RUTHFULLY YOURS

North Korea test fired yet another missile on Sunday. This time the test did not end in a fiasco. The missile was fired somewhere between 430 to 500 hundred miles, staying aloft for about 30 minutes at an altitude exceeding 1,240 miles, before landing in the Sea of Japan 60 miles south of Russia’s Vladivostok region. It exceeded in distance and altitude an intermediate-range missile that North Korea successfully tested last February. While reportedly not an intercontinental missile, North Korea is demonstrating with this successful test, according to at least one expert, a missile with a range as far as 3700 miles, putting Hawaii potentially at risk. The North Korean regime’s missile program is firing on all cylinders, including the use of mobile land-based and submarine launch platforms. It is only a matter of time before North Korea also conducts another, more powerful nuclear test in its relentless march towards achieving a strategic nuclear deterrence that would provide it with the leverage to extort its neighbors and threaten the U.S. mainland at will.

The White House issued a statement noting the proximity to Russia of the landing of its latest tested missile, and reiterating the U.S.’s firm commitment to protect its interests and those of its allies against North Korea’s provocations: “With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil – in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan – the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased. North Korea has been a flagrant menace for far too long. South Korea and Japan have been watching this situation closely with us. The United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea. Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.”

South Korea’s newly elected President Moon Jae-In, while indicating more receptiveness to diplomatic talks with North Korea than his predecessor, called the missile test-launch a “clear” violation of UN Security Council resolutions, adding that “we should sternly deal with a provocation to prevent North Korea from miscalculating.”

North Korea’s leader Kim Jung-un appears oblivious to such condemnations and rhetorical threats. The latest missile launch was timed to send a clear message to South Korea’s new government, sworn in just days ago, that North Korea would not back down in the face of joint military exercises or other demonstrations of force by the United States, South Korea or their allies. If anything, such demonstrations are having the opposite effect, further convincing Kim Jung-un and his fellow leaders that North Korea’s only path to survival is a nuclear strike capability strong enough to dissuade the U.S. from daring to launch a pre-emptive military strike or invasion.

Sanctions are also clearly not enough to stop the North Korean regime from pursuing its nuclear arms and ballistic missile delivery objectives. Kim Jung-un could care less whether his people starve to death or not, as long as he can control them. North Korea has also proven to be very adept at evading sanctions through front organizations. According to a UN Panel of Experts report issued earlier this year, North Korea has successfully used front companies to obtain access to the international financial system.

ISIS issued a special message to moms in the most recent issue of their multi-language recruiting magazine: Don’t listen to people who say raising kids as pint-sized jihadists is ruining their childhood or trashing their innocence.

The May issue of Rumiyah, published and distributed online in 10 languages including English, emphasized that the “tremendous grace” of giving birth in the Islamic State is “not granted to many other women,” so jihadi moms should “painstakingly endeavor to raise her children in a manner that pleases her Lord and brings benefit to her ummah [Muslim community].”

The article warns of “reckoning and punishment” if a Muslim woman “shows neglect concerning her flock,” starting with Quran and Arabic education and providing a model example as “the uprightness of the children is connected to the uprightness of the mother.”

She’s also supposed to raise her kids, the article states, “so that the worldly life becomes trivial to them and the Hereafter becomes significant to them, with the mother nurturing them upon a difficult life and some aspect of rough living.”

ISIS’ recruitment model has emphasized luring or creating jihadist families so that young children can be raised in the terror organization. The ISIS “cubs” have been featured in gory training videos, including child jihadists hunting down bound prisoners and young kids killing prisoners tied to ruins of carnival games. Many children in liberated Mosul were held out of school for the two-plus years of occupation as parents didn’t want their kids raised in ISIS indoctrination programs, which have included military training and even kids’ apps.

The Rumiyah articles dictates that “the generation of the Khilafah [caliphate] must be raised upon so that it becomes a firm and course generation which life has tested and strengthened, and so it can thereby prepare to bear the trust, take up the banner, and assume authority in the land.”

An ISIS mom “should recognize and take advantage of” her kids being “raised in the home and under the wing of a mujahid father,” it adds.

“So they grow up with their eyes becoming accustomed to seeing weapons and equipment, including rifles, tactical vests, bullets, grenades, and explosive belts. Likewise, watching the mujahidin’s video releases and following their written and recorded news nurtures within the lion cub the love of jihad and the mujahidin and hatred towards their enemies,” ISIS continues. “The mother may hear criticism from some people who would argue that the manner in which she raises her children might kill their childhood and destroy their innocence.”

