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The English language becomes an issue between Turkey and Russia
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Russia is denying as "baseless propaganda" a claim by Turkey that Russia has once again violated its airspace, this time with an SU-34 bomber on Friday. According to a statement appearing on the web site of Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
"Yesterday (29 January 2016) at 11.46 hours local time, a SU-34 type Russian aircraft violated Turkish airspace.Before the violation actually took place, Russian plane was warned numerous times by Turkish air radar units, (through appropriate channels) both in English and Russian languages.
Despite several previous explicit statements of warnings by both Turkey and NATO, this new violation is yet another concrete example of Russian escalatory behavior.
We once again explicitly call on Russia, to act responsibly and not to violate Turkish Airspace, which is NATO airspace. We underline that such actions could lead to serious consequences, the responsibility of which will totally rest with the Russian Federation."
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Russia of purposely trying "to escalate the crisis in the region," and added that "If Russia continues to violate Turkey's sovereignty, it will have to face the consequences." Erdogan also pointed out that Turkey is a member of Nato, but did not specify what "the consequences" would be.
This is the latest in a series of increasingly hostile acts between Turkey versus Russia and its ally Syria. In June, 2012, Syrian forces shot down a Turkish air force jet. On September 16, 2013, Turkey scrambled two F-16 jets, and shot down a Syrian Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter, after warning it that it was approaching Turkish airspace.
In October of last year, Turkey threatened Russia if airspace violations are repeated, after Russian warplanes violated Turkey's airspace on two occasions over one weekend. At that time, Turkey's prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said:
"Turkey's rules of engagement apply to all planes, be they Syrian, Russian or from elsewhere. Turkey's armed forces have very clear instructions. The necessary steps will be taken against whoever violates Turkey's borders, even if it's a bird."
Then on November 24 of last year, two Turkish F-16s were involved in the shooting down of a Russian warplane in Syria near the border with Turkey. According to Turkey's military, the Russian aircraft was warned 10 times in five minutes that it was violating Turkish airspace. ( "25-Nov-15 World View -- Turkey shoots down Russian warplane, evoking memories of many Crimean wars")
Russia and Turkey have been bitter enemies for centuries in several generational crisis wars, especially after 1783, when the Russian armies captured Crimea in what was the Ottoman empire's first significant loss of Muslim territory, and then again in the Crimean War of the 1850s.
Since the November 25 shootdown of the Russian warplane, Russia has become increasingly hostile and threatening to Turkey, not only imposing harsh and increasing economic sanctions on Turkey, but also forcing other nations in the regions to choose sides between Turkey and Russia. ( "21-Jan-16 World View -- Azerbaijan forced to choose between Russia and Turkey")
So this new incident of Russia violating Turkey's airspace is not the trivial incident that it might otherwise seem to be. Turkey and Russia seem very close to war as it is, especially since the Russians have continually expressed nothing but contempt for Turkey, implying that Russian warplanes can do what they want.
Turkey, on the other hand, is committed to a highly nationalistic view of responding to any Russian incursion, even one that's harmless. When Davutoglu says that the rules of engagement have been determined, it implies that the next Russian incursion will be met with a missile launched without requiring further permission from the government in Ankara. AP and Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Russia Today and CS Monitor and Daily Sabah (Turkey)
Saturday's statement by Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs includes the following sentence:
"Before the violation actually took place, Russian plane was warned numerous times by Turkish air radar units, (through appropriate channels) both in English and Russian languages."
In denying the incident, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Iror Konashenkov denounced the claim that Russian pilots had been warned "in English and Russian" as a story made up by "ignorant propagandists who watched too many Hollywood action movies."
After the Russian warplane shootdown in November of last year, Turkey's military said that the Russian aircraft was warned 10 times in five minutes that it was violating Turkish airspace. Russia denied that any such warnings had been issued.
It emerged later that Russian military pilots are not required to learn English. English is a requirement for civilian flights around the world. For example, if a Russian civilian pilot were landing his plane in Saudi Arabia, in most cases the Russian pilot would not know Arabic and the Saudi air controllers would not speak Russian, and so they would communicate in English as a common language. However, there's no such requirement for military pilots.
According to Russian military media:
"An active military pilot who asked not to be named told the Voennoe.RF [Russian military news] reporter that English language proficiency was not a necessary condition for service in the Russian Airspace Force. "Yet it’s not obligatory", he said having added that there were neither language courses nor interim assessments.That was also confirmed by other officers and engineers of the Russian Airspace Force. "The main things are good health and general erudition", emphasized one of them."
This gave rise to the possibility that Turkey had, in fact, warned the Russian aircraft 10 times in five minutes, but that the Russian pilots were ignorant of English and didn't understand the warnings.
So Saturday's statement from Turkey emphasized the fact that "the Russian plane was warned numerous times ... both in English and Russian languages." In response, Russia's Defense Ministry mocked the "English and Russian" claim as a story made up by "ignorant propagandists who watched too many Hollywood action movies."
I'm not sure how to interpret the Russian statement since, of course, Hollywood action movies are generally in English. Mil.today (Russia, 21-October-2015) and Russia Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Jan-16 World View -- Turkey threatens 'consequences' after Russia violates its airspace again thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(31-Jan-2016)
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Mainstream economists are oblivious to the velocity of money
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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In a move widely viewed as an act of desperation, the Bank of Japan on Friday surprised economists by announcing that it will reduce a key interest rate to a negative value, -0.1%. This means that if a Japanese bank wants to "park" its excess reserve cash in the Bank of Japan, then the bank will have to pay the BOJ to do so. It also means that if a bank wants to borrow cash from the BOJ, then the BOJ will pay the bank to do so. It's an upside-down world. Unfortunately, the BOJ won't lend money to ordinary people.
According to the BOJ statement:
"The Introduction of 'Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing (QQE) with a Negative Interest Rate'
- The Bank will apply a negative interest rate of minus 0.1 percent to current accounts that financial institutions hold at the Bank. It will cut the interest rate further into negative territory if judged as necessary.
- The Bank will introduce a multiple-tier system which some central banks in Europe (e.g. the Swiss National Bank) have put in place. Specifically, it will adopt a three-tier system in which the outstanding balance of each financial institution's current account at the Bank will be divided into three tiers, to each of which a positive interest rate, a zero interest rate, or a negative interest rate will be applied, respectively."
Many economists were shocked because Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda had insisted only last week that the BOJ would not adopt any new monetary easing policies, especially negative interest rates. The purpose of the "three-tier system" is to reduce the amount of shock, at least at first. This may be temporary because the statement also says, "It will cut the interest rate further into negative territory if judged as necessary."
In addition, the Bank of Japan is continuing its "quantitative easing" (QE) program, and will continue to buy up government bonds worth 80 trillion yen ($660 billion) every year, adding that money to the economy.
The latest data on the Japanese economy shows the reason for the desperation. Household spending in December fell 4.4% from a year ago, and monthly industrial production contracted 1.4%. Official data shows that Japan's inflation rate was just 0.5% in 2015, and appears to be falling. Like most central banks, the BOJ has a target inflation rate of 2%, and that target seems far out of reach. Three months ago, the BOJ projected a 2016 inflation rate of 1.4%, but now has had to lower that projection to 0.8%. CNBC and Bank of Japan (PDF) and Market Watch
The logic behind the negative interest rate is that if a bank has too much money sitting in its reserve accounts, then instead of depositing it in the central bank, they might lend it out to businesses, who will then use it to hire people, pushing up wages, putting more money in people's pockets that they'll spend, pushing up inflation.
Unfortunately, that hasn't worked too well in other countries. In mid-2012, Denmark went to negative interest rates. In 2014, the European Central Bank (ECB) and Swiss National Bank (SNB) moved into negative territory and Sweden did the same in early 2015.
In fact, if you add together the GDPs of all the economies whose central banks have negative interest rates, then they add up to 23.1%. In other words, almost 1/4 of the world, measured by GDP, are economies where the central bank pays someone to take their money.
However, it is possible for ordinary investors to take advantage of the negative interest rates by purchasing some government bonds. Some Japanese government bonds, for example, have negative yields that go as low as -0.08%.
At the same time, the ECB and BOJ also have large "quantitative easing" programs, pumping money into banks by buying any bonds that are available.
So all this money is pouring out of the central banks into the regional banks, but there's little or no inflation, and certainly no hyperinflation. That's because the cash is just being hoarded by the banks and other financial institutions, for fear of a repeat of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. And if the money isn't being spent, and isn't being used to hire people, then it's as if the money weren't available at all. WSJ Blogs and Reuters and Market Watch
The growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the US economy slowed markedly in the fourth quarter of last year. The economy expanded at a rate of 0.7%, a big drop from 2% in the third quarter, and 3.9% in the second quarter.
Economists gave several reasons for the fizzling American economy:
The reason that banks and consumers are hoarding cash is related to the velocity of money, which is discussed below, and which mainstream economists are apparently totally oblivious to. Market Watch and Guardian (London)
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Mainstream economists (including those in the so-called "Austrian school") think that inflation is determined by the amount of money in circulation as set by monetary policy -- interest rates and quantitative easing. And you can find thousands of articles in the past decade explaining why continued low interest rates would cause inflation.
But anyone who's taken Economics 1.01 knows that inflation is caused by two factors: the amount of money in circulation times the velocity of money. You can google "velocity of money" for a full explanation, but it represents how frequently money is actually used to buy things or pay wages.
The above graph shows that the velocity of money has plummeted three times in the last century: During the Great Depression of the 1930s, following World War II in the 1940s, and during the financial crisis of the 2000s.
Economists -- and I mean pretty much all economists of all ideologies -- are completely oblivious to the velocity of money. If they think about it at all, then they think that if the central bank prints money, then it will raise not only the money supply but also the velocity of money.
What economists don't understand is that they have no control over the velocity of money. It's a generational variable, just like attitudes towards sex or war. A high velocity of money means that people are willing to spend lavishly, even go into debt. A low velocity of money means that people want to save money prodigiously, or to pay off their debts. These are attitudes that are deeply ingrained in people, just like their attitudes toward sex or war. The government cannot change the velocity of money by either monetary policy or fiscal policy.
And if the government can't control the velocity of money, then the government can't control the inflation rate.
Here's what former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in December:
"I think negative nominal interest rates are something the Fed might consider. We’ve seen it put to work in Europe primarily. But the scope for negative nominal interest rates is fairly limited. You can’t get very negative before people will begin to hoard cash, for example, which pays zero nominal interest rates. Although I’ve been surprised by how negative have been able to get in some European countries, I don’t think that, in the context of the United States, I don’t think that it could really be a central tool because I don’t think that rates can get that negative."
It's pretty clear that Bernanke doesn't understand the velocity of money, or thinks that hoarding money is being caused by low interest rates. The causation goes in the opposite direction. Since 2007, the velocity of money has been decreasing, meaning that people are hoarding their money more, not spending it. This is causing a deflationary spiral, and forcing the Fed to lower interest rates. As the deflationary spiral worsens, the Fed in desperation will resort to negative interest rates, as has happened in Japan. So it's hoarding of money that's causing low interest rates, rather than the other way around.
Ever since 2003, when I started writing regularly about Generational Dynamics, I've repeatedly written that in this generational Crisis era, Generational Dynamics is predicting a deflationary spiral. Mainstream economists, on the other hand, have been predicting that inflation or even hyperinflation would begin "next year" every year since then. Mainstream economists have been dead wrong, and continue to be wrong, while Generational Dynamics is right. The reason is that mainstream economists are oblivious to the velocity of money. Market Watch (15-Dec-2015) and St. Louis Fed
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Jan-16 World View -- Japan tries negative interest rates as US economy slows thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) =eod
(30-Jan-2016)
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Russia builds military presence in Dagestan after ISIS attack
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Russia is increasing its military presence and conducting large counter-terrorism military exercises in the south of its North Caucasus province of Dagestan in southern Russia.
The military exercises were triggered by a December 29 Islamist insurgency gun attack at the Derbent citadel, a Unesco World Heritage site and big tourist attraction. A group called "warriors of the Caliphate", affiliated with so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), claimed responsibility for the attack.
The insurgents opened fire on a group of tourists accompanied by two border guards from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on the citadel's viewing platform. One border guard was killed, and eleven others were injured.
At least 120 people were killed by insurgents in the Derbent region last year. Since this was the second shooting in the Derbent area in the past three weeks, it is clear that a local cell of the armed underground movement was involved. The insurgent cell is apparently targeting the police and FSB (Federal Security Service) in that part of Dagestan. After both attacks, the militants managed to escape unharmed.
Russia's media is playing down the ISIS connection. Russia also attempted to do that after an ISIS affiliate brought down a Russian Metrojet Airbus A321 airliner over Egypt in November. As we wrote in "5-Nov-15 World View -- Bombing of plane in Egypt threatens Russia's Syria strategy", the Russian military intervention in Syria is inflaming Sunni Salafists and jihadists, who have been threatening to increase their attacks on Russian targets as a result.
The reasons is that the injection of Orthodox Christian Russian troops in Syria is reviving the memory of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, which Salafists saw as a Christian invasion of a Muslim country. It brought the rise of modern Sunni jihadist movements, including the leadership of Osama bin Laden and the formation of al-Qaeda, so the invasion runs very deep in the psyches of Sunni Salafists and jihadists. Russia's new intervention targeting mostly Sunni Muslims in Syria, appears to be a repeat.
With ISIS now claiming credit for terrorist attacks in Dagestan, Russian officials have to deal with new problems. More and more Russians are questioning the wisdom of the Syria intervention. Many reports indicate that Russian soldiers do not wish to fight there. Reports of ISIS attacks on Russian airliners and tourist locations will only turn public opinion against the Syria intervention. Tass (Moscow, 30-Dec-2015) and Telegraph (London) and Jamestown and Tass (Moscow)
Officials from the US, Britain and France are becoming increasingly alarmed at the growing strength of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) in Libya, which already controls a long strip of coastline around the city of Sirte, has used heavy weapons to launch attacks against a series of oil facilities.
The US has already sent a group of special forces to Libya, and plans are continuing for a Western invasion of Libya, as we reported three weeks ago ( "6-Jan-16 World View -- US, Britain, France preparing new Libya military offensive early in 2016"). The military offensive is planned for around the beginning of March.
Libya now has two rival governments. One of them is in the far west in the capital city Tripoli, and the other is in the far east in Tobruk. Both governments signed off in December on a UN-backed "peace plan" to establish a single unity government that could lead a military push against ISIS.
However, earlier this week, the Tobruk government, which is the government that's internationally recognized, announced that it was rejecting the UN plan.
A precondition for the Western military intervention is implementation of the unity government plan, and an endorsement of Western military intervention by that unity government, so that the invasion won't be seen as yet another Christian invasion of a Muslim country.
