Headlines:
- Trump under pressure to Demonstrate Results in first 100 days
- Afghan Mujahideen Attack in North while Americans Fight in East
- Pence Visits Australia to Build Further Pressure on China
- Growth in China
- Tensions increase in Asia-Pacific
- UK Prime Minister Calls Snap Election
Trump under pressure to Demonstrate Results in first 100 days
As Donald Trump nears his first 100 days in power, he is coming under pressure to explain what he has thus far achieved. According to Politico:
President Donald Trump on Friday claimed that he won’t get the credit he deserves for the first 100 days of his administration, seeking to manage expectations around what he called the “ridiculous standard” of the upcoming milestone date.
“No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill!” Trump tweeted on Friday morning.
By Friday afternoon, Trump went further, arguing that next week is irrelevant.
“Next week doesn’t matter,” he told reporters.
In fact Trump has spent most of his initial period in office until now playing out internal wars within government with the political establishment and the various factions that constitute it. The stark failure of his childish attempt at reforming healthcare forced him to re-evaluate his agenda and even his personal team, distancing himself from his chief strategist Steve Bannon. Trump is coming to realise what all American presidents quickly realise – that he can do nothing without the cooperation of the American establishment.
The idea of Democracy, which literally means sovereignty of the people, is of course a crude fantasy employed to mask the oligarchic hegemony of the Western elite. Although the most powerful Western agency, the American presidency is actually, by design, deliberately weakened through ‘checks and balances’ in accordance with the Western principle of ‘Separation of Powers’. These are constructed not for democracy, as is claimed, but so that the American political elite is able to continue to maintain control over the American president. Only Islam liberates man from subservience to other men, by turning him to the service of his Creator alone.
Afghan Mujahideen Attack in North while Americans Fight in East
The American-imposed regime in Kabul came under further pressure from the Afghan Mujahideen yesterday after an attack at an army base in the Balkh province. According to the New York Times:
Dozens of soldiers were killed on Friday when Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers in military uniforms stormed an Afghan Army base in northern Afghanistan, Afghan and Western officials said.
In fact the Americans have come to realise that there cannot be any victory on the battlefield against sincere Mujahideen in Afghanistan or anywhere else. This is why the Americans, instead of targeting their military strength against the Mujahideen, are instead focussing on the so-called ISIS group in Afghanistan, who are in fact militants attacking Pakistan, for example through the dropping of the MOAB last week in eastern Afghanistan. America’s purpose is to bring Pakistan to carry out an American political agenda to neutralise the Afghan Taliban through power sharing in the Kabul regime.
With Allah’s permission, the sincere Mujahideen will never accept to compromise with American in return for power-sharing in a Western back regime implementing non-Islamic systems and laws.
Pence Visits Australia to Build Further Pressure on China
Trump began his presidency by ridiculing Australia over an immigration deal concluded under the Obama administration. But now US Vice President Mike Pence is in Australia to undo that misstep and build pressure against China over North Korea. According to the Washington Post:
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Australia’s prime minister swept aside any lingering tensions Saturday over an Obama era agreement on the resettlement of refugees, joining forces to urge China to take a greater role in pressuring North Korea to scuttle its nuclear weapons and missile program.
In fact, America is the one that provokes North Korea, only in order to provide an excuse to confront China. The capitalist American superpower is struggling to prevent China’s increasing military dominance within the South China Sea and over the countries neighbouring it. Obama’s policy of encirclement coupled with engagement failed to arrest China’s ascendancy. Now America needs to embark on a far more confrontational approach to limit Chinese military ambitions.
It is the nature of the secular Capitalist ideology that it provokes nations into conflict over material power. The world was a very different place just three centuries ago when the Islamic Khilafah was the world’s superpower. Countries sought peace and valued the ethical, the humanitarian and the spiritual in addition to material prosperity. China had even dismantled its deep water navy and drawn within itself. It is the rapacious West and the secular Capitalist ideology that is driving the world towards conflict and destruction. The soon to be re-established righteous Islamic Khilafah State on the method of the Prophet ﷺ will, with the permission and blessings of Allah (swt), return the entire world to peace and prosperity, through the practise of the noble Deen of Islam and through reclaiming its rightful role as superpower and sincere guardian of humanity.
Growth in China
China’s economy grew by 6.9% in the first quarter of 2017, according to official figures. The growth rate, which compares expansion with the same three months in the previous year, was slightly higher than many economists had forecast. State-led infrastructure spending and demand for new property helped drive the world’s second-largest economy. Last month China cut its growth target for this year to 6.5% from 6.7% in 2016. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the economy maintained momentum from the second half of last year, “getting off to a good start in 2017 and laying a solid foundation for accomplishing the whole-year growth target”. Another set of data also suggests a rise in domestic consumption. February retail sales jumped 10.9% from the previous year. China is a key driver of the global economy and its performance is closely watched by investors around the world. Its 2016 growth was its slowest in in 26 years. Hidenobu Tokuda of the Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo said China should be trying to slow its growth rate in the long term, though “uncertainties remain high” about how that slowdown would happen. Meanwhile Brian Jackson of IHS Global Insight predicted both industrial output and the property sector would slow.
Tensions increase in Asia-Pacific
North Korea has warned its army is on “maximum alert” after the US Vice President visited the heavily militarised border between the two Koreas and reiterated Washington’s position that “all options are on the table” in dealing with Pyongyang. “The time of dictating orders by brandishing the US military might has gone. If those businessmen in power in the US thought of intimidating us by any military or sanction threats – as the [Barack] Obama administration used to do and failed – they will soon find out such threats are useless,” stated Sin Hong-chol North Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister. Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington have soared in recent weeks, as a series of North Korean missile tests have wrought ever-more bellicose warnings from Donald Trump’s administration. However it is evident to see that whilst North Korea has nuclear ambitions it is after economic gains rather than global domination, Hong-chol specified this in his interview with the news outlet this week when he stated that Washington, “should look at the world with open eyes” and that, “The nuclear weapon in our possession is not illusion; it is not a commodity that may be traded for American dollars – nor is it for sale. So it cannot be put on the negotiating table with the aim to rip it off”. Hong-Chol statements echo the stance of Pyongyang, the missile tests coupled with the rhetoric indicate that North Korea is attempting to negotiate a removal of US sanctions and imposed isolation, it does not have global ambitions nor does it have the ability to sustain itself in battle against a global superpower as the failure of the Sunday missile launch duly highlighted.
UK Prime Minister Calls Snap Election
On Tuesday 18th April, British Prime Minister Theresa May called for a snap general election after previously stating she had no intention do so. This comes at a surprise to most but in light of party politics elsewhere this is prime time to obtain a majority in parliament. This is in order to push for the type of Brexit she wants, one that will ensure Britain has its fingertips dipped inside European affairs despite being an external actor.