RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sanctions-were-supposed-to-cripple-north-koreas-economy-theyre-not-working-11551116032

The U.S. has been leading a world-wide campaign to pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal through an increasingly stringent sanctions regime. Available evidence suggests it’s not working.

Economic indicators show day-to-day commerce in the country has remained resilient. And many residents, having lived through much harsher conditions in the 1990s, appear to be adapting as market forces take deeper root, according to three dozen defectors, humanitarian workers, government officials and other visitors interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The lack of impact is making things tricky for Donald Trump as he heads to this week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi. The U.S. wants Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear weapons and missile programs while the two sides continue far-reaching talks on denuclearization.

Tougher sanctions, including new restrictions on foreign trade approved in 2016 and 2017, have caused North Korea some pain, depriving the regime and elites of revenue from commerce with other countries, including China.

In other ways, North Korea’s economy appears to be holding up well. Rice prices have remained stable, and gasoline prices, which rose after sanctions were tightened, have fallen significantly from highs in the fall of 2017.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-france-popular-support-for-yellow-vests-cools-off-11551124011

The French public has begun to turn against the yellow-vest movement, according to a new poll, in a fresh sign of relief for President Emmanuel Macron.

The yellow-vest demonstrations began in November to protest proposed increases in fuel taxes before quickly becoming a rallying cry against Mr. Macron and his pro-business agenda. The yellow vests, or “gilets jaunes,” named after the reflective safety vests worn by participants, initially won the support of more than three quarters of the population, who backed some of the protesters’ many demands.

But on Monday Odoxa, an independent French polling agency, published a poll in which 55% of the 1,004 people surveyed said they wanted the protests to stop. That is the first time since the start of the movement that a clear majority has opposed the protesters. The poll was conducted online on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21.

In an Oxoda poll last month, 49% of respondents reported wanting demonstrations to end.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13794/china-militarization

The People’s Liberation Army is arming fast, and that development is triggering alarm. Beijing has always claimed its military is for defensive purposes only, but no country threatens territory under China’s control. The buildup, therefore, looks like preparation for aggression.

Chinese leaders — not just Xi Jinping — believe their domains should be far larger than they are today. The concern is that, acting on their own rhetoric, they will use shiny new weapons to grab territory and occupy, to the exclusion of others, international water and airspace.

Moreover, in the 1930s the media publicized the idea that Japan was being surrounded by hostile powers that wished to prevent its rise. Eri Hotta in Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy writes that the Japanese “talked themselves into believing that they were victims of circumstances rather than aggressors.” That is exactly what the Chinese are doing at this moment.

Unfortunately, this tragic pattern is evident today in a Beijing where Chinese, wearing stars on their shoulders, look as if they want to repeat one of the worst mistakes of the last century.

“Be ready for battle.” That’s how the South China Morning Post, the Hong Kong newspaper that increasingly reflects the Communist Party line, summarized Xi Jinping’s first order this year to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Xi, in his own words, which were broadcasted nationwide, demanded this: “prepare for a comprehensive military struggle from a new starting point.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/zimbabwe-people-fear-government-military-violent-suppression-protesters/

History teaches that things may get worse in both countries before they get better.

This weekend’s news that protesters were gunned down at Venezuela’s border while pro-regime thugs burned trucks filled with food and medicine demonstrated just how vicious Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship is. But those who wonder how long he can hold on to power while his nation slowly starves might want to visit Zimbabwe, as I did last month, for a sobering lesson.

Robert Mugabe became the president of Zimbabwe in April 1980, back when Jimmy Carter was still president. Within two years he had deployed his infamous North Korea–trained Fifth Brigade against minority tribes in Matabeleland in a campaign of deliberate killing and starvation. The organization Genocide Watch estimated that 20,000 people were ultimately killed.

Mugabe would later launch an insane seizure of white-owned farms. That led to widespread food shortages and a destructive hyperinflation that resulted in almost-worthless 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar notes in circulation.

