RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13021/north-korea-takeover

Throughout his visit to North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in went out of his way to downplay the legitimacy of the government he leads and the country he was elected to represent. He was not asserting South Korea’s right to exist.
Up to now, the South’s textbooks have stated that Seoul is “the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula.” New textbooks, however, do not include that declaration.
Moon, unfortunately, has undermined democracy in tangible ways. Since becoming president in May of last year, he has used control of big broadcasters to reduce access to dissenting views and to promote North Korea’s. Alarm is now widespread.
If all this were not enough, Moon is taking down defenses along invasion and infiltration routes into Seoul and proposing substantial reductions in the South Korean military. Americans should care because by treaty they are obligated to defend the South.

Kim Jong Un assembled a reported 100,000 people, many waving his North Korean flag or the blue-and-white unification standard, to greet Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, as he arrived in Pyongyang on September 18.

President Moon did not seem to mind that no one was holding the symbol of his country, the Republic of Korea. “What was glaringly missing was the South Korean flag,” Taro O of the Pacific Forum told Gatestone in e-mailed comments. “Maybe South Korean people take comfort in seeing that Samsung’s Lee Jae-yong wore the South Korean flag badge on the lapel of his jacket while in North Korea. No one in the Moon administration did.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-nasty-brexit-threatens-the-west-1537831191
Like many divorces, the struggle between the European Union and the United Kingdom gets more bitter as time drags on. At last week’s EU summit in Salzburg, Austria, the assembled countries, led by France, contemptuously brushed aside British Prime Minister Theresa May’s “Chequers” Brexit plan. Flexing its muscles, the EU made its message clear: Britain must conform to our demands.

If there is no deal by March 29, 2019, onerous trade barriers will snap into place. The likelihood that post-Brexit Britain will suffer severe economic shocks and dislocation is growing.

Mrs. May’s Chequers plan would allow British goods to continue to be sold freely in the EU after Brexit, while services would be governed under different rules. In return, Britain would accept EU standards governing manufactured and agricultural products. From the perspective of many Europeans, even those who sympathize with the U.K., the plan looks like an effort to continue to enjoy the advantages of EU membership while opting out of the obligations, like accepting migration from other EU countries. Moreover, EU leaders reason that if the path of secession is shown to be easy, more departures could follow and the union will be inexorably weakened.

Many Brexit opponents, both in the U.K. and on the Continent, hope that the chaos of a “no deal” Brexit will bring about a second British referendum. Next time, they hope, a chastened British public will vote to remain. But repeating the referendum until the people vote the “right” way is more likely to fan the flames of populist anti-Brussels sentiment around the EU than to quell them.

The U.S. has so far not been involved in the discussions between the U.K. and its EU partners. This is not because it has no interest in the matter. From America’s standpoint, a no-deal Brexit that weakens Britain and poisons EU-U.K. relations would be a disaster. It would undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and one of America’s most important and valued allies. And if a radicalized Labour Party takes power in the wake of a Brexit calamity, the survival of the trans-Atlantic alliance could be at risk. The U.K. itself could come apart. It is crucial from the U.S. perspective that any divorce settlement maintain Western and allied cohesion in a dangerous world.

Some Europeans may view Brexit mainly as a matter of economics, but it is also inescapably a major security concern for the West. The relationship between post-Brexit Britain and the rest of the West cannot be evaluated simply as an internal matter for the EU. Britain may be leaving the EU, but it is not leaving the American-led Western alliance. The implications of a nasty and brutal Brexit for the Atlantic community are too consequential for Washington to ignore.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-man-behind-the-curtain-in-corbyns-oz-a-virulently-anti-israel-spin-doctor/
One Labour insider says that because of top aide Seumas Milne, if the party came to power ‘Israel would have to assume diplomatic relations were unofficially null and void’

In the court of Jeremy Corbyn, few wield more power and evoke stronger reactions than Seumas Milne.

The British Labour party leader’s director of communications and strategy, Milne is a hardline and uncompromising left-winger, and a fierce opponent of Israel. If Corbyn makes it to Downing Street, his most senior aide is likely to act as an outrider, reinforcing and encouraging an anti-Zionist agenda that will be unprecedented in a West European state.

But Milne’s hostility to Israel and his hard-left politics are not a matter of mere speculation. Unlike many spin doctors and political strategists whose professional life has been largely lived behind the scenes, Milne has spent decades center stage.

Before joining Corbyn’s team in 2015, Milne was a longstanding senior journalist and columnist at The Guardian, Britain’s most prominent liberal daily newspaper. From that perch, he left a trail of writings that have landed him at the center of the continuing controversy over the Labour party’s refusal to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.

Milne’s establishment credentials are impeccable. The son of a former director general of the BBC, he was educated at Winchester, one of Britain’s leading public schools, and then went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford.

As former editor of the center-left New Statesman magazine Peter Wilby noted in a 2016 profile of Milne: “Many privately educated young people from elite backgrounds [who came of age during the 1970s] embraced revolutionary politics.”

At boarding school, he stood as a Maoist in a mock election, while a gap year spent in Lebanon sowed an enduring sympathy for the Palestinians.

“He spent his entire time at Balliol wearing a Mao jacket and talking with a fake Palestinian accent,” one of Milne’s fellow students told Wilby. “It was like performance art, the sort of thing Gilbert and George [British artists] would do. He launched a string of motions in the JCR [junior common room] attacking Israel.”

But, unlike his contemporaries — though like his boss — Milne appears never to have outgrown his youthful support for the far left or antipathy toward the West.
Not a journalist, rather a ‘propagandist’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-warns-russia-deploying-s-300-in-syria-would-be-major-mistake/?utm_source=Breaking+News&utm_campaign=breaking-news-2018-09-24-1930169&utm_medium=emai

Israeli security cabinet to meet Tuesday over developments

Both Jerusalem and Washington warned Russia on Monday evening against its declared intention to provide the Syrian military with advanced surface-to-air missiles within two weeks, saying the move would further destabilize the region and increase already high tensions.

Israel’s high-level security cabinet was set to meet Tuesday morning to discuss the latest developments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the decision to provide Syria with the S-300 system in a phone call Sunday.

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In response, according to a statement by Netanyahu’s office, “The prime minister said providing advanced weapons systems to irresponsible actors will magnify dangers in the region, and that Israel will continue to defend itself and its interests.”

Concurrently US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Russia’s announcement was a “major mistake” that would cause a “significant escalation” of tensions. He urged Moscow to reconsider.

Channel 10 News quoted a senior American official who noted that the system could endanger US Air Force jets operating against Islamic State in Syria.

“Bringing more anti-aircraft missiles into Syria won’t solve the Syrian army’s unprofessional and indiscriminate firing of missiles and won’t mitigate the danger to aircraft flying in the area,” the unnamed official said.

Russia made the announcement following last week’s downing of a Russian plane by Syria in a friendly fire incident that killed 15 Russia soldiers. The Russian military’s reconnaissance Ilyushin Il-20 was shot down by Syrian missile defense systems responding to an Israeli airstrike.