Dynamics
|
|
Generational Dynamics |
| Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's | |
| HOME WEB LOG COUNTRY WIKI COMMENT FORUM DOWNLOADS ABOUT | |
China scholars condemn inclusion of 239 English words in official Chinese dictionary
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Three Australian soldiers were killed and two injured in Afghanistan on Wednesday in two separate incidents, one a helicopter crash, and the other in a firefight. These casualties followed reports of a "green on blue" attack, where a person wearing an Afghan National Army uniform fired on three Nato soldiers and killed them. Morale has taken a hit over this, according to the Chief of Defence Forces, adding, "This is a terrible day for all of us."
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said:
"I believe this is the most losses in combat since the days of the Vietnam War and the battle of Long Tan.This is news so truly shocking that it's going to feel for many Australians like a physical blow."
She added that this is the worst bloodshed for Australians in combat in decades. Sydney Morning Herald
Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi created some controversy last week when he accepted an invitation from Iran to come and speak at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit, being held in Tehran. Morsi's visit to Tehran is being called "historic," since it's the first such visit by an Egyptian leader since Iran's 1979 Great Islamic Revolution.
Iran had hoped to gain sympathy from unaligned nations for the Western sanctions, and had hoped to get endorsement of its policy in Syria. Outside the meeting hall, they placed three damaged cars -- the cars that Iranian nuclear scientists were riding in when they were killed in bombings.
However, Iran received no president from Morsi, who gave a speech ruthlessly condemning the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and calling for his ouster:
"We express our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost legitimacy. It is not only an ethical duty but a political and strategic necessity."The blood of the Syrian people is on our necks, and it will not stop unless there is an intervention by all of us."
In a comparison that was sure to infuriate both Iran and Syria, Morsi compared the plight of Syrians to that of the Palestinians, saying that both groups are "actively seeking freedom, dignity and human justice."
The furious Syrian delegation walked out of the conference hall in protest, calling Morsi's remarks "an interference in Syria's internal affairs." The Syrians criticized Morsi for not following the unaligned protocol, and for siding with the West.
According to one analyst that I heard on Al-Jazeera, the translator on Iran's state television stopped translating Morsi's speech into the Iranian language (Farsi/Persian) when Morsi started talking about Syria, but instead inserted something about Bahrain that Morsi never said.
The Non-Aligned Movement was formed decades ago of nations that were supposedly not aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Today, with the Soviet Union gone, the "non-aligned" concept really doesn't have much meaning, and a number of the "non-aligned" nations are aligned with the West, at least some of the time.
What we saw in Iran on Thursday is something I've been describing for years as an absolutely craziness among Iran's hardline leaders. They actually hope and believe that they're going to become the leaders of the Islamic world in the same way that the Ottomans (Turkey) led the Islamic world prior to World War I. The purpose of Iran's invitation to Morsi to come to Tehran has been described as an attempt by Iran to form an "Iran-Egypt axis" that dominates the Mideast.
The whole concept was and is insane. Iran is a Persian Shia Islam nation, while most of the Mideast countries are Arab Sunni Muslim. There is no conceivable way that Saudi Arabia was ever going to take orders, or even guidance, from Tehran. LA Times and Al Ahram (Cairo)
Mohamed Morsi wasn't the only person attending the Non-Aligned Movement summit to embarrass Iran. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been widely criticized in the West for agreeing to attend the conference in Iran, but he used the opportunity to slam the Iranian regime, albeit without mentioning it by name.
"I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust.Claiming that Israel does not have the right to exist or describing it in racist terms is not only wrong, but undermines the very principle we all have pledged to uphold."
According to one expert on Iran, "In the history of the Islamic Republic, nobody has challenged the supreme leader's (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's) position on Israel in front of him, and in such a manner. This is likely to have long-term reverberations and consequences inside Iran's halls of power." NBC and Reuters
 |
Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei harshly criticized the United Nations Security Council at the Non-Aligned Movement summit on Friday:
"The UN Security Council has a completely unfair structure, and the US and its allies have been misusing this unfair structure to materialize their interests.Their security in the US and Europe is important, while security of the rest of the world does not matter from their viewpoint. They impose their own rules and bullying words on the rest of the world [through the UN].
Everyone is tired of this situation in the world."
Ahlul Bayt News Agency (Qom, Iran)
A group of 120 scholars have signed a letter of complaint over the inclusion of English words in a newly revised Chinese dictionary. The scholars said that the inclusion of English words slyly opens a door for cultural immersion. According to one of the scholars:
"The dictionary is not an ordinary Chinese publication, but a bible for people to learn from and to use standard Chinese. The dictionary has taken words from English today. Will it take German and French in the future?"
He raised concerns over the language fading out and called on people to pay attention to the dignity of the Chinese language.
Most of the offending words in the dictionary are actually acronyms or abbreviations, including: FBI, GDP, NBA, WTO and CPI.
Some Chinese words that have made their way into the English language include: Tychonaut (Chinese astronaut), tycoon, tai pan (business man), kowtow and typhoon. Xinhua
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Aug-12 World View -- Egypt's President Morsi shocks Iran with statement condemning Syria's Assad thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Citibank settles investor lawsuit without admitting guilt
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has been rarely seen in public, since the July 18 Damascus bombing that killed much of his inner circle. ( "22-Jul-12 World View -- Damascus bombing marks a significant change in Syria") Rumors have been spreading that he was hurt in the bombing, or that he has to hide out because he can no longer trust anyone not to be planning to kill him. The interview was conducted on Syria's privately-owned Addounia television channel, and all the questions were softball questions. But al-Assad looked relaxed and presidential, without a care in the world as his army massacred Sunni women and children in their homes. Al-Jazeera and VOA
Citigroup agreed to pay $590 million in cash to numerous investors who lost billions of dollars in Citi's "CDO-related quasi-Ponzi scheme." The investors in the class action suit acquired shares in Citi between February 2007 and April 2008, and ended up losing almost all of their investment. Citi lost money because of fraudulent residential mortgage backed collateralized debt obligations (RMB CDOs), synthetic securities based on subprime mortgages. Citi then lied to investors about them, saying that Citi wasn't responsible for them. Citi denies any wrongdoing, and no one will go to jail, but will pay the settlement amount anyway, and executives will presumably continue to draw their multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, using the money they get by charging customers 30% interest.
It would be nice if a couple of Citi's banksters went to jail. I know that I would feel better about the situation. As I wrote over two years ago in "Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud", it is provable from circumstantial evidence that banksters purposely created trillions of dollars in fraudulent synthetic securities, knowing that they were fraudulent, and then sold them to investors and lied about it. This is criminal activity, but the Obama justice department refuses to prosecute any banksters because of the huge campaign contributions they deliver. It's absolutely incredible to me that the biggest bankster fraud in history has impoverished millions of people, and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON is going to jail. Incredible!
As far as I know, those RMB CDOs are still on the Citi's books at nominal values, and when they finally explode, Citi's shareholders will lose a lot more money. But Citi wouldn't be guilty of anything after 2008, because they were only doing as they were told. As I've written many times, New York Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo who spent several months in 2008 helping the banks and "monoline" bond insurance companies to collude to commit fraud, essentially by telling them to continue to lie to investors.
It would also be nice if Eric Dinallo and other regulators went to jail. Bloomberg and 2008 court document (PDF)
More than 900 police officers raided homes and clubhouses of suspected neo-Nazis in a crackdown on Thursday, seizing far-right propaganda material, computer hard drives and a wide variety of weapons. The crackdown in North Rhine-Westphalia comes amid a greater focus nationally on the far right in Germany. That was sparked by the revelation last year that a small group of neo-Nazis apparently managed to kill nine minorities and a police officer over a seven-year period while remaining off the radar of the country's intelligence services. The German public is particularly concerned about neo-Nazi violence, as last weekend was the 20th anniversary of the violence at Rostock, when hundreds of right-wing extremists and local thugs spent four days in late August of 1992 throwing rocks and firebombs at a building used to house asylum-seekers. Thousands of others stood by and cheered on the attackers, shouting "foreigners out!" and other hateful slogans. The orgy of xenophobia ended when rioters set a neighboring building on fire housing dozens of workers from Vietnam and their families. AP and Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Aug-12 World View -- Syria's Bashar al-Assad gives lengthy TV interview to prove he's OK thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Greece's border guards fail to stop the influx of illegal immigrants
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The August 5 ambush by armed Bedouin militants in Sinai that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers shocked the Egyptian public, and has substantially raised the profile and power of Egypt's new president Mohamed Morsi. Morsi immediately sent Egyptian forces into the Sinai, after obtaining permission from Israel to violate their 1979 peace treaty. However, the military action has been halted, as a result of a negotiated week long true to allow further discussions between the army and the terror groups. However, the truce may have been a necessity for the army, since most of the armed extremists have fled into into the mountains. Morsi's supporters claim four accomplishments in this military campaign:
Israeli officials are concerned that in the event of a future conflagration with Palestinian terror organizations in Gaza, Egypt's government will respond by pressuring Israel - for instance, by deploying large army concentrations in border areas, in contravention of the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. Haaretz and Al-Shorfa
Israeli officials are unhappy that Egypt's leaders deployed tanks to the Sinai Peninsula before consulting with Israeli leaders following the August 5 ambush. Egypt's new defense minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi defended his country's increased military presence in the Sinai Peninsula, saying it is needed to fight terrorism and is temporary. According to Egyptian officials, el-Sissi reaffirmed Cairo's commitment to the 1979 peace accord. AP
 |
Arrivals of illegal immigrants into the northern regions of Greece on the border with Turkey have plummeted, as a result of an increase in the number of border guards. However, migrants, chiefly Afghans, Syrians and Palestinians, are now reverting to more southern routes, across the islands in the Aegean Sea. Greece is the major pathway for migrants to enter the European Union. As the influx of migrants into the country continues unabated, the number of apparently racially motivated attacks has increased. Kathimerini
French President François Hollande is pressing to support a buffer zone on Syrian soil for Syrian refugees from the continuing slaughter by the Bashar al-Assad regime against women and children in residential neighborhoods. This would be a strip of land on Syrian soil protected from Syrian assault by Western allies. Turkey has been talking about establishing such a buffer zone for almost the entire 18 months since the Syrian conflict began, but is still unsure, even though 80,000 Syrian refugees are now in refugee camps in Turkey. However, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu emphasized last week that Turkey would not accept more than 100,000 refugees and that the creation of a buffer zone could be necessary to contain a refugee flow onto its soil. Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Aug-12 World View -- Egypt's military action against Sinai Bedouins comes to a standstill thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Proposal for ECB to purchase toxic bonds gathers steam
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
A devastating explosion and fire at Venezuela's main Amuay oil refinery has already killed 48 people and destroyed several neighborhoods in the vicinity of the refinery. Officials had predicted that the fire, which began on Saturday, would be under control by Monday evening, but instead the fire spread on Monday to a third fuel storage tank, raising the spectre of more possible explosions.
The explosion is being blamed on a gas leak that neighbors say they could smell for several days prior to the explosion, which sent a shockwave tearing through the surrounding area, shattering shops and homes and littering the streets with debris. Many people are blaming president Hugo Chávez's incompetence and mismanagement as being responsible. However, Chávez is angrily denying that his government owned and run oil refinery could be so incompetent:
"What you say you heard suggests something that is practically impossible in an installation of this kind, the largest refinery in the world. It is completely automatised and it has thousands of responsible workers here day and night, civilians and military. There is no way that there could have been a gas leak during three or four days and that no one did anything."
The explosion comes two weeks after a major bridge collapse, followed by a prison riot between two armed groups that killed 25 people. Opponents of Chávez are calling Venezuela a "country of accidents," as Chávez fights for reelection on October 7.
