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Spain's 2011 budget deficit much worse than expected
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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"On Saturday morning the Iranian navy will test several of its long-range missiles in the Persian Gulf," says Admiral Mahmoud Moussavi, deputy commander of Iran's navy. The missiles tests are part of ongoing navy maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in the main and final phase in preparing the navy for confronting the enemy in a warlike situation. This comes a day after Iran's navy said a US aircraft carrier entered a zone where the war games were in progress. Iran Independent News Service and Telegraph
The recent rise in oil prices show that traders are betting that Iran's threats to shut the Strait of Hormuz are bluffs. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would also disrupts Iran's own ports. One of Iran’s biggest export terminals, Kharg Island, lies deep within the Gulf. It was a frequent target during the 1984-88 Iran-Iraq Tanker War, when the two nations regularly attacked each other’s oil shipments, and it would be vulnerable again in a new confrontation. Market Watch
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Apparently Boko Haram are equal opportunity terrorists. After attacking several churches on Christmas day, killing at least 42 people, on Friday they they bombed an area near a mosque in Maiduguri in northern Nigeria just as people were leaving from Friday prayers. At least four people were killed. The Boko Haram group originated in Maiduguri, and has staged numerous terrorist attacks in the capital, Abuja. The leaders of Chad and Cameroon, which are close to Maiduguri, are reported to have held talks about how they can help prevent the violence spreading across their borders. BBC
There have been a resurgence of armed clashes between security forces and ethnic Uighurs in China's Xinjiang province, which has been the site of violent riots in the past. According to the official Chinese reports, on Wednesday evening, a group of Uighur "violent terrorists" kidnapped two Uighur shepherds who were tending their sheep, and then hacked to death a police officer sent to negotiate with them. One officer and seven Uighurs were killed. But according to the Munich-based World Uighur Congress, the incident was a confrontation between Uigurs and local police prompted by mounting discontent over government repression. According to a Congress spokesman, the Chinese recently began a 100-day "strike hard" anti-terror campaign in Xinjiang, arresting Uighurs and raiding their homes for evidence. Beijing has often said that its primary terrorism threat comes from the Xinjiang region, where Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people, oppose Chinese rule and controls on their religion, culture and language. South China Morning Post and Radio Free Asia
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With his predecessor killed last year by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, Abdul Shakoor Turkistani has become the new "Amir" of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). In addition to leading the jihad against the Chinese state over the "occupation" of Xinjiang, his goal is to make Xinjiang part of a greater Central Asian caliphate called Turkistan, a name which refers to the Turkic ethnic groups that populate the region, including the Uighurs, Uzbeks, Karkalpaks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Tatars. According to Abdul Shakoor, every Chinese policy "is aimed at undermining the identity and the conservative traditions of the Muslims." These policies include:
Abdul Shakoor has become one of the highest ranking al-Qaeda figures in the region. Since he operates out of Pakistan's tribal areas, China's intelligence agents will certainly be hunting for him there, with or without the full cooperation of Pakistan. Jamestown
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Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría announced on Friday that the country's public deficit would total 8% of GDP, much higher than the target of 6%. In response, she announced tough new austerity measures, including income and property tax hikes, and a civil servant wage freeze. The conservative government, which swept to victory in November amid dissatisfaction over the Socialists' handling of the financial crisis, have pledged to turn the economy around while reforming a broken labour market and pulling the country out of a prolonged slump. EITB (Spain)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 31-Dec-11 World View -- Armed clashes with Uighurs in China's Xinjiang province
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Dec-2011)
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Deeply divided, Greece's new government has ground to a halt
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Residents of Duma, Syria, cheered the arrival of several white buses on Thursday morning, and they ran to meet the Arab League monitors who had been scheduled to arrive. But when the doors swung open, out came troops carrying guns. At least seven people were killed when the troops opened fire on the crowd. In fact, violence appears to be continuing as usual, three days after the Arab League monitor team arrived in Syria, with the job to monitor compliance with a regional peace initiative calling for the withdrawal of security forces from urban areas, the release of political prisoners and dialogue with the opposition. Their numbers are expected to grow to about 150. However, they're already being called a failure. LATimes
The credibility of the Arab League monitor team was brought into question from the start by the appointment of General Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi, a former head of military intelligence in Sudan, as its leader. Al-Dabi worked for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who is now a fugitive from the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity for the Darfur genocide. According to Amnesty International,
"During the early 1990s, the military intelligence in Sudan was responsible for the arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, and torture or other ill-treatment of numerous people in Sudan.The Arab League's decision to appoint as the head of the observer mission a Sudanese general on whose watch severe human rights violations were committed in Sudan risks undermining the League's efforts so far and seriously calls into question the mission's credibility."
Al-Dabi became Sudan's ambassador to Qatar in 2003, and it's probably that post that earned him the leadership of the Arab League monitor team. However, the suspicion is that he'll be sympathetic to the Syrian regime's violence, since he participated in the violence of Sudan's regime. Telegraph
Syria's opposition figures, led by Human Rights Watch, have accused the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad of moving hundreds of prisoners to military sites to hide them from Arab League monitors. Syria is not permitting the Arab League monitors to visit military sites. CNN
The Egyptian police raided more than a dozen offices of local and foreign rights groups as part of a probe into alleged illicit foreign funding of political groups. At least two US rights groups - the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) - were targeted in the operation. The U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned" about the raids. AFP
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Turkey has been pursuing Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists in Iraq, and bombing their camps. Airstrikes by Turkey's warplanes in northern Iraq on Thursday killed 36 people who turned out to be civilians. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) initially said that, based on information from the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), there were no civilians in the region targeted by the airstrikes. Later in the day, the said the incident was the result of an "operational accident" that was caused by a mistake or intelligence failure. The victims were apparently civilian smugglers moving gas, cigarettes and sugar from Iraq into Turkey, and had no connection to the PKK. This incident will sharpen the political debate in Turkey over what some see as an internal contradiction in the views of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who views Hamas in Gaza as victims, but views the PKK as terrorists. Zaman (Istanbul)
More than 2,000 Kurds demonstrated in Istanbul against the Turkish authorities following the fatal airstrikes that killed 36 civilian Kurds. Some chanted pro-PKK slogans. The protest degenerated into clashes with riot police who had been deployed in large numbers, and used water cannon and tear gas. EuroNews
The government of interim Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has completely ground to a halt, and is unable to proceed with even the most urgent measures. Reform measures that were promised as a condition of further international bailout money are not being implemented. The privatization program has stopped, as the government is not selling government-owned assets. Labor markets have not been deregulated. The program of public sector layoffs is a fiasco, with ony 1,000 of 30,000 planned layoffs completed. The modernization of the civil service has been delayed. The planned third round of pension cuts has halted. Corruption is widespread, as politicians have unexplained fortunes in their bank accounts. According to Papademos,
"Now the issue is simply whether we remain in Europe or not. The governing parties have an obligation to work together honestly to finally banish the nightmare of a return to the drachma. If this government doesn't get it right, Greece will go hungry."
His dramatic appeal has been ignored. Greece will have a €14.5 billion bond payment due in March. Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 30-Dec-11 World View -- Turkey's warplanes kill 36 Kurdish civilians in Iraq by mistake
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Dec-2011)
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Israel's army chief says war with Gaza inevitable
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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North Korea carried out a meticulously choreographed funeral for its late leader Kim Jong-il today and affirmed that the country was now in the 'warm care' of his son. Kim's youngest son and successor, Kim Jong-un, front/left in the top picture on the right, walked slowly next to his father's hearse as mourners lining the procession route in Pyongyang wailed in ostentatious displays of grief.
The tightly stage-managed funeral seemed to be a message from the country's ruling family that they remain in tight control despite the death of their figurehead. The only thing not pre-planned was the unexpected snowstorm. Mobs of people of people lined the funeral route, weeping, wailing, crying, pounding the ground, moaning, etc. Typical comments, referencing the falling snow:
South Korea's military will try a new kind of military naval drill some time early next year. At an unannounced time, two submarines will attempt a surprise "attack" on South Korea, to see if South Korea's surface forces will be able to detect the submarines quickly. This will simulate a surprise North Korean attack. The timing of Seoul's announcement of the naval exercises is no coincidence and is designed to send a clear message to the incoming regime in Pyongyang that the South will not sit idly by in the event of any further provocations, such as the Cheonan incident or the shelling of an island off the west coast in November 2010 in which four people died. Telegraph
The war of words took another step forward on Wednesday, as the U.S. reacted to Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if the West imposes an oil embargo against Iran in retaliation for reports that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. According to the Iranian admiral who is leading ten days of war games in the region of the Strait, "Blocking the Strait of Hormuz would be as easy for us as drinking a glass of water, but for the time being there is no need to do so." The U.S. State Dept. called Iran's threat "bluster," and a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, said: "Any disruption will not be tolerated. Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations." The U.S. has not ruled out any military action. Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA)
An article on the Iranian website Mashreq News, which is close to Iran's military circles, gives detailed information about weapons and strategy for closing the Strait of Hormuz. The article enumerated the forces and weapons that Iran could employ in such a military operation, including fast attack craft carrying anti-ship missiles; submarines; battleships; cruise and ballistic missiles; bombers carrying laser-, radar- and optically-guided missiles; helicopters; armed drones; hovercraft; and artillery. It stated that despite Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's statements that Tehran would not initiate a military confrontation but would retaliate harshly if attacked, "there is no guarantee that [Tehran] will not launch a peremptory strike on the civilian level, for instance through cyber-warfare or by means of economic pressure, including by closing the Strait of Hormuz and cutting off [this] energy lifeline for an indefinite period of time." In accordance with Iranian doctrine, the article pointed out that these weapons would actually not be necessary because there would be suicide operations, and added that "the faith of the Iranian youth, and their eagerness to sacrifice their lives, will sap the enemies' courage." Translated by Memri
Benny Gantz, the Chief of General Staff for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says that a major IDF ground invasion of Gaza is inevitable:
"From time to time, we face rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and we understand the continuing buildup from the Egypt region. ...I believe that the State of Israel cannot continue to live under the active threat of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Sooner or later, there will be no escape from conducting a significant operation. The IDF knows how to operate in a determined, decisive and offensive manner against terrorists in the Gaza Strip."
Gantz's statement was made on their anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's previous ground invasion of Gaza, launched on December 27, 2008. Turning to more local matters, Gantz said that in certain circumstances and during non-official military events, the IDF would be prepared to exempt religious soldiers from participation if they are uncomfortable hearing women sing. Jerusalem Post
Mohamed ElBaradei, who won a Nobel Peace Prize when he headed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, and is now a candidate for president of Egypt, said that the United States is doing whatever it can to stop Egypt from annulling the 1979 peace agreement with Israel. Referring to recent meetings between Washington officials and Egypt;'s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), he said:
"The negotiations were completely secret and confidential. What the supreme military council said was that the talks were about bilateral and mutual relations, but I believe that Americans wanted to ensure that the deals signed between Egypt and Israel will remain intact if Islamists ascend to power."
The two Islamist parties affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi movement have won the majority of votes in the first two rounds of elections in the country. Israel National News
Nigeria's Christians are losing faith that the government will protect them from attacks by Islamic extremists and will "respond appropriately" to future killings, the country's leading church group warned Wednesday. (See "26-Dec-11 World View -- Christmas church bombings by Boko Haram trigger clashes in Nigeria") In an apparent revenge attack, attackers threw a bomb into an Arabic school in mainly Christian southern Nigeria, wounding six children and an adult. CNN and AFP
What date comes after December 29? If you're in the tiny South Pacific nation of Samoa this year, then the date that comes after December 29 is December 31. December 30 will not exist. This will occur because the international date line, that separates one day from the next, will move east, putting Samoa west of it. The reason for the change is that Samoa wants to align its calendar with the Asians, who are their main trading partners. AP
What I find fascinating about this story, and haven't seen discussed anywhere, is not that December 30 will disappear, but that Friday will disappear, and the day of the week will go from Thursday to Saturday. This should be completely unacceptable to Jews, Christians, and Muslims who follow the teachings of the Old Testament, where it says that certain things happen every seven days. There is no provision to skip a day, which means, for example, that Samoan Christian church services from now on should be on Monday.
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As the January 6 date of the Orthodox Christmas approaches, the Church of the Nativity, believed by many to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, is being cleaned and prepared. On Wednesday, a brawl erupted between Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic clergy, with each side attacking the other with broomsticks. The two denominations each control sections of the church and fiercely guard their turf. The violence broke out when the sides accused each other of crossing into their territory. Palestinian police officers had to intervene in the fight, and separate the two sides. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 29-Dec-11 World View -- U.S. Fifth Fleet threatens Iran with retaliation in Strait of Hormuz
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Dec-2011)
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Last week's ECB euro liquidity flood is failing badly
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Thousands of Israelis gathered on Tuesday evening in the West Bank town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, to protest against ultra-Orthodox extremists whose campaign for gender segregation has erupted into verbal and physical abuse against women. Police said about 3,000 people showed up, with several hundred police supervising. No incidents were reported. Since Israel's creation, orthodox, reform, secular and conservative Jews have sometimes had difficulty getting along with one another, but some accommodation could always be found. It remains to be seen whether this young ultra-orthodox generation grows or fizzles. AFP
Qatar has apparently scored a major diplomatic coup in the Mideast by becoming the host of an Afghan Taliban embassy liaison office in its capital city, Doha, where peace talks will be held with the U.S. and Europeans. Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai had opposed the Doha office because he was afraid of being shut out of the peace talk, but finally acquiesced. The advantage of holding peace talks in Doha rather than Kabul Afghanistan is that Doha is safer than Kabul from terrorist attacks. The National (UAE)
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, peace talks with the Taliban are problematical. The Taliban are Sunni Islamists from the Pashtun ethnic group that spans southern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, including Pakistan's tribal region. The Afghan Taliban are in a generational Recovery era, which is a time that peace talks are a real possibility. The Pakistan Taliban are in a generational Crisis era, when peace talks are out of the question. So, it's possible that peace talks with the Afghan Taliban might go forward, though this might require a split among the Pashtuns. But no peace talks will stop the Pakistan Taliban, including the Haqqani Network, from crossing the border from Pakistan and perpetrating terrorist attacks in Afghanistan.
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Just before Christmas, the European Central Bank (ECB) tried a new approach to ending the euro crisis: It flooded hundreds of eurozone banks with with half a trillion euros of liquidity, in the form of unlimited 3-year loans at 0.75% interest, as we reported last week. It looked like a great idea on paper. The banks would lend money to other banks at higher interest rates, and make money, and would even purchase toxic Italian bonds, in order to bring down interest rates. This would end a threatened euro credit crunch and collapse of the euro interbank market.
Well, it's all falling apart. Instead of lending the money to other banks, some €410 billion -- almost all the amount borrowed last week -- is being returned to the ECB, earning only 0.25% interest, meaning that the banks are losing 0.5% interest net. And yields (interest rates) on Italy's 10-year bonds surged to the ultra-astronomical 7.13% on Monday, before settling at the merely astronomcal rate of 6.998% at the end of the day. Guardian
Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if the West attempts to impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports. This threat comes in the midst of ten days of live-fire war games by Iran's navy in a large region around the Strait. The West has discussed an oil embargo against Iran since early November, when a U.N. nuclear watchdog report said that the country is developing nuclear weapons. According to Dr Seyed Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran:
"[such an embargo would create a very difficult situation globally] because that would mean the halt of oil exports from the Middle East and that would have a devastating effect on the global economy."The best [strategy for the West] is to quit threatening Iran and trying to punish ordinary Iranians and to try to behave more reasonably in a more respectable manner, and tensions in the region would decrease.
The American behavior is creating a dangerous situation not only for Iran but for the whole globe. The United States is basically pushing things into the direction in which everyone is going to pay a heavy price."
