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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-Jul-2020
17-Jul-20 World View -- Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam now filling with water, alarming Egypt

Web Log - July, 2020

17-Jul-20 World View -- Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam now filling with water, alarming Egypt

Lebanon: A country in free fall

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

News events in Ethiopia, Egypt, Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam now filling with water, alarming Egypt
Military clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh
Lebanon: A country in free fall

News events in Ethiopia, Egypt, Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is reportedly now filling with water (Reuters)

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is reportedly now filling with water (Reuters)

For many years, I used to write an article every day, 365/366 days per year, and cross-posted them on Brietbart. However, in the last couple of years, I no longer have the energy to do that. One reason is that I was royally screwed by the a--holes at Breitbart, and the other reason is that, even though I have thousands of regular readers, nobody is willing to pay me a regular salary, and most of them consider the articles equivalent to a comic strip that they enjoy reading, as long as it's free.

Nonetheless, there's so much nonsense, ignorance and stupidity, in the mainstream media, especially about international events. Even the BBC is turning into a left-wing sewer like CNN, probably because the BBC receives a lot of money from PBS and they have to do as they're told. And I've been told by many people that they depend on my web site, which apparently the only web site in the world with honest, unbiased, non-ideological descriptions of what's going on in the world.

The result is that I actually feel guilty about not doing more. So the purpose of this article is to briefly summarize some major international stories that are very important, but which nobody knows anything about. It's not as good as three major articles on three consecutive days, but it's almost as good.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam now filling with water, alarming Egypt

There's a really interesting story about Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which has been under construction since 2011. I've written several stories about it while it was under construction, and about the controversy: Once the dam has been constructed, it has to be filled with water from the Blue Nile, and the region to be filled is so enormous that it will take about seven years to fill the dam. However, the Blue Nile supplies most of Sudan's water, and about 90% of Egypt's water. Both Egypt and Sudan are already short of water, and there are drought seasons that are worse. So this seven-year filling period is potentially a disaster to Sudan and Egypt. There have been years of arguments and negotiations, to no avail.

So now, in July 2020, the time has come for Ethiopia to start filling the dam. Nothing much has happened yet, but if Egypt and Sudan suffer from lack of water, there could well be a war.

Military clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been arguing for years about an Armenia-governed enclave called Nagorno-Karabakh in the middle of Azerbaijan. There was no problem when both countries were part of the Soviet Union, but they had a bloody war after the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. There have been occasional clashes, most recently in 2016. But in the last week, major fighting has begun, and people in Azerbaijan have been marching on the capitol building in Azerbaijan's capital city Baku, demanding that Azerbaijan declare war on Armenia and force Armenia to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh.

Generally speaking, Azerbaijan is a Turkic country aligned with Turkey, and Armenia is an Eastern Orthodox (Armenian Apostolic) country aligned with Russia. Furthermore, memories of the massacre of Armenians in Turkey in 1916 ("Armenian genocide") are being revived. Turkey has vowed to defend Azerbaijan, and Russia has offered to mediate. I would say that this situation could lead to a regional war, but there's already a small regional war going on. The war could expand into a war between Turkey and Russia, two countries that are also at odds with each other in Syria and Libya.

Lebanon: A country in free fall

The country Lebanon is on the verge of collapse. Nearly 50% of the population are living in poverty, and that was before the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis began, which is making things much worse. Lebanon has two problems. The Iran-controlled terrorist group Hezbollah runs the country, but is receiving less money from its puppetmaster Iran, thanks to US sanctions. And second, there is massive government corruption, stemming from its "confessional system of government," where power is divided based on sectarian affiliation or confession (Sunni, Shia, Christian), as I've described in detail in the past. The confessional form of government has worked fairly well in resolving disputes in both Iraq and Lebanon, but it gives each sectarian group unrestricted access to the funds of the portions of government it controls, leading to a situation where government officials take all the money for themselves, and let the people starve and freeze in darkness. Now, for the first time, there is massive anger growing against Hezbollah in both Lebanon and Iraq, and Lebanon's government may collapse completely.

The country is in free fall. The currency has collapsed. The unemployment rate is over 30%. A tainted fuel oil scandal revealed enormous corruption -- bribes, forged documents, and falsified tests. Protesters have blocked roads with burning tires and are demanding that the entire government resign. A crisis seems imminent.

Sources

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (17-Jul-2020) Permanent Link
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