The irony, of course, is that the Amuay oil refinery used to be owned by an American oil company, but was nationalized in 1976. If it were still foreign-owned, then Chávez could speak for hours on TV about the horrible capitalist Americans. But now he's stuck with taking the blame himself. Bloomberg and Guardian and AFP
At least one person was hacked to death as thousands of angry protestors took to the streets in Kenya's coastal city Mombasa, after Sheikh Aboud Rogo Mohammed, a terrorist linked to al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda, was assassinated. According to his widow, "A car behind us aimed at my husband, they shot him on the right side." According to a U.N. report, Rogo has been recruiting militants for the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab. Four churches were vandalized and vehicles set ablaze in Monday's rioting, which follows violent riots in another city that we reported on last week. The Daily Nation (Kenya) and CS Monitor
It's the Bundesbank against the world. Germany's central bank stands almost alone in opposing the plans for the European Central Bank (ECB) to "print money" and use it to purchase toxic bonds issued by troubled countries, such as Greece, Spain and Italy. The Bundesbank is warning that any such program would allow any country to go into debt without limitation, allowing all spending programs and corruption to continue and grow. There are several different bond-buying proposals on the table, but what they all have in common is that the ECB would be funding the debt of eurozone countries, something that's in violation of various treaties. Still, the Europeans are so desperate that it appears that one of these plans will be adopted. Meanwhile, the next major showdown for Greece will be at the summit of EU leaders on October 18-19, and it will supposedly be decided at that time whether or not Greece will remain in the eurozone. Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Aug-12 World View -- Catastrophic oil refinery explosion in Venezuela threatens Chavez's reelection thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Angola sends 37 Chinese gangsters back to China
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Angola has extradited 37 Chinese "gangsters" back to China, accused of extortion, human trafficking, kidnappings, armed robberies and running prostitution rings. After hearing for most of my life about "the ugly Americans," it's now the turn of the Chinese to be ugly. There are some 250,000 Chinese migrants working on various construction jobs in different countries, according to a BBC report that I heard. They don't mingle much with the local population, so they lead very lonely lives, and they need to be "serviced" (the BBC commentator's word) with such things as prostitution and gambling. There's already a lot of organized crime in China itself, and it's followed the Chinese construction workers to Africa. The 37 extradited Chinese are charged with various crimes. They allegedly targeted other Chinese, kidnapping businessmen for ransom and sometimes burying victims alive. They lured women to Angola, promising well-paid jobs, but then forced them into prostitution. China Daily and BBC
Just as China's organized crime is following the Chinese workers to Africa, so is China's real estate bubble and ghost cities. Kilamba is one of several new ghost cities being built by Chinese construction firms around Angola. It spans 5000 hectares (12,355 acres), it consists of 750 eight-story apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units. It was designed to house up to half a million people when complete, but the apartments cost $120-200,000, while the average Angolan earns less than $2 per day. So the apartments are almost all empty, and likely to remain so. BBC
September is expected to be a crucial month in the euro crisis. Greece has already had two bailouts, and now a third one is being discussed. Over the summer most people realized that that won't be enough, and in fact that nothing will be enough, and so it's becoming increasingly discussed, especially in Germany, that Greece should leave the eurozone, and go back to the drachma currency. It's not that everyone wants this to happen; it's that the politicians and bankers are coming to believe that it's a smaller disaster than the alternative of trying to keep on bailing out Greece. On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to quell the growing panic by emphatically stating that Greece must remain in the eurozone:
"We are in a very decisive phase in combating the euro debt crisis. My plea is that everyone weigh their words very carefully."
This was two days after Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras said:
"Toxic statements, from wherever they come, can only do damage. Is there any businessman who will make an investment in euros to get it back in drachmas? The recovery of the economy is of critical importance if we are to achieve our goals."
However, Merkel also said that Greece will not get any further bailout money unless it sticks to its austerity commitments, while Samaras is begging for a two-year delay in the austerity measures, something that would require an additional 22 billion euros in bailout money. So, in fact, the two leaders are about as far apart as they can be at this point.
There's been relatively little news about the euro crisis recently because everyone in Europe is on vacation in August. But that should be changing soon, as the crisis enters what Merkel calls a "decisive phase." . Bloomberg and Deutsche Welle
According to China's state-sponsored China Daily:
"By any standard, the US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's China policy, as outlined on his official campaign website, is an outdated manifestation of a Cold War mentality.It endorses the "China threat" theory and focuses on containing China's rise in the Asia-Pacific through bolstering the robust US military presence in the region.
And by stating that the US "should be coordinating with Taiwan to determine its military needs and supplying them with adequate aircraft and other military platforms", the Republican challenger has also gone so far as to provoke China over its sovereignty of the island."
So here we have a nation, China, which for well over a decade has been preparing a massive military buildup for an attack on the United States, which has been developing long-range missiles specifically designed to attack American cities, which has developed an anti-carrier missile specifically designed to destroy American aircraft carriers, which has threatened all of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific and central Asia with vast military threats designed to confiscate their land (Hitler's Lebensraum policy). But every time anyone points out this massive military buildup, or China's obvious intention to launch a nuclear missile attack on the United States, they're called a "war monger" with a Cold War mentality. Be prepared for peace in our time. China Daily
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Aug-12 World View -- China condemns Mitt Romney's 'Cold War mentality' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Nato airstrike kills Pakistan Taliban leader in Afghanistan
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
A Nato airstrike has killed Mullah Dadullah, a senior commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Pakistan Taliban). The fact that the airstrike killed him in Afghanistan has political significance in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Americans have been demanding that the Pakistani army clean out the TTP forces in Pakistan's tribal areas, since many TTP terrorists cross the border and conduct terrorist acts in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis have been insisting that these terrorists are actually living in Afghanistan, rather than Pakistan. The death of Mullah Dadullah in Afghanistan supports the claims of the Pakistanis. ABC
Ever since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s, through the civil war of the 1990s, followed by Taliban rule, millions of refugees from Afghanistan, mostly Pashtuns, fled to Pakistan, mostly settling down in the tribal area or Balochistan province. The Pakistanis welcomed then with open arms, and gave them refugee ID cards with indefinite expiration. As the refugees became an increasing burden, they were given an expiration date in 2009. Pakistan extended that date to 2012, and now all Afghans are losing their refugee status on December 31, meaning that they have to return to an uncertain future in Afghanistan with no money. Hundreds of thousands of returning refugees could complicate the Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan. IRIN (U.N.) and AP
 |
An ironic twist, while Pakistanis are planning to eject Afghan refugees, is that thousands of illegal Pakistani immigrants in Greece protested in Athens' Syntagma square on Friday. They were particularly protesting against Alex Tsipras, the leader of the far-right Golden Dawn party that is demanding that all illegal immigrants be deported. Dawn (Karachi)
Here's Warren E. Pollock's description of our 38 minute interview:
John uses Generational Dynamics to forecast future events. We talk about the major flash points around the world including the Caucuses, South China Sea, and the Middle East. Growing nationalism, internal rebellion, economic events, and demographic trends are aligning around the world much the same way they did just before WWI.
Points covered include:
The concept that People can Drift by Mistake into War; That Decisions to go to war are not logical; The Importance of Tiananmen Square; Advances Chinese Missile Technology; A Shocking Future Event Waking America; The Importance of; Potential for China to Have an Internal Rebellion; Exposure of US Aircraft Carriers; Pakistan and US Contention and Cooperation; Shi’a and Sunni Relations; The initial Partition between India and the Massive Refugee Crisis; The Line of Control; The Current Assam Refugee Crisis; Syrian War turning onto Sectarian war; United States allied with Japan; China Allied with Pakistan; Russia Allied With India; Turkish Contention with The Kurds; Turkish Military action in Syria, Northern Iraq; Russian Soft Power Influence using Natural Gas on Western Europe; Current American Conciseness; Russian WWII experience; Firebombing of Japan During WWII; Firebombing of Dresden; Bataan Death March; The Decision to Assassinate Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by High School Students; Younger Activists of Various Countries Driving Nationalism and a Chain of Dependencies; Remembering the Good Old Days of US Culture; What Checks and Balances Prevent US Nationalism?; The Transitory Nature of the NDAA and Patriot Act; Japanese Internment; Suspension of Habeas Corpus and Sedition
YouTube/Warren E. Pollock Interview
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Aug-12 World View -- Pakistani immigrants protest in Syntagma square in Athens, Greece thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Anti-Morsi demonstrations in Cairo Egypt turn into a dud
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Organizers had hoped to match the crowds of hundreds of thousands of people who rallied early last year in Cairo's Tahrir Square to overthrow former president Hosni Mubarak. But Friday's protests, called to protest President Mohamed Morsi, drew a very small crowd of only several hundred people, while there were only a few thousand in all at different venues. It was mostly peaceful, but there was scattered violence between pro- and anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators. Al Arabiya (Dubai)
A $300 million bridge that only opened 10 months ago collapsed on Friday, causing four trucks to plunge to the ground below, killing three people and injuring five. Chinese bloggers are becoming increasingly contemptuous over shoddy construction practices. As I reported in July 2011, bloggers were furious at another bridge catastrophe, when one high-speed train rear-ended another on a bridge, causing four coaches to fall off the bridge, killing 35 and injuring 200. Apparently the two trains were administered by two different government agencies, and there was no coordination whatsoever. Since then, there have been six major bridge disasters, indicating that shoddy construction is a pervasive problem throughout China. Let's hope that their missiles are equally shoddy. [Correction: "$3 million bridge" was corrected to "$300 million bridge"] Xinhua and China Daily
China's economy has been slowing down since fall of last year, and new data confirms the slowdown has been accelerating rapidly in recent months. Inventories of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments have increased to a massive glut. The huge inventories are caused by a kind of reverse supply and demand equation: Sales are falling by as much as 50% in some industries, but instead of cutting back on production, the government is using fiscal policy to encourage increases in production and building of more and more factories and apartment buildings. Car manufacturers, for example, refuse to cut production, and are pressuring dealers to accept delivery of so many cars that there's no place to park them. At the same time, the government is carefully hiding the problem. The Public Security Bureau, for example, has halted the release of data about slumping car registrations. (This is reminiscent of China's Great Leap Forward in 1958. Mao Zedong dismantled the Central Statistical Bureau, which was responsible for keeping track of agricultural data. Mao was completely blindsided until it was too late, and tens of millions of people died of starvation.) CNBC / NY Times
The China experience shows that "printing" lots of money does not result in hyperinflation in a generational Crisis era, since people and businesses hoard cash during this era, and refuse to spend or lend it.
Eurogroup finance committee chairman Jean-Claude Juncker met with Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras on Thursday.
 |
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Aug-12 World View -- Fatal bridge collapse in China prompts public uproar thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Greece's cash reserves will last until middle of October
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
European officials are saying that no new bailout payment will be made to Greece until the an audit is completed by early October, to determine whether Greece is able to meet its austerity commitments. If Greece passes, it will receive the next bailout installment of 31.5 billion euros. In the meantime, Greece is issuing short term treasury bills to bring in extra cash. It's freezing payments to suppliers, it's frozen tax rebates, and it's cut other expenses, in order to survive until mid-October. However, to make matters worse, tax collections are down by 2.2 billion euros, as of the end of July. Kathimerini
Amid almost daily threats of attacks on Iran, the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is forming a special Iran 20-person team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise, to try to get to the truth about Iran's plans for a nuclear weapons plans. Since Iran is blocking many IAEA visits to places in Iran, apparently the new team will look for evidence in other countries (or they could just google "Iran nuclear"). My personal expectation is that there will not be an American or Israeli attack on Iran, although many pundits are predicting it. AP
Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi has issued his first presidential decree, canceling the detention of defendants awaiting trial for media offenses. Morsi was facing increasing criticism in Egypt for the jailing last week of Islam Afifi, a critic of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi is a member. The new decree frees Afifi. Morsi is the first freely elected president in Egypt's 5,000 year history, and he's trying to establish himself as a different kind of president than the deposed Hosni Mubarak. LA Times
Friday is always the day of the biggest "Arab Spring" demonstrations, because people pour out of mosques after Friday midday prayers and take to the streets. A big demonstration in Cairo planned for this Friday has generated controversy because it's targeting the Muslim Brotherhood. One Muslim cleric infuriated a lot of people by claiming, "Whoever joins the 24 August uprising ... will be committing high treason against their nation, God, his prophet and Muslims." He added: "Stand up against them. If they fight you, fight them back… if they kill some of you, the martyrs will go to heaven; and if you kill them, this will be righteous." However, Muslim Brotherhood Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein quickly said that every citizen enjoyed the right to stage demonstrations – as long as said demonstrations remained within the confines of the law and did not damage public property. Organizers are promising that there will be no violence, but we'll see. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
The U.S. and Japan are planning a powerful new early-warning radar system in southern Japan. The State Department says that the new system is intended for protection from missiles from North Korea, and has nothing to do with China, but most analysts believe that protection from China's vast array of long-range missiles is at least as important an objective. There have been recent rumors that China is testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile to strike any city in the United States. Earlier this year, analysts revealed that China was developing a new anti-carrier missile with the objective of destroying American aircraft carriers in the Pacific. RT
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Aug-12 World View -- Large anti-Muslim Brotherhood rally planned in Cairo Egypt on Friday thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Ethnic Bloodbath in Kenya kills 62 people, mostly women and children
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said in an interview on Wednesday that Greece didn't want any money, but just wanted a little more time to meet its commitments:
"Let me be very clear: we are not asking for extra money. We stand by our commitments and the implementation of all requirements. But we must encourage growth, because that reduces the financing gaps."All we want is a little 'air to breathe' to get the economy going and increase state income. More time does not automatically mean more money."
Greece plans to ask for a two-year extension on meeting its austerity commitments, and the problem for him is that this WILL mean more money -- an extra 20 billion euros because Greece won't be reducing its debt fast enough.
Eurogroup finance chairman Jean-Claude Juncker met with Samaras in Athens on Wednesday, and said that it was the speculators' fault, not Greece's fault, that Greece was in trouble:
"I am coming to Greece as a friend. ... The truth is Greece is suffering from a credibility crisis. The first step should be to show Greece is taking fiscal consolidation seriously.As far as the immediate future is concerned, the ball is in the Greek court. In fact this is the last chance and Greeks have to know this."
The Juncker statement was very cordial, but it more or less contradicted Samaras' statement. "Air to breathe" would mean a two-year delay in meeting its commitments, and that request would be taken by the Germans as meaning that Greece is not "taking fiscal consolidation seriously." Samaras will be visiting Paris on Friday and Berlin on Saturday to beg. AP and Kathimerini
At least 62 people, including 11 children and 31 women, were massacred Tuesday night in an ethnic bloodbath in southeastern Kenya. Visitors described scenes as similar to mass murders of the Great Lakes region, with mutilated bodies of children and women, old and young, strewn across homesteads, their blood caked on the ground, and flies flying all over. Nominally, this was a conflict of a type that occurs in all countries, between farmers who plant crops and fence off their land and pastoralists (cattle herders) who want their cattle to graze freely. In the 1800s, this was a battle in the United States, as depicted in the 1941 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, "Oklahoma!", which contains the song, "Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be friends!"
