The World and Everything in It: January 3, 2023

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

North Korea’s provocations last year do not bode well for this year. Today, we analyze the increased tensions in Southeast Asia.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also the United Nations says Haiti is on “the verge of an abyss.” What’s it going to take for Haiti to stand on its own?

Plus WORLD’s Classic Book of the Month.

And learning to ignore that persistent critic.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, January 3rd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time now for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: New Congress / McCarthy » The 118th Congress of the United States will be seated today with Republicans claiming the House majority. But one question remains: Who will hold the speaker’s gavel?

California’s Kevin McCarthy won the GOP’s internal vote for the role, but Republican holdouts remain.

Congressman Brad Wenstrup said Monday …

WENSTRUP: Some say they won’t vote for him. You have even more members who say they won’t vote for anybody but Kevin McCarthy. So that puts in kind of a stalemate before we even get going.

To claim the gavel, McCarthy now needs “yes” votes from a majority of all members voting in the Speaker election.

If he doesn’t reach that threshold on the first ballot, members will keep voting until someone wins the majority.

Moscow says Ukrainian rocket kills 63 Russian troops » Rockets rained down on a Russian facility in the occupied eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, killing dozens of invading troops. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The Kremlin rarely admits significant military losses. But Russia’s defense ministry called it one of the deadliest attacks on Moscow's forces since the start of the war.

Ukraine fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system. Russia says it shot down two of them, but the rest found their mark.

The U.S.-supplied HIMARS systems have enabled Ukraine to hit key targets.

Ammunition stored close to the facility reportedly exploded in the attack … leading to 63 deaths.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Weather » A storm system is taking aim at the Midwest this week after triggering floods in California.

Zeki Abed owns a motorcycle storage facility in San Francisco. He told KGO-TV:

ABED: Within 15 minutes, the garage door busted, cracked, and weather just started pouring in.

Floodwaters also wreaked havoc at the San Francisco Zoo.

Forecasters say that same weather system could drop 6 to 10 inches of snow in places like Minneapolis today and into tomorrow.

Hobbs sworn in as gov of AZ » In Arizona, Democrat Katie Hobbs took the oath of office on Monday, becoming the state’s 24th governor.

She won a close and contentious race over Republican Kari Lake by just 17,000 votes.

Lake never conceded. Last week, she lost her legal fight over the election results.

Hobbs is Arizona’s outgoing secretary of state. She takes over for now former Republican Governor Doug Ducey.

NASA China warning » The head of NASA says the United States is locked in a new space race to the moon—this time with China. WORLD’s Mary Muncy has that story.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: NASA administrator Bill Nelson warns that China may claim parts of the moon as its territory if it gets back there before the United States.

He said China might cordon off resource-rich areas of the moon under the guise of scientific research and say, “Keep out … this is our territory."

Nelson, a former astronaut, told Politico that "It is a fact: we’re in a space race."

China established its own space station earlier this year. NASA, meantime, is working on its Artemis series of future lunar missions.

For WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy

Air passenger bill of rights » Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal is among a number of lawmakers pushing for what they call the airline passengers bill of rights. The legislation would require airlines to compensate passengers for the extra costs of disrupted flights like meals and hotel stays.

BLUMENTHAL: The numbers of cancellations and delays has risen by 63%. One out of every four flights in America in 2022 was canceled or delayed.

The renewed push comes after Southwest Airlines had to cancel thousands of flights last week.

The bill would require air carriers to pay at least $1,300 to any passenger denied boarding as a result of overbooking a flight. It would also force airlines to immediately refund baggage fees for damaged or lost bags.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: increased tensions in Southeast Asia.

Plus, the Classic Book of the Month for January.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 3rd of January, 2023.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re happy you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up today, North Korea.

After its record number of missile tests and other military exercises in 2022, the outlook for North Korea in 2023 seems daunting.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher on the forecast for what to expect.

KISHIDA: [Japanese]

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters the government conducted a test to see if Japan could survive an attack by its enemies. 

He said the answer was no. Its current self-defense measures are not adequate.

And that’s why Fumio Kishida announced in December that Japan would significantly alter its self-defense strategy. Ever since World War II, the country has outsourced most of its defense to the United States. It kept just a small, police-style military force.

But now, Japan will allow its military to engage in preemptive strikes. It is planning a military buildup through 2027.

But why? Well, because tensions have ratcheted up in the region.

David Maxwell is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a 30-year veteran of the U-S Army, and served in special forces. He retired in 2011 after teaching at the National War College. Throughout his career, he specialized in military operations in Asia, and specifically Korea. He says Japan’s military buildup has quite a bit to do with China. But also a lot to do with North Korea.

MAXWELL: So what we're really seeing is North Korea, conducting political warfare and blackmail diplomacy, while at the same time trying to advance their military capabilities.

