China in the Middle East: “Silk Road” to the Levant

The 2013 launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s 21st-century grand revival of the ancient Silk Road connecting the Far East and Europe, has transformed the Middle East’s geopolitical role in Beijing’s outlook from exclusively an energy supplier into a vital link in the vast transportation and trade network it is vying to construct. As a result, China has evolved from simply an oil and gas consumer into a major economic (and to a lesser extent political) player in the Middle East. China is now the Middle East’s largest foreign investor, with its $155 billion worth of investment in 2013-20 accounting for over 40 percent of the total direct foreign investment in the region during this period.

GM to invest $1 billion in Mexico for electric vehicle production, angering UAW members

United Auto Workers Vice President Terry Dittes called the investment a “slap in the face” to its union members and U.S. taxpayers as the company is one of many lobbying for government incentives to support EVs.

“At a time when General Motors is asking for a significant investment by the U.S. government in subsidizing electric vehicles, this is a slap in the face for not only UAW members and their families but also for U.S. taxpayers and the American workforce,” he said in a statement.

Dittes said taxpayer money “should not go to companies that utilize labor outside the U.S. while benefiting from American government subsidies.”

VIDEO: Prof of the day

VIDEO: Miami airport is a dangerous place

‘Desperate’ Ford to Trudeau at First Ministers’ Meeting: Shut the borders

Ontario Premier Doug Ford used his time at Thursday’s meeting between the prime minister and the premiers to press Justin Trudeau to radically tighten both international and provincial borders, fearing that new vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variants will take hold in his province, leading to a devastating fourth wave.

BC judge: Death due to COVID-19 parties could lead to manslaughter charges

“If someone who had been at your party was infected and died, as far as I’m concerned, you’re guilty of manslaughter,” she said. “If someone who had been at your party was infected and passed it on to grandma, as far as I’m concerned, you’re guilty of manslaughter.”

Chinese workers allege forced labor, abuses in Xi’s ‘Belt and Road’ program

New York-based China Labor Watch argues in a new report that overseas Chinese workers are victims of human trafficking and forced labor. Workers described being held against their will, forced to work while infected with the coronavirus and deceived into working illegally. Their passports were seized, they said, and most had gone months without pay. Some said they were beaten for protesting conditions or forced into “thought training.”

Canadian government has spent nearly $6M on Chinese contracts since two Michaels were arrested

Sickening

German software giant SAP hit with $8 million fine over Iran exports

SAP admitted to exporting software to firms in Iran and circumventing US sanctions.

CSU abandons BDS: B’nai Brith Canada

The Concordia Student Union has formally abandoned the anti-Israel Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, according to a statement by B’nai Brith Canada.

CSU Student Life Coordinator Eduardo Malorni confirmed this as well.

This follows the CSU’s letter to the Jewish community apologizing for not doing enough to fight the presence of anti-Semitism on campus, including graffiti.

B’nai Brith noted that the apology “made no reference to the CSU’s adoption of BDS in 2014, which has fueled hostility toward Jewish students at Concordia since that time.

“B’nai Brith then reached out to CSU representatives to commend their bold apology and urge them to fully implement it by abandoning BDS,” the B’nai Brith statement says. “The CSU replied that it had done so, and removed all mention of the BDS movement from its website.”

EU Commission accuses Apple of over-charging rival streaming services

The European Commission has accused Apple for what it considers to be anti-competitive behaviour against music streaming services, such as Spotify.

The Commission believes Apple violates EU competition law because it charges “high commission fees on rivals in the App store and forbids them to inform of alternative subscription options”. This situation, Brussels said, leads to “consumers losing out”.

Resident isolation, staffing remain significant concerns in Ontario long-term care centres

For Joni Absoth’s 99-year-old father, living in a Toronto-based long term care centre has become a series of isolating lockdowns, where just one positive COVID-19 test of a staff member can mean confinement for some residents.

Indeed, she said her father John, whose room has been in and out of lockdown, hasn’t been outside since September.

