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Greece's chaos continues as banks are closed
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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With Greece's banks closed, citizens stood in long lines at ATMs, where they are limited to withdrawals of 60 euros per person per day. Thousands of pro-government protesters gathered in Syntagma (Constitution) Square in Athens on Monday to demand that citizens vote "NO" on Sunday's planned referendum. An anti-government rally is expected on Tuesday, to demand a vote of "YES".
One commentator is describing Greece's referendum this way: If you want to be executed vote YES; if you would rather commit suicide say NO. Another says that only God can save Greece now.
It's really hard to believe the farcical proceedings going on with the Greece crisis. On Monday Greece's government finally released the wording of the referendum question to be asked on Sunday:
"Should the proposal that was submitted by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund at the Eurogroup of June 25, 2015, which consists of two parts that together constitute their comprehensive proposal, be accepted?"
It's referring to the Eurogroup proposal that's been withdrawn. What are we to make of this?
Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has referred to the June 25 proposal using the words "blackmail," "humiliation" and "ultimatum," making it clear that he would like Greeks to vote "No."
So what happens if the Greeks vote "No"? Tsipras seems to believe he can go to the Eurogroup and say, "See? I won the referendum. Give me all the bailout money I want, and I'll spend it as I please." What do you think the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers will respond to that demand?
What happens if the Greeks vote "Yes"? I heard a Syriza spokesman on the BBC say that they still wouldn't agree to the Eurogroup proposal. So what's the point of a referendum if the results are going to ignored?
One analyst has suggested that Tsipras chose the above wording for an emotional reason -- not to make sense, but to link this referendum to Benito Mussolini’s October 1940 ultimatum to occupy Greece, which the Greeks firmly rejected.
I've been asked to state my opinion as to whether Greece will remain in the euro currency.
This is certainly NOT a Generational Dynamics prediction, but my personal opinion is that Greece will, one way or another, remain in the euro currency. The reasoning is that even if Greece issues drachmas, there's no way to expel Greece from the euro. There are even off-the-wall scenarios possible, where the drachma would simply be equivalent to, say, one-tenth of a euro, or something like that, probably with a variable exchange rate.
Another possibility is that the Game of Chicken is still being played. The June 30 date may be a day of default, but otherwise it has apparently become somewhat meaningless now, and the next crucial date will be July 6, the day after the referendum. Some formula may yet be found to reach an agreement at the last moment. However, this would just "kick the can down the road" for three or four months, and new negotiations on a new bailout loan would have to begin immediately.
Whatever scenario unfolds, it's going to be horrible for the Greek people, and dangerous for the global financial system. Kathimerini and Forbes and Greek Reporter
Turkish officials are sending shock waves through the Mideast by notifying Nato and US officials that they are preparing plans to invade Syria for humanitarian reasons.
By itself, this would be a significant escalation of the war in Syria. But it also comes at a time when Jordan is considering its own invasion of Syria to create a buffer zone (see next story), and at a time when Israel is considering entering the Syrian war to protect the Druze community.
Turkey's stated objective is to create a buffer zone in Syria for refugees who are targeted by the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), but it's believed that the real reason is the prevention of a Kurdish state along Turkey's border in Syria.
Over the weekend, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said:
"We will never allow the establishment of a state in Syria’s north and our south. We will continue our fight in this regard no matter what it costs."
At a separate event, prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey would take "all measures" to protect its borders:
"No one should be concerned that the fire would spread to Turkey. Even if we are in power for one second, we won't remain silent; we will take all necessary measures. State structures will implement these measures. No one is more important than the comfort and peace of Turkey."
The triggering event for these concerns was the stunning victories of the Kurdish YPG militias in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa province, especially the seizure of the town of Tal Abyad, which is right on Turkey's border. ( "24-Jun-15 World View -- US aligns with Kurds and Shias in Syria and Iraq, angering Turks and Saudis")
According to reports, some 18,000 soldiers are expected to take part in the operation to take place on both sides of the border, with plans to establish a 110-km long and 28-km wide buffer zone.
A Turkish invasion of Syria would have significant implications for Europe and Nato. Since Turkey is a member of Nato, the invasion would technically mean that Nato was at war in Syria.
Reports indicate that Turkey will first try to get diplomatic support of its Nato allies and US-led coalition forces. Failing that, "Plan B" will come into plan, and Turkey will create a buffer zone on its own, and will train and equip the Free Syrian Army. Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Telegraph (London) and Hurriyet (Turkey) and Today's Zaman (Turkey)
While Turkey considers an invasion of Syria to create a buffer zone in Syria's north, Jordan is considering an invasion to create a buffer zone in Syria's south. This is apparently a completely separate plan, with the joint timing a coincidence.
As in the case of Turkey, the stated object would be humanitarian, for the protection of refugees. Like Turkey, Jordan is hosting millions of Syrians who have been forced to flee their homes to escape the fighting.
The plan is to bolster rebels from the anti-Assad Southern Front alliance and the Free Syrian Army, many of whom have already received US-supplied training in Jordan. It's not clear to what extent Jordan's own army will participate, or whether Jordan will also build a militarized zone that will separate the buffer zone from the Syrian government forces in the north. However, this would be a significant escalation of Jordan's involvement in Syria, and would contradict oft-repeated statements by Jordanian officials that they would stay out of the war.
As we've been writing for many months, there is a growing trend of Muslims killing Muslims in the Mideast, heading for a major sectarian war that will engulf the region. Middle East Eye and Times of Israel
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Jun-15 World View -- Turkey and Jordan separately plan invasions of Syria thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(30-Jun-2015)
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How complex systems fail
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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As we've been reporting, China's stock markets have been in free fall since June 12, falling almost 20% in a couple of weeks.
Desperate Chinese officials are scrambling to stop the implosion and restore the bubble, and so the People's Bank of China (PBOC) made a major move, cutting interest rates sharply, to a record low. This makes more money available to banks, which officials hope will flow into the stock markets and prop up stock prices.
According to a Nomura analyst quoted by ZeroHedge:
"The policy easing should be viewed as a measure to contain the risk of a hard landing or systemic crisis rather than one to achieve faster growth. In this case, the stronger-than-expected monetary easing may help stem the decline in the equity market following a 10.6% drop over the past two trading days. The positive wealth effect of the equity market on consumption or aggregate demand is limited in China, but an equity market collapse would hurt millions of mid-class households and pose great danger to the economy and social stability."
In other words, the purpose of the policy measure is to prop up the stock market, but will have little effect on growth, which is the "normal" purpose of interest rate easing. Whether it will even succeed in propping up the stock market and preventing "an equity market collapse" remains to be seen in the next few days.
As of this writing on Sunday evening ET (Monday morning in Shanghai), stocks are up 2%, though it's been bouncing in and out of negative territory. Bloomberg and ZeroHedge and Reuters
In an admission that will have wide-ranging financial repercussions, Puerto Rico's governor Alejandro García Padilla has announced that the island territory will be unable to pay off its $72 billion in debts. According to Padilla:
"The debt is not payable. There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics, this is math."
This was not a surprise. As I wrote in March, a bankruptcy was a virtual certainty, probably as early in July.
Many people have invested in Puerto Rico bonds because they pay 10% interest (yields) and because under federal law they're "triple-tax free," meaning that you can earn 10% interest every year and not have to pay federal, state or municipal tax on the interest you collect. It's a sweet deal, provided that Puerto Rico doesn't go bankrupt, because if it does, then you lose most or all of your initial investment.
The unemployment rate is 13.7%. Only 700,000 of the 3.5 million people, or 20%, work in the private sector. The other 80% either are on welfare, or they receive unemployment or other aid, or they work for the government. Year after year, Puerto Rico sells more and more bonds, and investors eat them up because of the high tax-free yields. But now their string has run out. NY Times and Reuters
Greece's banks will be closed indefinitely, starting on Monday, after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that it will end liquidity funding that was being used to prevent a Greek banking collapse.
As we reported yesterday, Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras suddenly terminated negotiations with the European lending institutions, surprising everyone, and called for a referendum of the Greek people on July 5. The Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers met without Greece present, to take steps for the protection of the eurozone.
They announced the termination of Greece's bailout program, but left open the question of whether the European Central Bank (ECB) would continue the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) program. Greeks have been withdrawing billions of euros from their savings accounts in recent weeks, as much as a billion euros each day in the last week. This has been made possible by the ECB's ELA program, which provided liquidity to the Greek banks so that withdrawals were possible.
On Sunday, the ECB announced that the ELA would be terminated immediately. Tsipras went on nationwide tv and appealed for calm, saying that everyone's savings, salaries and pensions were safe. He announced that the banks and stock markets would not open on Monday, and would remain closed at least until July 7.
Tsipras also announced that capital controls would be imposed. ATMs will be open on Monday, but bank withdrawals will be sharply limited, to as little as 60 euros per person per day.
On July 5 there is supposed to be a national referendum in Greece. The referendum will be a vote on a bailout proposal that has already been terminated, and will no longer exist. There's a lot of hopin' and prayin' going on, but no matter what analysts say, no one has any clue what will happen. Kathimerini and Market Watch
When complex systems fail, it's seldom because of one problem, because each potential problem has usually been foreseen and a workaround developed.
Catastrophic system failures when several problems occur at once, and interact in a way that was not predictable.
Today we have major financial crises in China, in Europe and in Puerto Rico. In each case, officials have made some preparations. But can the global financial system handle all three simultaneously?
As I've been reporting regularly, the S&P 500 price/earnings ratio is far above historical norms, indicating that Wall Street stocks are deeply into bubble territory. That bubble is going to burst. There's no way to predict whether the current group of problems will be the catalyst, but sooner or later it will happen.
It's well to remember that we don't know to this day what triggered the 1929 panic and crash, and so we have no way of knowing what will trigger the next panic, but we can be sure it's coming.
At this writing on Sunday evening ET, Asian stocks are mostly falling, and Wall Street futures are down 1-1.5%.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Jun-15 World View -- Global financial crisis -- Greece, China, Puerto Rico thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Jun-2015)
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Tunisia will close 80 mosques that are 'spreading venom'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Members of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers on Saturday unanimously rejected a demand to grant a 2-month extension to the existing bailout program, after Greece's government walked out of the negotiations.
Early Saturday morning, Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras surprised everyone, even members of Greece's negotiating team, by tweeting that he was ending the negotiations and calling for a snap referendum of the Greek people on July 5 to determine whether to accept the Eurogroup's bailout conditions. This would be the first time Greece has held a national referendum since 1974.
Tsipras addressed Greece's parliament in a nationally televised speech:
"I call on you to decide whether we should accept the extortionate ultimatum that calls for strict and humiliating austerity without end, and without the prospect of ever standing on our own two feet, socially and financially. We never considered giving in. ... These [Eurogroup] proposals prove that certain partners are not interested in reaching a viable and beneficial agreement for all parties, but rather the humiliation of the Greek people."
The parliament approved the referendum in a vote late Saturday night. However, many people are saying this referendum, if it is held, would really be a historic vote on "Grexit," whether Greece should remain in the euro, or even in the European Union. One commentator quoted an anonymous Eurogroup official as saying, "Tsipras is like a cowboy who walks into a saloon, takes his gun out of his holster, points it at his own head, and shouts, 'Do as I say or I'll shoot!'"
Tsipras's announcement was a complete surprise to the Eurogroup members, since they had been negotiating almost 24 hours a day all week, and there had never been any mention of a referendum. The Eurogroup members were said to be furious at Tsipras's betrayal. They met again without Greece, after Greece walked out, with the stated purpose of making plans to guarantee that the rest of the eurozone would not be hurt by Greece's actions and possible default or Grexit.
German minister Sigmar Gabriel said: "There must be a clear program. And what he (Tsipras) would like – for Europe to send €20 or €30 billion in aid programs to Greece, but without any conditions – Europe cannot accept."
However, many European officials say that they stand ready to negotiate if Greek officials change their minds. According to Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble:
"We have no basis for further negotiations. Clearly we can never rule out surprises with Greece, so there can always be hope. But none of my colleagues with whom I've already spoken see any possibilities for what we can now do. ...We decided today that we will not extend the second program. We did not decide to end the euro zone membership of Greece."
As I've been saying for weeks, the logic of the Game of Chicken is that there will be no deal until one minute to midnight on June 30, when a 1.5 billion euro debt payment is due to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One angle is that if Greece misses the June payment, then the IMF has the choice of calling it a default, or just saying that Greece is "in arrears," and give them another month. But after Greece walked out of the talks, Eurogroup members apparently are now expecting Greece to default. Kathimerini and AFP and Guardian (London)
Greece's people are close to panic, wondering what will happen next week, even on Monday. There were long lines on ATM machines on Saturday, since many Greeks do not feel confident that the banks will even be open on Monday.
One question that the Eurogroup left open on Saturday was when the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) program would be terminated. The ELA is money that the European Central Bank (ECB) has been supplying to the Greek banking system, as Greeks have withdrawn billions of euros in the last few weeks. On the day that the ELA is terminated, severe capital controls will be implemented, meaning that withdrawals will be limited to a small amount each day. Some banks are already setting limits.
Another question on everyone's mind is this: If the referendum is held on July 5, exactly what will the Greeks be voting on, inasmuch as the Eurogroup has announced that the entire program will end on at midnight on Tuesday, June 30? Will they be voting on some bailout deal, or will they be voting on their entire future in Europe?
Greece's institutional lenders -- the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been demanding for months that Greece reduce pension payments by increasing the retirement age over time, cut the defense budget, reduce the public payroll, reduce planned tax increases on businesses, and increase the VAT (value added tax) in some areas.
Since Alexis Tsipras and his far left Syriza government came to power in January, he's added public employees, increased taxes on businesses, and refused to touch the retirement age.
As I've said many times in the last few years, no solution exists for the Greek debt problem, and that's why no solution has been found, or will be found. But even if some kind of deal can be agreed on, presumably at one minute to midnight on Tuesday, all it will do is kick the can down the road for a few weeks. The deal under discussion is for the last €7.2 billion tranche of the second bailout loan. Greece needs a third bailout loan, and that will begin negotiations all over again in a few weeks, something that is so painful, both sides are wondering whether it's worth it.
The long-suffering Greek people are watching all this drama and are pretty sure of only one thing: That things are about to get a lot worse. Irish Times and Reuters and Bloomberg and Kathimerini
Tunisia's Prime Minister Habib Essid accused 80 mosques of "spreading venom," and announced that they would all close, as part of a clampdown on security. This follows Friday's terrorist attack on a beach in the Sousse holiday resort in which 38 people were killed.
Many Tunisians are demanding to know why stronger security measures weren't taken after the March terrorist attack on a museum in the capital city Tunis. ( "19-Mar-15 World View -- Beneath the surface, Tunisia is a terrorist breeding ground")
As I wrote at the time, some 3,000 Tunisians have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), more than any other country in the world, and Tunisian preachers are extremely skillful at convincing young men to join ISIS. So the charge that some Tunisian mosques are "spreading venom" is widely believed.
However, many analysts question how effective closing mosques will be. According to one analyst, the closures will end up creating a two sets of mosques:
"You will have a parallel religious sphere where people don’t go to the mosques because they think the mosques only tell us what the state would like us to hear, so they go to private meetings. Once you have this parallel market, radical ideas can spread much more quickly, because you have no control."
Nonetheless, after Friday's terrorist attack, one of the worst in decades, people are going to be demanding that the government "do something."
As I reported yesterday, there were four major terrorist attacks on Friday, the others being in Somalia, Kuwait and France. This kind of widespread terrorism is going to increase demands in many countries to take steps, even if the steps won't work, to prevent further terrorist attacks. Indeed, it's thought to be impossible to stop "lone wolf" terrorist attacks, such as the ones in Tunisia, Kuwait and France on Friday.
As I've been writing for years, nationalism and xenophobia are increasing in country after country as the World War II survivors die off, as the generational Crisis era deepens. We've seen this in story after story -- Russia's xenophobia towards Caucasian Muslims, Europeans toward Jews, Roma and Muslims, Chinese towards Americans and Japanese, Sunni and Shia towards each other, and so forth. Note that Generational Dynamics does not make a moral judgment about these trends, any more than a weather forecaster makes a moral judgment about an approaching rainstorm. But Generational Dynamics predicts that this nationalism and xenophobia will continue to increase in country after country, and lead to World War III. This global increase in xenophobia and nationalism is a trend that cannot be stopped, certainly not be closing a few dozen mosques. CS Monitor and BBC
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Jun-15 World View -- Greece's Tsipras rejects 'extortionate ultimatum' and ends bailout negotiations thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Jun-2015)
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China's stock markets continue their free-fall
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The al-Qaeda linked terror group al-Shabaab attacked an African Union base in the village of Lego in Somalia, killing dozens and taking complete control of the village and the region. The base is part of the Amisom peacekeeping force.
The dawn raid started with a suicide bomber driving a car loaded with explosives into the entrance of the base, and then dozens of militants armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades began their assault.
According to an al-Shabaab spokesman, "The Black Islamic flag is flying over the main base of Amisom in Lego this morning and the dead bodies of the enemy are scattered around the area, the mujaheddin fighters have taken all their military supplies."
Al-Shabaab had previously promised to step up its attacks during the holy month of Ramadan. AP and AFP
The terror group "Najd Province" claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing attack on the Imam Sadiq Mosque in Kuwait's capital city, Kuwait City, during Friday prayers, killing 27 people and wounding over 200. The terrorist wore a white robe that concealed the bomb, and was not prevented from entering the crowded mosque.