But with ISIS stepping up attacks throughout the country, Italy's Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti said in an interview that the West is prepared to intervene militarily even if Libya fails to agree on a unified government. According to Pinotti:
"We cannot imagine the situation in Libya remaining in a stall as spring comes and goes.In the past month, we have worked more diligently with Americans, British and French. I wouldn't call it an acceleration, and it's certainly not unilateral. We are all agreed that we must avoid uncoordinated action."
According to Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook, "We're looking at military options." Reuters and Gulf News and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Jan-16 World View -- US, Britain, France, Italy continue plans for Libya invasion against ISIS thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(29-Jan-2016)
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Google's AI technology will soon start taking people's jobs
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Google's artificial intelligence (AI) division, DeepMind, announced that it has developed a software program called AlphaGo that can beat human masters at the ancient Chinese game of Go.
This is considered a significant milestone in AI because the game of Go is massively more complex than the game of chess, which was conquered by computers in the 1990s. It's also significant because it brings the world one step closer to the Singularity, the point in time where computers are more intelligent than humans.
The game of Go is thought to have originated in China 3000-4000 years ago. It's the oldest game that's still played in its original form. Today, it's popular throughout Asia, and it's played to a lesser extent in Europe and America.
Players take turns alternately placing white and black stones on a 19x19 board. If your stones completely surround your opponent's stones, then you've captured his stones, and you've gained territory. But if you're too ambitious and overreach by trying to capture too much territory, then your opponent can turn the table and surround your stones. The best players, who have been playing for decades, develop an intuition that allows to play unexpected moves that permit a group of stones at one end of the board to link up with stones at the other end.
The two pictures above show two different "pattern recognition" problems. The top picture shows a typical Go position. There are too many possibilities for someone to use simple reasoning to find the best move. Instead, a master who's played hundreds of thousands of games over decades will recognize patterns from previous games that show what the best move is.
The bottom picture is of an ordinary furnished room, and the problem is to find the clock. Almost anyone can find the clock immediately, because over the years you've seen perhaps millions of clocks, and your brain can do the necessary pattern recognition to find the clock instantly.
This kind of pattern recognition has been extremely difficult for computer software to master, because the computer would have to create a database storing perhaps trillions or quadrillions or quintillions of pictures, and then the software has to be able to compare the picture or the game position to all those pictures stored in the database.
Amazingly, the human mind is pretty good at that, because it can store huge numbers of images and then do many comparisons in parallel. But in the past, computers did not have enough memory for such a large database, and did not have enough computing power to do all those comparisons. But as computers have become more and more powerful, doubling in power every 18 months or so, huge pattern matching applications have become more feasible, and this has led to the implementation of a winning Go-playing computer program AlphaGo. American Go Association and MIT Technology Review
As I described in my article "Artificial Intelligence and the Singularity by 2030", the human brain uses two kinds of problem solving methods. One is illustrated by the bottom picture above, where the brain uses massive pattern matching to quickly find the clock in the picture.
The other is ordinary step-by-step reasoning, where you think "If I do A then B will happen, and I can do C." The game of chess was solved using computer software that does this kind of reasoning, employing something called a "minimax algorithm" that was invented in the 1960s.
The minimax algorithm works the same way that an ordinary person plays chess. You think, "If I make move A then he'll make move B and I can make move C, but if I make move X they he'll be forced to play move Y and I'll win." Chess-playing programs do the same thing, and can examine millions of positions in this way, evaluating them to decide what the next move should be.
The minimax algorithm requires that you have a simple way to evaluate a chess position numerically. A good chess playing program can evaluate any position by adding together numbers for the amount of material, for how much of the board is controlled, and other factors such as King safety.
In the game of Go, no such simple numerical evaluation method exists. There are dozens of white and black stones scattered over a 19x19 board. You could try some simple method of counting occupied positions, or something like that, but that would never capture the complexity of the position.
So the AI experts at Google's DeepMind used the power of modern computers to develop an advanced pattern matching technology. The technology known is as "neural networks" that was developed in the 1980s because it supposedly simulates the way that networks of neurons in the human brain perform pattern matching.
They created an enormous database of 30 million Go game positions developed from human expert games and by allowing the computer to play against itself for days. They developed advanced neural network applications to perform massive numbers of comparisons of a board position to those stored in the database. The "value networks" perform pattern matching with the database to evaluate board positions, and the "policy networks" perform pattern matching to select moves.
Using this approach, they developed the AlphaGo program and tested it against a human European Go champion, Fan Hui, winning five games to zero.
In March, AlphaGo will play a match to be held in Seoul, South korea, against one of the world's best players, Lee Sedol. 9 To 5 Google and Nature
As I wrote in "29-Dec-15 World View -- Artificial Intelligence breakthroughs in 2015, the Singularity by 2030", the year 2015 saw many major achievements in artificial intelligence, and the Google's AlphaGo technology continues that trend.
What's interesting is that as recently as 2014, most experts thought that for a computer program to play Go at a master level was at least a decade away, and possibly several decades. This illustrates how many people in the computer field underestimate how rapidly computer AI is improving, and how quickly the Singularity is arriving.
As I wrote in the article referenced above, I estimated in 2004 that the Singularity would occur around 2030, and I have no reason today to change that estimate. However, people tell me all the time that computers won't be as smart as humans for many decades, even centuries, because we don't yet understand enough about the human brain. However, this misses the point. Humans are smarter than apes even though we don't understand apes' brains, and computers will become more intelligent than humans by using technologies that don't require understanding the human brain.
In fact, we're going to start seeing rapid changes well before 2030. According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, AI is take away 5 million jobs from humans in the next five years.
Jobs that are most at risk of this transition to artificial intelligence are in administrative and office divisions, so much so that some jobs today are already being replaced by mobile apps and algorithms linked to the internet. For instance, a website may offer finding better hotel deals than a travel agent, or a mobile application can help you learn better Mandarin or French than a personal instructor. Other sectors that are also at risk are manufacturing, construction, health care, and even the arts and entertainment.
And it's my personal estimate that AI will replace most computer programmers' jobs within the next five to ten years. Wired (12-May-2014) and StGist
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 28-Jan-16 World View -- China's game of Go beaten by Google's AI software, bringing the Singularity closer thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(28-Jan-2016)
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China demolishes Southern Mongolian herders' homes in mid-winter
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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As China continues to deploy new missile systems that can target any part of the United States with nuclear weapons, and submarines that can target any part of the trade routes from China, through the South China Sea, and into the Indian Ocean, India is preparing to defend its Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
India has detected Chinese naval ships coming close to the territorial waters of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Chinese ships attempt to get close at least twice every three months. India is concerned that the islands are mostly undefended, and a lightning attack by the Chinese would be successful.
In response, India is deploying eight P-8I aircraft, obtained from Boeing under a 2009 deal with the United States. The aircraft will be stationed at the southern tip of mainland India in Tamil Nadu. They will serve as reconnaissance aircraft, and also will be equipped with missiles capable of neutralizing enemy submarines and warships.
According to Indian media:
"It's not uncommon for Chinese naval vessels to get close to the 10 degree channel, which is a 150km-wide channel that separates the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands. Officers feel that the Chinese may choose the Andamans for a sudden strike instead of the mainland. After all, the Chinese know that India has an upper hand for the first 7-8 days due to her advanced air assets if an attack is launched on the mainland.Things would change after that due to attrition and other factors but no armed conflict between two nuclear powers like India and China is expected to last more than a week before the international community intervenes.
"The only place where the Chinese can strike without facing any real opposition, merely to bother India, is the Andamans. After all, our assets on the mainland can't remain at a top level of preparedness for an indefinite period every time a Chinese warship is detected close to the islands. Capabilities of the assets from the mainland will also be hampered by bad weather and other factors. The Chinese will also factor these in if they choose to strike. The Chinese presence on Coco Islands continues to remain a matter of concern. The length of runway there has been increased to 8,000 feet. When it becomes 10,000 feet, all kinds of aircraft can land there and we will have a full-fledged Chinese base some 30-odd miles from the Andamans," the officer added."
The Coco islands are north of the Andaman islands. They belong to Burma (Myanmar), but are believed to be under control of the Chinese. Lowy Institute (Australia) and The Diplomat and Times of India and The Diplomat (19-Dec-2015) and Washington Free Beacon (11-Dec-2015)
India and Vietnam continue to enhance their military relationship to counter China's military belligerence in the South China Sea, where it it annexing regions historically belonging to other countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines.
India is building a satellite tracking and imaging center in southern Vietnam. Although it's billed as a civilian facility for agricultural, scientific and environmental applications, the improved imaging technology means the pictures could also be used for military purposes for both countries. India Times / Reuters
Despite police in China's Southern (Inner) Mongolia arresting herders for contacting "overseas news media," news is leaking out the Chinese authorities are driving Mongolian herders out of their homes and demolishing their homes in the middle of winter. According to the activist organization, Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), at least 160,000 ethnic Mongolians have been forcibly evicted from traditional grazing lands in recent decades.
China's government has announced long-term plans to move all traditional nomadic groups into permanent, urban dwellings, to make the grasslands available for other purposes, such as mining.
In 2008, local authorities implemented a ban on livestock grazing, and promised to pay subsidies to the Mongolian herders as compensation. However, the herders say that the subsidies stopped six months ago without notice.
In May of last year, and again in December, and again last week, hundreds of Mongolian herders have staged protests at government buildings and military bases. Early in January, Chinese officials arrived without notice and started evicting people and demolishing their homes.
Starting this week, local police authorities began arresting dozens of herders for contacting “overseas news media and hostile forces” and “engaging in national separatism." Many other herders received threatening phone calls from the local police authorities warning them not to contact any foreign news media or overseas organizations.
Communist China has a history of brutal treatment of minorities, including the slaughter of thousands of Tibetans in Tibet and Uighurs in Xinjiang. Radio Free Asia and Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Jan-16 World View -- India deploying 'submarine killer' planes to counter China's submarines thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(27-Jan-2016)
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Moldova crisis presents opportunities and dangers for Russia
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Months of anti-government protests in Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova, reached a head last week on Wednesday, when tens of thousands of stormed the parliament building, and police began using tear gas against the protesters, resulting in dozens of injuries. This mass riot was triggered by parliament's approval Pavel Filip to be prime minister. The protesters chanted "We Are the People" and "We Want our Country Back" and "Down with the mafia" in both Romanian and Russian, and demanded that the president, prime minister, and parliament all resign, and new elections be called.
Protesters are demanding the investigation of the “theft of the century” – the disappearance of an incredible $1.5 billion, 15% of the country's GDP, from three national banks ahead of the parliamentary election of 2014. The money was discovered to be missing a year ago, in January 2015. The prime minister Vlad Filad was arrested on corruption charges, and the parliament appointed a successor, Valeriu Strelet. In October, Strelet was dismissed in a no-confidence vote, and Moldova has had no government until Wednesday of last week, when the parliament selected a new prime minister, Pavel Filip.
There are two major ideologies in Moldova, the pro-Europe side and the pro-Russia side. Since 2009, the pro-Europe side has governed, but since the corruption scandal broke a year ago, voters have become increasingly disgusted with all sides.
The prime minister selected last week, Pavel Filip, is still nominally on the pro-Europe side, Filip is thought by many to be under the control of billionaire Vladimir Plahotniuc. As a result, both pro-Europe and pro-Russia protesters temporarily put aside their differences and turned against Filip after he was selected last week.
If there are new elections in the near future, it's expected that the pro-Russia side will win in the parliament, which will then select a pro-Russia prime minister. However, Filip, and Plahotniuc behind him, are resisting that outcome.
Filip himself is making the usual claim of politicians in power by saying that his stepping down could harm the country:
"We could find ourselves in a deep economic and social crisis. It's possible that Moldova wouldn't be able to pay salaries and pensions for four months."
Adrian Candu, the speaker of parliament, says that there's no legal way to call elections now, and adds:
"The current government and parliamentary majority really has to show results in days and weeks. We are counting on the first 100 days of the government to show actions and results. The time for nice messages is over."
However, both pro-Europe and pro-Russia groups accuse Filip and Plahotniuc of holding on to power in order to hide their corruption. Many observers don't believe that the new government will have even 100 days before widespread riots begin, perhaps modeled after the Maiden riots in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine, in 2013-2014, leading to a major European and Russian crisis. BBC and Irish Times and Jamestown
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Moldova is a small country squeezed between Ukraine and Romania. A strip of land on Moldova's border with Ukraine is the province of Transnistria. Polls in Transnistria indicate that people there would like to secede from Moldova and join the Russian Federation, in the same way that happened to Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. In fact, when Russia was in the process of invading Ukraine in 2014, leading to the annexation of Crimea, it was widely believed that Russia's invasion would continue on to the port of Odessa and then on to link up with the secessionist Transnistria province of Moldova.
That never happened, as the Russians became bogged down in East Ukraine, and the Russian economy was beset by Western sanctions and then by crashing oil prices. And now with Russia's military adventure into Syria, Russia is stretched too thin to revive a large military incursion into western Ukraine.
Now there's a new opportunity for Russia. If there are new elections in Moldova, and if, as expected, the pro-Russia factions win, then Russia will have a political change of government that will gives it influence of Moldova without the cost of a military invasion.
If pro-Russia forces come to power in Moldova, it would be a big public relations coup. Furthermore, such a victory would help settle the Transnistria issue, by unifying the secessionist province with the Moldovan government so that they're all pro-Russia.
However, such a victory would be a mixed blessing for Russia, as it would trigger other problems, according to Russian journalist and political analyst Gevorg Mirzayan. In these days of sanctions and counter-sanctions, both Ukraine and Romania would act harshly to pro-Russian forces in Moldova.
"[Ukraine's] reaction to pro-Russian forces in Chisinau would not be difficult to guess – a sharp hardening of relations and an economic blockade of Moldova from the east would be almost inevitable.As for Romania, here too there are several possible negative scenarios. It's doubtful that the EU will simply close its eyes on Moldova's demonstrative return to the Russian orbit, and using a deterioration of the socio-economic situation, they would attempt to convince Moldovans that they have made the wrong choice.
As a result, Moscow, which already has its hands full, will have to analyze all the options for supporting a pro-Russian government in Chisinau."
Mirzayan points out that if the pro-Europe factions continue to discredit themselves, especially following the corruption scandals, then the pro-Russia opposition will become stronger in the long run. Global Risk Insights (2015-Nov-10) and Sputnik News (Moscow) and Global Research
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 26-Jan-16 World View -- Mass protests force Moldova to choose between Europe and Russia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(26-Jan-2016)
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Previous attempts at Syria 'peace talks' ended in farce
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US Secretary of State John Kerry is spearheading the drive for peace talks for "peace talks" to get a "political solution" to the war in Syria. This follows the efforts by Kerry and others in the successful Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, successful Afghanistan Taliban peace talks, successful Pakistan Taliban peace talks, and successful Ukraine-Russia peace talks.
Oh wait.
Not only have all the above "peace talks" been total failures, so have several previous attempts at Syrian peace talks.