“What we’re doing to the elderly at this time is incarcerating them. There’s no other word for it,” Absoth said.

Renault workers hold managers hostage to stop sale of French factory

Workers at a Renault car parts factory in northwest France held seven managers against their will for some 12 hours on Tuesday in an attempt to prevent the plant being sold, the company and union reps said.

The move was the latest in a long line of so-called “boss-napping” incidents in which executives are prevented from going home by French trade union activists as part of strong-arm negotiating tactics.

Google’s Parent Company Doubles Profits Thanks to Pandemic Advertising Boom

The tech giant’s revenue jumped by 34 percent to $55.31 billion in a record-breaking first quarter, bringing its overall net profits to $17.93 billion.

Amazon posts record first-quarter profits triple what it made one year ago

Amazon.com continues to profit off Americans’ pandemic shopping habits, posting a record first-quarter profit of $8.11 billion — more than tripling its first-quarter income back in 2020.

FBI Misused Foreign Surveillance Powers To Investigate Domestic Crimes

As recently as 2019, the FBI used surveillance tools intended for tracking foreign terrorists and spies in unrelated domestic crime investigations involving Americans without even seeking secret warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court.

The information comes from a recent certification report from the FISA Court itself, written in November but declassified and released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Monday.

The report documents 40 instances in which the FBI secretly accessed data collected not about foreigners but about American citizens for investigations of “healthcare fraud, transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as investigations connected to public corruption and bribery.”

Though it is the FBI’s job to investigate such crimes, in these instances they did so using data collected under the Section 702 authorities of FISA, which does not permit targeting Americans for these types of investigations. Section 702 specifically focuses on unwarranted searches of foreign targets because they don’t have the protections of the Fourth Amendment and therefore their communications can be collected and reviewed. Even with that clearance, the FISA Court exists to make certain that the FBI and National Security Agency do not abuse their access against Americans—which is exactly what happened here.

The FBI just got permission to break into private computers without consent so it can fight hackers

The FBI has the authority right now to access privately owned computers without their owners’ knowledge or consent, and to delete software. It’s part of a government effort to contain the continuing attacks on corporate networks running Microsoft Exchange software, and it’s an unprecedented intrusion that’s raising legal questions about just how far the government can go.

Activists, experts and policy makers speak out on Chinese state influence in Canada

Activists, experts and policy makers are speaking out on what they describe as an ever-growing “influence” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Canadian business, academic and political circles.

There has been mounting scrutiny on the CCP’s increased flexing of its intelligence muscles since the ascension of President Xi Jinping in 2013.

Canada’s intelligence agencies have taken the rare step of naming China as a significant threat to the country’s sovereignty, with CSIS director David Vigneault publicly saying in a February 2021 speech that Canadians are being “aggressively” targeted by foreign interests – and Beijing was engaged in “activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty.”

VIDEO: Antifa Doxes, Threatens to KILL Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler

“Ted, we are asking for the last time that you resign,” the video’s narrator says. “If you ignore this message outright, the destruction to your precious way of life is going to escalate. Blood is already on your hands, Ted. The next time, it may just be your own.”

Those last words have Wheeler’s clearly legible address superimposed over them.

Indigenous chief to request UN peacekeepers to prevent lobster fight boiling over

The Sipekne’katik chief, Mike Sack, said his First Nation is moving forward with plans to again open a self-regulated lobster fishery in Nova Scotia this June in defiance of the commercial season enforced by Canada’s fisheries department.

Roger Daltrey on today’s ‘woke generation’

‘It’s terrifying, the miserable world they’re going to create”

One Month Ago, the CDC Director Predicted ‘Impending Doom’… She Was Very Wrong

It is extremely difficult to imagine a situation with more at stake than telling a nation, which has been on edge for a year, and desperate for some hope that a medically-induced nightmare might be finally about to end, that they are facing “impending doom.” To do so as the head of the CDC, while fighting back tears and admitting that they are “scared,” is the equivalent to a card gambler going “all in” on the final hand of the night with someone else’s chips.