The name "Najd Province" refers to the central region of Saudi Arabia where the ultraconservative Sunni ideology of Wahhabism originated. It claims to be an affiliate of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). The group also claimed responsibility for bombing attacks at two Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia in late May, killing 26 people.
Kuwait is a predominantly Sunni Arab nation, where 1/3 of the population is Shia.
ISIS has been openly promoting a sectarian war between Shias and Sunnis, and the attacks on Shia mosques are meant to trigger that war. KUNA - Kuwait News Agency and AP
The French people have barely recovered from the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris in January ( "11-Jan-15 World View -- France officials criticized for not stopping Charlie Hebdo terror attack").
So it's certain that Friday's attack on the US-owned Air Products factory is going to inflame the French people's anxieties and lead to demands for further action for protection from terrorists.
The suspect, Yassin Sahli, accelerated the van he was driving, and rammed it into a warehouse containing canisters of acetone, liquid air and gas, resulting in an explosion that was seen miles away. The explosion killed two people.
What was particularly grisly about the attack was the discovery of a severed head hanging from a fence after the blast. There were two black flags with Islamic writing hanging near the victim's head. The decapitated body was found later in the suspect's van.
The suspect was recognized as working for a delivery service that made regular deliveries to the factory, so he was never questioned on arrival. The decapitated body was that of his boss at the delivery company.
The suspect has been married for ten years, and has three children. His wife and sister have also been arrested. France24 and CNN
A gunman disguised as a tourist opened fire at a Tunisian hotel in Sousse on Friday, killing 37 people. According to some reports, he arrived at the beach in a boat, and hid his weapons in an umbrella. He removed the weapon, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, from the umbrella and strolled through the hotel grounds, opening fire at the pool and beach, reloading his weapon several times and tossing an explosive.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. In a tweet, a spokesman said: "Our brother, the soldier of the Caliphate, Abu Yihya al-Kairouni, reached his target the Imperial hotel despite the security measures."
As in the case of France, shocked Tunisians are just barely recovering from a previous terror attack, at a museum in the capital city Tunis in March. ( "19-Mar-15 World View -- Beneath the surface, Tunisia is a terrorist breeding ground") Friday's attack was the worst terrorist attack in Tunisia since 2002.
It's thought that ISIS is targeting Tunisia because Tunisia is the major success story of the "Arab Spring," which actually began in Tunisia in 2011. However, unlike other Arab countries, Tunisia has been a successful secular democracy. The terror attack actually targets Tunisia's tourist industry, which accounts for 15% of its GDP and most of its foreign currency revenues. BBC and Reuters
Some commentators are describing Friday's attacks as a further Muslim attack against the West, but it's very hard to find much evidence of that. The attack in Tunisia targeted Tunisia's tourist industry, even though most of the victims were European tourists. The attack in France is ambiguous because the suspect killed his boss, so it may have been motivated by workplace violence rather than by ideology. However, the attacks in Kuwait and Somalia were clearly targeted at other Muslims.
As I've been writing for months, there is no Muslim war against Christians and the West -- at least not yet. The number of Christians being killed by Muslims is minuscule compared to the vast number of Muslims being killed by Muslims in the Mideast, North Africa and Asia.
Other commentators are wondering if all four attacks are coordinated by ISIS, and there's a little evidence of that, though not much. ISIS has made a general call for more terror attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, especially on Fridays, when the mosques are packed for Friday prayers. Al-Shabaab has made a similar call. So it's possible that the four attacks were not coordinated, but coincided because of the opportunity of the first Friday in Ramadan. At any rate, ISIS claimed credit for only the attacks in Kuwait and Tunisia, and al-Shabaab is al-Qaeda linked, not ISIS linked.
Finally, many commentators are confused about why ISIS would want to trigger a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shias. I've explained this many times, but now is a good time to repeat it.
For the west, the major generational crisis war of the last century was World War II. Almost every policy of almost every Western government has been a reaction to something that happened during WW II. It's significance cannot be overestimated.
However, WW II was NOT the most significant war to the Muslims in the Mideast. For them, the generational crisis wars were the collapse of the Ottoman Empire around 1920, along with associated wars such as Iran's Constitutional Revolution in the 1900s, and then Iran's 1979 Great Islamic Revolution, along with associated wars such as the Iran/Iraq war, Syria's civil war and Lebanon's civil war, all in the 1980s. Those two groups of wars were far more significant in the Mideast than World War II, and almost every policy of almost every Mideast country has been a reaction to something that happened during those wars.
For ISIS, and previously for al-Qaeda, the most significant war was Iran's 1979 revolution, which threw out a secular government and replaced it with a hardline Shia near-dictatorship. For Sunni jihadists, this is the dream war that they want to mimic, by triggering a violent Shia-Sunni civil war in any of a number of countries, expecting it to lead to a hardline Sunni dictatorship.
To them, and to Westerners who say that they would like a sectarian Mideast war because it would mean more Muslims killing Muslims, I would tell you: Be careful what you wish for. And I promise you that if you survive, then you'll regret having ever wished for such a thing.
At any rate, this will not be the last day with four terrorist attacks. If anything, ISIS and al-Qaeda will try to repeat their "success" in days to come.
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As we reported a week ago on Friday, China's huge stock market bubble began to burst, and the Shanghai stock market index plunged 13% for one horrible week.
This past week has been just as horrible. On Friday alone, the index fell 7.4%. Hundreds of individual stocks fell 10%, the maximum amount permitted, suggesting that the index might have fallen much farther. The index reached its peak on June 12, and has fallen 19% since then.
In the year preceding June 12, the stock market index surged 250%, creating a huge stock market bubble. Individual Chinese, many of them older citizens, poured their life savings into the stock market in search of high returns. As one analyst said, "This is going to end in tears." Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Jun-15 World View -- Terror attacks in Kuwait, France, Somalia and Tunisia highlight growing sectarian war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Jun-2015)
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European leaders prepare for Greece to default
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Pakistan is now permitting Save the Children to reopen its headquarters office in the nation's capital Islamabad, as well as 13 of 73 offices across the country. Save the Children will be forbidden from operating in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and other sensitive areas.
Pakistan's government has shut down the aid organization Save the Children, locked and seized their office building in Islamabad, and gave them 15 days to leave the country.
On June 11, Pakistan unexpectedly shut down Save the Children, sealing all its offices, giving them 15 days to leave the country. The interior minister announced that it was clamping down on non-government organizations (NGOs) that provide aid:
"We will not allow anyone to work under the table. We will not allow any NGO to work in this country against Pakistan’s interests, culture and values."
No explanation was given for closing Save the Children, and government officials were accused in the media of paranoia and xenophobia. Pakistan began to back off almost immediately, and now has allowed some of the offices to reopen.
Pakistan's campaign against NGOs is believed to have been triggered by the American administration bragging in 2011 that a vaccination program in Pakistan was used as a cover to locate and capture Osama bin Laden. Save the Children says they had nothing to do with that, but since 2011, every foreign aid program has come under suspicion. Pakistan Today and Nation (Pakistan) and BBC
The Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) on Thursday killed dozens of Kurds, mostly civilians, in a brutal attack on Kobani. The ISIS militants disguised themselves in YPG uniforms, so they were undetected, until they opened fire. The is attack is apparently in revenge for recent gains by Kurdisk YPG militias.
As we reported just two days ago, Kurdish YPG militias have inflicted some major military defeats on ISIS in the latter's stronghold province Raqqa in northern Syria. The YPG victories were attained in combination with forces from the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), and supported by hundreds of airstrikes from the US coalition.
In Turkey, the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) accused the government of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan of allowing of playing a part in the ISIS victory. It's not known where the ISIS militants came from before entering Kobani, and some HDP officials are suggesting that they crossed over from Turkey with the help of the Turkish government.
An outraged Erdogan accused the HDP of being a "tool of the Bashar al-Assad regime and some international lobbies which are enemies of Turkey," and said:
"We see that the circles close to the separatist organization [Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)], I mean prominent figures from the political party [HDP], are carrying out a slander and black propaganda campaign in the wake of this nefarious attack. They are trying to provoke our nation with these completely baseless claims .... I am saying this openly once again, nobody can dare to show Turkey on the same line with terrorism."
The HDP described the ISIS attack on Kobani as a massacre and blamed it on Turkish state support for the militants, a claim which was strongly denied by the Turkish government. Daily Mail (London) and Today's Zaman (Istanbul)
The high stakes Game of Chicken being played out in Brussels took new steps forward on Thursday as a Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers ended without any decision. Another Eurogroup meeting will be held over the weekend.
Greek citizens have withdrawn billions of euros from the Greek banking system in recent weeks. To keep the banking system from collapsing, the European Central Bank (ECB) has been providing money to the banks in the form of its Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA).
Plans are being made to end the ELA on Monday, if there's no deal over the weekend. In that case, capital controls would be imposed on Greek banks, meaning that Greeks would be severely limited in the amount of money they would be allowed to withdraw.
If that's a European threat that's directed at Greece, then the Greeks have their own threats directed at Europe. First, the Greeks can threaten to go to Moscow for a bailout, which would give Russia sweet revenge for the European sanctions imposed on Russia. And second, Greece could send all the African and Syrian migrants in Greece across the borders into other European countries.
Actually, the negotiations are continuing to follow the Game of Chicken scenario. The logic of the Game of Chicken, where two cars race towards each other at top speed to see who veers first to avoid a collision, is that neither car veers until the last nanosecond, if at all. So if we're really following that scenario, then we shouldn't expect a deal until Tuesday, which is supposed to be the final, final, final deadline. Kathimerini and Irish Examiner
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Jun-15 World View -- Turkey denies responsibility for ISIS massacre on Kurds in Kobani thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Jun-2015)
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Palestinians to submit war crimes charges against Israel to ICC
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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With migrants from Africa and Syria flooding into Europe, disagreements are arising among the European Union countries on dealing with them.
In the case of Hungary, prime minister Viktor Orbán, is personally disliked by other EU leaders, has said that the country is being overwhelmed by migrants, with more than 60,000 having crossed in Hungary from outside the EU since the start of 2015, which is more than any other EU country. Most of the migrants have crossed into Hungary from Serbia, which is not an EU country.
In the last week, Orbán has announced three measures to control the number of migrants in Hungary:
VOA and International Business Times (London) and SpyGhana
That's not the only current conflict between EU countries over the migrant crisis. France and Britain have been pointing the fingers of blame at each other over a major crisis in the French port of Calais, which is the location of the entrance to the Channel Tunnel that connects France to Britain.
There's been a flood of migrants into Calais, wanting to reach Britain to take advantage of the generous benefits. Migrants have been burning tires and using other methods to slow the trucks trying to travel to Britain, and then jumping into the trucks while they're stopped, hoping that they won't be detected until they reach Britain.
One 20-year-old migrant was quoted as saying:
"My future would be better if I get to England. I need to get to England. I came here via Turkey and Greece and now I'm living in the jungle in Calais. The situation here is very bad.But life in Syria was worse. Our homes were destroyed and our government used chemical weapons against us. I need a better life in England and I will do whatever it takes."
Some officials are expressing the fear that jihadists and terrorist would hide in the crowd of migrants in Calais, and use the chaos to travel to the UK. Telegraph (London)
The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Thursday will submit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague files describing alleged war crimes by Israel.
According to reports, there will be charges in three areas:
With regard to the third item, we reported last year in July, while the war was in progress, that Palestinian lawyers are saying that they are on solid grounds in some areas, but that Hamas would face war crimes charges themselves, for shooting rockets indiscriminately into Israel from heavily populated Gaza neighborhoods, and for storing weapons in civilian neighborhoods. Both of these are war crimes.
Although the accusations will be embarrassing to Israel, they're not expected to have any legal force, and any investigation that occurs will likely not begin for many months. Reuters and YNet and Guardian (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Jun-15 World View -- Hungary and Austria in disagreement over migrants thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Jun-2015)
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Syrian Kurd militias deal a heavy blow to ISIS
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Kurdish YPG militias in Syria, combined with forces from the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), have succeeded in a string of dramatic and significant victories over the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) in their stronghold in Raqqa province.
On Monday, YPG/FSA forces took full control of the town of Ain Issa, as well as the Liwa-93 military base, following last week's seizure of the border town of Tel Abyad.
These are significant victories for a couple of reasons. First, it leaves the Kurdish forces poised to strike at the city of Raqqa itself, the self-declared capital of ISIS in Syria.
And second, it cuts off two important supply routes for ISIS, the north-south route from Raqqa to Turkey, and the east-west high running through Ain Issa, which links the city of Aleppo with the north-eastern province of Hasaka, which leads into Iraq, which makes these victories a significant blow to ISIS.
It's also significant that these victories were done in close coordination with the US and the US-led coalition, with the offensive backed heavily with dozens of coalition airstrikes.
The close cooperation between the US and the Syrian Kurds began last year in the battle over the Syrian town of Kobani, on the border with Turkey, with a victory by the Kurds. ( "27-Jan-15 World View -- Kurdish militias drive ISIS out of the Syrian town of Kobani") After that, the Kurdish forces began moving east toward Tal Abyad, while other Kurdish forces in eastern Syria began moving west. The two forces met near Tal Abyad last week, cutting off the main north-south road between Raqqa and Turkey. ISIS had been using that route to funnel foreign fighters and equipment into Syria and sell their black market oil.
Now the victories in Raqqa province are said to be a model for future cooperation between the US and the Kurds when fighting ISIS. According to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren:
"This fight ... has been an example of ISIL fighters breaking under the pressure delivered by coalition air power and capable and willing ground forces."
Hundreds of Syrian refugees in Turkey returned to their homes in Tal Abyad on Tuesday. They had fled to Turkey to escape the fighting between YPG and ISIS.
Both Syria's army and Iraq's army have shown little will to fight against ISIS, nor has Hezbollah. The strongest fighting on the ground against ISIS has been with the local groups, the Kurds and the Shia militias known as Hashid Shaabi (popular mobilization units). The US is cooperating with these groups, thus providing indirect support to the PKK and Iran, which are listed as terrorist groups and sponsors by the US State Dept.
Note: PYD = Kurdish Democratic Union Party in Syria. YPG = Kurdish People’s Protection Unit in Syria, armed wing of the PYD. YPJ = Women’s Protection Units in Syria. HDP = Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, PKK = Kurdistan Workers' Party anti-government insurgents in Turkey. In Syria, YPG is the armed wing of the PYD, which is allied with the PKK in Turkey, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US. Peshmerga = Kurdish militias in Iraq. Be prepared for a quiz. Australian Broadcasting and USA Today and Today's Zaman (Istanbul)
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has always made it clear that his top priority is to get rid of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Furthermore, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is a separatist group fighting for an independent Kurdistan, taking pieces from Syria, Turkey and Iraq. The PKK considered a terrorist organization by both the US and Turkey, and there has been years of terrorist PKK violence in Turkey.
So Erdogan is not happy with the turn of events that have allowed the Kurds in eastern and western Syria to link up at Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey, with substantial support from US airstrikes.
Erdogan's opposition in Turkey is now saying that pro-Erdogan media is siding with ISIS against the Kurds. According to reports, officials in Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been praising ISIS and demonizing the Kurds.
A report in the pro-opposition Daily Zaman quotes the Sabah daily headline: "PYD is more dangerous than Daesh." Sabah also claimed that the PYD were not allowing Turkmens and Arabs from Tal Abyad to return to their towns and hinted that the real target of the Kurdish militants is actually Turkey.
Turkey's deputy prime minister Bülent Arinç says, "We see that there are signs pointing towards a kind of ethnic cleansing," by both the PYD and ISIS.
A Turkish state broadcaster said:
"Daesh attacks and kills those it captures. The PYD/PKK seize certain regions and force people living there to migrate. It doesn't matter who comes -- the [al-Assad] regime, Daesh or the PYD -- they are all persecuting civilians."
Saudi media makes it clear that the Saudis are also pretty unhappy with US support for the Kurds and for Iran, while leaving Syria's president Bashar al-Assad untouched. There's nothing new about this, as the Obama administration has been relentless offensive to the Saudis, and has alienated them considerably. However, the support for the Kurds is one more step in the same direction.
According to a report in the Arab News:
"As you will remember, the coalition partners that remained silent during the four years of turmoil in Iraq and Syria immediately swung into action when Kobani was targeted last year and provided military assistance to the PYD/YPG forces in the region. ...At the same time we issued this warning: The PYD, a terror organization, and its armed wing the YPG, are more dangerous than all the armed groups in Syria. The US must become aware of the growing communist threat.
Despite these warnings, very little has changed in the attitude of the US and its allies. The YPG now know the passcode that would open all doors for them. It used Daesh card in every area it advanced through, ensured that coalition planes would bomb the region and thus secured control of that territory. When events were portrayed in that manner in the international media, all developments were depicted as a victory; not a word was said about the civilians dying in the coalition attacks or local residents under threat by the YPG.
The same thing has now happened in the region of Tal Abyad. ... The code word “Daesh” was employed again and coalition planes horrifyingly dropped bombs on the local residents of Tal Abyad. The interesting thing is that the area had already been under Daesh control for a year. The only thing new in the area was the violence inflicted on the inhabitants by the coalition bombs and the YPG.
Certainly we in no way approve of the violence employed by Daesh in Syria and Iraq. But the point we wish to make here is that the YPG is playing the Daesh card to legitimize its own evil and to deceive the US in particular. The terrible thing is that the US secret state apparatus that has wanted to see a Great Kurdistan for the last 100 years is keen to believe in this scenario and believes that its objective is being attained."