Let's recall that in March 2012, the vitriolicly anti-American former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan headed up the effort to bring peace to Syria. At that time, al-Assad had already massacred thousands of Sunni women and children as punishment for peaceful protesting, and only a few thousand refugees had already fled to Turkey. Bashar al-Assad made a fool of Kofi Annan by promising that he would make an "honest effort" to achieve peace in his country, at the same time that he was launching brutal attacks on civilians in Idlib.
At that time, I wrote "22-Mar-12 World View -- U.N. Security Council adopts farcical 'peace plan' for Syria". The terms of the 6-point peace plan were:
The whole "Syria commits" was a joke, since al-Assad honored no commitment. In fact, the whole peace plan was a joke. As I wrote in "3-Aug-12 World View -- Kofi Annan resigns in failure as Syria envoy", Annan was bitter and angry when he resigned, blaming his decision on what he described as Syrian government intransigence, on increasing militancy by Syrian rebels and on finger-pointing and name-calling by members of the United Nations Security Council.
In fact -- and this is important -- the whole "peace plan" was deceitful sham on the part of al-Assad. He continued to say that he was "honestly" working for peace when he had no intention of doing so, but continued his genocidal attacks on innocent Sunni women and children. He agreed to the "peace process" so that his acolytes in the press and online would keep supporting him and lying for him as he slaughtered more and more innocent people. The "peace process" also provided cover for Iran and Russia to continue supplying billions of dollars of weapons to the al-Assad regime for use in slaughter of innocent women and children; and it provided cover for the U.S. and Britain and France and Turkey to do nothing, since doing something might harm the "peace process." After Annan resigned, Lakhdar Brahimi took over as U.N. and Arab League envoy to the "peace process," but to no avail.
That whole "peace process" was a deceitful sham by Syria, Russia and Iran that allowed them to completely humiliate that total fool, Kofi Annan.
The Three Satans of the modern world are Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Iran's Seyed Ali Khamenei. These Three Satans are entirely to blame for the following:
These Three Satans have done an almost unbelievable amount of damage to the world, and now John Kerry is going to be "negotiating" with them. This ought to be sickening.
Here's how I described the "Geneva-II" peace conference led by Lakhdar Brahimi, when I wrote about in January 2014: In the mornings, both sides are in the same room with Brahimi. The two sides are in the same room, but they don't talk to each other. Each of them talks only to Brahimi. The purpose of the morning sessions is to discuss the agenda for the afternoon sessions. In the afternoon sessions, the two sides are in different rooms, and Brahimi goes back and forth between the rooms, like Henry Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy."
Well, I didn't know it at the time, but there's a phrase to describe this kind of peace talks. They're called "proximity talks," as opposed to "face to face talks," because the two sides are in different rooms.
The proximity talks were supposed to begin today (Monday), but they couldn't because there's no agreement on who will represent the anti-Assad "rebels." Russia already controls the al-Assad side, and apparently wants to control the "rebel" side as well. Apparently, none of the "rebel" groups wants to take part in the talks, because they realize that they're only a farce that will be used as a fig leaf to allow al-Assad and the Russians and Iranians to continue the war and then blame the "rebels" for violating the "peace process."
According to news reports, John Kerry has announced a "breakthrough" and a "compromise." Apparently a delegation of Kurds will also take part in the negotiations, which is one of the demands of the Russians, who are allied with the Kurds. This will be in addition to a "rebel" group favored by Kerry. The news reports don't indicate whether the Kurds will be in the same room as the al-Assad negotiators, or in the same room as the "rebels," or in a third room all by themselves. In the latter case, Kerry will have to go from room to room to room, instead of just from room to room. That's the way "proximity talks" work.
Actually, the word "negotiations" is already a joke, since the Syrians are already saying that they have no intention of negotiating. Before the active intervention by Russia, the al-Assad regime was losing more and more territory, and his army was near collapse. But now, thanks to the massive Russian bombing campaign on homes and neighborhoods of civilians supporting the "rebels," the al-Assad regime is doing a lot better, and believes that it has no reason to negotiate.
In remarks published on Sunday by Hilal al-Hilal, a senior official in al-Assad's ruling Baath party:
"We are not going to give today what we did not give over the past five years. This year will be the year of victory for Syria because of the heroic acts and sacrifices by its army and people,"
So what's the point of these "proximity talks"? They're just another scam by the Three Satans to cover up the massive disaster they've created.
Whenever I hear about a "political solution in Syria," there are two questions that always immediately go through my mind.
The first question has to do with peaceful demonstrations. Even if there were some kind of political solution, what would al-Assad do if peaceful demonstrations began again? If he allowed them to go on, then it would prove to the world that his whole motivation for starting the war in 2011 was idiotic. So he would have to start bombing innocent Sunni women an children again, and the war would begin again.
The second question has to do with ISIS and with the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front). They aren't even going to be part of the non-negotiations in Switzerland. So what does Kerry think would happen to them if they were presented with some "political solution"?
I was listening to the BBC on Sunday, and I heard an analyst give an answer to that question. He said that once a political solution was reached, then all the Sunni jihadists would leave ISIS and al-Nusra, and go home, since the political solution would leave them no more reason to fight, and then ISIS and al-Nusra would dissolve.
Just as al-Qaeda has dissolved in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria and Mali. Oh wait.
Really, we have so many people living in Fantasyland these days, it's no wonder that the world is on fire.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is a generational Crisis era, where the rules of diplomacy and mediation and compromise from the 1990s no longer apply. These "proximity talks" are a joke and a scam by the Three Satans, al-Assad, Putin, and Khamenei, who have already caused an enormous catastrophe, and have no intention of stopping now. Bloomberg and AP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Jan-16 World View -- Farcical Syria peace process 'proximity talks' to begin this week in Geneva thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(25-Jan-2016)
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The 2016 market meltdown raises fears of financial crisis
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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My recent article "Clown protesters mock Finland's xenophobic 'Soldiers of Odin'" described a vigilante group in Finland confronting migrants, harassing them and sometimes threatening them with violence.
This article drew some reader criticisms:
"Why am I classed as xenophobic in the derogatory sense when what I want is: 1. Preservation of my Judeo/Christian heritage and its attendant culture 2. Primacy of the English language in this country 3. Not to have crowding so as to packed in as an overpopulated 4th world dung heap - shades of "1984" 4. While I have sympathy for the refugees I will become one with them if they all come "here". No country afford to pay for, settle and provide jobs for all who wish to enter.Every single picture I have seen of the countries of the refugees there is a dichotomy; the small population of the very rich, a middle class on the economic edge and vast majority in poverty. I do not want to see that as the future in this country and I am sure the xenophobic Europeans (my ancestors) do not want it either."
"Blaming the West is not the right answer. They've been fighting amongst themselves for centuries, and they all believe their way of worship to be closer to allah then all the others. The Shiite, Sunni, and the rest are unable to get along, and if you took the West out of it, you'd see just as much destruction.Muslims have been blaming everyone but themselves and always will. They are always the victims even though their acts are barbaric. Stoning women, beating and raping they feel justified in doing."
"The Soldiers of Odin may be the only protection women have from the invaders."
The first problem with xenophobia is that it's un-American.
The problem with vigilantes is that they do no good. A few vigilantes in Finland are not going to do anything to stop the flood of migrants and refugees coming into Europe. It's like trying to stop a tsunami with a teaspoon.
Another problem is that it makes things worse. Vigilantes will have no effect at all on the supposed objective of "protecting women," but what it will do is aggravate people, create further hostility, and energize jihadists.
What you have to accept, Dear Reader, is that there are historic changes going on, and that they can't be stopped. Today's World View article is about those historic changes, with the migration crisis challenging the borders of the European Union and the Mideast, while at the same time the global economy is facing a crisis.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is a generational Crisis era, where the rules of diplomacy and mediation from the 1990s no longer apply. Treasure the time you have left, and use it to prepare yourself, your family, your community and your nation. How you do that is up to the individual, but being a vigilante will not accomplish it.
More than one million migrants and refugees came to Europe in 2015, mostly entering through Greece and Italy.
Remarkably, some 35,000 more arrived during the first three weeks of 2016. It had been thought that the winter weather would slow the flow to a trickle, but it hasn't. That's almost 12,000 per week. That suggests that there could be millions more migrants and refugees arriving in 2016.
Already, the European Union's prized open-border Schengen Agreement, appears to be crumbling. Several east European countries have put up fences, and other countries have closed all their borders, instituting border controls.
According to far left billionaire George Soros, the European Union is on the verge of collapse:
"There is plenty to be nervous about.As she (Merkel) correctly predicted, the EU is on the verge of collapse. The Greek crisis taught the European authorities the art of muddling through one crisis after another. This practice is popularly known as kicking the can down the road, although it would be more accurate to describe it as kicking a ball uphill so that it keeps rolling back down.
Merkel correctly foresaw the potential of the migration crisis to destroy the European Union. What was a prediction has become the reality. The European Union badly needs fixing. This is a fact but it is not irreversible. And the people who can stop Merkel's dire prediction from coming true are actually the German people.
Now it's time for Germans to decide: Do they want to accept the responsibilities and the liabilities involved in being the dominant power in Europe?"
French officials believe that France has been particularly affected by the migrant crisis since the November 13 attacks in which 130 people were killed by gunmen in a series of coordinated attacks across Paris. It later emerged that the gunmen had arrived in Europe with the flood of migrants entering Greece.
Following the attacks, France instituted a state of emergency, allowing the police the power to raid homes without warrants and to impose house arrests without first seeking judicial oversight.
France's prime minister Manuel Valls said that it would be in effect until ISIS is defeated:
"[France will be] using all means in our democracy under the rule of law to protect the French people.As long as the threat is there, we must use all available means. [The state of emergency should stay in place] until we can get rid of Daesh.
In Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia, we must eradicate – eliminate – Daesh. It is a total and global war that we are facing with terrorism. The war we are conducting must also be total, global and ruthless."
The European Commission President Jean-Claude Jüncker warns dismantling the Schengen zone and imposing new border controls would cost £2.3bn a year in lost business. The European Council President Donald Tusk says unless the EU makes progress in the next two months, Schengen could fail. CNBC and France24 and Independent (London)
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement, named after Frenchman Francois Georges-Picot and Briton Mark Sykes, signed by Britain, France and Tsarist Russia in May 1916. The agreement was originally kept secret because it was a betrayal of promises made to Arabs, but it was revealed in 1917 when the Bolshevik Revolution occurred in Russia. This was followed by the Balfour Declaration in 1917, promising the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
The borders set by Sykes-Picot/Balfour have remained largely intact, with few exceptions. There was the independence of Sudan from Egypt, and then the secession of South Sudan. North and South Yemen were unified, as were the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There were also changes to the Palestinian territories and Palestine, related to the establishment of Israel.
But there are many Arabs, especially Palestinians, who blame Sykes-Picot/Balfour as the source of all their misery. The so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) has specifically said that Sykes-Picot is dead, but other nationalist Arab groups are calling for its abolition, mostly for local political reasons. The Kurds have been leading the calls for an end to Sykes-Picot, and the creation of a Kurdistan state.
According to Oxford University historian Eugene Rogan, "The wartime partition agreements left a legacy of imperialism, of Arab mistrust in great power politics, and of a belief in conspiracies (for what are secret partition agreements if not conspiracies?) that the Arab peoples have held responsible for their misfortunes ever since."
The rise of ISIS, fueled by sectarian violence led by Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Iran's Seyed Ali Khamenei, have caused massive migrations of millions of people that are challenging the existing borders in the Mideast. Generational Dynamics predicts a major Mideast war between Sunnis and Shias, Israelis and Arabs, and among different ethnic groups. At the end of that war, there will be a major international conference that will set the new boundaries in the Mideast, as dictated by the winners, and that will certainly be the end of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Middle East Monitor and Atlantic Sentinel and Foreign Policy Journal and Jewish Virtual Library
The first three weeks of 2016 have been the worst start of the year in market history. There were two emergency market shutdowns in China within the first four trading days of 2016. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has never lost this many points within the first three weeks. Trucking freight in the U.S. is in steep decline. Jobless claims are beginning to surge again.
According to financial analyst Doug Noland:
"The world has changed significantly – perhaps profoundly – over recent weeks. The Shanghai Composite has dropped 17.4% over the past month (Shenzhen down 21%). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 8.2% over the past month, with Hang Seng Financials sinking 11.9%. WTI crude is down 26% since December 15th. Over this period, the GSCI Commodities Index sank 12.2%. The Mexican peso has declined almost 7% in a month, the Russian ruble 10% and the South African rand 12%. A Friday headline from the Financial Times: “Emerging market stocks retreat to lowest since 09.”Recent weeks point to decisive cracks at the “Core” of the U.S. financial Bubble. The S&P500 has been hit with an 8.0% two-week decline. Notably, favored stocks and sectors have performed poorly. Indicative of rapidly deteriorating economic prospects, the Dow Transports were down 10.9% to begin 2016. The banks (KBW) sank 12.9%, with the broker/dealers (XBD) down 14.1% y-t-d. The Nasdaq100 (NDX) fell 10%. The Biotechs were down 16.0% in two weeks. The small cap Russell 2000 was hit 11.3%.
Bubbles tend to be varied and complex. In their most basic form, I define a Bubble as a self-reinforcing but inevitably unsustainable inflation. This inflation can be in a wide range of price levels – securities and asset prices, incomes, spending, corporate profits, investment and speculation. Such inflations are always fueled by some type of underlying monetary expansion – typically monetary disorder. Bubbles are always and everywhere a Credit phenomenon, although the underlying source of monetary fuel often goes largely unrecognized. ...
[In the 'Periphery':] At $275 billion, Chinese Credit growth surged in December to the strongest pace since June. While growth in new bank loans slowed (15% below estimates), equity and bond issuance jumped. China’s total social financing expanded an enormous $2.2 TN in 2015, down slightly from booming 2014. Such rampant Credit growth was (barely) sufficient to sustain China’s economic expansion. At the same time, I would argue that Chinese stocks, global commodities and developing securities markets in particular have been under intense pressure due to rapidly waning confidence in the sustainability of China’s Credit Bubble.
A similar dynamic is now unfolding in U.S. and other “Core” equities markets: Sustainability in the (U.S. and global) Credit Bubble - the monetary fuel underpinning the boom - is suddenly in doubt. The bulls, Fed officials and most others see the economy as basically sound, similar to how most conventional analysts argued about the Chinese economy over the past year. Inherent fragility and unsustainability are the key issues now driving securities markets – in China, in the U.S, and globally. And, importantly, sentiment has shifted to the view that policy tools have been largely depleted."
