RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13157/north-korea-space-program

“Even though the US and its allies try to block our space development, our aerospace scientists will conquer space.” — Hyon Kwang-il, director of the scientific research department of North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration.

Such statements made all the more chilling North Korea’s 2016 launch of the Unha-3 rocket, with the capability of carrying satellites into space, its July 4 and July 28, 2017 test-launches of the Hwasong-14 ICBM and its November 28, 2017 test-launch of the Hwasong-15 ICBM, which reportedly has a maximum range that would allow it to hit anywhere in the United States.

If North Korea were able to develop the capability to damage or destroy US satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), it would be a major achievement for the country and pose a debilitating threat to space security.

Although North Korea, like other countries, claims that its space program is for civilian, rather than military, purposes, there is good reason to suspect that this is not quite what is going on, and that its government will simply use these capabilities to continue developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of carrying nuclear warheads, to continue threatening global security. North Korea, like other countries, is probably planning to use its space program to militarize and weaponize the realm of space itself.

It is in this context that North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-5 satellite, whose imminent launch was first reported in December 2017, needs to be viewed. The report did not come as a surprise, particularly as two months earlier, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Kim In-Ryong, told the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space about his country’s five-year plan, from 2016 through 2020, to develop “practical satellites that can contribute to the economic development and improvement of the people’s living.” As Fox News reported, however, “…many U.N. members, including the U.S., fear that North Korea’s space program is actually a cover for its weapons program.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13161/grooming-gangs-britain

Although Muslim men are no different from the rest of us, nevertheless, all the rules governing sexuality may be easily found in Shari’a law and enshrined in the judicial systems of more than one Islamic country in the present day. The result is the perpetuation of attitudes towards women that often appear to debase them and allow men to treat them with contempt.

As often cruelty to women happens not only behind closed doors, but in the public square, we can only guess how this display affects both women and men. Sons see how their mothers are treated; this too doubtless informs their behaviour.

It is important not to assume that the members of British grooming gangs consider themselves jihadis entitled to capture non-Muslim girls. They do not even appear at all pious. But knowledge of such practices is likely to have some impact on Muslims coming from countries where some form of slavery or indentured servitude still exists.

Sadly, in the case of Britain’s grooming gangs, religious ideology does not play a role in forbidding child sexual grooming. It is important to examine just how crucial a factor this seems to have been in community silence about them.

Men, after a certain age — as nature seems to have intended to preserve the human race — are often sexually attracted to women. Women, similarly, are often sexually attracted to men, even if many cultures try to keep that proclivity a closely-guarded secret.

Different cultures handle human sexuality in different ways, presumably to avoid the potential social disruption it could create. This control has traditionally been affected by religious doctrines, laws, and patriarchal priests, ministers, rabbis, muftis and other clergy. In the West, women’s dress, behaviour, and rights to autonomy have been freed from religious control only in the 20th and 21st centuries, with the rise of the suffragettes, feminism and the availability of safe contraception.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-and-the-saudis-1540159637

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has hurt itself badly with the killing of journalist Jamal Khoshoggi, and its serial explanations are compounding the damage. President Trump will lose control of the Saudi-U.S. relationship if he doesn’t speak truth to these Saudi abuses and to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old power in front of the throne.

The most complete Saudi statement, issued late Friday night, at least admits that Khoshoggi was killed in its Istanbul consulate at the hands of Saudi agents. But the story that Khoshoggi was killed in a “fight and a quarrel” isn’t credible on its face. “The brawl aggravated to lead to his death and their attempt to conceal and cover what happened,” said the Saudi statement. That must have been some lopsided “brawl” with a 59-year-old journalist confronting multiple security agents, as if he were Liam Neeson in “Taken.”

The story is contradicted by information leaked by Turkish officials who say Khoshoggi was killed quickly and dismembered on the scene. The Saudis still haven’t produced Khoshoggi’s body, or provided more details of precisely how or when he died.

The “fight” story also conveniently lays blame on lower-ranking officials while effectively absolving members of the royal family, especially the Crown Prince known as MBS. The Saudis say they’ve arrested 18 officials and sacked five others. Several are part of MBS’s inner circle, and it’s unlikely they would have acted without at least the tacit assent of the Crown Prince. Khoshoggi, who had a wide following in the Middle East, had criticized the Crown Prince for his authoritarian tactics in trying to reform the Kingdom.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/jamal-khashoggi-killing-saudi-arabia-lies/

Nineteen days after Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, the Saudi regime has at last acknowledged the obvious, that Khashoggi is dead. After first insisting that he had left the consulate of his own accord despite video evidence to the contrary, and then slamming the allegations of his murder as “baseless” and threatening oil sanctions against those claiming otherwise, the kingdom has finally settled on its official story: Khashoggi was inadvertently killed inside the consulate during a fistfight that just happened to break out in the midst of an otherwise standard meeting with Saudi intelligence officials. The regime has made a show of dismissing and arresting several officials it says were rogues, and attributes responsibility for the killing to them only.

As alibis go, this barely qualifies. It is a wildly implausible story clearly designed to absolve Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of responsibility of the murder and therefore leave open the way for continued close relations with the United States. President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo seem inclined to suspend disbelief, which would be a serious mistake. The situation demands a tougher, less credulous approach.

The Saudi explanation has changed enough times to give the impression that the kingdom was trying on different hats to see which might fit. There is convincing evidence that Khashoggi’s killing was the result of a premeditated operation carried out with bin Salman’s support. Turkish intelligence has alluded to a recording of the killing not released to the public, but thanks to video surveillance, the world knows for certain that a group of Saudi musclemen flew into Istanbul and entered the consulate hours before Khashoggi arrived. Several of these men are members of bin Salman’s inner circle; one, since dismissed from his post, is among the crown prince’s closest advisers. Very little happens in Saudi Arabia without bin Salman’s foreknowledge and approval, so the notion that he would be so unaware of his inner circle’s activities regarding one of the regime’s highest-profile international critics is laughable.