For today's musical entertainment, we have Why This Kolaveri Di, a song that's surprised everyone by becoming a viral hit throughout Asia and the world, since it was released on November 18. Sung by Tamil star Dhanush, the song is in both Tamil and English. The lyrics are somewhat controversial, as the word "Kolaveri" means "murderous rage," but it's a slang word used by young people to shut someone up. The song's lyrics depict the anguish of a man who was just dumped by his girlfriend. It's a very catchy song.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 28-Dec-11 World View -- Thousands of Israelis protest ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Dec-2011)
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Ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel clash with police over gender issues
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Violence appears to be intensifying as Arab League monitors arrive to enforce a peace agreement that exists only on paper. Syria agreed to allow up to 200 Arab League monitors into Syria when the Arab League threatened to turn the issue over to the U.N. Security Council, with the possibility that the UNSC will take some action, as they did in Libya. The first 50 monitors arrived on Monday, as there are reports that the Bashar al-Assad regime is planning a huge massacre in Homs, the city at the heart of the anti-Assad protests. "What's happening in Syria is genocide," according to Mustashar Mahgoub, an Arab League observer, who said, "This is a regime that is taking revenge on its people." DPA
Mustashar Mahgoub, the Arab League monitor quoted above, was injured in an attack in Homs, according to a Syrian activist:
"Our people managed to take four observers from their Damascus Hotel (Sham Hotel) without the notification of the Syrian government on Sunday night to show them the reality of what is happening inside the neighbourhoods of Baba Amr and Khailidyeh. While we were touring the area the shelling started and he was wounded by the fire of the Syrian security forces."
The Arab League is denying that any of their monitors have been wounded, but whether true or not, this situation shows how the violence in Syria is entering a much more dangerous phase. No one seriously believes that allowing the monitors to enter Syria is anything but a stalling ploy by al-Assad's regime, and that al-Assad intends to control the monitors by using "minders" to restrict their movements. Some reports indicate that monitors are being prevented from using satellite phones to talk to activists. These actions are going to infuriate the Arab League monitors, and motivate them to make unauthorized trips, risking monitor casualties that could cause an Arab League country to intervene militarily. Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA)
A source from Iran is saying that Syrian authorities have released thousands of Iranian prisoners in Syrian jails, mainly on drugs and riot charges. "A convict who was handed a life sentence for drug dealing has recently returned to Iran and confirmed that all other Iranian prisoners were released and are all now back in Iran," according to the Iranian source. According to the source, this unexpected step aims at emptying Syrian prisons that are now ready to receive as many revolutionaries and political activists as possible. Syria's opposition confirms that the number of political detainees has so far reached 100,000, the majority of which kept in deplorable conditions. Al-Arabiya
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Approximately 300 ultra-Orthodox Jews began chasing police officers, hurled rocks at them, and burned trashcans on Monday after police were called to remove a sign on a main street that orders the separation of men and women in a neighborhood in Beit Shemesh, a town near Jerusalem. On Sunday, a Channel 2 news team was attacked and beaten by 200 ultra-Orthodox men at the same location on the street where the sign that was removed had been hanging. Other recent incidents including spitting at an 8-year-old girl for "dressing immodestly," and attacking a woman who refused to move to the back of the bus. The ultra-Orthodox Jews appear to want to impose gender restrictions similar to those imposed by hardline Muslim Sharia law. Telegraph and Haaretz
Politicians from the left and right in Israel's Knesset (parliament) are calling on the government to officially recognition the 1915 war in Turkey as a Turkish genocide of Armenians. This occurs just after France's National Assembly passed a bill making denial of Armenian genocide a crime punishable by a year in jail, causing a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and France. Relations between Israel and Turkey have been on a downhill ride since May 31, 2010, when a confrontation between Israel's armed forces and a Gaza "Freedom Flotilla" resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish citizens. The Knesset's current motion is not new, having been placed on the agenda in 1989. However, Israel's Foreign Ministry said that it would be irresponsible to make any official declarations on the genocide matter. Jerusalem Post
Iran's navy has completed on Monday the preliminary stage of ten-day naval war games to exercise control of the Strait of Hormuz. Submarines, warships, missile-firing destroyers, coast-to-sea missile systems, drones, and electronic warfare equipment will be tested during the exercises with live fire. The war games would be staged in a large area from the east side of the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman to the northern Indian Ocean. In terms of intelligence, the maneuvers would cover a vast area stretching from the northern Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Aden. Tehran Times
The political party loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called Monday for the dissolution of Iraq’s parliament and new elections. Iraq plunged into a new sectarian political crisis last week when Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki called for the arrest of the country’s top Sunni political figure, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. Al-Hashemi is currently hiding out in Iraq's Kurdish north, out of reach of al-Maliki. The political crisis has been escalating just days after the last American troops withdrew, and was worsened by a huge terrorist attack in central Baghdad. AP
The administration has decided to allow Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh to travel to the U.S. for medical treatment of medical problems stemming from a near-fatal bomb blast in June at the mosque in his presidential complex. The decision is considered controversial because Yemen's protesters would like to see him remain in Yemen for prosecution. UPDATE: The White House later denied this report, saying that no decision had been made. Politico
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 27-Dec-11 World View -- Iran's naval units begin main stage of ten-day war games
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Dec-2011)
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Hope and change Pakistan candidate Imran Khan draws huge crowd in Karachi
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Anti-American hope and change candidate, and former cricket star, Imran Khan on Saturday drew an amazing 100,000 people to a rally in Karachi, Pakistan, the stronghold of his political opposition. In a recent interview, he said, "During a [cricket] match there comes a time when you know you have the opposition on the mat. It is exactly the feeling now, that I have all the opposition by their balls." In a rousing speech to the biggest rally the city has seen in two decades, he said, "I promise we will end big corruption in 90 days." This reminds me of Barack Obama's promise to heal the world shortly after taking power, and Khan has a similar weakness in lack of experience in governing. However, like Obama in 2008, Khan has huge favorability in the polls, especially among young people and the urban middle class. He says that if elected prime minister, he would end cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against militants based in tribal areas, end the covert campaign of bombings by U.S. drones and refuse all U.S. aid, which totals some $20 billion since 2001. Telegraph and Reuters
Relations between Turkey and France continued to deteriorate on Sunday, as Turkey accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of breaking a promise he had made to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that France would not pass a bill criminalizing the denial of genocide in Armenia. The bill that passed France's lower house on Thursday requires a one year jail term for anyone who denies that Turkey committed genocide in 1915. "I myself heard that during the meetings we had together. What happened last week then? Where is the promise?" asked Turkey's deputy prime minister Ali Babacan. "(Keeping) a promise is very important in politics. If this promise is being made by a statesman, then this binds the state and the country." The genocide will go to France's upper house for a final vote early next year. AFP
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The terrorist group Boko Haram is claiming responsibility for a series of coordinated Christian church bombings in cities across Nigeria on Sunday that killed at least 39 people. Most were killed in a church in Abuja, and others where killed in the town of Jos, in central Nigeria, and Maiduguri in the northeast. Boko Haram is an indigenous Nigerian terrorist group, but it's believed to be developing links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and to al-Shabaab in Somalia, in order to gain international prominence. Nigerian tribes are generally split along religious lines, with Christian tribes in the south, where they were converted by French colonists, and Muslim tribes in the north, to where they migrated from the Maghreb (North Africa). AP
Clashes broke out between armed Christian and Muslim groups near the central Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday, after the bombings that killed dozens of people in the region. The tensions are rooted in disputes between the Christian and Muslim tribes over control of fertile farmlands in the country's central plateau. Guardian
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 26-Dec-11 World View -- Christmas church bombings by Boko Haram trigger clashes in Nigeria
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Dec-2011)
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Christians in Karachi celebrate Christmas in Pakistan's largest church
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
In the 1960s-70s, Karachi Pakistan at this time of the year used to be engulfed with festive spirit, Christmas trees, celebratory lights, figurines of baby Jesus, Santa Claus and Poinsettia flowers. The Christmas of today, much like everything else in Karachi, has changed immensely. The decorations and props are replaced by metal detectors, police patrol cars and scanners, as Taliban-linked terrorists attack Christians and Shia Muslims alike. This year, however, Christians in Karachi are celebrating Christmas in St. Peter's Church of Karachi, the largest Christian Church in Pakistan, with a capacity of 5,000 worshipers. The domed, three-story building that towers over the sprawling slum is a Roman Catholic church that was completed in November at a cost of approximately $4 million. Al-Jazeera and Dawn (Pakistan) and God Discussion (blog)
Tens of thousands of tourists and Christian pilgrims packed the West Bank town of Bethlehem for Christmas Eve celebrations Saturday, for the highest turnout in more than a decade. The Israeli military said that some 100,000 visitors, including foreigners and Arab Christians from Israel, had reached Bethlehem, up from 70,000 the previous year. Thousands of Palestinians from inside West Bank also converged on the town. "We love to share this holiday with our Christian brothers," said Amal Ayash, 46, who came to Manger Square with her three daughters, all of them covered in veils. "It is a Palestinian holiday and we love to come here and watch." AP
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European Union president Herman Van Rompuy wants temporarily to put aside worries about failing economies, the collapsing euro currency, and the financial crisis. He's urging world leaders to keep their spirits up and look on the bright side. He's sending copies of the "World Book of Happiness," containing essays and haikus on happiness, to 200 world leaders. The essays are from 50 different nations across the world. EU leaders may pay particular attention to a segment entitled, "create your own currency that no one else can buy," while another section of the book suggests that "money can buy happiness if we spend it on each other." By the way, you can buy the book online if you want to cheer yourself up. Daily Mail
Italy ruled Libya as a colony from October, 1911, until Libya declared independence on December 24, 1951. When Muammar Gaddafi took power trough a coup on December 1, 1969, and became dictator for 41 years, he made it illegal to celebrate Libya's independence from Italy. So on Saturday, for the first time in decades, Libya is able to celebrate Independence Day. Tunisia Live
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Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Moscow on Saturday to demand new parliamentary elections, following a stream of revelations from around the country that massive election fraud was committed in the December 4 elections. Vladimir Putin's United Russia party won just a hair over 50% of the vote, but opponents believe that figure would have been much lower without election fraud. The protests were the largest that Moscow has seen since the 1991 protests that brought down the Soviet Union, at that time led by Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev on Friday called on Putin to resign, and for the annulment of the recent election, due to "numerous falsifications and rigging," with results that "do not reflect the will of the people." Ria Novosti and The Telegraph
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Putin ally warned that the coming March 4 presidential elections must be more democratic, "otherwise it’s revolution, otherwise we will lose this chance which we have today -- a peaceful transformation, and the trust which the new elected government must receive." Putin last week insisted that the results of the parliamentary vote were fair and accused protesters of being funded by foreign powers. Bloomberg
An unnamed Obama administration official acknowledged on Saturday an ongoing six-week suspension of drone strikes in Pakistan. The suspension gives time for the administration to try to repair relations with Pakistan, after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed by a drone strike in November. A Department of Defense investigation blamed the killings on miscommunications between U.S. and Pakistani forces, but Pakistani officials continue to insist that there was a deliberate American decision to kill the Pakistani soldiers. Other possible reasons for the suspension of drone strikes could include poor weather, and the ongoing need to develop precise information about new targets. CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 25-Dec-11 World View -- Europe spreads Christmas joy with the 'World Book of Happiness'
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Dec-2011)
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Turkey accuses France of genocide in Algeria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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At least 44 people have been killed and more than 150 injured in two well-planned and coordinated suicide car bombings in the heart of Syria's capital, Damascus. No one has claimed responsibility, but government officials immediately blamed al-Qaeda. This claim immediately raised suspicions, because al-Qaeda hadn't made any such threats, and because it's not believed that al-Qaeda could have perpetrated such a complex attack in the heart of Damascus, in view of airtight Syrian security. Furthermore, by apparent coincidence, these attacks come at exactly the moment when the first few Arab League monitors arrived in Damascus to report on the ongoing violence. As a result, many people believe that the Bashar al-Assad regime perpetrated the suicide bombings in order to justify the ongoing violence to the Arab League monitors. For almost any country, the idea that its regime would perpetrate suicide bombings on its own capital, killing dozens of people, would be completely unthinkable, but it's not unthinkable for Syria, because the al-Assad regime has been mercilessly slaughtering thousands of its own innocent citizens. BBC and Telegraph
Little is known about Kim Jong-un, the man who will now succeed North Korea's "Dear Leader." He's someone who had never made any public statements until last Monday. Dubbed the "Great Successor," the rest of the world doesn't even know whether he is 27, 28 or 29 years old. However, the chaos that foreign experts had been predicting for years did not materialize in the transition. It was almost as if the "Dear Leader" was still alive, and as if North Korea's former godlike ruler were also directing the mass act of mourning in the capital Pyongyang, which always seems like the unreal set of a propaganda film. The regime had the country firmly under control, even down to the tears of its citizens. Anyone who was not weeping in North Korea risked incurring the wrath of the authorities. Two Chinese business travelers reported on the Internet that foreigners had been told to get off a train because they had not shed any tears. Spiegel
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Turkey is reacting with increasing harshness over Friday's action by France's National Assembly to pass a crazy law that would make it a crime, punishable by a year in jail, to deny that Turkey had committed genocide against the Armenians in 1915. As we reported yesterday, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recalled Turkey's ambassador to France, severed other relationships, and accused France's president Nicolas Sarkozy of using Turkophobia and Islamophobia to gain votes in next year's presidential election. On Saturday, Erdogan accused France of genocide in Algeria during their bloody war for independence from France from 1954 to 1962:
"In Algeria, an estimated 15 percent of the population had been subjected to the massacre of French from 1945 on. This is genocide.Algerians were burnt en masse in ovens. They were martyred mercilessly. If French President Mr. (Nicolas) Sarkozy does not know about this genocide, he should ask his father Paul Sarkozy. His father Paul Sarkozy served as a soldier in the French legion in Algeria in 1940s."
Sarkozy responded, "In every circumstance we must remain cool headed and calm. France alone determines its politics. France does not ask for authorization. France has convictions: human rights, the respect for history. Every country must make the effort to revisit its past. France does not give lessons to anyone nor does it receive lessons from anyone." CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 24-Dec-11 World View -- Syria's regime may be responsible for suicide bombings
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Dec-2011)
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Hedge funds threaten to sue over Greece haircut
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA/Fatah), met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo on Wednesday night for talks seeking to reconcile the two Palestinian rivals. They broke in 2007 after a war between their security forces that gave control of Gaza to Hamas. Although their talks on Tuesday have been described as "successful," there's still no agreement on the two issues that have torpedoed previous reconciliation talks: who has most of the power in the government in the form of cabinet officials, and who has most of the power on the ground in the form of security forces. AFP
As the regime of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad continues its violence against innocent protesters, Hamas has become increasingly estranged from al-Bashad, and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal is being increasingly pressured to move his headquarters office from Damascus to another country. On the other hand, Iran has been pressuring Hamas to remain in the al-Bashad camp, and has been cutting funding to Hamas as a means of pressure. Meshaal says that he just cannot support Assad when Assad is slaughtering so many innocent Arabs. Meshaal has not yet firmly decided to leave Damascus, but reports are that Jordan is acting as go-between in talks with several countries, including Qatar, Egypt and Jordan itself, to host Hamas’ headquarters. Al-Bawaba
American and European sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program have caused Iran to reduce its funding not only to Hamas, but also to the Lebanese terror group Hizbollah. The reduction in funding, along with massive corruption, have put Hizbollah into dire financial straits. Ynet
France's lower house of Parliament passed a bill on Thursday making it a crime, punishable by a year in jail, to deny that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenians in 1915-16. President Nicolas Sarkozy supported the crazy bill, apparently to get the votes of French Armenians in next years presidential elections. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately recalled Turkey's ambassador to France, and announced that there will be further sanctions. Erdogan call the bill was racist, discriminatory and xenophobic:
"As of now, we are canceling bilateral level political, economic and military activities. We are suspending all kinds of political consultations with France, [and] bilateral military cooperation, joint maneuvers are canceled as of now.This is using Turkophobia and Islamophobia to gain votes, and it raises concerns regarding these issues not only in France but all Europe. [Turkey could] not remain silent in the face of this.
