WASHINGTON, DC — North Korea stands at the top of a list of 50 countries where at least 215 million Christians faced the most severe persecution in 2017, resulting in 3,066 deaths and 1,020 rapes mainly targeting women, revealed Open Doors, an organization that monitors ill-treated Christians worldwide.
At the National Press Club on Wednesday, David Curry, the president and CEO of Open Doors, unveiled the 2018 World Wide List (WWL) of the top 50 “most dangerous” countries to worship Jesus. Referring to North Korea, he declared:
Imagine in your mind a leader that thinks he’s god but acts like an animal — devouring his own people with his teeth where people are forced to worship at the statute of Kim Jung Un and bow down and lay flowers at his feet as if he was a god.
Yet, [Kim] sets up controls mechanisms, neighborhood watches that surround communities rewarding citizens for spying on each other giving them more food if they find somebody who has a Bible and who purports to a be a Christian and that makes Christians the number one enemy of the state in North Korea and that’s why it is the number one on the world’s watchlist.
Open Doors pointed out that thousands of Christians are facing death worldwide for practicing their faith, particularly in North Korea.
According to the monitor group’s 2018 World Watch List (WWL), “215 million Christians experience high levels of persecution in the [50] countries on the World Watch List,” with the majority of them in North Korea, considered “the worst place for Christians” for 16 consecutive years since 2002.
Open Doors reported:
The primary driver of persecution in North Korea is the state. For three generations, everything in the country focused on idolizing the leading [Kim Jung Un] family. Christians are seen as hostile elements in society that have to be eradicated.
Due to the constant indoctrination permeating the whole country, neighbors and even family members are highly watchful and report any suspicious religious activity to the authorities…The situation for Christians is vulnerable and precarious. They face persecution from state authorities and their non-Christian family, friends and neighbors. Pray for their protection.
There are many Christians languishing, starving, and enduring hard labor in North Korea prisons for merely owning a Bible and having faith in Jesus Christ.
Since the U.S.-led war that started in Afghanistan soon after September 11, 2001, the United States has spent at least $877 billion on the war-devastated country, including on the promotion of religious freedoms.
Nevertheless, Afghanistan came in second place in the list of the top 50 worst countries in terms of persecution — where the cost of being a Christian can quickly turn into a nightmare and the last breath one ever takes.
During the 2017 reporting period covered by the latest World Watch List, persecutors killed 3,066 Christians, kidnapped 1,252, raped 1,020, and attacked 793 churches, noted Open Doors.
Of the top ten countries, eight are tormented by “Islamic Oppression,” which mainly refers to hostility against Christians. Eritrea and North Korea are the exceptions.
Meanwhile, persecution against Christians at the hands of “Hindu extremists” in India is on the rise, resulting in deaths and rape of Christian women.
“A shocking trend in the world watchlist I want to highlight for you today is the increase in persecution of Christian women,” stated Curry. “The data seems to prove that Christian women are the most vulnerable population today with sexual harassment and rape and forced marriage being prime tactics from extremists against the world against Christians.”
Pakistan, India’s regional enemy, has accused Hindu extremists of persecuting Christians and Muslims and forcing them to convert to their religion.
Hindu nationalist groups are reportedly affiliated with Indian President Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Pro-Hindu nationalism “President Modi only wants one religion,” proclaimed Curry.
Every day, Christian women reportedly face sexual harassment, rape, and forced marriage, all common in India, which is ranked 11 on the persecution list.
The justice for Christians in India is “poor,” determined Curry, noting that 635 Jesus followers were held and detained in the nation without trial last year alone, often called one of the largest democracies in the world.
Of the 50 nations on the Open Doors World Watch list, at least two Western Hemisphere countries made the cut joining the very few predominantly Christian nations on the list — Latin America’s Mexico (39th place) and Colombia (49th) where persecution is reportedly driven by “organized crime and corruption.”