One month ago today, that is exactly what CDC Director Rochelle Walensky did—in very dramatic fashion and to great fanfare in the news media. We know now that she was wrong. VERY wrong.

Paris mayor says she AGREES with military chiefs who threatened to seize control of the country

A Paris mayor has backed military chiefs who threatened to seize control of the country to fight radical Islam and prevent the ‘disintegration’ of France.

Eighteen serving officers who were among the hundreds of retired soldiers who signed the open letter to Emmanuel Macron are to be fired, the country’s armed forces chief confirmed today.

But despite widespread condemnation, politicians on the right like Rachida Dati, mayor of the 7th arrondissement, continue to throw their support behind the signatories, who included 20 retired generals.

‘What is written in this letter is a reality,’ Ms Dati told France Info radio today. ‘When you have a country plagued by urban guerrilla warfare, when you have a constant and high terrorist threat, when you have increasingly glaring and flagrant inequalities … we cannot say that the country is doing well.’

As COVID Deaths Mount, China Tells India to Reverse its “Pro-US Diplomacy”

As the death toll from the Wuhan virus mounts, Communist China tries cynically to drive a wedge between India and the West.

“India should reflect on the course of its pro-US diplomacy over the years. It ought to rethink its return to strategic autonomy,” the CCP-run newspaper Global Times said in an editorial on Monday.

The Chinese editorial blamed India’s ordeal with the Wuhan pandemic on its pro-U.S. foreign policy and its hostile relations with Beijing. “Now India is bearing the disappointing consequences of its choice. At the very least, the strategic choice of leaning to the US to contain China is completely wrong,” the Maoist daily concluded.

China is weaponizing the global mayhem created by the Wuhan pandemic to attack and intimidate its Asian neighbors, including India.

Israeli microdosing cannabis inhaler receives approval in Canada, Europe

Israeli pharma-tech company Syqe Medical received regulatory approval from Canadian health officials to export and sell its microdosing cannabis inhaler on the Canadian market, the company announced on Wednesday.

With Canada’s Medical Device License (MDL) Syqe’s Metered-Dose Inhaler, marketed by Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, will be the first microdosing inhaler approved by an international regulatory health authority to be marketed as an official medical product. It is also the first approval for a product that combines both cannabis with a medical device.

VIDEO: Black Nebraska Senator Justin Wayne (D) tells his colleagues he’ll vote against the school choice bill if they agree to send their own kids to public schools

Perfect

Libs want Oprah for prez, Meghan Markle for VP

Seriously

MUST WATCH VIDEO: Edward Snowden calls out conference host for running Ponzi scheme

Here’s a tip if you’ve ever been accused of taking part in a Ponzi scheme: Don’t invite Edward Snowden to speak at your investor conference.

Snowden — who famously leaked data in 2013 on the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of US citizens in 2013 — called out the host of an “elite real estate investment club” over the weekend for allegedly bilking investors out millions of dollars.

The former CIA contractor, who has been living in exile in Moscow since then to avoid being tried in the US on espionage charges, did a live video interview on Saturday for the conference, which was hosted by a self-proclaimed investing guru named Sunil Tulsiani.

Tulsiani, who is banned from trading securities for life by the Ontario Securities Commission for his part in a $4.5 million Ponzi scheme, told attendees that Snowden’s history of whistleblowing should inspire the members of his investment club to “kill the virus” of “I can’t afford it.”

Tulsiani opened the talk with a softball question to Snowden about how accurate Oliver Stone’s portrayal of him in his 2016 movie, “Snowden.” But after speaking for nearly 6 minutes about whistleblowing and ethics, Snowden called out Tulsiani over his regulatory run-ins.

Keep Canadian YouTube free! Oppose Bill C-10!

Seattle’s socialist councilmembers collectively worth over $3.5 million

Socialists on the Seattle City Council have taken advantage of our capitalist system, getting wealthy off the low-income voters they claim to fight for.

