MOST INFLUENTIAL EVANGELICALS IN AMERICA

Newsmax on November 17, 2017, published a list of the 100 Most Influential Evangelicals in America including pastors, teachers, politicians, athletes, and entertainers — men and women from all walks of life whose faith leads them to live differently and to help others in a variety of ways. Please find below the top ten names:

1. Billy Graham — Rev. Graham has slowed down in his active ministry — he will turn 100 next November — but he’s built a legacy as the greatest preacher of the gospel America has ever known. Graham has preached the gospel to nearly 215 million people in stadiums around the world and led more than 3.2 million people to Christ at his Crusades over the years. But his influence is felt beyond the call of invitation as well. Graham opposed racial segregation in the 1950s, integrated his services, and worked to dismantle the black and white divide in America’s church. He advised U.S. presidents on spiritual matters over the course of five decades.

2. Franklin Graham — A bit of a prodigal son in his youth, Franklin Graham eventually followed in his father Billy Graham’s footsteps while also forging his own influential ministry through Samaritan’s Purse, an organization that provides disaster and humanitarian relief and also offers the gospel to millions of people around the world.

3. Joel Osteen — Encouraging people to believe that God will bless them in big ways, Osteen’s messages are televised to more than 7 million viewers each week and 20 million each month in more than 100 countries. He pastors the largest church in America, Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, with some 45,000 weekly attendees.

4. Mike Huckabee — The former pastor who served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, Huckabee was a Republican primary presidential candidate in 2008 and 2016, winning the Iowa Republican caucuses in 2008. He had a talk show on the Fox News Channel from 2008 to 2015 and has also written best-selling books about the intersection of politics and religion. He now hosts “Huckabee” on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

5. Pat Robertson — Perhaps best known as the host of the “The 700 Club,” Robertson is the chancellor and CEO of Regent University and the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network. He also founded the International Family Entertainment Inc. (ABC Family Channel, now Freeform), and the American Center for Law and Justice, among other organizations, and is an important voice for conservative Christianity in the United States.

6. Rick Warren — The founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, a megachurch in California, Warren became a household name with the release of his book “The Purpose Driven Life,” which sold more than 32 million copies and is widely billed as one of the best-selling nonfiction hardcover book in history.

7. Jerry Falwell Jr. — The president of Liberty University, one of the largest evangelical Christian colleges in the U.S., Falwell took over after his father’s and the school founder’s death in 2007. He has made controversial remarks about gun rights and endorsed Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention in his support. Falwell Jr. also invested $5 million of Liberty’s endowment in Israel in 2016.

8. Joyce Meyer — A charismatic Christian author, Meyer has written more than 100 books and hosts a popular TV show, “Enjoying Everyday Life,” that teaches people how to live the Christian life and overcome their problems with faith in Christ and common sense.

9. Mike Pence — The former Indiana governor was chosen by Trump to be his vice president in large part for his traditional Christian conservatism. He is notably creationist and pro-life, and attributes many of his political stances to his evangelism. As one commentator put it, “Pence doesn’t simply wear his faith on his sleeve — he wears the entire Jesus jersey.”

10. Mark Burnett and Roma Downey — A married couple, Burnett and Downey are television and movie producers who have produced faith-based content like “The Bible” miniseries and 2016’s “Ben-Hur,” run Lightworkers Media, the family and faith division of MGM studios, and launched Light TV in 2016, a faith-based television channel through MGM.

NEW VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM CAUCUS IN THE U.S. CONGRESS

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington D.C. on November 7, 2017 in a Media Advisory informed of a new caucus having been formed in Congress. Excerpts below:

Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Dennis Ross (R-FL), and Chris Smith (R-NJ) have announced the formation of the Victims of Communism Caucus for the 115th Congress (2017-2019). The Victims of Communism Caucus is a bipartisan group of Members of Congress dedicated to raising awareness of how communism victimized and enslaved more than one hundred million people in the past and how its tyranny in the five existing communist countries (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam) and its legacy in the post-Soviet sphere shapes international relations today.