Even though North Korea has conducted more missile tests this year than ever before, Maxwell says the Kim regime is not prepared for war.

MAXWELL: In fact, we've seen indications that right now, even though they're in their normal winter training period cycle, that they're reducing training for soldiers because of lack of food. They are postured in offensive positions with their artillery, forward position 70% of their military is forward positioned between the DMZ and Pyongyang. However, we are not seeing the preparations for war.

Maxwell describes an asymmetrical military buildup by the North: rather than building a well-rounded military force, North Korea is focusing exclusively on building up its nuclear and missile arsenal.

MAXWELL: He's also developing the full range of missiles from short range ballistic missiles, medium range, intermediate range, and then intercontinental ballistic missiles. And he's tested various kinds as well.

Maxwell says the Kim regime relies on a strategy of provoking the international community into giving it sanctions relief.

The day after Christmas—only about a week ago—North Korea sent several drones across the border into South Korea.

SK MILITARY LEADER: [Korean]

An official from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff saying his country responded by scrambling jets, firing warning shots, and sending some of its own drones back across the North Korean border. That sort of thing hasn’t happened since 2017.

Meanwhile, China is stepping up its provocations and aggressions—not just against Taiwan and Japan, but also the U-S.

AUDIO: [Jets]

That’s declassified audio from late last month of a Chinese plane maneuvering to within 20 feet in front of a U.S. plane while it conducted routine and legal patrols in the South China Sea. According to the U.S. military, the unsafe maneuver could’ve put the U-S pilot in danger.

But Maxwell says that North Korea is at the center of tensions and uncertainty in the region and elsewhere.

MAXWELL: Not only is North Korea connected to China and Japan, but also to Iran, into Syria, and they have proliferated weapons to training to conflict areas, Yemen, Africa, North Africa, you know, and they will sell weapons to anybody to make to make money. And so this little peninsula, really is connected to all the major threats, the United States is concerned about.

Maxwell says there are two ways North Korea’s trajectory could radically change.

The first is that the military elite in North Korea could turn on Kim Jong Un for not getting sanctions lifted.

MAXWELL: Despite his sanctions evasion activities, he really must get those sanctions lifted because of promises to the military elite. Now, if the military are not satisfied, we could see them try to exert pressure on Kim Jong and to change his behavior. That would be a positive for us. There's absolutely no guarantee of that. But it must remain a possibility.

And the other way things could change is the North Korean people saying enough is enough.

MAXWELL: An outlying possibility is unrest among the people that would really force Kim Jong Un to change his behavior. Because you know, if they cannot control the population. And we should remember too, that Kim Jong Un actually is more afraid of the population than he is of the US military.

Until either of those things happens, countries like Japan are forced to prepare for continued escalations—from North Korea, as well as China. Dozens of North Korean test missiles have already flown over, or near Japan in the past year and that very well could continue.

KISHIDA: [Japanese]

And that’s why Japan is, for the first time since WWII, changing its national security posture.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the crisis in Haiti.

Less than 700 miles from the coast of Florida, violence, hunger, and disease plague the country of Haiti.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s so bad that in November, the United Nations put it this way: Haiti is on the “verge of an abyss” and it can’t get better on its own.

Joining us now is Brian Concanon, founder of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

REICHARD: Welcome, Brian.

BRIAN CONCANNON, GUEST: Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Brian, you lived and worked in Haiti in the late 1990s and early two-thousands. How is the current crisis there different from the past?

CONCANNON: Back in the late 90s, when I first got to Haiti, I was with the United Nations. And it was part of a coming together of the international community, recognizing the international community had supported Haitian dictatorships in the past, including the Duvalier regime. And everybody got together and said, Okay, we're going to do it differently. We're going to support democracy. So in the time I was there, the first half from 1995 to about 2000, the international community put a lot of support for Haitian democracy. And that worked. Haiti's democracy actually worked. Starting in 2000, the international community decided to pull back on that support, and ended up undermining Haiti's democracy leading to a coup in 2004. We're now in 2023 and Haiti has not hit the high watermark of democracy that it had back in around 2000. And Haitians are still out there fighting every day for democracy in meeting rooms, in the streets, on the media. But unfortunately, their way forward to prosperity and stability is blocked by a repressive corrupt government that is propped up by the international community.

REICHARD: The United Nations is calling for a peacekeeping force in Haiti. Is that something that Haitians want?

CONCANNON: There are some Haitians who feel they have no other choice and are in favor of it. But most organized civil society have said they don't want it. Because in 1994, just before I got to Haiti, there was a peacekeeping force that was welcomed by Haitians and that worked. That peacekeeping force was brought in to restore democracy in Haiti. The current planned or proposed peacekeeping force is not to restore democracy, it's actually to continue propping up the government. It's been requested by a government that has no popular support or legitimacy. And Haitians see the peacekeeping force as a way of prolonging that government's ability to steal and repress the population. So I think Haitians aren't categorically opposed to foreign help, they're just opposed to foreign help that's going to prop up their repressive government.