But henchmen from the ruling party, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), violently tamped down protests, and he ruled until November 2017, when a clique of his own generals worried that his wife would replace him overthrew the 94-year-old dictator in a coup. Since then, former minister of defense and current president Emmerson Mnangagwa has proclaimed that his country is “open for business,” when in reality the regime’s slogan should be “The new boss is just like the old boss.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/maduro-thugs-set-fire-to-aid-trucks-as-four-protesters-dead-in-border-clashes/

The chaotic and confused situation on the border between Venezuela and Colombia erupted in more violence as troops loyal to President Nicolas Maduro clashed with protesters resulting in at least four dead and dozens injured.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido led hundreds of protesters in an effort to escort aid trucks through the cordon of soldiers, but they were turned back by tear gas. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers then set fire to several aid trucks filled with desperately needed food for the populace.Guaido will meet with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence tomorrow and other regional leaders to discuss possible “multilateral action” against Venezuela.Senator Marco Rubio said that “the actions of President Nicolás Maduro’s regime on Saturday had ‘opened the door to various potential multilateral actions not on the table just 24 hours ago.'”

“Three trucks of aid caught fire as they approached the first border checkpoints at the Santander and Simón Bolivar bridges connecting Venezuela to Colombia. It is not clear how those fires were started.There were injuries on both sides of the crossing, with Colombian authorities reporting at least 285 wounded.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272890/preventing-next-bio-terror-attack-stephen-brown

There are perhaps few weapons in existence that could cause more confusion, sickness and death in a society, undermining its very foundations, than biological ones used by terrorists. (One only has to remember the fear caused by only a small number of ‘anthrax letters’ in the weeks after 9/11.)

“Biological weapons are unique in their invisibility and their delayed effect,” wrote Stefan Riedel, a doctor, in an article on biological warfare.

A biowarfare attack would not only cause “death in a large number of victims and a paralyzing uncertainty,” Riedel also claims: “It’s goal is disruption of social and economic activity, the breakdown of government authority, and impairment of military responses.”

It is for these reasons, among others, that the United States is helping construct a safe storage facility, through its Defence Threat Reduction Agency, for Kenya’s Medical Research Institute in Kisumu City. America is paying 90 per cent of the costs.

Kenya has “multiple biological organisms” in the institute, which pose “a great threat to the community” if released accidentally or on purpose. Overall, a 2015 survey found that “Kenya stores at least 16 dangerous pathogens.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272941/uk-state-hate-report-ignores-leftist-hate-paula-boddington

The organization Hope Not Hate was founded in the UK in 2004 ‘to provide a positive antidote to the politics of hate’, in its own words. On February 18th it released its annual ‘State of Hate’ Report, described as a ‘guide to what the far right has been up to’. It is uncertain why the far left is excluded from the group’s investigation of ‘hate’; indeed, the criteria for inclusion or exclusion of the groups and individuals who figure in this report is unclear. A rag-bag of disparate groups and individuals are included, ranging from men with gripes about feminism, Nazi Satanists, and legally registered political parties.

Hope Not Hate is an influential group, frequently advising the media including TV programs, with its research often cited by academics who may then advise governments, regulators and social media companies. The ‘State of Hate’ report has had considerable media coverage. It paints a gloomy portrait of a rudderless, angry, far right which are allegedly on the rise in the UK, fueled by disenchantment with politics, and where an anti-Muslim rhetoric has replaced an anti-immigrant rhetoric.

But conducting this kind of social research is extremely complex and difficult. It’s hard enough to get a good picture of outward behavior, let alone to determine people’s true motivation and attitudes. Hope Not Hate’s report is methodologically limited and conceptually flawed, yet they exercise no caution in attributing ‘hate’ to thousands upon thousands of individuals.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13757/iran-persecution-christians

“We created a people’s army to defend the country and also help in emergencies, but it turned into a monster.” — Mohsen Sazegara, on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which he helped establish.

