The Atlantic: Why Did Kim Jong Un Just Visit China?

Then, on Monday, speculative reports observed that an armored train from North Korea was en route to Beijing. Eventually, state media in China and North Korea confirmed that the visitor aboard the armored mystery train from North Korea to Beijing was none other than Kim Jong Un. For the first time in his six-year reign, Kim had finally left North Korean soil to meet the leader of his country’s oldest benefactor, China. During the visit, Kim reportedly told Xi Jinping, the president of China, what he had told South Korea’s presidential envoys: that he was ready to talk to the United States about his nuclear weapons. “It is our consistent stand to be committed to denuclearization on the peninsula, in accordance with the will of late President Kim Il Sung and late General Secretary Kim Jong Il,” Kim was quoted as having said, according to Xinhua. [...]

After news of the Xi-Kim meeting broke, one of the obvious questions was: Why now? (For comparison: Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, also waited six years before leaving North Korea to engage the outside world.) Kim likely just needed time. After eliminating his rivals, consolidating power, and achieving what he likely saw as the completion of a sufficiently credible nuclear deterrent, Kim finally felt ready to go abroad. Recent events also suggest that the Beijing-Pyongyang relationship, which is often strained, is on the mend. North Korea withheld from any ballistic missile provocations during China’s 19th Party Congress. Kim also congratulated Xi both after the Party Congress and the recently concluded National People's Congress. In the past, by contrast, North Korea launched missiles as China held a range of significant international events, embarrassing and annoying Beijing. [...]

The next few months are unpredictable and critical. Xi has accepted an invitation from Kim to visit North Korea. Meanwhile, the White House remains in chaos, anticipating the arrival of John Bolton as Trump's new national security advisor. Bolton, infamous in North Korea for his disinterest in good-faith diplomacy and disarmament talks, could leave the U.S.-North Korea summit dead on arrival, potentially paving a dangerous path for the president toward conflict.

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Quartz: The election of Italy’s first black senator won’t make a dent on rising racism there

wobi is not only the first Senator of African origin to have been elected in Italy. He’s also the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to have been elected to represent a far-right party, la Lega (The League) led by Matteo Salvini.

But his election is unlikely to lead to less racism and xenophobia in the country nor will it bring any respite for migrants in the country. This is for two reasons: racism and xenophobia have become more entrenched in Italy, and neither Iwobi’s party, nor the senator himself, are sympathetic towards migrants. [...]

Migrants in Italy are increasingly seen as a threat to society. The centre-right coalition, which attracted the highest percentage of votes in the recent elections, focused its campaign on the slogan “Italians first”. The leader of the coalition Silvio Berlusconi even declared that “migrants are a social bomb.” [...]

In March 2011, Human Rights Watch published a report entitled “Everyday Intolerance: Racist and Xenophobic Violence in Italy”. The report pointed to “worrying signs exist that increasing diversity has led to increasing intolerance, with some resorting to or choosing violence to express racist or xenophobic sentiments.”

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The Guardian: Yes, we’ve lost our faith in God, but we’ve lost our faith in reason too

A survey of the social attitudes of British believers published in 2013 by Linda Woodhead, professor of sociology of religion at Lancaster University, suggested that two thirds of Catholics accepted abortion of some kind. Half said that they are primarily guided by their own reason, intuition or feelings. Fewer than one in 10 sought guidance from the church or Bible.

Meanwhile, Woodward observes,, a minority of believers have marched in the opposite direction. They possess an absolute belief in God, make moral decisions primarily on the basis of religious sources, and are deeply conservative on issues of social morality. The literalism of fundamentalist Muslims and evangelical Christians speaks to a yearning for the restoration of strong identities and moral lines. The sectarianism of fundamentalist religion is reflected also in the political sphere. Witness the rise of tribal politics and of social movements built around excluding the Other. [...]

Religion once helped provide meaning and identity through sublimating human agency to God’s will. Not only is it less capable of doing so these days, but when it does so, it often takes sectarian or bigoted forms. Equally, as the optimism that once suffused the humanist impulse has ebbed away, politics, too, is less capable of providing a means through which people can express agency. The politics that today seeks to do this is also often sectarian or bigoted.  

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The Atlantic: Real Talk About Open Relationships

The Guardian: Here lies danger. Hungary is on the verge of full-blown autocracy

“Their task, should they get to power,” says Orbán of those who oppose him, “is to execute ‘the grand plan’.” Europe, he claims, is about to be invaded by tens of millions of people from Africa and the Middle East and “if Europe does nothing, they will kick down our doors. The history of the conquered nations will be rewritten by others, and those who are still young will see how they become minorities in their own country.”  

Forget the fact that Hungary has practically zero immigration from those regions, and that the EU request that they should take in 1,300 was fiercely resisted, resulting in the erection of two rows of barbed-wire fence at the border with Serbia and Croatia, and the deployment of a civil militia – which could always be used for other purposes – to patrol it. More importantly for now, he tells his hard-core supporters that all who oppose him under the “independent” banner are in fact undeclared Soros candidates ready and willing to carry out the wicked financier’s orders. “Our strength lies in unity: one camp, one flag. We need everyone working together,” he declares, adding that he understands that people may be frightened by the prospect.

If they are frightened, of course, it will have been because of Orbán’s own version of “project fear”, the only thing that could shield him from the mounting charges of financial and social corruption. It is because he has instilled fear into those who oppose him, chiefly through loss of employment. He has control of all civil institutions and has already succeeded in having the main paper of opposition, Népszabadság, closed down.  

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The Guardian: Vatican to hold exorcist training course after 'rise in possessions'

According to a priest from Sicily, the number of people in Italy claiming to be possessed had tripled to 500,000 a year, and an Irish priest has said demand for exorcisms has “risen exponentially”. [...]

But some warn that “deliverance ministry” can be a form of spiritual abuse. Critics also say LGBT people and those with mental health issues are targeted for deliverance in the belief that their sexuality or psychiatric problems are the result of demonic possession. [...]

“It’s only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially,” he told the Irish Catholic. “What I’m finding out desperately, is people who in their own minds believe – rightly or wrongly – that they’re afflicted by an evil spirit. [...]

But, he said, “some Christians are sometimes treating mental health issues as if everything is spiritual. So if someone tells a church leader they are suffering from depression, sometimes the response is that everything can be treated with prayer. The extreme end of that is exorcism.”

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