During the upcoming session, the Victims of Communism Caucus will focus on several issues, including Russian expansionism in Ukraine; the role of the United States in ameliorating the deteriorating political and economic situation in Venezuela; the continuing human rights abuses of the Castro regime in Cuba; and the increasing threat that the dangerous North Korean rhetoric surrounding the country’s nuclear program poses to the free world.

The Caucus will honor the memory of the 100 million victims of communism and raise awareness about the dissidents who continue to protest against current communist regimes.

Executive Director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Marion Smith said, “There is no more fitting occasion than the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution to announce the Victims of Communism Caucus. It sends a powerful message on behalf of the more than 100 million people victimized by communism in the last century and one fifth of the world’s population who still live in a single party state that adheres to this failed ideology.”

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NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR IN CRITICAL CONDITION

Washington Times on November 14, 2017, reported that the defecting North Korean soldier who was shot defecting across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is in critical condition. He was shot at 40 times and suffered five gunshot wounds. A South Korean military official has reported that he is likely to survive although at present he cannot breathe on his own.

A troubling aspect of this shooting is that the freedom seeking soldier from North Korea was fired upon even after having crossed the border to the south.

More details are provided in an article published by Fox News on November 13, 2017. Excerpts below:

An elite North Korean soldier stationed at the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone made a bold bolt for freedom… defecting to South Korea despite getting shot twice, the South’s military said.

North Korean soldiers shot at the unidentified North Korean soldier when he ran from the guard post at the northern side of the village, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

He suffered gunshot wounds to his elbow and shoulder and was taken to the hospital when South Korean soldiers found him about 25 minutes later on the southern side of the Joint Security Area, a strip of land where North and South Korean forces stand face-to-face, the military said, according to the South’s Yonhap News Agency.

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The South Korean military said he was unarmed and was wearing a combat uniform for a low ranking soldier.

About 30,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the Korean War, but most travel through China. An estimated 1,000 people flee Kim Jong Un’s volatile regime each year, but going through the DMZ — fortified with land mines, barbed wires and machine guns — have been extremely rare because of the dangerous conditions. This year, North Korean defectors successfully escaping the regime fell by 12.7 percent, according to the Telegraph.

The soldier’s successful escape makes only the fourth defection by a North Korean soldier through the DMZ in the last three years, the BBC reported. Yonhap News agency said Kim’s military officials reportedly “cherry-pick” loyal soldiers who are stationed at the DMZ.

At Panmunjom, once an obscure farming village inside the 2 1/2-mile-wide DMZ that separating the rivaling countries, North Korean soldiers wearing lapel pins with the images of late North Korean leaders often use binoculars to monitor visitors from the South.

[Panmunjon is] jointly controlled by the American-led U.N. Command and North Korea. The DMZ is guarded on both sides by hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops, razor-wire fences and tank traps. More than a million mines are believed to be buried inside the zone.

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The most famous incident was in 1976, when two American army officers were killed by ax-wielding North Korean soldiers. The attack prompted Washington to fly nuclear-capable B-52 bombers toward the DMZ…

In 1984, North Korean and U.N. Command soldiers traded gunfire after a Soviet citizen defected by sprinting to the South Korean sector of the truce village. The incident left three North Korean soldiers and one South Korean soldier dead.

Comment: Due to the failed efforts of several American Democratic administrations North Korea is dangerously close to being able to carry out a nuclear attack not only for instance against Japan but even the United States. North Korea is in 2017 very close to being able to initiate a nuclear war of catastrophic proportions with the United States.

During the 1930s in Europe democratic great powers failed to listen to the warnings of Winston Churchill that Hitler was preparing to go to war. In 1939 it was too late to stop a war. President Donald Trump has now made it clear to both North Korea and China that the U.S. is willing to take preemptive military action as a last resort to protect America’s interests. One can only hope that there is a peaceful way to achieve denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. A nuclear North Korea can certainly not be tolerated.

