RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.aol.com/north-korea-fires-projectile-sea-230129296-064556810.html

North Korea fired a short-range missile into the sea early Tuesday, its neighboring countries said, in the latest weapon tests by North Korea that has raised questions about the sincerity of its recent offer for talks with South Korea.

In an emergency National Security Council meeting, the South Korean government expressed regret over what it called “a short-range missile launch” by the North. South Korea’s military earlier said the object fired from North Korea’s mountainous northern Jagang province flew toward the waters off the North’s eastern coast.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement the launch doesn’t pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies. But it said the missile launch “highlights the destabilizing impact of (North Korea’s) illicit weapons program” and that the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan “remains ironclad.”

Details of the launch were being analyzed by South Korean and U.S. authorities. But Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said North Korea fired “what could be a ballistic missile” and that his government stepped up its vigilance and surveillance.

A ballistic missile launch would violate a U.N. Security Council ban on North Korean ballistic activities, but the council typically doesn’t impose new sanctions on North Korea for launches of short-range weapons.

Tests of ballistic and cruise missiles earlier this month were North Korea’s first such launches in six months and displayed its ability to attack targets in South Korea and Japan, both key U.S. allies where a total of 80,000 American troops are stationed.

https://www.aol.com/news/taliban-issue-no-shave-order-191041723-204954563.html

The Taliban on Monday banned barbershops in a southern Afghanistan province from shaving or trimming beards, claiming their edict is in line with Shariah, or Islamic, law.

The order in Helmand province was issued by the provincial Taliban government’s vice and virtue department to barbers in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

“Since I have heard (about the ban on trimming beards) I am heart broken,” said Bilal Ahmad, a Lashkar Gah resident. “This is the city and everyone follows a way of living, so they have to be left alone to do whatever they want.” 

During their previous rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban adhered to a harsh interpretation of Islam. Since overrunning Kabul on Aug. 15 and again taking control of the country, the world has been watching to see whether they will re-create their strict governance of the late 1990s.

Some indication came on Saturday, when Taliban fighters killed four alleged kidnappers and later hung their bodies in the public squares of the western city of Herat.

“If anyone violates the rule (they) will be punished and no one has a right to complain,” said the order issued to the barbers. It wasn’t immediately clear what penalties the barbers could face if they don’t adhere to the no shaving or trimming rule.

tps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17800/persecution-of-christians-august

After sexually harassing a Christian sanitation worker, a Muslim supervisor threatened to file blasphemy charges — which carry a maximum death penalty — against her unless she withdraws her complaints against him.” — Morning Star News, August 31, 2021, Pakistan.
“Most sanitation workers in Pakistan are Christian…. Christian sanitation workers are routinely called derogatory terms… and face sexual harassment, discrimination, nonpayment of salaries, irregular work contracts and extortion by senior officers….” — Morning Star News, August 31, 2021, Pakistan.
“[T]he Taliban are going door-to-door in Afghanistan, executing Christians on the spot…. Taliban militants are even pulling people off public transport and killing them on the spot if they’re Christians…. The Taliban have spies and informants everywhere.” — Religion News Service, August 17, 2021, Afghanistan.
“Women who disappear and are never recovered must live an unimaginable nightmare. The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt. There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or… bribed into silence.” — Coptic Solidarity, 2020, Egypt.
Muslims murdered a man for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity by burying him alive. — Morning Star News, August 26, 2021, Uganda.
“What you have witnessed happening to your husband today is for the disobedience of your husband not heeding the advice given by the family that he should return to Islam, since Islam cannot tolerate infidels.” According to report, “Police have taken no action regarding the killing.” — Morning Star News, August 26, 2021, Uganda.
“Islam is now invading South Sudan. They’re saying South Sudan is a strategic place and… the gate[way] to Africa [so that] Islam can go to all of Africa.” — Local Christian, Vatican News, August 19, 2021, South Sudan.

Editor’s note: The publication of this report marks the tenth anniversary of the “Persecution of Christians” monthly series, which Gatestone began to publish a decade ago, starting with the month of August 2011. Scroll to the bottom of this report to access the previous 119 reports, covering every month between August 2011 and now.