Under international law, the Iranian government has an obligation to respect freedom of religion. Yet, while the rights of Christians are being violated in Iran at an unprecedented level, how long will the international community remain silent?

What will it take for these endlessly preening moralists to act against those human rights violations?

The persecution of Christians in Iran in 2018 increased to a new level, according to an in-depth report jointly released by Open Doors, Middle East Concern, Article 18, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide.”The end of 2018 saw an unprecedented wave of raids on private house gatherings, leading to a large number of arrests. Many Christians received prison sentences, or had sentences upheld by the Court of Appeal,” noted the report.Despite this roaring abuse, and violations and attacks against Christians being significantly ratcheted up, the international community continues to label the Iranian government, run by President Hassan Rouhani, as “moderate.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13789/putin-iran-deception

“Talk to Iran” was tried by successive US administrations, starting with Jimmy Carter’s. In 1980, the mullahs signed an accord with Carter not to seize any more American hostages in exchange for unfreezing Iranian assets blocked by Washington after the 1979 capture of the US Embassy in Tehran. Yet, to this day, Iran has always held American hostages, and today is holding 14.

The Saudis helped Iran organize the Islamic Summit in Tehran, hoping to persuade the mullahs to become part of the normal world. They coordinated oil policies and, as a further sign of goodwill, granted Iran an unprecedented Hajj quota. The reward was the Khomeinist attack on Khobar and, later, the ransacking of the Saudi Embassy and consulates in Iran.

Now here is a scoop: Russia is about to discover the duplicity that has marked the mullahs’ diplomacy for four decades. The Caspian Sea Legal Status Convention was just a piece of paper, signed to please Putin, who now can join the club of those deceived by the mullahs. There he would find Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, an enthusiastic novice.

“Talk to Iran!” This is the advice some Western politicians have bandied around since 1979, when the mullahs seized power in Tehran. The 40th anniversary of the Khomeinist regime has provided fresh opportunity for that slogan to be promoted again in the European Union and the United States.The argument is that the alternative to “talk to Iran” is war, something which few would desire. It is also claimed that “talk to Iran” helps a never-defined “moderate reformist faction” to defeat “hardliners” in the power struggle that has raged in the Islamic Republic from the start.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13771/france-muslims-secular-state

“If your synagogue or Jewish cemetery needs someone to stand guard, count me in. Islam requires it.” — Tayyib Rashib, former US Marine, in a tweet.

In late April 2018, thirty imams signed an open letter in the French newspaper Le Monde, in which they bitterly attacked the “confiscation of our religion by criminals” and said “ignorant, disturbed and idle” young people had become easy prey for dangerous ideologues.

Secularism is not an opinion among others, but rather the freedom to have an opinion. It is not a belief, but rather the principle authorizing all beliefs, providing they respect the principles of freedom of conscience and equal rights.

For this reason, it is neither pro- nor anti-religious.Islam has a history largely forgotten today: Schools seem largely to ignore or suppress topics related to Western-Islamic, Indian or Middle Eastern rivalries or contacts. To many modern Westerners, Islam seems to have popped up out of nowhere, from across the Mediterranean.One feature of those discarded histories is that, as Europe moved through the late Middle Ages on towards the eighteenth century, Western societies were in many ways not greatly different from those in the Islamic world.

Western laws on crime, male-female relations, education, diplomacy, slavery, punishment, the upbringing of children, and so on, were not entirely remote from those in the Muslim world. While Christians were monogamous and Muslims practised polygamy and slave concubinage, sexual relations were monitored for impropriety and punishments for extra-marital affairs were severe. The use of execution as a punishment for a range of crimes was common in both polities. What education there was tended to come from religious schooling. The long-lasting Islamic slave trade across the Sahara was eventually matched by the Transatlantic trade from Africa into North America. Western distaste for Islam was for the most part expressed in theological terms, just as Muslim distaste for Christianity seemed a mirror image of that. Both Christians and Muslims mistreated Jews, Christians more harshly on the whole. The Holocaust did not happen because of Islamic anti-Semitism.