RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the latest push to stop North Korea’s rogue nuclear and missile programs, the United Nations Security Council on March 2 passed a sanctions resolution widely hailed as the toughest in decades. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said “this resolution is so comprehensive, there are many provisions that leave no gap, no window.” But when it comes to North Korea’s merchant shipping ventures, these sanctions are a sieve.

True, the North Korean ships specifically blacklisted by the U.N. currently appear restricted in their movements, clustered around North Korea. But the blacklist omits more than half of the country’s relevant fleet.

Setting aside North Korean ships operating under foreign flags of convenience, there are more than 100 active ships flagged to North Korea, in a fleet regularly replenished by second-hand vessels, according to a report last year by the U.N.’s own panel of experts on North Korea sanctions. Currently the U.N. has blacklisted a total of 27 North Korea-linked ships. The U.S. has blacklisted 38 (including five that appear to have been scrapped).

Among the vessels excluded from either blacklist are three small general-cargo ships, all flagged to North Korea—the Deniz, the Shaima and the Yekta—that have been plying the Persian Gulf for roughly a year, making port calls at Iran. Two of these ships are registered in Dubai and one—the Deniz—in care of a company in Iran, according to information from maritime databases including Lloyd’s and Equasis.
The North Korean cargo vessel Jin Teng docks at Subic Bay, in Zambales province, northwest of Manila, Philippines on March 4. ENLARGE
The North Korean cargo vessel Jin Teng docks at Subic Bay, in Zambales province, northwest of Manila, Philippines on March 4. Photo: Associated Press

All three share intriguing common features. They were renamed and reflagged to North Korea within the past 18 months. The Deniz was reflagged from Japan, the Shaima and Yekta from Mongolia—which North Korea has used as a flag of convenience. The ships can be identified by their hull numbers, known as IMO numbers, issued under the authority of the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization. Attempts to contact their owners were unsuccessful.

Since March 2015, the Deniz has made at least 10 calls at Iran, including at least four this year, shuttling among Turkey, Kuwait and Iran’s Bushehr port and Kharg and Sarooj terminals. According to Equasis, the Deniz’s registered owner since February 2015 is H. Khedri—or Hadri Khedri, according to the IMO’s shipping-company database—with an address for Siri Maritime Services in Tehran. The Yekta and the Shaima have been making runs between Dubai and the Iranian port of Abadan, which the Yekta visited as recently as April 5. CONTINUE AT SITE

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Tuesday that the biggest military contract in Australia’s history, a $40 billion tender to build 12 submarines, will go to a French naval contractor. That’s a defeat for Japan’s bid, and with it a lost opportunity to deepen cooperation among the leading Pacific democracies facing China’s rising military.

Mr. Turnbull said he based his decision on an “unequivocal” recommendation from defense officials “that the French offer represented the capabilities best able to meet Australia’s unique needs,” including the imperative to operate across long distances. France’s state-owned DCNS will build a 4,500-ton diesel-electric version of its existing 5,000-ton Barracuda nuclear-powered sub, including a quiet pump-jet propulsion system rather than a traditional propeller.

As important, especially with national elections looming in July, is what’s in it for domestic labor. Mr. Turnbull promises “Australian workers building Australian submarines with Australian steel,” especially in swing districts facing auto-factory closures amid state subsidy cuts. Unions have been on edge since then-Defense Minister David Johnston said in 2014 he couldn’t trust state-owned shipbuilder ASC “to build a canoe.” Hence the need for foreign bids.

But all bidders agreed to build in Australia, so that doesn’t account for France’s win over Japan, which offered a version of its sophisticated 4,000-ton Soryu sub built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Australian sources say Japan’s problems ranged from insufficient crew space in its design to inexperience among executives and officials in exporting complex military technology, as Tokyo banned such exports until two years ago.

The most significant influence may have been China, Australia’s largest trading partner, which openly campaigned against Japan’s bid. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned his Australian counterpart in February to remember World War II and “consider the feelings of Asian countries,” arguing that Japan’s military-export ambitions represent a failure to “uphold its pacifist constitution.” CONTINUE AT SITE

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

Nice try, Mr Corbyn, but the “19th century rabbi” you cite with such apparent authority in your so obviously barbed Pesach message to Anglo-Jewry was not called Joseph Morris.
As you see here, he was called Morris Joseph.

The Samaritan incident reveals as well how the Palestinian Authority (PA) treats religious minorities in the Palestinian territories. The tiny community of Samaritans in the West Bank now faces a tough choice: continue living with the Palestinian Authority and accept its intimidation, or relocate to a safer locale.

In yet another blow to Palestinian Christians, the PA recently rejected demands to consider Easter an official holiday.

The PA has had a long-standing policy of combating “normalization” with Israelis, and this is but one unpleasant example. Yet this campaign is directed not only against Jewish settlers, but also against Jews who live inside Israel proper.

Showing their true colors, the activists do not hesitate to attack even Jews who are supportive of the Palestinians. Thugs assaulted people indiscriminately, including film crews, European activists and even Palestinian participants.