“…We ask Allah to grant us righteous offspring and to bring forth from us a generation that will wage jihad for His cause and bring victory to His religion.”

The article includes a picture of an armed child about junior high-age with the caption, “A soldier of the Khilafah who was incited to wage jihad by his mother.”

ROME—Europe’s establishment breathed a sigh of relief after the pro-European Union centrist Emmanuel Macron was elected French president this week. But another populist storm is brewing in Italy, where the euroskeptic 5 Star Movement has remained strong.

Fueled by discontent with slow growth, high unemployment and disillusionment with mainstream politicians, 5-Star has won local elections in Rome, Turin and elsewhere, partly on the strength of its leaders’ call for a referendum on Italy’s use of the European single currency.

Pollsters say about 30% of Italian voters support the movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, a level of popularity that has stood firm despite a series of high-profile stumbles, especially by its mayor in Rome. The self-described association of free citizens has replaced the center-left Democratic Party at the top of most polls ahead of national elections to be held by May 2018.

Now, the group that has flouted the rules of the game for establishment parties in Italy is experiencing growing pains as it prepares for the possibility of taking power.

The prospect of Mr. Grillo and his supporters winning and forming a government has made investors nervous and pushed up yields on Italian bonds in recent months. On Friday, the spread between Italian and German 10-year sovereign bond yields was 1.85 percentage points, nearly five times the corresponding spread between French and German bonds.

Mr. Grillo and 5 Star waged a successful campaign to block constitutional changes sought by former Democratic Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, effectively forcing him from office in December. Since then, a caretaker government has run Italy. CONTINUE AT SITE

BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union beat the center-left Social Democrats in the regional election Sunday in Germany’s biggest state, providing a major boost to the German leader ahead of national elections in September.

The center-right Christian Democrats finished ahead of the Social Democrats 33% to 31.5% in Sunday’s state election in North Rhine-Westphalia, according to a projection based on exit polls and early results released by ARD public television.

The result represented a major upset in German politics and underlined Ms. Merkel’s political strength as she prepares to run for a fourth term. North Rhine-Westphalia—whose population of 18 million is more than one-fifth of Germany’s total—has long been a stronghold of the Social Democrats, who have governed in the state for all but five of the last 50 years.
The upstart, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party took 7.4%, meaning it will now have seats in 13 of Germany’s 16 state parliaments. But the party’s hopes of soaring into the double digits in a region with many working-class voters failed to materialize.

The pro-business Free Democratic Party won 12.5% according to the projection, its best-ever result in the state, building momentum ahead of the party’s campaign to try to regain seats in the national parliament in the federal election on Sept. 24.

The campaign in the state turned in part on the record of the Social Democratic premier, Hannelore Kraft, who has governed in partnership with the environmentalist Greens since 2010. Armin Laschet, the Christian Democratic candidate, slammed her performance on the economy and in education. Security was also a major issue, in part because several suspected Islamist extremists, including the Berlin truck attacker Anis Amri, spent time in the state.

But the closely watched vote also sent a message nationwide, showing that despite German discomfort with Ms. Merkel’s acceptance of more than a million refugees and migrants in the last two years, many voters still back her. Of those who voted for the Christian Democrats, 40% said the chancellor played a “very important” role in their decision, according to an Infratest Dimap exit poll. CONTINUE AT SITE

SEOUL—North Korea’s launch on Sunday of its most-sophisticated missile yet offered new clues into how serious the country is in its nuclear ambitions.

In the past three years, North Korea has launched more major missiles than in the three previous decades combined.

That acceleration is one of the most dramatic signs of leader Kim Jong Un’s push to overhaul the country’s weapons program since he took power in late 2011. He has modernized production of nuclear and missile parts, upgraded the program within the military hierarchy and overtly pampered engineers, forcing Western leaders to worry more about Pyongyang’s intentions than ever before.
On Sunday, North Korea launched a newly developed intermediate-range missile, its 10th missile firing this year. Mr. Kim attended the test of the nuclear-capable missile and described it as a “perfect weapon system,” according to a state media report. Initial projections from several experts suggested it would be able to reach U.S. military forces in Guam.

