Important question: what do you call people who try to bomb innocent civilians?
This is an amazing story.
I'll give you the facts – you decide on the answer.
A group of individuals, extremely well-financed by persons unknown, committed horrendous crimes – running bomb factories, gathering explosives for terrorist grade mass casualty attacks designed to kill Hong Kong people in Mongkok and Wan Chai, and plotting to kill "popo", slang for murdering police officers.
This is not in question. Most quickly admitted the crimes, and asked for bail, promising not to flee. Hong Kong has an unusually lenient legal system, so they were duly released. This was in the late summer of 2020.
But here's what happened next. Mysterious persons paid a fortune to people-smugglers to help them jump bail, and they got on a boat to go to Taiwan, a Chinese island province.
When they were rearrested, in the last week of August, the media had to think of a label for them.
Now we all know that if people planning terrorist-grade mass casualty attacks on innocent people had my color skin, looking something like this, they would be called terrorists, wannabe cop-killers, bombers and so on.
But here's the key fact. They weren't dark-skinned. Moreover, they were anti-China people associated with Hong Kong anti-China groups financed by the United States.
So here's how they were actually labelled.
The New York Times called them "activists".
The Washington Post called them "protesters"
The BBC called them "democracy activists".
The Wall St journal called them "Hong Kong residents" as if it's perfectly normal for residents of this city to blow it up!
The Hong Kong Free Press said they were "Hongkongers trying to flee".
Reuters said they were "young men".
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated they were heroes. They "deserved a hero's welcome". He added: "America stands with them."
So there we have it – people who literally tried to blow up innocent Hong Kong people with bombs in a mass casualty event are presented to the world as activists and "hong kong residents" and even "heroes".
Now coming up to date, a related trial has opened, in which gang leaders have fully admitted their plan to create a mass casualty event in my home city – a dramatic plot to kill large numbers of innocent Hong Kong people. It was foiled by police, literally hours before it was due to take place.
Guess what?
The western mainstream media outlets have chosen not to cover the trial. So no one around the world is hearing about it.
Why not? Let's be honest here.
Most mainstream journalists covering Hong Kong and mainland China have abandoned journalism. They have become propagandists with an agenda to demonize China to justify a planned American war, and the trial doesn't fit that narrative.
But you know what? Journalism is too important to let these people kill it.
The truth is important. A lie is still a lie even if the whole world believes it, and the truth is still the truth if even just one person believes it.
So you and I have to step in and do that job. We are the media now.
by Nury Vittachi
Lai See(利是)
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
In the latest international upheaval, Europe is taking the hardest hit. After 300 years of modern civilization and the churn of imperial powers, that era is gone, and a better tomorrow is nowhere in sight.
Europe has one problem: it cannot take care of itself. “No one really knows whether Europe would still be able to produce toothpaste if it weren’t for China,” the EU Chamber of Commerce said.
Europe doesn’t make toothpaste; it sells luxury brands. Fine — look at the latest news. Reuters reports that the U.S.-Israel-Iran war has delivered a blow to European luxury labels. Sales at Dubai’s upscale malls, packed with wealthy shoppers, have fallen 50 percent, and LVMH, France’s largest luxury group, says wealthy Middle Eastern customers have paused spending in Europe because of the conflict in the Gulf region.
The New York Times, in a piece headlined “Europe Is Done With Appeasing Trump”, lays out several of Europe’s current pains.
“The barrage of tariffs that opened the second Trump administration, aimed indiscriminately at friend and foe; the brazen demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States, and now the absence of any consultation with European allies before joining Israel in an attack on Iran that has affected the entire world, have erased any illusion among most Europeans that Mr. Trump is anything but an unpredictable, vindictive and uncontrollable danger,” it wrote.
Trump’s latest move is to impose a blockade on all Iranian ports from Monday, adding another barrier in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. president has repeatedly said, with obvious satisfaction, that America has oil and natural gas, and that oil shipping blockage cannot bring the United States to its knees. In other words, if Iran wants a war of attrition, the White House is ready to go all the way. America’s NATO allies, meanwhile, make clear they will “decline to join in.” Europe’s oil supply is already under pressure: Russian oil and gas are cut off, and Middle Eastern shipping now faces a second lock. So is Trump punishing Iran, or Europe?
“Last year, export controls imposed by Beijing on seven rare earth elements and the magnets made from them had especially severe consequences. China is a global leader in the production of these critical raw materials, which are widely used in electric motors, smartphones, and numerous everyday electronic devices,” Deutsche Welle reported. “The EU Chamber of Commerce said nearly one-third of its member companies indicated in a questionnaire survey at the beginning of this year that their business had been affected by China’s export control measures.”
The EU Chamber of Commerce knows perfectly well that China-EU relations have been pulled off course by the United States, and that Europe has not shaped its foreign and trade policy around its own interests. It has even had to tear out 5G networks built by Huawei and ZTE, while Chinese electric vehicles face restrictions. That has only made China-EU ties more tangled. Europe can hardly be called arrogant now. Energy supplies are unstable, and rare earth constraints have turned it into an industrial power with nothing usable to work with. So what now?
Although calls to “de-risk” economic ties with China have persisted for years, many European companies continue to bet on the Chinese market. Over the past year, EU figures show that 26% of companies said they were relocating their supply chains to China, “a proportion twice that of companies choosing to move their supply chains out of China or establish a second hub overseas.” The trend is clearly still going strong.
Europe’s major powers, including France, Italy and Germany, all feel the need to break free from the manipulation and humiliation imposed by the United States, especially the Trump team. Europe has finally woken up and is now pushing for independence and autonomy, placing its national destiny firmly in its own hands.
Nothing in the world is difficult if you are willing to scale the heights. Europe becoming strong again is no dream, but starting over takes patience. I would say 300 years is enough for you to turn things around.