I am asking now if there is freedom of expression and freedom of thought in France, and I will reply myself, no, there is not."
The bill has not become law, as it still has to pass France's upper chamber prior to the end of the Parliamentary session in February. BBC and Zaman (Istanbul)
The visit to Israel this week by South Sudan president Salva Kiir was kept under the radar, but it represents a new Africa-centric direction in Israel's foreign policy. South Sudan (capital: Juba) is a predominantly Christian country that seceded from the Muslim-dominated Sudan (capital: Khartoum) in July of this year, and is the newest country in the United Nations. Israel has a decades old relationship with the South Sudanese as part of a Christianity alliance that Israel has cultivated with Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda, to counter Sudan and other Muslim countries. Israel has recently announced that it will participate militarily in Kenya's fight against the al-Shabaab militants in Somalia. However, Kiir's visit to Israel is triggering alarm in Khartoum, because the visit is "an issue of concern because of its possible repercussions on the national interest and national security of the country." Afrique en Ligne and Jerusalem Post
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The July 21 bailout of Greece that the eurozone finance ministers announced with enormous gaiety and fanfare left a number of details remaining to be worked out, and agreement on those details is still far away. At that time, it was decided that anyone holding Greek debt would have to take a 21% "haircut," meaning that they would lose 21% of their investment -- and they would do so "voluntarily," so that a legal credit event wouldn't occur. Later, the Europeans demanded the private creditors (mostly banks and hedge funds) increase their voluntary haircut to 50%. But now, a Spanish hedge fund has walked out of the "voluntary" negotiations over demands that the 50% be increased to a larger amount. Insiders indicate that negotiations are tense and far from a deal. There's a hard deadline of March, when Greece faces a €14.5 billion bond redemption and it will need new financing if it is to pay out on the bonds when they mature. Reuters
Talks have collapsed among the parties in Greece's interim caretaker government over plans to cut auxiliar pensions, in order to meet the austerity reforms demanded by the country's international creditors. Some opposition figures are demanding that Prime Minister Lucas Papademos dissolve the government and call for snap elections, but Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos says that snap elections are out of the questions, since the negotiations for the amount of the "haircut" on Greek bonds are at a crucial stage. Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 23-Dec-11 World View -- Jordan helps Hamas break with Syria and Iran
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Dec-2011)
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Massive European bailout operation appears to be failing
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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In Victor Hugo's great novel, Les Misérables, which describes the failed uprising of students that occurred in Paris in 1832, during France's generational awakening era, the character Javert puts "the law" above all else. "You will starve again, Unless you learn the meaning of the law," he says to Jean Valjean. Iraq is now in a generational awakening era, and the Shia Muslim Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to be turning into Javert. In doing so he's precipitating a major governmental crisis. He talks about "the importance of acting in a manner consistent with the rule of law and Iraq's constitution." Thus, he's demanding that the Sunni vice president Tareq al-Hashemi be arrested and turned over for trial. Upon the objection of the Sunni Iraqiya bloc in the Parliament, and its threats to quit the governing coalition, he repeatedly emphasized his own powers under the Iraqi constitution and he spoke at length about the options available to him if they did. The net effect of these options would be to shut the Sunni minority out of the unity government, and move toward a government run by the Shia majority. In the novel, Javert's obsessive devotion to "the law" forces him to commit suicide, when he can't deal with the contradiction of owing his life to someone whom he considers to be a criminal -- Jean Valjean. Let's hope that Iraq isn't committing suicide. McClatchy
An enormous drama played out in Europe on Wednesday, leaving officials in a state of shock.
For months, pundits have been demanding that the European Central Bank (ECB) purchase toxic bonds from Greece and Spain and Italy in order to bring down yields (interest rates), which are now unsustainably high. The ECB has been steadfastly refusing to do so, because that would violate EU treaties and regulations. The Germans are opposed because they see ECB bond purchases as a free ticket for Greece, Italy and Spain to return to completely profligate spending.
So the ECB did something different on Wednesday -- a "Long Term Refinancing Operation" or LTRO. The ECB offered unlimited amounts of euros in 3-year loans to banks at 1% interest. The analysts had expected the banks to borrow only €250 billion or so.
So the first shock was that 523 banks applied to borrow €489 billion, almost twice as much as the analysts had expected. This announcement was initially met with glee by investors, who assumed it meant that there would be a lot of money floating around, and it would pour into the stock market as usual, and stocks went up.
The ECB's intention with the LTRO program was to make lots of money available to banks so that they would use that money to buy up toxic bonds from Italy and Spain, and so that they would lend that money to businesses, in order to promote growth. Thus, the LTRO is supposed to be a form of quantitative easing.
However, that's not what happened. The second shock was that the banks used 61% of the 3-year €489 billion loans to pay off previous 7-day, 3-month and 1-year loans from the ECB. Thus, the net borrowing was much smaller, about €190 billion.
Furthermore, eurozone banks will have to come up with €750 billion in 2012 to pay off other debts. So it's clear that the banks are going to hoard this LTRO money to pay off their own debts, rather than lending money to businesses or buying other people's toxic bonds.
One UBS analyst said, "We still believe it is difficult to reconcile a government desire for banks to continue buying debt with the need for banks to reduce risk exposure associated with government debt." In other words, if you want banks to survive, you'd better not expect them to take on more toxic debt.
So this LTRO apparently will help banks get past the year-end obligations and some of next year's debt payments, but will do absolutely nothing for employment or productivity or economic growth in Europe. It's just more money that will sit in the banks' mattresses, doing nothing, not contributing to the economy and not contributing to inflation.
Here's an additional angle to the above.
It seems that European banks HAVE been buying some toxic Spanish and Italian bonds in the last few weeks, pushing yields (interest rates) down a little.
But once a bank has those toxic bonds in its portfolio, it's allowed to use them as collateral to borrow money from the ECB. That's apparently what's been happening.
So one possible unintended outcome of the LTRO is that it may actually REDUCE bank purchases of toxic bonds, since banks don't need to purchase them any more to get ECB cash. Bloomberg
In an interview on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that Iran would be crossing a firm "red line" if they developed a nuclear weapon. When asked how he would react to a military strike on Iran by Israel, he said,
"Well, we share the same common concern. The United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israelis. If we have to do it we will deal with it.If they proceed and we get intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it."
He added that "no options are off the table," including military steps, and that a nuclear weapon in Iran is "unacceptable." CBS News
The spokesman of Egypt's ultraconservative Salafi Nour Party said in a Wednesday interview that the party is committed to agreements signed by previous Egyptian governments, including the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. The interview countered Israeli fears that Islamist parties would seek to cut ties with Israel. "We are not opposed to the agreement, and we are saying that Egypt is committed to the agreements that previous Egyptian government have signed," said the spokesman. He added that he supports changes to the agreement, but "the place for that is the negotiation table." Long-time readers who recall my discussions of the Muslim Brotherhood earlier this year will not be surprised by this development. (See "Violence between protester factions kills three in Egypt" from February.) Abrogating the treaty would be almost a declaration of war with Israel, and the Egyptian people have no taste for such a war. The youthful protests are angry at the ruling army council, not at Israel. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 22-Dec-11 World View -- Defense Sec'y Panetta threatens Iran over nuclear weapons
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Dec-2011)
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Congress goes home for the holidays
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Prompted by the image of three soldiers stripping a female protester naked and violently assaulting her on Saturday, thousands of women marched in Tahrir Square on Tuesday, “Egyptian women are a red line” and “Down with military rule.” Some marchers wore headscarves, others didn’t; others still wore the niqab, or full Islamic face veil. Some Coptic-Christian women participating in the march also carried images of slain Coptic activist Mina Danial, who was shot dead during an attack on Coptic demonstrators by the military in October. Other marchers carried Egyptian flags bearing the cross-and-crescent symbol. Ahram
South Korean intelligence is expressing doubts that the North Koreans are telling the truth about the time and place of the death of Kim Jong-il. The North Koreans said that Kim died early Saturday while on a train in motion during a field guidance tour. The problem with that explanation is that Kim's train was sitting stationary in Pyongyang's train station at the claimed time of death. Yonhap
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Iraq's Shia-led government issued an arrest warrant for Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, the highest level Sunni official in the government, threatening the collapse of Iraq's unity government, just two days after U.S. forces completed their withdrawal. At least 13 of al-Hashemi's bodyguards have been detained in recent weeks, though it was unclear how many were still being held. al-Hashemi's Sunni-backed political Iraqiya bloc is boycotting parliament. Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak, speaking for the bloc, called Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a dictator:
"Iraqiya has decided today to boycott sessions of cabinet. This decision is based on the deterioration of the political process, and to ensure that the country will not head towards a catastrophe if Maliki's dictatorship continues."
Al-Maliki has demanded that al-Mutlak be sacked. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister who now leads the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc in parliament, likened the prime minister to Saddam Hussein. AFP
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The al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Jund al-Khilafah (JaK) is stepping up its terrorist attacks in Kazakhstan in reaction a series of measures by President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced early this year to impose several restrictions on the Muslim and Christian religions. These measures include government censorship of religious literature, approval for opening mosques and churches, and bans on prayers within any state organization. In addition, the government has been cracking down on women's head scarves or hijabs and men's beards. JaK also has global ambitions, and explains its name "Jund al-Khilafa" as follows:
"This name reminds Muslims of their duty to revive the Islamic Caliphate as a system. ... It is the system of Shariah-based governance that must be prevail in every Muslim country from the east to the west. ... We believe that the region of Central Asia, in addition to the Islamic Maghreb [North Africa] and Yemen, are candidates to be the nucleus for the return of the Caliphate State in the future."
JaK's objective in Kazakhstan is to end the 22-year-old Nazarbayev regime through an "Arab Spring." Asia Times
America's National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) have asked the editors of Nature and Science magazines to redact key details about H5N1 bird flu experiments that modify the virus so that one ferret can easily infect another ferret. It's thought that the same technology could be used to modify the virus so that one human could easily pass it to another human, allowing a biomedical terrorist to create an H5N1 bird flu pandemic that would kill tens of millions of people. Some of the scientists involved (presumably nihilistic Gen-Xers) are balking at the restrictions, saying that their findings should be made freely available to the world. Reportedly, the editors have agreed to redact the crucial information, provided that the full details of the study will be available to legitimate scientists who request it. But let's face it: Pandora's box has already been opened, and can't be closed again. BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 21-Dec-11 World View -- Arrest warrant for Iraq's VP plunges Iraq's government into crisis
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Dec-2011)
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Strauss-Kahn's wife is 'Woman of the Year' for standing by her man
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA) announced in a "special broadcast" on Monday that president Kim Jong-il died from "a severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack," and "great mental and physical strain," while taking a train to an unnamed location. His third son, Kim Jong-un, has been officially named his successor. According to KCNA,
"At the vanguard of the Korean revolution stands Kim Jong-un, great successor to the revolutionary cause of juche [self reliance] and the outstanding leader of our party, military and people. Kim Jong-un’s leadership will guarantee the completion of the revolutionary cause of juche through the generations after it was started by Kim Il-sung and led to victory by Kim Jong-il."
It added that the entire nation "should faithfully follow comrade Kim Jong-un’s leadership and protect and bolster the unified front of the party, military and the public." Korea Times
Analysts dithered on Monday over the question of whether the succession from Kim Jong-il to Kim Jong-un will be quiet or chaotic. There are several concerns. First, North Korea is a starving nation, and the change of leadership may trigger social unrest that's just seething below the surface, leading to millions of refugees. Second, there may be a succession battle, with an army coup supplanting Kim Jong-un's leadership, or even a succession battle within Kim's family. Third, Kim Jong-un may feel the need to prove himself by launching a provocative military action against South Korea, like last year's sinking of a South Korean warship or shelling a South Korean island, risking all out war with the South. However, many analysts pointed out that North Korea is actually governed by the powerful National Defense Commission, and so there is continuity of government during the succession. Furthermore, Kim Jong-un has a mentor -- Jang Song-thaek, the late Kim's brother-in-law and vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, guiding the young leader to building his political base. Yonhap
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North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday that Kim died of a heart attack last Saturday on a train while heading to an unidentified destination. However, some analysts say that Kim's actions in dismissing numerous military officers, especially those in their 50s, harbor deep resentment against both Kim and the next leader, Kim Jong-un. "As their vested interests were hurt due to Kim Jong-il, I would not rule out the possibility that some military officers, who believed their clout and influence had been damaged, could have played a role in his death," said one analyst. Korea Times
North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on Monday. However, South Korean officials believe that the test firings were planned in advance, and were not related to Kim Jong-il's death. Yonhap
The day after the last of the U.S. troops left Iraq, the country's Shia-led government issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president Tariq al-Hashemi, accusing him of running a hit squad that assassinated government and security officials. Al-Hashemi apparently anticipated the move, going to the semiautonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan in the north, hoping that Kurdish authorities would not turn him in. This comes as two Sunni provinces have left the government, and expressed their desire to form their own autonomous government. As I reported yesterday, Iraq is replaying the same political turmoil that they experienced in the 1930s, during the country's previous generational awakening era prior to the current one. AP
The Arab League's latest threat -- to turn the question of Syria's violence over to the U.N. Security Council -- has apparently motivated president Bashar al-Assad to agree on Monday to allow Arab League monitors into the country. On the same day, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly adopted, by a vote of 133 to 11 with 43 abstentions, to adopt a human rights committee resolution that "strongly condemns the continued grave and systematic human rights violations by the Syrian authorities, such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and the persecution and killing of protesters and human rights defenders." However, opposition leaders said that al-Assad's Monday announcement offered little new. The plan in question, first proposed last month, would have the Syrian government withdraw its troops from the country’s cities, release political prisoners, hold talks with opposition groups and let in monitors from Arab League. Al-Assad is now accepting the proposal, but opponents say that his acceptance is a delaying tactic, before he launches his next wave of violence. Jerusalem Post
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Dominique Strauss-Kahn's wife Anne Sinclair, who stood by the former IMF chief during his sex scandal, was named Woman of the Year in a poll for a French woman's magazine on Monday. Among 10 female personalities, the new IMF chief Christine Lagarde came in second, and the Socialist party candidate for president, Martine Aubry, came in third. Next came French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Eva Joly, the Green Party presidential candidate who came seventh said, "I find this sad -- it represents concepts of life and male-female relations that are very, very outdated, blah, blah, blah." Meanwhile, Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned to public life on Monday with a speech to an economic forum in Beijing, China, where he said, "The euro is a raft on the verge of sinking." AFP and Telegraph
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 20-Dec-11 World View -- Suspicions arise over the cause of Kim Jong-il's death
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Dec-2011)
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Egyptians shocked by video of army beating veiled woman protester
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
The South Korean military is calling a military alert, with the announcement of the death of North Korea's president Kim Jong-il at age 69. The anointed successor is his son, Kim Jong-un, but the death will trigger trigger a succession fight that may destabilize the entire government and lead to civil war, or a panicked attack on South Korea. Any major North Korean crisis will also send millions of refugees pouring into China. Yonhap
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Photos and videos are spreading on the internet of Egyptian troops brutalizing women with metal poles, while kicking them, tearing their clothes, and stomping on their breasts. Protesters have been calling for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has been governing Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down in February, to step down and turn the government over the civilian control. However, Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzuri raised tensions on Saturday by accusing the protesters of being counter-revolutionaries and denying security forces had opened fire:
"Those who are in Tahrir Square are not the youth of the revolution. This is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution."
This has angered protesters, and the videos of army violence have infuriated protesters. The complete video of the beaten woman is at the end of this World View report. AP
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Egypt is different from Syria and Iran. The latter two countries are in a generational awakening era, when a civil war is impossible, so any regime change is expected to generate only short-lived violence that should fizzle quickly (as happened in Iraq in 2006-7). But Egypt is in a generational crisis era, so that increasing violence could spiral into a crisis civil war.