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of August 2021:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/09/24/iran-cements-its-advantage-while-biden-sleeps/

Six months into President Joe Biden’s term, several sanctions against Iran were lifted and new ones imposed as the administration seeks to cajole Iran back to the negotiating table over their nuclear capacity. While the messaging from Washington, and the signaling from Tehran, was mixed, one thing was clear this past July in the southwestern city of Ahvaz: people were thirsty. On July 15, after weeks of irregular access to water and periods of several hours with no water, a spontaneous protest emerged.

Desperate, angry citizens took to the streets and blocked roads as the growing service shortages plaguing Iran reached a breaking point. Dubbed the Uprising of the Thirsty, within days the protests were province-wide then soon spread around the country and into Tehran. Citizens blamed the government, and widespread corruption, for water and power shortages, and in some instances chanted “Death to the dictator.”

Some reports indicate the regime was taken aback by the speed at which the protests spread, the biggest in the capital since after the mistaken downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January 2020. Security forces killed protesters in cities near Ahvaz and the government throttled Internet service to limit organizers’ ability. Given the frequency of unrest in the past several years, the regime by now has a well-worn playbook, much of it dedicated to suppressing demonstrators with deadly force.

So, despite the protests’ organic and widespread nature, there will be no revolution this year. Still, an important evolution has taken place in Iran in 2021. Conventional wisdom has for years suggested that relief from Western sanctions is a drastic and urgent need for the regime. But a more careful read of their actions in 2021 suggests relief as maybe the third or fourth priority of the government.

https://www.jns.org/un-conference-highlights-houthi-persecution-of-minority-populations-in-yemen/

Sponsored by the European Organizations Union for Peace in Yemen and the Yemeni Coalition of Independent Women, it took place on the anniversary of the Houthi takeover of the country and looked specifically at the mistreatment of Jews, Baha’is and women.

 A conference spotlighting the oppression of Yemen’s minorities by the Iranian-sponsored Houthi rebels occurred Monday on the sidelines of the 48th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, which takes place from Sept. 13 to Oct. 8.

The conference, sponsored by the European Organizations Union for Peace in Yemen and the Yemeni Coalition of Independent Women, took place on the anniversary of the Houthi takeover of the country (Sept. 21, 2014) and looked specifically at Houthi mistreatment of Jews, Baha’is and women.

The United Nations considers war-torn Yemen the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis” with 20.7 million people, or 66 percent of the population, requiring humanitarian assistance, according to a U.N. report released in February. Amid the war, supply shortages and natural disasters that have affected all Yemenis, minorities and women have endured double torment due to persecution by the Houthis, an armed Shi’ite movement that controls most of Yemen.

Speaking at the conference, former U.S. Deputy Envoy to Combat Antisemitism under the Trump administration, Ellie Cohanim, noted the deeply anti-Semitic, Nazi-like nature of the Houthis.

“We have to be very careful when making any comparisons with the Nazis,” she explained. “But incredibly enough, there is much video evidence which has surfaced online over the years with the Houthis mimicking the Nazis, and expressing anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric during their ceremonies, military recruitments and other large gatherings, including videos in which the Houthi militia performed the Nazi salute.’ ”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/merkel-germany-federal-parliamentary-election-race-coalition-scholz-11632426273?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Who will replace Germany’s eternal chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Sunday’s election? None of the six parties in the Bundestag will capture a majority, and so it will be on to Act II: coalition-building, which may take weeks, even months. But it hardly matters whom the Parliament finally anoints. The voters will have affirmed tepid centrism.

That isn’t the Germany of the 20th century. “Centrists” the Kaiser and Führer were not; they wanted to fuse Europe into a German fiefdom. Such types are ancient history.

Germany’s new players are essentially unknown in the U.S. Leading in the polls is the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. Behind him trots Armin Laschet, the equally uninspiring candidate of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats. He is trailed by the youngish Annalena Baerbock of the semi-left Greens and Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats. Mr. Lindner, an old-style liberal, speaks for them all: “We secure the country’s center.”

Each candidate could win a place at the cabinet table. Whatever the winner’s political coloration, the government will be gray. That is a blessing—or curse—of multiparty government. Two-party systems like America’s and Britain’s tend to polarize. Coalitions of the many gravitate toward the middle; otherwise the parties couldn’t govern together.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17763/turkey-nato-russia-taliban

Around the Taliban, and in a bizarre combination of convergence of interests and ideological kinship, a new anti-Western circle is evolving, including a willing NATO member state…. anti-Western sentiments are bringing together these regional powers, who are now courting Afghanistan’s radical rulers.