In another Arab News editorial:
"Today, one can summarize Washington’s approach toward Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon as follows:* In Iraq, it is supporting the ruling elite jointly brought to power by the 2003 US invasion and Iran’s expansionist policies.
* In Syria, the virtual disregard of human suffering and meaningless “red-lines” after four years and three months of the country’s popular uprising.
* In Lebanon, the tacit acceptance of Hezbollah’s hegemony after neutralizing the former battlefront with Israel through UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
In all three cases Washington’s policies have been underpinned by Obama’s all-out push for an “agreement” with Iran, and his exploitation of Daesh extremism as the perfect justification for such an agreement, eventually developing into a full-fledged alliance."
This is a good time to review where things stand. As I've been writing for years, we're headed for a Clash of Civilizations world war in which some of the "allies" will be the West, India, Russia and Iran, and some of the "axis" will be China, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries. In the Mideast, the US will be siding with the Shias against the Sunnis.
The events of the last year allow us to refine this, in that it's becoming increasingly clear that the Kurds will be aligned with the Shias and the West against the Sunnis.
I've written about this many times, at length. In brief, the explanation is as follows: China is allied with Pakistan, which is allied with Saudi Arabia. The US is allied with India, which is a close ally of Russia, which is a close ally of Iran. Also, India's Hindus and Iran's Shia's have been allies all the way back to the Battle of Karbala in 680. ( "China 'betrays' Iran, as internal problems in both countries mount" from 2008.)
It's actually been pretty obvious for years that Iran would become our ally, because there large numbers of pro-American and pro-Western student demonstrations in the early 2000s. Although the old geezers who survived the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution refer to America as the Great Satan, the young people are overwhelmingly pro-Western, and are taking over as the Revolution survivors grow old and die off. Arab News and Arab News
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According to a helpful analysis of moustache styles in Turkey, there are three main styles illustrated above:
Moustaches in both of the latter styles are generally trimmed short, in line with the advice of the Prophet Muhammad. Hurriyet (Ankara)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Jun-15 World View -- US aligns with Kurds and Shias in Syria and Iraq, angering Turks and Saudis thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Jun-2015)
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Report: Greece's debt crisis being kicked down the road
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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There are reports that Greek officials have finally made some concessions, especially raising taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals, and that the lending institutions are starting from those, and are close to making a deal that will allow Greece to make its 1.5 billion euro debt payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on June 30.
If a "deal" is made, all it will do is kick the can down the road for a few weeks. The deal is for the last 7.2 billion euro tranche of the second bailout loan. That money will permit Greece to meet its IMF payment, as well as several other payments due in July and August, but no more.
What Greece needs is a third bailout loan. So assuming that this "deal" is concluded later this week, then negotiations on the new bailout loan will have to begin soon, and the drama will start all over again.
On Bloomberg TV on Monday, there was an interview with Anna-Michel Asimakopoulou, who is the finance minister for Greece's opposition New Democracy party, which was the government party before Alexis Tsipras's victory in January's election. Asimakopoulou expressed a great deal of bitterness about what Tsipras has done (my transcription):
"Mr. Tsipras in 5 months has managed to bring the real economy to a standstill, turn us into a recessionary cycle, undo every decent thing that has been done, and now we're facing the following choice: A deal, which is going to cost the Greek people 5 billion euros in measures, on the one hand, and the absolutely worst case scenario, which is no deal, which means we're facing uncharted waters, bankruptcy, and a possible Grexit [Greek exit from the eurozone]. ...This is a critical thing for Greece's future. It's not a little bitty decision - it's a huge decision. He is not allowed to jeopardize our future in the eurozone - he doesn't have the mandate to do that. And yes, now people are taking money out of the banks, now the public sector has stopped making any payments towards anybody except for wages and salaries and we're not really sure that's gonna last. ...
Our main concern with this deal, assuming it happens and we hope it does, it's taxes, taxes and more taxes. There's nothing that will favor growth. We think growth is gonna come from the private sector, from businesses. We're all for privatizations. We don't want a bloated public sector. Mr. Tsipras has hired 5,000 people in the public sector in the last three months. That has a price tag, and the price tag is being paid by the Greek people."
Even if a deal is made, then it has to be sold to the Greek people, who have been promised no more austerity, and to the German people, who don't want to pay any more to bail out Greece.
As I've said repeatedly, no solution exists to Greece's debt crisis. I think everyone believes that the can will run out of road at some point, but we don't know when. Kathimerini and BBC
It's the start of the Afghan Taliban's summer offensive, and they've scored two major victories in the last three days: A major terrorist attack on the Afghan Parliament in Kabul on Monday, and the imminent takeover of a major Afghan city in northern Afghanistan, for the first time since 2001.
On Monday there was a terrorist attack captured on live TV in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Afghan Parliament complex, bringing down a part of the roof, and then six other terrorists rushed in, armed with assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades, but they were not successful in breaching the compound's gates. All seven terrorists were killed, as was a woman civilian. 30 civilians were wounded.
The Parliament building is the most heavily guarded area in Kabul. Every time there's a successful terrorist attack in central Kabul, there's the usual commentary demanding an investigation about how terrorists were able to get so close to the center of power. But the situation seems to be worsening.
However, such attacks have been occurring with increased regularity, as the Nato and American forces have been withdrawn. The attack fits a pattern of high-profile assaults on heavily fortified buildings in the capital. Last month, car bombs targeted the Justice Ministry, and attackers stormed two guesthouses used by foreigners. Reuters and AFP and Hindustan Times
Taliban forces have captured two villages near the city of Kunduz in the last two days, and are close to seizing Kunduz itself, forcing tens of thousands of refugees to flee their homes. With a population of 300,000, this will be the first time since 2001, when American forces defeated the Taliban after 9/11, that the Taliban have been in control of a large city. Whoever controls Kunduz, a vast, rich agricultural region that was a former Taliban bastion, controls the roads to northeastern Afghanistan as well as smuggling and trade routes into neighboring Tajikistan and the rest of Central Asia.
The government in Kabul has dispatched reinforcements, including Afghan Special Forces and their U.S. advisers and trainers, to try to repel the insurgents and rescue about 75 soldiers and policemen trapped inside their district base. But the Afghan forces are spread very thin, fighting on several fronts. Washington Post and Stars and Stripes
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Jun-15 World View -- Afghan Taliban score major victories as US and Nato withdraw forces thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Jun-2015)
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Tick-tock tick-tock, Greece's clock is running down
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Shanghai stock market has been fairly steady for years, but last year it suddenly started surging into bubble territory, increasing by 250% in the last year.
Then, after reaching a peak of 5166 on Friday, June 12, it suddenly started plunging all of the last week, falling 13% to 4478 by Friday, June 19, including a 6.4% fall on Friday alone. This is the worst run in China's stock market since the 2008/09 financial crisis.
Chinese analysts are giving four reasons for the plunge:
However, Western analysts point to the explosive greater-than-exponential growth in "retail investor" stock trading accounts, especially in the last few months, for people who are investing their life savings over the internet. Many Chinese have been using the stock market bubble to make a living. According to one report, retail investors are prone to herding patterns of behavior when markets become stressed, which could lead to "periods of mass fund exodus."
ZeroHedge has done an analysis and discovered that Chinese officials are so worried about this situation that they've stopped releasing data about the number of new stock trading accounts. They've been providing this data for 8 years, but suddenly stopped on May 29. At that time, the number of retail stock trading accounts spiked to 4.3 million, but there's been no released data since then. Global Times (Beijing) and CNBC and ZeroHedge
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Wall Street stocks have surged further into bubble territory as well during the last year, just like Shanghai stocks, though they have not yet taken any serious plunge like the Shanghai stock exchange.
It's been a month since I reported that the S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio (stock valuation index) was at an astronomically high 21.47 on May 15, indicating a huge stock market bubble. Since then it's shot up further to the ever more astronomical level of 21.73, according to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, June 19.
21.73 is far above the historical average of 14. Furthermore, it was 18 just a year ago, and has been increasing rapidly since then, indicating that the Wall Street stock market bubble is accelerating, just as the Shanghai stock market bubble has been accelerating during the last year. Generational Dynamics predicts that a panic will occur, and that the P/E ratio will fall to the 5-6 range or lower, which is where it was as recently as 1982, resulting in a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 3000 or lower.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Syntagma (Constitution) Square in Athens on Sunday to demand that Greece's government not give in to the demands of the lending institutions. Those demands are to increase taxes and reduce pension benefits by increasing the retirement age.
The protests were organized by left-wing parties and trade unions. According to polls, the Greek people want Greece to remain in the euro, but also want more benefits such as an increase in the minimum wage. In other words, the Greek protestors are demanding to return to the old days, when they could spend all they want with no care or worry.
That's the crux of the problem. A lot of people are recommending that the lending institutions just give in to the Greek government, and forgive their current debt. Unfortunately, everyone knows what would happen next. Greece would increase the minimum wage, increase pension benefits, hire more public employees, and soon end up owing just as much as before. That situation is politically untenable for the rest of Europe.
I've been saying for years that there's no solution to the Greek fiscal crisis. And by that I'm not saying that that the Greeks and the lending institutions haven't yet been clever enough to think up a solution. I'm saying that no solution exists. When no solution exists, then the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in, and we may now be close to that time.
So on Monday there's going to be another Eurogroup meeting in Brussels. Usually, the Eurogroup meetings are attended by each eurozone country's finance minister. But Monday's meeting will be extraordinary in that eurozone heads of governments will be in attendance.
According to reports, Greece's government will be presented with two options: to either accept the reforms proposed by Greece’s lending institutions, potentially with some Greek amendments, or to prepare his country for a default.
Others have mentioned a third option: Kick the can down the road by providing a loan for just enough money to get through to the end of the year. In January there was a compromise that kicked the can down the road to June, so a new compromise would do the same until December, and then we would start all over again.
In 8 days, Greece has to pay 1.5 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or go into default. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Kathimerini and Irish Times and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Jun-15 World View -- China's bubble stock market plunges 13% in one week thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Jun-2015)
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Russia's concerns about China's 'invasion' of the Far East continue
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Russia is planning to least to a Chinese company for 49 years 115,000 hectares (284,050 acres) of land to grow crops and rear livestock in eastern Siberia. The lease will be at the rate of 250 rubles (about $4.63) per hectare, totaling $26 million, plus investments worth around 3 billion yuans ($448 million).
The land is in in the Trans-Baikal region on the border with China in Russia's Federal District of Siberia. This announcement has provoked nationalists in Moscow and Siberia, who may welcome China's investments, but are unhappy with the influx of ethnic Chinese that would enter the region.
This caused an uproar in social media, with comments like, "China’s creeping expansion in Russia has begun" and "the Motherland is being sold out piece by piece."
This has forced Russian officials to call concerns about Chinese expansion a "myth." According to one Russian analyst:
"There are fears of irrational nature about China in society.China is perceived in Russian consciousness as something alien and different compared with western culture. Besides, China is developing so swiftly that many Russians fear that it may suppress Russia. ...
[Also,] China possesses some of the world’s most advanced agricultural technologies and could help Russia in this respect."
However, other analysts are raising concerns about proposed terms of the deal that Russian officials are rarely mentioning: namely that the Chinese plan a "large-scale" migration to the leased Russian lands.
According to a Russian analysis, quoting Chinese media:
"Leasing Russian land to the Chinese , apparently, goes far beyond a purely agricultural enterprise.China has its own requirements for the project: ... 'If you can't legally solve the problem of large-scale involvement of the Chinese labor force, any long-term cooperation with Chinese agricultural enterprises [is] out of the question," [according to China's] 'Huanqiu Shibao newspaper.' In other words, the Chinese say that the existing border and migration regime with Russia do not suit them. ...
[Russians] are wary of China's economic expansion in the light of China's territorial claims on Russia. ... Beijing is well aware that the issue of delivery of Russian land is not solved in the administration of the Trans-Baikal Territory. That is why Beijing calls a long-term transfer of land the "ideological emancipation" of Russia to China. ...
[The letter of intent for the lease] indicates that the project will be implemented only with "large-scale" Chinese migration to Russia. ... So, under these restrictions, Moscow will have to agree to the abolition of the existing border and migration regime for the Chinese.
Window On Eurasia / Paul Goble and Itar-Tass and Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Trans)
In my recent article "18-Jun-15 World View -- Russia's 'saber-rattling' nuclear threat may be directed at China, not Europe", I quoted an analyst who suggested that Russia's threat to add more than 40 ICBMs to its nuclear arsenal was made because of existential threats from China rather than from Europe.
Several web site readers said that this didn't make sense. One comment said:
"I don't see it. Vladivostok is the home of the Russian Pacific Fleet. Russia has over two dozen nuclear-armed submarines alone, swimming around. Eastern Russia is armed to the teeth to ward off and respond to US attack, a legacy of the Cold War. Russia has been granted port facilities in Vietnam, a long time ally. In addition, Russia has excellent commercial ties with China and has just signed a long term oil deal with them. China and Russia's interests are economically win-win. They each gain from each other's economic strength: raw material (Russia), manufacturing (China). They have a symbiotic economic and political interest in trade with the rest of the world, especially Europe. China would surely benefit from Russian collapse, but only if they could then expropriate, occupy, govern and defend a vast territory - and for what? They already have a sweet deal for the only thing Russia is useful for: raw materials."
It's true that Russia and China have managed to paper over their differences in the last few years, but Russia and China have had centuries of extremely bitter and violent relations, at least since the 13th century Mongol invasion of Russia. As recently as 1969 there was a border war between China and Russia, with the threat of a much wider war.
There is something that China values more than raw materials or even people: land. And that's what at issue in the Trans-Baikal deal in Russia's Federal District of Siberia described above.
The situation in Russia's Federal District of Far East -- which is even farther east than Siberia -- is particularly desperate for Russia. The Far East is an enormous region, but only 7.4 million Russians populate the region. This means that the region acts as a kind of "safety valve" for migrants from northeast China, with its population of 70 million.
According to some estimates, there are 2-5 million Chinese illegal immigrants living in Russia's Far East, and the number is increasing by a million or so every year.
For those who might enjoy some Schadenfreude at Russia's expense, consider the following: Russia justified last year's illegal invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by saying that Russia needed to protect all the Russian citizens living there.
So, as Chinese migrants pour into Russia's Far East, it won't be long before the Chinese can use Russia's argument against Russia: China has to annex Russia's Far East in order to protect all the Chinese citizens living there.
At any rate, the purpose of the article on Russia's nuclear saber-rattling was to make the point that Russia cannot win a conventional war with China in the Far East, and so would have to resort to nuclear weapons, just as Pakistan cannot win a conventional war with India, and would have to resort to nuclear weapons, which might be why Russia is adding nuclear ICBMs to its inventory. ABC News (2014) and Jamestown (2014)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Jun-15 World View -- Russia makes a controversial deal to lease Siberia land to China thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Jun-2015)
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Human slavery at the highest level in human history
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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When Winston Churchill wrote his monumental six-volume history of World War II, he titled the first volume The Gathering Storm, he described the signs that a world war was approaching. He particularly focused on the Nazis in Germany, and their massive increase in military power, particularly in air power, which Churchill foresaw would put Britain at existential risk.
I've written many articles about China's massive growth in military power, particularly in ballistic and hypersonic missiles, whose only purpose is to destroy American cities, military bases, and aircraft carriers. China is preparing to launch a war against the United States today, just as Hitler was preparing to attack Britain, and that's part of the Gathering Storm today.
But there's another aspect to the gathering storm -- the sudden accelerating world growth in refugees, slaves and terrorists. This is a major trend that's destabilizing the world, and brings us closer to the beginning of the Clash of Civilizations world war.
As the above graph shows, the number of people forced to flee their homes was fairly steady throughout the 2000s, but since 2010, and especially since the Arab Awakening in the Mideast, the number has rapidly accelerated, growing exponentially. From 2000-2010, the number was around 40 million. But then the number started rapidly accelerating, reaching 60 million in 2014.
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's been watching the news for the last year, as there's one refugee crisis after another, whether in Europe, in southeast Asia or the southern border of the United States.
The sources of these refugees and displaced persons are mainly the wars in Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan.
A small percentage are Christian, such as those from Central America or Central African Republic, but most are Muslim, whether it's Muslims killing Muslims in the Mideast or Africa, or Buddhists killing Muslims in Myanmar (Burma).
I've mentioned this several times in the past, because it's quite remarkable. Most people focus on Muslim militias or jihadists killing people, but I believe that the most important fact is that Muslims are seemingly under attack around the world, usually by other Muslims. And this has led to millions more Muslim refugees around the world as well.
According to the UNHCR report, at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited in the past five years: eight in Africa (Côte d'Ivoire, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, northeastern Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and this year in Burundi); three in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, and Yemen); one in Europe (Ukraine) and three in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, and in several areas of Myanmar and Pakistan).
According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres:
"We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before.It is terrifying that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting conflicts, and on the other there is seeming utter inability of the international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve peace."
There's an irony to this. After World War II, the United Nations, along with the United States as Policeman of the World, was set up to try to "stop wars and preserve peace."
But today, the "utter inability of the international community" is caused on the one hand because two of the worst criminal nations -- China for annexing other countries' territories in the South China Sea, and Russia for invading and annexing parts of Ukraine, and also supplying weapons for Bashar al-Assad's genocide in Syria -- are on the UN Security Council, with veto power that prevents the UN from even attempting to stop conflicts. Working together and supporting each other, the criminal nations Russia and China have crippled the United Nations and made it a laughingstock.
