Tuesday, January 20, 2015
China Deploys Nuclear Missiles at Mt. Baekdu
China has deployed Dongfeng-21 medium-range ballistic missiles at Mt. Baekdu that target Japan, the official International Herald Leader reported on Sunday.
The newspaper claimed it "analyzed" China Central Television footage of a nuclear arms and missiles corps in training in northeastern China to arrive at the conclusion. But since it is an official publication, the news is more likely to be a government plant than an investigative scoop.
The DF-21 series were originally ground-to-ground ballistic missiles with a range of 1,700-2,100 km, but the latest version in the series is modified into anti-ship ballistic missiles with a range of 3,000 km, which can threaten the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet.
The original version can hit any target in Korea and Japan, including U.S. Forces Japan bases in Okinawa. It can carry a 200-500 kiloton nuclear warhead. It is 10.7 m long and can fly at a speed of Mach 10. Its accuracy has improved from a 300-400 m radius to 1/10 of that.
The latest anti-ship version can hit the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet near Guam, the U.S. strategic bridgehead in the Asia-Pacific region as well as any target in the East Seas. It is very difficult to intercept because it is so fast and can change path in the final stage of flight.
China also reportedly deployed DF-21 missiles on the coast of Shandong Province in preparation for clashes with Japan over the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Shandong is close to the East China Sea but vulnerable to an attack by the Japanese air force.
China is believed to have some 50 to 100 missiles in the DF-21 series.
Prof. Cho Yang-hyun of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy said, "If China has deployed DF-21 missiles at Mt. Baekdu, it's a warning to the military alliance among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo."
Credit to Chosun.com
Richest 1% to own more than rest of world
The wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by anti-poverty charity Oxfam.
The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.
On current trends, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016.
The research coincides with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The annual gathering attracts top political and business leaders from around the world.
Oxfam's executive director Winnie Byanyima, who will co-chair the Davos event, said she would use the charity's high-profile role at the forum to demand urgent action to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
In a statement ahead of the gathering, Ms Byanyima said the scale of global inequality was "simply staggering".
Credit to BBC
Monday, January 19, 2015
THE NETHERLANDS OFFICIALLY ABANDONS MULTI-CULTURALISM
Finally someone thinks......
The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.
A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people.
In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society." The letter continues: "A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands. The integration will not be tailored to different groups." The new integration policy will place more demands on immigrants.
For example, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants to ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law. The government will also stop offering special subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner, "it is not the government's job to integrate immigrants." The government will introduce new legislation that outlaws forced marriages and will also impose tougher measures against Muslim immigrants who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress.
More specifically, the government will impose a ban on face-covering Islamic burqas as of January 1, 2013. If necessary, the government will introduce extra measures to allow the removal of residence permits from immigrants who fail their integration course. The measures are being imposed by the new center-right government of Conservatives (VVD) and Christian Democrats (CDA), with parliamentary support from the anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV), whose leader, Geert Wilders, is currently on trial in Amsterdam for "inciting hatred" against Muslims. As expected, Muslim organizations in Holland have been quick to criticize the proposals. The Moroccan-Dutch organization Samenwerkingsverband van Marokkaanse Nederlanders, which advises the government on integration matters, argues that Muslim immigrants need extra support to find a job.
The umbrella Muslim group Contactorgaan Moslims en Overheid says that although it agrees that immigrants should be better integrated into Dutch society, it is opposed to a ban on burqas. But polls show that a majority of Dutch voters support the government's skepticism about multiculturalism. According to a Maurice de Hond poll published by the center-right newspaper Trouw on June 19, 74 percent of Dutch voters say immigrants should conform to Dutch values. Moreover, 83 percent of those polled support a ban on burqas in public spaces.
The proper integration of the more than one million Muslims now living in Holland has been a major political issue ever since 2002, when Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated for his views on Muslim immigration, and since 2004, when Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death for producing a movie that criticized Islam. Muslim immigration to the Netherlands can be traced back to the 1960s and 1970s, when a blue collar labor shortage prompted the Dutch government to conclude recruitment agreements with countries like Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Muslims also arrived in the Netherlands as asylum seekers and refugees, mainly from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia. There are now an estimated 1.2 million Muslims in the Netherlands, which is equivalent to about 6 percent of the country's overall population. Moroccans and Turks comprise nearly two-thirds of all Muslims in the Netherlands. Most Muslims live in the four major cities of the country: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
As their numbers grow, Muslim immigrants have become increasingly more assertive in carving out a role for Islam within Dutch society. For example, a documentary aired by the television program Netwerk in June 2009 reported that Dutch law was being systematically undermined by the growth of Sharia justice in the Netherlands. In December 2004, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior published a 60-page report titled From Dawa to Jihad. Prepared by the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD, the report says that the Netherlands is home to up to 50,000 radical Muslims whose key ideological aim is to target the Western way of life and to confront Western political, economic, and cultural domination. The report concludes that Dutch society is poorly equipped to resist the threat of radical Islam because of "a culture of permissiveness" that has become synonymous with "closing one's eyes" to multiple transgressions of the law.
As for Interior Minister Donner, he has undergone a late-in-life conversion on the issue of Muslim immigration. In September 2006, while serving as justice minister, Donner provoked an outcry after saying that he welcomed the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the Netherlands if the majority wants it. He also said Holland should give Muslims more freedoms to behave according to their traditions. After applauding Queen Beatrix for respecting Islam by not insisting that a Muslim leader shake hands with her during a visit to the Mobarak Mosque in The Hague, Donner said: "A tone that I do not like has crept into the political debate on integration.
A tone of: 'Thou shalt assimilate. Thou shalt adopt our values in public. Be reasonable, do it our way.' That is not my approach." Fast forward to 2011 and Donner now says his government "will distance itself from the relativism contained in the model of a multicultural society." Although society changes, he says, it must not be "interchangeable with any other form of society." -
See more at: http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_329_34758.php#sthash.hZvYz2xI.dpuf
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