Hamas has confirmed that it will shift tactics away from violent attacks on Israel as part of a rapprochement with the Palestinian Authority (Fatah). According to a spokesman, "Violence is no longer the primary option but if Israel pushes us, we reserve the right to defend ourselves with force." This may surprise some people, but it's quite natural as the Hamas leadership grows older. But as we've reported recently, a more violent group, Islamic Jihad, led by a younger generation, is growing quickly in capabilities and military infrastructure, presenting a major challenge to Hamas's authority. Hamas and Fatah will try once again to reconcile and form a unity government, but they failed at that several times already. Guardian
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Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was reported to have undergone abdominal surgery on November 26. Turkish officials denied rumors of cancer and insisted that he was in good health, but new reports have emerged that he entered the hospital again on Sunday, suffering from Rectosigmoid cancer, though it's not known how advanced it is. Erdogan has been the leading political figure in the Mideast for a couple of years, and his disappearance would add to the general destabilization of the entire region, which seems to be getting worse every day. Debka
As the last American soldiers leave Iraq, old sectarian rivalries are beginning to reemerge. Saddam Hussein's government was Sunni-led, and its treatment of the majority Shia population was brutal. The American-led war has put Shia officials in charge, and created an uneasy alliance between Shia and Sunni, with American troops providing the glue. Now the glue is gone, and the government is becoming unstable. Two Sunni provinces are withdrawing from the government, saying that they want to declare themselves as autonomous regions like the Kurds in the north. There's also a widespread conviction that with the Americans gone, Iranian influence will spread. BBC
As we recently reported, Turkey's Supreme Military Council has announced that it has reviewed Turkish Armed Forces preparedness for war, without specifying what threats it's preparing for. However, it's assumed that Turkey is preparing for war in Syria, and possibly its main supporter, Iran. The American withdrawal from Iraq opens a new area of competition between Turkey and Iran, with the possibilities that Turkey will be aligned with the Sunnis in the west, and Iran will be aligned with the Shias in the east. Iraq's Shia-led government is demanding that Turkey stop interfering in Iraq, and has welcomed a closer relationship with Iran, something that's sure to make Iraq's Sunni minority increasingly nervous. Zaman (Istanbul)
During the period 2003-2008, when I was writing a lot about the Iraq war, the mainstream media articles, quoting so-called experts in Washington, were almost entirely fatuous ideological nonsense, written by people who knew little more about Iraq then how to spell it. It was a great shock to me to learn how abysmally ignorant the Washington politicians, journalists, analysts and "experts" are about even the simplest facts about the Mideast.
Articles in Congressional Quarterly and other publications showed that politicians and journalists were totally ignorant about Iraq, not knowing even the simple fact that al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization. Nancy Pelosi indicated she was completely unaware that al-Qaeda was even in Iraq. And this isn't a one-sided appraisal; Republicans and Democrats were equally ignorant. Generational Dynamics is the only methodology that produced correct predictions about Iraq, and my web site was the only one in the world that told you what's going on in the world, and what's going to happen. In particular, my 2007 article, "Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq," was the best analytical article on what was happening in Iraq than any article on any other web site or publication in the world.
In that article, I pointed out that if you want to understand Iraq today, then you have to understand Iraq's history at least as far back as the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920. In particular, you have to look at Iraq in the 1930s, Iraq's last generational awakening era prior to the current one. I quoted the history of Iraq at that time, but the main point is utter political chaos, and that's what we can expect today. But the history of Iraq also shows that Iraq's Sunni and Shia populations are highly nationalistic, and consider themselves to be Iraqis first, and Sunnis or Shias second. This indicates that they'll unite if threatened by Iran, Turkey, or anyone else.
China has announced that all television and radio stations must broadcast only in the Mandarin (Putonghua) language. The requirement is particularly targeted at Guangdong province in the South, where the indigenous population speaks Cantonese. When China announced this policy a year ago, it triggered a series of mass demonstrations by furious Cantonese speakers, causing Beijing to back off. The new announcement says that the law will come into effect on March 1. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
The following video (or a different video with additional footage) is extremely graphic, and should be viewed only by people with strong stomachs. Helmeted officer charge toward a veiled woman in Tahrir Square, drag her on the ground, beat her with clubs, kick her in the head, stomp on her, and drag her by her hair. One soldier even pulled her veil over her head stomps on her breasts.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 19-Dec-11 World View -- Iraq's government destabilizes after Americans' departure
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Dec-2011)
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Congress kicks the can down the road to Groundhog Day
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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Turkey has been caught by surprise by a bill in the French parliament that will make it a crime to deny that Turkey was guilty of genocide of Armenians in 1915 during World War I. The Turks don't deny the deaths of many Armenians, but insist they occurred during a bloody war, and deny any genocide. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, warning him against the “grave consequences” of the possible passage of the bill, including the withdrawal of Turkey's ambassador from Paris. The bill makes denying the 1915 events as a genocide punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros. Zaman (Instabul)
The recent threat by Standard & Poors to strip France of its AAA has triggered a war of words between France and Britain. Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, said that credit-rating companies have become "incomprehensible and irrational," and said that Britain should be dowgraded before France:
"A downgrade doesn’t strike me as justified based on economic fundamentals. Or if it is, they should start by downgrading the U.K., which has a bigger deficit, as much debt, more inflation, weaker growth and where bank lending is collapsing."
But Nick Clegg, head of the Liberal Democratic party that is David Cameron's governing partner, responded by warning of xenophobia and polarization:
"There are different visions and traditions of what European integration looks like. The great genius of European integration economically is that it has always held two different traditions in balance – the Anglo-Saxon liberal tradition and the French dirigiste tradition. The goal has been to ensure that neither the French or British tradition triumphed over the other. I don't think it is in their interest to see the British liberal tradition marginalised. It will not happen.The danger at the moment is because society is under economic stress, xenophobia, chauvinism and polarization increase. You can see it in British politics. This is the perfect environment if you are [Ukip leader] Nigel Farage or [SNP leader] Alex Salmond. The people who are trying to exploit the politics of grievance and blame, they believe they have got the wind in their sails. I represent a centre-ground liberalism that is saying we have got to stick to being reasoned and open. The liberal open society is always under pressure when there is fear and anxiety in society."
For several months, the Arab League has given Syria's president Bashar al-Assad one deadline after another to end the massacre of unarmed protesters, but al-Assad not only ignored all deadlines, but actually escalated the violence each time. Now the Arab League appears ready to give its final ultimatum: If al-Assad doesn't allow inspectors into Syria by Wednesday, then they'll (gasp!) refer the case to the U.N. Security Council. Previous attempts to get the Security Council to condemn violence in Syria have been blocked by Russia and China, on the grounds that they agreed to a tiny action in Libya that the West turned into a major military action. Gulf News
Just as the economic and strategic ties between China and Pakistan are growing, they are also growing between Russia and India. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow on Sunday, and said,
"The depth and range of our relationship with Russia is growing. Our strong strategic partnership in nuclear energy, defence and space will, in future, be buttressed by a stronger economic relationship."
With Russia formally joining the World Trade Organisation while Manmohan Singh was in Moscow, the two sides have decided that an Indian study group will explore the possibility of a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) with a three nation grouping comprising Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. India Times
A few months ago I proposed the "Kick the Can Theory," which says that government is so paralyzed that every important decision will be postponed as long as possible, and that the paralysis will end only when a major crisis occurs that puts the survival of the nation in danger. So far, every major decision in Washington or Europe has reaffirmed and supported the Kick the Can Theory. That was never more true as on Saturday, when Congress passed a compromise payroll tax cut bill that will expire in two months. That means that somewhere around Groundhog Day, the whole thing will be repeated again, and we'll have to listen to same nattering of politicians saying the same old things, over and over and over again. Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 18-Dec-11 World View -- Europe's financial crisis brings accusations of xenophobia
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Dec-2011)
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Fitch says a comprehensive euro zone deal is 'beyond reach'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
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At least five protesters were killed and dozens were injured by the military and security forces in clashes in front of Egypt's Cabinet building in Cairo on Friday. The military had promised recently not to use violence against peaceful protesters, but those promises were broken. Men in uniform, perched on rooftops, threw sheets of glass, rocks, bottles and even furniture at protesters. "some of these soldiers gestured obscenely towards the protesters, and one of them even at one point urinated on the protesters below. Bikya Masr and Al-Jazeera
The Seychelles, a country consisting of 115 small islands off the eastern coast of Africa, is offering China a base for Chinese ships deployed to the Gulf of Aden and the West Indian Ocean, to help combat piracy. Since 2001, China has been pursuing a "String of Pearls" strategy, with ports in Gwadar (Pakistan), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and on the east cost of Burma in the Bay of Bengal. A Seychelles naval base would allow a broader strategic linkage between the Chinese and Pakistan navies, allowing them to expand a land war with India into a naval war. (Paragraph corrected - 17-December) The Diplomat
While investors are staying happy at holiday parties, and analysts on CNBC and Bloomberg TV and politicians in Washington and Brussels are predicting that prosperity is just around the corner, Europe's financial crisis continues to worsen. On Friday, Fitch ratins service reaffirmed France's AAA rating, but said the outlook was negative. That was the good news. The bad news is that Fitch has concluded that, after last week's failed euro zone summit,
"a 'comprehensive solution' to the euro zone crisis is technically and politically beyond reach. Of particular concern is the absence of a credible financial backstop. In Fitch's opinion this requires more active and explicit commitment from the ECB to mitigate the risk of self-fulfilling liquidity crises for potentially illiquid but solvent Euro Area Member States."
It put Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland, and Cyprus on negative watch, which could mean a downgrade within three months. On the same day, Moody's Investors Service cut Belgium's credit rating by two notches, while Standard & Poors has already warned 15 of the currency bloc's 17 members they were close to a downgrade. Reuters
Last week's eurozone summit was largely a waste of time, but it did reach one concrete decision: They vowed to loan up to €200 billion ($260 billion) to the International Monetary Fund so that the IMF could step up its aid to European countries in need. Now, though, with Germany's Bundesbank (central bank) showing increasing doubts about the fund and others demonstrating an unwillingness to participate, even that measure may now be in doubt. Germany, the biggest potential contributor is indicating that it won't do so unless members outside of Europe also contibute. Russia has indicated a willingness to contribute, but the U.S., Canada, the U.K and the Czech Republic, among others, have indicated an unwillingness to participate. Spiegel
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Friday was the 40th anniversary of the day when Pakistan became the first state to disintegrate after World War II. What is now called Bangladesh used to be part of Pakistan, and was known as East Pakistan. At that time, a civil war between the East and West Pakistan forces, with the East Pakistanis aided by Indian troops, led to the secession of East Pakistan, and the creation of Bangladesh. The two countries have little in common except the Muslim religion. Bangladesh's people are ethnic Bengali, speaking the Bangla language. Pakistan has several ethnic groups, and the national language is Urdu, though Radio Pakistan broadcasts daily in over 20 languages and dialects. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what's interesting is that the 1971 was was a generational crisis war for Bangladesh, just as the 1947 Partition war was a crisis war for Pakistan. This happens because Pakistan and Bangladesh are on different generational timelines, just as they have different ethnicities and different languages. Daily Times (Pakistan) and Part II
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 17-Dec-11 World View -- China may add the Seychelles to its 'String of Pearls'
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Dec-2011)
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Turkey reviews military preparedness for war with Syria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Unrest grows in Shanghai, China, as housing prices collapse
* Home price bubble in China crashing, causing protests by screwed homeowners
* IMF says that the Europe crisis is 'escalating'
* Turkey reviews military preparedness for war with Syria
* Jacques Chirac found guilty of corruption in 'historic' verdict
* Russia's Putin confirms that he'll appoint Medvedev to be prime minister
* Russia says it will invest to save the euro
* Israel's Netanyahu won't let radical settlers 'start a religious war'
* Iran's people fear leadership will cause a catastrophic war
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Home prices nationwide in China have risen 155% over the past decade, but in Shanghai they've quadrupled. But now they seem to have peaked in September, and have been falling ever since. Housing developers have slashed prices 20-25% in November alone. People who purchased homes in September or earlier are furious. Many of them used their parents' life saving to purchase a home so that they could get married, and they see those savings disappearing into the dust, impoverishing themselves AND their parents, resulting in growing protests against developers. Bloomberg
New home prices in Beijing fell 35% in November from the month before. We've been reporting for a couple of years that massive, almost unbelievable real estate bubble in China, with huge empty "ghost cities" across the country. The IMF measures China's bubble as twice as bad as America's real estate bubble prior to 2007, or Japan's real estate bubble in the late 1980s that preceded Japan's stock market crash. Now the bubble appears to be crashing very rapidly. A fire-sale is under way in coastal cities, with Shanghai developers slashing prices 25% in November – much to the fury of earlier buyers, who expect refunds. This is spreading. Property sales have fallen 70% in the inland city of Changsa. Prices have reportedly dropped 70% in the "ghost city" of Ordos in Inner Mongolia. Core industries are being affected by the housing crash -- steel output has buckled. Telegraph
As China's housing bubble is crashing, Europe's financial crisis is escalating. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said on Thursday:
"There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super- advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding, but escalating at a point where everybody would actually have to focus on what it can do.[If the international community doesn’t work together,] the risk from an economic point of view is that of retraction, rising protectionism, isolation. This is exactly the description of what happened in the ‘30s and what followed is not something we are looking forward to."
She added that the world economic outlook "is quite gloomy." Bloomberg
Turkey's Supreme Military Council has announced that it has reviewed Turkish Armed Forces preparedness for war. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said in the past that Turkey does not want war with Syria, but may be forced to invade a create a buffer zone on Syrian soil to provide refugee camps for thousands of people fleeing violence from president Bashar al-Assad's regime. However, Debka is reporting that Turkey's announcement was triggered by the al-Assad's deployment of missiles, some tipped with chemical warheads, on their common border. This comes on the heels of reports that American troops are massing in Jordan on Syria's border. Debka's subscriber-only newsletter adds reports that Russia has been airlifting to Syria supplies of face masks for protection against chemical and biological weapons and quantities of medical supplies. Zaman (Istanbul) and Debka
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France's former president Jacques Chirac has been given a two-year suspended jail sentence for embezzling public funds and abusing public trust. The historic verdict was announced in the 'Great Hall' in which Marie Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI, was sentenced to death during the French Revolution. A court on Thursday found Jacques Chirac, 79, guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public trust after he paid supporters for municipal jobs which didn't exist when he was mayor of Paris. Chirac and his deputy, Dominique de Villepin, are known for opposing the American operation in Iraq, but it later turned out that Chirac and de Villepin opposed the operation because they were making millions of dollars in a corrupt oil-for-food deal that enriched France, but left millions of Iraqi citizens to starve. The oil-for-food corruption was not the subject of Thursday's court finding. Spiegel
The joke initiated by Russia's prime minister Vladimir Putin in 2008 came full circle on Thursday. After serving two consecutive terms as president, Putin was no longer constitutionally allowed to run for president again in 2008. So Putin arranged for Dmitry Medvedev to win the election for presidency in 2008, so that Medvedev would appoint him as prime minister. Most Russians assumed that the whole arrangement was a scam, something that Putin piously denied. Then, last month, Putin revealed that it was a scam after all, and that he would run for president again, now that he's able to do so again, and this was his intention all along. On Thursday, he announced that once arranges to win the presidential election next year, he'll appoint Medvedev to be prime minister, thus completing the circle. Reuters
Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev is promising to invest $10 billion or more in the eurozone, to save the euro. "Russia has its quota in the IMF, and we will meet all our obligations and are ready to invest the relevant money. We are also ready to consider other measures of support," said Medvedev. Trade with the EU comprises more than half of Russia’s foreign trade and 41 per cent of Russia’s foreign reserves are also in euros. Russia Today
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised legal retribution against far-right settlement activists who are assumed to be the perpetrators of a "price tag" attack on a mosque in Ramallah in the West bank. After they broke into the mosque, the vandals lit a fire in the women’s prayer section on the top floor. The vandals also spray-painted red Hebrew words on an interior wall: “Mitpze Yitzhar” and “war.” Graffiti with the words “price tag” were written on the mosque’s exterior wall. Netanyahu said on Thursday evening,
"We won’t let them [Jewish extremists] attack our soldiers, start a religious war, set fire to mosques [and] attack Jews or non-Jews. We will act with a strong hand and make sure they’re prosecuted. The law is the law. Justice is justice."