As I've written many times (see "28-Aug-15 World View -- Explanation of Price/Earnings ratio and Stock Valuations"), Wall Street stocks are in an enormous bubble, with the S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio at an astronomical 22, far above the historical average of 14. Generational Dynamics predicts a financial panic and crisis, with the Dow falling to below 3000. ETF Daily News and Alt-Market.com and Credit Bubble Bulletin
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 24-Jan-16 World View -- Migration crisis signals historic shifts in Europe and Mideast thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(24-Jan-2016)
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China signals support for Saudis in Yemen, and for Palestinian state
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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China's president Xi Jinping has completed a visit to Saudi Arabia, during which he and Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud signed several agreements, mainly in the fields of energy, culture and industrial cooperation:
According to a Chinese spokesman,
"A total of 14 agreements including memorandums of understanding were also signed between the Kingdom and China at the palace. ...The signing of the agreements was witnessed by King Salman and Xi together in a very candid and cordial atmosphere.
Major pacts inked by the two sides also include an energy cooperation agreement and an accord to work together on the Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative to achieve goals of development within the framework of the initiative. ...
We hope and trust that Saudi Arabia, located at the west crossroads of the Belt and Road, will become an important participant of, contributor to and beneficiary of this initiative."
As part of his Mideast trip, Xi Jinping will also visit Iran, where he is expected to finalize a deal for two Chinese-built nuclear power plants.
In a visit to Egypt, Xi agreed to a rail project in Egypt worth $1.1 billion, and construction projects worth $2.7 billion.
As part of the "New Silk Road," Russia is proposing a 2,000 mile railway link between China and Iran. Bloomberg and Arab News and China Daily and Arab News and Tehran Times
China has always had a policy of "non-interference" in other countries, largely for fear of being criticized for its own brutal treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs, as well as for its own brutal treatment of dissidents in Hong Kong and on the mainland.
However, that policy has apparently been completely abandoned in the visit by China's president Xi Jinping to the Mideast.
In a joint statement, Saudi Arabia said that "Both sides stressed support for the legitimate regime of Yemen."
The war in Yemen is viewed as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran is supporting the Shia Houthis, who overthrew the elected government a year ago. Saudi Arabia is supporting the internationally elected government that was overthrown by the Houthis, and which is living in exile in Saudi Arabia.
The joint statement seems to make it clear that China is siding with Saudi Arabia, and against Iran. When a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman was asked whether China was siding with Saudi Arabia, he said, "(We) hope clashes in Yemen can come to an end as soon as possible and there can be reconciliation so the country can return to stability."
Xi Jinping also gave a speech to the Arab League in Cairo, and said:
"China firmly supports the Middle East peace process and supports the establishment of a State of Palestine enjoying full sovereignty on the basis of the 1967 borders. We understand the legitimate aspirations of Palestine to integrate into the international community as a state."
Perhaps the pro-independence activists in Taiwan can use this quote in their protests against China.
As I've been writing for almost ten years, Generational Dynamics predicts that in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, Russia, India and Iran will be allies of the United States, versus our enemies, China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries. Reuters and Quartz
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Jan-16 World View -- China signs nuclear deals with Saudi Arabia and Iran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(23-Jan-2016)
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The European Central Bank saves the stock markets for another day
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A group of clowns has taken to the streets of the town of Tampere in Finland to make fun of a new group of anti-migrant vigilantes called the "Soldiers of Odin," named after a war-like Norse god.
The vigilante group was formed late last year in the northern Finland town of Kemi, near the point on the border which has become an entry point for migrants arriving from Sweden. They wear black jackets, and run street patrols carrying carry signs saying things like "Migrants not welcome." Police have received complaints that they've approached migrants, and also citizens whom they've accused of being migrants, and harassed them and threatened them with violence.
After the recent reported incidents of hundreds of alleged sexual assaults by Muslim migrants in Cologne on New Year's Eve, The Soldiers of Odin have spread to other towns, and similar groups have sprung up in other countries. Most Finns oppose them, but they've received qualified support from the nationalist Finns Party, and they've been increasing in popularity since the New Year's Eve incidents.
In the Finnish town of Tampere on Saturday night, the Soldiers of Odin street patrols were met by a group of clowns calling themselves the "LOLdiers of Odin," where LOL stands for "laughing out loud."
The vigilante group named themselves after the mythical Norse god Odin who was highly war-like. However, Odin did not end well. At the time of the cataclysmic Ragnarök between the giants and the gods, Odin fought with the enormous wolf Fenrir. Fenrir killed Odin and swallowed him. Fenrir also swallowed the earth and sun. After the Ragnarök ended, everything was destroyed, and the world had to be recreated. Think of it as the mythological analog to World War III. Helsinki Times and BBC and Helsinki Times and Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Encyclopedia Mythica
After several days of frightening plunges in markets in Asia, Europe and North America, things settled down a bit on Thursday after Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), suggested that massive new quantitative easing (QE) would begin again in March, and that there will be "no limits" to how far he will go.
There have been trillions of dollars of "printed money" in the form of quantitative easing from central banks around the world, including the ECB, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, and the Bank of Japan. However, this tsunami of money has only ended up in the accounts of banks and hedge funds, and it's pushed up stock markets well into bubble territory. As these bubbles now seem to be imploding, the ECB has promised more and more liquidity to try to keep them blown up. The Bank of Japan is preparing to boost currency stimulus next week.
One side effect is that the US dollar continues to get stronger and stronger. This is related to the fact that the Fed has ended its QE program. Thus, after Draghi's announcement, the value of the euro fell 0.3% against the dollar, while the yen fell 0.2%. Both currencies are set for their biggest weekly drops this year.
However, these desperate attempts to keep the bubbles from imploding may be nearing an end, according to William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the OECD's review committee and former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). According to White:
"The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up. ...Debts have continued to build up over the last eight years and they have reached such levels in every part of the world that they have become a potent cause for mischief."
According to White, combined public and private debt has surged to all-time highs to 185% of GDP in emerging markets and to 265% of GDP in the OECD countries, both up by 35 percentage points since the beginning of the last financial crisis in 2007.
European banks have already admitted to $1 trillion of non-performing loans: they are heavily exposed to emerging markets and are almost certainly already rolling over further bad debts that have never been disclosed.
According to White, who predicted the 2007-2008 financial crisis:
"It will become obvious in the next recession that many of these debts will never be serviced or repaid, and this will be uncomfortable for a lot of people who think they own assets that are worth something.The only question is whether we are able to look reality in the eye and face what is coming in an orderly fashion, or whether it will be disorderly. Debt jubilees have been going on for 5,000 years, as far back as the Sumerians."
Well, if we're depending on politicians who "are able to look reality in the eye and face what is coming in an orderly fashion," then we should expect the worst. Bloomberg and Telegraph (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 22-Jan-16 World View -- Clown protesters mock Finland's xenophobic 'Soldiers of Odin' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(22-Jan-2016)
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Azerbaijan becomes the hub of the Caspian Trade Corridor, part of the new Silk Road
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Within the past couple of months, two major fault lines have developed and widened in Eurasia: Russia versus Turkey and Iran versus Saudi Arabia. These developments have forced a number of countries in the region (and beyond) to make choices between two sides where this hadn't been necessary before. We've written articles on the mediation issues facing Tajikistan and Pakistan and various Sunni countries and the United States.
In addition, there's the two-year-old growing Russia versus Ukraine fault line.
Azerbaijan is thickly involved in all of these major fault lines because of its strategic location and because its interdependencies:
Azerbaijan is officially neutral in the dispute between Turkey and Russia, but Azerbaijan has two major flash points with Russia.
First, Azerbaijan has military treaties with Turkey. Azerbaijani and Turkish Armed Forces regularly conduct joint military exercises, and two are planned in 2016.
Second, Azerbaijanis living in Russia are pressuring the Russian government to abandon plans to pass a law making it illegal for any individual to deny that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenians in 1915. Armenia is an enemy of both Turkey and Azerbaijan. 30 leaders of Azerbaijani organizations in Russia, apparently organized by Azerbaijan's government, demanded that that the law be withdrawn, pointing out that the Russian government had refused to acknowledge that the Hojali massacres in 1992 were a “genocide” of Azerbaijanis by Armenian forces. One Russian official called the demand a "stab in the back," because it threatened to "challenge the law in the courts of international human rights."
People who think we're still living in the 1990s are expecting everyone to come to their senses, and for all of these fault lines to dissolve, so that things can return to "normal" again. But this is a generational Crisis era, when fault lines widen rather than dissolve. It probably won't be long before a new fault line between Russia and Azerbaijan develops, and they start imposing sanctions on each other. APA (Azerbeijan) and Rubin Center (Israel) and Jamestown and Regnum.ru (12-Dec - Trans)
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In ancient times the Silk Road, a complex road network, was the most favored transport route between China and Europe. In recent centuries it lost its importance because of new developments in maritime technologies which led to cheaper and higher-volume seaborne trade.
But with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the rise of China in world trade, there has been interest in a "New Silk Road" for about 20 years.
With all the fault lines widening and sanctions being imposed in Eurasia, a number of trade routes between Asia and Europe have been closed, the New Silk Road concept has become more urgent, and this has presented a kind of opportunity to Azerbaijan to become the hub of a new collection of trade routes known as the "Caspian Trade Corridor."
China and Ukraine are important trading partners, and if China wants to ship goods to Ukraine, they can try shipping through the India Ocean and risk meeting pirates, or they can ship overland through Iran or Russia, and risk being stopped by sanctions.
Even more important, 40% of the world's exported oil passes through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Some 50,000 ships go through the Strait each year, making it a major choke point in international trade. Even a brief blockage would have major negative effects on the international energy markets.
For these reasons, the concept of a "Caspian Trade Corridor" has been discussed internationally for almost twenty years, but now with tensions growing throughout Eurasia, the discussions are becoming more urgent, to provide alternate trading routes.
The plan is to develop infrastructure within the Caspian Sea to effectively connect Central Asia to the Caucasus region. Goods can travel overland from India and China through Central Asia by truck and railway, to a port on the Caspian Sea. From there, the goods are ferried across the Caspian Sea to a port in Azerbaijan. From there, they can travel overland again, through Georgia, Turkey, and then into Europe, including Ukraine.
Turkey expects to benefit greatly from the Caspian Corridor. Turkish trucks that used to travel overland through Georgia, Russia and Kazakhstan are now being blocked from entering Russia. However, Turkey has yet to complete 76 kilometers of a railway that will connect Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. It's now considered urgent to complete this railway line as quickly as possible.
Azerbaijan’s Port of Baku is converting Baku into a logistic hub. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are building high capacity ports on the Caspian Sea, and are investing in marine transport vessels.
Turkish officials expect the Caspian Corridor through Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea to actually be cheaper than existing routes, and to give Turkey the opportunity to open new markets in Central Asia and China. Jamestown and Euro Dialog (2014) and Daily Sabah (Istanbul) and Haldun Yavas (Istanbul, 9-Dec-2015)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 21-Jan-16 World View -- Azerbaijan forced to choose between Russia and Turkey thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(21-Jan-2016)
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Puerto Rico's debt problem even worse than expected
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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With her poll numbers falling and regional elections scheduled for March, members of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) political party of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel are pressuring her to reverse her policy on migrants. According to the dissenting deputies:
"In light of the developments in recent months, we can no longer speak of a great challenge -- we are on the verge of our country being overwhelmed. ...We do not want to divide the CDU parliamentary group -- we are only asking for the law to be applied."
"The law" in this case is the European Union's Dublin asylum regulations, which say that refugees must seek asylum in the first member country that they land in. In that case, any refugee reaching Germany would already have been processed in Greece or Italy, and those not qualifying for asylum would already have been deported.
Germany has had to deal with an influx of 1.1 million migrants in 2015, and thousands are still arriving despite the winter weather. That volume may increase substantially when the warm Spring weather arrives.
The recent reported incidents of hundreds of alleged sexual assaults by Muslim migrants in Cologne on New Year's Eve have been explosive, and increased pressure on Merkel.
Merkel has suggested several solutions. She has attempted to persuade other EU countries to take in quotas of refugees, and she has pushed for reception centers to be built on Europe's external borders and for Turkey to be paid to keep refugees from entering Europe. However, none of these solutions has work.
On the other hand, the solution proposed by CDU party dissidents may not work any better. If 5,000-10,000 migrants arrive every day in Greece, then it will be impossible to process that many asylum applicants, and attempts to prevent them from surging northward may result in violence and become politically impossible.
In other words, the migration of millions of refugees from Asia, the Mideast and Africa into Europe may be an unstoppable historic force of nature. AFP and Der Spiegel and Gwynne Dwyer
Puerto Rico's government issued a new report saying that the territory's financial situation is worse than the previous estimate, made in September of last year, and that its deficit estimate over the next five years has widened to $16 billion from $14 billion since September. The debt deficit has occurred due to lower than expected tax collections. This means that Puerto Rico will not be able to reduce its $70 billion debt load, but that in fact it will increase. The governor has said that it's in a "death spiral."
Many officials were surprised that Puerto Rico was able to make most of the bond payments that were due on January 4, but it did that by delaying over $100 million in tax refunds and not paying government suppliers. Puerto Rico faces a $923 million negative cash balance in June just as the commonwealth and its agencies must pay $2 billion in principal and interest July 1. The cash crunch is so bad that Puerto Rico's prison system is no longer paying the vendor that supplies food for inmates, and some special education instructors have stopped getting paid.
According to Puerto Rican Secretary of State Victor Suar the welfare of the citizens of Puerto Rico is at risk, because the government cannot deliver proper public services:
"The failure of the government to make timely payments for the delivery and provision of essential government services is putting at risk the health, welfare and safety of the people of Puerto Rico. ...Continuation of these measures is neither sustainable nor in the interest of any stakeholder, as they will only deepen the financial gaps that the commonwealth and its creditors will need to resolve."
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has promised some action on Puerto Rico by the end of March. Still, many Republican members of Congress and some creditor groups have been leaning on Puerto Rico do more to pay its loans without restructuring its debt. They say the island should further cut government spending, tighten its administrative processes and look into privatizing government property before asking creditors to take a hit. Latin One and Bloomberg and Washington Post and Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Jan-16 World View -- Germany's Angela Merkel under pressure to restrict migrants thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(20-Jan-2016)
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Split triggered by Iran's invitation to an alleged anti-Tajik terrorist
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Tajikistan has reason to have good relations with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Tajik people are of the same ethnic Persian descent as the people of Iran, and the Tajik language is a dialect of Persian. On the other hand, Tajikistan's people are mostly Sunni Muslims, unlike the Shia Muslims of Iran, but like the Sunni Muslims of Saudi Arabia.
Tajikistan and Iran have had close relations for many years. Iran needs Tajikistan as a gateway for trade into Central Asia, and Iran has invested millions of dollars in commercial and infrastructure projects in Tajikistan.
However, things went awry in December, when Iran infuriated Tajikistan's president Emomali Rahmon by inviting Muhiddin Kabiri, leader of the Tajikistan's opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), to attend an "Islamic Unity" conference, held in Tehran on December 27-29, 2015.
