic financing rivals Western-style lending, by Christin Roby
It works like this: No interest on investments, but the borrower and the lender share the risk and split the returns. This growing form of banking, known as Islamic finance, is now making significant headway into Africa, one of the fastest-growing regions in the world.
2015-10-28: UK Express: Doctor in Germany warns about Muslim migrants, by Nick Gutteridge
A Czech doctor working in German hospitals said the German health service has been completely overwhelmed by the influx of Muslim asylum-seekers who are REFUSING to be treated by female medics. In a furious outburst, the experienced doctor said hospitals simply cannot cope because so many of the migrants require treatments for diseases long since eradicated in Europe.
2015-10-26: WT: A century of Palestinian hatred of Jews, by Daniel Pipes
In April 1920, the British government created a region called "Palestine" designed to be the eventual "national home for the Jewish people". Then in May 1921, it appointed Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) as mufti of Jerusalem, a dreadful decision whose repercussions still reverberate today.
2015-10-22: WT: Toxic voice of China's history (especially under Mao), by Miles Yu
One of China's most outrageously cool superstars is a high school history teacher, wildly popular among the nation's young, who follow him online and offline in the tens of millions. Ironically, he is also one of the nation's most censored public intellectuals, due to his portrayal of recent Chinese history under Mao.
2015-09-20: WT: Estonia, the little country that could, by Richard Rahn
Estonia, a former communist satellite, serves as an example -- even for the United States -- of what can be accomplished by keeping down deficits and debt, and utilizing a flat tax rather than a progressive income tax.
2015-09-17: WT: Poland's Gdansk shipyard celebrates a comeback, by Beata Biel
Today, the former Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk, where a rebellious electrician named Lech Walesa and his fellow workers helped give birth to the Solidarity movement, is a symbol yet again, this time of a flourishing Polish shipbuilding industry that has survived and unexpectedly thrived in a brutally competitive industry.
2015-09-15: WT: Saudi Arabia has 100,000 empty air-conditioned tents, won't take refugees
Saudi Arabia faces mounting criticism for refusing to take in any of the millions of Syrians fleeing conflict in their homeland. The country has over 100,000 empty, air-conditioned tents, equipped with kitchen and bathroom facilities, that could house up to 3 million refugees. The tents are only used a few days a year to house pilgrims on their way to Mecca for the hajj.
2015-07-14: WT: Obama and world powers cave unconditionally on Iranian nukes, by Dave Boyer
- The deal "leaves their nuclear program entirely intact." -- Sen Tom Cotton
- "The administration just lit the fuse for a nuclear arms race in the Middle East." -- Sen Ben Sasse
- "Will now become a challenge for the next president to confront." -- Sen Mitch McConnell
2015-07-05: WT: Bankruptcy only way Greece can fashion a new beginning, by Stephen Moore
A recent Investors Business Daily editorial put it well: "It is a near certainty that Greece will continue to drown in debt until this death spiral of rising government obligations paid for by a shrinking private sector workforce reverses course."
2015-06-28: WT: David Cameron moves to unslant the news at BBC -- Can NPR take a hint?
Prime Minister David Cameron has undertaken to take control and oversight of the prestigious BBC, the government broadcasting system, away from the arrogant elites and put the oversight into the hands of the people who pay for it. In the U.S., wouldn't it be nice if similar measures were taken against the taxpayer-funded liberal NPR?
2015-06-08: Examiner: Rethinking the Asian Century, by AEI's Blumenthal, Coblin, Dhume, et al
Five AEI scholars examine the various countries in Asia from the standpoint of economic policies and demographics, and conclude that the vaunted "Asian Century" -- with the world's political and economic center of gravity shifting to Asia in the 21st century -- is subject to question.
2015-05-26: WT: Resisting the trend toward anti-Semitism, by Clifford May
Another manifestation of anti-Semitism is the so-called "boycott, divest and sanction" (BDS) campaign. Its aim to damage Israel economically has so far made little progress. More perniciously perhaps, it means to demonize and delegitimize Israel, particularly in the eyes of young people on college campuses -- an investment in the future of Jew-hatred.
2015-05-20: MEMRI TV: Muslim world reacts to Obama's latest speech -- Video (2:20)
2015-04-08: WT: Iran plans use of 'suicide drones' in Gulf, says U.S. Army
Iran has placed an "explosive emphasis" in putting military surveillance and attack drones into the sky, including "suicide" aircraft that increase risks for Israel and for U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, according to a new U.S. Army analysis.
2015-03-02: Epoch Times: China Is Not the World's Largest Economy, by Valentin Schmid
In 2011, most people still thought China, as a nation, had less debt than Europe or the United States because of its relatively low government debt levels. Then came Fraser Howie's seminal book "Red Capitalism", one of the first books to expose the debt machine within the Chinese banking system and the risks of the debt-filled growth model.
