Free Republic

A nation has come before my courts attention, Its leader creating his own ascension, The cries of the innocent brought before me, Torture and murder with blasphemy, Turning his back to My very Throne(Jeremiah 17:13), Creating a temporal one of his own, Causing his subjects through fear to give him fame, Trying his best to erase My Name("Jesus Christ"), No fear of The Creator has he, So now he shall meet the angel of death and catastrophe, A boy attempting to become a man, But very soon will lose his land, The hand "is" writing on the wall, This man's...

South Korea needs to build a nuclear-powered submarine to better counter North Korea's possible nuclear and missile attacks, an expert at Seoul's state-run think tank said Friday. With the new atomic energy pact reached between South Korea and the United States in 2015, the last restrictions to building a nuclear-powered sub have been removed, claimed Boo Hyeong-wook, a chief research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA). The pact permits Seoul to make low-enriched uranium with U.S. consent that can be used as fuel. "The possession of a nuclear-powered submarine will allow us to better counter North Korea's...

North Korean state media hailed presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying he could make their “Yankee Go Home” dream come true. Trump appears to be a favorite of Pyongyang for his willingness to meet face-to-face with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and consider a pullout of US forces from the Korean peninsula. “Who knew that the slogan ‘Yankee Go Home’ would come true like this?’ ” government organ DPRK Today opined, according to a translation by the watchdog news site NK News. “The day when the ‘Yankee Go Home’ slogan becomes real would be the day...

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has faced an unusual amount of criticism from foreign leaders — in large part because of his combative tone and unorthodox policy suggestions. This week, however, he found an unlikely international voice of support — in North Korean state media. State outlet DPRK Today published an editorial Tuesday that called the business mogul a "wise politician" and said he could be good for North Korea. “There are many positive aspects to Trump’s ‘inflammatory policies,' ” the author of the article wrote, according to a translation from NK News. “Trump said he will not...

The South Korean Military is developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), a high-ranking military official said. “On the 3,000-ton Jangbogo-III submarine, which is currently under production, we are installing a vertical launching pad,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. SLBMs are fired undersea and are therefore difficult to detect by radar. He added, “The installation of a vertical launching pad indicates that the SLBM is already under development.” The official also went on to say that the SLBM is being developed under the aegis of the Agency of Defense Development and is expected to be completed by...

Emails released by the State Department on Friday show that Hillary Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal reached out to her on behalf of a former United Kingdom diplomat who was interested in setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments. Clinton was receptive to the idea which came via Blumenthal from Jonathan Powell, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blairs chief of staff. (Quote) Hillary, Jonathan Powell has launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar, (Unquote) Blumenthal wrote in the March 18, 2012 email. (Quote)Sid We are trying to replicate what we did...

Their names are Ted and James, and they look like the kinds of men you might bump into on the streets of Richmond, Va., where their father was born. But they’re speaking perfect North Korean and wearing badges of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the first two leaders of North Korea, over their hearts. Oh, and the younger one, James, is a captain in the North Korean army. They’re the Pyongyang-born sons of James Joseph Dresnok, the former American GI who defected to North Korea in 1962 when he was stationed in South Korea after the war. And...

A top North Korean diplomat who negotiated a short-lived 1994 deal with the United States to freeze its nuclear programs in exchange for international aid has died of cancer, the country’s state media said Saturday. The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Kang Sok Ju, a “trustworthy revolutionary comrade” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and an “excellent son” of the country’s ruling party, died of esophageal cancer Friday afternoon at the age of 76. …

Neither the November 24th P5+1 "deal" nor the White House summary of the subsequent agreement to continue the process deals effectively with Iran's efforts to have nuclear weapons. NOTE: I tried to address much of what follows when writing earlier about the Iran Scam and have difficulty understanding why there is very little public or even official interest in the problems the deal raises. Please let me to elaborate here a bit more on why the P5+1 "deal" is a scam, why it matters and to offer some hypotheses about the lack of interest.The text of the English language version of...