As for the United States, Barack Obama is the first president to repudiate President Harry Truman's 1947 Truman Doctrine, which did much to preserve peace for decades, with the most damaging example being the flip-flop about the "red line" of al-Assad's use of chemical weapons.
In his book, "The Gathering Storm," Churchill tells his response to Hitler's occupation of Austria in March 1938:
"Europe is confronted with a programme of aggression, nicely calculated and timed, unfolding stage by stage, and there is only one choice open... either to submit, like Austria, or else to take effective measures while time remains to ward off danger. ...If a number of States were assembled around Great Britain and France in solemn treaty for mutual defense against aggression; ...and if it were done in the year 1938... then I say that you might even now arrest this approaching war."
This is exactly what's happening today in Ukraine, the South China Sea and the Mideast. There's a Gathering Storm today, just as there was in 1938, and the result is going to be catastrophic. UNHCR and CS Monitor and National Churchill Museum
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There's been a lot of nonsense written this week following the Charleston SC terrorist killing, as if the United States invented slavery. Slavery has existed since the start of the human race, and it still exists today. It's estimated that there are 30-40 million slaves in the world today, the highest number in history.
According to Free the Slaves, the African country Mauritania has the highest percentage of slavery in its population: 4%. India has the largest number of people in slavery: 14 million.
There's also slavery in the United States: it's estimated that there are 60,000 slaves in the US today. Would you like to own a slave? Well, you could travel to Mauritania and buy one there, as some people have done.
The most common forms of slavery are:
Other terms that describe slavery are: debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec (a child in Haiti sent by her parents to work for someone else), forced labor, indentured servitude and human trafficking.
Today, the world has the highest number of refugees in history, and the highest number of slaves in history. I haven't seen any figures that relate these, there have been a number of news stories that describe the connection.
These stories describe how Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) have been enslaving many of the people they capture in Syria and Iraq, such as the sexual slavery of Yazidi girls and women. Also, refugees fleeing from countries like Syria or Eritrea or Myanmar often promise to pay money to human traffickers to take them to other places, such as Indonesia, Australia or Europe. At some point during the journey, the traffickers may demand that the refugee call home to ask his family for money, and if that's not possible, then the refugee is sold into slavery.
Although slavery is illegal in every country in the world, slave owners, whether in the US or elsewhere, have very effective techniques for keeping control of their slaves, usually by telling them that their families will be killed if they cause trouble. Slaves in America are often forced to work as prostitutes or as migrant laborers.
India, with 14 million slaves, suffers from all forms of slavery. Although the caste system has become illegal, there are still many children who are born into slavery. Girls from underprivileged classes are particularly vulnerable to sexual slavery, sometimes under the guise of "child marriages." Washington Post and Free The Slaves and Walk Free
According to a new report by the State Dept., the number of terrorist attacks increased 35% from 2013 to 2014, and the number of people killed by terrorist grew 81%.
More than 60 percent of all attacks took place in five countries: Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Nigeria. And 78% of all fatalities due to terrorist attacks also took place in five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria.
According to the report, the world's biggest national sponsor of terrorism is Iran. Iran has continued support for radical Palestinian groups in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and various groups in Iraq, including a Shiite militia designated as a terrorist group. According to the report, "In 2014, Iran continued to provide arms, financing, training, and the facilitation of primarily Iraqi Shia and Afghan fighters to support the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown that has resulted in the deaths of at least 191,000 people in Syria."
The report also singled out Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, with "a penchant for the use of brutal tactics, which included stonings, indiscriminate mass casualty attacks, and kidnapping children for enslavement."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the world is going deeper and deeper into a generational Crisis era, and headed for a Clash of Civilizations world war. And as I've been writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, China, Pakistan and the Sunni Arab countries will be enemies of the West, including the U.S., India, Russia and Iran.
In this article, we've described three major trends -- the accelerating growth in the number of refugees, and the historically high numbers of slaves and terrorist acts -- that are contributing to the Gathering Storm that will lead to this war. We can't predict when it will start (or maybe, with the entire Mideast already in flames, it's started already), but we can be certain that it's coming. Washington Post and US State Dept.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Jun-15 World View -- The Gathering Storm: The accelerating surge in refugees, slaves and terrorists thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Jun-2015)
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Fistfight breaks out at Yemen peace talks in Geneva
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It looks like the United Nations sponsored Yemen peace talks in Geneva are not going to end the war in Yemen after all.
A news conference given by Hamza al-Houthi, the head of the Houthi delegation, was interrupted when an anti-Houthi protestor, a woman in a pink headscarf, threw a shoe at al-Houthi, calling him a "criminal." He caught the shoe and threw it back. There followed a fistfight between the Houthi supporters and protesters, before the latter were escorted out.
Meanwhile, the fighting is continuing in Yemen. There are daily air strikes by the Saudi coalition, mostly at Houthi targets in the capital city Sanaa. Iran-backed Houthis are battling Saudi-backed Sunni tribesmen in several places. Each side gives a daily press briefing explaining why they're the good guys and the others are the bad guys. Internet trolls on both sides abound. France24 and Daily Star (Beirut)
According to a report in Debka's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber), Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has relieved Gen. Qassem Soleimani in charge of his Syria command. I like to reference Debka's newsletter because it contains valuable insights into what's going on, but it's written from Israel's point of view, and sometimes gets things wrong.
Soleimani is the commander of Iran's Al Qods Brigades and supreme commander of Iran forces in the Middle East. According to the report:
"This was taken as a major affront by the elite arm of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).The ayatollah's marching order left Soleimani in charge of Iran's military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon for the time being, but excluded Syria, where military setbacks were piling up too critically to overlook. The Al Qods chief's promise of "major developments," on June 2 -- after he had rushed over to Damascus to deal with the crisis of Palmyra's fall to the Islamic State -- turned out to be empty rhetoric. His bravado in stating "In the next few days the world will be pleasantly surprised from what we (the IRGC) working with Syrian military commanders are preparing," was not been followed up. The suggested dispatch of thousands of Iranian troops to the Assad regime's rescue never materialized. ...
Since then, the plight of the Syrian regime has gone from bad to worse, with the Islamic State and Syrian rebels taking turns cutting off chunks of territory; Hezbollah stalled in its effort to dislodge rebel forces from the Qalamoun Mountains and, worse still, helpless to stem the war's spillover into Lebanon.
The Iranian command governing the two campaigns has ground to a halt pending Tehran's appointment of a new boss to replace Soleimani."
In fact, Soleimani didn't really do very well in Iraq, either. Originally, Soleimani and his Shia militias were going to recapture Tikrit from ISIS. He was going to do it within a few days, without the help of US airstrikes. Instead, Soleimani and his Shia militias had to retreat, and Soleimani fled to Tehran. Afterwards, the Iraqi army captured Tikrit with the help of US airstrikes. ( "24-Mar-15 World View -- Iraq's battle for Tikrit reaches a standstill, humiliating Iran") Debka (subscription)
Thursday was supposed to be the "drop dead" date for reaching a deal so that Greece could make its 1.6 billion euro debt payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by June 30. According to analysts, Thursday's meeting of the Eurogroup finance ministers was the last chance to make a deal and still have time get the deal approved by the German parliament in time to release bailout funds to Greece by June 30.
However, Thursday's meeting ended with no deal. Greece has been asked to reduce pension costs by increasing retirement dates over the next ten years, and to increase its value-added tax. Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has refused to do any of this. The discussions have become extremely acrimonious, and many European officials have expressed the feeling, one way or another, that they're sick of Greece, and don't care what happens.
According to one analyst I heard, Thursday wasn't really a final "drop dead" date. If a deal can be signed by June 30, then the European Central Bank (ECB) could offer Greece a bridge loan, enabling it make its payment to the IMF, until the deal is approved by Germany's parliament, according to this analyst.
This scenario would fit the logic of the "Game of Chicken" that's being played. The logic of the Game of Chicken, where two cars race towards each other at top speed to see who veers first to avoid a collision, is that neither car veers until the last nanosecond, if at all. So we won't actually know until the midnight deadline on June 30 whether Greece will default.
Another analyst pointed out that a default does not mean that Greece has to leave the eurozone. Greece could default within the eurozone and permit harsh capital controls on Greek banks, imposing great hardship on the Greek people for years to come. However, this may not be a politically possible solution, as the Greek people may prefer to return to the drachma currency instead. Either way, the result would be a huge nightmare. Kathimerini (Athens) and Telegraph (London) and Gulf News (Dubai)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Jun-15 World View -- Emergency Eurogroup summit called for Monday to deal with likely Greece default thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Jun-2015)
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Hamas and Israel discuss a 5-year ceasefire
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Russia's president Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said that Russia would add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to its nuclear arsenal this year. As a reason, he expressed concern about anti-missile defenses that Nato is deploying in eastern Europe.
In fact, the US and Poland have been discussing the deployment of American heavy weapons in eastern Europe. Those discussions are a reaction to Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and Russia's invasion of east Ukraine.
Nato has condemned Putin's nuclear announcement as "saber-rattling." According to Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg:
"[Putin was] confirming the pattern and behavior of Russia over a period of time - we have seen Russia is investing more in defense in general and in its nuclear capability in particular."
However, according to an analysis by KGS, Europe is the least of Putin's worries, and that the nuclear announcement was really directed at China:
"China is Russia's existential threat. Russian doctrine makes clear that tactical nuclear weapons would be used to defeat a Chinese attack. The willingness to use nuclear weapons to stop a conventional attack is the key insight from Putin's statement.NATO and the US announced that they will position heavy equipment for armored cavalry or armored infantry units in the Baltic members of NATO. The stated purpose is to deter and defeat Russian aggression against NATO members. The US can move soldiers much faster than heavy equipment. In this solution, the major delay is the time it takes civil airliners to fly from the US to Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn.
With reasonable and old fashioned intelligence warning, NATO could bring armored units with prepositioned equipment in the Baltics to full combat readiness faster than the Russians can field a combat attack force. NATO planners need to understand that in every race to mobilize, NATO beats Russia, provided US equipment is prepositioned.
That leads to the second part of the discussion. If the US and NATO are clever enough to find a way to stop Russian conventional forces, Russia has few military options other than nuclear escalation, tactical or strategic. That makes Russia's strategic position much like that of Pakistan.
After three general wars and two crises that approached general war, it is now clear that Pakistan cannot defeat India in a general conventional war. US intelligence analysts need to understand this as settled lore from decades of US intelligence experience: Pakistan cannot win a conventional war against India.
In the near-war crises of 2001-2002, India achieved full combat readiness in less than three weeks, while the Pakistan Army, under President General [Pervez] Musharraf, failed to achieve full combat readiness. Pakistan's failure to generate its conventional military power meant that its leaders thought they had no alternative to activating Pakistan's strategic nuclear missile forces to stop an Indian conventional attack..
That is the significance of Putin's message. Russia cannot defend the national territory without using nuclear weapons. Pakistan and North Korea are in precisely the same position. That position does not imply that a conventional confrontation must go nuclear. It means that such a confrontation could go nuclear.
Russia's nuclear threats are serious because of the weaknesses of Russia's conventional forces. A key question is how will NATO respond."
CS Monitor and Reuters and KGS Nightwatch (Subscription)
Two suicide bombings targeting the presidential palace and police headquarters in Chad's capital city N’Djamena on Tuesday left 27 people dead and over 100 wounded. Although no one has claimed responsibility, few people doubt that the perpetrators were Boko Haram.
In reaction, there's been a major security clampdown in N'Djamena. Central areas have been sealed off, checkpoints have been set up across the city, and vehicles with smoked glass windows have been banned from the roads.
The most controversial security change has been the banning the burka and the full-face veil, because they're being used as "camouflage," making it possible to hide explosives within clothing. Boko Haram militants have increasingly been using female suicide bombers in Nigeria, as they are more likely to smuggle bombs into public places without detection.
The ban will apply everywhere, not just public places. Not only will the ban be enforce, but security forces will go into markets and burn all full-face veils sold in markets. AFP and Vanguard (Nigeria) and BBC
On April 23 of last year, the two major Palestinian factions signed a "Palestinian unity agreement," as a prerequisite to forming a State of Palestine. The agreement provided for a series of steps to unify the two factions into a common government. But now, after over a year of bitter disagreements, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has announced that he's going to dissolve the unity government. According to a spokesman, "The government will resign in the next 24 hours because this one is weak and there is no chance that Hamas will allow it to work in Gaza."
It's not clear whether Mahmoud Abbas, born 1935, really means it, or whether it's a negotiating position. During the past few years, Abbas has said on several occasions that he personally would resign as president, but changed his mind later.
In fact, Hamas has already said that it would not accept the dissolution:
"Hamas rejects any one-sided change in the government without the agreement of all parties.No one told us anything about any decision to change and no one consulted with us about any change in the unity government. Fatah [Abbas] acted on its own in all regards."
If the unity government is really dissolved, then it would put the entire State of Palestine issue into question, since you can't have a State of Palestine unless you have a government. Ma'an News (Bethlehem) and AFP and Khaleej Times (Dubai)
The threatened dissolution of the unity government comes at a time when there are reports that Hamas and Israel are negotiating a five-year ceasefire that would partially end the blockade of Gaza by opening a seaport.
Hamas is under pressure from a number of directions. Hamas was defeated in last summer's Gaza war, and got nothing out of it. Furthermore, Hamas is now one of the "older generations" in Gaza, and is finding it difficult to control the young militant Salafist groups. So Hamas officials may have decided that negotiating with Israel may be their best bet. However, few people believe that anything firm will come out of the negotiations.
There has been one immediate change. Because of the negotiations, Egypt has eased the restrictions on the Rafah crossing, and is permitting people to travel freely between Gaza and Egypt. Jerusalem Post
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Jun-15 World View -- Russia's 'saber-rattling' nuclear threat may be directed at China, not Europe thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Jun-2015)
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Greece's bitter PM Tsipras hurls ultimatums and insults at IMF
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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For the past year, China has been creating new, artificial islands in the South China Sea in regions which have historically belonged to other countries, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines. China has been using aggressive military tactics to deprive Vietnamese and Philippine fishermen of their historical fishing grounds, and made demands that the U.S. end its surveillance activities in international waters in the South China Sea. Tensions escalated substantially last month when China repeatedly demanded that an American P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane leave the area. ( "26-May-15 World View -- China says war with US in South China Sea is inevitable")
China now says that it's completed its artificial islands project. However, that doesn't mean that China is becoming less aggressive militarily; to the contrary, it means that China is moving on to the next phase, building military structures on the artificial islands.
According to Chinese media:
"The islands and reefs after completion will not serve as China's military outposts in the Nansha Islands. Apart from satisfying the need of necessary military defense, they will be mainly for civilian use."
These two sentences contradict each other. The first sentence says "no military outposts," but the second sentence mentions "satisfying the need of military defense," which means that the islands will be used as military outposts. This is no surprise to anyone, as China prepares for war with its neighbors and with the United States. VOA and Global Times (Beijing)
China has confirmed the fourth test, on June 7, of the new Wu-14 hypersonic glide strike missile designed to defeat American missile defenses.
During a war, the hypersonic missile is carried up by an ordinary ballistic missile, but is then released while still in the atmosphere. It can then glide almost horizontally to its target at almost 8,000 miles per hour. It can easily change direction in flight, to evade missile defense. The systems provide enhanced precision, speed, range, maneuverability and multiple-targeting, and are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. In actual practice, several will be launched at once, making a missile defense almost impossible.
According to Chinese analysts, the missile test was timed to send a threatening message to the American military to stop doing surveillance in the South China Sea. Washington Free Beacon
The relationship between Greece and its creditors has been getting more and more bitterly acrimonious with every day that passes by, as the "drop dead" date of June 30 approaches. On Tuesday, in a speech to Parliament, Greece's far left prime minister Alexis Tsipras accused the International Monetary Fund of "criminal responsibility":
"The time has come for the IMF’s proposals to be judged not just by us but especially by Europe.The IMF has criminal responsibility for today’s situation. ...
Right now, what dominates is the IMF’s harsh views on tough measures, and Europe’s on denying any discussion over debt viability.
The fixation on cuts... is most likely part of a political plan... to humiliate an entire people that has suffered in the past five years through no fault of its own.
The time has come for the IMF’s proposals to be judged in public ... by Europe,” he told the MPs of his radical left Syriza party."
The IMF has insisted on further cuts to Greece's pension system, and a rise in value-added taxes.
Jean-Claude Jüncker, the president of the European commission, shot back by essentially accusing Tsipras of lying to the Greek people: "I don’t care about the Greek government, I do care about the Greek people. The debate in Greece and outside Greece would be easier if the Greek government would tell exactly what the Commission ... is really proposing." He indicated that Tsipras was lying about the value-added tax.
A spokesman for Greece's opposition New Democracy party, the party that governed Greece prior to Tsipras's victory in January, accused Tsipras of intentionally forcing Greece to leave the euro currency:
"The negotiations are not starting now; instead the mocking of the Greek people is reaching its peak. Mr Tsipras is pushing the country toward a dead end, the bill is becoming astronomical. Is it possible this was their secret agenda?"