Tajikistan went through a generational crisis civil war from 1992-97. The IRPT played an important part in the civil war, which left tens of thousands dead and more than 1 million people displaced. There was a peace agreement in 1997, but it left many divisions unresolved. According to one estimate, Tajikistan's government effectively controls only 30% of the country.
Whatever was left of the peace agreement began to unravel in April of last year, when Gen. Gulmurod Khalimov, the head of Tajikistan's national Special Assignment Police Unit defected to the the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). In May of last year, a YouTube video of Khalimov appeared, in which he threatened:
"Listen, you dogs, the president and ministers. If only you knew how many boys, our brothers are here, waiting and yearning to return to reestablish Sharia [Islamic] law [in Tajikistan]. ... We are coming to you, God willing, we are coming to you with slaughter .... Listen, you American pigs, I’ve been to America three times, and I saw how you train fighters to kill Muslims. God willing, I will come with this weapon to your cities, your homes, and we will kill you."
According to a report by the Crisis Group, this spectacular defection by Khalimov shows the growing appear of violent radical Islam, and that the president Rahmon may no longer know who can be trusted in his own government. According to the report:
"Since the civil war’s end, Rahmon has tried to marginalize and eliminate opponents, a tendency now gaining momentum. In turn, his government’s draconian responses to what in the society is not firmly under its control, such as dissent and Islam, are creating a backlash."
According to the Norway-based human rights organization Forum 18 Rahmon is reacting to the threat from ISIS by cracking down on all expressions of religion, including:
"[A] ban on all exercise of freedom of religion or belief without state permission; severe limitations on the numbers of mosques permitted and activities allowed inside those mosques; the banning of Central Asia's only legal religious-based political party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), and the arrest of its senior party figures as prisoners of conscience; forcing imams in state-controlled mosques to preach state-dictated sermons; forcible closure of all madrasahs (Islamic religious schools); a ban on all public exercise of freedom of religion or belief, apart from funerals, by people under the age of 18; and state censorship of and bans on some religious literature and websites."
A law was also approved banning children under 18 from attending Friday prayers.
Rahmon is following a generational pattern that we've seen repeated in one country after another in the years following the end of a generational crisis civil war between two ethnic or religious groups within the country. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe from the Shona tribe conducted a massive genocide of his political enemies from the Ndebele tribe. In Syria, Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad began in 2011 committing war crimes and genocide against peacefully protesting Sunnis. In Burundi and Sri Lanka, the leaders are just beginning on a similar path. ( "14-Jan-16 World View -- Report: Sri Lankan government repeatedly torturing and raping Tamils")
It's thought that this harsh crackdown might be counterproductive, in that it will encourage Islamist radicals. EurasiaNet and The Diplomat and Crisis Group and Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Forum 18
In 2015, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) was declared illegal, and its leader Muhiddin Kabiri was declared a terrorist by the government. And so, Iran's invitation to Kabiri to attend the December "Islamic Unity" conference in Tehran. On December 29, Kabiri even met with Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei.
Some Tajik officials blame Iran for instigating the destructive civil war that took place in Tajikistan in the 1990s. Now Tajikistan has accused Iran of inviting "the head of a terrorist party suspected of mounting an attempted overthrow of the government" to its conference. A Tajik official asked:
"How it is possible for the leader of a party that has repeatedly ordered violent acts and killings to speak about unity and Muslim brotherhood? Iran has always spoken of Tajikistan as a brotherly nation with a shared faith and culture. How it is then possible to welcome a terrorist?"
Another official called Kabiri a "traitor," and accused Iran of "openly [supporting] the enemies of the Tajik nation." These claims by Tajikistan have been discredited internationally, including by the United States.
However, these claims are driven by the same kinds of emotions and desire for revenge that we've described in the leadership of Zimbabwe, Syria, Burundi and Sri Lanka.
Tajikistan's president Emomali Rahmon paid a visit on January 2-4 to Saudi Arabia. The trip was undoubtedly planned months before the disputes with Iran began, but with both the Saudis and Tajiks in disputes with Iran, events gave the visit a symbolic meaning.
The meeting was presumably about combatting ISIS, and the possibility of Tajikistan joining the Saudi-led 34-member Anti-Terrorist Coalition, which would effectively align Tajikistan with the Saudis in the growing tension with Iran. The Tajiks have apparently chosen not to join the coalition, partially because Tajikistan has close relations with Russia, and Russia opposes the Saudi coalition.
In fact, Tajikistan is depending on Russian troops to protect its long border with Afghanistan from Islamist terror infiltrators. ( "29-Sep-15 World View -- Afghan Taliban capture of Kunduz has major repercussions for Central Asia"
Tajikistan's economy is desperately on the ropes. In the past, Iran has invested more in Tajikistan than Saudi Arabia has. Now, the Saudis are suggesting that they'll invest more. But the Saudi economy is in difficulty because of the collapse of oil prices, while Iran is at its peak in regional influence because of the nuclear accord and because it's receiving billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
For those reasons, most observers believe that, despite the bitterly vitriolic dispute between the two countries, Tajikistan will decide to "follow the money," and choose Iran over Saudi Arabia. Jamestown and EurasiaNet and RFE/RL and EurasiaNet (30-Dec-2015)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Jan-16 World View -- Tajikistan's bitter split with Iran tempts it to side with Saudi Arabia thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(19-Jan-2016)
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Reader questions about Mideast country alignments
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Following Saturday's announcement that sanctions against Iran are being lifted, tensions are continuing to increase between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Tensions turned to hostility earlier this month when Saudi Arabia executed 47 alleged terrorists -- 46 Sunnis and one Shia, Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, infuriating Iran and Shias because it implied that Shia terrorism is equivalent to Sunni terrorism. Iranian mobs firebombed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and attacked the consulate in Meshaad. This led to the severance of multiple diplomatic and commercial ties between Iran and several Saudi allies.
With sanctions lifted, Iran is now expected to flood the already flooded markets with additional oil. With the price of oil now well below $30 per barrel, Iran and Saudi Arabia are accusing each other of trying to damage the oil-producing nations.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday and Iran on Tuesday on a "peace mission" to "normalize" strained relations between the two countries.
According to a Pakistani officials:
"Pakistan is deeply concerned at the recent escalation of tensions between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. ... The purpose of the visit is to mediate and to end the standoff between the two countries."
Pakistan is a mostly Sunni Muslim country with very close ties to Saudi Arabia, including mutual promises of military support when needed. Pakistan is also thought to have promised the Saudis to provide them with nuclear technology to match Iran's nuclear technology.
This would seem to mean that Pakistan's one-sided alliance makes them an unlikely mediator. However, Pakistan can point to the fact that it's refused to provide military support to the Saudis in their proxy war with Iran in Yemen. Pakistan has diplomatically supported the Saudis in that war, but when called upon by the Saudis to provide troops, they refused, angering the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia's defense minister visited Nawaz Sharif last week, with the objective of getting Pakistan's support in the conflict with Iran, but he failed to do so. A Pakistani official said:
"Our policy is clear. We will stay neutral in the heightening tension between the two Muslim states.Although we condemn Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Saudi Arabia, including its reaction to Sheikh [Nimr Baqir] al-Nimr's execution, still we will not be part of any military offensive against any country in the region."
From the point of Generational Dynamics, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever to "normalize relations" or "end the standoff" between the two countries. Daily Times (Pakistan) and Pakistan Today and AFP and Anadolu Agency (Turkey)
Two days ago, we wrote about the trending Mideast alignments, with "the two main world powers, America and Russia, tilting towards the Shiite bloc of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah versus the Saudi-led lineup of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan," which is the alignment that Generational Dynamics has been predicting for years. I suggested that any analyst, politician, army general, or college professor whose job depends on knowing what's going on in the world would do well to study generational theory.
Readers have asked several questions:
Question: You've said that Generational Dynamics has been predicting for years that Iran would become an ally of the United States. Now that it's happening, it appears to be Obama's doing. Would there have been a nuclear deal if Mitt Romney had been elected president in 2012?
Iran's rapprochement with the West is not coming from Obama, but from the Iranian people themselves. In the article "9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement", I included in some excerpts from articles in the early 2000s that I had saved in my archive. The articles described large pro-Western protests by college students who had grown up after the 1979 Great Islamic Revolution. The news stories described how Iran's security forces used violence to crush the protests.
Today, the college students in that generation are now 30-40 years old, and have moved into positions of power. As they've grown up, they did not change their minds and adopt the harsh hardline views of the old geezers who survived the 1979 revolution. Instead, they're tired of being told what to do by the revolution survivors, and they want to rejoin the modern world. Those are the ones that are bringing about Iran's rapprochement with the West.
Every day that goes by, more and more of the revolution survivors die off, and more and more of those college students replace them in positions of power.
So if Romney were president, the same kind of thing would have happened, though of course with a different scenario. For example, it might have been a kind of "President Richard Nixon goes to China" thing, where the news reports at the time in the early 1970s said that only a Republican could have gone to China because Americans would have protested too much if a Democrat had tried it. Well, in this case it's Obama who "went to Iran," and there have been a lot of protests, but if Romney were president, he too would not have missed the opportunity for rapprochement with Iran, just as Nixon didn't with China.
Question: What about Europe? Will all the European countries align with the U.S.?
The European Union is facing two major existential crises. One is the financial crisis, which has raged for years, especially in Greece, but is currently in remission. The other is the flood of migrants and refugees coming from Asia, the Mideast and northern Africa, numbering in the millions. This is ongoing, and will almost certain surge again when the weather improves in the Spring.
These two crises have exposed fault lines in Europe, even to the point where border controls are being reimposed. But no fault lines have so far risen to so high a level that war is threatened.
If we look at history, there's been a great deal of animosity between England and France, with many examples since 1066. But Britain and France were allies against Germany in World War II.
Another issue is the role of Turkey and Russia in Europe. In WW I, Turkey was allied with Germany while Russia was allied with France. Today, the hostility between Turkey and Russia is palpable, and they'll certainly be fighting each other, as they have many times the in past centuries.
So does that mean that Germany and France will follow Turkey and Russia, and be at war with each other? It doesn't seem plausible today, but stranger things have happened.
This question could be answered in greater detail with resources beyond what are available to me. This would involve, for example, research to determine changes in attitudes of the people of each European country, on a month to month basis, to see how they're trending, and how people are responding to various events.
Question: How does Generational Dynamics interpret the rising tide of anti-immigration parties springing up in Europe? It seems that the people are starting to resist, just like here.
I've written about this subject before -- the general rise of nationalism and xenophobia around the world in this generational Crisis era. The survivors of World War II saw that much of what happened had its roots in the same kind of nationalism and xenophobia, and decided that it must never happen again. The whole "European project" that led to the formation of the European Union was exactly for that purpose. But it didn't work, because now the same nationalism and xenophobia are growing again anyway. The recent reported incidents of alleged sexual assaults by Muslim migrants are particularly explosive, and may motivate further violence.
In yesterday's story about the Taiwan election, I included news about a 16 year old girl was forced to apologize for waving a Taiwanese flag. The forced apology infuriated the Taiwanese people, and appears to have influenced the election in favor of Taiwanese independence. This is an example of how an incident can incite a mob to vote a certain way.
During a generational Crisis era, once the scene has been set with two ethnic or religious groups becoming increasingly belligerent towards each other, and start blaming each other for the world's problems, any sort of crisis could mobilize mobs of people to violence. We've seen intermittent examples of this in countries like Egypt and Burma, as well a several countries in the Mideast. Throughout history, major wars often began with exactly these kinds of increasing mob violence.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Jan-16 World View -- Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(18-Jan-2016)
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Pop star's Taiwan flag incident illustrates how tense relations are
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen won an overwhelming victory in elections on Saturday. Although the DPP has won elections before, previous victories have never been as large and decisive as this one.
The last time the DPP was in power, relations with mainland China were extremely tumultuous. In 2005, China passed an "Anti-Secession Law" that stated that China will take military action in response to anything that even hints at independence:
"Article 8: In the event that the "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful re-unification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
Passage of this law in China in 2005 provoked massive riots and and anti-China demonstrations in Taiwan.
For the last few years, Taiwan has been governed by the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) party, which favors the "one China" principle and unification with mainland China, and which has fully supported all of China's claims in the South China Sea.
The KMT and DPP parties represent major generational differences. Originally, the KMT members were refugees from China's civil war (1934-49), Mao's Communist Revolution. Today, the civil war survivors have almost all died off, but the members of the KMT party are typically from older generations, children of survivors. The DPP came to power after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing was viewed in horror by college students in Taiwan, who decided that they didn't want to be any part of China.
So now that the DPP is back in power, Taiwan-China relations are sure to become extremely rocky again.
In her victory speech on Saturday, Tsai said the following:
"The results today tell me the people want to see a government that is willing to listen to the people, that is more transparent and accountable and a government that is more capable of leading us past our current challenges and taking care of those in need."
This seems like the kind of innocuous thing that any politician would say, but in the phrase "is willing to listen to the people" is a huge red flag for the Communist government in Beijing, which sees listening to the people to be a major evil, whether in Tiananmen Square, in Hong Kong, or in Taiwan.
It's a particular problem in Taiwan because, as the years go by, "the people" are becoming increasingly in favor of independence. When people are asked whether they consider themselves to be "Chinese or Taiwanese," the KMT members mostly say "Chinese." But the younger generations that form the DPP, and who are extremely distant in time from the days of Mao's revolution, are much more willing to call themselves "Taiwanese."
When the DPP were last in power, the pro-independence line was aggressively pursued. But Tsai has promised a more balanced approach, by maintaining the "status quo." Indeed, 70% of Taiwan's population support the status quo, according to a poll.
The "status quo" means that Taiwan rules itself without official independence, and will no intention of becoming part of China. China has indicated that this will be OK for the time being, but not forever.
China had once hoped that improving commercial ties and relations would make the Taiwanese people want to be part of China peacefully. This is exactly what China tried with the outgoing KMT government, but it's obviously failed. How long China will keep trying before striking militarily remains to be seen. Focus Taiwan and BBC (14-Mar-2005) and CS Monitor and BBC
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Sixteen-year-old Taiwanese pop singer Chou Tzu-yu is part of the Korean pop (K-pop) band Twice. In a November broadcast, she held up a Taiwan flag. The incident might never have surfaced, except that it was publicized by another singer Huang An, who is Taiwanese but who has lived in China for many years. Huang apparently is on a crusade to "out" any Taiwanese performer who favors independence from China.
Once Chou was "outed," retribution was swift. Chou's endorsement deal with China's Huawei Technologies Co. was canceled, and Chou had to cancel all appearances in China to allow for a period of "reflection."
On Friday, the evening before Saturday's election, a YouTube video appeared with a 90 second apology from Chou Tzu-yu. Reading from a prepared text with her voice shaking, she said:
"There is only one China... I have always felt proud of being a Chinese.As a Chinese person my improper words and behavior during my activities abroad hurt my company and the feelings of netizens across the strait. ...
I have decided to stop my activities in China for now to seriously reflect on myself."