The monitor group identifies North Korea’s communist and post-communist oppression as the primary source of persecution against Christians, which make up a little over 1 percent (300,000) of the 25.4 million population.
The assessment deems more than 60 percent of the persecution tactics employed by Kim as violent.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has extended a hand for talks with South Korea, but Korea watchers are wary of the North’s intentions.
North Korea shocked the world Monday, not with a wild threat, but with an offer to engage the South in dialogue. Two days later, the North and South re-opened a dormant hotline for cross-border calls, the first in nearly two years. South Korea has responded positively, but many observers suspect Seoul may be walking into a trap.
Kim made similar friendly overtures in last year’s New Year’s address, telling Seoul that “positive measures should be taken to improve inter-Korean relations, avoid acute military confrontation, and remove the danger of war between the North and the South.” The North then proceeded to raise regional tensions through repeated military provocations, including both ballistic missile and nuclear weapons tests.
Send Rocket Mn To Hell On A Racket.
“There is reason to be somewhat suspicious of North Korea,” Lisa Collins, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained to The Daily Caller News Foundation. “North Korea is always looking to maximize its national interests in any way that it can.”
She explained that there are several possible reasons behind North Korea’s sudden interest in dialogue. One, the rogue state may attempt to use “this opportunity as a way to weaken the U.S.-South Korean alliance.” Two, the North may “finally be at the point where it wants to improve relations with South Korea,” and it may even want to use talks with the South as “a springboard to enter into talks with the U.S.” Three, the North may be looking to secure concessions from the South, which could include “more aid, canceling military exercises, and encouraging the U.S. to withdraw its troops from the Korean Peninsula.”
That the North will demand certain concessions is very likely given that Kim stressed that the South “should discontinue all the nuclear war drills they stage with outside forces” and “refrain from any acts of bringing in nuclear armaments and aggressive forces from the United States” in his speech Monday.
In his New Year’s address, the young despot expressed an interest in sending a North Korean team to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, thus appealing to the desires of the liberal South Korean government.
“[South Korean President Moon Jae-in] wants to host a peaceful 2018 Winter Olympic games, as well as open direct dialogue with his neighbor,” Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a recent op-ed. These interests make the South susceptible to a North Korean ploy.
“The regime is looking for the weakest link by which to break the maximum pressure campaign, and it seems to judge, not irrationally, that the weakest link is the South Korean government” given its predisposition to using engagement to peacefully resolve this crisis on the Korean Peninsula, Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, an Asian security expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told TheDCNF recently.
“This is just like a regular exercise in garden variety burglary,” he explained. “This is like a hotel burglar testing every door to see what opens. The door that looks the most promising to the North Korean regime is the blue house in Seoul, so the regime is testing and probing.”
“They want to see how far they can get,” he remarked.
North Korea’s behavior is certainly not out of character and is even common practice for the rogue state, according to another expert.
“I think that what we are seeing is consistent with past tactical shifts in North Korean politics,” Dean Cheng, a research fellow on East Asian political and security affairs, explained to TheDCNF. “We often see periods of mild reconciliation followed by periods of aggressive action.”
He stressed that North Korea’s long-term intentions — specifically reunifying the Korean Peninsula on North Korea’s terms — never change. North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, saber rattling, and occasional overtures for peace are “part of this larger effort to drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea, make the American support for South Korea appear less credible, and to press South Korea into modestly conciliatory gestures.”
When Kim delivered his New Year’s address, not only did he announce that the North is “open to dialogue” with the South, but he also order the mass production and rapid deployment of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles. The Moon administration has overlooked this order, focusing most of its attention on the opportunity for talks.
“Everyone always sees what they want to see,” Cheng pointed out. “If you really want to believe that we can cut a deal with North Korea,” as some of the South Korean president’s liberal predecessors did, “then you are going to look for those glimmers of hope. I don’t see much cause for optimism, but I am not Moon Jae-in.”