But in Kenya, the conflict has taken on a much deadlier dimension. The ethnic Pokomo tribe of farmers attacked the pastoralist Ormas, burning down entire villages, killing people at random, as well as the cattle. This was a revenge attack for a smaller attack ten days ago, when the Orma herdsmen attacked Pokomo villagers. This has revived fears of an all-out tribal war in Kenya, the same fears that arose in December 2007, when widespread ethnic violence broke out across the country, following an election.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Kenya's last generational crisis war was the Mau-Mau Rebellion that climaxed in 1956. When the 2007 uprising occurred, I wrote that only 51 years had passed, and so a new crisis war at that time was possible, but very unlikely. As each year goes by, and there are fewer and fewer people left from the generations that survived the previous crisis war, a new crisis war becomes more likely. Today we're at the 55 year point, so a new crisis war is more possible today than in 2008. An analysis of hundreds of previous crisis wars in history reveals that a plurality of them occur at the 58 year point. Standard Media (Kenya)
France's Socialist president François Hollande promised, during the election campaign, to stop the policy of ejecting Roma Gypsies from illegal, squalid camps in France that former president Nicolas Sarkozy had followed. Sarkozy came under severe criticism across Europe for the harsh policy, which put Roma Gypsies out on the street with no place to live. Hollande promised that the Roma would not be ejected unless an alternative place to live were provided, but he is breaking that promise and human rights groups are expressing outrage. AFP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Aug-12 World View -- Greece asks for 'Air to Breathe' in austerity requirements thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Jewish Israeli youths lynch Palestinians in Jerusalem as hundreds watched
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
For years, a lynchpin in the fight against al-Qaeda affiliates in the horn of Africa, especially Somalia, was Meles Zenawi Asres, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, and a close American ally. His death could weaken the fight against terrorist militants in the region. However, Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who will become acting prime minister, says that nothing will change, and that Ethiopia will continue to be a leader in the fight against Islamist militancy. LA Times
I've reported on several occasions about so-call "price tag" attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. 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. However, the attempted lynching of four Arab youths by dozens of Jewish teens on Friday is a substantially more serious matter, and indicates that the mutual xenophobia between Jews and Arabs is becoming increasingly critical. According to one suspect's brother, it was the four Arab youths who had provoked passersby and "made passes at Jewish girls." He added: "Why should an Arab make passes at my sister? They shouldn't be here, it's our area. For what other reason would they come here if not to make passes at Jewish girls?" This was not an attack by settlers, but it's part of the overall framework of increased violence against Paletinians by a small fringe of Israelis. According to an analysis, the number of "price tag" attacks by Israeli settlers has been increasing because the attacks have been achieving their goals. The Benjamin Netanyahu government would like to close down some West Bank settlements, but the "price tag" attacks make it much more difficult to do so. Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be a new Mideast war, re-fighting the war between Jews and Arabs that followed the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and creation of the state of Israel. Haaretz and Foreign Affairs
The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), a group that conducted numerous terrorist murders during the 1970s-80s, but has been mostly inactive since 1985, is now threatening Turkey because of its policy in Syria:
"The aggressive policy against Iraq's integrity, the direct military intervention in the bloody crisis of Syria, the continuation for more than 20 years of the blockade imposed on Armenia, the conspiratorial and double-faced policy towards Iran, the non-stopping threats against the territorial integrity of Greece and Cyprus and the augmenting coercive measures against the Kurdish people have transformed Turkey into a center of danger for the stability of the region. The conspiratorial and hostile policy of the Turkish state against the neighboring countries reached its peak and has led Turkey in a total isolation in the whole region."
Like the Russians, Armenians are historic enemies of Turkey. Russians and Armenians are Orthodox Christians, while Turks are Sunni Muslims. The last major crisis war in the region was the World War I time frame, while the previous one was the Crimean War of the 1850s. So these countries are all well into generational Crisis eras, and highly susceptible to all out war. Zaman (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Aug-12 World View -- Death of Ethiopia's prime minister could affect Mideast security thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
PKK terrorists kill 8 in huge blast in Turkey near Syrian border
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
At least 8 people have been killed and 60 injured in a huge bomb blast in Turkey, near the border with Syria. No one has claimed responsibility, but various reports blame the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a separatist terrorist group within the Kurdish community demanding an independent state of Kurdistan. Turkey has a long standing problem with the PKK, who have been based in the mountains of northern Iraq and have been conducting terrorist attacks throughout Turkey. But the major fallout from the Syrian crisis, besides the huge flood of refugees pouring into Turkey, is that there's a large community of Kurds living in a region of northeastern Syria that's no longer governable from Damascus because of the conflict. So now the Kurds in Syria, along with the Kurds in Iraq and in southeastern Turkey itself, are agitating for that entire region to become an independent Kurdistan. Zaman (Istanbul) and Hurriyet (Ankara)
Over the weekend, the German magazine Der Spiegel said that it "learned" that the European Central Bank (ECB) was going to go on a massive money-printing program to purchase bonds issued by Spain and Italy:
"Interest rates on Spanish sovereign bonds have been rising to dangerous levels in recent weeks. Now, SPIEGEL has learned that the European Central Bank plans to use a new instrument to stop the trend: The bank is considering setting yield targets on the bonds of euro-zone countries. Should interest rates exceed those levels, the ECB would intervene by buying up their debt."
The effect of this plan would be to permit Spain and Italy to borrow unlimited amounts of money from the ECB to fund all their spending programs without any restrictions whatsoever. First thing Monday morning, the head of the Bundesbank (Germany's central bank) said, "The Bundesbank holds to the opinion that government bond purchases by the Eurosystem are to be seen critically and entail significant stability risks," adding that the new program "could be unlimited." A statement from the ECB itself added that it’s "misleading to report on decisions which have not yet been taken." Finally, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of The Telegraph confirmed that Spiegel's original report was correct, and not only is a "game changer" of this type being planned, but it has the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, despite the fierce opposition of the Bundesbank.
I quoted all these statements to illustrate the total level of chaos that Europe is in. The bond-buying program is no trivial thing. It would explode public debt from trillions of euros to tens of trillions of euros and send the markets into chaos. The only alternative to this totally desperate measure that the Europeans are talking about is to cut Greece out of the eurozone. But either of these two alternatives would have disastrous consequences for Europe and the world. As I've been saying for over two years, generational theory says that there DOES NOT EXIST any solution to Greece's debt problem or to the euro debt crisis in general. If I were to guess which of these two alternatives will be chosen, it will have to be the bond-buying program, because that kicks the can down the road a little longer. Der Spiegel and Bloomberg and The Telegraph (London)
Generational trends are also in full gear in the United States where households are becoming increasingly thrifty, depositing their money in bank savings accounts instead of going out and spending it. This has caused bank deposits to explode, leaving banks with a lot of excess cash on hand. But banks are also following the same generational trends as in the 1930s and are reluctant to take the risk of lending the money out to business owners. Instead, banks have already bought $136.4 billion in Treasury and government agency debt this year, more than double the $62.6 billion in ALL of 2011. Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Aug-12 World View -- Europeans debate next desperate step to try to save the euro thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Credibly charged serial rapist Julian Assange gains worldwide support as U.S. victim
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Thousands of anti-Japanese protesters took to the streets in cities across China on Sunday, demanding that Japan concede sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands to China. In Shenzhen, protesters vandalized and overturned Japanese cars and attacked Japanese restaurants. Some used bare fists to smash in the windows of a white Honda Chinese police car as others rocked and pushed the car over to jubilant cheers. Others stomped on the overturned vehicles, screaming and waving the Chinese flag. Police arrested several protesters in Shenzhen after the demonstrations. The protests came after Japanese nationalist activists aboard a flotilla of 20 ships sailed to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, arriving Sunday morning, in order to establish Japanese sovereignty. China's Foreign Ministry is condemning the visit to its "sovereign territory." Reuters and Xinhua
California cities Stockton, San Bernardino and Mammoth Lakes have all declared bankruptcy in the last seven weeks, and Moody's Investors Service issued a report on Friday saying that a number of additional cities are approaching default. California's cities are particularly vulnerable because a very large real estate bubble is bursting, because huge benefits to retired union workers were granted during the bubble years, and because Governor Jerry Brown last year cut state aid to cities. California Treasurer Bill Lockyer has announced that he's exploring a "new system" for identifying financially stressed cities and to take steps to keep them from going bankrupt, presumably by allowing them to raise taxes as much as necessary. Bloomberg and Reuters
Game developers are building digital versions of Las Vegas casinos as users of smartphones and tablets wagered $20 billion in real money on slots, poker and other games of chance last year. Online gambling is legal in the U.K., and game developers hope to make the internet casino games available to Americans one way or another, either legally or illegally. Bloomberg
 |
Once again, we're watching the spectacle of feminist and left-wing political groups supporting an alleged serial rapist, Julian Assange, as he uses anti-U.S. sentiments to escape being questioned in Sweden over credible charges that he raped two women.
This was the biggest such spectacle since Democrats paid millions of dollars to NOW to support President Bill Clinton after he'd been credibly charged as a violent serial rapist in 1999. What was particularly poignant was watching Democratic operative Susan Estrich, herself a rape victim who had crusaded for twenty years for the protection and support of rape victims, to sell herself out as a woman and rape victim to give full-throated support to alleged rapist Clinton. And these were the same feminists who, just a few years earlier, pilloried Clarence Thomas for the "crime" of having asked someone out on a date. But feminists throwing rape victims under the bus is nothing compared to how feminists threw their own children under the bus in the 1980s. Every feminist policy was geared towards financially rewarding mothers who practiced the most debauched and destructive behaviors. Gen-X kids in the 80s usually had no "father" except for a string of men in their mothers' beds. The kids didn't read feminist press releases, and so they knew that their mothers were lying about violence to get rid of their real fathers and to get as much money as possible. When they grew up, they created and sold tens of trillions of dollars in intentionally fraudulent synthetic securities, creating the global financial crisis which today is far from over. Gen-X kids learned from the masters, their mothers, how to get rewarded for the worst debauched family behavior, and they grew up and proceeded to get rewarded for the worst debauched fraudulent financial behavior.
The Swedes are furious that they're being lectured to by Ecuador, a country with a history of kangaroo courts and jailing journalists. So what should the Swedes do if they want to bring the alleged serial rapist to justice? My suggestion is this: The Swedes should make a big monetary donation to feminist organizations in Ecuador in return for pressuring the government to turn Assange over to Sweden to answer for the rape charges. Feminists don't hesitate to throw rape victims and children under the bus for money, so they certainly won't hesitate to do the same for Assange. And who knows? Maybe there'll be some justice for some Swedish serial rape victims as a result. Wired and Washington Post (1999) and Committee to Protect Journalism and The Local (Sweden)
Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble ruled out another aid package for Greece, saying, "It can’t be helped -- we can’t make yet another new program. There are limits." This would seem to close the door to Greece's coming requests for a 2-year extension on its austerity program, which require an additional aid package of at least 20 billion euros. According to Schäuble, the sovereign-debt crisis mustn’t become a “bottomless pit” for Germany, even though it's Germany that would pay the highest price for a breakup of the euro region. Bloomberg
Turkey is setting up four new refugee camps to cope with the sharp increase in recent weeks in the number of Syrians fleeing to Turkey. There are now 70,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey, with a cost of caring for them now at $167 million. More than 170,000 Syrian refugees have been registered in neighboring countries - Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Some 1.2 million people are uprooted within Syria, many staying in schools or other public buildings. Zaman (Istanbul) / Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Aug-12 World View -- Anti-Japanese nationalist riots erupt in cities across China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Japanese officials to visit disputed islands after 'stunt' by Chinese activists
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
At least 34 people were killed, 78 injured and over 200 people arrested on Thursday in a confrontation between police using live ammunition and protesting mine workers at the Lonmin Marikana platinum mine in South Africa. Two of the dead are policemen, and police claimed that they were defending themselves from striking miners who were carrying sticks and machetes. The entire country is shocked by the incident, because it recalls the "Sharpeville Massacre" of March 21, 1960, when white policemen fired at a crowd of black protesters, killing 69.
Thursday's incident does not involve white vs black violence, but it involves racial violence nonetheless. The strike was called by the rock drillers, who earn the lowest pay (about $500 per month) and perform the hardest and most dangerous job, and who are mostly from the Basotho tribe, immigrants from the country Lesotho. The better paying and safer jobs are done by groups from the elite Xhosa tribe. The rock drillers are asking that their pay be tripled, to around $1500 per month. Independent Online (Cape Town) and BBC
This is from the blog of BBC commentator Humphrey Hawksley:
"I have just looked too closely into a regularly renewed household insurance policy run by HSBC and uncovered an underbelly of the life of a British consumer.The premium was increased by 100 per cent without notice or explanation. The policy which I thought was with HSBC had been outsourced to Premium Scanner which had re-outsourced it to BDML which is owned by Capita. The insurance company is Prestige which on the Internet has a telephone number in Spain. A premium charge is made on the 0845 number which begins with a lengthy rambling message. But this is not stated and the staff do not know what the charge is. In my first call to an rival insurance company, I was quoted less than half the HSBC premium for twice as much cover. HSBC claims to ‘search the most competitive price from our panel of insurers.’