The number of price tag attacks has been increasing recently. The phrase "price tag" is frequently used by far-right Israeli settlers to denote revenge attacks against Palestinians or IDF soldiers in response to moves by the Israeli government to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts, or as retribution for attacks by Palestinians. Jerusalem Post
Ordinary Iranians are increasingly worried that the policies of Iran's leadership with regard to nuclear facilities are risking an Israeli strike and a catastrophic war. Many Iranians are stocking up on basic goods, changing their money into foreign currencies, or obtaining visas to move abroad. As I've written many times, Iran's hardline leadership is hoping a war or threat of war will unify the country behind the leader, as happened in the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution. But that was a generational crisis era, and today Iran is in a generational awakening era, meaning that there's a "generation gap," and the younger generations are rebelling against the generations of war survivors. Washington Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 16-Dec-11 World View -- Unrest grows in Shanghai, China, as housing prices collapse
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Dec-2011)
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IMF demands that Greece break the 'taboo' of dismissing civil servants
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Wukan village in southeast China under siege, running out of food
* Euro, gold, copper, oil all fall on worries about Europe's economy
* IMF demands that Greece break the 'taboo' of dismissing civil servants
* Palestinians ask Europeans to support U.N. membership bid
* Egypt's seculars try to beat Islamists in today's voting
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The village of Wukan in Guangdong province in southeastern China is under siege by Chinese security forces. With all roads blocked, no food or water is allowed in, and the 20,000 residents have enough supplies to last just another 10 more days. With tens of thousands of "mass incidents" each year, China's security forces are well trained to crush protests as quickly as they start. However, an attack last week by 1,000 armed police failed to capture the village. As is the case with many of these armed incidents, the protests are against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) élite officials who take the peasants' land, sell it to real estate developers, and pocket the money. However, the protests exploded when one of the villagers died while in police custody. The police say he had a had a heart attack, but his family points to evidence that he was beaten to death by the police. China has a long history of massive, bloody rebellions, such as the Taiping Rebellion of 1852-64, and the Communist Revolution of 1934-49, each slaughtering tens of millions of people. China is due for its next massive rebellion, which is why the Wukan rebellion is so worrying to the paranoid government in Beijing. Telegraph
The euro currency and commodities across the board fell sharply on Wednesday, as more and more analysts come to realize that last Friday's eurozone deal accomplished nothing. Investors are apparently leaving stocks and commodities, including gold, for the safe haven of the U.S. dollar. The euro fell below $1.30 for the first time since January, gold fell to a five month low at $1,586 per ounce, oil fell to a two-month low, and natural gas fell to a 27 month low. Copper, aluminum, nickel, grains, oilseeds and livestock all fell, on increasing concern over the European debt crisis. Analysts are attributing the collapse to forced sales resulting from margin calls on overextended investors. (Forced sales from margin calls were the immediate cause of the 1929 crash.) Bloomberg
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is warning Greece that it must break its "taboos" against dismissing civil servants, if it's going to reduce its budget deficit enough to qualify for further bailouts. Greece's economy will contract by at least 6% this year, making it almost impossible that previously announced deficit reduction targets for 2011 or 2012 will be met. IMF official Poul Thomsen said, "There is no more room for across-the-board expenditure cuts in wages and pensions. Greece needs to move more aggressively in closing down redundant state enterprises and may have to accept redundancies [layoffs]. I cannot see how Greece can tackle fiscal problems without addressing these taboos." Kathimerini (Athens)
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Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas asked EU officials to support the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership at a meeting on Wednesday, a day after the Palestinian flag was raised to signify Palestinian membership of UNESCO (U.N. education, science and culture agency). However, European Union members are split on the issue. In the vote over Palestinian membership in UNESCO, 11 EU nations voted in favor -- Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Spain. Eleven others abstained -- Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia -- and five voted against. They were the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden. AFP
In Egypt's parliamentary elections on Nov 28-29, the two Islamist parties -- the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour party -- together won 70% of the seats. Now, in the second round of voting, Egypt's young secularists hope to reverse that result, but are given little chance of doing so. A group of women were interviewed on al-Jazeera today, and they said that they were voting for an Islamist party because it gave them a sense of identity. Other interviews of Egyptian women in the past indicate that they reject Western concerns about women's rights, because they view the West's high divorce rate and single-parent families as proof that the Islamist system is better. The Egyptian Bloc, a grouping of liberal and socialist parties, got just 9% of the seats in the first round of the elections. One of their new TV ads says, "If you don't want Egypt to become like Afghanistan or turn into an America, choose the Egyptian Bloc." However, they're not expected to do much better today than last time. Associated Press
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 15-Dec-11 World View -- Egypt's seculars try to beat Islamists in today's voting
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Dec-2011)
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Iran threatens military maneuvers to close Strait of Hormuz
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* It's as if last week's Euro Zone summit had never happened
* Lone gunman kills four people, wounds dozens in Liège, Belgium
* American troops said to be massing in Jordan on Syria's border
* Iran threatens military maneuvers to close Strait of Hormuz
* Oil prices react to Iran's threat to close Strait of Hormuz
* The ability to close the Strait of Hormuz gives Iran a unique threat
* Israeli 'price tag' attacks against soldiers and Palestinians grow
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Last Friday's euro zone summit was supposed to be the last chance to save the euro, but it's now becoming apparent to almost everyone that the deal that was reached, which only calls for more meetings and discussions between now and March, accomplished absolutely nothing. Euro zone bond yields (interest rates) fell briefly, but have been climbing again. An auction of Italy's bonds is scheduled for Wednesday, and Italy's five-year borrowing costs are expected to mark a new record. Reuters
A lone gunman armed with grenades opened fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the eastern Belgian city of Liège on Tuesday, killing four people and wounding 123 before fatally shooting himself in the head. Officials named the gunman as Nordine Amrani, 33, a known criminal. The motive is unknown, but it may have been a foiled bid to rescue a suspect from the courthouse. AFP/Reuters
A blogger with contacts in Jordan is reporting that hundreds of foreign military groups, including American forces, are moving into the region around Jordan's Al-Mafraq military base in north Jordan, about 5-10 km from the border with Syria. These include forces that are being diverted from Iraq, as the U.S. completes its final withdrawal from Iraq. This is the first time that U.S. boots have hit the ground directly opposite the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Jordan's King Abdullah II has approved this deployment because of Assad's threats to "burn the whole region," with Jordan being a particularly vulnerable target of al-Assad's wrath. Debka and OpEd News
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Member of Parliament Parviz Sorouri of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee says that Iran plans to conduct military maneuvers to practice closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 30% of the world's seaborne oil shipments pass. "We will hold an exercise to close the Strait of Hormuz in the near future. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure," says Sorouri, saying that the move is in retaliation to Western threats to impose an oil embargo on Iran. Sorouri claims that international law permits Iran to close the Strait, which lies within Iran's territorial waters. Tehran Times
Oil prices spiked on Tuesday on the news of Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz. "Crude oil is one of the most susceptible commodities to geopolitical risks and traders will react to anything in the Middle East that has potential to disrupt oil supplies," said one analyst. Bloomberg
According to an international law expert, the waters in the Strait of Hormuz are technically iranian territory, but they are also an international strait, which gives foreign ships "a higher right of transit," so Iran does not have the legal right to close the strait. However, Iran may do it anyway. "Iran's specialty is asymmetric warfare. This is what they practice in their simulations and their exercises. This includes the use of small ships or boats, also suicide boats, underwater warfare capability, combined with the use of ballistic and cruise missiles. So they can pack a punch if they are able to get these weapons off the ground." RFERL
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is considering ways to stop the growth of 'price tag' attacks against soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank. The phrase "price tag" is frequently used by far-right Israeli settlers to denote revenge attacks against Palestinians or soldiers in response to moves by the Israeli government to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts, or as retribution for attacks by Palestinians. Complaints are rising that the IDF is refusing to prosecute vandalism and violence by settlers. Jerusalem Post and Haaretz
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 14-Dec-11 World View -- American troops said to be massing in Jordan on Syria's border
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Dec-2011)
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France's former PM Dominique de Villepin to run for president
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Britain's 'veto' of eurozone plan causes angry recriminations
* Sarkozy downplays threat that France will lose AAA credit rating
* France's former PM Dominique de Villepin to run for president
* Russia's Circassian issues intensify as 2014 Sochi Olympics approach
* S. Korea will light three giant Christmas trees, despite N. Korean threat
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Britain's prime minister David Cameron gave an impassioned defense to the House of Commons on Monday for his decision on Friday to block a "save the euro" treaty of all 27 European Union states. He said that he had sought "modest, reasonable and relevant" safeguards to protect London's financial services industry, but "Satisfactory safeguards were not forthcoming so I didn't agree to the treaty." The Commons speech brought angry jeers from the opposition, and Cameron's governing coalition partner, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, was absent from the Commons, having given an interview where he said, "The Prime Minister and I clearly do not agree on the outcome of the summit last week. I have made it very clear that I think isolation in Europe, where we are one against 26, is potentially a bad thing for jobs, a bad thing for growth and a bad thing for the livelihoods of millions of people in this country." Mirror (London)
Moody's Investors Service signaled on Monday that it will go ahead with the downgrading of debt of some EU nations. It said that it will review the ratings of all EU countries in view of Friday's Brussels summit, which failed to produce "decisive policy measures" to end the region's debt turmoil. Standard & Poors has already placed the ratings of 15 euro nations, including AAA rated France and Germany, on review for possible downgrade. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy said that if France loses its AAA rating, then "we’ll face the situation coolly and calmly. It would be an additional difficulty but it’s not insurmountable. What is important is the credibility of our economic policy and our strategy of reducing spending." What he didn't say was that no credible strategy for reducing spending exists. Bloomberg
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In a surprise, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced that he would be running for President of France in April. De Villepin is one of the world's most anti-American political leaders. (See "How France screwed Secretary of State Colin Powell" from 2004.) President Nicolas Sarkozy and de Villepin are extremely bitter political enemies, and the two have accused each other of various criminal acts. On Sunday, he criticized Sarkozy for not protecting France’s interests at Friday's EU summit and for imposing several rounds of budget cuts. He said France had been humiliated by "the law of the markets, which keep imposing on us more austerity." AP
Circassian activists are demanding that tens of thousands of ethnic Circassians subjected to violence in Syria be permitted to be "repatriated" to Russia's North Caucasus. The Russians deported the Circassians to Syria during the North Caucasus war in 1858-64, when the Russians exterminated or deported the Circassian population from their homeland in Sochi. Sochi is the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, and 2014 is the 150th anniversary of the 1864 massacre. Issues related to the Circassians are growing in intensity as 2014 approaches. Jamestown
A North Korean web site has denounced South Korea's plan to light three giant Christmas near their common border. It said the move is aimed at provoking the North and stepping up anti-North Korea psychological warfare. It also warned that the South will bear the "entire responsibilities" if an "unpredictable situation" happens. South Korea will go ahead with the plan, lighting the trees from December 23 to January 6, responding to the requests of evangelical organizations. Yonhap (Seoul) and Chosun (Seoul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 13-Dec-11 World View -- Britain's 'veto' of eurozone plan causes angry recriminations
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Dec-2011)
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Proposed S. Korean towers resemble exploding World Trade Center
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Nato vacates the Shamsi air base in Pakistan
* Islamic Jihad challenges 'moderate' Hamas in Gaza
* Israel to expel tens of thousands of illegal African immigrants
* Huntsman: China's Fifth Generation will have 'nationalistic impulses'
* Power grid becomes more and more vulnerable to cyber attack
* Euro Zone leaders just have to pray for luck now
* Proposed S. Korean towers resemble exploding World Trade Center
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Nato has vacated the Shamsi air base, as demanded by Pakistan, following the unintended killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers by a drone strike several weeks ago. Shamsi was used as a base to launch drone strikes. In an interview, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that the U.S. and Pakistan do not trust each other, and it may be weeks before Pakistan once again permits Nato to use the Khyber pass to supply troops in Afghanistan. There is a possibility that Pakistan will close its air space to Nato, making all such drone attacks impossible. BBC
Islamic Jihad, a small Gaza terrorist group linked with Hamas, but unwilling to make the same compromises as Hamas, is leaping ahead in capabilities and military infrastructure, presenting a major challenge to Hamas's authority. This was caused by Iran’s decision to divert funds traditionally allocated to Hamas to Islamic Jihad instead. And that decision, in turn, was caused by Hamas's decision to abandon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and begin the process of moving its headquarters out of Damascus and Syria. With Hamas out of its orbit, Iran has upped its support of Islamic Jihad, which, according to some estimates, has a rocket arsenal that competes in its quantity and quality with that in Hamas’s warehouses. Jerusalem Post
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will visit several African states with the intention of expelling tens of thousands of African illegal immigrants that have crossed the porous border with Egyptian Sinai to seek work in Israel. There have always been a few such immigrants, but there has been a surge in recent years. Netanyahu said that Israel plans to build a fence along the border with Syria, and his government would also increase fines on employers who hire the border jumpers. Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jon Huntsman was interviewed on CNN on Sunday. Huntsman is the former U.S. Ambassador to China, and he was commenting on China's direction. Here's an excerpt:
"The political dynamic is a very interesting one, and that is, the 18th Party Congress is around the corner. We forgot sometimes, we have elections here next year. They have leadership changes.You'll hear politics play out because of those elections. You'll hear politics play out in China because of those leadership changes. They are sweeping, and they are significant.
If you stop to ponder that 70 percent of the top 200 leaders are turning over in China, including seven of the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, I can't remember a time since 1949 when this significant, this comprehensive a change has occurred in - in senior leadership in China.
The Fifth Generation is coming to the forefront. I know many members of the Fifth Generation, as I did the Fourth and some in the Third. They have a different view of the world. It's based more on a nationalistic set of impulses.
They don't necessarily remember the Great Leap Forward, '60 to '64. They barely remember the Cultural Revolution, '66 to '76. They do remember 30 years of blue sky, eight, nine, 10 percent economic growth. That has informed their view of the world. They think their time has arrived."
This is the generational change that I've referenced a number of times. Huntsman provides a nice description of it. This is a generation completely untouched by the genocidal Communist Revolution and its bloody aftermath in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They've had a good life, an easy life, and believe that China should take its place as the leader of the world, replacing the United States, which they see as in decline. And they're willing to go to war for it. CNN
With all the news about Stuxnet and cyber attacks, you would think that people in charge of the American electrical grid would be working to make it safer, and would be trying to find ways to protect it from hacker attack. But you would be wrong. The power grid is actually becoming more and more vulnerable to attack. The reason is that millions of new "smart meters" and associated sensors and communication devices are being connected to grid. These components come from hundreds of manufacturers and software developers, and each new device represents a potential new vulnerability to cyber attack. CS Monitor
Friday's 26 nation deal to save the euro will require months to implement, and does nothing in the meantime to alleviate the crisis. Thus, if the euro is to be saved, then a lot of luck is going to be required. The following will be required to happen: (*) Investors will avoid dumping European debt; (*) S&P will hold off with threatened downgrades; (*) Foreign governments will provide cash to the European Central Bank (ECB) to prevent a bond panic. The first test will come soon, as S&P decides whether to go ahead and downgrade the AAA ratings of Germany and France. Bloomberg
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Talk about poor taste! A Dutch architectural firm has unveiled pictures of the luxury residential towers scheduled to be built in Seoul, South Korea. The towers include a so-called “cloud” feature connecting them around the 27th floors, resembling the World Trade Towers in the process of collapsing following the 9/11 attacks. I suppose if you lived in one of those "cloud" apartments, then you'd have a spectacular view, but you might be bothered by 3,000 ghosts. Weekly Standard
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 12-Dec-11 World View -- Huntsman: China's Fifth Generation will have 'nationalistic impulses'
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Dec-2011)
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Taliban claims to be talking peace with Pakistan government
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Tens of thousands protest in Russia as anti-Putin civil unrest grows
* Hamas, embarrassed by Syria's violence, may be forced to move
* Taliban claims to be talking peace with Pakistan government
Except for the eurozone crisis, the news has been pretty slow this past week. I wonder how long it will last?
