Wang Jianlin Makes Aggressive Moves In Hollywood

(Ryan Faughnder’s article direct from The LA TIMES on 30 September 2016.)

China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, has been on a buying spree in Hollywood. His media conglomerate, Dalian Wanda Group, has aggressively expanded into the U.S. film industry. The company, which already owns the nation’s second-largest theater chain and a major U.S. film producer, recently signed a deal to invest in Sony Pictures movies.

Now, Wanda is in talks to buy the iconic Dick Clark Productions, producer of the Golden Globe Awards, in a deal that values the company at about $1 billion. And Wang, 61, may just be warming up. The brash executive has proclaimed his desire to acquire one of the six major Hollywood studios and vowed to “change the world where rules are set by foreigners.”  Wanda recently was in talks to buy a 49% stake in Paramount Pictures until parent company Viacom  Inc. scuttled the sale.

But not everyone is happy about Wang’s ambitious plans, which have sparked heightened concerns among some lawmakers that a company closely aligned with the Chinese government could wield too much control over the content and distribution of American movies.

U.S. Supreme Court Reinstates Trump’s Muslim Ban!

(Staff articles from The GLOBAL TIMES and BREITBART NEWS on 26 June 2017.)

SCOTUS is making Trump happy again.

The US Supreme Court on Monday announced that it has decided to allow President Donald Trump's controversial revised travel ban to go into effect in most instances and will review it in fall.

The decision, immediately seen as Trump's partial victory, blocks the actions of lower federal courts that had put the president's executive order barring US entry from six majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa completely on hold.

As a result, people who do not have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States would be denied entry once the order takes effect within 72 hours. Those who can show they have a relationship to a person or entity will be allowed to enter the United States.

Ma Thein Shin - Chapter (1)

(Direct translation of late Naing Win Swe’s novel “Ma Thein Shin Si Pote Pay Bar”.)

Year 1969

It was a foggy winter morning. The big train standing in thick mist seemed to be afraid of leaving the safety of the warm Station. But it had to go. It blew a lot of smoke and reluctantly began the journey. It turned on the front spotlights but the pale beams shorn just a short distance ahead in the fog.

Gradually gaining speed the train appeared to slowly overcome its fears as if its blood were now boiling. Once the dim lights of Taung-dwin-gyi station were well behind it the train squeezed out a long blow of single horn as if it was cheering up itself to travel deep into the foggy darkness ahead.

Immediately the train appeared to think that the sound of its own horn was the cheers from the surrounds and it became excited and now it was madly rushing into total darkness.

Bangladeshi Extremists Fueling Terrorism In S.E. Asia

(Research paper direct fromThe IPAC on 08 May 2017.)

Following is the whole of IPAC (Institute For Policy Analysis Of Conflict) Report No.37 under the title “How Southeast Asian and Bangladeshi Extremism Intersect” released on 8 May 2017.

CONTENTS

I. Overview

II. Transborder Movements

III. Historical Links 

A. Ties to the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO)

B. The Early al-Qaeda Years

IV. Escalation Since 2013

A. Arrests in Singapore

B. Arrests in Malaysia  

V. The Holey Artisan Bakery Attack, July 2016  

A. The Malaysia Links

B. Other Pro-ISIS Bangladeshis with Malaysia Links  

C. Bahrum Naim’s Reaction to the Dhaka Attack

D. Bangladeshis and Indonesians in Syria and Iraq  

VI. Bangladeshis and Jihad in the Philippines and Myanmar

A. Recruitment for Mindanao

B. Rohingya Militancy 

VII. Conclusions 

I. OVERVIEW

Captured ISIS-Bangladeshi Cell in Singapore.

Links between Bangladeshi and Southeast Asian extremists appear to be growing, fuelled by ISIS and increasing population movements across the region. If many governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) treat South and Southeast Asia as two separate regions in their foreign ministries and security agencies, it may be time to think about a broader geographical unit, at least as far as counter-terrorism programming is concerned.

The Bangladesh-Southeast Asian links take several forms:

•           Bangladeshi migrants working in Singapore and Malaysia who recruit fellow workers for violence at home – a tiny proportion of the country’s overseas workers. Many have been supporters of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a group responsible since 2013 for several fatal attacks on secular activists. ABT, which now calls itself Ansarul Islam, is the Bangladesh arm of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).

•           Bangladeshi students from middle-class families studying at Malaysian universities who develop pro-ISIS sympathies, either at home or while in Malaysia.

•           Bangladeshis who use Kuala Lumpur as the take-off point for travel to Syria.

•           Bangladeshis and Southeast Asians who meet each other as ISIS fighters in Syria or Iraq.

•           Pro-ISIS Malaysians or Filipinos who try to recruit Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants in Malaysia to fight in Mindanao.

Did Crystal's Pinoys Deliberately Ram USS Fitzgerald?