What happens if you arrive at a religious ceremony and discover that your Jewish neighbors are also on the guest list?

Well, if you are a representative of the Palestinian Authority (PA), you get up and leave. No matter if such a move insults your hosts: the main thing is not to sit with Jews, especially if they are from the settlements.

This embarrassing incident took place last week near the Palestinian city of Nablus, where members of the tiny Samaritan community gathered to celebrate their own Passover. The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group in the Levant, originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East.

“This is a policy of forcing Alevis to immigration and dissolving the Alevi population,” said Gani Kaplan, the head of the Pir Sultan Abdal Alevi Cultural Association. “We are not against immigrants but it is impossible for us to live alongside jihadists in the same village.”

The province of Sivas is also a terrible choice by the government to build another container city for “refugees”: Alevis in Sivas have already been exposed to a deadly attack there at the hands of Islamists.

“After the attempt to build a refugee camp in the middle of the Alevi villages… where the [1978] massacre happened — is it a coincidence that you are building yet another refugee camp in the predominantly Alevi town of Divrigi in Sivas — where the [1993] massacre… took place? What is the objective of all of that?” — Zeynep Altiok, an MP from the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The denial of the Alevi faith seems to be an effective way of assimilating Alevis into the Islamic culture or making them “invisible.” There are also other methods — such as trying to change the demographic character of the predominantly Alevi places by building “mysterious” container cities in the middle of Alevi villages.

Since late February, locals from the predominantly-Alevi populated villages in the province of Kahramanmaras, or Maras, have been protesting government plans to build a “container city” (housing made from used shipping containers) in their villages supposedly for the Syrian “refugees.”

There are 16 Alevi villages in the region where the container city for “27 thousand refugees” is being built by the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

The villagers are deeply concerned that militants might infiltrate, and that the container city “could be turned into a human resources department of jihadists such as ISIS and al-Nusra.”

The Alevis in Turkey are a persecuted religious minority who have been exposed to several massacres and deadly attacks – both in the Ottoman Empire and republican Turkey.

The Alevis in Maras say that they are afraid of being exposed to yet another massacre or forced displacement – this time at the hands of foreign jihadists.

When the plans for building a container city for Syrians first came up, the Alevis sought help from the governor.

When their complaints were mostly met with silence or indifference, the villagers started peaceful protests in which they set up tents and read statements to the press to express their opposition to the camp being built.

On April 3, however, the gendarmerie forces attacked the villagers with pressurized water and gas cartridges, and detained six.

Affected by the police’s tear gas, Mor Ali Kabayel, 82, was taken to hospital where he lost his life.

According to the journalist Gulsen Iseri, the villagers are “scared of being exposed to a new 1915 [genocide] in which Armenians were deported.”

Hasan Huseyin Degirmenci, an Alevi from Maras, said:

“The real project here is to carry out another 1915. Just like Armenians were deported from here, they want to deport us in the same way. I lived through 1978 Maras [massacre]. I was 24 years old back then. I had to go abroad afterwards.”

It’s a hostile world. Global economies are in a funk. Central bankers offer “free” money, yet economies stagnate. The benefits of capitalism and globalization, which have done so much to eradicate poverty and enhance living standards, are debunked. Cyber threats menace our defense systems, electric grid, as well as our aviation and banking industries. Drones, which can be used to carry explosives, threaten commercial airlines. Failed policies in the Middle East have created a refugee crisis in Europe. The Middle East has devolved into two apparently irreconcilable camps – Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. From the Baltic to the South China Sea, Russia and China are testing the United States. Islamic terrorism poses threats on four continents, bringing with it (not unnaturally) xenophobic fears of Muslims. Anti-Semitism is resurgent in Europe. Amidst this fusillade, leading candidates for President of the United States are turning toward protectionism and away from globalization.

Protectionism refers not only to international trade. It was the reason behind Teddy Roosevelt’s dismemberment of “Trusts.” It is manifested in Washington, where cronyism places the interests of politicians (and their business and union counterparts) above that of the people. Protectionism, the antithesis of free trade, inhibits growth, keeps prices high and produces stagnation. Wherever it appears, it fails the long-term economic well-being of the nation. The ghost of Smoot-Hawley should frighten us all, as its signing in 1930 preceded a downward spiral into a world-wide depression. Former Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman once noted: “When America closes its doors, so does everybody else. We are the primary engine of growth in the world; we are the only beacon of free trade and open markets.” Amen!

Robert Kaplan, a contributing editor to The Atlantic, has just published a piece on Islam and the future of Europe. He claims, startlingly, that Europe “was essentially defined by Islam,” by which he means that before Islam swept across North Africa, Europe consisted of a single civilization, on both banks of the Mediterranean — that of the Roman Empire — and that Islam’s arrival severed “the Mediterranean region into two civilizational halves.” It is true that Muslim conquerors swept across North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries, but not quite true, pace Kaplan, that they “extinguished Christianity there.” Millions of Coptic Christians remained a majority in Egypt until the 14th century (that is, for at least 700 years after the time that Kaplan claims Muslim armies “virtually extinguished Christianity” in North Africa). And while it is true that the Roman Empire was sundered, it was not only by the forces of Islam, as Kaplan appears to believe: before the Arab armies arrived, others had been seizing territory from Roman control, including the Visigoths in Spain and the Vandals, who conquered the Roman province of Africa in 433 and held it till 539.