Guardian (London) and Kathimerini and Bloomberg and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Jun-15 World View -- China tests hypersonic missile designed to defeat American missile defenses thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Jun-2015)
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South Africa defies International Criminal Court, al-Bashir flies free
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In late May, the EU government in Brussels enacted a quota system that would distribute some 60,000 migrants to different countries, based on a calculation that looked at each country's size, GDP and unemployment rate. France has a quota of 7,000. Germany has a quota of 8,700. Sweden has a quota of 1,300.
However, Britain and Ireland opted out, and Denmark and Poland said they also would do so. Then France became reluctant, and Italy was furious that it may be left to deal with the tsunami of migrants by itself. So now, just three weeks later, the whole quota system appears to be collapsing.
So Italy is threatening to retaliate by issuing so-called Schengen visas to migrants. The Schengen treaty is a core principle on which the European Union was founded, in that it permits free travel across borders throughout most of the EU. In fact, the EU is staging special events this week to celebrate 30 years of borderless travel in the Schengen area.
If this threat is carried out, and Italy issues thousands of Schengen visas to migrants, then the visas will cease to be honored, and another core part of the European Union will be over.
EU officials will meet on Tuesday in Luxembourg to try to resolve the problem. Guardian (London) and ITV (London)
For several days, about 200 migrants from Africa have been trying to cross the border between France and Italy, but French police have been blocking their entrance.
That was just the latest incident in a continuing issue. In the preceding week, 1,439 illegal immigrants had been arrested by law enforcement authorities in France, and over 1,000 were forced to return to Italy.
French officials say that they're following the letter of the law, which says that migrants must be processed by the country in which the first land. According to France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve:
"The Dublin rules must be respected. When migrants arrive in France that have been through Italy and registered there, European law applies and that means they must be returned to Italy."
Italian officials are becoming increasingly furious that they're being forced to deal with the migrant problem almost alone. Even under the proposed quota system, only 24,000 immigrants from Italy would be distributed to other countries, a small fraction of the the 100,000 to 200,000 immigrants expected in 2015.
Italy's prime minister Mario Renzi said on Sunday that the severity of the crisis "should not be underestimated," adding, "Redistributing just 24,000 people is almost a provocation."
According to Renzi, if Italy does not receive help and solidarity from other EU members in welcoming immigrants, then Italy will institute a "Plan B that would be a wound inflicted on Europe." He didn't say what Plan B would entail. Vice News and Independent (London) and Reuters
As we reported yesterday, international law required South Africa to arrest Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir and turn him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has charged him with war crimes for the rape, torture and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians by the Sudan government forces in the Darfur genocide.
South Africa is a signatory to the ICC charter, and so was obligated to arrest al-Bashir while he was on South African soil attending an African Union summit. The case was even being contested in a South African court. But while this court was in session, al-Bashir was permitted to board his private jet and return to Sudan.
This incident throws the future of the ICC into doubt. The ICC depends on member countries to meet their commitments. The South African government violated the rulings of its own courts, as well as its contract with the ICC. CNN and Al Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Jun-15 World View -- France, Italy have bitter feud over migrants as quota system collapses thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Jun-2015)
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Everyone prepares for the worst, as Greece bailout talks collapse again
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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This year's African Union leaders summit took place on Sunday in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the nice politically correct theme "A Year of Women Empowerment and Development towards Africa's Agenda 2063."
However, all the wonderful speeches about empowering women were overshadowed by demands that South Africa arrest one of the attending heads of state, Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.
The ICC arrest warrant was issued in 2009, but al-Bashir has never been arrested because Sudan is not a signatory to the ICC charter. Furthermore, al-Bashir has been going to great lengths over the years to make sure that he never travels to a country that IS a signatory to the ICC, since that country would be obligated under international law to arrest him and turn him over to the ICC.
So it's a very big surprise to a lot of people that al-Bashir decided to travel to the African Union on Saturday, since it's in South Africa, which IS a signatory to the ICC. Somehow, some way, al-Bashir must have received a guarantee from South African president Jacob Zuma that he wouldn't be arrested.
However, the plan has been at least temporarily thwarted because an activist group got a South African court to detain al-Bashir and prevent him from leaving the country until the court can decide whether South Africa is obliged to honor the ICC warrant.
There are sharp differences of opinion:
The court should read a decision on Monday or Tuesday. CNN and Mail & Guardian (South Africa) and Independent (South Africa)
The Darfur genocide has been in the news for over ten years. Seven or eight years ago, it was sometimes called "everybody's favorite African war" since George Clooney and other movie stars, and politicians like Susan Rice, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have all made "Stop the genocide" and "Save Darfur" and "Enough is enough" part of a very stylish and progressive do-good campaign. During the 2007 Iraq surge, Joe Biden even wanted to withdraw all the forces from Iraq, and pour them into the Darfur war. The Darfur war was VERY chic and trendy, unlike the Iraq war.
Low level violence began in the 1970s between two ethnic groups, one of farmers (the "Africans") and the other of camel herders (the "Arabs"), in the usual disputes over land and water. The violence increased from year to year, and in the 1990s, Sudan's government in Khartoum delegated the responsibility of policing the region to the Arab Janjaweed militia, formed from certain groups of herders.
Violence continued to increase, and by 2003, it had turned into a full-scale generational crisis war. (A detailed history can be found in my 2007 article, "Ban Ki Moon blames Darfur genocide on global warming") At that point, the Janjaweed militias (herders) became extremely violent, with a program of massacres, mass murders, rapes, genocide and scorched earth.
As the slaughters and rapes continued, the glamorous politicians and movie stars paid visits and expressed outrage. However, the fun finally wore off, and in 2009 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir. According to the warrant:
"[T]here are reasonable grounds to believe that, insofar as it was a core component of the GoS [Government of Sudan] counter-insurgency campaign, there was a GoS policy to unlawfully attack that part of the civilian population of Darfur — belonging largely to the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups — perceived by the GoS as ... opposing the GoS in the ongoing armed conflict in Darfur. ...[T]here are also reasonable grounds to believe that, as part of the GoS's unlawful attack on the above-mentioned part of the civilian population of Darfur and with knowledge of such attack, GoS forces subjected, throughout the Darfur region, (i) hundreds of thousands of civilians, belonging primarily to the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups, to acts of forcible transfer; (ii) thousands of civilian women, belonging primarily to these groups, to acts of rape; and (iii) civilians, belonging primarily to the same groups, to acts of torture."
The United Nations has mounted a massive peacekeeping force, to try to end the Darfur war, but in fact it's nowhere near over. In fact, a UN report in January indicates that the war considerably worsened in 2014, with more than 3,000 villages targeted by forces aligned with the Government of Sudan, destroying the villages and forcing 400,000 people to flee for their lives. ICC arrest warrant (PDF) and AP and DabangaSudan
The Darfur civil war and the Central African Republic (CAR) civil war are ongoing wars today, while the 1994 Rwanda civil war ended long ago. Let's compare the three.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, every generational crisis war must end in what I call an "explosive climax," a genocidal event that's so horrible that the survivors on both the winning and losing sides vow to never let it happen again. In the Rwanda civil war, the explosive climax was the slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsis by the Hutus. Since then, Rwanda has gone through a Recovery Era in an attempt to prevent any recurrence, and it's been possible without any UN peacekeeping forces.
But in Darfur and CAR, there are ambitious United Nations / African Union peacekeeping forces. The UN is spending huge amounts of money trying to create peace -- get the same results as in Rwanda, but without the explosive climax. That's impossible. It's the explosive climax, the horrific event that ends the war, that brings about the desired peace.
There are millions of Darfurians in refugee camps, under the protection of the UN peacekeeping forces. The UN forces are preventing the explosive climax, but they can't do so forever. Those millions of people are sitting ducks. At some point, the peacekeeping forces will withdraw, and the Arab militias will go through those refugee camps like a hot knife through butter, raping, torturing and slaughtering anyone they can. That will be the explosive climax, and after that, peace can come to Darfur once again.
With a big 1.5 billion euro debt payment due on June 30, EU-Greece weekend talks to negotiate a new deal have, once again, collapsed. Increasingly, markets are expecting that Greece will default, and be forced to leave the euro currency. The Europeans and the Greeks are all thought to have prepared some plan in case the worst happens, and that seems increasingly likely. Dow Jones
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Jun-15 World View -- Darfur genocide overshadows women's empowerment summit in South Africa thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Jun-2015)
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Druze community split on Syria war after al-Nusra attack
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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The Druze community, with about one million living in Syria and Lebanon, and 104,000 living in Israel, have stayed out of the Syria war, although they are split in supporting or opposing Syria's genocidal president Bashar al-Assad.
However, on Wednesday, militants from the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) attacked a Druze community in the village of Qalb Lawzah, in Idlib province in Syria, and killed at least 20 Druze men and women. This has evoked strong nationalism among the Druze in Lebanon.
One Lebanese Druze leader who supports al-Assad, Wiam Wahhab, made a televised speech, saying,
"We will not accept to sell Druze blood![The Druze in Syria] are ready to defeat the terrorists, but what they lack is arms. Lebanon’s Druze are ready to help, we are ready to form an army of 200,000 fighters to defend the Druze!"
However, the principal Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, who opposes al-Assad, said on Twitter:
"Any inciting rhetoric will not be beneficial, and you should remember that Bashar Assad’s policies pushed Syria into this chaos."
An al-Nusra leader on Saturday apologized for the murder of the 20 Druze civilians, but it's unclear whether the Druze public will accept the apology in view of the 20 murders. Daily Star (Beirut) and Times of Israel
The Druze came into existence as a secret society, and only announced itself to the world in the early 1000s (11th century). There was a brief period of proselytizing that ended in 1050. Since then it has been impossible to convert to Druze from any other religion.
The Druze creed arose from a branch of Shia Islam, but it incorporates concepts from Christianity and Judaism, as well from Greek philosophy and Hindu and Buddhist influences.
Like any other society, they have had their generational crisis wars, during some of which they were victims of genocide, and in others they were perpetrators of genocide, making them no different from anyone else. A particularly bloody generational crisis war occurred in 1860 with the Maronite Christians, which is considered a victory by the Druze, resulting in the deaths of 10,000 Christians. It's only been in recent years that the two groups have attempted to reconcile. Jewish Virtual Library
Israel has been very careful to avoid getting involved in the Syria war, but a recent attack jihadist attack on the Druze ethnic community in Syria may force Israel's hand. The Druze in Syria fear that they'll be left on their own to fight al-Nusra and the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), especially with the Syrian army possibly near total collapse. The Druze consider this to be an existential threat to the entire Druze community.
Thousands of Druze protested in Israel on Saturday, calling on Israel to aid the Druze in Syria. Typical chants were "Stop the massacres," and "We want the Druze among us." According to one Druze Israeli official, "We do not plan to sit idly by while our brothers are being slaughtered in Syria."
From Israel's point of view, the danger is that if jihadist groups start attacking the Druze in Syria, then hundreds of thousands of Druze civilians will pour across the border into Israel, creating a major humanitarian crisis, and forcing Israel to enter the war.
Activists are asking Israel to send arms to the Syrian Druze. If Israel withholds support, it could be held responsible for whatever happens to the Syrian Druze community, including a mass slaughter by jihadists.
On the other hand, Israel may make the choice of sending arms to the Syrian Druze, allowing them to defend themselves. This would mean abandoning the consistent policy of abstaining from direct involvement in that war. It would moreover entail setting up new machinery for establishing, training and arming a Druze army of 20,000 to 30,000 fighting men.
There are also reports that Iran is offering to arm the Druze, something that would give them a great deal of control over the Druze community in Syria and Lebanon.
This is becoming a major political issue in Israel, and there are no easy choices. YNet (Israel) and Debka (Israel) and Fox News
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Jun-15 World View -- Jihadist Attack on Druze population could bring Israel into Syria war thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(14-Jun-2015)
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France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn acquitted of 'aggravated pimping'
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Indonesian people smugglers who had been on a boat traveling to Australia with 65 people from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar say that Australian authorities prevented them landing on Australian shores, and paid them AUS$5,000 to take the migrants to Indonesia.
This has led to accusations directed at prime minister Tony Abbott that Australia is regularly paying people smugglers to take migrants to other countries. When asked a question about this on a radio show on Friday, he evaded the questioned and alluded to Australia's tough anti-migrant policies:
"What we do is we stop the boats by hook or by crook because that's what we've got to do and that's what we've successfully done and I just don't want to go into the details of how it's done because like a lot of things that law enforcement agencies have to do, it's necessary, it's difficult and at times I suppose it's dangerous work, but we do it and we've stopped the boats. ...What the government has done is stop the boats. We have stopped the boats. And we've used a whole range of measures. We will do whatever we reasonably can, consistent with the principles of a decent and humane society, to insure that the boats stay stopped, and I am never, never going to apologize."
Indonesian officials are criticizing Abbott's evasion as unethical. Some Australian officials are pointing out that if the charges are true that the government is paying people smugglers, then it will encourage more people smuggling.
The number of migrants reaching Australia has been sharply reduced in recent years because of tough policies that prevent migrants from settling in Australia. Thousands have been sent to a notorious rat-infested detention center on the island of Nauru in Micronesia. In other cases, Australian naval vessels have pulled the migrant boats out into the sea, or transferred the migrants to Cambodia, under terms of a deal made between the two countries. Australian and Jakarta Post and Guardian (London)
Pakistan's government has shut down the aid organization Save the Children, locked and seized their office building in Islamabad, and gave them 15 days to leave the country.
According to Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Pakistan is clamping down on non-government organizations (NGOs) that provide aid:
"We will not allow anyone to work under the table. We will not allow any NGO to work in this country against Pakistan’s interests, culture and values."
He also accused some local NGOs, without naming any, of "taking foreign funding to work on a foreign agenda." He indicated that they were guilty of espionage.
Pakistan's campaign against NGOs is believed to have been triggered by the American administration bragging in 2011 that a vaccination program in Pakistan was used as a cover to locate and capture Osama bin Laden. Save the Children says they had nothing to do with that, but since 2011, every foreign aid program has come under suspicion.
According to the US State Dept., "We are concerned about Pakistan's crackdown on international charitable organizations and other NGOs. ... [Several NGOs] have reported difficulty doing business in Pakistan. This has had a significant negative impact on international partner efforts to support Government of Pakistan priorities." Dawn (Pakistan) and State Dept. and Daily Express (London)
Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) used to be the head of International Monetary Fund (IMF), a position now held by Christine Lagarde, and he once hoped to run for president of France in the Socialist Party, a role taken over by the current Socialist president François Hollande. But all that came to an end in 2011, when a hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, accused him of having raped her in a NY city hotel. ( "2-Jul-11 News -- France's politics in turmoil from collapse of Strauss-Kahn rape case")
The rape case collapsed because Diallo was evidently a liar, but she made out pretty well anyway, reportedly collecting $1.4 million in a civil case, and now running her own restaurant in New York.
However, that case opened Pandora's box for DSK, who was next accused by a Paris prosecutor of "aggravated pimping," meaning that he procured prostitutes for parties in Party, Brussels and Washington.
During the trial, DSK said he attended all these parties but said, hilariously, that he didn't know that the girls were prostitutes. Here are some famous DSK quotes from the trial:
When asked by the judge about the presence of prostitutes at the sex orgies, the ex-IMF chief declared: "I am horrified at the practice of using prostitutes."When quizzed later he said: “Prostitution is an assault on women’s dignity.”
The court also heard DSK comparing prostitutes at orgies to flying fish. "They do exist," he said. "But you don't often see them."
That trial finally concluded on Friday, with the judge agreeing that there was not enough evidence to convict him.
While we're on the subject of rape, it's become a major international issue recently that the Obama administration has been claiming that 25% of all college girls get raped. These figures are parroted by mainstream media like the NY Times and NBC News, whose reporters are too dumb to even bother to check them out. And I've even heard them repeated on the BBC and Al-Jazeera.
These figures on their face are totally ridiculous. No father who actually believed them would send his daughter to a college if he thought there was a 25% chance she would be raped.
Also, imagine the NBC News and NY Times newsrooms, filled with reporters and producers who went to college. If you believe the moronic figures, then those newsrooms must be filled with rapists and rape victims. The same would be true of the White House. If they really believe the figures, then they would have an obligation at least to find out who all the rapists are in their organizations, and get rid of them.
I spent ten years writing a book on gender issues for men, called Fraternizing with the Enemy - A book on gender issues for men and for women who care about men. I researched the whole range of gender issues - divorce, domestic violence, rape, teen motherhood, sexual harassment, child abuse, incest, with an appendix on quotes from feminists that's well worth reading.
In my book, I quoted Katie Roiphe from her 1993 book about her college experience:
"According to the widely quoted Ms. survey, one in four college women is the victim of rape or attempted rape. One in four, I remember standing outside the dining hall in college looking at a purple poster with this statistic written in bold letters. It didn't seem right. If sexual assault was really so pervasive, it seemed strange that the intricate gossip networks hadn't picked up more than one or two shadowy instances of rape. If I was really standing in the middle of an epidemic, a crisis, if 25 percent of my female friends were really being raped, wouldn't I know it?"
In other words, if rape were common in college, she would know a lot of rape victims among her female friends, but she doesn't know any. Once again, if the White House really believes the figures, then they ought to do something about all the rapists working in the White House.