The Obama administration refused to confront the dangers of nuclear tyrannical regimes in North Korea and Iran. As a result of these policies there is a dangerous situation in East Asia that has consequences all over the world.

The West and especially the United States cannot accept being held hostage by a rogue nuclear marxist-leninist regime. It is unacceptable that China year after year can continue to support the regime in North Korea. China is increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea and observers have compared the rise of China in the beginning of the twentyfirst century with the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. Obama during the past eight years has acted much like the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his attempts to appease Hitler.

In a small way the recent defection of the North Korean soldier could be a sign that the North Korean army is beginning to doubt the aggressive nuclear policies of the ”Great Leader”. This in turn could indicate that the sanctions are at last having some effects.

There is now more than ever a need for increased information operations by South Korea to show the Koreans in the north that they are not living in a socialist paradise but in a prison camp that is falling apart.

CENTENARY OF FINNISH INDEPENDENCE 1917 to 2017

Finland had been a colony of Russia since 1809, when the country declared independence on December 6, 1917. It was around one month after the Communist coup d’etat in Russia. With support of Russian soldiers garrisoned in Finland a red government was set up in opposition. The members of this government came from the Finnish Social Democratic Party (SDP). Its paramilitary units, the Red Guard, were defeated by centre-right volunteers of General Carl Gustaf Mannerheim in early 1918 which set off the civil war. Mannerheim was supported by German troops including the Royal Prussian 27th Ranger (Jaeger) Battalion consisting of Finns from the earlier Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. They had secretly trained in Germany and had been transported across Finland via Sweden to Germany. To the Russian authorities they reported that they went to Germany for Boy Scout Training.

The red government fled to Moscow, where it set up the Finnish Communist Party (SKP) in August 1918. Two members of the rival Finnish communist government, Otto Wille Kuusinen and Yrjo Sirola, became prominent members of Comintern (Communist International) and Kuusinen was elected to the Executive Committee of that international. One of Kuusinen’s early assignments was Western Europe including the Finnish and Swedish communist parties. Sirola was a leading Finnish communist subversive based in Moscow until his death in 1936.

The civil war in Finland raged from January 27 to May 15, 1918. Around 37,000 were killed. In January 1918 Lt. General C.G. Mannerheim ordered his troops of the legal government to disarm all Russian soldiers in East Bothnia region of Finland and secured that area in northeastern Finland. The city of Vasa in that region then served as capital of the rightful government during the civil war. The communist government for its part ordered the capture of the legal government and installed a communist government in Helsinki, the capital of Finland (called Finland’s Socialist Workers Republic).

The communist forces attacked northern Finland but were repulsed. German troops landed in February in support of the legal government. In March the communist government signed a treaty with Lenin’s Russian government that made the communist revolutionary Finns Russian citizens and vice versa. On March 15 Mannerheim started a large offensive against the communist forces to the south. In the beginning of April the large city of Tampere was liberated. Early in March German troops landed in southern Finland and marched against Helsinki in support of the Vasa government. During April Helsinki was liberated by German troops. The German battleship Westfalen entered the harbor of Helsinki and landed additional German troops.

Around 1,100 Swedish officers and soldiers served in the armed forces of the Vasa government under Mannerheim. During the first phase of the civil war most training officers came from Sweden or were Swedish speaking Finlanders. Finnish fighter pilots also trained in Sweden at the Enoch Thulin Flight School at Ljungbyhed in southern Sweden or privately trained with Swedish Baron Carl Cederstrom. Fighter planes were used in the Finnish civil war for reconnaissance, bombing and distribution of leaflets.

It should be noted that the communist attempt to take over Finland in 1918 was part of a plan to dominate all of Western Europe. Bolsheviks were victorious in the Russian civil war and similar civil wars were started in Germany, Hungary and other European countries. Communist regimes were established in Bavaria and Hungary. Late in 1918 the Soviets had concluded a secret “treaty” with the German communist leader Karl Liebknecht. A Russian army would take to the offensive to support a communist uprising in Berlin. A similar treaty was concluded with Hungarian communist leader Bela Kun. In 1919 Soviet representative Karl Radek developed a plan for revolutionary war against Germany. Russian prisoners of war still in Germany would be offensively used. The Soviet attack to the West was stopped by the Polish armed forces in the battle of Warsaw in 1920.