The hard lesson learned from relying on an “ally” for critical production, then needing to reshore that capability as politics change, ultimately will cost U.S. taxpayers between $500 million and $600 million in nonrecurring engineering costs, according to Ellen Lord, the previous Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Afghan drama will spur a number of anti-Western alliances based on different anti-Western calculations. Proof? Just look at the names of the countries on Taliban’s invitation list for its birthday party.

The Taliban, since its founding in 1994, has been using the most notorious shariah-based law enforcement, including beheadings, stoning women to death, forcing burqas on women, killing girls who are students, gang-raping, locking women in their homes and various other medieval practices. Now, for the first time in NATO’s history, a member nation’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said that the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam does not contradict Turkey’s.

A love affair with Islam, in fact, seems to be blossoming. At the end of August, the Taliban asked Turkey for technical support to run Kabul’s airport. Pro-Hamas, Islamist allies Turkey and Qatar have since been discussing with the Taliban conditions for reopening the Hamid Karzai Airport; only the security issue of technicians, private companies and security staff who will be running the airport remains a concern. On September 2, Turkey said it was evaluating proposals from the Taliban and others for the safe operation of Kabul’s airport after the radical group’s return to power in Afghanistan.

“We have held our first talks with the Taliban, which lasted three and a half hours,” Erdoğan told reporters August 27. “If necessary, we will have the opportunity to hold such talks again.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also mentioned on September 6 that Turkey was in “direct talks” with the Taliban concerning the future of Afghanistan. “After all,” the minister said, “It would be wrong for Turkey to completely pull out of Afghanistan.”

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/09/22/the-problem-with-canada-n1480521

The results of the recent and utterly unnecessary Canadian election, called two years before the expiry of a four-year term and returning Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to the same minority government status as before, were not unexpected. Indeed, they were graven in stone—a tombstone, I’m tempted to say.

Although the slogan “the natural governing party” has been applied to the Liberals since the lengthy administrations of William Lyon Mackenzie King, there have been thirteen Conservative prime ministers since the nation’s founding, including the architect of Confederation, John A. Macdonald. Nonetheless, Canada is no longer a conservative country. The one party true to conservative precepts and practices—belief in personal responsibility, freedom of choice, low taxes, small government, freedom of expression, a balanced budget, border integrity, energy self-sufficiency, and more—the People’s Party of Canada led by the principled Max Bernier finished out of the running—a scathing judgment on an anemic and ungrateful country. 

In fact, according to Justin Trudeau, Canada has no “core identity,” and he is probably right. Given a reasonably affluent electorate having taken its freedoms and privileges for granted and growing increasingly apathetic; a vote-rich portion of the country bought off by transfer payments from Western Canada, principally Alberta, to the Eastern provinces, primarily Quebec and the Maritimes; a species of internal balkanization owing to massive immigration; and the socialist march through the institutions, Canada’s traditional coherence and national character—with the exception of irridentist Quebec that never regarded itself as part of the Confederation—have undergone a sea-change. The country I once knew is no longer recognizable.

A political, social, and cultural upheaval has established a new and historically unprecedented dispensation. With few exceptions, our leadership, provincial as well as federal, has sold its stewardship for a mess of pottage. The electorate has been suborned by bribes—that is, government largesse sourced from foreign borrowing, the minting of fiat currency, and subventions gouged from the public’s own tax payments. Citizens have succumbed to the temptation of ethnic and sectorial advantages at the cost of national unity. And over the last years, the nation could not resist the glamor of a dynastic name and the Teflon superficiality of an incumbent prime minister.

We were—and are—wrong. A shallow, corrupt, and clapter politician, Justin Trudeau is not and never was prime ministerial material. There is nothing genuine or praiseworthy about this latest Trudeau iteration, despite the puffery of a battery of stringer journalists, as evidenced, for example, in a sycophantic piece by Jonathan Kay in Canada’s leftist literary journal The Walrus, painfully titled “The Justin Trudeau I Can’t Forget.” Even the presumably wise and pensive Conrad Black made a substantial donation to the Liberal Party in 2015 and extolled Trudeau rather extravagantly—”flexible in public finance…a very alluring personality, a quick intelligence and an apparently reasonable combination of principle and openness”—before changing his solemn opinion rather dramatically.