Simon O'Connor: We no longer recognise evil

As the Islamic regime in Iran begins to crumble, it is clear from comments of some politicians, academics, and activists that they no longer can discern between good and evil, right and wrong.

As United States and Israeli air strikes continue to decapitate the leaders and degrade the facilities of the Islamic regime - who for decades have held the Iranian people hostage to their mad religious ideology – I wanted to share a few reflections.

David Farrar: Venezuelans support the US

The Economist commissioned a poll of 600 Venezuelans. The results are: (Click graphs to view)

Walter Donway: China’s Rare Earth ‘Monopoly’ — and Why Markets Will Break It

With its recent announcement of a trade deal with China, the White House intended to reassure markets, manufacturers, and the military that China would not sever the supply lines of “rare earths” to the United States. Among other concessions, Beijing committed itself to avoid restricting exports of rare earth elements and related critical minerals essential to advanced manufacturing, clean “green” energy, and modern weapons systems. The agreement was described as a win for American economic strength and national security. But the very need for such a promise reveals an uncomfortable truth: the United States, long the world’s leading industrial power, has become dependent on the goodwill of a strategic rival for materials central to its economy and its defense.

Dave Patterson: China Ends 2025 With Large Provocation

As the calendar year 2025 ended, China conducted one of its most provocative exercises, threatening Taiwan. In the final days of December, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the China Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a joint training operation called Justice Mission 2025 in the Taiwan Strait and other waters surrounding Taiwan. This was the second such exercise that year, simulating a blockade of major Taiwanese ports to shut down transportation to the island as a prelude to an invasion. The first was called Strait Thunder-2025A, conducted April 1-2 of last year, and it had similar objectives.

China Is Stepping Up Its Taiwan Blockade Exercises

Duggan Flanakin: The U.S. re-enters the rare-earths race

Hardly anyone in 1972 saw President Nixon’s decision to reopen diplomatic relations with the Peoples’ Republic of China as the beginning of a half-century of America surrendering its mining and manufacturing superiority to the fledgling Communist regime.

Successive administrations did little or nothing to halt the export of American skilled labor jobs, or even to promote skilled American labor as vital to national security. Unlike his predecessors, President Trump determined to promote American labor and restore mining and manufacturing as the pathway to a stronger nation and a prosperous economy.