If you actually do the research, as I did, checking many, many sources, then there's no question about the statistics: Only about 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of college girls get raped. Even if you make the dubious assumption that as many as 3 out of 4 rapes don't get reported, the total figure is still only 0.75%. It's nowhere near 25%. But 0.1% is politically inconvenient for the Obama administration, so they manufacture the number they want, knowing that today's mainstream media reporters are too stupid to check it out. The Local (France) and France 24 and Daily Mail (London) and Book: Fraternizing with the Enemy (PDF)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Jun-15 World View -- Australia accused of paying people smugglers to take migrants to Indonesia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(13-Jun-2015)
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Zimbabwe offers 5 US dollars for 175 quadrillion Zim dollars
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Zimbabwe citizens still having bank accounts denominated in Zim dollars will have them replaced with accounts in US dollars. Each depositor will receive $5 for any account up to 175 quadrillion dollars. The Zim dollar, which has been completely destroyed the country's genocidal president Robert Mugabe, is finally being buried forever.
It would be hard to choose a country leader anywhere in the world who's more vile than Syria's Bashar al-Assad, but Zimbabwe's 91 year old Robert Mugabe certainly qualifies. Mugabe's actions to transform Zimbabwe, the breadbasket of southern Africa, into a starving disease-ridden country are almost beyond belief. (See "Zimbabwe's 'Liberation Hero' president Robert Mugabe continues to destroy his country" from 2008.)
As recently as the 1999, Zimbabwe was a breadbasket of Africa, exporting up to 500,000 metric tons of surplus food. By 2003, Zimbabwe was so starved that it had to receive 500,000 metric tons in food aid from the U.N.'s World Food Program.
What happened during those three years was a Marxist socialist "land reform" program by Robert Mugabe that confiscated 4,500 white-owned commercial farms and redistributed the property to loyal supporters of his Zanu-PF party -- i.e., members of his own Shona ethnic group. Anyone from the Ndebele tribe, the Shona's centuries old enemy, who objected was killed, tortured or jailed.
Many of the new owners were inexperienced in running large farms, and food production fell dramatically, as only a few hundred of the confiscated farms continued to function normally. Harvests of food staples plummeted by as much as 90%, livestock herds dwindled and production of the main cash crop, tobacco, slumped badly.
The results were dramatic, and show how it's possible for one dictatorial leader to destroy a country single-handedly. A formerly well-fed country had rampant 80% poverty, and the inflation rate went from 700% to 1000% to 10000% to 150000% and continued rising 500 billion percent. In 2009, Zimbabwe switched to a dual-currency economy, accepting the US dollar as valid currency. At that point, the Zimbabwe dollar collapsed completely, and millions of citizens had their saving destroyed.
In addition to having completely destroyed Zimbabwe's economy, Mugabe is best known for his 1984 pacification campaign known as "Operation Gukurahundi" (The rain that washes away the chaff before the spring rain). During that campaign, accomplished with the help of Mugabe's 5th Brigade, trained by North Korea, tens of thousands of people, mostly from the Ndebele tribe, were tortured and slaughtered. All Africa and Zero Hedge
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) walked out of talks in Brussels with Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras because the two positions were not getting any closer. According to an IMF spokesman:
"There are major differences between us in most key areas. There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently and thus we are well away from an agreement.We remain engaged. The IMF doesn’t leave the table."
European Central Bank (ECB) officials left Brussels as well.
The lenders are demanding that Greece institute reforms to address various economic issues, including Greece's bloated public sector, curbing tax evasion and corruption, privatizing public businesses, and adjusting generous pension and minimum wage policies. On Wednesday there were reports that Europe was willing to consider "kicking the can down the road again" by requiring only one reform now, and leaving the others for next year, but nothing has come of that.
European Council President Donald Tusk said: "We need decisions, not negotiations now. There is no more space for gambling; there is no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I am afraid, that someone says the game is over. ... The Greek government has to be, I think, a little bit more realistic."
A Greek official appeared upbeat: "The Greek delegation, as agreed, is ready to intensify deliberations in order to conclude a deal soon, even in the coming days."
Tsipras would like the IMF to completely write off the debt that Greece owes. The IMF can't do that, because they've loaned a lot of money to a lot of other countries, and if Greece's debt were written off, then others would demand the same treatment.
Tsipras can't agree to pension reduction or the other reforms because his government would probably collapse. On Thursday, Greece's Communist party took over the finance ministry, saying Tsipras is the third Prime Minister to sell Greece down the river.
The "final deadline" for a deal is June 18, the date of the next Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers. However, there have been so many "final deadlines" till now, we can't be sure.
It's thought that the "final final deadline" is June 30, when Greece must make a 1.6 billion euro payment to the IMF.
The logic of the Game of Chicken is that neither car veers off until the very last second. So if there's going to be a deal, it will probably occur just a couple of minutes before midnight on June 30. Kathimerini and Reuters
Commenting on Greece's debt crisis, EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said:
"I really like Greek tragedy but now we must move to the happy ending."
Apparently Moscovici knows little about ancient Greek theatre. If he did, then he would know that a comedy has a happy ending, and a Greek tragedy always has a tragic ending. Business Insider
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Jun-15 World View -- IMF and ECB walk out of negotiations with Greece thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(12-Jun-2015)
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Reports of breakthrough in Greece's debt crisis
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For the first time, Indian special forces crossed the border into Myanmar (Burma) and conducted a cross-border operation to strike at the terrorist group National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang (NSCN-K). The Khaplang terrorists are based in Myanmar, but have conducted numerous terrorist attacks in northeast India. The retaliation was triggered by an ambush last week on Thursday (4-Jun) on Indian soil that killed 18 soldiers. The terrorists escaped police and security forces by running back across the border into Myanmar.
Early Tuesday morning, a team of 70 elite Indian special forces commandos crossed the border into Myanmar and struck at the Khaplang. The commandos were air-dropped from helicopters deep inside Myanmar around 3 am, equipped with assault rifles, rocket launchers, grenades and night vision goggles. They walked 5 km to two Khaplang camps and destroyed them, killing 38 militants.
NSCN-K was formed on April 30, 1988, under the leadership of S S Khaplang, as a secessionist movement of the Naga people in India and Myanmar to form a separate nation, the People's Republic of Nagaland. Mumbai Mirror and Indian Express and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India)
Indian officials are brimming with nationalistic pride today after the cross-border attack in Myanmar (Burma) that killed 38 militants who had ambushed Indian soldiers several days earlier. According to one official:
"This message is now very clear to all those who harbored intentions of terror on our country. Unprecedented though, but our Prime Minister has taken a very bold step and given a go ahead for hot pursuit into Myanmar."
Another official said:
"The military's action against insurgents with assistance from the Myanmarese government speaks volumes about India's resolve to fight terror. This is a lesson and a message to all the terror groups that India will not hesitate in going beyond its geographical borders to eliminate terrorists."
There is some doubt about the truthfulness of this statement, as it's not clear that the Myanmar government was aware of the strike until after it happened. In fact, the initial response from the Myanmar government on the military strike was to say that it took place entirely on Indian soil.
In fact, there have been some reports that Myanmar and officials from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) have been supporting the NSCN-Khaplang terrorist attacks into India.
Editorial opinion in India seems highly positive. One editorial says that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has demonstrated that he is willing to bite the bullet and take tough action when it comes to the killing of Indian soldiers."
But the raid has raised some very sensitive hackles in China and Pakistan.
In 2008, there was a horrific 3-day terror attack on Mumbai by Lashkar-e-Taibi (LeT), a Pakistani terrorist group that was formed in the 1990s by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fight India in the disputed regions of Kashmir and Jammu. After the attack, India threatened to send its army to cross the border and attack LeT on Pakistani soil, which might have led to a major war. This was prevented by hard intervention by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Furthermore, as we reported in April, Pakistan has refused to prosecute the mastermind of the Mumbai attack, and he walks free today, infuriating the Indians.
Since then, there have been other terrorist attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups in India. The nationalistic gloating by Indian officials seems to suggest that India would no longer hesitate to cross the border into Pakistan in pursuit of a Pakistani terrorist.
But according to Pakistan's interior minister:
"Pakistan is not like Myanmar. ... Those having ill designs against Pakistan should listen carefully that our security forces are capable of matching response to any adventurism. ... Indian leaders should stop day dreaming."
He accused India of conducting terrorist attacks on Pakistan, and said that India's "nefarious designs" will not succeed in future as in the past. Dawn (Pakistan) and Times of India
There were reports through the day on Wednesday that Germany will be satisfied with just one of the reforms that Greece has previously committed to.
The Europeans are demanding that Greece institute reforms to address various economic issues, including Greece's bloated public sector, curbing tax evasion and corruption, privatizing public businesses, and adjusting generous pension and minimum wage policies.
According to the reports, only one of these reforms would be required, and the others would be postponed to the future. If true, this compromise would, in effect, "kick the can down the road" once more.
However, there was a late night meeting in Brussels between Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and the only word following the meeting was that negotiations still had a long way to go.
Greece must make a debt repayment of 1.6 billion euros to the IMF on June 30. It's thought that Greece has no chance of making that payment unless a new bailout program for Greece is approved in the next week. Bloomberg and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Jun-15 World View -- Pakistan reacts as Indian forces cross border and strike militants in Myanmar thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(11-Jun-2015)
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US-supported rebels capture key Assad regime army base in Syria
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Hundreds of students are camping outside the American embassy in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi, fearing violence by police and security forces. Elsewhere, the violent crackdown has created 100,000 refugees, many of whom have fled into Rwanda and Uganda.
Burundi is following a familiar pattern of a kind experienced by many countries in a generational Awakening era, one generation past the end of a bloody, genocidal civil war. The 1994 war between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, resulting it around a million deaths, left the survivors traumatized, vowing they'd never let it happen again.
But now, a generation later, young people have no personal memory of the 1994 slaughter, and all the old hatreds that gave rise to the war are being inflamed again. This is raising fears that the civil war will be revived in all its fury, something that can't happen in a generational Awakening era because the survivors won't permit it.
But just the fear of a renewed civil war is driving policies that are detrimental to Burundi. Burundi's Hutu president Pierre Nkurunziza took office in 2005, and has served for two terms, which is the maximum allowed under the country's constitution, written during the post-war Recovery era with the intention of preventing another civil war. Nkurunziza was appointed by the parliament in 2005, and was re-elected in 2010, and now wants to run for a third term in the 2015 election. He claims that since he was appointed as president in 2005, his first term doesn't count, and he can run for another term. He claims that his presidency will bring stability to Burundi. His Tutsi opponents say that his power grab will destabilize the country, and make a new civil war more likely.
Nkurunziza is following the violent crackdown on protesters that we've seen in other Awakening era countries, such as Iran, Syria and Thailand. Peaceful anti-government protesters are considered to be enemies of the state, destabilizing the country. President Nkurunziza, claiming that he knows best how to keep the country safe, massacres the peaceful protesters, just like Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, just like Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, and just like Thailand's Thai-Chinese élite army junta.
Nkurunziza has postponed the election from June to July 15, and still insists that he will run for a third term, something that his opponents say will risk a new civil war. International Business Times and Reuters and All Africa
Reports from unnamed officials say that the Obama administration has adopted a major shift in strategy in Iraq. The Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province and send hundreds of additional American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi and repel the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
A day after President Barack Obama announced that the administration had no plan for defeating ISIS, anonymous Pentagon officials say that the Administration is planning a significant troop escalation in Iraq. According to the reports, 1,000 new troops will be added to the 3,080 troops already there.
Last year in June, President Obama announced that the U.S. would send 300 American advisors to train, advise and support the Iraqi securities forces fighting ISIS. Since then, this number has been increased, one step at time, from 300 to 800 to 1500 to 3100, and now presumably to over 4,000. He said that this was "not mission creep." He insisted that the "U.S. will not be putting boots on the ground." The goal is "to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL." All of this was in addition to air force strikes against ISIS.
President Obama, whose foreign policy has been one disaster after another, appeared to have no coherent policy in Iraq at all after saying on Monday, "We don't yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis," even though many months had passed. Pentagon sources quickly stated that they had presented several options and recommendations to Obama months ago, and they were waiting for him to make up his mind. Analysts are saying that 1,000 more troops just for training purposes won't make any difference, so it remains to be seen whether this announcement is just cosmetic, or whether there's more to it.
For those of us who have been around for a while, sending 1,000 more troops to Iraq looks very much like the kind of escalation and "mission creep" that got us into other wars with no planning. Washington Post and NY Times and CNN
An umbrella group of opposition fighters, known as the "Southern Front," has captured one of Syria's largest army bases, 56 miles south of Damascus, after 24 hours of fighting the Syrian army. The Southern Front is backed by the US and Jordan, and several Arab countries provide money and weapons. The Southern Front has now cut off Syria's army from the border crossings to Jordan.
We've reported several times in the last few weeks that the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is facing numerous setbacks and may be near total collapse, and that Russia may end support for al-Assad. These new setbacks make a collapse more likely.
In the regions north of Damascus, another rebel alliance led by the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), has captured much of the region from Aleppo to the coastal city of Latakia. This includes the heartland of al-Assad's Shia/Alawite ethnic group, and places that entire population in danger. Farther to the east, ISIS has taken control of large sections of the country, crossing over into Iraq.
There's apparent a "dog that didn't bark" in the picture. We've described reports that Iran is invoking a 2007 mutual defense treaty with Syria, and that Iran would deploy tens of thousands of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) to defend al-Assad, especially in the coastal region around Latakia. So far, there's no sign that these reports have come to past, and now there are reports that Iran has rejected al-Assad's request for up to 100,000 IRGC troops. Al Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Jun-15 World View -- Obama planning additional troop deployment to Iraq in new escalation thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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(10-Jun-2015)
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South Korea fears that MERS virus will break out into general population
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South Korea is implementing panic measures, to keep a rapidly spreading epidemic of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) under control.
The are 95 known cases, with seven deaths.
So far, the only new infections have occurred in hospitals, where one infected person comes to the hospital seeking treatment, and ends up infecting other people, including patients, nurses and doctors.
It hasn't started spreading in the general public, and authorities are taking numerous steps to keep that from happening. 2,000 schools have been closed, and hundreds of public events have been canceled.
More significant are the quarantines. Some 2,500 people have been ordered to stay home under quarantine for 14 days, and their cell phones are being monitored to make sure that they do so. The authorities call the cell phones regularly to make sure that the patient hasn't left home without his cell phone.
Sometimes entire villages are quarantined. Men in protective clothing are guarding all roads in and out of Jangduk village, which is 172 miles south of Seoul, preventing any of the 105 residents from leaving. The only contact the villagers have with outsiders is twice-daily visits from health officials checking their temperatures.
MERS was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Globally, there have been almost 1200 cases since then, most in Saudi Arabia, and at least 444 related deaths. The original hosts for the MERS virus are thought to be bats, and the bats have transferred the virus to camels, which can carry the virus without showing symptoms. Studies show that it's been common in camels for at least 20 years before spreading to humans. Camel handlers and shepherds are the people most at risk for MERS in Saudi Arabia.
However, that figure represents only people who were diagnosed. One study of 10,000 people in Saudi Arabia found that many more had been exposed to MERS, but had not shown symptoms or been diagnosed.
MERS spread to Seoul several weeks ago when a Korean working in Saudi Arabia returned home several weeks ago, and went to a hospital because he was feeling ill. He infected several nurses and doctors, who spread it to nurses, doctors and patients.
North Korea is also in danger from MERS, as there are some 50,000 North Korean workers in Saudi Arabia. South Korea was able to respond quickly to a MERS pandemic, but it could be a real disaster in North Korea, which is ill-equipped to handle it. World Health Organization and Reuters and Deutsche Welle and Live Science
In the nuclear negotiations with Iran, the West is insisting that the agreement contain a "snapback" provision, meaning the following: If the sanctions are removed, and then Iran violates the nuclear agreement, then the sanctions will "snap back" and be reapplied.
Iran has consistently refused to agree to the snapback provision, but is now changing its position: It will agree to the West's snapback provision, provided that it also has a snapback provision of its own.
Iran's snapback provision would permit Iran to resume full nuclear development if the West breaches its side of the deal.
Many people are skeptical of the whole snapback concept. They argue that once the agreement is in place and sanctions have been lifted, it would be politically impossible to reintroduce sanctions, even if Iran breached the agreement.
On the other hand, Iran's snapback option would seem to have little meaning. If the West breached its side of the agreement, which would presumably mean failing to lift the sanctions, then Iran could resume nuclear development with or without a snapback option. Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Jun-15 World View -- Iran demands a nuclear agreement 'snapback' provision of its own thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
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Israeli residents near Gaza border expect war soon
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Israeli residents who live near the Gaza border can hear the sounds of tunnels being dug underground, and the digging goes on 24 hours a day. The residents blame Israel's Defense Forces (IDF). According to one resident:
"Very simply, the IDF didn’t do the job the last time.I’ve also heard of many residents in the area complaining about hearing digging, so we weren’t surprised that a senior Hamas official said their people continue to prepare offensive tunnels. I hope that next time [the army] will properly deal with the tunnels in a timely fashion instead of waiting until 14 terrorists pop out from underground."
Many of these residents living on the border were forcibly expelled from the Gaza Strip in 2005, after the prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, forcibly withdrew all Israeli settlers from Gaza, and turned the Strip over to the Palestinian government.
"I keep saying this again and again. It’s been 10 years since we were expelled from [Gaza], and the leadership in this country - some of whom are alive, some of whom are dead - promised us we would be safe. Since [leaving Gaza], we’ve absorbed 6,000 mortar bombs and even Qassam rockets, and we didn’t complain. ...They promised that there would be quiet in the South and the entire country. But since we left [Gaza], there have been three large-scale campaigns - Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, and Protective Edge. In the last year, we have seen a trickle of missile fire and the digging of tunnels, and we may be on the verge of another military operation."
