The Alliance: U.S. & India Sign Major 10-Year Defense Pact

Yesterday, in my article on Bangladesh, I noted that the behaviour of its rising Islamists “is slowly forcing the US and India together over common strategic concerns.”

Actually, Bangladesh is just one of many - and this week, The United States and India signed a 10-year agreement paving the way for stepped up military ties, including joint weapons production and cooperation on missile defense. Titled the “New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship” (NFDR), it was signed on June 27/05 by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and India’s Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

This is a big deal. A very big deal.

Our readers know that Winds has covered India with enthusiasm and promoted a US-India alliance for a number of reasons. Many of us are fans of the Anglosphere concept, and we also see the economic & cultural trends, historical and geopolitical logic, and moral sense behind such an alliance. I’ve even advocated a leaf from the British historical playbook via a “Mumbai Doctrine” for the Indian Ocean basin. As Pavitr Prabhakar could tell us, after all, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

This agreement doesn’t go that far, but it is a very important step. Under the NFDR, Washington has offered high-tech cooperation, expanded economic ties, and energy cooperation. It will also step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives, launch a “defense procurement and production group,” and work to cooperate on military “research, development, testing and evaluation.” Given India’s broken military procurement system, the know-how transfer will be every bit as valuable as the technology transfer - maybe more so.

And the agreement doesn’t stop there.

Read the Rest….

Second North Korean Family Defects by Sea in a Week

ABC News reports that an entire family has sailed to South Korea. It’s the second sea-borne defection in a week, and doesn’t include last week’s defection by a North Korean soldier through the wire at the DMZ:

A couple and their nine-year-old son defected from famine-hit North Korea by boat on Sunday and were being questioned on South Korea’s western island of Baekryong, the military said.

The South Korean navy picked up the 42-year-old man, identified as Hong, his 39-year-old wife and their son after they crossed the border in the Yellow Sea, officials at the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff office said.

The last couple to defect (just a week ago) arrived at the same island. The Chosun Ilbo tells us more about the family and its origin:

They were said to have left Gumipo in North Korea’s Hwanghae Province at dawn. They were quoted as saying they fled the harsh living conditions in the North.

The Hong family is the second to defect by sea this month after a couple defected to the South in a dinghy on June 17.

Careful observers will note that Hwanghae is North Korea’s main rice-growing region. If famine has spread to Hwanghae, the North is in serious trouble indeed. Yonhap adds some ominous details about how the Southern authorities are handling the matter:

The North Koreans said they left the North on Saturday due to poverty. An investigation was under way to determine their exact motive for defecting.

Why ominous, you ask? Because the South Koreans have told us what that investigation might entail.

Also last week, a North Korean soldier was found hiding in a truckload of Moon Pies and ramen noodles in a South Korean border village. Somewhere in there is something deeply symbolic. However he got through, South Korean soldiers detected no one found a trace of his passage:

Another defector, identified as Lee Yong-su, 20, was discovered in Daema village, Gangwon province 5:50 a.m. yesterday by a local resident. Mr. Lee was wearing a tattered North Korean military uniform and a Kim Il Sung badge.

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff investigating Mr. Lee, the defector said he was a soldier in an artillery battalion of the North Korean army in Pyeonggang county. He told the investigators that he made the decision after watching on television how developed South Korea was. Mr. Lee claimed he reached the fences in the DMZ early Monday morning and crossed over the next day.

Winds Hatewatch Briefing: June 24/05

Welcome! This briefing will be looking hard at the dark places the mainstream media sometimes seem determined to look away from, to better understand our declared enemies on their own terms and without illusions. Our goal is to bring you some of the top jihadi rants, idiotarian seething, and old-school Jew-hatred from around the world, leaving you more informed, more aware, and pretty disgusted every month. This Winds of Change.NET HateWatch briefing is brought to you by zorkmidden of Discarded Lies. Lewy14 is on vacation. Past briefings and posts on related topics can be found here. Share the hate!

HIGHLIGHTED TOPICS

• Religious Hate: Kuwait’s school debate: to teach or not to teach jihad; Muslim clerics’ reactions to female imam; Anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism and martyrdom in Palestinian media; Lessons from a woman terrorist;

• Idiotarian Seethings: Egyptian historian on Saudi TV: U.S. carried out 9/11 on assignment by the World Council of Churches; Austrian rabbi enlists help of neo-Nazis; Terrorists join PA police; PA: Israel distributes carcinogenic food; Venice Biennale bans sculpture in case Muslim sensitivities get offended;

• Race and Culture: Authors of anti-semitic letter calling for ban of Jewish organisations in Russia, will not be prosecuted; Arab antisemitism rooted in Nazism; Antisemitism in the Turkish media: targeting Turkey’s Jewish citizens; Ukrainian forum calls for Jews to be deported; Anti-Semitism rising in Britain; Hate groups in New Jersey are rising sharply;

• A Hopeful Note: Arab criticism of Muslim extremist activities in the West; American Muslims strike at spouse abuse.