When the apology appeared, Huang An, who has outed Chou, gloated:
"We have won back a good child who identifies with the motherland. It is yet another major achievement in the people of the motherland's fight against Taiwan independence."
Almost without exception, commentators in Taiwan believe that Chou was forced by her management company to make the apology. The video instantly went viral, and infuriated Taiwanese people. It's believed that the video increased turnout in Saturday's election, and is part of the reason for DDP's overwhelming victory.
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) issued a statement on Saturday:
"It is absolutely fair and justified for a Taiwanese person to hold a national flag to show his or her love for the country, and we support such a patriotic act."
Focus Taiwan and AFP
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 17-Jan-16 World View -- Taiwan's pro-independence party wins historic presidential election thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(17-Jan-2016)
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Saudi Arabia faces increased social unrest with sudden austerity budget
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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I want to extract one paragraph from the analyst report on Saudi Arabia quoted at the end of this article:
"As the Shiite-Sunni contest builds up, Riyadh [Saudi Arabia] sees the two main world powers, America and Russia, tilting towards the Shiite bloc of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hizballah versus the Saudi-led lineup of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan."
This is exactly the alignment that I've been predicting for years, based on Generational Dynamics analyses, long before it seemed possible. As I've described dozens of times, in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, the "allies" will be the United States, India, Russia and Iran, while the "axis" will be China, Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim countries. Quite honestly, I'm as astonished as anyone is when the generational theory analysis and predictions turn out to be true time after time after time.
I'm going to take this fortuitous opportunity to give some advice to all the people who have expressed contempt and scorn every time I've made one of these predictions, though they themselves couldn't predict their way out of a paper bag.
If you're an analyst, politician, army general, or college professor whose job depends on knowing what's going on in the world, you would do much better if you took the time to learn generational theory. Generational theory was first developed in the 1980s-90s by William Straus and Neil Howe, who showed how it applied to Britain and America since the 1400s. Generational Dynamics extends their work to include all nations at all times in history, and it provides a forecasting methodology that has been almost 100% successful, as proven by hundreds of predictions in thousands of articles since 2003.
The theory behind the Generational Dynamics forecasting methodology combines historical analysis with MIT's System Dynamics applied to generational flows, the most significant and important application of MIT's systems analysis found to this day. The theory also incorporates Chaos Theory (to determine what can and cannot be predicted), Mathematical Logic (to derive results from abstract models of the world), Macroeconomics, Technological Forecasting and Sociological Analysis.
If you or someone on your staff wants to master generational theory and Generational Dynamics forecasting, the material is all on the Generational Dynamics web site, and is freely available to anyone. You can start with the 2010 paper: Generational Dynamics Forecasting Methodology (PDF). If you don't take advantage of it, then your competitor might do so first.
With the price of oil now falling significantly below $30 per barrel, and analysts expecting further plunges, the government of Saudi Arabia is facing existential threats from several directions.
The most obvious threat is the loss of something like 75% of its income from oil exports. This has forced the Saudi government to adopt an "austerity budget" in 2016, cutting back massively on social spending such as free health care, or subsidized gasoline, electricity and other utilities.
Saudi Arabia is deep into a generational Crisis era, with its last generational crisis war having been the Ibn Saud family's victory over the Wahhabi Salafists that climaxed in 1925. The outcome of that war was an uneasy peace between the two groups that allowed the Saud family to govern but the Salafists to maintain much of the social control in the country, including education and the "religion police." It's rare for a country to go more than 60 or 70 years without a new generational crisis war, and indeed as I wrote in September ( "12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11"), things really came to a head in 1979 with a major terrorist attack by a Salafist group on the Grand Mosque, shaking the Saudi government to its core. That attack lit the fuse that led to the creation of 9/11 and al-Qaeda and, more recently, the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
The 1979 attack might have been the first step towards a new crisis war, but the Saudi government has been able to hold off the Salafists since 1979 by using their vast oil wealth for immense social spending to prevent social unrest. But now, with the new "austerity budget," the Salafist groups are threatening the government.
When the Saudis executed 47 "terrorists" earlier this month, the government talked about protecting its security. As one pro-government cleric tweeted, the executions were "a message to the world and to criminals that there will be no snuffing out of our principles and no complacency in our security."
However, one of the 47 was a Shia cleric Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, and his execution inflamed Iran, as well as Shias in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Pakistan. After Iranians firebombed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, the two countries severed diplomatic relations. ( "4-Jan-16 World View -- Saudi Arabia cuts diplomatic ties with Iran as violent Shia protests spread around region") So the Saudi government is facing social unrest from both Sunni Salafists and Shias.
Saudi Arabia's new King, Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, rose to power in January 2015, almost exactly a year ago, after the death of King Abdullah, and there are concerns about a power struggle and possible coup.
Debka's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber) says there is a risk of a coup because of strong opposition to some of Salman's policies:
With regard to the last item, which I also quoted at the beginning of this article, there is of course a third major world power, and that's China, and Generational Dynamics predicts that China will be very much on the side of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the months and years to come. Reuters (3-Jan) and Washington Post (4-Jan) and Energy Fuse and CNBC and Debka
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 16-Jan-16 World View -- Mideast trends: Sunni-Shia countries align along predicted lines thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(16-Jan-2016)
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Second aid convoy arrives in the starving Syrian city of Mayada
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Aid workers reaching the town of Madaya, an hour from Damascus in Syria, found an almost unbelievable horror as thousands of people were close to starvation. The regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, with the support of Iran's puppet terror organization Hezbollah, has been blockading Madaya for 200 days, preventing food or medicines from reaching the town.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday accused the Syrian government of committing war crimes by using starvation as a weapon. He accused the Bashar al-Assad regime of committing "atrocious acts" and "unconscionable abuses" against civilians. According to Ban:
"Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime. All sides, including the Syrian government which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians, are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law.UN teams have witnessed scenes that haunt the soul. The elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones: gaunt, severely malnourished, so weak they could barely walk, and utterly desperate for the slightest morsel."
The town of Madaya is not unique. According to Ban, there are 180,000 people similarly besieged in areas controlled by the Bashar al-Assad regime. There are also about 200,000 people besieged by the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), and 12,000 in areas controlled by opposition groups.
As I've been reporting for years, Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity continuously. In 2011, he began a campaign to exterminate innocent Sunni protesters. He's killed children by sending missiles into exam rooms and bedrooms. He's used Sarin gas against his own people, and he's killed countless more with barrel bombs loaded with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas. In addition, he's used electrocution, eye-gouging, strangulation, starvation, and beating on tens of thousands of prisoners on a massive "industrial strength" scale, and does so with complete impunity, and has been doing so for many years.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei are also war criminals for supporting Bashar al-Assad's war crimes.
Russia's state media reported Ban Ki-moon's accusations of war crimes, without displaying any irony over Russia's complicity in the war crimes. Iran's state media quoted Syria's ambassador as saying that "media reports of starving civilians in the southwestern town of Madaya have been fabricated in an attempt to defame the government of President Bashar al-Assad." Reuters and Russia Today and Press TV (Tehran) and Anadolu Agency (Turkey)
A second wave of aid convoys entered Madaya on Thursday evening, delivering food and humanitarian supplies to the population of 40,000. An earlier convoy of aid arrived Monday, bringing many starving residents to tears, as Madaya had received no foreign aid since October.
For months, the Bashar al-Assad had refused to allow food or humanitarian aid to reach the town, but was finally forced to relent under enormous international pressure. The aid is being delievered as part of a U.N.-brokered deal, according to which aid must also be delivered simultaneously to regions of al-Assad supporters being beseiged by anti-Assad rebels. CNN and Asharq Al-Awsat (Riyadh) and Guardian (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 15-Jan-16 World View -- UN's Ban Ki-moon calls Syria's Bashar al-Assad a war criminal thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(15-Jan-2016)
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Iran releases American sailors as end of sanctions approaches
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If things go as planned, Iran will have access to $100 billion in frozen bank accounts, starting next week when American sanctions are lifted.
It's thought that this is the reason the Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) so quickly released the ten American sailors captured a day earlier, allegedly for violating Iran's territorial waters. It's believed very unlikely that the sanctions would be lifted if Iran were holding ten American sailors for no reason.
According to some reports, there were widespread Iranian social media postings pressuring the government to release the sailors, so that Iran could collect the money from the raised sanctions.
Iran released a video showing the American soldiers on their knees at gunpoint, and an American sailor apologizing and saying:
"It was a mistake that was our fault and we apologize for our mistake. It was a misunderstanding. We did not mean to go into Iranian territorial water. The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here. We thank you very much for your hospitality and your assistance."
When British sailors allegedly entered Iranian waters in 2007, they were accused of being spies, paraded on television in a big Iranian song and dance, and only released two weeks later after forced confessions. CNN and NBC News
Evidence is mounting that Sri Lankan government security forces are continuing high levels of torture and sexual violence on Tamils, as revenge attacks since the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009.
The Sri Lanka civil war was fought between two ancient races: The Sinhalese (Buddhist) and the Tamils (Hindu). WW II was a generational crisis war for India and for Ceylon, the former name of Sri Lanka. There was relative peace on the island until 1976, when the Tamils began demanding a separate Tamil state, and formed a separatist group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or just "Tamil Tigers."
In January 2008, the low-level violence turned into a full scale generational crisis war, as we reported at the time. (From 2008: "Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels")
Under United Nations and intense international pressure, the Sinhalese-led Sri Lankan government has repeatedly promised to pursue reconciliation with the Tamils. But a new report by the "International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka" (ITJPSL), based on interviews with victims, indicates that Tamils are being targeted for torture and rape.
According to the report, the abductions and torture were pre-planned in each case, after collecting information about the victims' political activities, perpetrated by senior officers in the police and military intelligence. Torture included being hung upside-down and beaten, being branded with metal rods, and asphyxiated using a plastic bag soaked with petrol or chili. Both male and female victims were raped repeatedly. IRIN (United Nations) and International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Sri Lanka is beginning down the same path that we've been seeing in Burundi, Syria and Zimbabwe, following a generational crisis war that's also a civil war.
These examples, particularly the Syrian war, have led us to add to the generational theory related to the outcome following a generational crisis war, as we've been describing for several months.
Among generational crisis wars, an external war is fundamentally different than an internal civil war between two ethnic groups. If two ethnic groups have lived together in peace for decades, have intermarried and worked together, and if then there's a civil war where one of these ethnic groups tortures, massacres and slaughters their next-door neighbors in the other ethnic group, then the outcome will be fundamentally different than if the same torture and slaughter had been rendered by an external group. In either case, the country will spend the Recovery Era setting up rules and institutions designed to prevent any such war from occurring again. But in one case, the country will enter the Awakening era unified, except for generational political differences, and in the other case, the country will be increasingly torn along the same ethnic fault line.
In some cases, where the government during the Recovery Era is controlled by the winning ethnic group, the government uses "preventing another civil war" as an excuse to target the losing ethnic group, whether by economic discrimination, torture, revenge murder, or mass slaughter.
So now it's beginning to appear that Sri Lanka is joining the same torture club as these other three countries. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these are not four unique situations, but rather four countries following exactly the same pattern. As generational theory develops in this area, it will be possible to make a broad range of predictions about the futures of many countries. There really is nothing new under the sun.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 14-Jan-16 World View -- Report: Sri Lankan government repeatedly torturing and raping Tamils thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(14-Jan-2016)
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Suicide bombing in Istanbul Turkey kills 10 tourists
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According to Sepah News, the official site of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC):
"The army detained two US military ships in the Persian Gulf which were in violation of Iranian territorial waters. ...At 16:30 Tuesday armed gunmen being carried by two US military vessels that entered the territorial waters of the Islamic Republic of Iran near Farsi Island were seized and transferred to the island. ... Those on board the American vessels included 9 men and a woman."
US Defense Department officials say that the Iranian's have informed them "of the safety and well-being of our personnel. We have received assurances the sailors will promptly be allowed to continue their journey."
As we wrote in "9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement", there are many opponents to the nuclear deal in Iran's government, including many who would like to sabotage it. It's thought that Tuesday's incident was timed to embarrass President Obama just before his State of the Union speech.
This was just the latest of a series of hostile incidents. Two weeks ago, Iran launched rockets that landed within 1,500 yards of the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. Iran is also holding a Washington post reporter in jail. Sepah News (Iran - Trans) and Military.com
Economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are predicting a sharp 2016 global recession and deflation, with stock market prices falling 10-20% by the end of the year.
The RBS report repeatedly says that this is about "return of capital, not return on capital," which means that the analysis is not about earning 3%, 4% or 5% on your investments, but is about not losing 10-20% or more on your investments. Forecasting a "cataclysmic year" and a global deflationary crisis, the report concludes:
"Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small."
The last sentence means that when stocks start falling, everyone will try to sell, but only a few will succeed in doing so without losing a lot of money.
RBS has repeatedly warned that global finance "looks similar to 2008," when the last major financial crisis occur, but now the outlook has become significantly more ominous in the last six weeks.
The author of the report says that global debt ratios have reached record highs and are particularly ominous, and "China has set off a major correction and it is going to snowball. Equities and credit have become very dangerous, and we have hardly even begun to retrace the 'Goldilocks love-in' of the last two years."
Another ominous trend is the plunge in crude oil - down 19% so far in this year (2016) alone, and an incredible 72% plunge from crude oil's June 2014 peak of almost $108. On Tuesday, oil prices fell below $30 per barrel for the first time since December 2013. RBS, Morgan Stanley, Standard Charter and Barclays have all recently predicted that oil will fall below $20 per barrel, perhaps below $10 per barrel.
Commodities in general have been plummeting, a sign of weakening global economies, especially in China and emerging markets. The RBS points out that in the last six weeks alone, copper has fallen 1.5%, coal down 6.2%, wheat down 3.5%, corn down 4.1%, soybeans up 0.3%. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of international commodities shipments, has fallen 16%.
One more forecast mentioned in the RBS report: "Automation on its way to destroy 30-50% of all jobs in developed world." That indicates something much worse than a 10-20% recession.
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As regular readers know, Generational Dynamics predicts that we're headed for a global financial panic and crisis. According to Friday's Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stock valuations index) on Friday morning (January 8) was at an astronomically high 21.08. This is a bit smaller than it's been in a while, but still far above the historical average of 14, indicating that the stock market is in a huge bubble that could burst at any time. Generational Dynamics predicts 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. Royal Bank of Scotland (PDF) and Guardian (London) and Telegraph (London) and CNN
A suicide bombing killed at least 10 foreign nationals, most of them Germans, and wounded 15 others, blowing himself up at a major tourist spot in Istanbul on Tuesday. The explosion occurred near Hagia Sophia, which was originally a Greek Orthodox cathedral, the largest cathedral in the world, until the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans in 1453. After that it was converted to a mosque, and later to a museum, and is now Istanbul's biggest tourist attraction.