Even apparent failed missile launches, like one that blew up within minutes on April 28, are now seen by independent experts as signs of North Korea’s progress. Learning from those failures would move the regime closer to its ultimate goal of mastering a long-range missile that could threaten the U.S. with nuclear attack.
The Threat From North Korea’s Missiles

VIEW Interactive

For decades, Mr. Kim’s father and grandfather used the country’s missile program to gain leverage in diplomatic talks and revenue from weapon exports. Technological advances came slowly. That changed when Kim Jong Il died and was succeeded by his youngest son, believed to be 33 years old.

The dictator has shown no interest in negotiating with the U.S. about the missile program, and North Korea’s nuclear ambition and skill are advancing much more quickly.

The country is conducting missile tests with the frequency needed to ensure the weapons can be reliably used in conflict. A range of recent breakthroughs has forced the U.S. and its allies to review their missile defenses.

“Kim Jong Un very much wants to reach out and touch the homeland,” Gen. Lori Robinson, head of the U.S. Northern Command, the part of the military responsible for defending the U.S. mainland, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April.

Tackling the threat could become an early point of tension between U.S. President Donald Trump, who is trying to pressure Pyongyang into changing course, and new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who favors diplomacy and economic engagement with North Korea.
In a factory about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital city, dozens of computer-controlled machines, similar to those used by Samsung Electronics Co. to make smartphones, churn out intricate parts that can be used in missiles and nuclear centrifuges, according to photographs released by state media.
In a visit to the same factory in 2013, Mr. Kim angrily demanded that engineers replace old devices for making parts with robots and computer numerical control, a process for high-precision machine tools, according to a state media report at the time. The government has composed songs about CNC machines and put them on postage stamps.

Photos from a return visit by Mr. Kim last August showed CNC machines with bright orange, robotic arms bearing the logo of Swiss engineering company ABB Ltd.

Weapons experts who study satellite images and photos released by North Korea say the newer machines have become ubiquitous in North Korean missile plants. The machines allow faster, more precise manufacturing of parts around the clock, reducing the need to skirt sanctions by importing similar parts. The United Nations bans any imports that could be used in weapons programs.

Weaponry in a military parade in April in Pyongyang to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Mr. Kim, included rocket casings that might have been made by the new CNC machines, missile experts say. North Korea also showed off what appeared to be at least one new long-range missile.

“Basically, they can now produce anything [for missiles] that’s made of metal,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a missile specialist at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, Calif.

A U.N. panel that monitors sanctions on North Korea identified Tengzhou Keyongda CNC Machine Tools Co. of China as a supplier of the new CNC machines.

A sales manager at the company who declined to provide his name says it sent machines worth about $40,000 to North Korea through an intermediary company “two or three years ago.” The person says North Korea tried to buy more machines this year, but the company declined “since relations between the two countries are tense.”

An ABB spokesman says the Zurich company doesn’t sell equipment to North Korea but couldn’t rule out the possibility that some products were resold there. CONTINUE AT SITE

Because the word of a Christian “infidel” is not valid against the word of a Muslim, accusations of blasphemy, often with little or no evidence, routinely lead to the beating, imprisonment, and possible killing of Christians and other minorities every month in Pakistan.

“The available evidence in all these cases suggests that charges were brought as a measure to intimidate and punish members of minority religious communities… hostility towards religious minority groups appeared in many cases to be compounded by personal enmity, professional or economic rivalry or a desire to gain political advantage.” — Amnesty International.

“Iran sentences a 21-year-old man to death for ‘insulting Islam’ … after confessing when police promised he would be pardoned if he came clean.” — Daily Mail.

A few days ago in Pakistan, a Christian pastor who has been “tortured every day in prison” since 2012 when he was first incarcerated, was sentenced to life in prison. Zafar Bhatti, 51, is accused of sending “blasphemous” text messages from his mobile phone; but human rights activists contend that the charge “was fabricated to remove him from his role as a Pastor.” His wife, Nawab Bibi, says:

“Many Muslim people hated how quickly his church was growing; they have taken this action to undermine his work. Yet despite their actions the church grows. I wish our persecutors would see that Christians are not evil creatures. We are human beings created by God the same God that created them although they do not know this yet.”

She adds, “There have been numerous attempts to kill my husband — he is bullied everyday and he is not safe from inmates and prison staff alike.” In 2014, he “narrowly escaped assassination after a rogue prison officer,” Muhammad Yousaf, went on a shooting spree “to kill all inmates accused of blasphemy against Islam.”