The Comintern (Communist International) was founded in 1919 and provided revolutionary training for communists from a large number of countries in the 1920s and the1930s. Comintern produced several training manuals dealing with strategy and tactics of uprisings and irregular warfare (for example ”The Road to Victory, a theoretical discussion of Marxism and Revolution” by Alfred Lange, ”The Armed Uprising” by A. Neuberg).

NOVEMBER 7, 2017, NATIONAL DAY FOR THE VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM IN THE UNITED STATES

The White House on November 7, 2017, released a proclamation marking November 7, 2017, as the National Day for the Victims of Communism. See below:

National Day for the Victims of Communism

Today, the National Day for the Victims of Communism, marks 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia. The Bolshevik Revolution gave rise to the Soviet Union and its dark decades of oppressive communism, a political philosophy incompatible with liberty, prosperity, and the dignity of human life.

Over the past century, communist totalitarian regimes around the world have killed more than 100 million people and subjected countless more to exploitation, violence, and untold devastation. These movements, under the false pretense of liberation, systematically robbed innocent people of their God-given rights of free worship, freedom of association, and countless other rights we hold sacrosanct. Citizens yearning for freedom were subjugated by the state through the use of coercion, violence, and fear.

Today, we remember those who have died and all who continue to suffer under communism. In their memory and in honor of the indomitable spirit of those who have fought courageously to spread freedom and opportunity around the world, our Nation reaffirms its steadfast resolve to shine the light of liberty for all who yearn for a brighter, freer future.

VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM REMEMBERED IN WASHINGTON D.C. in NOVEMBER 2017

Washington Times on November 8, 2017, reported on a gathering on November 7 in Washington organized by Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation at the Library of Congress to remember victims of communism since 1917. Excerpts below:

Over the past 100 years, communism has blazed a trail of dead and broken bodies stretched around the globe in its relentless…march toward the ash heap of history.

From the frozen gulags of Siberia to the killing fields of Cambodia and the jungles of Nicaragua, communists have massacred more than 100 million people in service to an ideology that promised freedom and equality but delivered only tyranny and scarcity.

A group of scholars, diplomats and dissidents gathered on November 8 in Washington to reflect on the lessons about human nature, power and markets on the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which hosted the centennial commemoration at the Library of Congress, said communism is at root the belief that human nature can be altered “through the coercive power of the state.”

“Therefore, they made mistakes about human nature of the type that our American founders did not,” Mr. Smith said. “Communists ignored basic truths about the concentration of power. They ignored the foundational importance of individual liberty in the economic and cultural fields.”

On November 9 the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will host a dinner to honor Israeli statesman and former Soviet political prisoner Natan Sharansky.

While the American founders sought to create a government that would restrain the passions of the people and itself, the Bolsheviks saw the state as the central actor on the path toward utopia. Any hindrances on government would necessarily impede the liberation of the masses, said Alan Charles Kors, professor emeritus of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Mr. Kors said. The White House commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, proclaiming Nov. 7 the “National Day for the Victims of Communism.” [for the text of the White House proclamation see the seperate contribution on Varldsinbordeskriget].

“Today, we remember those who have died and all who continue to suffer under communism,” the White House said in a statement. “In their memory and in honor of the indomitable spirit of those who have fought courageously to spread freedom and opportunity around the world, our Nation reaffirms its steadfast resolve to shine the light of liberty for all who yearn for a brighter, freer future.”

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Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian pro-democracy activist, said his country has not fully come to terms with its history.

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There is no consensus among historians as to how many lives were lost to communism. One of the most often-cited figures comes from “The Black Book of Communism,” which was published in 1997 by several French intellectuals who were former Marxists.