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Over 60,000 people rallied in dozens of cities across Russia, from the European exclave of Kaliningrad to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. The angry demonstrators were demanding that last weekend's Duma election that gave Putin's United Russia party a tiny majority be declared invalid, and that a new election be held. There have been reports of widespread corruption in last week's election, and many believe that Putin would have lost an honest election. The size of the protest appears to indicate a change in national mood. Up until a couple of weeks ago, the average Russia would respond to charges of corruption by shrugging and saying that nothing could be done about it. The new protests may indicate a change from resignation to anger, and that could bring about an "Arab Spring" in Moscow. Ria Novosti and AFP
Hamas, the governing force in Gaza, finds itself in an increasingly embarrassing position because of its neutral stance on the violence in Syria, where the regime of president Bashar al-Assad has been slaughtering thousands of innocent Arabs. Two factors further complicate the situation. First, Hamas has its headquarters in Damascus, Syria's capital, and is being pressured to move to some other country. And second, al-Assad has named the Muslim Brotherhood as one his enemies, and Hamas has links to the Muslim Brotherhood, and used to be a part of it. The greatest fear among Hamas officials is that al-Assad's regime will collapse, and the new regime will cut its ties to Iran and Hizbollah -- and Hamas. Thus, some analysts say that Hamas is running out of options, and may be forced to move from Damascus sooner than they'd like. Xinhua
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistan Taliban, a terrorist group that has slaughtered many innocent Pakistanis, is saying that they are in "peace talks" with the Pakistan government, now that the government is doing the things they've demanded -- closing the border crossings for Nato supplies to Afghanistan, and ejecting the U.S. from an air base used for launching drones. However, TTP has agreed to peace talks in the past, and has used them to regroup and rearm their forces in preparation for the next wave of terrorist attacks. Daily Times (Pakistan) and Tribune (Pakistan)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 11-Dec-11 World View -- Hamas, embarrassed by Syria's violence, may be forced to move
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Dec-2011)
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Turkey's exports reach a historic new record
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Euro Zone leaders reach an agreement to save the euro
* Hopes for ECB intervention are dashed once again
* Bond yields for Italy's debt fall slightly
* Britain opts out of the eurozone deal
* Britain's 'veto' may represent historic turning point for EU
* Turkey's exports reach a historic new record
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Emerging at 5 am on Friday morning from an all-night meeting, eurozone leaders announced a plan to restructure the eurozone. There will be a brand new treaty among the 17 euro zone nations, and all remaining EU nations, except Britain, will join in the new treaty as well. It will take months before the details of the agreement are ironed out, and it will take years to implement, but officials hope that merely stating it will restore confidence to the markets and convince investors that it's safe to buy toxic bonds from Italy and Spain. Some terms of the agreement are: National budgets would have to be approved by Brussels; debt limits would be imposed on every nation; and sanctions would automatically be imposed on any country that exceeded the debt limits. “What we have achieved tonight is a tremendous step towards a stable Europe,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists in Brussels on Friday. “This summit will go down in history,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. CS Monitor
The "summit that will go down in history" may do that, but what it won't do is solve any of Europe's problems. It doesn't promote economic growth in any way, it doesn't resolve the banking crisis going on in Greece, Italy and Spain, it doesn't resolve the growing panic in European bonds, it doesn't resolve the problems raised by S&P when it warned of a possible downgrade of all EU debt. Furthermore, even if the agreement meant something, it would still have to be approved by 26 nations, and there would certainly be delays in store. Some parliaments may reject the agreement, and some (e.g., Ireland) may have to have a referendum that may reject it. So no one really believes that Friday's agreement is going to make any difference to the markets. In fact, it could be said that Friday's agreement had an audience of just one person: Mario Draghi. If Merkel and Sarkozy can convince Draghi that they mean business, then he'll arrange for the ECB to "print" unlimited amounts of money, and use it to purchase toxic Italian and Spanish bonds. But on Friday, Draghi once again threw cold water on the idea that any such bond purchases are coming. Bloomberg
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European officials declared victory on Friday because toxic bond yields (interest rates) fell slightly, but the situation with Italy's 10-year bonds shows what really happened. As the graph shows, bond yields were on their way back up, but took only a teeny-tiny drop on Friday, to 6.36% -- still an unsustainable level. It promises to be a tense weekend, as officials wait to see how markets react on Monday morning to the new eurozone deal. CNN Money
Of the 27 countries in the European Union countries, 26 of them joined the 17 eurozone countries in Friday's deal, except one: Britain. According to Prime Minister David Cameron:
"I said before I came to Brussels that if I couldn't get adequate safeguards for Britain in a new European treaty, then I wouldn't agree to it. What is on offer isn't in Britain's interests, so I didn't agree to it. We're not in the euro and I'm glad we're not in the euro."
The main point of difference was that euro officials wanted to impose a financial transactions tax on all countries, but it would fall 80% on London, thus providing a back door way for Britain to contribute to eurozone bailouts, even though Britain is not in the eurozone. Britain's pullout reflects a recurring hostility between France and Britain over EU fiscal matters. This led to a shouting match in 2005 over agricultural subsidies for France, and it's now peaking again over the financial crisis. Recently Sarkozy expressed fury that Cameron was meddling in eurozone affairs, even though Britain is not a euro nation, and on Friday morning they exchanged angry words. Analysts say that even though Britain has opted out of the current deal, Brussels may be able to impose a financial transactions tax on London through other means, such as through trade policy between the eurozone and Britain. Telegraph and Financial Times (Access)
It's an irony of history that the Maastricht Treaty that formally launched the European project was signed by 12 leaders of the European community exactly 20 years ago, on December 9-10, 1991. European politicians are harshly criticizing David Cameron for not signing on to Friday's deal, saying that Britain is now completely isolated from the other EU countries. Few doubt that Cameron's decision represents a historic split in the European Union. Spiegel
While many countries are in trouble with exports, Turkey is an exception. Turkey's exports have reached $133.97 billion in the past 12 months, indicating that the country has now broken a new record with the highest level of exports in the history of the republic. Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 10-Dec-11 World View -- Europe in historic split, after Britain opts out of eurozone deal
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Dec-2011)
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Oil pipeline in Syria explodes after terrorist attack
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Nicolas Sarkozy becomes apocalyptic
* ECB President Mario Draghi dashes hopes of 'big bazooka'
* Oil pipeline in Syria explodes after terrorist attack
* Arab Spring coming to Russia on Friday
* Al-Assad, Corzine and Holder all tell the same story
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The tension over Friday's EU summit meeting in Brussels is enormous, since few people believe that any meaningful deal will be reached. France's president Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking in Marseille prior to heading for the summit, said that a deal must be reached:
"Never has Europe been so necessary and never has it been in so much danger... Never has the risk of Europe's explosion been so great. ...Never have so many countries wanted to join Europe. Never has the risk of a disintegration of Europe been so great. Europe is facing an extraordinarily dangerous situation.
The diagnosis is that we have a few weeks to decide because time is working against us. If we aren't in agreement on this, I fear that we won't be able to agree on anything. That's the analysis."
The most likely scenario is that something will be announced on Friday with great fanfare, and then it will take the markets a few hours or a couple of days to realize that it doesn't change anything. Europe has almost run out of can-kicking road. BBC and Telegraph
What everyone's waiting to hear on Friday is an announcement by European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi that the ECB will "print" money and purchase an unlimited number of bonds from Italy, Spain, and any other countries where it might be necessary. The reasoning is that the eurozone leaders will reach some agreement, involving centralized control of individual nations' budgets, to limit future uncontrolled spending, so that Draghi will be convinced that the ECB bond purchase "big bazooka" solution is safe. However, Draghi on Thursday shut the door to bond purchases, and said that the only possible solution is a "fiscal compact" among the eurozone nations. Still, everyone's hoping that Draghi will change his mind on Friday. Meanwhile, European banks received a new shock on Thursday, when they learned that they need to raise €114.7 billion in new cash, much more than previously expected, because of the Greek financial crisis. Bloomberg
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An explosion has hit a pipeline carrying oil to a refinery in Syria on Thursday. No casualties were reported, and no one claimed responsibility for the terrorist action. The state-run news service said, "An armed terrorist group committed an act of sabotage." Guardian
An unprecedented display of anger against Russia's prime minister Vladimir Putin is building, as 18,000 people have signed up on a Facebook page to attend planned mass demonstrations on Friday, December 10, over election fraud in last Sunday's Duma elections. Wednesday was a third night of protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg, resulting in numerous arrests. However, the persistence of the demonstrations is being seen as remarkable, and a challenge to Putin. RFERL
In today's culture of fraud and extortion, all the stories sound the same:
In this Generation-X culture of fraud and extortion, no one who commits an actual crime is considered a criminal. The only people considered criminals are the accusers. Irish Times and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 9-Dec-11 World View -- Sarkozy: Europe risks a new explosion
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Dec-2011)
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Syria's Bashar al-Assad gives psychopathic interview to Barbara Walters
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Syria's Bashar al-Assad gives psychopathic interview to Barbara Walters
* Pressure builds on euro summit meeting on Thursday and Friday
* Germanophobia spreads through Europe
* Anti-Putin protests spread in Russia as Gorbachev calls for new elections
* Election fraud in Russia's North Caucasus region
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Last February, I wrote about Libya's Muammar Gaddafi giving a psychopathic speech to his people. I was reminded of that speech on Wednesday, by the interview given by Syria's president Bashar al-Assad to Barbara Walters of ABC News.
Nothing was ever Assad's fault. Everything was the fault of Americans, thugs, and al-Qaeda.
Assad: OK, we don't kill our people, nobody kill. No government in the world kill its people, unless it's led by crazy person. For me, as president, I became president because of the public support. It's impossible for anyone, in this state, to give order to kill people.
Assad gave one bizarre explanation after another. This one was pretty amazing:
Walters: Well in the beginning these protests, the women were marching with children carrying olive branches nobody at that point was asking for you to step down. It has escalated. Do you think that your forces cracked down too hard?Assad: They are not my forces, they are military forces belong to the government.
Walters: OK, but you are the government.
Assad: I don't own them. I am president. I don't own the country, so they are not my forces.
Walters: No, but you have to give the order?
Assad: No, no, no. We have, in the constitution, in the law, the mission of the institution to protect the people to stand against any chaos or any terrorists, that their job, according to the constitution to their-- to the law of the institution.
Walters: The crackdown was without your permission?
Assad: Would you mind, what do you mean by crackdown?
Walters: The, the reaction to the people, the some of the murders some of the things that happened?
Assad: No, there is a difference between having policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials, there is a big difference. For example, when you talk about policy it's like what happened in Guantanamo when you have policy of torture for example we don't have such a policy to crack down or to torture people, you have mistakes committed by some people or we heard we have some allegations about mistakes, that is why we have a special committee to investigate what happened and then we can tell according to the evidences we have mistakes or not. But as a policy, no.
This may have some interesting internal manifestations, since he's essentially blaming his underlings, including his own brother, for the crackdown, while not taking any responsibility himself.
When asked about the United Nations report accusing him of crimes against humanity, he said that the U.N. hadn't bothered to send him the report, so he doesn't know what's in it. When he was asked about the Arab League sanctions against Syria, he said that the sanctions didn't hurt Syria, but they hurt Syria's neighbors. When reminded that Syria has become isolated, "We have good relations with the world, but not vice versa."
He said that any attempt to overthrow him would bring disaster:
Assad: Syria is the fault line in the Middle East. You know, the Middle East is generally it's very diverse in ethnicities, in sects, in religions, but Syria the most diverse and this is the fault line where all these diversity meet so it's like the fault line of the Earth of the, of the Earth. When you play with it, you will have earthquake that is going to effect the whole region. So playing don't mean to overthrow me or to deal with me it's not about me it's about the, the, the fabric of the society in this region that is what I meant.
At the end of the interview, he was asked if he feels guilty for all the deaths:
Assad: I did my best to protect the people, so I cannot feel guilty, when you do your best. You feel sorry for the lives that has been lost, but you don't feel guilty -- when you don't kill people.
He is a "crazy person," as he suggests, though probably no crazier than any of the politicians in Washington or Brussels. ABC News
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Possibly no financial summit meeting in years has been watched as closely as the one being held on Thursday and Friday in Brussels. The plan is to agree that all 17 euro zone countries will agree to treaty the commits them to accept sanctions if they ever exceed prescribed debt limits. To back this up, some bailout mechanism will be introduced, such as the ECB "printing" money and buying toxic bonds, or perhaps just guaranteeing toxic bonds from Italy and Spain, to try to force yields (interest rates) down. (Yields on Greece's 2-year bonds reached 142.3% on Wednesday. No, that's not a typo.) The Germans know that, in the end, they're going to be the ones to pay the tab for a failed bailout, which is why they're demanding heavy fiscal controls on wayward nations. An unnamed senior German official said on Wednesday:
"I have to say today, on Wednesday, that I am more pessimistic than last week about reaching an overall deal ... A lot of protagonists still have not understood how serious the situation is.My pessimism stems from the overall picture that I see at this point, in which institutions and member states will have to move on many points to make possible the new treaty rules that we are aiming for."
The world financial community is looking to this meeting to save the euro. Whether these leaders can pull something out of the hat is what everyone is waiting to see. Reuters
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A German newspaper has conveniently provided a collection of cartoons and a list of some of the comments made by commentators in other European countries. Here are some excerpts:
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Former Soviet Russia leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a man well-respected in the West as the person who oversaw the reforms that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, has said that Sunday's parliamentary elections were unfair, and called for new elections. "The leadership of the country should admit that numerous falsifications and ballot-box stuffing took place, and that the announced results do not reflect the will of the people," according to Gorbachev. Gorbachev thus adds his support to the widening protests in Russia against another term as President for Vladimir Putin. Putin was president for 8 years, the maximum allowed by the constitution, and then ran as Prime Minister, placing Dmitry Medvedev into the presidency as what has now been admitted as a sham placeholder. Putin then arranged to modify the constitution so that he could have new presidential terms that would run to 2024, something that is now infuriating the protesters. VOA
Putin's United Russia party won a majority of the votes last Sunday, but just barely - just over 50%. Thus, the votes in the North Caucasus region are being questioned, as they appear to be obviously rigged. In ten Russian regions, United Russia's results were 30% lower than in the last election in 2007, in what appears to be a crushing defeat for United Russia. But in Chechnya and Dagestan, two provinces in the North Caucasus, United Russia added votes, getting 99.5% of the vote in Chechnya, and 91.4% of the vote in Dagestan. There were similar results in some other provinces. Still, as I recall, in Soviet elections in the 1970s, the Communist Party used to get 100% of the vote, so this must be an improvement. Jamestown
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 8-Dec-11 World View -- Pressure builds on euro summit meeting on Thursday and Friday
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Dec-2011)
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Sarkozy tries to halt spread of 'Germanophobia' in France
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* A day that will live in infamy
* China's Hu Jintao tells navy to prepare for military combat
* Afghanistan shocked by coordinated suicide attacks targeting Shias
* Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claims credit for Kabul attack
* Greece's bank run is accelerating
* Britain's David Cameron threatens to torpedo eurozone crisis resolution
* Sarkozy tries to halt spread of 'Germanophobia' in France
* Generational Dynamics podcasts
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On December 7, 1941, the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese planes launched from six aircraft carriers. Four U.S. battleships were sunk, and four others damaged. Over 2,400 Americans were killed, including 1,177 on the battleship Arizona.
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started his famous speech:
"Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives: Yesterday, Dec. 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
Within an hour, Congress passed a declaration of war against Japan.
