Headline News 27/11/2019

Headlines:

Navy Chief Tramps Latest Victim

Iraq Protests Continue As Regime Fights Back

Further Leaks Reveal China’s Concentration Camps

Details:

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer is now the latest victim of the Trump regime. Numerous officials have left office during Trump’s presidency due to his disregard for their advice and his constant overruling of them. The Navy Chief quit under pressure from the Defence Secretary Mark Esper who faulted him for clumsy and underhand conversations with the White House. Trump demanded that the Navy cancel a disciplinary proceeding for Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a SEAL who had been convicted of posing with the body of a deceased civilian in Iraq. Trump had railed for days on Twitter about the Navy's treatment of Gallagher, whose trial on war-crimes charges had drawn support from many of the president's conservative backers. Outgoing Secretary of the Navy Spencer's acknowledgment-of-termination letter said that he "cannot in good conscience" obey an order he believes "violates the sacred oath" he took and that he and POTUS disagree on the "key principle of good order and discipline." Trump defended his intervention in the cases of the elite troops, telling reporters that he is protecting America's warriors against "very unfair" proceedings. "There's never been a president that's going to stick up for them, and has. like I have," Trump said in the Oval Office.

Iraq Protests Continue as Regime Fights Back

With the Iraqi government’s attempt to keep a lid on public protests by censoring large portions of the Internet having shown little sign of working, Iraq’s Communications and Media Commission (CMC) has announced they are closing 12 TV stations and four radio stations. Officially, the stations are accused of “inciting violence,” which in practice means they are believed to be functioning as mouthpieces for the protest movement, which the CMC says violates licensing regulations. In addition to closing these stations, the CMC also submitted warnings to five other TV channels warning them that they are also in violation for their coverage of the protests, and would face closure if they don’t correct their behavior. This almost certainly isn’t going to have any substantial negative impact on the protests, anymore than firing live ammunition into the crowds did. Officials seem to be hoping they can wait the protests out with vague, empty promises of reform, but so far the violence and censorship seems to be making the protesters all the angrier at them. The unique aspect about this protests are that they are taking place in the majority Shi’ah areas against the regime. Like much of the Muslim world, the rulers have failed the people and people are taking to the streets.

Further Leaks Reveal China’s Concentration Camps

The internal workings of a vast chain of Chinese internment camps used to detain at least a million people from the nation’s Muslim minorities are laid out in leaked Communist Party documents. The China Cables, a cache of classified government papers, appear to provide the first official glimpse into the structure, daily life and ideological framework behind centres in north-western Xinjiang region that have provoked international condemnation. Obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and shared with the Guardian, the BBC and 15 other media partners, the documents have been independently assessed by experts who have concluded they are authentic. The document makes clear that as the internment camps went up, authorities were already worried about the scale of their incarceration programme becoming known, even inside Chinese official hierarchies. The document demands “strict secrecy”, and in addition to a predictable ban on videos and cameras, staff are also ordered not to aggregate important data, preventing even those inside the system from understanding its full extent.