The perpetrator was 28 year old Nabil Fadli, of Syrian origin, born in Saudi Arabia in 1988. He has been identified as a member of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
There have been three major ISIS terrorist acts in the last seven months. ISIS was blamed for a bomb that killed four people at a Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir on June 5, 2015. An ISIS militant also killed 33 socialist activists on July 20, 2015, at the Amara Cultural Center in the southeastern district of Suruç. Two ISIS militants then killed at least 100 people attending a peace rally in Ankara on Oct. 10, 2015, in the deadliest attack in the country’s history. Hurriyet Daily News (Istanbul)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Jan-16 World View -- Royal Bank of Scotland predicts sharp 2016 recession, says 'Sell everything!' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(13-Jan-2016)
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Pathankot air base incident revives memories of the '26/11' Mumbai attack in 2008
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Indians are in shock at how easily a terror group was able to infiltrate an Indian Air Force Base at Pathankot, in Punjab province near the border with Pakistan, for a devastating terror attack on January 2-3.
In retrospect, it seems like a comedy of errors.
India's Border Security Force (BSF), which guards the international border between Punjab and Pakistan, at first had no clue that heavily armed terrorists had infiltrated the base from Pakistan. The terrorists evaded the BSF when they were discovered, but the BSF didn't raise the alarm, thinking they were merely robbers.
Late on December 31, the terrorists grabbed Pathankot’s Superintendent of Police (SP), Salwinder Singh, blindfolded him and threw him out of his car, in which they fled. When Singh reported the incident, his seniors didn't take him seriously, thinking that he had gotten drunk at a New Year's Eve party. When they finally took him seriously, they had no idea where the terrorists had gone. The base has a sprawling perimeter with a circumference of 25km, and has nearly 10,000 families living there.
India's National Security Guard (NSG) was activated, and gunfights between the terrorists began on January 1, and continued through the night into January 2. Three terrorists were killed, and the NSG thought the fight was over, but gunfights with the remaining terrorists began again later that day.
The terrorists had defeated every layer of protection that India had put in place to protect the Pathankot air base. The terrorists had managed to enter the air base undetected. They were already inside the base's reinforced gates well before the NSG commandos took position. The terrorists had managed to evade the Border Security Force (BSF), the Punjab Police and the Garud and Defense Service Corps.
The Pathankot incident is being viewed as an index of the extraordinary weakness in the protection of the country’s critical strategic assets. The air force base constitutes the frontline air defense for any confrontation with Pakistan, and yet the terrorists succeeded in penetrating into the campus and inflicting significant casualties. This was despite nearly 20 hours of clear warning, a definitive identification of the intended target, and a systemic response that had been initiated fairly early on January 1, 2016, after central intelligence agencies picked up conversations by the terrorists with their handlers and their families, and the Punjab Police received specific information about their movements and intention from the ‘abducted’ Superintendent of Police whose car was used by the terrorists. Hindustan Times and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India)
The perpetrators are believed to be the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, based on evidence collected by India, and passed on to Pakistani authorities.
India's prime minister Narendra Modi had visited Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the latter's ancestral home near Lahore on December 25. (Neither Hindus nor Muslims celebrate Christmas.) The meeting was described as "very warm," and held "amid immense goodwil in a very cordial atmosphere."
Their meeting was part of the hallucinatory "peace process" talks that have been off and on for years, through many changes of government, but never getting anywhere. It's thought that Jaish-e-Mohammed may have conducted the Pathankot attack in order to, once again, derail the "peace process."
There are certainly no "peace talks" planned now for any time soon. India's defense minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday warned that India will get revenge on the perpetrators of the attack.
"If someone is harming this country, then that particular individual or organization, I purposely used the words individual and organization, should also receive the pain of such activities. The time and place should be of our choosing.Basic principle is that until we give them pain, whoever they may be, until then, such incidents will not reduce."
However, Parrikar did not respond to questions about whether that India is planning a retaliation attack on Jaish-e-Mohammed on Pakistani soil. New Delhi TV (25-Dec-2015) and Indian Express and India.com
The Pathankot incident is reviving bitter memories of the horrendous "26/11" terrorist attack on a number of hotels in Mumbai, India. The attacks began on November 26, 2008, and lasted three days, killing 166 people, and wounding hundreds more. ( "After Mumbai's '26/11' nightmare finally ends, India - Pakistan relations face crisis" from 2008)
The attack was blamed on 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 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.
Pakistan promised to pursue and prosecute LeT in its own courts. However, the alleged leader of the Mumbai attack, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, has never been seriously prosecuted, presumably for fear of implicating some Pakistani government officials. Lakhvi is out on bail, and is now leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which is a front group for LeT.
The Pathankot attack revives the same issues, particularly after Manohar Parrikar's demands for retaliation, and the hinted possibility of Indian military action to pursue Jaish-e-Mohammed on Indian soil.
All the usual diplomatic moves are being played:
Pakistani authorities have carried out raids and arrested an unspecified number of people. The arrests led Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to order a joint investigation team of Intelligence Bureau(IB), Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Federal Investigation Agency and police to thoroughly probe the Pathankot attack links to Pakistan. Daily Times (Pakistan) and Daily Pakistan and Indian Express and Pakistan Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 12-Jan-16 World View -- India threatens retaliation on Pakistan terrorists for air base attack thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(12-Jan-2016)
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Hungary's PM tells Cameron: 'Hungarians in UK aren’t parasites'
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As we wrote several months ago, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is so deeply in debt that currently unacceptable levels of service are going to have to be cut even more deeply. Staffing will be reduced in hospitals and other providers, and waiting times will be extended from their 18 week time frame. The system is rapidly becoming insolvent.
The system is deeply corrupt, with doctors falsifying records, claiming for work that was never done, or putting in for bogus overtime. Dentistry services are so bad that people are buying "do-it-yourself (DIY) dentistry kits" to take care of their whole families, as was done centuries ago. ( "5-Aug-15 World View -- Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faces existential financial crisis")
Now 40 leading UK charities have written a letter to Britain's prime minister David Cameron telling to take "bold" action to save the NHS:
"We need to ensure we have an NHS and social care system that is fit for purpose otherwise it is the elderly, disabled people and their carers who will bear the brunt of inaction.“Bold long term thinking is required about the size, shape and scope of services we want the NHS and social care to provide - and an honest debate about how much as a society we are prepared to pay for them."
In many areas, America's Obamacare system is modeled after the NHS, certainly in spirit if not always in detail, but Obamacare is also facing an existential crisis for financial reasons. As I documented in "Healthcare.gov -- The greatest software development disaster in history" after several months of research, Medicaid is a financial disaster, the Obamacare exchanges, co-ops and risk corridors are financial disasters, tens of millions of people are effectively uninsured because of astronomical deductibles, and tens of millions of people have been forced into part-time jobs by their employers to avoid Obamacare regulations.
In the same article, I listed some of the well-documented problems in the Veterans Administration (VA) health care system, including fraud, corruption, unbelievably poor services. The VA has something else in common with Obamacare -- anyone who complains or who reveals what's going on is the target of retribution and revenge by Obama administration officials.
In the case of Britain's National Health Service, the financial disaster is coming at the same time as many of Britain's other problems, especially the flood of migrants reaching Britain. However, although Syrian refugees are some of the problem, it's worth pointing out that many of the migrants come to the UK perfectly legally, because they're coming eastern European countries within the EU to take advantage of Britain's welfare and NHS benefits. Yorkshire Post (UK) and Daily Mirror (London)
Britain's prime minister David Cameron says that he is very close to a deal with European Union leaders in Brussels to reform the EU, so that Britain will remain in the EU.
A couple of years ago, Cameron promised to hold a nationwide referendum in 2016 on whether the UK should exit from the EU ("Brexit") or stay in the EU, and to abide by the result. No date has yet been fixed for the referendum, but it's expected in the summer or fall.
The question has been very divisive in British politics, with leaders and ministers in both the Conservative and Labor parties on both sides of the issue. Cameron himself says he strongly favors remaining in a "reformed European Union." In the current negotiations, Cameron is demanding the following reforms, as listed by the BBC:
One senior Conservative party minister said that he and many others in the party would be voting to leave, and he called it "disgraceful" that Cameron isn't making contingency plans:
"It's a very complicated operation to carry out if it happens.The sooner the prime minister produces his worthless deal the better - then we can move on to the genuine campaign and the British people can at last have their say and leave the outdated political circus that the EU has become."
Such statements by ministers in Cameron's own party are actually a help to Cameron in his negotiations with Brussels, since other EU leaders are desperate to avoid Brexit. He can say to the other European leaders, "If you don’t give me a deal that I can sell to my party – really meaningful concessions that the anti-EU camp can’t pick apart – then I’m going to lose this thing." BBC and Telegraph (London)
The most controversial of David Cameron's "reforms" of the European Union is the proposal to restrict migrants from other EU countries coming to UK to have restricted access to certain welfare and NHS benefits for four years. One of the most vocal opponents is Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is simultaneously on both sides of the issue of migrants.
On the one hand, he's been among the most vocal opponents of Syrian refugees entering the EU, with his right-wing Fidesz party government having been conducting anti-migrant media campaigns against the migrants.
On the other hand, Orbán is a strong advocate of permitting migrants from Hungary to go to freely to Britain and collect benefits there. He said:
"We would like to make it very clear that we are not migrants into the United Kingdom.We are citizens of a state that belongs to the European Union, who can take jobs anywhere, freely, within the European Union.
We do not want to go to the UK and take away something from them. We don't want to be parasites. We want to work there. And I see that Hungarians are working very well.
Those Hungarians that are working well and contributing to the UK economy, they should get respect and they should not suffer discrimination."
At a joint press conference with Cameron, Orbán said: "I am open to other solutions... and I am confident we can reach an agreement." BBC and Independent (London)
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Jan-16 World View -- Britain debates leaving European Union amid National Health Service (NHS) crisis thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(11-Jan-2016)
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Saudi Arabia and Iran accuse each other of terrorism
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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A Saturday meeting of Arab states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to discuss the growing confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran ended in full support for the Saudi position, and any measure against Iran to halt Tehran’s “terrorist acts” and to ensure that it refrains from “meddling in the affairs of Arab nations.” However, no concrete action was taken or committed.
According to Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir:
"The Kingdom is looking at additional measures to be taken, if Iran continues with its belligerent policies. ...We cannot deal with a country that attacks and burns embassies, whether those embassies are British or American, or for that matter Saudi.
If it is a nation state, it should act like a responsible state. If not, it will be further isolated.
The escalation is coming from Iran, not from Saudi Arabia or the GCC. We are evaluating Iran’s moves and taking steps to counter them … things will be clearer in the near future. ...
It is entirely in the hands of Iran, whether it wants to be a good neighbor or it prefers to remain in a hostile environment within the region."
Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a letter to the United Nations, blamed Saudi Arabia specifically for numerous terrorist attacks, from 9/11/2001 to Paris to San Bernardino:
"Regrettably, immediately after the successful conclusion of the first interim nuclear agreement between Iran and E3/EU+3 in November 2013, Saudi Arabia focused all its resources to prevent or defeat a comprehensive deal, and preclude normalization in the region. Today, there are indications that some in Saudi Arabia are on a mission to drag the entire region to conflict, fearing that removal of the smokescreen of the manufactured Iranian nuclear threat would expose the real global threat posed by extremists and their sponsors.It is an unfortunate reality that most extremist perpetrators of acts of terror from September 11, 2001 to the recent senseless terrorist shooting in San Bernardino and all other episodes of extremist carnage in between whether in Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Istanbul and Peshawar, or in Paris, London, Moscow, Madrid and Ottawa – and most members of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS and Al-Nusra Front were either Saudi nationals, or those mis-educated in Saudi financed schools or otherwise brainwashed by petro-financed demagogues, who have promoted an anti-Islamic message of hatred, exclusion and sectarianism across the globe for decades."
Saudi Arabia has called an emergency meeting of all 22 countries in the Arab League, to meet in Cairo on Sunday (today). Arab News (Riyadh) and Tehran Times
According to Fawaz Gerges, Mideast expert at the London School of Economics, interviewed on Al-Jazeera on Saturday, Saudi Arabia views Iran's penetration in the Arab world in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon to be an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, and so the Saudis have made a strategic decision for all-out confrontation with Iran.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have severed diplomatic relations with Iran, Kuwait and Qatar recalled their ambassadors, the UAE downgraded its ties and Oman condemned the embassy attacks. The Saudis are pushing very hard for more mare Arab countries to cut diplomatic relations. The Saudis would like a united Arab position to counterbalance Iran.
However, the confrontation has deeply divided the Arab world, and split the countries into three blocs, according to Gerges:
Gerges points out that the Saudis believe that their "strategic partner," the United States, has let them down and sided with Iran against them, allowing Iran to gain the upper hand in the region. For that reason, the Saudis did not consult with the US before deciding to cut diplomatic relations with Iran.
Meanwhile, according to Gerges, the Obama administration is very unhappy with the current Saudi-Iran escalation, because it diverts attention from the US agenda: to focus confrontation on ISIS, to find a diplomatic solution in Syria, and a ceasefire in Yemen.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these objectives are pretty much fantasy anyway. Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major war between Shias and Sunnis, between Arabs and Jews, and between different ethnic groups. Events of the last year, including the war in Yemen, the rise of ISIS, the Russian military intervention in Syria, Iran's nuclear deal with the west, and now the Saudi-Iran split, have moved this prediction much closer.
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Jan-16 World View -- Arab countries deeply divided over Iran vs Saudi Arabia confrontation thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(10-Jan-2016)
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South Korea resumes broadcasting propaganda via loudspeakers
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Last week, North Korea's news service reported that Kim Jong-un had "made the final decision on January 3 to go ahead with the hydrogen test and accordingly we have conducted hydrogen bomb test at 10 a.m. on January 6 with total success." The weapon was to be used to defend against the United States. The test was immediately condemned by officials around the world -- in the US, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United Nations to start.
A hydrogen bomb is about a thousand times more powerful than an "ordinary" atom bomb, and actually uses a small atom bomb to trigger the h-bomb explosion, so this would be a significant development if true. However, many observers quickly pointed out that all the signs indicated that it wasn't an h-bomb, but a "boosted" a-bomb, using a small amount of nuclear fusion to produce copious amounts of neutron radiation that, while contributing little to the explosive yield directly, caused additional fissions that would boost the bomb's yield.
Forensic scientists have been trying to collect clues that would indicate what kind of device it was. Access to the actual site of the explosion is, of course, forbidden, but information will come from aircraft circling North Korea and sniffing for radioactive fission products that have vented to the atmosphere. By measuring the atomic weights of the isotopes in the fission products, it's possible to determine which kind of weapon it was. Combining that information with the explosive yield of the weapon, forensic scientists should be able to make a pretty accurate determination. According to news reports, few people today believe that an actual h-bomb was exploded. Popular Mechanics and The Atlantic
In response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test, the South Korean military has resumed an earlier practice of broadcasting propaganda via loudspeakers located along the border between the two nations. The propaganda is broadcast at 11 sites near the border, and includes a great deal of content, according to the South Korea's military: pertinent truth about the repressive state including a purge of the North's high-ranking officials, criticism about the Kim Jong-un regime, the superiority of democracy, international news, weather information, and K-pop (Korean pop) music, a genre of music popular in South Korea.