In generational theory, this was a "regeneracy event," an event that ended the political bickering and unified the country behind the President. It only took 24 hours for the nation to go from a peaceful Sunday to World War II. LA Times
China's president Hu Jintao addressed the powerful Central Military Commission on Tuesday, and said:
"[The navy should] accelerate its transformation and modernization in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security.Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defense and military building."
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last month warned against interference by "external forces" in regional territorial disputes including those in the South China Sea. News reports indicate that the Dept. of Defense is playing down these remarks, but can you imagine the international uproar if President Bush or President Obama ever made remarks similar to President Hu's? AFP and Xinhua
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58 people were killed and over 150 injured on Tuesday from coordinated suicide bomber attacks in Shia Muslim shrines in two Afghanistan cities, Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. The suicide bombings attacked Shia worshipers during Ashura, one of Shia Muslim's holiest celebrations. The bombings are thought to be related to a key international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, which just agreed to extend international support for Afghanistan to 2024, following the scheduled withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2014. Many analysts expressed that this would launch a new series of sectarian Sunni vs Shia attacks. Nation (Pakistan)
We've written about Lashkar-e-Jhangvi several times in the past -- a terrorist group that targets Shia and Sufi shrines in Pakistan, and who has been responsible for hundreds of deaths of worshipers. In addition. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is connected to Jundullah, a terrorist group that has perpetrated major attacks on Shia mosques and Revolutionary Guard stations in southeastern Iran. It's now considered possible that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is extending operations into Afghanistan. Washington Post
News stories are reporting Sunni/Shia violence in Afghanistan as "rare," and even President Hamid Karzai is quoted as calling the new attacks "unprecedented." These are people with short memories. There was a large, extremely bloody, genocidal civil war in Afghanistan in the years 1991-96. That was considered mainly an ethnic war, fought mainly between the Hazaris in the north and the Pashtuns in the south, but the Hazaris are Shia and the Pashtuns are Sunni. That war climaxed in 1996, and Afghanistan entered a generational Recovery era, which is just ending now. What we're seeing are the first signs of a generational Awakening era, as the children who grew up after the end of the civil war are now getting old enough to avenge the atrocities committed on their parents' generation. As usual in an awakening era, there is a "generation gap," and the children are acting against their survivor parents' wishes, and indeed the Taliban leadership on Tuesday put out a statement strongly condemning the attacks. Some analysts fear a new civil war in Afghanistan, but that's impossible because the survivor generation won't permit it. But that won't stop terrorist attacks of the kind experienced on Tuesday.
Many Greeks are draining their savings accounts because they are out of work, face rising taxes or are afraid the country will be forced to leave the euro zone. At the start of 2010, savings deposits totalled €237.7 billion. Since then, they fallen by €49 billion, and in the last couple of months the withdrawals have increased dramatically -- €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October. In August, unemployment reached 18.4%. Many Greeks now hoard their savings in their homes because they are worried the banking system may collapse. Spiegel
Britain, which is not part of the 17 nation eurozone and still uses its own currency, the pound sterling, has threatened to prevent the "solution" advanced by France and Germany to be implemented, unless the proposals contain safeguards for Britain. In fact, some of the proposals will require changes to the Lisbon treaty, which is the current agreement among all 27 European Union countries. Britain's prime minister David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative Party, which opposes transferring more sovereign powers to Brussels. Many party members want to ditch the EU altogether. According to Cameron, who is increasingly considered by many eurozone leaders to be an annoying jerk, "Eurozone countries do need to come together, do need to do more things together — if they choose to use the European treaty to do that, Britain will be insisting on some safeguards too. As long as we get those, then that treaty can go ahead. If we can't get those, it won't." AP
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Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy shrugged off anti-German sentiments expressed by some opposition leaders in France when they met in Paris on Monday. Some Socialist Party leaders in France accused President Sarkozy of pandering to Germany’s “Bismarck-like policies,” and obeying its “diktat” in solving the region’s crisis. The charges led Sarkozy’s governing party to attack what it said was “irresponsible Germanophobia.” Leftwing Parisian MP Jean-Marie Le Guen said Sarkozy's meeting with Merkel was like French prime minister Edouard Daladier's role at the 1938 Munich Conference when Daladier, Neville Chamberlain and Italy's fascist leader Benito Mussolini appeased Hitler. Sarkozy said Merkel should know "so as not to be hurt", that these anti-German sentiments "are not held by those in charge" in France. Bloomberg and Guardian
Discussion of generational changes since World War II, and how the relationship between Boomers and Generation-Xers created the financial crisis and is leading to world war.
YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEUPJqKIzFg
From last year, a two-hour interview covering generational theory and everything from China to Europe to the financial crisis to the Singularity.
MP3#1: http://www.box.net/shared/static/fodl54qn13.mp3
MP3#2: http://www.box.net/shared/static/id0vext6t0.mp3
MP3#3: http://www.box.net/shared/static/h77bccqmpc.mp3
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 7-Dec-11 World View -- Afghanistan shocked by coordinated suicide attacks targeting Shias
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Dec-2011)
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If Iran goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia will obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Senior Chinese official warns of increased social unrest
* Motley Fool's Sean Williams says that he was wrong about China
* Merkel and Sarkozy kick the can down the road to March
* Geithner visiting European officials to urge quick, decisive action
* S&P places 15 euro nations on warning for ratings downgrade
* Russia choosing the stick over the carrot in the North Caucasus
* If Iran goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia will obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan
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Zhou Yongkang, a senior Chinese leader and member of the Politburo, has warned provincial officials that they need to be prepared for increased social unrest caused by problems in the economy. The warning comes as large-scale strikes have swept China's southern manufacturing heartland in recent weeks, as workers face off with employers facing reduced sales to debt-burdened America and Europe. He said the current "social management mechanism" is not keeping pace with social and economic development, a failure particularly damaging to the market-oriented economy. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this development is interesting because it shows that dictatorships follow the same generational behavior patterns as democracies. Mao Zedong tried some "social management mechanisms" in the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, resulting in the starvation and execution of tens of millions of people. China is still trying various "social management mechanisms," but they won't affect the fact that China has a regular pattern of massive internal rebellions every 70-80 years or so, and the country is overdue for the next one right now. Xinhua and AFP
Analysts have been predominantly wrong for the last few years, and econometric models have been failing consistently. This isn't news. What is news is when one of these analysts states that he was wrong. Sean Williams is saying that he was wrong to have been so bullish on China, and admits that his record on picking Chinese stocks has been disastrously wrong. Why was he wrong? "My first mistake was in not realizing that results which seem too good to be true often are," allowing himself to be fooled by not seeing "a scandalous roundup of fraud allegations." As I've written many times, fraud and extortion are the norm in today's culture, in America, in Europe and in China, because of the relationship between the Boomers and Generation-Xers. Any investor or analyst who doesn't take generational trends into account is sure to be wrong during this generational crisis era. Motley Fool
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy put on a big show of unity on Monday in Paris, announcing that they will push for a new European treaty, either among all 27 EU members or just the 17 countries in the euro zone, to force member states to adhere to tighter budget discipline in the future. The main point is that there will be automatic sanctions for any country breaching the deficit ceiling of 3% of GDP. The new agreement will be presented to the other European nations later this week, and they've set a date in March of next year to finalize the details in the agreement. What will be done between now and March? As far as I can tell, nothing, except more meetings. Perhaps there will be a further announcement at the big eurozone summit on Friday, December 9. Spiegel
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is traveling to Europe for crisis talks with European officials "on their efforts to reinforce the institutions of the euro area," where he will urge the leaders to act quickly and decisively. Well, Merkel and Sarkozy are obviously not acting quickly and decisively, so there's only one person left. On Tuesday, Geithner will have his first meeting, with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. The intent will be to convince Draghi that now that Merkel and Sarkozy have put on their spectacular show of unity, Draghi can now feel OK about "printing" another trillion euros to bail out Italy and Spain, something that Draghi has resolutely refused in the past. The pressure on Draghi will be absolutely enormous, as he will now be seen as the one and only person who can save the euro. Market Watch
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The initial reaction on Wall Street to the Merkel/Sarkozy press conference was a huge surge in stock prices. I heard one grinning analyst say gleefully that stocks were surging because of Europe's one trillion euro bailout. I don't know where the hell he got that statement. Bond yields (interest rates) on Italy's ten-year bonds fell sharply from 7.2% to 5.9%, causing some analysts to declare victory, even though a glance at the adjoining graph shows that exactly the same thing happened after the July 21 announcement for Greece's bailout, which turned out to be a total failure. Apparently, S&P Ratings wasn't impressed on Monday, as they put 15 eurozone nations on negative watch for downgrade. This includes the six nations that still have AAA ratings -- Germany, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria and Finland. "Systemic stress in the eurozone has risen in recent weeks and reached such a level that a review of all eurozone sovereign ratings is warranted," according to S&P. Bloomberg
The Russian government's plan to pour almost $100 billion of infrastructure investment projects into the North Caucasus is apparently being dropped in favor a substantially increased military presence. This decision may indicate that the Kremlin is simply giving up on the Caucasus, and now considers it hostile territory that needs to be governed by force, but there are two political reasons that also contributed to the decision. First, ultranationalism and mutual xenophobia have been increasing in the last year between the Muslim Caucasians and the Orthodox Christian ethnic Russians, and this was an important factor in the recent Duma elections, with slogans such as "Russia for the Russians" and "Don't feed the Caucasus." And second, the 2014 Winter Olympics games will be held in the Sochi resort in the Caucasus, and this was the site in 1864, exactly 150 years ago, of a genocidal battle between the Russians and the ethnic Circassians, exterminating the latter or driving them out of their historic homeland. Historically, the Caucasus is one of the bloodiest regions of the world, along the fault line between the Muslim civilization and the Orthodox Christian civilization. Jamestown
The 1,300 year old Shia/Sunni struggle is being revived over fears in Saudi Arabia that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has been beefing up its military links with Pakistan to counter Iran's expansionist plans and this reportedly includes acquiring atomic arms from the only Muslim nuclear power. Pakistan has become a front-line state for Sunni Islam and is being positioned by its leaders, particularly in the powerful military and intelligence establishments, as a bulwark against Shiite Iran and its proxies. Increasingly, Pakistan is rushing to the defense of Saudi Arabia, with whom it has long had discreet security links. It is reported to have put two army divisions on standby for deployment to Saudi Arabia if the kingdom is threatened by Iran or the pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the Arab world. This is consistent with my oft-stated expectation that China will be allied with Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries versus the West, Iran, India and Russia in the coming Clash of Civilizations World War. UPI
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 6-Dec-11 World View -- Merkel and Sarkozy kick the can down the road to March
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Dec-2011)
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New study highlights China's massive war preparations
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Iran claims to have shot down a U.S. spy drone
* Egypt's two Islamist winners now become arch foes
* Depletion of Egypt's foreign reserves will be critical by January
* What looks like the end is proving to be only the beginning
* Four days left to save the euro
* Putin's party suffers a major setback in Duma elections
* New study highlights China's massive war preparations
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Iran's armed forces on Sunday claimed to have shot down a U.S. unmanned Lockheed-Martin RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone along Iran's eastern border. According to an Arabic language station, "Iran’s army has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran. The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the armed forces." However, an unnamed U.S. official disputed the reports, saying that the Iranians may be referring to "an American drone that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan last week and is now missing." Tehran Times and VOA
Last week's parliamentary elections in Egypt were only the beginning of a lengthy process. The biggest winner was the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), with 40% of the votes, while the Salafist party Al-Nour and its allies won 25% of the votes. During the election, both FJP and Al-Nour slammed each other with accusations of illegal leafleting, bribery, and even forgery. And now, with runoff elections scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, the two parties are going to be arch foes. During last week's elections, Al-Nour and the FJP had a gentleman's agreement to vie with each other in an honest way. But those gentleman's agreements are now ended, and there may be no gentlemen taking part in the next rounds. Al-Ahram
The past year of unrest has cut deeply into Egypt's tourist business, and the riots elections have been expensive, causing Egypt's foreign reserves to be depleted even faster than expected. The pace of the decline has been increasing, and Thursday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) forecasted that the figure would plummet to just $15 billion by the end of January. "We’re nearing a critical benchmark, which is three months of imports. We’re not quite there yet, but at the rate reserves have been deteriorating we’ll be there by the end of January." Gulf Arab states have offered to lend Egypt $10 billion, but little of this money has been delivered. This comes at a time when the IMF is already stretched because of bailouts in Europe. The Media Line
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It's amazing how history keeps repeating itself, over and over. On Sunday, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, was being interviewed on CNN, and here's what he said when asked about the U.S. economy:
"And it has two silver linings. Silver lining number one is that there's not much left to go wrong. Housing's already depressed. Auto sector's down. So the -- you really can't get much more downside. So we need to grow. And manufacturing has turned out to be in much better shape than anyone dreamed, and it's been a real engine of this recovery."
Not much left to go wrong?? I would laugh at this if it weren't so sickening. Let me now repeat this quote from John Kenneth Galbraith's 1954 book The Great Crash - 1929, where he contrasted the 1929 crash with previous panics:
"A common feature of all these earlier troubles [previous panics] was that having happened they were over. The worst was reasonably recognizable as such. The singular feature of the great crash of 1929 was that the worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few as possible escaped the common misfortune." (p. 108)
In fact, Douglas Holtz-Eakin was directly contradicted by Carl Case, co-author of the Case-Shiller report. On Tuesday, when the latest Case-Shiller report was released, I transcribed the following from an interview with Carl Case on BBTV, when Case explained why he thought housing prices would fall at least another 5-10%, based on experiment he tried with his home price computer model:
"We 'shocked our model' with the shadow inventory. If we put in the entirety of the shadow inventory into our home price model, home prices would fall another 30%. We don't expect that will happen - the shadow inventory would never make its way like a wave into the market, but what it does show is the market clearing price for homes. So we have a long way to go before we see anything like normalcy in the home market."
So, when Holtz-Eakin says that there "not much left that can go wrong," he's not only dead wrong, he's catastrophically wrong -- by 30%. And, in fact, if there's a financial panic, which Generational Dynamics predicts is coming, then that shadow inventory would indeed make its way like a wave into the market.
I recently quoted former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan as saying, "All the econometric models failed in 2008 - across the board," and I pointed out that they've been failing for a lot longer than that. Holtz-Eakin is like all the economists you see on tv, is using econometric models that have consistently been proven wrong. Being consistently wrong doesn't seem to bother Holtz-Eakin or anyone else in Washington or on Wall Street -- as long as they get their money.
Europe is reaching the edge of a cliff this Friday, when French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will have to announce their new plan to save the euro. Europe has been on the edge of a cliff before. In the last two years, the Europeans have announced one truly ridiculous plan after another -- plans that could not possibly work. But they always fooled enough people to pull Europe back from the cliff's edge for a few weeks or, more recently, for a few days. Now we're waiting for a new plan on Friday. We can only wait with breathless anticipation to see what it will be, and how many and for how long people will be fooled.