Their tally puts the number at 94 million: 65 million in the People’s Republic of China, 20 million in the Soviet Union, 2 million in Cambodia, 2 million in North Korea, 1.7 million in Ethiopia, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in the Eastern Bloc, 1 million in Vietnam, and hundreds of thousands in Latin America.

More recent estimates have pushed that figure north of the 100 million mark.

Mr. Kara-Murza said the commonly accepted number for the Soviet Union alone is now 30 million dead.

“If we include those who were executed, those who were killed in the famines and deportations and collectivizations, and those who were forced to emigrate from Russia, the most oft-cited figure is usually about 30 million people,” he said. “That is about one-fifth of the total population of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1920s. History knows few crimes of such magnitude.”

Despite communism’s bloody track record, the ideology and its cousin, socialism, still have significant support in the West, especially among young people.

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Polish Secretary of State Anna Maria Anders said there has been a dearth of education about the horrors wrought by communism over the past 100 years.

“I am stunned by people who come to me in Poland to my office and really how clueless they are, absolutely clueless they are, about the Second World War, about what happened,” Ms. Anders said. “Young people — the idea of communism is wonderful. Socialism, everybody, no poor people, no rich people, everybody is the same. We know it doesn’t work. But I think it’s a lack generally worldwide to see what a mistake it is.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP IN VIETNAM: THE WHOLE WORLD IS LIFTED BY AMERICA’S RENEWAL

Associated Press on November 10, 2017, reported on President Donald Trump’s speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam. Excerpts below:

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President Donald Trump says he won’t let the United States be “taken advantage of anymore” on trade and adds that he’ll always “put America first.”

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“we can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses and we will not tolerate them.”

Trump [also concluded that] the U.S. will seek trade relationships that are rooted in the principles of fairness and reciprocity. He says the opposite has happened for “too long.”

While the United States lowered market barriers…other countries didn’t open their markets to us.

He adds: “Simply put we have not been treated fairly by the World Trade Organization.”

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[Trump also said in Danang] that…a “new optimism” has swept across the United States since his election.

He [used] statistics about economic growth, low unemployment and stock market highs [to support this].

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FASTER AND FARTHER: A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY DRONE, “LIGHTNINGSTRIKE”

Fox News on November 3, 2017, published an article by defense specialist Allison Barrie on a revolutionary new American drone that will fly faster and farther than ever before. Excerpts below:

The advances made with this electric aircraft hybrid – part helicopter and part airplane – could help pave the way to a future where every ground unit has a powerful drone at its disposal.

LightningStrike has potential to make missions faster, travel more stealthy and quiet – and not to mention safer- for American warfighters.

And this aircraft does not need a runway to land.

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DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded Aurora Flight Sciences to take part in the Vertical Take-Off and Landing Experimental Aircraft (VTOL X-Plane) initiative. Aurora Flight Sciences created the remarkable LightningStrike aircraft with partners Rolls-Royce and Honeywell.

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The U.S. Air Force and DARPA have now named this drone the XV-24A LightningStrike.

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LightningStrike is a tilt-wing drone that is powered by an “Electric Distributed Propulsion system.”

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Helicopters have provided the US military with critical VTOL capabilities for more than six decades.

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Helicopters are vital, but often there is so much demand for helicopters in a war zone there are not enough to go around.

Enter LightningStrike. An exciting drone solution to supporting small ground units in tough places.

Like U.S. military helicopters, it can provide hovering, omnidirectional maneuverability, and lands on almost any flat surface – and more.

The drone could theoretically be used for missions such as resupply, casualty evacuation, and tactical insertion and extraction. It could even be capable of other missions too like intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

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DARPA has challenged Aurora Sciences to achieve their goal of a top sustained flight speed of 400 knots (460 mph).

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LightningStrike looks on track to achieve speeds far faster than the current military helicopters.

Speed is important. By increasing speed, it is possible to reduce exposure to enemy attack. It also means mission times can be shortened and possibly even help ensure mission success.

It will be the first aircraft in aviation history to demonstrate distributed hybrid-electric propulsion using an innovative synchronous electric-drive system, according to Aurora Flight Sciences.