As I've been writing since 2003, Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be a new war between Arabs and Jews, refighting the bloody, genocidal 1948 war that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Jerusalem Post
Israel's air force launched air strikes at a Hamas training facility in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, in response to a rocket launched from Gaza at Israel. The rocket landed in the middle of a farmer's sunflower field, and there were no casualties from either attack.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, accompanying President Barack Obama at a G7 summit in Germany, supported the Israeli air strikes: "Clearly the US stands with the people of Israel as they defend their people and their nation against these kind of attacks."
The head of the IDF's Southern Command, Maj-Gen Sami Turgeman, says that Hamas is not responsible for the rocket fire from Gaza:
"These are isolated rockets fired by terrorists in Gaza. The rockets explode in open fields and the IDF retaliates to the incidents but will not launch an operation in the Strip because of them. The IDF responds in accordance with the attacks."
According to Turgeman, the IDF believes that Hamas wants the calm in Gaza. The Omar Brigades, a Gaza terror group, took responsibility for the rocket fire. Reuters and Jerusalem Post
The electorate on Sunday surprised Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan by refusing to give his party the re-election margin that he needed to implement the constitutional changes he was proposing.
Erdogan's AKP (Justice and Development Party) government has won a parliamentary majority for the last 13 years, giving Erdogan a great deal of power, which opponents say he's used to become almost a dictator, suppressing free speech and jailing opposition.
During the campaign, Erdogan asked the voters to give him an even bigger parliamentary majority, so that he could modify the constitution to change from a parliamentary government (like Britain) to a presidential government (like the US), presumably giving himself even more power. So Sunday's election was probably really a referendum on Erdogan's increasingly autocratic grab for power.
The loss in support was significant. The AK Party got 49% of the vote in the 2011 election, but only 41% in Sunday's election. This means that Erdogan will have to try to form a ruling coalition with another party. However, some reports indicate that Erdogan feels he was cheated, and may call for a snap election soon, in the hope of regaining a majority.
It was significant that the AK Party got only 41% of the vote, but equally significant was that the Kurdish anti-government far-left Peoples’ Democratic Party's (HDP) got 12% of the vote, surpassing a 10% threshold that gives the party a significant representation in the parliament. HDP's support was very strong in eastern Turkey, in the region that Kurdish separatists desire as an independent Kurdistan.
Note: HDP = Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, PKK = Kurdistan Workers' Party anti-government insurgents in Turkey. Peshmerga = Kurdish militias in Iraq. PYD = Kurdish militias in Syria.
The PKK is considered a terrorist group, and has fought an on-and-off civil war with the government since the 1980s, but has sought peace in recent years. So the rise of the HDP in Sunday's election will give the Kurds in Turkey a much larger political voice than they've had in the past. BBC and Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Hurriyet (Turkey)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Jun-15 World View -- In major election setback, Turkey's Erdogan loses support as Kurds gain seats thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Jun-2015)
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Europeans rescue 3,000 migrants on Saturday, fear hundreds of thousands more
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a new, potentially major escalation of the war in Yemen, Iran-backed Shia Houthi militias in Yemen fired a Scud missile across the border with Saudi Arabia, targeting the King Khalid Air Base in the city of Khamis Mushait, about 100 km north of the Yemen border.
The Saudis launched two missiles from a Patriot missile battery, and shot the Scud missile down with no reported casualties.
However, the Houthis are calling it a symbolic victory, because it shows that the Saudi air strikes have not been effective, and it shows that the Houthis still have enough firepower to attack Saudi villages and bases. It's believed that the Houthis have a stockpile of some 300 Scud missiles, though some of those may have been destroyed by Saudi air strikes.
At the same time, fighting along the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia has been increasing. The Saudis responded to the Scud missile attack by a new surge in airstrikes at Houthi targets in Yemen, along the Saudi border and in the capital city Sanaa.
As we've been describing for a long time, the Mideast is headed for a massive war of Shias versus Sunnis, Arabs versus Persians, and Jews versus Muslims. Ever since the "Arab awakening" in 2011, the Mideast has become more and more inflamed.
The United Nations has called for peace talks to begin next week. This is great news, because this will settle the Yemen war, just as previous peace talks have resolved the wars in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Reuters and AP and AFP
Everyone agrees that there's a humanitarian disaster in progress in Yemen, with nearly 80% of the population in urgent need of food, water and medical aid. But the ideological war is whether the humanitarian crisis is the fault of the Houthis or the Saudis.
According to the liberal Guardian, the Saudis are at fault:
"[The humanitarian crisis] has been dramatically worsened by a naval blockade imposed by an Arab coalition with US and British backing.Washington and London have quietly tried to persuade the Saudis, who are leading the coalition, to moderate its tactics, and in particular to ease the naval embargo, but to little effect. A small number of aid ships is being allowed to unload but the bulk of commercial shipping, on which the desperately poor country depends, are being blocked. ...
The desperate shortage of food, water and medical supplies raises urgent questions over US and UK support for the Arab coalition’s intervention in the Yemeni civil war since March. Washington provides logistical and intelligence support through a joint planning cell established with the Saudi military, who are leading the campaign. London has offered to help the Saudi military effort in “every practical way short of engaging in combat”.
On western urging, Riyadh had promised to move towards “intelligence-led interdiction”, stopping and searching individual ships on which there was good reason to believe arms were being smuggled, and away from a blanket policy of blocking the majority of vessels approaching Yemeni ports. But aid agencies and shipping sources say there is little sign of any such change. UN sources say that only 15% of the pre-crisis volume of imports is getting through, and that the country depends on imports for nine-tenths of its food. ...
At Al Hudaydah on Yemen’s west coast, the only major port still functioning, a trickle of humanitarian food supplies is arriving on a handful of aid ships allowed through the naval blockade each week, but many more ships are being turned away or made to wait many days to be searched for weapons."
According to the Arab News, the United Nations and the Houthis are at fault:
"One source confirmed that more than 200 licensed ships were allowed to deliver aid and that not all the ships were inspected as many are believed not to be linked to the rebels. The source added that many ships are using the Djibouti port, which the United Nations — not Saudi Arabia, Egypt or the US — supervises and grants licenses accordingly.The inspection forces may have delayed the passage of the ships but they haven’t prevented them from passing and have not confiscated their cargo. ...
The Saudi-led coalition forces know that the rebels are intentionally obstructing aid in order to stir international public opinion at the expense of the Yemeni people, whom they’ve taken hostage. Hospital operations have been disrupted due to rebels obstructing the delivery of fuel. Millions of people in several cities and towns lack drinking water because they ran out of the diesel necessary for generators to pump water. Meanwhile, the military power of the Houthis and Saleh’s forces has not been obstructed as they are stealing fuel to operate their vehicles and are in control of food storage centers. They’ve also seized aid routes in the center of the country and are transferring this aid to areas in their control.
When I asked a source as to why international organizations do not blame the Houthis and Saleh’s forces for this humanitarian crisis, he said it’s because they do not want to cut ties with them and because they fear for their employees and activities in Yemen, considering that these rebels are gangs that do not hesitate to kill whoever criticizes or defies them."
It's clear that both of these accounts are completely biased, in opposite directions.
One expects the Arab News to be biased. After all, the Arab coalition is one party to the war, and their press is going to be biased in their favor.
But the Guardian is supposed to be a mainstream media source, based in London. So why is the Guardian just as biased as the Arab News? Why does the Guardian account read like it was from the Tehran Times?
More broadly, why are all the mainstream liberal news sources -- the Guardian, the NY Times, NBC News, etc., so completely biased that it's almost impossible to trust anything they write? We know that Generation-Xers have been extremely dishonest as politicians and as bankers, so I suppose we should expect it of journalists as well.
As for mainstream conservative news sources, there are fewer choices. Fox News covers mostly American political news, which I tend to avoid. And the London Telegraph is behind a limited paywall.
My job every day in my World View column is that when I write about a subject is to read media sources from all points of view, and try to figure out who's telling the truth. Usually I do pretty well, but it would be easier if I could depend on journalists who act like professional adults instead of screwed up children. The Guardian (London) and Arab News (Riyadh)
Vessels from Germany, Ireland, Britain and Italy rescued over 3,400 migrants on Saturday. There were about 15 individual rescues, mostly 200-300 nautical miles south of Italy, in international waters near Libya.
According to one analyst, there's a big surge every weekend. The reason is that the weekend starts in Libya on Thursday evening, and then there are fewer people on the streets and beaches, making it much easier for the migrant smugglers to launch their boats on Friday and Saturday. There may be thousands of migrants rescued on the weekend, but during the week, there are usually just a few hundred every day.
Europeans are bracing for an even bigger surge of migrants as the summer continues. There are reportedly 450,000 to 500,000 migrants already in Libya, waiting to make the crossing to Europe. They've already each paid thousands of dollars to the smugglers, and are waiting their turns to make the crossing. The migrants are put onto overcrowded boats, and they're told to sink them as soon as they see another vessel, so that they'll have to be rescued. Guardian (London) and Al Jazeera
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Jun-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia shoots down Scud missile from Houthis in Yemen thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Jun-2015)
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Tsipras gives bitter, defiant speech to Greece's parliament
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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As expected, Greece did not make its 300 million euro debt payment International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday, and instead will have to pay 1.6 billion euros to the IMF on June 30. June 30 will be the end of Greece's current bailout plan, and there will be no more bailout money available under any terms.
So it seems that after several years of "kicking the can down the road," and postponing making the hard decisions, the Greece bailout crisis will finally run out of road on June 30. And whatever the outcome, it's certain to be very unpleasant.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was defiant and bitter in a speech he gave to Greece's parliament on Friday:
"Time is not only running out for us, it is running out for everyone. ...The proposals submitted by lenders are unrealistic. The Greek government cannot consent to absurd proposals. ...
I would like to believe that this proposal was an unfortunate moment for Europe, or at least a bad negotiating trick, and will very soon be withdrawn by the same people who thought it up. ...
We don’t just need an agreement, we need a definitive solution, both for Greece and for Europe, that will finally end the talk of a Greek exit from the eurozone. ...
The fiscal strangulation of a country is a moral issue that conflicts with Europe’s founding principles – which raises well-founded questions on Europe’s future."
Tsipras called on opposition parties to support him in the ongoing negotiations. The far left factions in his own Syriza party have already indicated that they won't support any plan that calls for any austerity.
Tsipras's predecessor, center right New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, responded by telling the prime minister that he had "some nerve" asking for support at this time. He accused Tsipras of mishandling the negotiations and tipping Greece back into recession. "You have totally destroyed the country and isolated us," he said. Kathimerini and Guardian (London)
Chinese hackers are suspected in a massive breach compromising the computers at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Department of the Interior. The personal information of 4 million U.S. current and former federal employees were compromised in the breach. The OPM is the human resources department for the federal government, and so every government agency is potentially affected. The data goes back to 1985.
As usual, the Chinese feigned outrage at anyone who could suspect them of such a thing, and complained that any such accusation would be "irresponsible and unscientific."
The perpetrators are believed to be the same Chinese hackers behind the Anthem health insurance data breach in March, where 80 million current and former customers of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans had their personal information compromised, including birthdates, addresses, and social security numbers.
Assuming that the Chinese are the perpetrators, questions are being raised about what they're planning to do with all this data. The Chinese now have a massive data base of detailed personal information on tens or hundreds of millions of Americans. What are they going to do with this?
If the Chinese want to penetrate another company, they can use detailed information from the files to craft personalized phony messages to trick workers. These are called "spear phishing" messages. A worker receiving such a message might think it's from a family member and click on something in the message that infects their computer, or which gives the hacker access to the other data bases in the company network. With this technique, the Chinese can penetrate one company after another, using the information gathered from one breach to gain access to perpetrate the next breach.
It's not known how certain government officials are that the Chinese government is the perpetrator. It's possible that they know with 100% certainty based on NSA data. However, even if they're that certain, they couldn't say so because they would be accusing China of an act of war, and a response would be required. AP and CNN and Reuters and Dark Reading
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Jun-15 World View -- Speculation grows about China's purpose in giant government hacking breach thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Jun-2015)
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Greece and Europeans fail once again to reach an agreement
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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As we've been reporting since April, the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has been increasingly showing signs of collapse, losing one major city after another either to the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) or to the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front). The collapse has become so serious that even Russia is considering ending support for al-Assad, as we reported a few days ago.
Al-Assad has been mostly relying on fighters from Hezbollah, but even Hezbollah has been suffering substantial losses, between 700 and 2000 fighters, according to reports. Hezbollah claims that its purpose is to be the army of "resistance" against Israel, but the disastrous situation in Syria has forced Hezbollah to transfer hundreds of fighters from the border with Israel into the fight in Syria.
But now in a major escalation in the (proxy) war in Syria, Iran is planning to deploy tens of thousands of troops in Syria to prevent the fall of al-Assad. 15,000 to 20,000 troops are already being sent to the region around Idlib, and up to 50,000 are reportedly on the way.
Iran has a second objective in deploying troops to Syria. They want results by the end of the month (June), because that's the deadline for a nuclear agreement with the United States and the West. They believe that they'll get a better nuclear deal by scoring a win in Syria. It would also improve Tehran’s leverage on negotiations with other parties after the nuclear deal is completed.
Gen. Qassam Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds force, whom ISIS humiliatingly defeated in the battle of Tikrit Iraq a couple of months ago, promised a "surprise":
"The world will be surprised by what we and the Syrian military leadership are preparing for the coming days."
Soleimani made the statement during a secret trip to Idlib, where he determined that Syria's army made numerous operational errors, resulting in a loss to al-Nusra. YNet and Daily Star (Beirut)
The purpose of a new agreement between Iran and Syria, which may involve invoking a 2006 mutual defense pact between the two countries, is to allow tens of thousands of Iran's soldiers to prevent ISIS and al-Nusra from cutting off the corridor between Damascus and Syria's coastal region.
According to a report by Saudi-based al-Arabiya:
"Iran must send 50,000 soldiers from the infantry force to Syria to manage the war there and prevent the fall of the Assad regime, which has begun to collapse recently.Iran must preserve the vital corridor [connecting] Damascus to Latakia, Tartous and the Lebanese border.
[Any] delay by Iran in [implementing] this pre-emptive action will cause the fall of Damascus airport, which in turn [means] the severing of the essential communication and supply line Iran [uses] to assist the Syrian regime."
Ironically, al-Assad is agreeing to this deployment of Iranian soldiers because he has no choice. He has opposed the establishment of any Iranian bases in Syria, because he knows that once Iran has a military base in Syria, it won't be long before Iran is in charge of the whole country.
Long-time readers are aware that Generational Dynamics predicts a major war engulfing the entire Mideast. Since last year, we've been reporting that ISIS and other terror groups are not fighting Christians and Jews; they've been overwhelmingly fighting other Muslims, with the number of Christians and Jews killed by Muslims being a minuscule amount compared to the number of Muslims being killed by other Muslims.
With wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, the entire Mideast is increasingly in flames. A major military deployment by Iran in Syria would substantially inflame the Shia-Sunni fault line in the Mideast, and would cause the Saudis and other Gulf Arab nations to prepare for further military action. Now Lebanon and Debka and AFP (2006)
Although Greece was due to make a 300 million euro debt payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday, I wrote a few days ago that Greece will NOT go bankrupt on Friday. The reason is that analysts were predicting that Greece would take advantage of a loophole that allows Greece to postpone the payment to the end of the month. Greece exercised that loophole on Thursday, and Friday's payment will be bundled together with three others, and now Greece will have to pay 1.6 billion euros to the IMF at the end of the month. Greece's PM Alexis Tsipras, in his usual pretense of normality, said that there will be no problem making the payment, though almost no one believes him.
Tsipras was in Brussels on Thursday, meeting with IMF and European officials. The meeting ended in failure, though both sides said that it had been "constructive."
The Europeans are demanding that Greece institute reforms to address various economic issues, including Greece's bloated public sector, curbing tax evasion and corruption, privatizing public businesses, and adjusting generous pension and minimum wage policies.
In the past, Tsipras has refused to agree to any of these. But there's now evidence from leaked documents that the Tsipras is beginning to back down. He appears to have given ground on privatizing public businesses, and he seems willing to raise taxes and cut pensions, at least by a small amount. However, Tsipras is still insisting on implementing a huge minimum wage increase, undoing a cut in the minimum wage from 2012.
However, Tsipras does not have a free hand in agreeing to the creditors' terms. He's facing a backlash from the far left in his own party, and his government may collapse if he meets too many of the Europeans' demands. Greek Reporter and Kathimerini and Economist
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Jun-15 World View -- With Syria's army nearing collapse, Iran plans massive troop deployment thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Jun-2015)
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Philippines president Aquino compares China to Nazis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a new announcement on Wednesday, the FBI said it is investigating the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Football (Soccer) Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively. This follows the Justice Dept.'s indictments last week of nine world soccer officials.
If you aren't a follower of world football (soccer), then you may not be aware of the news story that's consumed international news outside the United States, with 24-hour almost continuous coverage every day, almost wiping out coverage of anything else, including Iraq, Yemen and Ukraine.
On May 27, the United States Department of Justice indicted nine officials from the Zurich, Switzerland, based Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA - International Football Association) for racketeering, conspiracy and corruption.