REICHARD: In the past, aid sent to Haiti sometimes didn’t serve the intended purpose. I’m thinking of the tens of billions of dollars donated after the earthquake in 2010. What makes it so difficult to get help where it’s needed in Haiti?

CONCANNON: That's a really big question and there's been lots of good books written about it. A couple of kind of top headlines. One is that a lot of the aid that's sent Haiti's way—even a lot of it that's been given by American families with all the best intentions—it ends up serving the international community more than it serves the Haitian people. Salaries get spent on expensive foreign consultants, on security, on lots of other things. But it's also important, and this was one of the key takeaways from the earthquake, most of the money spent on Haiti does not go through the Haitian government. And so most of it, a lot of it that's wasted is wasted by international organizations, not by Haitians themselves. But the last part is it's difficult to work on Haiti because the problems are so complex. You have different types of problems reinforcing, you have educational deficiencies, which means you have fewer educated workers, you have environmental problems, you have economic problems, you have infrastructure problems like roads not working. And all of these problems come together in ways that make helping Haiti in the short term difficult. And so what needs to be done is a long term plan to bring political stability to Haiti and have sustainable development.

REICHARD: And how can foreign missions and ministries play in Haiti’s rebuilding?

CONCANNON: The first thing people need to do is to listen to Haitians. That seems like an easy thing to do. But it is not done. And again, the diagnostics after the 2010 earthquake, all of them said that there was insufficient participation by Haitians. But that still happens. Again, it happened in the 2016 Hurricane Matthew, and it happens today, where Haitians are not appropriately consulted. What Haitians are saying is if the international community wants to help, the first thing it should do—before it does anything affirmatively, it should do something negatively, it should allow Haitians to really run their own country. And at that point, issues of how economic assistance comes in—infrastructure development, security assistance, all those issues can be decided by a government with popular support and legitimacy. At that point, you can have long term progress, like you did between 1995 and 2000.

REICHARD: Brian Concannon is the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Brian, thanks for joining us.

CONCANNON: Well, thanks so much for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: People in Seoul, South Korea can be forgiven for thinking a mysterious light seen last Friday night may have come from out of this world!

Video footage showed an object in the sky beaming a cone of light onto the city streets below.

But after some callers expressed fear they were looking at an invading UFO, the South Korean Defense Ministry said nothing to see here, folks, it was merely a test-fired solid-fuel rocket.

The ministry said it did not announce the launch in advance because it involved military security issues.

If we spot a flying bicycle, we’ll know there’s more to the story than the South Korean government is admitting.

REICHARD: Nice reference to E.T.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 3rd.

Thank you for turning to The World and Everything in It to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next: G.K. Chesterton.

Many Christians know the author for his Father Brown mysteries and his profoundly theological quotable quotes.

WORLD book reviewer Emily Whitten recommends one of his nonfiction books for our January Classic Book of the Month.

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER: English author G. K. Chesterton published his apologetic book, Orthodoxy, in 1908. At the time, he was in his 30s, and fairly well-known as a journalist. He hadn’t yet joined the Roman Catholic Church, published his Father Brown books, or begun his popular BBC radio addresses—like this one written just three months before he died in 1936.

CHESTERTON: I myself have even been blamed for defending the spices of life against what was called the simple life.

In contrast to that older, grandfatherly voice, Orthodoxy conveys the thoughts of a vibrant, young man, still settling into his stride. In this audiobook clip read by John Lee, you hear the main idea of the book.

ORTHODOXY: How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world, and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps—how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honor of being our own town? I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need.

The word “orthodoxy” comes from the Greek word “ortho”, meaning right, straight, or true. Orthodox Christian beliefs then might be defined as right Christian beliefs. For Chesterton, orthodoxy was both familiar and unfamiliar. Unfamiliar because he hadn’t always embraced Christianity. Like an explorer sailing to find new lands, he went looking for God’s truth. But as the book unfolds, we see that God’s truth was never far away.

Trevin Wax is an author and vice president of the North American Mission Board. He says Chesterton’s book shaped his own journey to find truth.

WAX: And I think the main point of Orthodoxy, and one of the reasons it's still a relevant book, even though it can be difficult and a challenging book to read is, what he's saying is, you actually will never make progress in thought and moving into the world as it actually is, unless you believe in something outside of yourself.

Last year, Wax published a book titled The Thrill of Orthodoxy which tips its hat to Chesterton in several ways. He also published an annotated version of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, to help new readers engage the classic.