In addition to better speed, this electric aircraft would provide quieter and more fuel-efficient flights.

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DARPA’s aim is for this new aircraft to be able to carry about 40 percent of its 12,000 pounds of weight.

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And since LightningStrike is designed to be runway independent, not only can it access extreme remote locations faster, and deliver better hovering – it can also land there without any preparation on the ground.

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Aurora’s design for the drone incorporates two large rear wings and at the nose of the aircraft there are two smaller front canards. These are like little winglets that can enhance aircraft control.

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The wings and the canards rotate to direct fan thrust. To fly forward, it would be rearward. To hover, it would be downward. Electric motors drive these to deliver thrust. This enables the groundbreaking drone to both hover and cruise.

The drone uses the V-22 Osprey Rolls-Royce AE 1107C turboshaft engine to provide electrical power. This engine drives the three Honeywell generators, which in turn deliver power to the wing and canard electric motors.

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Earlier this year, a smaller scale prototype went through flight testing in Maryland. The groundbreaking drone was extremely successful.

The smaller scale, lithium battery powered aircraft was a 325-pounder, significantly smaller than the full-scale prototype aircraft.

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A Black Hawk helicopter has about a 54- foot wingspan and the expectation is that the LightningStrike will have a 61-foot wingspan.

The full scale prototype is scheduled to begin flight testing next year in 2018.

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IN SOUTH KOREA PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH

Washington Times on November 7, 2017 reported on President Ronald Trump’s speech delivered to South Korea’s National Assembly during his visit to the country. Excerpts below:

President Trump called on North Korea to begin dismantling its nuclear weapons and missiles as a precondition for talks, and warned Pyongyang not to test the resolve of the U.S. and its allies in the nuclear standoff.

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And the president issued a blunt warning to Mr. Kim.

“The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer,” Mr. Trump said. “They are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.”

…Mr. Trump recited a long list of the communist regime’s crimes against its own citizens, including forced labor, torture, forced abortions and religious persecution. Then he offered the regime “a path to a much better future.”

“It begins with an end to the aggression of your regime, a stop to your development of ballistic missiles, and complete, verifiable and total denuclearization,” Mr. Trump said. “We are only prepared to discuss this brighter path for North Korea if its leaders cease their threats and dismantle their nuclear program.”

…North Korea has [for years] been taking advantage of weak U.S. administrations that allowed Pyongyang to evade international restrictions on its weapons programs, and kept developing nuclear devices and missiles.

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“I hope I speak not only for our countries, but for all civilized nations, when I say to the North: Do not underestimate us,” Mr. Trump said. “And do not try us. We will defend our common security, our shared prosperity, and our sacred liberty.”

He said his administration “will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction.”

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Much of Mr. Trump’s speech was devoted to highlighting the stark differences between life in North and South Korea since the armistice was signed in the Korean War in 1953. He said the democratic South has flourished, while the communist North has retreated into a wasteland of seclusion, misery and depravation.

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China is considered North Korea’s main patron, and has resisted most U.S. efforts in the past to stop the regime’s aggression. Mr. Trump departed for China shortly after the speech for meetings with President Xi Jinping on the North Korea threat and trade talks.

Noting that American and South Korean soldiers fought together in the Korean War, Mr. Trump said in Seoul, “The Korean miracle extends exactly as far as the armies of free nations advanced in 1953 — 25 miles to our north. There it stops. The flourishing ends and the prison state of North Korea sadly begins.”

He said the South experienced “miraculous” growth after the devastating war. And he said South Korea’s democratic success is a lesson for the world when compared with North Korea’s autocratic communist rule.

“The more successful South Korea becomes, the more decisively you discredit the dark fantasy at the heart of the Kim regime,” Mr. Trump said.

Comment: As President Trump visited South Korea newspapers there reported that 21 defectors had told of a nuclear disaster in North Korea. They had lived near the nuclear test site where six nuclear tests had been conducted. Babies were said to be born with birth defects.

Furthermore drinking water had streamed down from Mount Montap, where underground tests were said to take place. No warnings were provided to the residents nearby.