According to the Obama administration's new Attorney General Loretta Lynch:
"The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States. It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. And it has profoundly harmed a multitude of victims, from the youth leagues and developing countries that should benefit from the revenue generated by the commercial rights these organizations hold, to the fans at home and throughout the world whose support for the game makes those rights valuable. Today’s action makes clear that this Department of Justice intends to end any such corrupt practices, to root out misconduct, and to bring wrongdoers to justice – and we look forward to continuing to work with other countries in this effort."
The indictment did not mention FIFA's controversial president Sepp Blatter, but the indictment came just two days before FIFA was to hold an election for the next FIFA president. Blatter had already been president for 17 years, and was re-elected despite all the indictments. However, when word leaked that he was also being investigated by the US administration, he announced his resignation.
So why the heck is the U.S. Justice Department doing this? Why not the European Union or the Swiss?
Well, FBI director James Comey has an answer to that question:
"If you touch our shores with your corrupt enterprise, whether that is through meetings or through using our world class financial system, you will be held accountable for that corruption."
Oh really? Comey is going to hold people responsible for corrupting our "world class financial system"??? Long-time readers can easily guess what I'm going to say next.
First we had original financial crisis, where thousands of bankers corrupted our world class financial system by knowingly created tens of trillions of dollars in faulty subprime mortgage backed synthetic securities, and knowingly defrauded thousands of investors with them. This triggered the financial crisis and caused millions of people to lose their homes and go bankrupt. But these bankers gave millions of dollars in contributions to the Obama administration, and so the Obama administration has adamantly refused to prosecute even a single one of these criminals.
Because the Obama administration made it clear that no banker criminals would be prosecuted, the same bankers stayed at the same jobs and found a new form of fraud -- the Libor scandal. Bankers corrupted our world class financial system by colluding with one another to fix interest rates. According to one banker, "It's just amazing how Libor fixing can make you that much money." Those actions cost clients hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, bankers have given millions of dollars in contributions to the Obama administration, so even though the bankers doing this criminal activity were easily identified, the Obama administration refused to prosecute them. In fact, Timothy F. Geithner, Obama's Treasury Secretary, knew about Libor fraud as early as 2008, but refused to do anything about it.
So bankers knew that they could continue committing fraud with impunity and make billions of dollars, as long as they gave a percentage of that money to the Obama administration.
That brings us to Forex (foreign exchange) fraud, where bankers colluded with one another to defraud their customers making currency conversions from one currency to another. Libor fraud cost clients hundreds of millions of dollars, while Forex fraud cost trillions of dollars.
The interesting thing about the Forex investigation is that the bankers continued committing fraud even after it became public that Forex fraud was being investigated. Why did they do that? Why not? They wanted to make as much money as they could, knowing that they would never be prosecuted. They had a free ticket to commit fraud and keep the money. As one banker was quoted as saying, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
Two weeks ago, the Justice Dept. fined four banks a total of $6 billion for committing Forex fraud. Just to give you an idea of how much that is, one of the banks, JP Morgan, made $4 billion in the first quarter of this year in just one unit, the commodities unit. So the $6 billion was a tiny fraction of the money that the banks made fraudulently. And NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON was charged for Forex fraud, even though the Justice Dept. knows exactly who the criminals are.
So now the Justice Dept. puts on this big dog and pony show over bringing criminal charges against some foreign officials in the world soccer organization, because they may have corrupted our world class financial system.
As I've written many times, this kind of criminality in the administration was unthinkable before the 2000s and the rise of Generation-X. Not only do a sizeable minority of Gen-Xers feel that it's OK to defraud anyone they want, it seems that a majority of Gen-Xers refused to prosecute crimes.
As I'm typing this, there's a TV report that street crime and street homicide is at an all-time high in Baltimore, Chicago, and other cities. At the same time, financial "experts" on Wall Street lie about stock valuations frequently, as I've documented many times, and no one cares.
And you can be sure that the same bankers who created the phony synthetic subprime backed securities, and who perpetrated the Libor and Forex frauds, are still working at the banks, looking for other ways to defraud people.
The Obama administration is directly responsible for millions of Americans losing their homes or going bankrupt through its failure to prosecute crime. But fear not. The next time you watch an international soccer game, assuming you can afford a TV, you can feel confident that the Justice Department is protecting you. U.S. Justice Dept. and Fox Sports and Reuters and Guardian (London)
Here are some political notes related to the FIFA investigation:
Before the US Justice Dept. made the surprise announcements of the indictments against FIFA officials, the big news was that the Palestinian Football Association was going to introduce a motion to expel Israel from FIFA, accusing it of unjustly restricting Palestinian soccer players’ freedom of movement and claiming that Israel’s West Bank settlement teams violate FIFA rules.
However, because of the indictments, the Palestinians were forced to drop their plan.
The Palestinians are expected to try similar actions at the Olympics and other international arenas. Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Washington Post
Speaking at a business meeting in Tokyo, Philippines President Benigno Aquino III suggested that the world cannot continue to appease China as it annexes other countries' territories in the South China Sea:
"If there was a vacuum, if the United States, which is the superpower, says 'We are not interested,' perhaps there is no brake to ambitions of other countries.I'm an amateur student of history and I'm reminded of ... how Germany was testing the waters and what the response was by various other European powers.
They tested the waters and they were ready to back down if for instance in that aspect, France said (to back down).
But unfortunately, up to the annexation of the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, the annexation of the entire country of Czechoslovakia, nobody said stop.
If somebody said stop to (Adolf) Hitler at that point in time, or to Germany at that time, would we have avoided World War II?
So, I say again, America's rebalancing sends a definite signal that we are all supposed to be living under norms that we agreed upon."
China's Foreign Ministry pretended to be shocked at the "outrageous and unreasonable" comments by Aquino:
"I once more seriously warn certain people in the Philippines to cast aside their illusions and repent, stop provocations and instigations, and return to the correct path of using bilateral channels to talk and resolve this dispute."
Reuters and AFP/Rappler
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Jun-15 World View -- FBI investigating awarding of 2018 and 2022 World Soccer Cups thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Jun-2015)
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Greece's Alexis Tsipras faces a government mutiny from the far left
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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"Greece could face bankruptcy on Friday."
That's what we've been hearing almost every week for months, but now we're being told that even though Greece has a 300 million euro payment due to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday, there is no danger of a bankruptcy.
The reason is that the IMF has agreed to postpone the payment. Greece owes four payments to the IMF this month (June), totaling 1.6 billion euros. And the IMF has agreed to wait until the end of the month for Greece to pay the entire amount. And so, Dear Reader, you'll be relieved to know that Greece will not go bankrupt this week on Friday.
Nonetheless, the clock is clearly running out. Postponing this Friday's payment simply has the effect of postponing the final deadline, again. It looks like the end of the month is a hard deadline, but we've heard that before.
As many people have noted, it looks like both sides are playing a game of Chicken. This would be particularly appealing to Greece's colorful finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who is an expert on game theory. In the 1950s game of Chicken, two cars race towards each other at top speed. The first one to veer off is the "chicken." If neither car veers, then there's a collision, and both drivers are dead. (They didn't have seat belts in those days.)
So as the clock runs out, both sides are maintaining their demands, hoping that the other side will give in. According to the logic of the game of Chicken, there's no hope of a compromise until the very last moment, which means that the game will continue at least until the end of June.
The institutions -- IMF, European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission (EC), formerly known as the "Troika," a word that's now forbidden -- are demanding that Greece continue the austerity programs that were in place until January, when Alexis Tsipras's far left Syriza party won the elections on a platform of no more austerity. The institutions are demanding that Greece institute reforms to address various economic issues, including Greece's bloated public sector, curbing tax evasion and corruption, privatizing public businesses, and adjusting generous pension and minimum wage policies.
In January, Tsipras agreed to some minor reforms, but even those have not been implemented.
On Sunday, Tsipras wrote an editorial that blamed the failure to reach a compromise on " the obsession of some institutional representatives who insist on unreasonable solutions."
This was not received well. It resulted in an emergency meeting in Berlin on Monday evening. Attending were the leaders of Germany, France, the ECB, the EC and the IMF. Greece was not invited.
The result was a new final proposal from the Troika. Tsipras has defiantly countered by announcing that he has his own new 47-page proposal. The contents of the two proposals have not been revealed, but analysts seem to agree that they're likely to be very far apart when they're revealed on Wednesday. So the game of Chicken will continue.
There's an assumption behind the game of Chicken that does not apply to the situation in Greece. In the 1950s game of Chicken, if one or both cars veer off, the nothing has been lost, except that someone may be humiliated.
But the game of Chicken has already cost a lot. Greece had a budget surplus last year, and Tsipras has blown that away on new social programs. Greece's government has confiscated the cash reserves of all the public institutions, including municipalities, provinces, universities and hospitals. That money also has been blown away.
So even if a compromise of some kind is reached this month, the game of Chicken is going to result in a major wreck. Kathimerini and RTE (Ireland) and Value Walk
Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras is facing open rebellion in his far left Syriza party, over the austerity demands of the Europeans. The far-far-left politicians are calling themselves the "Left Platform" faction of Syriza. They are demanding that Tsipras stop humiliating himself and Greece, and that Greece leave the eurozone and return to the drachma currency.
According to Syriza member Stathis Kouvelakis,
"It has become now clear that the 'institutions' are not striving for what some are calling an 'honorable compromise'. ...What the ruling circles of the EU, the ECB and the IMF are ruthlessly and consistently aiming for in the last for months, is to strangle the economy, to milk even the last euro from the country’s reserves and to push an 'unprotected' government to full submission and exemplary humiliation."
After that, the Left Platform is demanding all sorts of new spending programs, nationalizing the banks, substantial taxation of top earners, and full implementation of labor union rights.
Polls have shown that most Greeks want to find a compromise that lets Greece stay in the eurozone, but among Syriza supporters, 58% want to return to the drachma. Telegraph (London) and Guardian (London) and Red Flag
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Jun-15 World View -- Greece will NOT go bankrupt on Friday thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Jun-2015)
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Clashes following the ISIS invasion of the Yarmouk refugee camp
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A Gaza Strip group claiming to be linked to the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) has given Hamas, the governing authority of the Gaza Strip, a 48-hour deadline to stop cracking down on the members of the group.
The group calls itself the "Islamic State supporters in Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem)" (ISIS in Gaza), and is linked to Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem), a group in Egypt's Sinai that has committed numerous terrorist bombings that we've reported on several times.
The ISIS in Gaza group has been conducting terror attacks against Hamas targets for the last couple of months, and Hamas has been cracking down on the group by arresting dozens of its members.
On Monday, the ISIS in Gaza group sent a statement to the media giving Hamas 48 hours to end the crackdown. The statement did not say what the group would do if the crackdown continued.
The statement included a claim taking responsibility for a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza last week. That claim could not be verified, but the rocket firing did occur on Tuesday, and early on Wednesday the Israeli Air Force attacked four targets in the Gaza Strip in response.
However, following the rocket firing, Hamas security forces arrested a number of militants from the al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad. At the same time, Egyptian officials on Wednesday demanded that "Israel hold its aggression," and practice restraint toward the Gaza strip. Jerusalem Post (27-May) and AP and Times of Israel
ISIS in Gaza has apparently been operating since last Gaza's summer war with Israel, but its existence has been denied or played down by Hamas. On November 3 of last year, the group pledged allegiance to ISIS. In response to questions about whether the group would be targeting Hamas, a spokesman said:
"Hamas should not have any concerns regarding the announcement of [ISIS in] Sinai. Despite their differences, ISIS does not target Hamas, since the group is confronting the Egyptian army. [ISIS in Sinai] would protect Gaza from any possible attacks by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi."
That attitude began to change dramatically in April, when ISIS invaded the Palestinian refugee camp at Yarmouk in Syria in April. ( "10-Apr-15 World View -- Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp descends into the 'deepest circle of Hell'")
The invasion caused the latest flip-flop in Hamas's relationship with Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Hamas and al-Assad used to be close allies, and Hamas's headquarters were actually located in Damascus, Syria's capital city. But then in 2011 al-Assad started massacring and butchering innocent Sunni Arab women and children in Syria, and this forced Hamas to turn against al-Assad, and move its headquarters to Doha Qatar.
But the invasion of the Yarmouk camp has thoroughly roiled the situation again. ISIS is inflicting its usual gruesome massacres on the Palestinians in Yarmouk, and the only defender of Yarmouk is al-Assad. In particular, ISIS beheaded several Palestinians, including a senior Hamas official in the camp.
So now Hamas is tentatively allying itself again with al-Assad, at least for the purposes of defending the Yarmouk camp. In addition, Hamas promised to exact revenge.
So that all happened in April. At the beginning of May, Hamas retaliated against ISIS by demolishing a mosque used by the ISIS in Gaza group and arrested dozens of its members, including several ISIS preachers in Gaza.
In response, ISIS called Hamas "worse than the Jewish and American occupiers." (As an aside, recall that I recently quoted an Egyptian sheik who said that Shia Muslims are worse than Jews and Crusaders.)
The clashes between ISIS in Gaza and Hamas are continuing to escalate, and ISIS is continuing to trigger further conflicts throughout the Mideast. Gulf News/Financial Times and International Business Times (16-July-2014) and Israel National News (7-May) and Al Monitor (20-Nov-2014)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Jun-15 World View -- Hamas and ISIS turn on each other in the Gaza Strip thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Jun-2015)
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Greece faces new financial crisis with no solution in sight
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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According to a report in Asharq Al-Awsat, there are signs of a dramatic U-turn in Russia's policy toward the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, including consideration of a future without al-Assad, according to unnamed Russian officials. This admission would be the first of its kind from Russian officials.
Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Russia's support has been essential to the survival of al-Assad. Al-Assad, a member of the Alawite/Shia religious group, began using heavy weapons on peaceful Sunni Muslim demonstrators. He's flattened entire Sunni villages with Russia's heavy weapons, he's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and bedrooms, he's killed dozens with sarin gas, and he continues to kill countless more with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas dropped from helicopters.
Al-Assad's genocidal sectarian attack on Sunnis caused the formation of Iraqi rebel groups, such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). But it also triggered a worldwide tsunami of young men from around the world traveling to Syria to fight against al-Assad, joining the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front), and causing the creation of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
Al-Assad predicted a quick victory in 2012, and that might have happened if his only enemy had been the FSA. But he began to suffer defeats at the hands of al-Nusra and ISIS, and his regime could only continue with the help of a massive supply of heavy weapons from Russia, fighters from Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and fighters from the Lebanon-based Iran-back terror group Hezbollah.
But even with all that help from three different countries, al-Assad's army has suffered one setback after another. In just the last couple of weeks, the army lost the big Palmyra air base to ISIS, including its large stocks of ammo and military equipment, and Syrian military and air units have begun pulling out of the big air base at Deir ez-Zour. Because of falling morale, enormous casualty rates, and significant increases in draft-dodging, desertions and defections, the army of al-Assad is showing signs of collapse.
The stunning ISIS victories in Iraq are certainly being watched carefully by those remaining in Syria's army. In particular, every time Iraqi soldiers drop their weapons and flee from oncoming ISIS fighters, Syrian soldiers may be thinking of doing the same. Desertion by a few divisions or brigades, following the example of the Iraqis, could be all it takes for al-Assad's army to collapse completely. Asharq Al-Awsat (Riyadh) and Jerusalem Post and Debka
The Asharq Al-Awsat report suggests that Russia is thinking about a post-Assad Syria, but few believe that Russia will end its support of al-Assad as long as he has a chance to survive.
The main problem is that the collapse of al-Assad's regime would probably mean a complete victory for ISIS, which would have control of Damascus, as well as large portions of Syria and Iraq.
There have been thousands of young jihadists around the world who came to Syria to fight the al-Assad regime. Once ISIS had defeated al-Assad, many of those jihadists would wish to return to their home countries. This will subject almost every nation in the world to potential terror attacks. For Russia, it would mean that the armies of Chechen soldiers fighting in Syria would return to Chechnya and join the Chechen separatist movement. Russia's president Vladimir Putin would get what deserved for having supported al-Assad, but unfortunately, every other country would suffer as well.
The problem is that no one has a serious post-Assad plan. Iran and Hezbollah have increased deployments in Syria, but not enough to replace the lost soldiers in al-Assad's shrinking army. As a result, Iran and Hezbollah have begun paid recruitment efforts among Shias in Pakistan and Hazaras in Afghanistan. Jerusalem Post and The National (UAE) and Debka and Foreign Policy
It seems that Greece is always just a few days away from total bankruptcy, but then always manages to come up with the funds to get through the next deadline. Greece is due to repay 300 million euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by Friday of this week, and it's not known where it will get the funds, nor how it will the funds to pay three more installments in June, with all four totaling 1.6 billion euros.
The Europeans and the IMF are demanding that Greece reduce pension payouts and its bloated public sector, something that prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his far-left Syriza party have refused to do. According to a news article written by Tsipras on Sunday:
"If we have not reached an agreement with our partners, it’s not because of our intransigence or incomprehensible positions from the Greek side. It is rather because of the obsession of some institutional representatives who insist on unreasonable solutions and are being indifferent to the democratic result of recent Greek elections.Currently, 44.5 percent of pensioners receive a pension under the fixed threshold of relative poverty while approximately 23.1 percent of pensioners ... live in danger of poverty and social exclusion. These numbers ... cannot be tolerated – not simply in Greece but in any civilized country."
On Sunday, Tsipras held a "constructive" phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's president François Hollande, but there was no sign of a deal. Irish Times and Kathimerini
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Jun-15 World View -- Report: Russia may end support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Jun-2015)
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