In this mailing: Peter Huessy: North Korea's Serious New Nuclear Missile Threat Denis MacEoin: Ban Everything. Ban Books. Ban Art. Ban Films. Burak Bekdil: Post-Election Turkey: Now What? North Korea's Serious New Nuclear Missile Threat by Peter Huessy  •  June 11, 2015 at 5:00 am China continues to transfer, through its own territory, nuclear weapons technology involving both North Korea and Iran. In April, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submerged platform. The North Korean underwater launch test was closely related to the further development of a missile-firing submarine capable of hitting the U.S. -- "a first step," according to Uzi Rubin, "in achieving a very serious and dangerous new military capability... it will take many years to build up the missile defenses, so we had better use the time wisely." Although the Chinese profess to be against nuclear proliferation, documented evidence illustrates just the opposite -- as a means of asserting Chinese hegemony, complicating American security policy and undermining American influence. Unfortunately, no matter how attractive a strategy of diplomatically ending North Korea's nuclear program might look, it is painfully at odds with China's established record of supporting nuclear proliferation with such collapsed or rogue states as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Libya. China's nuclear assistance to Pakistan did not stay just in Pakistan. Kim Jong Un, the "Supreme Leader" of North Korea, supervises the April 22 test-launch of a missile from a submerged platform. (Image source: KCNA) North Korea appears to have made significant progress in extending its capability as a nuclear-armed rogue nation, to where its missiles may become capable of hitting American cities with little or no warning. What new evidence makes such a threat compelling? North Korea claims to have nuclear warheads small enough to fit on their ballistic missiles and missiles capable of being launched from a submerged platform such as a submarine. Shortly after North Korea's April 22, 2015 missile test, which heightened international concern about the military capabilities of North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged China and our regional allies to restart the 2003 "six-party talks" aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and reining in North Korea's expanding nuclear missile program. Continue Reading Article Ban Everything. Ban Books. Ban Art. Ban Films. by Denis MacEoin  •  June 11, 2015 at 4:00 am The Guardian has published, before this, praise for several North Korean films, including A Flower Girl. But North Korea is one of the world's most repressive and dangerous states, governed by a regime that might even make the Ayatollahs of Iran hesitate. So why no letters in The Guardian boycotting their films? Oh, I forgot, nobody ever calls for a boycott of North Korea or any really repressive state. The activists never march against Saudi Arabia, which has just confirmed the sentence of a blogger, Raif Badawi, to a flogging of 1000 lashes, "very harshly" as the flogging order read, as a punishment for writing thoughts such as, "My commitment is... to reject any oppression in the name of religion... a goal we will reach in a peaceful and law-abiding way." They never march against Qatar, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or Sudan. To uphold human rights by supporting a murderous terrorist state, while condemning a democracy forced to defend itself against outside forces bent on its destruction -- do any of these writers know what free speech or human rights are about, what democracy means or what international law consists of? One suspects not. Since 2012, film buffs in London and elsewhere have enjoyed visits to Seret, the London Israeli Film and Television Festival. The latest celebration of Israeli cinematic talent is taking place from June 11 to 21, with screenings planned for the capital and outside, in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. It is a big event, drawing Jewish and non-Jewish crowds, all joined by their love of good cinema and television. The films are always a mixed bag, designed to attract people of different political, religious, and artistic orientations. This year's line-up encompasses "a range of fascinating subjects from the darkness of incest to the dangers of spying; the complexities surrounding disabled dating to the depths of mental illness; from racism to the romance of lost loves, and stories of trading places to poetry. Continue Reading Article Post-Election Turkey: Now What? by Burak Bekdil  •  June 11, 2015 at 3:00 am No one among Turkey's politicians wants an early election. They have no energy for another indecisive election or for spending another fortune on one. Thousands of Turkish Kurds dance in the street to celebrate the success of the pro-Kurdish HDP in the June 7 elections. Turkey's "Election 2015" overcame justified fears of major ballot-box fraud, which many thought would reinforce the ruling Islamists and pave the way for a worse-than-Putinesque totalitarian rule for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The election results themselves are best proof that any potential vote-rigging in favour of Erdogan was too little or too unsuccessful to become a game-changer: The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) needed at least 330 seats in parliament in order to rewrite the constitution in the way Erdogan wants; it got merely 258, not enough even to form a single-party government -- leaving them in the minority in parliament for the first time since the AKP came to power in 2002. Ironically, the AKP objected to the Supreme Election Board's vote recounts in two provinces and three towns -- all too small to change the fact that Erdogan is the lonely sultan in his spacious, $615 million presidential palace. Continue Reading Article

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