Wax says Chesterton is relevant for our age in many ways. Right off the bat, Chesterton mocks the idea that merely believing in yourself can be the foundation for a good life.

WAX: Chesterton’s right. It leads to cultural insanity. And that's what we're looking at. That's what we're watching happen in real time. We have to believe what anyone says about themselves. And we have to believe in how they identify themselves and we have to believe that sort of self trust is at the foundation of everything.

On his journey, Chesterton often felt the lure of modern heresies, and he helps readers avoid those traps. For instance, many of Chesterton’s contemporaries believed new scientific theories disproved the existence of God. Some saw the fact that the sun repeatedly rises and sets day after day as proof God isn’t involved. But Chesterton challenges that reasoning. Perhaps, he says, God enjoys repetition in the same way a child does, constantly saying, “do it again.” Here’s Wax reading a quote.

WAX: “It is possible that God says every morning, do it again to the sun. And every evening, do it again to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we. The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence. It may be a theatrical encore.”

Chesterton will be particularly interesting to conservative Christians. He stood firmly against the Marxist and evolutionary views of his day that exalted progress and denigrated the past.

That said, Chesterton isn’t trustworthy on every topic. For instance, he greatly misunderstands the Puritans, he’s overly sympathetic to Roman Catholicism, and his critique of predestination is laughable at times. Wax warns us to read thoughtfully.

WAX: But then also just to know Chesterton is one of these writers that when he's really right, he's really, really right. And when he gets things wrong, he gets them really, really wrong.

Why read Chesterton, then? He may be one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the 20th century. He had a profoundly positive effect on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many other Christian thinkers.

WAX: When you think about Chesterton, you have to think about him as a journalist, not as a theologian. That’s not to say he doesn't deal with theological concepts, he does, but like, I'm not I don't go again and again to Chesterton for theological consultation. I go to Chesterton, because he awakes my wonder at the world around me and at the gospel. That's what he does.

Our Classic Book of the Month, Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton can be difficult to read, so I do recommend Wax’s annotated version. But however you engage, I hope Chesterton can strengthen your belief not in yourself, but in God–and His familiar and unfamiliar grandeur.

I’m Emily Whitten.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 3rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Commentator Whitney Williams now on how to survive those criticisms that just won’t quit.

AUDIO: [Musical score/rain from Titanic scene]

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, not literally—it was actually a beautiful summer day on the Galveston, Texas coastline. Not too hot, a nice breeze ... My husband, three boys, and I sat on the open-air deck of a large seafood restaurant overlooking tired shrimp boats. But as the sun shone down on us and relaxed vacation vibes wafted through the breeze, a dark storm wreaked havoc in my soul.

Several days earlier, at the beginning of our vacation, I’d received a heaping helping of criticism–several helpings, in fact.

And to be honest, it almost choked me … people being so right about my wrongness. I could have taken it as an opportunity to learn and grow, of course, but instead, I sat there chewing and chewing, sinking further and further into the depths of self-deprecation. “I’m obviously not cut out for this work you’ve given me, Lord.”

“Spit that out!” I imagined Him telling me in that moment, as if I were a little girl who’d just stuck a marble in her mouth.

“Lord?” I questioned, cheeks full.

“Spit it out!” I pictured him saying. “That gristle you’ve been chewing on—that embarrassment you feel … that shame and fear that keeps you standing still … If you want to live, give it to me. Spit it out.”

And he held out His hand.

So I did.

I wish I could tell you that that was that. But the thing about Satan is, he doesn’t let you forget your past sins and mistakes, does he? So there I was, sitting in church more than a year later, chewing, once again, on the gristle of criticism, when Jimmy Needham, a pastor at my church, reminded me that the cross has already said the worst possible thing that could be said about me–I was so wretched, God’s Son had to die to make me okay.

In other words, get over it, Whitney.

Picture you’re in line for a strawberry milkshake on the Titanic and someone skips ahead of you, Needham continued in so many words. Oh, you’re ticked. But then, the boat hits an iceberg. Everyone’s running. Leo passes you by and Kate Winslet. Fast forward a bit … you and this line skipper guy, you’ve been saved, you’ve been rescued …

Sermon: And they get you out, they sit you down, they put that nice warm blanket on you, they give you a cup of hot tea, and my question is, after all that, do you give a single rip about your strawberry milkshake? No. We can get over things we think are big when we stare at something bigger, yeah?

Yeah.

Oh, regurgitated criticism, where is your sting in light of my sin and Christ’s saving grace?

TITANIC: Come on, you really gotta hock it back. Get some leverage to it, use your arms. Arc your neck …

I’m Whitney Williams.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: the 118th U.S. Congress. We’ll preview the upcoming session.

And, building connections with grandchildren takes work, but so worth it. Kim Henderson will show us how.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records God saying, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:3-5 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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