Bhatti is one of countless Christian minorities to suffer under Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has helped make that country the fourth-worst nation in the world in which to be Christian.

Asia Bibi, a Christian wife and mother, has been on death row since 2010 on the accusation that she insulted the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code:

“Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Because the word of a Christian “infidel” is not valid against the word of a Muslim, accusations of blasphemy, often with little or no evidence, routinely lead to the beating, imprisonment or killing of Christians and other minorities every month in Pakistan.[1] An Amnesty International report from 1994 summarizes the situation:

Several dozen people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan over the last few years; in all the cases known to Amnesty International, the charges of blasphemy appear to have been arbitrarily brought, founded solely on the individuals’ minority religious beliefs… The available evidence in all these cases suggests that charges were brought as a measure to intimidate and punish members of minority religious communities… hostility towards religious minority groups appeared in many cases to be compounded by personal enmity, professional or economic rivalry or a desire to gain political advantage. As a consequence, Amnesty International has concluded that most of the individuals now facing charges of blasphemy, or convicted on such charges, are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their real or imputed religious beliefs in violation of their right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Other Christians accused of blasphemy never get the chance for even a mock trial and are dealt “justice” at the hands of angry mobs — such as the young Christian couple burned alive on a spurious accusation of blasphemy in November 2014. A report from 2012 found that “Since 1990 alone, fifty-two people have been extra-judicially murdered on charges of blasphemy” in Pakistan.

In fathoming the failure of Europeans to protect their own interests against the onslaught of Islamic jihadism, one is reminded of Ayn Rand’s quotation that “[r]eason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them[.]”

Bruce Bawer, an astute observer of the European scene, wonders how “Marine Le Pen lost in a landslide” given all the jihadist assaults against the French people and the very culture of France. Bawer offers three possibilities that include:

European guilt about past imperial histories and a “need to atone.”
the postmodern belief that “no culture is better than any other – and it’s racist to say otherwise.”
the influence of the mainstream media, which routinely “soft pedals the Islamic roots of terror”
the fact that “some people don’t want to learn the truth”

In the Autumn 2004 issue of the Wilson Quarterly, Christopher Clausen writes that “for many Europeans in the past 20 years, now-distant memories of both world wars have hardened into a self-righteous conviction that peace outweighs any value that might conflict with it, almost regardless of the threat or provocation.”

Consequently, there is an exquisite disregard in deliberately ignoring the “grim possibility that their children and grandchildren might end up by living under shariah law, if, in fact, they are allowed to live at all.” Consider that London presently has 100 sharia courts that are “based on the rejection of the inviolability of human rights: the values of freedom and equality that are the basis of English Common Law.” Moreover, “a third of UK Muslims do not feel ‘part of British culture.'”

As further evidence of the ultimate intent of Islamists, Saudi religious scholars include the following in the nine-volume English translation of the Quran.

[D]iscard (all) the obligations (covenants, etc.) … to fight against all the Mushrikun as well as against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizya (a tax levied on the non-Muslims who do not embrace Islam and are under the protection of an Islamic government) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.

As Nonie Darwish has pointed out, 64% of the Quran is devoted to denigrating commentary about kafirs, or non-Muslims.

And yet, while the above quoted words of the Quran should “forever silence any fantasies regarding Islam’s peaceful disposition toward the non-Muslim,” the West continues to avoid the obvious. But as Ayn Rand has noted, “[y]ou can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

Hence, France continues to decompose in front of our eyes. Yves Mamou writes that “everything that represents state institutions … is now subjected to violence based on essentially sectarian and sometimes ethnic excesses, fueled by an incredible hatred of our country[.]” Ultimately, France “and all of European society must assimilate Islamic social norms, not the other way around.”

Newly elected President Macron symbolizes the multicultural manifesto when he maintains that “French culture doesn’t exist in and of itself; there is no such thing as a single French culture. There is culture in France and it is diverse and multiple.” Is it then inevitable that “France is going to have to live with terrorism,” as former prime minister Manuel Valls proclaimed?

Coupled with the ongoing Islamic push is the leftist destructive bent. Thus, “Belgium is unique” in that it is the “first nation blending appeasement to Islam and a suicidal form of nihilism[.]” It is not coincidental that in Belgium, “euthanasia is out of control.” With a record number of people killed by lethal injection, it is equally disturbing that “Belgium is the country with the highest per capita number of volunteers for the Caliphate.”