In two hours of household admin this morning, I have found hundreds of pounds in small bills here and there that are being wrongly charged."
As we reported in July, HSBC Holdings is the largest bank in Europe, and has admitted to criminal money-laundering. In today's society, where fraud and extortion are rampant, it pays to check everything. Humphrey Hawksley
A flotilla of 20 ships carrying about 150 Japanese nationalists and eight lawmakers arrived Sunday on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, whose sovereignty is claimed by both China and Japan. The flotilla visit comes just days after Japan's coast guard arrested, and then released, a group of 15 Chinese activists from Hong Kong who visited the same islands to establish China's sovereignty. China issued a strong protest about the visit on Saturday. The flotilla visit was sponsored by Tokyo's Metropolitan Government and not approved by the Japanese government. Some of the Japanese nationalists plan to fish in the disputed waters to try to catch their breakfast. Reuters and Xinhua and Asahi (Tokyo)
Although China appears to be using its vast military power to enforce claims against practically everything in the Pacific Ocean and central Asia, there is quite a big difference between the status of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea and the Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea. As we've reported, China has established "Sansha City" in the South China Sea, along with a military force that apparently plans to kill anyone that challenges China's claims to the entire South China Sea. But China can't really do something similar with the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. The reason is that, in 2010, Hillary Clinton reaffirmed that the Senkaku/Diaoyu are considered Japanese territory under the mutual defense treaty that the United States and Japan signed in 1960. Thus, the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands have the same status as Taiwan. China claims both as their sovereign territory, and we're obligated to go to war with China to defend either of them.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Aug-12 World View -- BBC's Humphrey Hawksley scammed by HSBC bank thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
For one brief, shining Olympic moment, Russians loved North Caucasians
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
The United Nations announced on Friday that 78 year old Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi will become the international envoy on the Syria conflict, representing the United Nations and the Arab League, replacing Kofi Annan. On the day that Annan announced his six-point peace plan, I wrote that it was "farcical," and this has turned out to be an understatement. In fact, Annan's tenure as peace envoy has actually made the situation worse, by providing cover for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to continue his slaughter of civilian Sunnis, and cover for the Russians and Iranians to make sanctimonious statements while they support al-Assad's bloody slaughter.
What I found most interesting were some of the things that I heard Brahimi say during a couple of live interviews with him that I heard on Friday. When asked why he took the job after Annan's failure, he said, "I'll just repeat what Kofi Annan said -- that I must be as crazy as he is." In fact, Brahimi's statements had a very different tone than Annan's. Whereas Annan sounds pathetic and dishonest, Brahimi sounds realistic and truthful, at least so far.
He said that he took the job after promises by Security Council members that they would support him -- where they hadn't supported Annan. Unless this was just weasel words, then the only thing that this can mean is that the Russians are willing to agree to a Security Council resolution that at least partially condemns al-Assad. We'll see.
The only thing that I heard Brahimi say that was truly crazy was when he was asked where there was still a role for diplomacy in stopping the Syrian conflict. As best as I can remember, he said, "Of course diplomacy will play a role. Diplomacy is essential. No war can end without a round of diplomacy."
That makes about as much sense as saying that no book can end without a back cover. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, politicians do not determine the great events of history. Events are determined by masses of people, generations of people. Politicians have nothing to do with it, except insofar as their policies reflect the will of the masses of people. Wars don't end because some diplomat like Brahimi comes in and chats with everyone. That's ridiculous, but it appears to be what Brahimi believes. Wars end when the people are ready for them to end. Syria has not yet reached that point, but with political support for al-Assad continuing to crumble, that point may be reached soon. And then Brahimi can take all the credit. AFP
A seemingly insignificant arrest in Lebanon could indicate an important change in mood. Former minister Michel Samaha, a friend of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, has been arrested for participating in a plot, hatched by al-Assad, to destabilize Lebanon through a series of bomb blasts. Not long ago, such an arrest could not have occurred because Lebanon's government feared the power of Syria and Hizbollah. But now, the Lebanese are losing their fear of Syria, and Hizbollah, which is both a political party and a terrorist group in Lebanon, is keeping quiet. Reuters
 |
The mutual xenophobia between (Orthodox Christian) ethnic Russians and (Muslim) citizens of Russia's southern (North Caucasian) provinces has been growing in recent years, but it abated for a while during the London Olympics, when the North Caucasians became the first to win gold medals for the Russian team, and ended up winning 20 Olympic medals, including five gold medals, for Russia. For a brief while, Russians loved their North Caucasian fellow citizens, but once the Olympic games ended, Russians returned to such slogans as, "No More Feeding the Caucasus." Jamestown
Recent territorial conflicts over islands disputed between Japan and South Korea have become more contentious, and are now crossing over into policies on economic cooperation. The Japanese, who are particularly offended by criticisms of Japan's Emperor Akihito by South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, have canceled a bilateral finance ministers' meeting, and are withdrawing planned support for South Korea in its bid for election as a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2013-2014. The Hankyoreh (Seoul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Aug-12 World View -- Lakhdar Brahimi to replace Kofi Annan as Syria peace envoy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
In ironic twist, Assad's planes kill ally's kidnap victims
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a trip to Ottawa to meet with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said that Germany intends to do "everything we can to maintain" the euro. She renewed her call for fiscal discipline by praising Canada for not "living on borrowed money" and saying it should serve as a model for Europe. Almost everyone in Europe is on vacation right now, but the next major event on the euro timeline is expected to occur on September 12, when Germany's Verfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) will issue a verdict on whether the euro zone rescue plan for Spain and other countries is legal under European treaties and the German constitution. AP and Bloomberg
News reports have been swirling with rumors that Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras plans to ask for a two-year extension on meeting austerity requires imposed by the EU and the IMF in return for its third bailout package. However, no sooner did the swirling start, but it became clear that European leaders are very hostile to the idea of giving Greece any more time, especially since the extension would have to be funded by an additional 20 billion euros in bailout funds. Austria's foreign minister, for example, said Thursday that "We need to create ways to be able to eject someone from the eurozone," referring to Greece. And so Samaras has decided to postpone his extension request until an EU leaders' summit scheduled for October 8-9. Kathimerini
 |
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the Spanish financial sector is having to increasingly rely on loans from the European Central Bank (ECB). However, analysts are surprised that the borrowing is accelerating very rapidly. FT Alphaville
In the welter of conflicting stories about various types of atrocities in Syria, readers may recall that in May, Syrian opposition fighters kidnapped a busload of Shia Lebanese citizens as they traveled back to Lebanon from a religious pilgrimage to Iran. (From June: Hezbollah leader Nasrallah's defiant threat to Syrian kidnappers backfires) All but 11 of the kidnap victims were freed in May, but the fate of the 11 remaining has been in question. Iran, of course, is a close ally of Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad, whose army launched a bloody bombing assault on residential neighborhoods of Azaz, as we reported yesterday. Now, Abu Ibrahim, head of a Syrian opposition militia, says that the 11 were being held in Azaz, and that they were the victims of al-Assad's bombs:
"Four Lebanese were killed. The other seven are in critical condition as a result of the severe bombardment. [Syrian President’s] Bashar Assad’s warplanes bombarded the buildings and medical centers in Azaz."
If the claims are true, it would be ironic if al-Assads warplanes killed his own Shia allies, when all he really wanted to do was exterminate a few Sunni women and children. Daily Star (Beirut)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Aug-12 World View -- Angela Merkel praises Canada for not 'living on borrowed money' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Anniversary of Japanese surrender triggers heightened tensions with Korea
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Sectarian tensions throughout the Mideast took a big jump on Wednesday, when the al-Meqdad clan of Lebanon, described as a Shia Muslim family with a military wing, kidnapped more than 20 people in retaliation for the kidnapping on Monday of family member Hassan al-Meqdad. A Syrian rebel group had taken credit for the kidnapping of Hassan, accusing him of being a sniper and a member of the Lebanese Shia group Hizbollah. The 20 kidnapped people were presumably Sunni and of the Free Syrian Army. There was one Turk, with the rest Syrian. Al-Jazeera and Naharnet (Lebanon)
The string of kidnappings led four Sunni Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Kuwait -- to urge their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately. A UAE foreign ministry official said it issued its alert after the embassy "received information about UAE nationals being targeted and because of the difficult and sensitive circumstances in Lebanon." BBC and Guardian
As I've written many times, both Syria and Lebanon are in generational Awakening eras, and so a crisis civil war in either country is impossible at this time, despite the warnings of various politicians and experts. However, much of the rest of the Mideast is in a generational Crisis era, and the real danger is that the sectarian violence in Syria will trigger a war throughout the region. Saudi Arabia is becoming increasingly nationalistic and sectarian. For all practical purposes, it has annexed Bahrain, where a Sunni minority is brutally governing a very large Shia majority, and Shia populations in eastern Saudi Arabia itself are becoming increasingly restive. As usual, Israel serves as an energizing factor, but the conflict in Syria is seems to have overtaken Israel as a factor in mobilizing riots and demonstrations. Generational Dynamics predicts that there'll be a new war in the Mideast, re-fighting the war between Jews and Arabs that following the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.
Reporters from AP, VOA, Fox News and other media all witnessed the systematic bombing of civilian neighborhoods in the town of Azaz in Syria on Wednesday by fighter jets from the military forces of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Anti-Assad activists have been claiming that Assad's military purposely targets civilians instead of Free Syrian Army forces, and Wednesday events appeared to support that claim. The bombs targeted a poor residential neighborhood with no rebel bases. The UN Human Rights Council said Wednesday that war crimes have been committed on both sides, but that the greatest responsibility lay with the al-Assad regime. AP
Wednesday was the 67th anniversary of the end of World War II, and South Korea's president Lee Myung Bak angered the Japanese by using the occasion to ask the Japanese to provide compensation to surviving South Korean "comfort women" who were captured and used for sex during the war. He also asked Emperor Akihito to apologize for Japan's treatment of Koreans during the period 1905-45, when Korea was a colony of Japan. In return, the Japanese angered the Koreans when two Japanese Cabinet ministers visited the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. The shrine honors Japan's war dead, including those now branded as war criminals. LA Times
There were several new incidents related to disputed islands in the Pacific on Wednesday, including one where South Korean rock star Kim Jang-hoon swam to an island whose sovereignty is disputed between Korea and Japan. However, the event with the most potential for increased tension was the detention of five Chinese nationals on islands claimed by both China and Japan. China's Foreign Ministry has lodged a formal protest with the Japanese. Yonhap (Seoul) and Xinhua
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Aug-12 World View -- Sunni Arab countries urge their citizens to leave Lebanon thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
German view of France: Nostalgic and Narcissistic
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Police used tear gas and rubber bullets and deployed a helicopter to quell unrest in Amiens in northern France on Monday evening. They were responding to rioting by around 100 local youths who used buckshot, fireworks and other projectiles to injure 16 police officers. There is fear that the unrest may spread and become more violent, as happened in 2005. ( "Paris riots continue for seventh night") Major rioting is nothing new in France, with the French Revolution in 1789 and the Paris Commune in 1870 each killing tens of thousands of people in Paris alone. It's thought that poverty is the underlying cause of the riots, especially among immigrants from Africa. AFP
From an article from Der Spiegel:
"France is a deeply nostalgic and narcissistic country which is also, precisely for those reasons, very charming. The country would like to be part of Europe's north, but its heart belongs in the south. It will take more than navel-gazing to get the nation through the euro crisis unscathed.A few weeks ago, French President François Hollande spoke in the garden of the French Embassy in Rome. He had met that afternoon with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and, once again, had opposed German demands for reforms. And then, in the evening, he gave a speech in which he bemoaned, at length, the demise of French as an international language. It sounded oddly nostalgic, as if he somehow hoped to stop the global triumph of English.
Both appearances in Rome had more in common than it would seem at first glance. One of the reasons France is currently such a difficult partner in Europe is that the country Hollande represents is old-fashioned -- and hopelessly in love with the idea of being old-fashioned. It lives in the past, and even when it knows that it's in trouble, it refuses to change. ...
France's problem is that it can't decide whether it wants to be part of the north or the south.
On the one hand, when it comes to economic power and political clout, the country compares itself almost obsessively with neighboring Germany. Its politicians leave little doubt as to their conviction that they represent the most important country in Europe. But at the same time, what France cherishes about itself is its southern side. It sees itself as a Mediterranean country and is proud of its way of life, an area in which it feels superior to the Germans -- and the rest of the world.
Both sides of the French psyche are in full evidence in Paris, where long lunches seem to be an essential part of doing business. Some French employees are entitled to more than 40 vacation days a year. Conversely, many work longer days than their German counterparts. And there is also an elite consciousness among those at the top of society, which they have worked hard to earn in management schools and top universities.