The massive damage to the destroyer USS Fitzgerald suggests that the container ship, the ACX Crystal, might have slammed into it at a significant speed. This has raised questions as to whether there was proper communication between the two vessels, particularly given how busy the waters in the area are.

The container ship was seen making a U-turn before the collision on some ship trackers, a move that has raised questions about what happened. All of the ACX Crystal's 20-member Filipino crew were safe, according to Japanese shipping company Nippon Yusen K.K., which operates the ship.

The waters where the collision occurred see as many as 400 ships pass through every day, according to Japan's coast guard. They are especially congested in the early hours of the day, with ships carrying cargo for early morning delivery in Tokyo. The waters also have fast currents, making it a tricky area that requires experience and skill to navigate.

Germany Is Already Lost To Muslim Crime Clans

(Soeren Kern’s article direct from The GATESTONE INSTITUTE on 18 June 2017.)

Muslim mob attacking the timid German police.

Germany: Police Powerless Against Middle Eastern Crime Gangs. A court in Hanover has handed suspended sentences to six members of a Kurdish clan who seriously wounded two dozen police officers during a violent rampage in Hameln. The court's ruling was greeted with anger and derision by police who said it is yet another example of the laxity of Germany's politically correct judicial system.

The case goes back to January 2014, when a 26-year-old clan member, arrested for robbery, tried to escape from the magistrate's office by jumping out of a seventh-floor courtroom window. The suspect was taken to the hospital, where he died. Members of his clan subsequently ransacked the hospital, as well as the court, and attacked police with rocks and other projectiles; 24 police officers and six paramedics were injured.

The judge said he was lenient because the defendants witnessed the death of the 26-year-old and were traumatized. The judge also revealed that he had reached a deal with the clan, which among other effects prevented police from testifying in court.

Hefazat-e-Islam: Extremist Islamic Group In Bangladesh

(Julien Bouissou’s article direct from The GUARDIAN on 30 July 2013.)

Radicals from Hefazat-e-Islam are killing Bangladeshi Atheists.

Bangladesh's radical Muslims uniting behind Hefazat-e-Islam: Government is wary of a movement led by Shah Ahmad Shafi that has gathered strength since its launch in 2010.

Passersby cast wary looks at a bunch of men lurking outside the entrance to the Hathazari madrasa. They stand out, having neither beards nor traditional dress. Indeed, one of them has had the bright idea of wearing a flowered shirt. For the past few weeks the madrasa in Chittagong, central Bangladesh, has been under police surveillance. It houses 12,000 Qur'anic students, guided by Shah Ahmad Shafi, who heads Hefazat-e-Islam, the country's largest and latest radical Islamic movement.

At his instigation over 500,000 demonstrators clogged the streets of Dhaka on 5 May, demanding the application of 13 measures, including a ban on mixing of men and women in public places, the removal of sculptures and demands for the former wording of the constitution to be reinstated, affirming "absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah".

Ruling-Family Feud In Singapore: Lee Dynasty Ending?

(Kirsten Han’s article direct from The ASIA TIMES on 14 June 2017.)

Singapore's founding Lee Family.

Lee family feud in Singapore: Dueling public statements between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his two siblings have brought ruling family discord into a glaring public light.

Singaporeans awoke on Wednesday morning to the latest and most public installment of a family feud between the children of the island state’s national founder and first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away in 2015.

In a long public statement entitled “What Has Happened to Lee Kuan Yew’s Values?”, uploaded to Google Drive and posted on their Facebook pages, Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang said that they had lost trust and confidence in their brother – Singapore’s current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – and accused him of misusing his power and position “to drive his personal agenda.”

“We feel big brother omnipresent. We fear the use of the organs of state against us and Hsien Yang’s wife, Suet Fern,” they wrote, revealing that Lee Hsien Yang has since decided to leave the country.

Political Islam: Incompatible With US Constitution

(Edwin Mora’s article from TheBREITBART NEWS on 14 June 2017.)

WASHINGTON, DC — Michael Leiter, the former director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, argued that sharia law is compatible with the American Constitution. “Muslim’s honoring of Sharia is not inherently in tangent with living in constitutional democracies anymore than it would be for Christians or Jews who also seek to honor their religious traditions while still complying with civil authority,” testified Leiter.

The Somali-born Dutch-American Ayaan Hirsi Ali — an honor violence victim, a strong advocate against female genital mutilation (FGM), and author — strongly disagreed. During a hearing on Islamic ideology and terror held by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Wednesday, Ali testified alongside the former U.S. official who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Political Islam, focused on establishing an unfree society ruled by strict sharia law, is “fundamentally incompatible” with the U.S. Constitution and the overall “foundation of the American way of life,” declared Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an expert at the Hoover Institution think tank, during a Senate panel hearing.

“My central argument is that political Islam implies a constitutional order fundamentally incompatible with the US Constitution and with the ‘constitution of liberty’ that is the foundation of the American way of life,” proclaimed Ali in her written testimony.