“As [the position of the South Korean government] is an ideological viewpoint, which is to say it is faith based, it is impervious to empirical reality,” Eberstadt explained to TheDCNF, adding, “We are seeing the triumph of hope over experience in dealing with the North Koreans.”
Within the U.S. government, as well as the armed services, views of the talks between North and South Korea are noticeably varied.
While President Donald Trump initially said news of talks could be good or bad, he solidified his position on the matter Thursday, asserting that “talks are a good thing!” The Department of State expressed skepticism earlier, with department spokeswoman Heather Nauert stating, “We are very skeptical of Kim Jong Un’s sincerity in sitting down and having talks.”
Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, argued Thursday that the U.S. and its allies should not have any illusions about North Korea’s peaceful overture. “We can be generally pleased by the recent overtures that happened. But, we must keep our expectations at the appropriate level,” he said, adding that North Korea may presently be trying to divide the countries united against it. “We can not ignore that reality.”
Supreme Court allows full enforcement of Trump travel ban
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries.
This is not a final ruling on the travel ban: Challenges to the policy are winding through the federal courts, and the justices themselves ultimately are expected to rule on its legality.
But the action indicates that the high court might eventually approve the latest version of the ban, announced by President Donald Trump in September. Lower courts have continued to find problems with the policy.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said the White House is “not surprised by today’s Supreme Court decision permitting immediate enforcement of the President’s proclamation limiting travel from countries presenting heightened risks of terrorism.”
Opponents of this and previous versions of the ban say they show a bias against Muslims. They say that was reinforced most recently by Trump’s retweets of anti-Muslim videos.
“President Trump’s anti-Muslim prejudice is no secret. He has repeatedly confirmed it, including just last week on Twitter. It’s unfortunate that the full ban can move forward for now, but this order does not address the merits of our claims,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. The ACLU is representing some opponents of the ban.
Just two justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, noted their disagreement with court orders allowing the latest policy to take full effect.
The new policy is not expected to cause the chaos that ensued at airports when Trump rolled out his first ban without warning in January.
The ban applies to travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Lower courts had said people from those nations with a claim of a “bona fide” relationship with someone in the United States could not be kept out of the country. Grandparents, cousins and other relatives were among those courts said could not be excluded.
The courts were borrowing language the Supreme Court itself came up with last summer to allow partial enforcement of an earlier version of the ban.
Now, those relationships will no longer provide a blanket exemption from the ban, although visa officials can make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
The justices offered no explanation for their order, but the administration had said that blocking the full ban was causing “irreparable harm” because the policy is based on legitimate national security and foreign policy concerns.
In lawsuits filed in Hawaii and Maryland, federal courts said the updated travel ban violated federal immigration law. The travel policy also applies to travelers from North Korea and to some Venezuelan government officials and their families, but the lawsuits did not challenge those restrictions. Also unaffected are refugees. A temporary ban on refugees expired in October.
All the rulings so far have been on a preliminary basis. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, will be holding arguments on the legality of the ban this week.
David Levine, a University of California Hastings law school professor, said that by allowing the ban to take effect just days before the appeals court arguments, the justices were signaling their view.
“I think it’s tipping the hand of the Supreme Court,” Levine said. “It suggests that from their understanding, the government is more likely to prevail on the merits than we might have thought.”
Both appeals courts are dealing with the issue on an accelerated basis, and the Supreme Court noted it expects those courts to reach decisions “with appropriate dispatch.”
Quick resolution by appellate courts would allow the Supreme Court to hear and decide the issue this term, by the end of June.
Say a prayer for our military families. Lord, keep them safe.
US families urged to leave military bases near Seoul amid fears North Korea WAR ‘close’
FAMILIES of US military should leave South Korea because war between America and Pyongyang is “getting close”, according to a senior US Senator and ex-Air Force Colonel.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has warned that the rising tensions between the the US and Kim Jong-un’s corrupt regime means preparations for war need to be taken.