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party suffered a sharp drop in support in Sunday's parliamentary elections, just barely past the 50% mark, but falling far short of the two-thirds majority that it had enjoyed for years. The Communist Party (KPRF) came in at second place, with 19% of the votes, with the remaining votes split among the five remaining parties. The outcome for United Russia would force the party, accustomed to passing legislation without regard for support from others, to negotiate and cooperate with competing political parties. Ria Novosti
A study by Georgetown University has developed evidence that China is building thousands of miles of hardened, bombproof tunnels and storing thousands of nuclear missiles. The study was based on analysis of publicly available military journals and videos, so the conclusions can't be confirmed, but it appears that China is building a massive arsenal of nuclear missiles in preparation for war with the United States. As I reported in August in "New Pentagon report outlines China's military buildup," has been massively preparing for war over Taiwan and in the South China Sea, and that they would now, or very soon, win such a war with the U.S. This new data extends the war preparations to bring the war to U.S. soil. With China's rapid military buildup, the next 12 months appear increasingly likely. Washington Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 5-Dec-11 World View -- Egypt's two Islamist winners now become arch foes
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Dec-2011)
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Egypt's ruling army council 'worries' about Islamist election win
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Russia elects a new Duma on Sunday
* Putin may experience a setback
* Ultranationalism and xenophobia grow as Russia's election arrives
* Medvedev warns against too much nationalism
* Political parties vying for votes in Sunday's election
* Egypt's ruling army council 'worries' about Islamist election win
* Arab League freezes assets of Syrian officials
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Prime minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party is expected to win the most seats in Russia's parliamentary elections being held on Sunday, giving a boost to his chances to regain the Presidency next year. Over 3,000 candidates from 7 registered parties are battling for the 450 seats in the Duma, the lower house. There are 110 million eligible voters, including 108 million living inside the country. Voting has already begun at midnight local time. Exit poll results will be announced at 9 pm Moscow time (noon ET), with official results announced in several days. Russia Today
Although Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party is expected to win, he may suffer a setback nonetheless. Polls show that United Russia may win about 53% of the vote, but that's down sharply from 64% in 2007. As we've reported recently, Russia was shocked when Putin received boos and catcalls during a live nationwide TV telecast during a judo championship. According to one analyst, "Dissatisfaction with the level of wages and a distrust of power as venal and detached from people are directly affect United Russia’s approval rating." Bloomberg
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Several political parties, including United Russia, have been emphasizing patriotism during their campaigns, something that's not unusual during a generational crisis era. But in Russia, patriotism brought together over 7,000 ultranationalists last month for the "Russian March," protesting what they perceive as an "occupation" of their country by immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. They chanted obscene slogans, starting with "Say ‘No’ to the Islamization of Russia!" and "Get rid of the party of crooks and thieves!" and "Stop feeding the Caucasus!" They threw Nazi salutes and conveyed their disgust for the 1.5 million Muslim immigrants they blame for taking their jobs and snatching away their government. Many appeared to be the same breed of working-class soccer hooligans that precipitated the mass ethnic riots in Moscow last December. Like America's "Occupy Wall Street" they seem to have little focus except to express discontent. Russia Profile
An opinion poll of Russians shows that 60% say they support the slogan "Russia for the Russians," while race-hate attacks remain high in big cities. Nationalism remains a potentially explosive sideline issue in Sunday's election, though only one party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), is expressing nationalistic sentiments openly. One party official says, "We don’t hide behind the screen of tolerance. We are the only party to have defended – for the last 22 years – the interests of ethnic Russians. We call on everyone to stop humiliating the Russian people." However, President Dmitry Medvedev has asked political parties to "avoid" the topic of nationalism in campaigning. He said that the "Stop Feeding the Caucasus!" campaign was reminiscent of Soviet-era complaints from ethnic Russians that Moscow was too generous towards then-socialist republics in Central Asia, Ukraine and the Baltic region. "And the end result was that the Soviet Union collapsed," Medvedev warned. Ria Novosti
The following is a list of the seven political parties participating in Sunday's Duma vote, in the order they appear on the ballot, along with a brief description of the the potential voters that the party expects to appeal to:
The big win of Islamists in last week's first round of Egyptian legislative elections has caused "worry and discomfort" inside the ruling military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)." According to an unnamed source, "Even though the military has accepted the election results as a reflection of the voters’ will, an air of anxiety is present inside the military institution, especially that Islamists seem to have a bigger chance at winning in the second and third phases and in the run-off rounds." The source underlined that regardless of the final election results, the military "will not give up two things: the position of the military in the new constitution, and [the preservation of] a civil state in Egypt," adding that the military is not in a struggle with any particular political force, and that the military council will "deal with the final results as they are." Al-Ahram
Violence sweeping across Syria killed 25 people on Saturday, most of them in a battle between regime troops and a growing force of army defectors who have joined the movement to oust Bashar al-Assad. Arab League ministers, meeting in Qatar on Saturday, agreed on a list of 19 Syrian officials, including cabinet ministers, intelligence chiefs and security officers, subject to a travel ban and having their assets frozen. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 4-Dec-11 World View -- Russia elects a new Duma amid harsh ultranationalism
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Dec-2011)
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Pakistan changes rules of engagement versus U.S. forces
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Europe recoils as Germany takes charge
* Record turnout in Egypt's elections
* Pakistan changes rules of engagement versus U.S. forces
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Let's start with this news story from the Guardian:
"Angela Merkel demanded tougher control over the tax-and-spend policies of Germany's single-currency partners at the start of a make-or-break five days for the euro.Seeking to halt the single currency's drift towards collapse, the German chancellor finally took decisive action to calm the financial markets when she said it was time to stop talking about a fiscal union and start creating one. Merkel said, however, that negotiations to secure greater centralised control over the budgets of the 17 members of the eurozone could not be rushed and would involve a risky renegotiation of the Lisbon treaty."
Decisive action???? She gave a FRIGGIN' SPEECH! Since when is giving a speech "decisive action," especially when it's going to take "years" for anything to get done?
Here's a story from Mirror:
"Britain faced being sidelined yesterday as German Chancellor Angela Merkel set out plans for a new "euroland."She will use a summit next week to demand a "fiscal union" so all 17 eurozone countries are bound by the same budgetary rules. A new treaty, forcing governments in the single currency to give up tax and spending powers, was essential to rescue the eurozone, she said.
But the power-grab by France and Germany may create a two-tier European Union and see Britain – not in the single currency – lose its place at the top table."
These fears of a Berlin takeover of Europe, 73 years after the Anschluss, are being widely expressed in Europe.
Here's a more sober news story from the Independent:
"Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted yesterday that the euro could only be saved by changes in the EU treaty to impose legally enforceable budget discipline on countries using the single currency.Her words, in a landmark speech to the Bundestag, implied exactly the kind of federalist solution, over-riding national sovereignty, which was rejected the day before by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Efforts will be made to resolve the apparent gulf between the two leaders when they meet in Paris on Monday to agree draft treaty changes to place before a critical EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday."
So it looks like Merkel and Sarkozy have only a few days left bridge their differences, so that they can complete the Franco-German takeover of Europe, and thus save the euro. It's just one more in a seemingly endless supply of bizarre days.
Egypt's people were ebullient this week as they surged to the to the polls for the first free elections in decades. 62% of eligible voters took part in the first round of parliamentary elections, with turnout as "the highest since the time of pharaohs." Official results have not yet been announced, but leaks indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) took 40% of the votes. Following closely behind is the conservative Salafi Al-Nour Party, with about 30% of the votes, raising concerns in the West of an Islamist government. Al-Ahram and Bloomberg
Relations between Pakistan and the U.S. continued to deteriorate following the recent attack by Nato forces that inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in the tribal regions. Pakistan officials are saying that the attack was intentional, and are denying the U.S. version of the story that the outcome was inadvertent. On Friday, Pakistan's army changed the rules of engagement, so that Pakistan's commanders in the wild Afghan border region can return fire if under attack without waiting for permission. This policy change could have the unintended consequence of having U.S. and Pakistan forces firing at each other. Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 3-Dec-11 World View -- Europe recoils as Germany takes charge
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Dec-2011)
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Russia delivers anti-ship missiles to Syria
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* Last-ditch plan to save the euro begins to emerge
* Manufacturing data shows unexpected slowdown in Asia and Europe
* Voyager spacecraft detect new type of ultraviolet light
* Russia delivers anti-ship missiles to Syria
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Olli Rehn, Europe’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, said on Wednesday that there are only a few days left, until December 9, to save the euro. December 9 is the date of the next major summit meeting of eurozone leaders, and they have to announce their "Big Bazooka" plan on or before that date. The plan that is starting to emerge was hinted at on Thursday by the following comment by Mario Draghi, the new chief of the European Central Bank (ECB):
"The ECB's monetary policy is constantly guided by the goal of maintaining price stability in the euro area over the medium term - and this applies to price stability in both directions."
The key phrase here is "in both directions," referring to both inflation and deflation. Based on this and numerous economists' remarks about the danger of deflation in the eurozone, it's now thought that Draghi is about to reverse himself and agree to a substantially looser monetary policy for the ECB than he's previous said he'd allow. Thus, the emerging plan to save the euro is roughly as follows:
After that, work will begin to get all 17 eurozone countries (and perhaps all 27 EU countries) to agree to the Lisbon treaty amendments. Telegraph
The Germans are being heavily pressured to agree to this plan to save the euro. But with less money in the world every day, the ECB will have to "print" more and more money to purchase toxic bonds. This will freak a lot of people out, including the Germans, and it remains to be seen whether 17 (or 27) countries will agree to cede their fiscal control to Brussels or Berlin. At any rate, from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this new plan has no more chance of succeeding than the previous plans, all announced with great fanfare.
According to the "Kick the Can Theory," the December 9 meeting will announce some package that will commit to nothing but will promise to get everything fixed next year. According to this theory, the ECB may promise to step up its purchasing of toxic bonds, but only a minimal amount, without completely bailing out Italy and Spain. But there will be a commitment to do it sometime next year.
From the point of view of Generation Dynamics, the euro WILL be saved, but not in the way people expect. Europe will be split down the middle during the war, but once the war ends and enters a recovery era, the survivors will form a new European Union with a new euro currency, and they'll vow never to fight again.
New data from China shows that manufacturing has slowed down much more than expected, because of weak demand from Europe and the United States for China's exports. According to a Chinese official, "It's going to be painful, and it's going to be nasty. What policymakers are aiming for is a smoothing of the path. The current crisis, to some extent, is more serious and challenging than the international financial crisis following the fall of Lehman Brothers [in 2008]. It's keenly important for countries around the world to work together in the sprit of 'co-operating in the same boat'." Other data released on Thursday shows contraction in manufacturing in most of Asia and across Europe. However, although the outlook for the euro countries has deteriorated significantly recently, Germany is doing well, with products that are in greater demand abroad than ever before. India Times and Spiegel
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Nasa launched the Voyager 1 and 2 twin spacecraft in 1977, and they're still transmitting data back to earth. They've been traveling out of the solar system, and they're now more than 100 times as far from the sun as the earth is. Their enormous distance from the sun is allowing them to detect a type of ultraviolet light from other regions of our Milky Way galaxy that had been previously all but invisible, since it was drowned out by radiation from the sun. The Voyager probes have already lasted far longer than expected, and they may continue to transmit new discoveries back to earth for years to come. National Geographic
Russia has delivered anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria in the last few months, fulfilling a $300 million weapons contract. "This weapon allows coverage of the entire coastline of Syria from possible attack from the sea," according to a Russian source. A United Nations commission of inquiry recently called for an arms embargo on Syria, but Russia and China have consistently blocked such an embargo. Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 2-Dec-11 World View -- Can the euro be saved?
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Dec-2011)
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Attack on UK Embassy in Iran creates diplomatic chaos
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.
* German neo-Nazis are apparently very well armed
* US Fed makes dollars available to Europe as global panic is threatened
* A desperation move and a humiliation for Europe
* People's Bank of China cuts interest rate as economy slows
* Syria's Christians side with Bashar al-Assad out of fear
* Attack on UK Embassy in Iran creates diplomatic chaos
* America and China compete for the affections of Burma (Myanmar)
* Turkey announces economic and weapons sanctions against Syria
 |
The recent discovery of an anti-Muslim anti-immigrant neo-Nazi terror cell that had been killing people for ten years and getting away with it has been a shock throughout Germany. And now, a new report indicates there are numerous neo-Nazi groups in Germany, and that they're very well armed. Authorities have confiscated 811 weapons from right-wing extremists in the two-year period from 2009 to 2010. Since 2001, 13 such extremist groups had been investigated under German laws prohibiting the creation of a terrorist organization. The groups had names such as "National Movement for Eternal Loyalty to Hess," "The New NSDAP," "The German Anti-Jewish Fighting Association" and the "Brown Army Faction." Spiegel
Major central banks -- the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank -- took coordinated actions on Wednesday to increase dollar liquidity for European banks. Swap lines, which European banks can use to swap euros for dollars, were not increased in size, but pricing was reduced on existing swap lines. Euphoric stock traders pushed the DJIA up almost 500 points in a drunken orgy. However, the move by the central banks does not provide any sort of bailout to Europe, and does not change the fact that Europe is insolvent. The most that the move can do is buy time. Wall Street Journal (Access)
Analysts on CNBC and BBTV were grinning from ear to ear on Wednesday morning. They obviously believed that this was going to have the same effect as quantitative easing. What QE did was nothing for ordinary people or businesses, but it poured huge amounts of money into banks, financial institutions, and the stock markets, allowing bankers and brokers to award themselves million dollar bonuses.
It's hard for me to imagine what traders were thinking on Wednesday. My guess is that they didn't understand what was going on, and they assumed that the bull market that began in March 2009 was about to be repeated.
On the other hand, I've heard several analysts say that this central bank action isn't a good move. Some are questioning why America is bailing out Europe (which isn't true anyway), but more important, some are saying that this is a move of desperation, and indicates how catastrophic the situation in Europe really is. Telegraph
The problem that's going on today is that I've been writing about for years: That thanks to deleveraging, there's less money in the world every day than there was the week before. By the law of supply and demand, the cost of money (bond yields or interest rates) is going up, and the value of money is increasing, resulting in a deflationary spiral. In addition, as people and businesses hoard cash and avoid spending and investing, the velocity of money is plummeting, making the deflationary spiral into a vicious cycle.
China's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) cut interest rates for commercial lenders on Wednesday for the first time in three years, in a policy shift that was announced just hours before the above action by Western central banks. The PBOC joins the central banks of Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and the euro zone, among others, in easing monetary policy, a reflection of the alarm that the euro zone debt crisis and a sluggish U.S. economy could drag the world back into a recession. Reuters
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Many of Syria's 2.5 million Christians are supporting President Bashar al-Assad amidst ongoing protests in the country, and the slaughter of at least 3,500 protesters since March. They prefer a brutal dictator who guarantees the rights of religious minorities to the uncertain future that Assad's departure would bring. The president is exploiting their fears by threatening a government takeover by anti-Christian Islamists who would burn churches. "We're a nation of 23 million," Tabé says, "and no law can ever satisfy everyone. That's true in every country -- there are always 10 percent who are sacrificed." It's a state of affairs he can accept, as long as Christians aren't the segment of the population being sacrificed. Spiegel
The British government waited until its Tehran embassy staff was safely out of Iran's airspace, and then announced that it was closing the Iranian embassy in London, giving the the diplomats 48 hours to leave the country. Foreign Secretary William Hague said, "If any country makes it impossible for us to operate on their soil, they cannot expect to have a functioning embassy here." He accused Iranian officials of providing "some degree of regime consent" for the Tuesday attacks on the UK embassy, calling what happened "shameful." Germany, France and the Netherlands have all recalled their Iranian ambassadors for consultation, while Norway has closed its embassy as a precaution. This all comes as EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss new sanctions on the Iranian regime. Independent (London)
The fallout is still increasing from Burma's (Myanmar's) recent decision to halt the huge Myitsone dam joint project with China. China is anxiously trying to improve relations, pushing Burma for closer military ties. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making a landmark three-day visit to the formerly pariah nation, to improve the country's ties to the U.S. and Europe. China's relationships with its Asian neighbors have been getting increasingly hostile, especially in the cases of countries who are contesting China's aggressive and bellicose claims to the entire South China Sea. Global Post and LA Times
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Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu joined the Arab League and the West in imposing a series of nine economic sanctions against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday. The sanctions include: blocking arms and military shipments to Syria over Turkish soil, a travel ban for Syrian officials, sanctions on businessmen "strongly supporting" the regime, suspending ties to the Syrian Central Bank, freezing Syrian assets in Turkey, and suspending loan deals. Davutoglu also said the Syrian regime has reached its end by ignoring calls from the international community to stop its bloody crackdown on protesters. "Every bullet fired, every bombed mosque has eliminated the legitimacy of the Syrian leadership and has widened the gap between us. Syria has squandered the last chance that it was given." Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion,
see the 1-Dec-11 World View -- Fed and other central banks desperately try to stem euro panic
thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Dec-2011)
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