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In this mailing:
* Giulio Meotti: Italy: China's Trojan Horse into Europe
* Raymond Ibrahim: Coronavirus: More Abuse of Christians
* Amir Taheri: Lebanese Zugzwang and Harlequin's Choice


** Italy: China's Trojan Horse into Europe ([link removed])
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by Giulio Meotti • May 10, 2020 at 5:00 am
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* Chinese leaders "believe they have a narrow window of strategic opportunity to strengthen their rule and revise the international order in their favor". — Former U.S. National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
* "Europe has now become the buffer zone for the confrontation between China and the United States". — Pierre-Henri d'Argenson, Le Figaro, April 28, 2020.
* Now, China is trying to dominate southern Europe's infrastracture. China was already granted a license to run Greece's largest seaport, Athens' Piraeus harbor, which Beijing plans to turn into Europe's biggest commercial harbor. Then China started to project its expansion in Italy's ports, where four major ports are also in line for Chinese investments.
* The People's Bank of China... "has steadily amassed stakes above 2 percent (the disclosure threshold in Italy) in a slew of Italy's largest shareholder-owned companies" China has also invested in strategic Italian energy entities....
* This economic penetration will also have immense security consequences... Italy, which is being lured by the promise of a $3 billion Huawei investment in its telecommunications system, announced that it has no plans to stop Chinese telecom firms playing a role in the country's future 5G network. It is a project that U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr defined a "monumental danger".
* Italy will see a collapse of its GDP and the explosion of its public debt... the highest since World War II. Beijing knows this and claims that "Italy has many economic problems, Europe is in crisis and the Belt and Road Initiative is the only major global investment plan".

Italy's foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, welcomed a plane-load of Chinese medical supplies on March 12. "We will remember those who were close to us in this difficult period", Di Maio said. It is not necessary, China will remind them. Pictured: Di Maio shows a map of quarantined Italian municipalities as he gives a press conference in Rome, on February 27, 2020. (Photo by Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images)

A few days after China had announced it was sending medical supplies to Italy, Chinese state media aired pictures of Italians on balconies and streets applauding the Chinese national anthem. "In Rome, with the Chinese anthem playing, some Italians chanted 'Grazie, Cina!' on their balconies, & their neighbors applauded along", wrote Zhao Lijian, the spokesman for China's foreign ministry who shamefully and wrongly suggested that the U.S. military had brought the Covid-19 to Wuhan.

China presented itself in the role of the savior, willing to rush to the bedside of the sick patient Italy.

Now a Financial Times investigation reveals that those videos were manipulated as part of Beijing's coronavirus propaganda. Hashtags #ThanksChina and #GoChina&Italy were further generated by bots. A report by the Carnegie Endowment called Italy "a target destination for China's propaganda".

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** Coronavirus: More Abuse of Christians ([link removed])
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by Raymond Ibrahim • May 10, 2020 at 4:30 am
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* "The Christian man said he begged for food to no avail. Farooq Masih, a 54-year-old Christian in Korangi, said that last Saturday, Abid Qadri, a member of Saylani Welfare, with other NGO members, handed out food cards in his area. But, when they got to Christian homes, they just moved on." — Shafique Khokhar, AsiaNews.it, March 30, 2020
* Millions of Christians living in northern Nigeria's Kaduna State, "report they get six times smaller rations from the state than Muslim families. Believers we talked to shared that a Christian family of four receives a grossly inadequate ration of a single packet of noodles and one small plate of uncooked rice." — Open Doors, April 17, 2020.
* The situation for sub-Saharan Christians is further exacerbated by "[s]pecific targeting by Islamic radical groups like Boko Haram, ISIS, Fulani militants and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) across the region has displaced many thousands of Christians." Such Christians are now living in crowded and hard to reach refugee camps where they are "suffer[ing] intensely without water, sanitation and hygiene," making them extra susceptible to contracting the deadly virus.
* At a time when COVID-19 is showing the best of people -- countless doctors, nurses, health care providers, truckers, philanthropic institutions and churches in America have stepped up beyond the call of duty, and certainly without consideration for things like race or religion -- in much of the world, COVID-19 has merely occasioned more of the usual: hate for and persecution of supposedly contemptible "infidels," particularly Christians.

According to a March 30 report, the Saylani Welfare International Trust in Karachi, Pakistan refused to give to food aid to poor Hindus and Christians, saying that only Muslims are entitled to receive their food packages. Pictured: Food aid distribution by Saylani, on March 30, 2020. (Photo by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images)

Reports have appeared in recent weeks indicating that the coronavirus is furnishing a new pretext in the Islamic word to discriminate against, and even persecute, religious minorities, chiefly Christians.

According to an April 29 report, "in countries such as Ethiopia Christians are denied the resources of the community, which is mainly composed of Muslims. These minorities are excluded from society, making it difficult to provide them with help or support." A separate report notes that in Muslim-majority Uzbekistan, Christians "have been denied aid because of their religion."

Pakistan, as usual, offers several examples. According to a March 30 report:

"A Karachi NGO has denied food aid to poor Hindus and Christians, who like Muslims are suffering from coronavirus....

"The Saylani Welfare International Trust has been operating in the Korangi area since 1999, handing out aid and meals to homeless people and seasonal workers.

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** Lebanese Zugzwang and Harlequin's Choice ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • May 10, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* It may be a cliché to suggest that Lebanon is meant to be a Middle Eastern Switzerland, just as Uruguay is a haven of peace in South America, Singapore in Asia and Austria in Central Europe. Whenever Lebanon played that role it thrived. Whenever it diverged from that role, or was pushed out of it by foreign powers, it suffered.
* To Ayatollah Ali Yunesi, an adviser to President Hassan Rouhani [of Iran], Beirut is one of four Arab capitals that "we now control."
* Lebanon's interests today do not coincide with those of Iran. Lebanon needs stability and peace to revive its economy by attracting foreign investment, reviving tourism and developing itself as a service-based hub for international trade and high-tech industries. In contrast, Iran, as a revisionist power seeking to reshape the Middle East if not the whole world, thrives on tension and conflict.
* One master wants Lebanon to be a beach, the other sees it as a bunker. In real life, as opposed to theater, at some point Harlequin must choose.

As Lebanese protests continue, albeit with varying degrees of intensity, speculation over what has caused the current crisis is also rife. The list of woes that afflict Lebanon is long. Pictured: A protest against dwindling economic conditions in Lebanon, in the northern port city of Tripoli, on May 3, 2020. (Photo by Ibrahim Chalhoub/AFP via Getty Images)

As Lebanese protests continue, albeit with varying degrees of intensity, speculation over what has caused the current crisis is also rife.

The list of woes that afflict Lebanon is long.

There is a banking crisis caused by a Ponzi-like scheme introduced by the Central Bank three years ago to attract foreign money. Recent falls in the price of oil have led to a sharp drop on remittances by Lebanese working in oil-rich countries but building their egg-nests back home. A bloated civil service, created by politicians trying to buy votes or curry favor with their respective sects by inventing unnecessary jobs, is becoming too costly for an ailing economy. Corruption, the bane of many developing nations, has gone beyond the limits of an aberration to become almost a way of life.

Add to all that a prolonged political crisis caused by the way the sectarian system distributes power and one would have a perfect storm.

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