2015-02-21: Epoch Times: Chinese Refugee Once 'Kept Like an Animal For [Organ] Harvest'
Ms. Tian, a 71-year-old political asylee from China, once spent a week tied to a hospital bed, silently wondering every day whether that day would be the one that doctors came to wheel her away, sedate her, and remove her heart and vital organs and sell them.
2015-01-27: WT: Argentina federal prosecutor's murder and the Iranian connection, Clifford May
Alberto Nisman filed a report accusing high Argentine officials of conspiring to cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish cultural center, agreeing to negotiate immunity for Iranian suspects. He was murdered as a result.
2015-01-25: WT: 'Apartheid' in France's Muslim neighborhoods, by Rowan Scarborough
"The rise of radical Islam is largely concentrated in the most sensitive French suburbs. Over the past three decades, France let its inner cities become real powder kegs. In lawless areas, the fundamentalism has used the failure of the state because it thrives wherever there is frustration." -- Eric Denece, founder of the French Center for Intelligence Research.
2015-01-24: Telegraph: How the European dream is dying, state by state, by Bruno Waterfield
Europe is being swept by a wave of popular disenchantment and revolt against mainstream political parties and the European Union. In 2007, a 52 per cent majority of Europeans trusted the EU. That trust has now fallen to 35 per cent.
2015-01-07: Free Beacon: Tribute to Charlie Hebdo, whose cartoons offended "Religion of Peace"
As with the North Korea hacking of Sony, perhaps the only way to refine Muslim sensitivities to press freedom is to turn the tables and accelerate exposure of those very images which seem to trigger violent jihad by the barbarians among us.
2015-01-07: WT: A courageous voice from inside Islam -- Egypt's President el-Sissi speaks up
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi stood before a clerical audience at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, long regarded as the world's leading center of Islamic thought. His purpose: to directly challenge those reigning orthodoxies. Mr. el-Sissi told his audience that current Islamic thinking was antagonizing the entire world...
2015-01-07: WT: Muslims segregated from French society in growing Islamist mini-states
While not a complete safe-haven for al Qaeda-type operatives, Paris and other French cities have become more fertile places for Muslim extremists in the past decade. City leaders have allowed virtual Islamic mini-states to thrive as Muslims gain power to govern in their own way.
2014-11-27: Telegraph: David Cameron to lead Britain out of Europe if migrant reforms fail
Britain must have the right to make European migrants wait four years before receiving welfare or council houses, David Cameron will say, as he warns that he could be prepared to leave the European Union. The reforms will be a "return to rules" put in place by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s that were subsequently overturned by the European Court.
2014-11-25: Breitbart: Pope Francis to European Union: Keep Democracy Alive, by Tom Williams
Requires avoiding the temptations that can undermine it, including ..."ethical systems without goodness, and intellectualism bereft of wisdom." ... The "great ideas which once inspired Europe," he said, seem to have been replaced "by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions."
2014-11-24: Examiner: Beating these bloody, banal jihadis, by Dan Hannan
The best way to defeat a bad idea is with a better one. Few ideas are as wretched as the theocracy favored by Islamic State; none is as attractive as freedom. We shouldn't be shy of saying so. In the end, this struggle comes down to self-belief. Not theirs; ours.
2014-11-24: Examiner: Nobody pushing Thomas Piketty's policies to combat economic inequality
But even [in Paris] his policies are in trouble. There seems to be a widespread if unspoken understanding that government attempts to "spread the wealth around" (as candidate Obama once told Joe the Plumber) tend to destroy it instead.
2014-11-15: Gulf News: UAE lists 86 terrorist organizations -- includes CAIR, MAS in U.S.
Many Americans still are unaware that CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the US v. Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in US history. In that trial, CAIR was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood organization.
2014-11-10: Examiner: Europe grieves over defeat of Obama and the Dems, by Dan Hannan
The moment I switched on the radio Wednesday morning, I could tell who had won the US midterms. BBC presenters were using that special tone that they reserve for massacres, tragedies and natural disasters. They had been braced for a defeat, but not on such a scale.
2014-10-17: WaPo: 'Pudding Man' leaves Israel for Germany -- "Too expensive for young people"
Naor Narkis sparked an uproar over the past three weeks after taking to the Internet to share his decision to leave behind the high cost of Tel Aviv and follow a host of young Israelis emigrating to cheap and shabby-chic Berlin.
2014-10-16: WT: Ex-political prisoner: Putin's regime destined to fall, by Jeff Shapiro
The billionaire Russian oil tycoon who lost his assets and freedom after defying Vladimir Putin says the Kremlin has co-opted the country's legal system and hijacked its armed forces to benefit a plutocratic regime that is destined for collapse.
2014-09-02: Islam Times: To Understand ISIS, Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins. One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud.
2014-08-27: Telegraph: In the face of such evil [in Rotherham], who is the racist now?