Kaplan quotes with evident approval Jose Ortega y Gasset that “all European history has been a great migration toward the North.” Is that true? The Roman Empire fell because of a great migration of the Germanic tribes from the north and northeast to the South; it was they, the Barbarians, who beat down the steady Roman legions and seized Rome in 476 A.D., with the Germanic warrior Odoacer placed on the throne. And even before the Fall of Rome, the Roman Empire had divided into Eastern and Western Empires, one ruled from Rome, the other from Constantinople. Surely that split was just as significant, for the future of European civilization, with the Western empire embracing Latin Catholicism, and the Eastern empire Orthodox Christianity, as the loss of North Africa to Islam.

Ibrahim Barda’aya had turned 54 and he was still single so he decided to go out and kill some Jews. But Ibrahim wasn’t just a violent anti-Semitic racist. He was also lonely. According to his Imam, he wanted to die and get his 72 virgins in the afterlife. And he had stayed single to avoid the temptations of earthly women so that he could enjoy the 72 virgins who are 90 feet tall and so “white” that you can see the “marrow of their bones,” who never urinate or menstruate, get pregnant or complain.

In Pakistan, an arrested suicide bomber last year when asked if he wanted to marry, retorted that he wanted to die. “72 virgins are waiting for me in paradise, so why I should prefer only one here?”

Muslim men are encouraged to view their marriages to Muslim women as temporary. A Hadith has the Houri virgin admonishing the Muslim wife, “Do not annoy him, may Allah ruin you. He is with you as a passing guest. Very soon, he will part with you and come to us.” That is what Muslim terrorists strive for.

According to Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid, the 90-foot-tall Islamic virgins are vastly preferable to actual Muslim women. “Whereas the women of this world may suffer, for days and nights, from menstruation, from blood for 40 days after childbirth, from vaginal bleeding and from diseases – the women of Paradise are pure, unblemished, menstruation-free, free of feces, urine, phlegm, children.”

Also they are “restricted to tents” and “locked up” so, like the ideal Saudi woman, they never leave the house. They are “hairless” and never get older than their “tender age.” Their skin is so “bright that it causes confusion” and actually doubles as a mirror so that “one can see one’s image in her cheek.”

Unsurprisingly for a death cult, Islamic scholars appear to be obsessed with the bones of these giant women and assure Jihadists that “the marrow of the bones of their legs” of their promised virgin brides “will be seen through the bones and the flesh.”

April 24 marks the “Great Crime,” that is, the Armenian genocide that took place under Turkey’s Islamic Ottoman Empire, during and after WWI. Out of an approximate population of two million, some 1.5 million Armenians died. If early 20th century Turkey had the apparatuses and technology to execute in mass—such as 1940s Germany’s gas chambers—the entire Armenian population may well have been annihilated. Most objective American historians who have studied the question unequivocally agree that it was a deliberate, calculated genocide:

More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse. A people who lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years [more than double the amount of time the invading Islamic Turks had occupied Anatolia, now known as “Turkey”] lost its homeland and was profoundly decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century. At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000…. Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.

Indeed, evidence has been overwhelming. U.S. Senate Resolution 359 from 1920 heard testimony that included evidence of “[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death [which] have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages.” In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem (which agrees with Islam’s rules of war).

Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies.” Such scenes were portrayed in the 1919 documentary film Auction of Souls, some of which is based on Mardiganian’s memoirs.

Well, well, well:

Austria’s far right made big wins in the latest round of voting in the country’s presidential election. Norbert Hofer, candidate of the anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe), took home almost 37 percent of the vote out of five candidates in Sunday’s polls.

The election will now go to a runoff that will take place on May 22, when Hofer will face either Green Party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, who gained 19.7 percent of the vote this round, or independent candidate Irmgard Griss, who won 18.8 percent. For an all-out win a candidate must obtain more than 50 percent of votes to become the country’s head of state, which is a largely ceremonial role.

But the results do reflect Austrians’ frustration with their leaders’ response to Europe’s refugee crisis, and mean that, for the first time since 1945, Austria will not have a president from either the center-left Social Democrats or the center-right People’s Party. Hofer sailed past the candidates from those two parties — the Social Democrats and the People’s Party – who gained only 11.2 percent of the vote each.

Sunday’s results were the biggest victory that Hofer’s Freedom Party has seen since the party’s inception after World War II.

Guilt and the Immigrants

Angela Merkel’s chickens — which she generously distributed up and down the European continent in her suicidal attempt to change the very nature of Europe itself — are coming home to roost.

Hofer, who says he almost always packs a Glock in order to protect himself from refugees, is considered by German media to be the friendlier face of the Freedom Party over its more aggressive leader, Heinz-Christian Strache.