Just one day before the United States and South Korea are scheduled to engage in their annual military exercises, known as the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, North Korea issued its newest threat, stating that the U.S. will be "adding fuel to fire" by moving ahead with the planned war games.
The military exercises have provoked North Korea in the past, and amid escalating tensions on the peninsula, North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Sunday the war games could "worsen the state" of the region, and lead into an "uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war," South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.
The North's paper called the military exercise the “most explicit expression of hostility” and that "no one can guarantee that the exercise won't evolve into actual fighting."
While the North Korean nuclear program and its missile tests capture the world public attention, another war is about to spark. On August 14, US President Trump launched the first salvo by authorizing an inquiry into Beijing’s alleged theft of intellectual property under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. This is the first direct trade measure by the administration against China.
Washington believes that American companies operating in the Celestial Empire are pressured into sharing intellectual property if they want to have access to China’s economy. American businesses are often forced to create joint ventures with Chinese partners, turning over valuable technology assets. «We will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access. We will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs», Trump said.
The bilateral US trade deficit with China approached US$350 billion in 2016, and Trump has repeatedly blamed Chinese imports for gutting employment in US sectors such as steel. «We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry», Lighthizer said.
It’s worthy to note that the intellectual property inquiry will add to other investigations launched by the White House earlier this year into Chinese trade practices, notably those concerning steel and aluminum. This month, Washington announced preliminary sanctions against Chinese imports of aluminium foil.
The China Daily had warned that a trade war could be triggered if President Trump goes ahead with plans to launch an investigation of whether China is stealing US technology. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has appealed to the US administration to avoid a «trade war.» According to experts’ estimates, the US would lose if a trade war is waged.
North Korea on Sunday warned the U.S. it faces a “merciless strike” following "reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war."
North Korea declared it has the military capacity to target the mainland U.S. as well as the U.S. territory Guam in a strike the U.S. cannot “dodge,” according to CNN.
CNN reports the message was in the official government newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
The warning comes a day before the U.S. begins conducting annual military exercises with South Korea starting Monday. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises, computer-simulated defensive exercise, run August 21-31, according to the Defense Department.
Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido repeatedly promised on Saturday Aug. 19 that after the Islamic State’s car attacks Thursday and Friday had left 14 dead and more than 130 injured in two Spanish cities, the terrorist network responsible for the violence had been “fully dismantled” and no longer posed a threat.
That assurance was meant to calm the jittery public and visitors, but was far from representing all the facts..
There are troubling signs that the attacks in Spain and Finland were no more than the opening shots of a major onslaught in preparation by this Islamic State network. Unusually, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in Cambrils, Spain, after first claiming the prior outrage on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas promenade. The second claim cited both attacks, substantiating the link in an ongoing chain of events. The bomb-making workshop, which accidentally blew up at Acrona, also provided lethal evidence of an organization bent on sowing death on a massive scale.
Most of the perpetrators of the Catalan attacks were in fact local residents of Moroccan descent. Some had direct links to ISIS contacts in Syria and Iraq, and some were discovered leaving the country to fight with ISIS in Syria.
On May 22, Spanish and Moroccan anti-terror agencies working in conjunction rounded up a group of suspects in Essaouira on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. They were in possession of large amounts of weapons and preparing to strike a famous music festival in the town that attracts audiences from many countries.
Catalans were found in this group too.
Catalans were found in this group too.
Since the deadly Barcelona terror attack, a pattern has emerged of mass-casualty crimes mostly targeting popular international holiday resorts during this summer. The Spanish authorities knew that the Catalan cell, which operated as part of this multi-armed killing machine, was run by the “Wilaya of the Islamic State in the Maghreb al-Aqsa-Morocco,” which takes its orders from the ISIS central command in Syria.
In one of the more disgusting examples of the collapse of our culture and the corruption of our media, CBS reported happily on Iceland’s battle against people with Down Syndrome.
That’s right – their fight against people with Down Syndrome.
CBS (and other media outlets) are reporting on the shocking drop in children born with Down Syndrome as a battle against the chromosome disorder, but the truth is that we haven’t figured out a “cure” for the problem, we’ve just been killing anyone who tests positive for the disorder.
Here’s how CBS reported the news Down Syndrome births had been all but eliminated in Iceland… thanks to abortion.
Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.
Since about 85% of Icelandic women have the screening done, and close to 100% of those receiving a positive test for Down Syndrome abort their children, nearly every Down Syndrome child is being murdered by the people of Iceland.
Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it’s 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity — and Down syndrome is included in this category.
Everyone’s smashing statues. From Islamic State hotheads sledgehammering ancient artefacts in old Mesopotamian cities to plummy students at Oxford demanding the removal of busts of old colonialists, waging war on the past is all the rage.
A Year Zero mentality is on the march. People seem hellbent on wiping out history, making it invisible, and starting society all over again, cleansed of the likenesses of dead people of whom they disapprove.
This fury against monuments is presented as good and radical. The statue-smashers say they simply want to erase the faces and names of people who did bad things to show how far society has progressed and to make minority groups feel more comfortable when they’re out in public.
In truth, there’s nothing good in this mob-like erasure of history. It’s a reactionary, even Orwellian, movement. The urge to ethically cleanse public life of “bad history”, to shove down the memory hole any bust or tribute to past folk whose values make us bristle today, is intolerant, illiberal and profoundly paternalistic.
Anyone who thinks this policing of the past will stop once all statues of Confederates and colonialists have been knocked down is in for a shock.
In the US, the Year Zero mob has turned its sights to statues of the great Thomas Jefferson (he owned slaves). And this week Yarra council in Melbourne decreed that it would no longer refer to January 26 as Australia Day, out of respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The history erasers claim they only want to show how fair our societies now are. Rubbish. This isn’t about making the present better, it’s a projection of political correctness into the past. It’s the punishment of historical figures – even good historical figures, such as Jefferson, and good historical events, such as the settlement of Australia – for not sharing our exact modern world view.
And it reeks of PC paternalism. The idea that minority groups can’t cope with seeing statues of dead people who did some dodgy things is an affront to their intelligence and autonomy. It infantilises them, even suggesting they will feel physically wounded by history: after all, “there is a violence” to these statues.
The logic of the Year Zero crew is that we should see only historical figures they approve of (if there are any). They police history with an eye for policing what we citizens can see and by extension think about the societies we live in.
It’s a low, brutal form of censorship, and we should have no truck with it.
The social democrats and so-called feminists have been raising their voices for all to hear. They boast about advocating gender equality, individual rights, and advancing women's rights. They argue that these values are universal; that every person, especially every woman, everywhere in the world, is entitled to these "inalienable" rights. Speeches are given, fundraisers are held, and an army of champions charges toward the cause.
Everyone is equal, and everyone deserves these rights. The chants, the inspirational lectures, the determination that echoes through television interviews, and is spread across the pages of magazines, all fill their followers with enthusiasm. But what is the reality?
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