The Yorkshire town where 1,400 girls have been sexually abused by Asian men is a byword for depravity -- all because people wouldn't rock the multicultural boat.
2014-08-21: Daily Signal: Paycheck for Terrorism - $5,300 for Suicide Attack, Sharyl Attkisson
A dozen Middle Eastern charities with links to the terrorist group Hamas and other radical Islamic groups transferred $32 million to Arab Bank during the second intifada. The money was then allegedly paid out to families of suicide bombers and other Palestinians who engaged in acts of terrorism against Jews.
2014-08-05: NDTV Video: How Hamas assembles and fires rockets (4:23 min)
Minutes before the 72-hour ceasefire began, this rocket was fired from deep within a civilian zone.
2014-07-29: NYT: Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror
While European governments deny paying ransoms, an investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda and its direct affiliates have taken in at least $125 million in revenue from kidnappings since 2008, of which $66 million was paid just last year.
2014-07-20: Weekly Standard: All The News Hamas Sees Fit to Print
Something important is missing from the New York Times's coverage of the war in Gaza: photographs of terrorist attacks on Israel, and pictures of Hamas fighters, tunnels, weaponry, and use of human shields.
2014-07-02: WT: Finding a patsy in Benghazi, by Kenneth R. Timmerman
Libyan government officials and Western media outlets have long accused Mr. Abu Khattala of having played an instrumental role in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2012, that cost the lives of four Americans in Benghazi. However, the real mastermind of the attacks was Qassem Suleymani, the "Wizard of Oz of Iranian terror".
2014-06-06: Telegraph: Vodafone says governments use secret cables to tap phones
Government agencies around the world are able to listen to phone conversations live and even track the location of citizens without warrants using secret cables connected directly to network equipment, admits Vodafone today.
2014-05-26: Euroskeptics Win Big in the UK and on the Continent -- Globalism support way down
The anti-EU UK Independence Party led by populist Nigel Farage scored major gains and was leading the opposition Labour party and Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives in early results from Britain. Similar anti-Euro sentiments were reflected in elections throughout Europe.
2014-05-20: Gatestone Inst: A Month of Islam in Britain
Islam and Islam-related issues were omnipresent in Britain during April. Three broad themes: 1) The British government's growing concern over Islamic extremism and the domestic security implications of British jihadists in Syria; 2) The continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in all aspects of British daily life; and 3) Ongoing questions of Muslim integration into British society.
2014-04-29: WT: U.K. politician arrested for quoting Churchill's criticism of Islam
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! ... No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith." -- written by Churchill in 1899, based on his experience in Sudan
2014-04-12: The Economist: The slumps that shaped modern finance
Finance is not merely prone to crises, it is shaped by them. Five historical crises show how aspects of today's financial system originated -- and offer lessons for today's regulators.
2014-03-10: WT: Separating violent Islam from its peaceful twin won't be easy
The Koran is an indoctrination tool for extremism, calling on all Muslims to take violent action against non-Muslims... Britain will discover its surgical procedure for separating Islam's Siamese twins -- one violent, one supposedly not -- cannot succeed.
2014-03-05: MarketWatch: Breakfast in America - Bacon, eggs, coffee and a gun (Looks yummy!)
"As a European, this is how I imagine Americans have breakfast."
2014-02-17: Frontpage Mag: How Al Qaeda Is Winning the War on Terror
Worldwide Islamic terrorist movements, of which Al Qaeda is just one, have multiple and evolving structures and tactics. Focusing on yesterday's organizations and methods is a recipe for disaster.
2014-02-12: Reporters w/o Borders: 2014 World Press Freedom Index - Country Rankings
Spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists. Some countries have lost ranking due to a tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner to the detriment of the right to inform and be informed. (The U.S. fell 13 places to 46th.)
2014-02-11: Codevilla: Lessons From Switzerland's immigration referendum
Modern government -- the administrative state -- is the negation of government of the people, by the people, for the people. And the governing class is unnerved when people vote their national interest.
2014-01-29: Telegraph: World risks deflationary shock as BRICS puncture credit bubbles
As matters stand, the next recession will push the Western economic system over the edge into deflation.
2013-12-29: Bechor: The End of the Christians in the Muslim World
... by the end of this decade there will be no more Christian Arabs in the Levant meaning the northern east of the Middle East. In the space that is becoming "Salafi" and violent, there is no place for the Christian Arabs, and they are being forcedly exiled.
2013-12-12: BBC: Australia high court overturns ACT gay marriage law
Australia's High Court has overturned legislation allowing gay marriage in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The ACT parliament passed a bill in October making the territory the first part of Australia to legalise same-sex weddings. But the national government challenged the decision, saying it was inconsistent with federal laws.
2004-11-21: Israel Science Tech: All European Life Died In Auschwitz, by S.V. Rodriguez
"I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. ..."