The member of the Senate Armed Services Committee warned the US was “running out of time” to prepare itself for war when speaking on CBS yesterday.
He said: “I want the Pentagon to stop sending dependents and I think it’s now time to start moving American dependents out of South Korea.
“We’re getting close to a military conflict because North Korea is marching toward marrying up the technology of an ICBM with a nuclear weapon on top that can not only get to America, but deliver the weapon.
“We’re running out of time.”
Fears of war between the two countries hit a new high last week after the rogue state announced they had successfully tested a missile capable of targeting any part of the US equipped with a nuclear weapon.
The launch ended over 60 days of silence from North Korea’s missile programme after regular missile tests paused in September.
According to South Korea’s military, the latest missile flew some 596 miles (960km) to an altitude of around 2,796 miles (4,500km).
Following the launch Hawaii began immediate test to prepare for a nuclear strike.
Authorities on the island began to test a wailing siren, which represents an emergency, for a minute on Friday.
It was the first nuclear attack warning siren tested in the state since the Cold War.
Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency administrator Vern Miyagi said: “Hawaii is a likely target because we’re closer to North Korea than most of the continental United States…
“As we track the news and see tests, both missile launches, and nuclear tests, it’s the elephant in the room.”
Mr Graham’s calls for families to be evacuated from South Korea comes after White House national security adviser HR McMaster warned on Saturday that the issue of North Korea was close to reaching a climax.
Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California he said: “I think it’s increasing every day, which means that we are in a race, really, we are in a race to be able to solve this problem.”
Addressing the UN in September he referred to Kim Jong-un as “rocket man on a mission” and has said that seeking a diplomatic solution is a “waste of time”.
Addressing South Korea’s National Assembly in October the US President also said America would “not be intimidated” by Kim Jong-un’s rhetoric.
He warned in his speech that he had the “three largest aircraft carriers in the world are appropriately positioned” to face Pyongyang.
Harvard: North Korea Preparing Smallpox, Plague Attacks
Aside from threatening nuclear war against the United States, North Korea is also suspected of secretly developing a vast biological-weapons program that could unleash fear and death in crowded cities, a Harvard University study warns.
“North Korea is likely to use biological weapons before or at the beginning of a conflict to disrupt society and create panic, incapacitate societies, and/or cause a significant military diversion,” says the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The study also warns that North Korea could deliver such weapons in several manners, including janitors.
“It is theoretically possible that North Korean sleeper agents disguised as cleaning and disinfection personnel could disperse BW agents with backpack sprayers,” the Harvard report said.
North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un is believed to be developing biological agents such as anthrax, cholera and smallpox, London’s Daily Mail reported.
The Harvard report also notes that the exact extent of the biological-weapons program is hard to determine because many of the agents also are used in agricultural programs.
The study comes as Kim unleashes threats against the United States almost daily, while Washington prepares to defend against a surprise attack. The U.S. Air Force has put its fleet of B-52 bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons, on 24-hour alert for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
Crazy heifers like Mika would survive a nuclear war, like roaches, so what is she worried about?
On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski argued President Trump is “excited about the concept” of using nuclear weapons and “wants to use nukes.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough said that President Trump is “not limited by the fears that limited JFK or even Ronald Reagan. And by the way, when I say fears, don’t flinch. I mean, you have reason to be scared of a war that could wipe out 500,000 people.”
Brzezinski said, “I just think he wants to use nukes. That’s what I think he feels.”
She added, “You’ve heard him over the past year. He’s excited about the concept.”
Scarborough responded that Trump is “not chained by the same fears that chained JFK and Reagan, a fear of nuclear weapons, a fear of war. And, unfortunately, I think we have to be on guard after that, since he is so contemptuous of the Constitution, that if a war does begin, we have to be very careful about what steps he takes at home domestically, if he does start that war.”