But in rural France, for example in villages in the Corrèze department, the former constituency of President Hollande, there is a world in which time seems to have stood still for decades. France's old-fashionedness is both fascinating and grounds for despair. This country sees no reason to conform to the rest of the world, and it becomes stubborn when the rest of the world wants it to do precisely that."
 |
A 36 year old Norwegian tourist at Rome's Fiumicino airport tried to check in for a flight to Oslo, and found no one on duty. So he lay down on the baggage belt and fell asleep. When the belt finally started up, he didn't wake up, and reportedly traveled on the belt for 15 minutes before he was spotted on the X-ray monitors. Telegraph (London)
In one of the deadliest days of the year for Afghanistan civilians, at least 39 people were killed and more than 100 injured in multiple terrorist bombings up and down Afghanistan. There were nearly a dozen would-be bombers, though all but three were arrested or killed before the attack. No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but it's believed that the Taliban are responsible, and are showing their power as the American and Nato forces plan their withdrawal in 2014. LA Times
The Rafah border crossing, that allows Palestinians and others to travel freely back and forth between Gaza and Egypt's Sinai region, was closed following the August 5 attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, but was reopened on Tuesday. According to one observer, "The security in the Sinai is better than before. The army has complete control of the streets in major areas and there seems to be no tribal infighting." Daily News Egypt
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Aug-12 World View -- France's politicians fear widespread unrest after Amiens rioting thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Syrian anti-government rebels say they shot down a regime fighter jet
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
A rebel group fighting against the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad says that they shot down a government plane and captured one of the pilots. They've posted YouTube video showing the jet crashing and another of the pilot giving a statement. The Syrian regime confirms the plane crash, but said that the crash was caused by technical problems during a regular training mission. If the rebel claim turns out to be true, then it will be one more major psychological victory following a string of high profile defections from the al-Assad regime. Al-Jazeera
The following is from Javier Solana, a Nato expert writing in the Moscow Times:
"The feeling is growing stronger by the day that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime is approaching a tipping point. Kofi Annan, the United Nations and Arab League special envoy, has abandoned his efforts to implement an internationally agreed six-point plan to end the violence. Now the international community must think seriously about how to minimize the dangers inherent in Syria's domestic turmoil. ...In particular, there is a growing danger of Sunni retaliation against the Alawite minority, which comprises only 12 percent of the population but controls the government, the economy and the army. The Alawites, who overcame second-class citizenship only when Assad's Baath party came to power in 1963, now believe that their very survival is linked to that of the regime.
If the Syrian opposition does not take the Alawites' concerns seriously, the country could be wracked by years of civil war, worse than the conflict that devastated Lebanon from 1975 to 1990."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the last paragraph is completely wrong. Syria is in a generational Awakening era, and so this kind of civil war is literally impossible at this time. As I've written many, many times, the current conflict in Syria will not get worse but will fizzle. The precise scenario cannot be predicted, but right now it appears to be trending towards a situation where al-Assad steps down, and the remaining factors form some kind of unity government.
What's interesting about Solana's comments is his claim that the survival of the Alawites at the hands of the Sunnis is in question. "Survival" is too strong a word, but with 2/3 of the population, the Sunnis are going to be dominating a post-Assad government, and there will be bitter, lingering memories of the massive slaughter of Sunnis by Alawites in 1982, as well as the war crimes by al-Assad's regime against Sunnis in the current conflict.
What's really interesting is the comparison to the country next door, Iraq. Iraq is also in a generational Awakening era, and when its civil war fizzled in 2007, it formed a unity government, but this time the Sunnis are in the minority, and the Shia are in the majority. With the Alawites linked to the Shias against the Sunnis, it could be said that Syria is going through Iraq's civil war with the roles reversed. An argument could even be made that Bashar al-Assad is now playing the role of Saddam Hussein. Moscow Times
A lot of people like to work without being bothered by having people of the opposite sex around the workplace, and that's the case in Saudi Arabia, where a new single-sex industrial city is being planned for female workers. The city will not be entirely closed to males, as there will be areas where males will be permitted. LA Times
 |
Greece's downward spiral continues to accelerate, with the second quarter of 2012 being the worst in years . The economy has contracted 14 of the last 15 quarters, with the last quarter's contraction at 6.2%. In May, the European Commission forecast that Greece's economy would shrink only 4.7% in 2012, but now that forecast has to be revised to a much higher contraction. As we've been saying for years, no solution exists to Greece's debt problem other than a major world financial crisis, despite the recitations of politicians. Kathimerini
The 1930s Great Depression was worsened by high protective tariffs imposed by countries around the world. Tariffs are now considered unfashionable, but in today's financial crisis, another form of protection is being practiced in Europe. There's a growing sense of resentment in both lending and borrowing countries -- the lending companies resenting having to bail out profligate neighbors, and the borrowing countries having to suffer the demands of people lending them money. A sharp measure of the increasing nationalistic protectionism in Europe is that banks and companies are refusing to allow their money to flow across national borders, for fear that the euro will collapse. More and more banks and companies are refusing to take any credit risks at all in Europe. The European Central Bank (ECB) is trying to fill the gap by providing liquidity, but that's only fueling fear that the euro is approaching collapse. There are two countries that have benefited from these fears: Germany and the United States. Excess liquidity is flowing into both these countries, despite low or even negative bond yields (interest rates), because financial execs are opting for safety over yield. Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Aug-12 World View -- Banks, companies and investors prepare for collapse of the euro thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
China's neighbors pick sides in South China Sea dispute
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
One of the purposes of the formation of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was to present a united front to the members' powerful neighbor, China. However, ASEAN unity was shattered at last month's meeting, when Cambodia strongly sided with China against Vietnam and the Philippines in negotiations over control of the South China Sea. Unlike many other southeast Asian countries, where students usually wish to learn English as a foreign language, Cambodian students are learning Mandarin Chinese. China also has growing influence with Laos and Myanmar (Burma) as well. As I've been writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will oppose the West, India, Russia and Iran in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war. This new analysis gives greater insight into how the countries of southeast Asia might pick sides in that war. Reuters
President Mohamed Morsi stunned Egypt on Sunday with two dramatic moves to take power from the army and give it to himself:
The move comes one week after Egyptians were shocked to learn that 16 Egyptian soldiers were ambushed and killed in Sinai by jihadist militants, near the border with Israel. Field Marshall Tantawi and SCAF have been extremely unpopular since they took control early last year, and last week's ambush seems to have sealed their fate.
The text of President Morsi's new Constitution Declaration is as follows:
"1- The 17 June 2012 constitutional addendum is to be abrogated.2- Article 25, clause 2 of the 30 March 2011 Constitutional Declaration is to be replaced with the following text: "And he [the president] will undertake all his duties as stipulated by Article 56 of this declaration." [Article 56 outlines the authorities of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and grants the latter full executive and legislative powers, now held by Morsi.]
3- If the Constituent Assembly [tasked with drafting a new constitution] is prevented from doing its duties, the president can draw up a new assembly representing the full spectrum of Egyptian society mandated with drafting a new national charter within three months of the assembly's formation. The new draft constitution is to be put before a nationwide referendum within 30 days after it is written. Parliamentary elections are to be held within two months of the public’s approval of the draft constitution.
4- This new Constitutional Declaration is to be published in Egypt's official gazette and will be put into effect the following day."
There were initial fears expressed that SCAF would mobilize troops to stop Morsi's "coup," but so far there have been no signs of anything like that happening. The Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi is Egypt's first democratically elected President in the country's 5000 year history. CS Monitor and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
One issue that seems to have united secularists, liberals, Salafists and Islamists in Egypt is the insistence that law and order must be reimposed in the Sinai region where 16 Egyptian border guards were killed last week. The army began a military crackdown in earnest on Wednesday, and on Sunday killed five militants in a firefight where the Egyptian troops came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades. Under the 1979 peace agreement with Israel, Egypt is not permitted to bring troops into Sinai, but Israel is now demanding that Egypt bring the region under control, and so the fighting is the most seen since the 1973 war with Israel. There is some evidence that the Sinai is becoming the new great attraction for militant Jihadists who wish to fight against Israel and a moderate Egypt. Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Aug-12 World View -- Egypt's President Morsi grabs power in dramatic declaration thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
The renaissance of Tsarist Russia
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Russia's president Vladimir Putin led a three day air show outside Moscow in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Air Force. Putin commented on the heroism of the pilots during World War II and announced a major expansion:
"The history of the Russian Air Force knows the examples of real bravery and self-sacrifice, hard work and outstanding technical achievements. Military aviation has always been of great importance in our country. And now when we are implementing large-scale modernization of the army and the fleet, the future of the air force is definitely among the priorities. The Russian Air Force is going to play a great part in ensuring the national security. Our air bases are now busy implementing new training schemes, with strategic jets carrying out regular flights and multi-purpose aviation groups being formed. The army will receive over 600 new planes and 1,000 helicopters by the year 2020."
Russia's prime minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday issued a warning that a huge influx of immigrants from China into Siberia and Far East threatened Russia's control of the region and its rich resources. This is not the first time that Medvedev has raised these concerns. (See "22-Mar-11 News -- Russian offer of Japanese resettlement in Siberia raises xenophobic tensions" from last year, following Japan's earthquake and tsunami.) However, his recent comments have been the strongest yet. He announced that two new nuclear submarines would be sent to the Pacific fleet, and added that it was "important not to allow negative manifestations ... including the formation of enclaves made up of foreign citizens." He added that "More than eight million foreign citizens came to Russia in the first six months of 2012 alone." Russia's Far East suffered rapid depopulation since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. During the 1990s, there was enormous poverty and no support from the chaotic Moscow government. As a result, population fell by as much as 50% in the region, as millions migrated east, mostly to the European part of Russia. Reuters and Ria Novosti
Russia's botched launch of two telecom satellites, one Russian and one Indonesian, earlier this week has drawn a furious response from prime minister Dmitry Medvedev:
"I don't know the reason why the satellites perished, be it the booster, a mechanical defect, a slacker attitude or all of it combined and multiplied by the traditional slacker attitude. But it's simply impossible to tolerate this any longer. We are losing our authority and billions of rubles."
The satellites cumulatively cost $100 million to $150 million. Moscow Times
 |
A brief protest by three girls in Russia has turned into a major political event that's embarrassing president Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church. In February, the three girls charged up to the front of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour during a service and sang a song criticizing Putin. They were ejected from the Church, and the whole thing might have been forgotten, except that the girls put the whole performance up on YouTube. Putin is particularly vain and thin-skinned about any sort of criticism and, along with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, demanded harsh punishment for the performance. The trial started last week. The prosecutors said that they were possessed by the devil, having "twitched and jumped satanically, throwing their legs up, rolling their heads and calling out very insulting and blasphemous words." The trial is so absurd and ludicrous, even by Russian standards, that it's drawn international protests. While performing in Moscow on Tuesday, Madonna said, "I know there are many sides to every story and I mean no disrespect to the church or the government, but I think these girls ... have done something courageous and they have paid the price for this act and I pray for their freedom. They deserve the right to be free." A verdict is to be announced on August 17. A light sentence will be considered a major political humiliation for Putin and the Church, while a harsh verdict will be embarrassing to Putin and the Church. Spiegel (Germany) and Mail&Guardian (S. Africa)
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the Pussy Riot trial is part of the rejection of an atheist Soviet Russia, and a return to the days of Tsarist Russia, when the government and the Church were inextricably linked. Putin appears to consider himself something of a new Tsar anyway. In 1922, Nicolai Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) wrote this memo to the Politburo on the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church in order to harvest the Church's wealth:
"We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles (do not forget the immense wealth of some monasteries and lauras). Without this fund any government work in general, any economic build-up in particular, and any upholding of soviet principles in Genoa especially is completely unthinkable. In order to get our hands on this fund of several hundred million gold rubles (and perhaps even several hundred billion), we must do whatever is necessary. But to do this successfully is possible only now. All considerations indicate that later on we will fail to do this, for no other time, besides that of desperate famine, will give us such a mood among the general mass of peasants that would ensure us the sympathy of this group, or, at least, would ensure us the neutralization of this group in the sense that victory in the struggle for the removal of church property unquestionably and completely will be on our side."
The Church was virtually destroyed by the Bolshevik Revolution, with buildings destroyed and clerics jailed and murdered. World War II was a generational Awakening era war for the Soviet Union, and the Church began to revive at that time simply because Josef Stalin needed its help to defeat the Nazis. Russia is theoretically a secular state, but now Russia is in a new generational Crisis era, and under Putin the relationship between the government and the Church has been growing constantly. A similar transition is occurring in Russia's historic enemy, Turkey. Turkey became a secular state under Attaturk in 1924, after the collapse of Ottoman Empire. But now, in this new Crisis era, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is restoring some of the conservative religious links of the Ottoman era. From the point of view of generational theory, this parallel religious path being followed by these two historic enemies is quite remarkable.