I saw corpses, said one defector, floating down the river with severed limbs. About 80 percent of trees that were planted on the mountains died off.

If you plant trees in the mountains there, 80 percent of them die. You can blame it on poor planting, but the number of trees that die is higher than in other mountains, a defector said. Kim Jong Un’s regime made sure local residents were not able to tell their stories.

People who boarded trains to the border with samples of soil, water and leaves from Kilju County were arrested and sent to prison camps, another defector said.

Japanese Asahi TV, citing a North Korean source, has stated that hundreds were trapped and killed while doing underground construction on the tunnel last month. Scientists believe the site was destabilized after the sixth nuclear test on September 3, 2017.

Radiation leaking and drifting across the Sea of Japan and to the Japanese islands has also been a concern.

COMMUNISM: A CENTURY OF DEVASTATION

Washington Times on November 6, 2017 published an article by former president of the Heritage Foundation, Washington D.C. on the bloody Russian coup d’etat that took place on November 7, 2017. Lenin’s promises were egalitarian but produced only death and starvation. Excerpts below:

…there are dates that live in infamy, [that deserve to be] known…Take Nov. 7, 1917.

…One hundred years ago this month, Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian government and established a communist dictatorship.

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How many perished in the wake of this “revolution”? It depends on which historian you ask. According to Richard Pipes, it was 9 million. Robert Conquest says at least 20 million, and likely as many as 30 million, died in the “Great Terror.”

If you include “unnatural deaths,” the number who died could be as high as 50 million.

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In short, when looked at in terms of human carnage — of lives lost — the Russian Revolution was essentially another world war.

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The Russian experience inspired other “revolutions,” and its record of mass genocide “is exceeded only by another communist dictatorship, Maoist China, which destroyed between 44.5 to 72 million lives (according to Stephane Courtois). And let’s not forget the ‘killing fields’ of Cambodia in the 1970s.”

Why isn’t this history better known? “[Soviet leader Joseph] Stalin kept most media out, so few Americans knew that millions were starving,” writes John Stossel in a recent column. And he had help. “Even as the Russian regime killed millions, some journalists and intellectuals covered up the crimes.”

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Most of the 88 countries that score “repressed” or “mostly unfree” on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom are either communist, former communist, or some type of socialist economy. They are also the world’s poorest nations.

And that, even more than the appalling body count, is what ultimately doomed Soviet communism: the awful material conditions. Life expectancy of Russians in the 1980s was six years lower than in western Europe, according to economist Nicolas Eberstadt. Infant mortality was three times higher. Death rates were rising for every age group.

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…when President Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987 and urged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” he was giving voice to a frustration that had long been pent up inside the people who lived behind the Iron Curtain. The wall finally came down, undone in large measure by the manifold failures of communism itself.

Of course, Russians even today must deal with the continuing fallout of the 1917 revolution.

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Comment: On the coup d’etat of 1917 followed a bloody civil war in Russia, which was won by the communists. Then followed a period until 1924 when Lenin attempted to foment revolution in all of Europe. It resulted in a Russian invasion in 1920 of Poland. The brave Poles at the battle of Warsaw stopped the invasion and the march of the red forces into the rest of Europe. The main target was Germany, which experienced a bloody civil war. German communists only managed to take power in Bavaria for a short time. Hungary had to go through a terrible communist revolt.

After 1924 the Soviet Union concentrated on fomenting global revolution starting with India and China in Asia. In 1947 the West used containment against the Soviet Union which resulted in drawing out the collapse of the Moscow tyranny until 1991. The suffering caused by Moscow in Europe between 1947 to 1991 can still be felt. The economy of East European countries are lagging far behind those of the West European countries in the European Union.

The terror revolution in France of 1789 inspired communist and nazi revolutions, that caused the Second World war between 1939 to 1945.

Only a few remaining communist tyrannies remain one hundred years after the 1917 coup d’etat like North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Belarus and Cuba. China, the largest communist dictatorship, has turned into an authoritarian market economy.