Freedom House to Broadcast July Human Rights Conference Into North Korea

Recently, Freedom House selected Professor Jae Ku as its North Korea Program Director. I met Professor Ku at a meeting of the North Korean Freedom Coalition in Arlington, Virginia, and he agreed to an interview.

Thanks to Prof. Ku for being so generous with his time (continue to interview).

New Energy Currents: 2005-06-17

This week, debate in the Senate began in earnest on the federal energy bill - and the debate in the US, around the world, and on the internet shows no signs of abating. In a widely cited poll, Yale University researchers found that an overwhelming majority of Americans are worried about dependence on foreign oil (92%) and want government to develop new energy technologies to address it (93%). Apparently, they haven’t been reading their Kunstler, or else they’d know that there are no solutions other than the long-overdue destruction of our sinfully consumptive civilization - or maybe they’ve been reading their Engineer-Poet instead, and know better than to buy into sci-fi catastrophilia.

…Or maybe they’ve been keeping up with New Energy Currents here at Winds of Change, a broad, monthly roundup of new developments in energy science, technology, and policy. By John Atkinson of chiasm

• Bio
• Electricity
• Fossils
• Nuclear
• Solar
• Wind
• Policy

Boy Killed in Cambodia School Standoff

Masked gunmen seized dozens of children at an international school Thursday in northwestern Cambodia , killing a 3-year-old Canadian boy with a shot to the head before police rescued the hostages, authorities said.

The four attackers stormed Siem Reap International School , grabbed students from several countries, and demanded money, weapons and a vehicle before police ended the six-hour standoff and took four young gunmen into custody.

Gunfire broke out inside the school, and hostage takers later told police they killed the Canadian boy because he was crying too much. Police moved in after they “threatened to kill the other children one by one,” Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said.

BBC has a first person account:

Around 0930 four men, one of whom was armed, walked into my child’s classroom.

They locked the door and held him hostage, along with 20 of his classmates aged between two and six, one teacher and one teaching assistant.

[..]

When I heard the first gunshot, I felt my heart sink.

Bye-Bye Bolivia: An Update

Back on May 26/05, Dr. Jack Wheeler of To The Point News did a time-delayed Guest Blog called Bye-Bye Bolivia. Our maps of Bolivia, he said, may be about to become obsolete:

It looks like Dr. Wheeler was right on the money with this one:

• In our winds of Change.NET comments section, Bart Hall adds some additional background from personal experience in Bolivia as an agricultural development worker.

• Austin Bay has UPDATED: Bolivia in a dangerous spiral - including news reports and even an email from a friend on the scene.

• Publius Pundit has his Bolivia archive, including one roundup entitled, simply, “Rumours of War”.

• As The Top Of The World Turns has a translation of Augusto Nunes’ account in Rio de Janeiro’s Jornal do Brasil, one of Brasil’s major papers. It adds some additional history and some local regional perspective - the signs do not look good for Bolivia.

• Kim du Toit offers a fascinating glimpse in an unlikely place: Miss Bolivia. Go read to get a feel for how different Santa Cruz considers itself to be - oh, and he has pictures…

David's (Nuclear) Sling: The EMP Threat

JK: Winds has run articles about nuclear terrorism and proliferation before from Amitai Etzioni and others. Reader Tom Holsinger forwarded this to me today right after our Winds of War hit these topics, and it’s featured in here on Winds by permission. “This is the real threat from 3rd World nukes - North Korea’s, Iran’s, etc.,” he writes. “Defense is not possible - only pre-emptive regime change can stop such threats.”

The Congressional Panel’s warning is certainly serious, and Mr. Gaffney’s points re: Iran’s recent tests of ship-launched ballistic missiles in EMP trajectories adds a chilling dimenson. See also Gary Farber’s The Threat from the Sea.

EMP: America’s Achilles’ Heel
by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
President, Center for Security Policy

If Osama bin Laden - or the dictators of North Korea or Iran - could destroy America as a twenty-first century society and superpower, would they be tempted to try? Given their track records and stated hostility to the United States, we have to operate on the assumption that they would. That assumption would be especially frightening if this destruction could be accomplished with a single attack involving just one relatively small-yield nuclear weapon - and if the nature of the attack would mean that its perpetrator might not be immediately or easily identified.

Unfortunately, such a scenario is not far-fetched. According to a report issued last summer by a blue-ribbon, Congressionally-mandated commission, a single specialized nuclear weapon delivered to an altitude of a few hundred miles over the United States by a ballistic missile would be “capable of causing catastrophe for the nation.” The source of such a cataclysm might be considered the ultimate “weapon of mass destruction” (WMD) - yet it is hardly ever mentioned in the litany of dangerous WMDs we face today. It is known as electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

• How EMP Works
• The EMP Threat Today
• America the Vulnerable
• What Is To Be Done?
• Conclusion

India's Big Naval Move: INS Kadamba

The strategic maneuverings between India, China, Pakistan, Japan et. al. continue, with the Arabian Sea as an emerging focal point.