A serious political split between Russia's president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has been opened over a revelation that Putin preplanned the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia and went behind Medvedev's back. At the time of the invasion, Putin and Medvedev were playing a little game. Putin had been President for two terms, and could not run for a third consecutive term, according to the Constitution. And so, Putin arranged for Medvedev to become President for one term, while Putin became Prime Minister, and lied about the arrangement to the public. It now turns out that they lied to the public as well over the August, 2008, invasion of Georgia. Putin had already pre-planned the invasion when Medvedev took over as President. Medvedev wanted to negotiate the crisis, but it's now been revealed that Putin illegally went around him and launched the invasion, which resulted in Russia annexing two Georgia provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia's parliamentary election in December, followed by the presidential election that returned Putin to the presidency, were both so obviously fraudulent that most Russians now believe that Putin's entire presidency is fraudulent. The new revelation opens a split between Putin and Medvedev that may expose more fraud. Jamestown
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Aug-12 World View -- Russia warns of Chinese occupation of Siberia and Far East thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Japan recalls S. Korean ambassador in dispute over islands
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Under intense political pressure to do more to stanch the flow of blood in Syria, especially from the use of tanks, artillery and bombers against unarmed civilian neighborhoods by the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Obama administration has announced new sanctions on the Hizbollah terrorist group. Readers may recall that in 2006 Israel fought a war against Hizbollah in Lebanon, and that Hizbollah receives weapons and funding from Iran. The reason given for the new sanctions is that Hizbollah has been providing operational and logistical support to the al-Assad regime. However, the sanctions simply add Hizbollah to a U.S. blacklist, so they're purely symbolic and will not satisfy those who are asking the U.S. to supply weapons to the Syrian opposition. CNN
Japanese nationalism has surged following the visit by South Korea's president Lee Myung Bak to a group of disputed islands (Takeshima islands in Japan, Dokdo islands in South Korea) in the Sea of Japan. The islands have been in dispute since Korea broke free of Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. However, both sides have been relatively careful about inflaming the issue until now. Japan has formally protested the visit, and has temporarily recalled its South Korean ambassador for consultations, and to discuss appropriate measures in response. Japan also has island disputes with Russia and China. And this is all in the context of China's island disputes with just about everyone. Japan Times and Hankyoreh Media (Korea)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Aug-12 World View -- Obama administration imposes new sanctions on Hizbollah thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Egypt-Israel agreement remains intact, amid military buildup in Sinai
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
China has not done as well earning gold medals as it did in 2008, when the Olympics games were in Beijing. There have been some obvious slights directed at the Chinese, which isn't surprising, in view of the anti-Chinese xenophobia prior to the 2008 Olympics, (from 2008: "Chinese embarrassment and anger grows over Tibet and Olympics"), and also in view of the anti-West xenophobia that China exhibits on a daily basis. The Chinese internet is a-buzz with contemptuous comments directed at the West. Among them:
"So far, the UK has given to us three things: the Opium War, the burning of the Summer Palace and the London Olympics."
Nonetheless, China still leads the medal count (both gold and total). Bloomberg
Global prices for corn and wheat rose 50% in July and July, aided by the worst drought in the U.S. since 1956. More than half of all U.S. counties - 1,584 in 32 states -- have been designated primary disaster areas this growing season. There was no panic buying until last week when Mexico, which suffered "tortilla riots" in 2007, began making huge purchases of corn. Now a cascade effect may be taking place, as Iran, Algeria and Jordan are all shopping for grain this week.
The situation is going to continue to get worse, according to a BBC interview with Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. When asked whether we would return to the days of WW II when famine and food crises became the norm, he said the following (my transcript):
"I hate to say this, but it's already a norm. We have a billion people without food, so it's not doing that well, I'm afraid. In fact, in more likelihood, if we don't do anything about this, it's just going to get worse.It is true that the Green Revolution helped us to keep pace with the demand for a certain period of time. But if you look at the yields now for major crops, they basically have flattened out. Whatever we gained in that period, over the last two-three decades, is basically going to give us just enough food to barely meet demand, and this just not good enough."
On August 9, 2007, central banks around the world launched the first of many full scale bailouts. In my article, "US and European central banks inject billions in cash to stanch market meltdown", I quoted an e-mail message from a web site reader:
"My father immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in the 20s and experienced the great depression in Pennsylvania. When I was a teenager, he told me his generation would not cause another depression because of what they experienced in the 30s. My father would not borrow money - only purchased in cash. Just before his death in 1962, he commented that the current generation was making mistakes his generation had made, and another depression was inevitable. What would he have said observing uncontrolled growth of financial derivatives, and our massive, ever increasing, unrepayable national debt? Having experienced hyper-inflation in Germany, believe he would have said our national debt would be repaid in drastically cheaper dollars."
I've actually gotten quite a few e-mail messages like this, from people whose fathers or grandfathers warned them what was happening. In the five years that have gone by, we've seen bigger and bigger bailouts. The first bailout was only "billions," which seems like chicken feed by today's standards, in this world where fraud and extortion are the norm. You hear full-throated lies on CNBC about stock valuations that anyone can refute simply by opening the Wall Street Journal. You hear full-throated lies by politicians on all sides on almost any subject. People don't realize how much the world has changed since the 1990s, and how much more it's going to change by 2020.
A key provision of the landmark 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was the demilitarization of Sinai, near Egypt's border with Israel. There are strict limits on the number of troops that either Israel or Egypt can move near the border, but now Israel is approving a massive Egyptian military buildup near the border to fight the militants who were responsible for the murderous ambush of Egyptian soldiers over the weekend, killing 16. However, neither Israel nor Egypt is talking about amending the peace agreement, since opening negotiations would become a fierce political issue in both countries. AP
 |
Imran Khan, a Pashtun born in 1952, one of Pakistan's greatest cricket players of all time, once voted as the "Sexiest Man of The Year" by Australia Magazine Oz, turned to politics in the 1990s. He's now the "hope and change" candidate in Pakistan, but he's running into trouble with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Pakistan Taliban) for calling himself a "liberal." TTP leaders are denying stories that they've threatened to kill him, but according to a spokesman:
"It's sure and clear that we don't have any sympathy with Imran Khan, neither do we need his sympathy, as he himself claims to be a liberal, and we see liberals as infidels."
Khan has run a populist anti-American campaign that has drawn huge crowds, particularly blaming the Americans for the Taliban terrorist attacks in Pakistan. (Go figure.) Now that the Taliban are threatening him, it'll be interesting to see whom he blames. AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Aug-12 World View -- Countries panic-buying food as world food prices surge thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Europeans take extraordinary measures to keep Greece from bankruptcy
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Last weekend ambush in Egypt's Sinai region near the border with Israel by armed militants who killed 16 Egyptian soldiers is transforming Egyptian public opinion. The public is furious at both the army and the new president Mohamed Morsi for failing to protect Egypt, especially since it's been revealed that Israeli intelligence had warned the Egyptians in advance that an attack was coming. Ever since the Egyptian uprising began in January of last year, it's been pretty clear that there are political differences among Egyptians, but no serious fault line dividing them. But the exception has always been with the Bedouins in Sinai, where violence is growing. In an attempt to try to bring the situation under control, Morsi fired his intelligence chief on Wednesday, and launched "Operation Eagle," with helicopter gunships striking positions where the attackers are believed to be staying. According to an unnamed army commander, the attacks killed 20 terrorists and destroyed three armored cars belonging to terrorists. Several Egyptian security officers have also been wounded. Al-Jazeera and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
If anyone in Europe ever meant anything they said, then Greece would be bankrupt by now, or by August 20 at the latest, when it has to make a 3 billion euro payment. But the European Central Bank (ECB) is continuing to bail out Greece, and is using extraordinary procedures to avoid direct violation of EU and eurozone treaties. In an "ordinary bailout," Greece might issue bonds that the ECB could then purchase from Greece, which would use the money to pay off its debt. But it's illegal, under existing treaties, for the ECB to bail out any country by purchasing its bonds. Leaked information reveals how the ECB will get around this restriction. Greece will issue the toxic bonds, but Greek banks will buy them, not the ECB. But the ECB will then buy them from the Greek banks. Spiegel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Aug-12 World View -- Sinai attack considered a national tragedy for Egypt thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Iran pledges undying support for Syria's al-Assad regime
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Describing the Syria conflict as "a conflict between the axis of resistance on one hand, and the regional and global enemies of this axis on the other," Saeed Jalili, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Tuesday and pledged to continue Iran's support for the al-Assad regime, and warned that its enemies would be the next to shed blood. By the "axis of resistance," Jalili meant Syria, Hizbollah, Iraq and Iran. By the "regional and global enemies," Jalili meant the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Things have been going badly lately, for both al-Assad and for Iran. The al-Assad regime is being plagued by repeated defections by Sunni officials, leaving only al-Assad's small Alawite minority in control. And Iran is trying to deal with the kidnapping of 48 Iranian tourists over the weekend by Syrian rebels who claim that they're not tourists at all, but members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. So Iran's pledge can be viewed as either a sign of desperation, or a pledge to do better. Al-Jazeera
Turkey's Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded rebuke to Iran's threat of violence against Turkey:
"We strongly condemn statements full of groundless accusations and exceptionally inappropriate threats against our country by some Iranian officials. It is unacceptable and irresponsible that Iranian officials in various posts continue to target our country through their statements, although Turkey's principled foreign policy is known to everyone."
The Syrian conflict has been the worst nightmare for Turkey and its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When Erdogan took office several years ago, he promised a policy of "zero problems" with his neighbors. The Gaza flotilla incident, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed in a confrontation with Israeli forces, caused a rift between Turkey and Israel, who weren't really very close to start with. (From June, 2010: "1-Jun-10 News -- Wide condemnation of Israel over Gaza flotilla") But al-Assad and Erdogan WERE very close at one time, and friendship has now turned to enmity. Erdogan had hoped to have a strong trading relationship with Iran. That relationship was never really close because the two countries were competing for influence over the Arabian peninsula. But now that relationship has turned to enmity as well. Zaman (Ankara) and Ynet
The Speaker of Greece's Parliament referred to the deepening ties between Greece and Israel as a "strategic choice":
"The cooperation between our two countries is not a product of circumstances; it is a strategic choice for peace in the region, for the use of the natural wealth they have and for cooperation in energy, tourism and culture."
In the USA, a Congressman has formed the Congressional Hellenic-Israeli Alliance, a new caucus to focus on the relationship between the United States, Greece, Israel and Cyprus. Kathimerini
Long-time readers of Generational Dynamics are aware that for the last six or seven years, I've been talking about the prediction, derived from generational theory, that in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries would be on one side, with the West, India, Russia, Iran and Israel as the "allies" on the other side. The last three stories all demonstrate a trend that supports this prediction.
Officials from the African Union, European Union and United Nations are meeting in Bamako, the capital of Mali, to make final plans to deploy a military force to Mali, where al-Qaeda linked Islamists have taken full control of the north, about two-thirds of the country. The current situation in Mali has been a major unintended consequence of last year's intervention in Libya. The military intervention against Muammar Gaddafi transformed Libya into the world's largest source of illicit weaponry, following Gaddafi's collapse. Battle-hardened ethnic Tuaregs, who had fought in support of Gaddafi, took possession of these weapons and came back to Mali after the war and took control of the north, calling it the independent state of Azawad. But the Tuaregs were overpowered by the Islamist terror group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who are now extremely well armed, thanks to Libya. Furthermore, Ansar Dine has betrayed moderate Muslims by destroying historic shrines in Timbuktu and other big cities. The Tuaregs have now recanted their claims for an independent state of Azawad, and are agreeing to ally with the regular Mali army and the incoming military force. Morocco and France are leading the fight to get agreement on a military intervention, as they believe they're the most likely targets of terrorist attacks by Ansar Dine and AQIM. VOA and Foreign Policy in Focus and The Africa Report
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Aug-12 World View -- Greece and Israel form a 'strategic' relationship thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Egypt closes the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Another high profile Sunni official in the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is defecting. Riad Hijab, who was appointed Prime Minister just two months ago, has fled to Jordan with his family, and is apparently planning to settle in Qatar. Al-Assad's ethnic group, the Alawites, comprise 12% of the population, while Sunnis comprise about 2/3 of the population. The continuing loss of Sunnis from his regime further destroys his credibility, both within Syria and internationally. VOA
Egypt on Monday promised to launch a crackdown on the "infidels" responsible for a massacre on the Egypt/Israel border that killed 16 Egyptian police. According to the statement issued by the military:
"A terrorist group of 35 people attacked a border guard south of Rafah Sunday evening at 7pm, right around Ramadan Iftar time, where 16 of our soldiers were martyred and 7 injured; three of them severely injured. The terrorist group then took over an army Armed Personnel Carrier and used it to penetrate the Egypt-Israel border where Israeli forces destroyed it.Coinciding with the attack, elements from the Gaza Strip carried out a mortar shell attack on the Karam Abu-Salem border crossing."
It's believed that attack was perpetrated by Jihadists from Gaza, although Hamas denies any involvement. Reuters and Al-Ahram (Cairo)
Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi is coming under increasing pressure to permanently close the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, following the massacre of Egyptian policemen, thought to be the work of terrorists from Gaza. Deposed president Hosni Mubarak always kept the Rafah crossing closed, but Morsi has promised greater freedom to Palestinians in Gaza wishing to cross into Egypt, or to bring supplies from Egypt back into Gaza. Morsi has ordered the Rafah crossing temporarily closed, and now he's going to be under severe pressure on both sides -- to reopen it as soon as possible, and to keep it closed permanently. Al-Ahram (Cairo)
According to Markus Söder, the finance minister of Germany's state of Bavaria:
"An example must be made of Athens (to show) that the eurozone can show its teeth. The Germans can no longer be Greece's paymaster ... further help to Greece is like pouring water into the desert."