In fact, Socialists Kshama Sawant and Tammy Morales are collectively worth over $3.5 million. In Washington state, they’re both one-percenters: the very people they regularly demonize.

Councilmembers must submit financial disclosure forms every year. It allows the public to see any potential conflicts of interest. But it has the added bonus of highlighting how many get wealthy off their socialist grift. It turns out, the only way socialism works, apparently, is selling your brand to kids who live at their parent’s homes, while convincing them to give you more power.

China Shuts Down Feminist Groups as Communist Leaders Try to Turn Sinking Birth Rates Around

Going against the government grain never ends well in China.

From the Red August of 1966 to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, history proves the intolerance of the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party.

Unfortunately, that intolerance is far from over. Just ask several of the country’s feminist groups, whose accounts were removed from popular Chinese social networking sites Douban and Weibo for supposedly promoting “extreme and ideological content.”

China and India censor the internet — and Canada’s Liberals are jealous

New rules would give CRTC mandate to regulate all media from traditional television and radio broadcasters, to podcasts and TikTok videos

Palestinian elections appear headed for delay amid Jerusalem dispute, Fatah infighting

The first Palestinian elections in 15 years appeared to be headed for a delay on Tuesday amid a dispute over voting in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and splits in President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.

Google, Soros, & Gates-Funded Media Outlet ‘Project Syndicate’ Publishes Op-Eds For China’s State Media

Project Syndicate – a media outlet that counts funding and written contribution from George Soros, Bill Gates, the United Nations, and Google – is engaged in “media partnership” deals with several Chinese state-run media outlets

Hunter Biden to Guest Teach Tulane University Class on ‘Fake News’ this Fall

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who has no media or professional teaching background beyond publicly touting his ability to cook crack with ease and his experience with the drug, will help guide a “media polarization” class at Tulane University this fall

Report: Reddit Blocks Links to Anti-Censorship Video Platform Rumble

The platform is informing users that their messages containing links to Rumble are blocked by domain filters.

Catherine McKenna vows to ‘do a better job’ over lost billions

McKenna is the Liberal Infrastructure Minister. Under her watch, $187.8 billion was pledged towards infrastructure over the course of 12 years. Auditors, however, can not find where a significant amount of this money went.

CBC features author who writes about blowing up and gassing white people during ‘race war’

“When this race war hits its crescendo. I’ll gather you all into a beautifully decorated room under the pretense of unity. I’ll give a speech to civility and all the good times we share; I’ll smile as we raise glasses to your good, white health, while the detonator blinks under the table, knowing the exits are locked and the air vents filled with gas.”

CNN’s New “Reporter,” Natasha Bertrand, is a Deranged Conspiracy Theorist and Scandal-Plagued CIA Propagandist

The network proudly announced that it had hired Natasha Bertrand away from Politico. In doing so, they added to their stable of former CIA operatives, NSA spies, Pentagon Generals and FBI agents a reporter who has done as much as anyone, if not more so, to advance the scripts of those agencies.

Bertrand’s career began taking off when, while at Business Insider, she abandoned her obsession with Russia’s role in Syria in 2016 in order to monomaniacally fixate on every last conspiracy theory and gossip item that drove the Russiagate fraud during the 2016 campaign and then into the Trump presidency. Each month, Bertrand produced dozens of Russiagate articles for the site that were so unhinged that they made Rachel Maddow look sober, cautious and reliable.

Victims of Ponzi scheme call for reopening of probe into offshore money transfers

Victims of a massive investment fraud that operated for years out of Montreal and siphoned more than $500 million offshore are calling on federal politicians to resume an inquiry into Canadian shell companies set up in the Isle of Man, a popular tax haven used by global accounting firms.

“On behalf of the victims, I am asking that the federal government reopen this file,” Janet Watson wrote last month to her local MP, Marie-Claude Bibeau, the federal Liberal minister of agriculture.

Watson lost her retirement savings in a fraud engulfing three Montreal companies — Cinar, Norshield and Mount Real — that bilked thousands of average Canadian investors.