India’s giant new western naval base INS Kadamba was opened on May 31, with India’s Defence Minister saying that it would protect the country’s Arabian Sea maritime routes. Kadamba is an $8+ billion project that will become India’s 3rd operational naval base after Mumbai and Visakhapatnam, and the first base under the sole control of India’s Navy.

This is a move that matters at a global-historical level.

Read the Rest…

South Korea Expels Human Rights Activist to Appease North Korea

Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, the man who told the world about the horrors of North Korea, reports that he has been expelled from South Korea. Vollertsen, who admits allowing his South Korean visa to expire, had been in South Korea on a series of tourist visas, which require holders to leave and reenter South Korea for extensions. On a previous reentry, Vollertsen had been detained and asked to sign a statement agreeing to discontinue his political activities; he was released when journalists arrived at the location where he was detained. Vollertsen reports that South Korean officials have told him that he would not be granted further tourist visas because of his political activities.

The full text of Dr. Vollertsen’s e-mail message describing his expulsion is here. More information:

• Background on Dr. Vollertsen’s activities; more here.
  
• His book, Diary of a Mad Place, describing his time as a volunteer doctor in North Korea.
  
• News report on his arrest and beating by South Korean police for trying to launch balloons to carry radios into North Korea.
• News report on South Korean police and North Korean “journalists” beating him and others for peacefully protesting human rights violations in North Korea.
  
• My own discussion and defense of some of Dr. Vollertsen’s controversial activism.
• A report of the last time South Korea detained Dr. Vollertsen and threatened to expel him.
• Some of his reports as a member of a South Korean tsunami relief medical team (here, here, here, and here).

Dr. Vollertsen will continue his activities in Japan. The issue is likely to come up during Roh Moo-Hyun’s visit to the White House next week. Brilliant timing, guys.

(Photo credit: Ki Ho Park, Time Asia)

Hatewatch Briefing: 2005-06-03

Welcome! This briefing will be looking hard at the dark places the mainstream media sometimes seem determined to look away from, to better understand our declared enemies on their own terms and without illusions. Our goal is to bring you some of the top jihadi rants, idiotarian seething, and old-school Jew-hatred from around the world, leaving you more informed, more aware, and pretty disgusted every month. This Winds of Change.NET HateWatch briefing is brought to you by Lewy14 (hatewatch@winds…), and by zorkmidden of Discarded Lies. Past briefings and posts on related topics can be found here. Entil’zha veni!

HIGHLIGHTED TOPICS

• Religious Hate: Saudi Arabia desecrates hundreds of Bibles annually; London Islamists back mass murder reprisal for “desecration”; The killing of Shaima Rezayee; Saudi TV demonizes Jews in the time of Muhammad; CAIR distributes anti-Semitic commentary on the Quran; Christian Pastor Swedes had it coming in Thialand; Michigan study suggests mosque attendance a factor in suicide bombing.

• Idiotarian Seethings: Amnesty: Gitmo “the gulag of our time”; Fallaci prosecuted (again) for “defaming Islam”; PA says teenage suicide bombers ‘fabricated’; Sen. Santorum: Senate Democrats = Hitler; Will everyone be Hitler for 15 minutes?; UC Irvine professor admits incomprehension of jihadis.

• Race and Culture: Crosses burn in Durham; The Obin report; Official PA newspaper continues to print anti-Semitic cartoons; Jews accused of organising ‘genocide’ of Ukrainians; Young Germans increasingly attracted to right-wing extremism; More neo-Nazis in Israel.

• A Hopeful Note: First Holocaust museum geared to Arabs opens in Nazareth; Iranian Christian acquitted of apostasy.

A Great Leap Downward? North Korea Orders Millions of City Dwellers Into the Countryside

The New York Times is reporting more troubling signs that famine may be returning to North Korea:

To combat growing food shortages, the North Korean government is sending millions of city dwellers to work on farms each weekend, largely to transplant rice, according to foreign aid workers. “The staff that work for us, the staff that work in the ministries, are going out to help farmers,” said Richard Ragan, director of World Food Program operations in Pyongyang, referring to North Koreans who work for the program.

Speaking by telephone on Wednesday, he said that in terms of food supplies North Koreans “are inching back to the precipice.” “It does happen every year,” he said of the mobilization of workers to the fields, “but the difference this year is that everyone is involved.”

Gerald Bourke, a World Food Program spokesman, said Wednesday that on a recent visit to the port of Wonsan, “We saw thousands of people who were marching out of the city.” “Later, we saw them digging out irrigation canals,” he said, speaking by telephone from Beijing.

Even if this is strictly temporary, it must be deeply disruptive to the North Korean economy. These city-dwellers must be wondering why they are being sent to the fields in higher numbers than ever. The Chosun Ilbo’s coverage suggests that for some, this may be something more than a temporary movement.

[S]oldiers and other citizens have now been mobilized to help out in rural areas, with armband-wearing police officers going around towns and cities hauling off to the farms anyone who appears to have nothing to do. Those taken to the farms are freed only after they secure a certificate that records how much work they have done.

Pyongyang is traditionally reserved for North Korea’s “core” class. One wonders how many will be disallowed from returning. Stay tuned.