In fact, a lot of Germans are losing patience with Greece. The European Central Bank (ECB) will bail out Greece's banks this month, but all bets are off for September. It all depends on whether Prime Minister Antonis Samaras can push through more far-reaching austerity reforms. Spiegel
Greek police say that 6,000 people were detained over the weekend in Athens in a massive deportation drive to combat what a government official compared to a prehistoric invasion. Most were only briefly detained, but about 1,600 were arrested for illegally entering Greece. Some 100,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to slip into Greece every year, mostly from neighboring Turkey, and up to a million are believed to live in Greece, which has an official population of about 10 million. CS Monitor
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Aug-12 World View -- Greece detains 6,000 people to deport illegal immigrants thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Kidnapped Iranian 'tourists' in Syria may be Revolutionary Guards
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Forty-eight Iranian Shia "pilgrims" were were kidnapped from a bus in Damascus on Saturday, according to Iran's state television. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians travel each year to Syria to visit a Shiite pilgrimage site, the Shrine of Zaynab, in Damascus. Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels have claimed responsibility for the abductions in a video that appeared on al-Arabiya television. In the video, an FSA officer showed ID documents taken from one of the men and said, "During the investigation, we found that some of them were officers of the Revolutionary Guards." Iran is denying the charge, repeating that the abductees are Shia pilgrims visiting Damascus. However, analysts are pointing out that there are no women and children in the video, making it unlikely that the abductees are tourists. Al-Arabiya
An analysis of the connection between Islamist radicals in Russia's southern provinces (North Caucasus) and countries of central Asia -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan -- reveals that there's less going on than speculation has suggested. The two regions are historically connected because Josef Stalin in 1944 deported North Caucasus ethnic groups to Central Asia. When Nikita Khrushchev allowed the repressed people to return, many remained behind. Thus, familial relationships between the two regions remain to this day. During the 1990s Chechen war, Islamist leaders in Chechnya established links with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and several hundred fighters from Central Asia fought the Russians in the Caucasus. However, ethnic ties, or lack of them, have been a more important factor than a desire for "pan-Islamic solidarity," and today there are probably no more than a few dozen fighters from Central Asia in the current insurgency in Dagestan, and their importance should not be overestimated. Jamestown
In the wake of the attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday, killing at least seven people, including the gunman, South Asians living in the United States are being urged to exercise extreme caution at places of worship. The message is being directed at Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, and other South Asians. Sikh males are often confused with Muslims because they wear turbans to cover their long hair. CNN
The word "Sikhism" derives from "Sikh," which means a strong and able disciple. There are about 23 million Sikhs worldwide, making Sikhism the 5th largest religion in the world. Approximately 19 million Sikhs live in India, primarily in the state of Punjab. Large populations of Sikhs can also be found in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Sikhs are a significant minority in Malaysia and Singapore, where they are sometimes ridiculed for their distinctive appearance, but respected for their work ethic and high education standards.
Sikhism emerged in 16th-century India in an environment heavily permeated with conflicts between the Hindu and Muslim religions. It was somewhat influenced by reform movements in Hinduism (e.g. Bhakti, monism, Vedic metaphysics, guru ideal, and bhajans) as well as some Sufi Muslim influences. While Sikhism reflects its cultural context, it certainly developed into a movement unique in India. Sikhs regard their faith as an authentic new divine revelation.
Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak Dev, who was born in 1469 to a Hindu family. After four epic journeys (north to Tibet, south to Sri Lanka, east to Bengal and west to Mecca and Baghdad), Guru Nanak preached to Hindus, Muslims and others, and in the process attracted a following of Sikhs (disciples). Religion, he taught, was a way to unite people, but in practice he found that it set men against one another. He particularly regretted the antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Guru Nanak's most famous saying is, "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim, so whose path shall I follow? I shall follow the path of God." Religion Facts
 |
Three weeks ago, I reported a story that had appeared on al-Jazeera about threats by three Chinese warships directed at an al-Jazeera vessel approaching the Scarborough Shoal. Almost all non-Chinese experts say that Scarborough Shoal is sovereign territory of the Philippines, although China is threatening to annex it through its vast military force. The full report of the encounter is now available online. The video of the "101 East" program is 25 minutes long, and the encounter with the Chinese warships is in the 4:30-10:00 period. Al-Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Aug-12 World View -- Concerns raised for safety of Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus in America thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Seven Minutes of Terror on Sunday Evening
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Senior Syrian officials are in Moscow pleading for financial loans and supplies of oil products. When asked by reporters, Syrian Finance Minister Mohammad al-Julaylati refused to disclose the sum of the loan Syria is seeking:
"We have asked Russia for a hard currency loan to allow us overcome the current problems, and they promised to consider our request. We need some additional resources. Countries in such situations usually ask for foreign loans."
Syria hopes to receive the loan money within weeks. AP
On Friday, Russian news agencies quoted a top military source as saying that Russia was sending three naval vessels and up to 360 marines to Syria. The reports claimed that the vessels, which are already in the Mediterranean, will arrive in Tartus this week or early next week with supplies for the Russian base. Analysts are trying to "read the tea leaves" to figure out what's going on. One possibility is that Russia is sending in troops to intervene militarily on the side of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Another possibility is that Russia is supply weapons to the regime. Another possibility is that al-Assad is stepping down, and Russia is evacuating him and his family to Moscow. Another possibility is that the ships are just there are as a precaution, ready to support the al-Assad regime in case of military action by Turkey. Jerusalem Post
Tensions between China and its neighbors, especially Vietnam and Philippines, have been rising substantially in the last few months, as the China has been increasingly using its military power to enforce its planned annexation of the entire South China Sea region, including areas that have historically been sovereign territory of other countries. Last week, China permanently established a military base in its newly established Sansha City in the midst of the South China Sea.
On Saturday, the tension between the U.S. and China took another spike upward, as both countries issued belligerent statements regarding the South China Sea. The statement from the U.S. State Dept. said the following:
"As a Pacific nation and resident power, the United States has a national interest in the maintenance of peace and stability, respect for international law, freedom of navigation, and unimpeded lawful commerce in the South China Sea. We do not take a position on competing territorial claims over land features and have no territorial ambitions in the South China Sea; however, we believe the nations of the region should work collaboratively and diplomatically to resolve disputes without coercion, without intimidation, without threats, and without the use of force.We are concerned by the increase in tensions in the South China Sea and are monitoring the situation closely. Recent developments include an uptick in confrontational rhetoric, disagreements over resource exploitation, coercive economic actions, and the incidents around the Scarborough Reef, including the use of barriers to deny access. In particular, China's upgrading of the administrative level of Sansha City and establishment of a new military garrison there covering disputed areas of the South China Sea run counter to collaborative diplomatic efforts to resolve differences and risk further escalating tensions in the region."
There was an immediate response from China's Foreign Ministry:
"On August 3, the US Department of State issued a so-called press statement on the South China Sea. The statement showed total disregard of facts, confounded right and wrong, and sent a seriously wrong message. It is not conducive to efforts by the parties concerned to uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea and the Asia-Pacific region at large. The Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction of and firm opposition to it.China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and adjacent waters. This is supported by clear historical facts. Moreover, China set up the office governing the Xisha, Nansha and Zhongsha Islands under the Province of Guangdong in 1959 to exercise administrative jurisdiction over the islands and reefs of the Xisha, Nansha and Zhongsha Islands and adjacent waters. The recent establishment of the Sansha City is a necessary adjustment made by China to the existing local administrative structure and is well within China's sovereign rights. ...
Now that the global economy is weak and turbulence still persists in some countries and regions, the Asia-Pacific has emerged as a relatively stable and most dynamic region underpinning world economic recovery. The United States needs to follow the trend of the times and respect the shared aspiration and consensus of countries in the region for peace, stability and development. It should respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and act in a way that contributes to stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific and not otherwise."
Nationalism and fury have been growing throughout the region, especially in China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. U.S. State Department and China's Foreign Ministry
 |
On Sunday evening, NASA's rover Curiosity is will land on Mars, with actual touchdown scheduled for 10:17 PM Pacific Time. The landing will require a complex sequence of steps of more than Rube Goldberg complexity, involving a huge supersonic parachute and a "sky crane" that gently lowers Curiosity to the Mars surface in what's being called "Seven Minutes of Terror." Watch the YouTube video now, and then watch NASA TV online starting at 8:30 pm PT / 11:30 PM ET. YouTube and CNET and Futurity and NASA TV
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Aug-12 World View -- U.S. and China threaten each other on South China Sea thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Slovenia may become sixth euro country needing a bailout
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
They're falling like dominoes. Eurozone country Slovenia has just had its debt downgraded by Moody's to just two steps above junk status. Slovenia is a small country with an export-oriented economy that's been hard hit by the global economic crisis. It seems likely that Slovenia will ask for a bailout, and if it does then it will be sixth eurozone country to do so, after Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus. Deutsche-Welle
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's air force was one of the largest in the region with hundreds of mainly Soviet-designed jets. But its military was disbanded after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 deposed Saddam, and now Iraq has no capability to defend its air space. A delegation, headed by Iraq's defense minister, is negotiating with Russia to supply early warning systems, radars and some other civil defense apparatuses. Last month Baghdad vowed to apply to the U.N. seeking condemnation of countries that violate Iraqi airspace, including Turkey. Hurriyet (Ankara)
The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed a resolution criticizing the Security Council's failure to act on the Syria conflict, and also condemned "the Syrian authorities' use of heavy weapons including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters" and demanded the government refrain from using its chemical weapons. The resolution was purely symbolic, as the General Assembly has no enforcement authority. The vote comes one day after Syrian peace envoy Kofi Annan resigned in failure. Australian Broadcasting
 |
On July 28, I quoted Russia's Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov as saying that Russia was planning naval bases in Vietnam, Cuba and the Seychelles (off the eastern coast of Africa). Just as I was posting the article, I heard a BBC report that Chirkov was denying the quote, so I added an update to the story. However, it appears that there's a lot more to the story. Chirkov has apparently been reprimanded by Vladimir Putin for making the remarks, though the official explanation is that the Ria Novosti reporter was at fault and was "unethical and incompetent," cooking up a "sensational fantasy." We hope that he doesn't spend the rest of his life in Siberia for his "crime." Of course, Putin would love to restore Russia's navy, which he himself cut in the early 2000s because of a severe budget crunch. But Chirkov's announcements were premature, because talk of a naval base in Cuba would inflame the Americans, and talk of a naval base in Vietnam would inflame the Chinese. So now Russia's Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry have clarified the situation by saying that Russian warships will indeed be sent to the three locations, but only for "rest and replenishment of the crews." They will not, according to the statement, be military bases. Jamestown and Pravda
India is evaluating Vietnam's offer for oil exploration in the South China Sea, provided it can find a suitable partner. The announcement has infuriated the Chinese, who have indicated plans to annex the entire South China Sea region, including areas historically belonging to Vietnam and other countries. According to Beijing's Global Times:
"The strategic intention of India's renewed involvement in the South China Sea issue is obvious. New Delhi wants to further complicate the issue and seeks to pin down China in the area so it could gain dominance in affairs across the region. ...Under such circumstances, China must first insist on exerting political pressure over both India and Vietnam, warning them that their joint exploration activities in the South China Sea are illegal and violate China's sovereignty. If they conduct oil and gas exploration in waters under China's sovereignty, China should give a strong response."
Indo Asian News Service and Global Times (Beijing)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Aug-12 World View -- Russia still considering naval bases in Vietnam, Cuba, Seychelles thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Investors and banksters disappointed again, this time by ECB
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
A bitter and angry Kofi Annan resigned his role on Thursday as special peace envoy to Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League. He'll continue as envoy until the end of August, when his mandate expires. He said he could no longer do the job, blaming his decision on what he described as Syrian government intransigence, on increasing militancy by Syrian rebels and on finger-pointing and name-calling by members of the United Nations Security Council. The finger-pointing and name-calling continued after Annan's announcement, as Russian and Western diplomats blamed each other for the failure of the Annan mission. Day Press News (Syria)
When the Kofi Annan "peace plan" was announced in March, I called it "farcical", and time has shown that criticism to be an understatement. As I've suggested several times in the past, the "peace plan" has actually made things worse, because it provided a fig leaf behind which the Bashar al-Assad regime could hide while it was slaughtering and exterminating innocent civilians, and behind which the Russians could hide as they provided support for the al-Assad regime to conduct its extermination program.
Having said that, I'm surprised that Annan resigned. Syria is in a generational Awakening era, and so the fears that this civil war will spiral out of control are completely unfounded. Just as the Iraq "civil war" had to collapse in an Awakening era, the Syria war has to collapse. It's not possible to predict which side will be declared the "winner" once the war collapses, but right now the trends appear to indicate that al-Assad's regime will collapse with the war. This conclusion is supported by the fact that 2/3 of the population are Sunnis, while al-Assad's Alawite sect is a small minority. I had expected that when the war collapsed, Annan would then declare that he had brought peace to Syria, but now that he's resigned, he may not be able to make that claim.