The Isle of Man previously attracted attention from parliamentarians after revelations that the accounting firm KPMG had helped set up offshore shell companies for unknown wealthy Canadian clients.

In 2016, the House of Commons finance committee abruptly shut down questioning into offshore shell companies in the Isle of Man after objections were raised by KPMG about the potential impact on ongoing court cases.

The Canada Revenue Agency eventually settled three of the tax cases out of court, but the committee never resumed its inquiry.

Now, documents suggest some of the monies that disappeared offshore may be connected to four shell companies in the Isle of Man that were used to hide money from creditors.

The companies, Shashqua, Katar, Spatha and Sceax, are named after ancient swords and were set up in the Isle of Man nearly two decades ago.

ACLU Again Cowardly Abstains From an Online Censorship Controversy: This Time Over BLM

The once-principled group issues P.R.-scripted excuses or engages in obfuscation to avoid taking stances that would offend its liberal donor base.

NBA To Attend Chinese Communist Conference

The National Basketball Association is slated to attend the 2021 China International Consumer Products Expo – an event sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party with guidelines stipulating attendees may not “undermine the pride and interests of the People’s Republic of China.”

Fake hate crime of the day

Say what you will about hate crime hoaxes, they aren’t usually dangerous.

A noose in the lavatory, some rebarbative slurs scrawled on the walls, a story about being jumped in the wee hours on a cold night in Chicago — they’re manipulative and unpleasant, they may be seized upon by cultural ambulance chasers, they may sow division, but they don’t threaten lives. Usually.

That can’t be said for what accused Viterbo University student Victoria C. Unanka is alleged to have done.

According to the La Crosse Tribune, Unanka was released on bail Monday after La Crosse, Wisconsin, police arrested her for starting a fire in a residential hall while most of her classmates were sleeping.

BLM Co-Founder’s Jail Reform Group Dropped $26,000 At Luxury Malibu Beach Resort

Important Marxist meetings

Montreal mansion of embattled Pornhub founder – under investigation for child exploitation – burns down in suspicious arson just weeks after putting the still unfinished property on the market for $15.9M

Embattled Pornhub boss Feras Antoon’s unfinished chateau in Montreal has burned down in a suspected arson

Ontario activists claim ravines are racist

A new analysis by The Globe and Mail’s Urban Affairs reporter and Architecture Critic argues that race, gender, and economic status “can all be barriers” to Toronto’s free and publicly accessible green spaces.

The article asserts that Toronto’s ravines are only accepting of people’s different backgrounds and income levels “in theory,” and cites the case of black outdoorswoman Jacqueline L. Scott, who says that the lack of diverse faces makes it less likely for people of colour to go to green spaces—something that is sometimes called a self fulfilling prophecy.

The article argues that concerns around representation discourage “racialized people” living near ravines from using their public backyards, and that hurdles such as a “lack of signs indicating where to enter a ravine” remain in place.

Another barrier, according to University of Toronto doctoral student Ambika Tenneti, is that “people of colour communities like to sit and chat around,” an activity that is difficult to do in ravines, which are “generally trails.”

“You just have to walk and there’s no place to sit down or anything,” she says.

Raking It In: Kamala Harris Children’s Book Distributed To Illegal Alien Children Detained By Biden Admin

Nice racket

The New Antiracism Is the Old Racism

The benchmarks of the Back Lives Matter and affiliated woke movements are overt racism, systemic untruth, and the hypocritical privilege of their elite architects.

Leaked Audio Of Iran’s Foreign Minister: Democrat John Kerry Told Us Israel Behind 200+ Attacks

Former Secretary of State John Kerry sold out Israel, America’s top ally in the Middle East, to Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, according to leaked audio of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaking with an economist.

The remarks, which were not supposed to be for publication, were leaked to a publication in London and subsequently reported on by The New York Times.

Is Aaron Rupar the World’s Most Dishonest “Journalist”?

Click the image