Say it isn't so. Could this actually be the next US Secretary of State (Hat Tip: Barak Ravid)? Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met during his visit to Washington Wendy Sherman, an adviser to the US Democratic Party's presidential primary candidate Hillary Clinton, the foreign affairs ministry announced on Thursday. The Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid stated that during the meeting Sherman listened to Shoukry's evaluations of political and economic developments taking place in Egypt, the country's regional and international relations, as well as the country's efforts to fight terrorism. "The meeting reflected the mutual wish to...

CNN on Thursday released a group photo of the staff of a North Korean restaurant in Ningbo, China who made headlines by defecting en masse to South Korea last month. Family members of three of the workers who defected made the photo public on Wednesday, apparently under pressure from North Korean propaganda authorities. "I curse and condemn the South Korean puppet forces who allured and abducted our daughters," one of them said. "When I think of that I lie awake frightened and cannot sleep... Those South Korean puppet criminals, I want to tear them to pieces!" Intelligence authorities here declined...

Might agree with a few of their tweets.

President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month, the White House announced Tuesday. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on the Japanese cities in 1945 during World War II. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. He is scheduled to travel to Vietnam and Japan from May 21 through May 28 on his 10th trip to Asia, where he is expected to highlight America’s commitment to increase diplomatic, economic and security engagement with Asian nations and their people. The White House said Obama will participate in his final G-7 Summit...

SEOUL, South Korea — After years of trying to separate fact from propaganda about North Korea’s nuclear program, American and South Korean intelligence officials say they have concluded that the country can now mount a small nuclear warhead on short- and medium-range missiles capable of hitting much of Japan and South Korea. The United States and its allies have sought for nearly a decade to prevent the North from gaining such capabilities, ever since it detonated its first atomic device a decade ago. Their failure is likely to raise new questions about the effectiveness of the policy toward North Korea,...

Two weeks after North Korea threatened to launch nuclear strikes against the U.S., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the federal government has still not implemented all of the recommendations made eight years ago to prevent catastrophic blackouts caused by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. The recommendations were made in 2008 by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electro-Magnetic Pulse Attack (EMP Commission). Although the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Energy (DOE) have taken actions to prepare against an EMP attack, they “have not established a coordinated approach to identifying...

A North Korean military statement Friday warned U.S. soldiers to stop what it called "hooliganism" at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom or they'll meet a "dog's death any time and any place." It said U.S. troops pointed their fingers at North Korean soldiers and made strange noises and unspecified "disgusting" facial expressions. It also said that American troops encouraged South Korean soldiers to aim their guns at the North. A statement from Christopher Bush, a spokesman for the U.N. command, said they looked into the allegations and determined they were unsubstantiated. North Korea occasionally accuses South Korean and U.S....

All eyes in the crowd fell on the supreme commander of the Korean People's Army. He emerged from the subway in one of this city's busiest nightlife areas with his trademark black suit and closely cropped hair. He hadn't lost any weight. "That's Kim Jong Un!" somebody shouted. Not quite. The reviled North Korean dictator, it turns out, has a doppelganger. He was soon surrounded by Friday night revelers holding up their smartphones and giggling in disbelief. Several rubbed his belly as they posed for their friends.

he South Korean defense ministry announced that an attempted test launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea ended when it exploded almost immediately after liftoff. The launch was the second test of the Musudan intermediate range missile in the last few days that ended in failure. The South Koreans believe that the test was rushed in order to have some sort of technological success prior to a rare meeting of the Party Congress on May 6. From Reuters: "They are in a rush to show anything that is successful, to meet the schedule of a political event, the party...

North Korea has fired what is believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Saturday. The missile was fired at 6:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. ET), South Korean officials said.

North Korea, which conducted a fourth nuclear test in January in contravention of U.N. Security Council resolutions, can learn from a deal struck between Iran and world powers to freeze its nuclear program, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. North Korea, which regularly threatens the United States and rich, democratic South Korea, also conducted a long-range rocket launch in February, defying U.N. sanctions. The Security Council last month expanded those sanctions aimed at starving North Korea of funds for its weapons program on a resolution drafted by the United States and China. ... "It's our hope...