RUTHFULLY YOURS

SEOUL—North Korea is making preparations for the possible launch of another intercontinental ballistic missile, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Monday, just one day after Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device far more powerful than any that it has previously tested.

Maj. Gen. Jang Kyung-soo, acting deputy minister for national defense policy, said Seoul had detected signs of activity that suggested North Korea, which conducted its first two ICBM test launches in July, was preparing to launch another ballistic missile.

Gen. Jang didn’t say what the signs of activity were, nor did he give a time frame for a possible launch. But many experts have been preparing for a weapons test around Sept. 9, when North Korea marks the anniversary of its foundation in 1948.
The assessment was echoed by South Korean intelligence officers, who said North Korea could test launch another ICBM toward the northern Pacific Ocean or a submarine-launched ballistic missile, according to lawmakers who attended a closed-door legislative meeting on Monday.
The Threat From North Korea’s Missiles

The intelligence officers also said North Korea could conduct further nuclear tests at any time, based on construction work on two tunnels at its test site that appear to be near completion, these lawmakers said.

The warnings came as South Korea’s Defense Ministry formally said it would proceed with the temporary deployment of four U.S. missile-defense launchers that have become a political hot potato in recent months.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office in May. His platform included opposing his predecessor’s decision to deploy the missile-defense system, called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, in the country. Thaad, which is designed to protect South Korea from Pyongyang’s missiles, is fiercely opposed by China, which says the system undermines its national security.

Mr. Moon suspended the deployment shortly after the U.S. military installed two of the Thaad battery’s six launchers, which made it operational. But North Korea’s recent string of missile launches and Sunday’s nuclear test have pushed Mr. Moon to move ahead with what he has called the temporary deployment of the four remaining Thaad launchers.

On Monday, the Defense Ministry in Seoul said it completed a small-scale environmental impact assessment, a prerequisite for the deployment, and would push ahead with installation “shortly,” without specifying a date.

Separately, Gen. Jang said the U.S. and South Korea are in talks about deploying an aircraft carrier or stealth bombers to South Korea as part of the response to North Korea’s recent actions.CONTINUE AT SITE

North Korea’s threats against the U.S. now include a tactic long discussed by some experts: an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, triggered by a nuclear weapon that would aim to shut down the U.S. electricity grid.

North Korea’s state news agency made a rare reference to the tactic in a Sunday morning release in which the country said it was able to load a hydrogen bomb onto a long-range missile. The bomb, North Korea said, “is a multifunctional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack.”

The idea of an EMP attack is to detonate a nuclear weapon tens or hundreds of miles above the earth with the aim of knocking out power in much of the U.S. Unlike the U.S. atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, such a weapon wouldn’t directly destroy buildings or kill people. Instead, electromagnetic waves from the nuclear explosion would generate pulses to overwhelm the electric grid and electronic devices in the same way a lightning surge can destroy equipment.

In a worst-case scenario, the outages could last for months, indirectly costing many lives, since hospitals would be without power, emergency services couldn’t function normally, and people could run short of food and water.

Warnings about the threat have percolated for many years, including in a 2008 report commissioned by Congress that warned an EMP attack could bring “widespread and long lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of U.S. society.”

When the U.S. tested a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific in 1962, it resulted in lights burning out in Honolulu, nearly 1,000 miles from the test site. Naturally occurring electromagnetic events on the sun can also disrupt power systems. A 1989 blackout in Quebec came days after powerful explosions on the sun expelled a cloud of charged particles that struck earth’s magnetic field.

Skeptics generally acknowledge that an EMP attack would be possible in theory, but they say the danger is exaggerated because it would be difficult for an enemy such as North Korea to calibrate the attack to deliver maximum damage to the U.S. electrical grid. If a North Korean bomb exploded away from its target location, it might knock out only a few devices or parts of the grid. CONTINUE AT SITE

Thank you for having me here today. I applaud the fact that you invite someone who does not share your enthusiasm for the European Union. Or your European dream, as Euro commissioner Frans Timmermans just called it. To be honest: his dream is my nightmare.

I realize that my views are different from those of the many members of the European establishment in our midst, but I am an optimist.

I believe in a positive future for Europe as a community of independent, sovereign and democratic nations — working together without a supranational political union — a Europe without the European Union.

I believe that true democracy can only exist and flourish within a nation state. National sovereignty combined with domestic culture gives us our identity. As does control over our own borders and budget and the right to decide how to use it ourselves as a nation.

Unfortunately most of our governments have transferred ever more powers to the EU, undermining many important things we Dutch have achieved over the past centuries and hold very dear.

Our forefathers have fought for a democratic Netherlands. That is a Netherlands where the Dutch electorate and nobody else decides on Dutch matters. Democracy means that a people can decide its own legislation.

Democracy equals home rule. But owing to the transfer by our governments of powers to Brussels, the EU institutions and other countries are now deciding on issues which are vital to our nation state: our immigration policy, our monetary policy, our trade policy and many other issues.

A huge part of our legislation has been outsourced to Brussels. Our national parliaments have become implementing bodies of the EU. Many people object to that.

In the 2005 referendum, the Dutch voted against the European Constitution, but a few years later a slightly altered version under a new name was forced down our throats.

Last year, a large majority of the Dutch voted in a referendum against the EU Association Treaty with Ukraine, but the treaty was pushed through anyway. Very few people can still take the EU seriously as a democratic institution after experiencing this.

Another extremely important thing the Dutch have achieved over the past centuries were clear and defined borders. Borders are important. Because they protect us and define who and what we are. Thanks to our governments who gave away sovereignty we are now no longer in charge of our immigration policy and even our own borders.

And the result is devastating.

If you give away the keys of your own house to someone who leaves the doors unlocked you should not be surprised when unwelcome guests force their way in. I believe every nation should be in charge of its own borders and decide themselves who is welcome and who is not. The Netherlands is the home of the Dutch people. It is the only home we have got. And we should regain control over its border and immigration policy.

One of these things we, Dutch, hold dear as well is our national identity. The Dutch have their own identity. And so do the other nations of Europe.

But there is NO single European identity.

The EU is characterized by cultural relativism and enmity towards patriotism. But patriotism is not a dangerous threat, it is something to be proud of.

It means defending a nations sovereignty and independence, and not selling it out in shabby compromises to the EU and its bureaucrats.

As the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said — I quote — “Europe is a community of Christian, free and independent nations. The main danger to Europe’s future comes from the fanatics of internationalism in Brussels. We shall not allow them to force upon us the bitter fruit of their cosmopolitan immigration policy.” End of quote.

I couldn’t agree more.

The European Commission has recently started procedures against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic because they refused to take in immigrants. Two years ago, Mrs Merkel invited millions of immigrants to come to Germany.

A historical mistake. She didn’t just let millions in, her policy encouraged them.