On Wednesday, traders and banksters were disappointed that U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke didn't announce a big new quantitative easing program, with lots of new "printed" money to pay their 7-digit salaries and bonuses. On Thursday, they were disappointed again, this time by European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi, who failed to announce a European quantitative easing program that where the ECB would purchase toxic bonds issued by Spain and Italy. Last week, Draghi announced that the ECB would do "whatever it takes to preserve the euro." On Thursday, he said "The euro is irreversible." However, instead of announcing a big new liquidity program for traders and banksters, he merely announced "guidance" for measures that might be taken in September. It's worth remembering that the ECB initiated its LTRO program last December, pouring 1.1 trillion euros into Europe's banking system. It kept bond yields (interest rates) down, but they popped up again as soon as the program ended in March. The banks were supposed to lend all that money to businesses to hire employees, but people and businesses have been badly burned in the last decade, and will remain cautious for the rest of their lives, like the survivors of the Great Depression. As for now, Europe is on vacation till the end of August. Spiegel
The "mini flash crash" that occurred on Wednesday was caused by a bug in the trading software of Knight Capital Group, as we reported yesterday. The bug caused the company to send numerous erroneous orders in 140 stocks listed on the NY Stock Exchange. The errors will cost the company $440 million, and may throw the company into bankruptcy. AP
It's been very interesting to me to see the generational parallels between the computer industry and the financial industry. As a Senior Software Engineer, I've seen some of the same contempt for rigorous development and testing practices in some younger Gen-X programmers as the contempt for rigorous financial practices that I've reported on in Gen-X financial engineers. (From 2008: "Boomers and Gen-Xers: Dumbing down IT") I saw an interview on Thursday morning with Knight Capital CEO Thomas Joyce, where he indicated that inadequate software testing had led to the software bug making it into production. Based on my personal experiences of the last ten years, I can well believe that some of the younger programmers decided not to test the software simply because some Boomer had told them that they should. So it cost the company $440 million. I'll be following this situation, as the technical details of the mini flash crash leak out in the next few weeks.
In a policy that's certain to infuriate the nine million mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs living in China's north west Xinjiang province, China has banned Muslim officials and students from fasting during Ramada or even to attend mosques. The government statement urged party leaders to bring "gifts" of food to local village leaders to ensure that they were eating during Ramadan. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk and strive to be more pious and charitable, and banning fasting strikes at the heart of a very important Muslim ritual. AFP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Aug-12 World View -- Kofi Annan resigns in failure as Syria envoy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
New report warns of deteriorating security for the Philippines
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
 |
Wednesday was the expiration date of Israel's "Tal Law," exempting Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews from compulsory military service, after the Supreme Court struck the law down as unconstitutional. Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to prepare a plan to draft tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, starting in a month. The situation has caused a bitter split in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government coalition, and one ultra-Orthodox leader has said that drafting his people would unleash a "civil war." Similarly thousands of Israel's Arab citizens could be drafted, and they're refusing as well. According to one activist, "When the moment comes and we are asked to perform civil service, we will resist. Israel wants us to do service to the state, but first of all this state has to treat us as equal citizens." AP and CS Monitor
Back in the 1970s, when I was programming IBM mainframes, I learned the saying, "To err is human; to really f--k things up takes a computer." And that's what keeps happening on Wall Street as trading becomes increasingly dominated by computer algorithms or "high frequency trading" (HFT). Any software engineer knows that there's no such thing as software without bugs, something to think about if you have an implanted heart device. May 6, 2010, was the date of what has become known as the "Flash Crash," when a bug in a computer program caused stock prices to fall 10% within a few seconds, and then recover a few minutes later. Then there was the recent botched handling of the Facebook's IPO by Nasdaq, which has also been blamed on computers. On Wednesday, certain stocks, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber, China Cord Blood and CoreLogic, saw violent swings in the first hour of trading, and some were actually halted for moving more than 10% within a five-minute period. This time, the blame is being assigned to software bugs in the trading algorithms of Knight Capital Group who, ironically, has been claiming that they lost $30-35 million because of the botched Facebook IPO. Forbes
Bankers and investors had been hoping that the Federal Reserve would announce a new quantitative easing program on Wednesday, providing new liquidity to flow into their accounts and their 7-digit bonus packages. But they were disappointed on Wednesday when the Fed failed to announce any such program. Theoretically, quantitative easing is supposed to boost the economy, but numerous bouts of fiscal and monetary policy that has poured money into the economy have failed to help the economy, because of generational reasons. People are refusing to borrow money and spend it because they've been badly burned in the last ten years, and this is resulting in a deflationary spiral that can't be stopped by quantitative easing. That's the reason that the Fed doesn't want to try QE right now -- because they've learned that it simply doesn't work. QE doesn't benefit any of us poor slobs, but it does help enrich investors and banksters, which is why they're pressuring the Fed for more of it. USA Today
A new research report says that the Philippines faces a "significant security challenge" because of its deteriorating relationship with China. According to the report:
"The report's general conclusion is that tensions with China caused by territorial disputes in the South China Sea will lead to some long-overdue investment in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Manila is increasing its own defence budget, while allies such as the US and Japan can be expected to provide excess defence articles either freely or cheaply.However, BMI regards Manila's deteriorating relationship with Beijing as a significant security challenge. Investment in the AFP will take years to come through, and the Philippines cannot be completely confident that its Mutual Defence Treaty with the US would protect it in the event of a conflict with China. For the Philippines, much will depend on ASEAN's ability to broker a deal with China in the form of a new code of conduct governing behaviour in the South China Sea."
The last sentence reflects a great deal of denial and wishful thinking. China has repeatedly made it clear that it expects to annex the entire South China Sea region, and will use its vast military power to punish anyone who tries to stop them. The only "code of conduct" that China will agree to is one where everyone harmoniously does whatever China demands. Business Monitor International
Leaders of the three parties in Greece's governing coalition agreed to a package of spending cuts totally 11.5 billion euros, to comply with demands by European officials and the IMF for further bailout loans. The agreement came when the two parties that had been demanding a go-slow approach to further austerity measures backed down, in the face of threat by the IMF to terminate all bailout measures. Greece has agreed to austerity measures in the past in exchange for bailout money, but once the bailout money was provided, the austerity measures were not implemented. Kathimerini
Members of Greece's far right Golden Dawn party handed out free food to hundreds of people in Athens' Syntagma Square on Wednesday, but only to people showing ID cards proving that they're Greek citizens. The Golden Dawn party has demanded the expulsion of all immigrants from Greece, and has been accused of being "neo-Nazi." Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Aug-12 World View -- Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews react in fury to new draft law thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Euro zone unemployment rate reaches highest on record
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
The following three stories all have something in common: They all show an increasingly tense and militaristic world.
 |
The 2012 White Paper by Japan's Ministry of Defense bluntly states Japan's strong reservations about China's mounting arms buildup and growing naval presence in the Pacific Ocean. The report paid particular attention to China's naval presence in international waters, and says the Chinese navy "is trying to step up its abilities to deploy warships in the outer ocean." China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement challenging Japan's white paper:
"China strongly opposes to the groundless criticisms on China's normal national defense development and military activities, and the irresponsible remarks on China's internal affairs made by Japan's annual defense white paper."
TheAsahiShimbun (Tokyo) and Japan's Ministry of Defense and Xinhua
China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has conducted a high altitude exercise with a new type of surface-to-air missile in Tibet, according to PLA Daily Online and Tibet Online. The “new” surface-to-air missile tested seems to be tailor-made for operations in the high altitude terrain and rarefied atmosphere of Tibet. The news report also indicates that Indian aircraft have been assumed as “enemy aircraft” in the war exercise since the only country lying south-east of this area is India. Besides, there is no other “threat” from this direction other than India, according to Chinese perception, for which China might test a missile for in Tibet. China's PLA has already twice carried out large military exercises in Tibet this year, in March and June. As in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and Taiwan, China is preparing is preparing militarily for a military attack and invasion of India, at a time of China's convenience. Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA)
Each day, hundreds of Israelis gather along the barbed wire in the village of Buqata and use binoculars to see deep into Syrian territory. The war in Syria has raised fears that Israel or perhaps the entire region might be dragged into war, or that a wave of Syrian refugees will wash across the border into Israel. The level of anxiety has increased markedly since Syria's president Bashar al-Assad confirmed that he has chemical weapons and that he might use them against external enemies. Israeli officials do not believe that Syria will attack Israel with checmical weapons, but there is wide fear that the weapons will reach Hizbollah, who will use them against Israel. Initial intelligence reports that Hizbollah has already obtained some of the weapons are likely not true, because of the special training and equipment required to handle these weapons. However, the level of nervousness increases the probability of an accidental war based on, for example, incorrect intelligence information. Spiegel
Russia's drought has led the government to cut its 2012 grain harvest by 8%, sparking fears that Russia might, once again impose export restrictions or bans, as it did in 2010. Russia's drought comes at a time when nearly half of the corn crop in the U.S. Midwest is now in poor or very poor condition, from the worst drought since 1956. Grain output in Western Australia, the country's main wheat region, may drop 40% due to extremely dry weather. Wheat prices have jumped more than 50% and corn prices more than 45% since mid-June. Russia Today
The euro zone economy continues to deteriorate, as shown by Tuesday's announcement that the unemployment rate reached 11.2% in May, the highest on record. Analysts are predicting even higher unemployment in 2013. According to one economist,
"[I]ndications are increasing that light-hearted times are coming to an end.
Spain had the highest jobless rate in June, at 24.8%. Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Aug-12 World View -- China tests new long-range missile in Tibet, near India border thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Aug-2012)
Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
Web Log Summary - 2016
Web Log Summary - 2015
Web Log Summary - 2014
Web Log Summary - 2013
Web Log Summary - 2012
Web Log Summary - 2011
Web Log Summary - 2010
Web Log Summary - 2009
Web Log Summary - 2008
Web Log Summary - 2007
Web Log Summary - 2006
Web Log Summary - 2005
Web Log Summary - 2004
Web Log - December, 2016
Web Log - November, 2016
Web Log - October, 2016
Web Log - September, 2016
Web Log - August, 2016
Web Log - July, 2016
Web Log - June, 2016
Web Log - May, 2016
Web Log - April, 2016
Web Log - March, 2016
Web Log - February, 2016
Web Log - January, 2016
Web Log - December, 2015
Web Log - November, 2015
Web Log - October, 2015
Web Log - September, 2015
Web Log - August, 2015
Web Log - July, 2015
Web Log - June, 2015
Web Log - May, 2015
Web Log - April, 2015
Web Log - March, 2015
Web Log - February, 2015
Web Log - January, 2015
Web Log - December, 2014
Web Log - November, 2014
Web Log - October, 2014
Web Log - September, 2014
Web Log - August, 2014
Web Log - July, 2014
Web Log - June, 2014
Web Log - May, 2014
Web Log - April, 2014
Web Log - March, 2014
Web Log - February, 2014
Web Log - January, 2014
Web Log - December, 2013
Web Log - November, 2013
Web Log - October, 2013
Web Log - September, 2013
Web Log - August, 2013
Web Log - July, 2013
Web Log - June, 2013
Web Log - May, 2013
Web Log - April, 2013
Web Log - March, 2013
Web Log - February, 2013
Web Log - January, 2013
Web Log - December, 2012
Web Log - November, 2012
Web Log - October, 2012
Web Log - September, 2012
Web Log - August, 2012
Web Log - July, 2012
Web Log - June, 2012
Web Log - May, 2012
Web Log - April, 2012
Web Log - March, 2012
Web Log - February, 2012
Web Log - January, 2012
Web Log - December, 2011
Web Log - November, 2011
Web Log - October, 2011
Web Log - September, 2011
Web Log - August, 2011
Web Log - July, 2011
Web Log - June, 2011
Web Log - May, 2011
Web Log - April, 2011
Web Log - March, 2011
Web Log - February, 2011
Web Log - January, 2011
Web Log - December, 2010
Web Log - November, 2010
Web Log - October, 2010
Web Log - September, 2010
Web Log - August, 2010
Web Log - July, 2010
Web Log - June, 2010
Web Log - May, 2010
Web Log - April, 2010
Web Log - March, 2010
Web Log - February, 2010
Web Log - January, 2010
Web Log - December, 2009
Web Log - November, 2009
Web Log - October, 2009
Web Log - September, 2009
Web Log - August, 2009
Web Log - July, 2009
Web Log - June, 2009
Web Log - May, 2009
Web Log - April, 2009
Web Log - March, 2009
Web Log - February, 2009
Web Log - January, 2009
Web Log - December, 2008
Web Log - November, 2008
Web Log - October, 2008
Web Log - September, 2008
Web Log - August, 2008
Web Log - July, 2008
Web Log - June, 2008
Web Log - May, 2008
Web Log - April, 2008
Web Log - March, 2008
Web Log - February, 2008
Web Log - January, 2008
Web Log - December, 2007
Web Log - November, 2007
Web Log - October, 2007
Web Log - September, 2007
Web Log - August, 2007
Web Log - July, 2007
Web Log - June, 2007
Web Log - May, 2007
Web Log - April, 2007
Web Log - March, 2007
Web Log - February, 2007
Web Log - January, 2007
Web Log - December, 2006
Web Log - November, 2006
Web Log - October, 2006
Web Log - September, 2006
Web Log - August, 2006
Web Log - July, 2006
Web Log - June, 2006
Web Log - May, 2006
Web Log - April, 2006
Web Log - March, 2006
Web Log - February, 2006
Web Log - January, 2006
Web Log - December, 2005
Web Log - November, 2005
Web Log - October, 2005
Web Log - September, 2005
Web Log - August, 2005
Web Log - July, 2005
Web Log - June, 2005
Web Log - May, 2005
Web Log - April, 2005
Web Log - March, 2005
Web Log - February, 2005
Web Log - January, 2005
Web Log - December, 2004
Web Log - November, 2004
Web Log - October, 2004
Web Log - September, 2004
Web Log - August, 2004
Web Log - July, 2004
Web Log - June, 2004