This seems to me, and probably to most people, to be a very mild form of retribution by the South Koreans against the North. But apparently its psychological is enormous, because it infuriates the North Korean government so much that they claim that it's an act of war.
South Korea was broadcasting such propaganda to the North starting in 1962, only taking down the loudspeakers in 2004 when because of a landmark agreement between the two. The speakers were reinstalled in 2010 after the North torpedoed the South Korean warship, Cheonan, killing 46 sailors (see below). However, because of furious objections by the North, the speakers were not used at that time.
South Korea resumed propaganda broadcasts for a couple of weeks in August 2015 after land mines planted by the North Koreans exploded and wounded two South Korean soldiers. The broadcasts ended after an August 25 agreement.
The new decision, following the announcement of the "hydrogen bomb" test, was to resume the broadcasts and also impose some sanctions -- to suspend social and cultural exchange and aid projects by civic groups, and to limit entry into the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex (GIC), which is a major source of foreign exchange to North Korea. The South Korean government says that further action will await a decision by the United Nations Security Council.
In taking these actions, the South is risking the possibility that the North might decide to retaliate militarily, something that could spiral into a larger war. Hankyoreh (Seoul) and AP
On March 26, 2010, the South Korean warship Cheonan was sunk by an explosion. It was immediately assumed that the attack came from North Korea, but for weeks, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak carefully avoided accusing the North of being responsible for the explosion, for fear that merely saying so would also compel him to a declaration of war. It took two months for nationalistic fury to cool down enough. (See "21-May-10 News -- S. Korea accuses N. Korea of sinking warship")
At that time, South Korea imposed what have become known as the "May 24 Sanctions," a set of measures that ban any trading activities between the two Koreas, except for the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC). South Korea demanded that the north apologize for the Cheonan attack before the sanctions would be lifted, but the North has refused to do so.
Instead, on November 23, the North Korean military launched dozens of artillery shells on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, killing four people, including two civilians. ( "24-Nov-10 News -- South Korean civilians shelled by North Koreans")
The "May 24 Sanctions" have never been fully lifted, but last year's August 25 agreement (mentioned above) between has improved relations between the two Koreas - until now.
US intelligence officials concluded that North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-il (the current leader's father) personally ordered the torpedo attack on the Cheonan. South Korea didn't directly blame Kim, but suggested that the attack might have been ordered by military subordinates without Kim's knowledge, a scenario believed by many to be unlikely. The six North Korean sailors aboard the submarine that attacked the Cheonan were given "hero" status. Korea Times (27-Aug-2015) and Chosun (Seoul, 27-May-2010) and UPI 23-May-2010)
After North Korea's nuclear test, US presidential candidate Donald Trump said:
"China has total control over them (North Korea) and we have total control over China, if we had people who knew what they were doing, which we don't -- we have no leadership in this country. We have China because of trade.They say they don't have that much control over North Korea, they have total control because without China they wouldn't be able to eat. China should solve that problem and we should put pressure on China to solve the problem."
Trump followed that remark by saying that, as president, he would impose a 45% tax on Chinese goods imported into America. I guess business mogul Donald Trump doesn't understand international trade very well, because that tariff would cripple many American companies, such as Apple, whose iPhones are manufactured in China. Many American companies would go out of business.
It would also be nice if someone running for president had the vaguest clue about American history. The June 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act not only worsened the Great Depression but also triggered World War II. Germany and Japan were both in the same Great Depression, and these tariffs were a financial disaster for them. The Smoot-Hawley act pretty much shut down exports of Japan's biggest cash crop, silk. In September 1931, almost exactly a year after Smoot-Hawley, Japan invaded Manchuria and later northern China. In December 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. So in my opinion it's pretty certain that a 45% tariff on China today would trigger world economic disaster and World War III.
As for China's supposed control over North Korea, it's true that China could starve the North Koreans, but that would not by any means cause the super-nationalistic North Koreans to bend to China's demands on nuclear testing or anything else. All it would do is destabilize North Korea's government and result in millions of North Koreans pouring into China to look for food. And that's the optimistic case. The pessimistic case for China is that the North Korean government would completely collapse, and China would be dragged into a major new war between North and South Korea.
The current North Korean president's predecessor and father, Kim Jong-il, had good relations with China until the 2010 Cheonan incident, but relations have gone downhill since then. When Kim Jong-un took over as child dictator at the end of 2011, China repeatedly made clear its displeasure with Kim about the nuclear tests, to which the Chinese were adamantly opposed.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has visited an astonishing 37 countries since becoming president in 2013, but so far North Korea has not been one of them.
Even more humiliating for Kim occurred in September of last year, during China's massive celebration of victory in World War II. South Korea's president Park Geun-hye attended the victory parade, and sat right next to Xi on the reviewing stand. Kim had been told that he could attend as well, but he would not be on the reviewing stand at all, but placed to the side. Kim chose not to attend, but sent a North Korean official who was seated in the furthest corner to the rear. ( "14-Sep-15 World View -- S. Korea's President Park basks in the afterglow of successful visit to China")
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi this week was extremely blunt, demanding "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula:
"The Peninsula nuclear issue has existed for a quite long time and is very complicated. China insists on finding a solution to the issue and each side's concerns within the Six-Party Talks framework. Realizing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and maintaining the peace and stability of the Peninsula conform to the common interests of all parties concerned, and are of each party's responsibility. This calls for concerted efforts of all parties."
This is considered a very blunt criticism of North Korean, because it was clearly directed at North Korea, and it wasn't softened in the usual way by blaming the United States for something. BBC and Business Insider and Washington Post and BBC and China Radio International's English Service
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 9-Jan-16 World View -- China-North Korea tensions high after nuclear test thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(9-Jan-2016)
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Desperate Chinese officials remove stock market circuit breakers
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After Saudi Arabia last Saturday executed Shia cleric Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 other prisoners, on terrorism charges, international moral outrage appeared to be on the side of Iran. Officials in many countries oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, and the Shia world was particularly shocked that al-Nimr was executed along with 46 alleged Sunni terrorists, infuriating Iran by appearing to make Shia terrorism equivalent to Sunni terrorism.
But the actions of Iranian protesters to storm and firebomb Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran, followed by violent protests outside the Saudi consulate in Mashhad in northwestern Iran, have turned much of the moral outrage around, in favor of the Saudis. These actions were apparently permitted by Iranian officials at the time they occurred, but now they're a major embarrassment to Iran, especially because Iran has a history attacking other nations' embassies in Tehran. The Saudi execution of al-Nimr may have been unfortunate on many levels, but it was perfectly legal in international law for a country to charge one of its own citizens with a crime (terrorism), try him in a court of law, and execute him if found guilty. Indeed, Iran does the same thing, and in the 2009 it massacred many peaceful protesters in the streets with no due process at all.
But attacks on embassies are not only major violations of international law, but are considered intolerable by most countries on all sides of the issue, because no country wants to see its own embassies at risk.
Thus, Saudi Arabia cut its diplomatic ties with Iran, and other Sunni Muslim countries, including Bahrain and Sudan did the same, while United Arab Emirates (UAE) downgraded its relations with Iran. Then Kuwait and Djibouti also followed by cutting relations. Significantly, Bahrain is the home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, while Djibouti, in the horn of Africa, is home to the US's only military base in Africa. Qatar has recalled its ambassador without cutting ties completely.
On Thursday, Somalia also cut diplomatic ties with Iran. The reason given was "in response to the Republic of Iran’s continuous interference in Somalia’s internal affairs," without mentioning Saudi Arabia. Together, Djibouti and Somalia control access to the Red Sea across from Yemen, which is strategically important to Iran.
If Shia Muslims had simply peacefully demonstrated against the Saudis for executing al-Nimr, then none of these diplomatic terminations would have occurred. The embassy attack has changed the entire diplomatic structure of the Mideast, and raised Sunni-Shia tensions much than just the execution of al-Nimr would have done. International Business Times and KUNA - Kuwait News Agency and Mail and Guardian Africa
Iran still celebrates the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran every year and refers to it as the second revolution. Since then, Iranians have attacked several embassies in Tehran — including those of Kuwait in 1987, Saudi Arabia in 1988, Denmark in 2006 and Britain in 2011. Evidently, Iranian officials have never punished the attackers in these cases.
Some of those attacking the Saudi Embassy and starting fires took selfies and published them on social media, indicating that they too expected to be treated as heroes rather than criminals.
This time, however, with so many countries ending diplomatic relations with Iran, the firebombing of the Saudi embassy has become a major diplomatic crisis. This is at a time when Republicans in Congress are headed for a showdown with President Obama over sanctions related to the Iran nuclear deal, and the embassy firebombing gives them ammunition. Getting America sanctions is probably Iran's most important diplomatic objective right now.
At first, Iran's Revolutionary Guards immediately blamed Israel, while Lebanon's Shia militia Hezbollah blamed the United States, on the grounds that the US had "moral responsibility" for the execution of al-Nimr, which presumably justified the embassy firebombing.
Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, Iran's Justice Minister, referred to the threat of “enemy influence” in Iran and stated that the embassy attack “could have been designed and supported by infiltrators.” He also condemned the embassy attack itself, stating that it was carried out by “a limited group of people,” and added, “We must not allow emotions to overcome thought, for the result will certainly not be in our interest."
One particularly bizarre twist is that Iran on Thursday accused the Saudis of hitting its embassy in Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, with an airstrike. However, news photos from Sanaa show no damage to the embassy.
But Iran's president Hassan Rouhani, who is part of Iran's "moderate" camp, has taken more direct action. He first said with regard to the al-Nimr execution, "But the Iranian people should not allow this to become an excuse for rogue individuals & groups to commit illegal acts & damage Iran's image."
On Wednesday, Rouhani asked Iran's judiciary to urgently prosecute the people who attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran:
"By punishing the attackers and those who orchestrated this obvious offense, we should put an end once and forever to such damage and insults to Iran's dignity and national security."
Iranian police have already announced the arrest of 50 people for the firebombing. In previous cases, such rioters have simply been set free within a few days without facing any charges. This time, they may have to stay in jail a few days longer, until the American sanctions are lifted. Quartz and AEI Iran Tracker and Al-Jazeera/Reuters and AP
Twice this week, on Monday and Thursday, China's Shanghai stock market shares plunged 7%, before trading was halted by a so-called "circuit breaker" rule that stops trading at 7% to prevent a further plunge.
It had been thought that the circuit break rule would halt a full-scale panic, and perhaps it did. But now the circuit breaker is being blamed for two plunges. The reasoning is that as stocks began to fall, investors decided that they had to sell fast before the circuit breaker kicked in, and that accelerated sales.
China has been desperately trying to find a way to stop its huge stock market bubble from imploding. Friday's new rule change du jour is to completely eliminate the circuit breakers on Friday, to see how that works.
After the Friday morning opening in Shanghai, the stock market has been extremely volatile, first rising 2%, then falling 4%, then back up again to a 2% gain. CNN Money
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Jan-16 World View -- Iran struggles to recover from its firebombing of Saudi embassy thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(8-Jan-2016)
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Merry Christmas!
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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News stories on gender issues are often pretty bizarre and often fictional, but this one of the most bizarre gender stories I've seen in a while.
Allegedly, some 1,000 young "heavily intoxicated" men carried out dozens of sexual assaults on women in the city center of Cologne, a city in western Germany on New Year's eve. Some 90 criminal complaints, including one allegation of rape, have been brought to the Cologne police department after women said they were molested by a crowd of men. Police have said that about a quarter of the complaints related to sexual assaults and that they believed the assaults were probably intended to distract the victims, allowing attackers to steal mobile phones and other devices. Similar attacks were reported in Hamburg on New Year's Eve, with 39 reported sexual assaults and 14 robberies.
What makes this a particularly touchy politically issue is that the 1000 men were described as "Arab or North African" in appearance.
According to one official:
"We will not accept that groups of North African men gather expressly for the purpose of debasing women by sexually assaulting them."
If in fact 1000 migrants conspired via social media or whatever to sexually assault women on New Year's Eve, it would indicate a kind of mass collusion that would suggest that migrants really are close to total war with Europeans. This would not be just a gender story, but a very significant geopolitical story.
But I've learned over the years that most of these gender stories are total nonsense, and I'll be waiting to see whether this one is or not.
The first thing that's suspicious about it is that, with hundreds of sexual assaults, not a single perpetrator has been arrested, even though six days have passed, though three suspects have been identified but not arrested.
The second thing that's suspicious is that with all these sexual assaults going on in large crowds of people ringing in the new year, there are no reports of other people, men or women, stepping up to intervene in these attacks. There are also no reports of men coming forward to corroborate the reports.
Third, no attribution is being provided by this "Arab or North African" description, making it appear, until an investigation proves otherwise, that this accusation is not dissimilar to the hysterical accusations that resulted in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, where one group of girls accused several other women of being witches in league with Satan.
It's worth recalling just how hysterical and hypocritical feminists are about rape. Julian Assange has been hiding from rape charges in Ecuador's embassy in London, and not one single feminist has spoken out to express outrage over the alleged rape victims in Sweden.
Then there's Bill Clinton who has credibly been charged with multiple rapes of employees as governor of Arkansas, and feminists have been enablers and supporters of this alleged rapist. The biggest enabler was Democratic Party official Susan Estrich, who sold herself out as a woman and rape victim by enabling and supporting alleged rapist Clinton. There's a bitter irony for both of them that Donald Trump has forcefully revived these charges of Clinton's sexual assaults.
Then there was the Duke lacrosse team that was accused of mass rapes in 2007. The District attorney Mike Nifong kept pursuing the rape charges even when he knew they were false. The NY Times kept repeating the accusations even when the reporters knew the accusations were false. (From 2007: "Collapse of Duke rape case represents cultural change")
Hysterical rape accusations pour out of the Obama administration, as they claim that 25% of all college girls are raped in college. The actual figure is around 0.1%. The administration claim is a hysterical lie.
So now we have this bizarre report where 1,000 young intoxicated men of "Arab or North African" appearance have sexually assaulted dozens of women on New Year's Eve. Does this seem credible to you, Dear Reader, or does it sound like the Salem Witch Trials of 1692? I'm waiting to see the evidence before reaching my own conclusion. Deutsche Welle and Eyewitness To History and Minding the Campus
The mayor of Cologne Germany, Henriette Reker, reacted to the reports of the New Year's Eve sexual assaults by advising women to protect themselves with a Code of Conduct.
Mayor Reker said it was “unbelievable and intolerable what happened on New Year’s Eve” but there was no reason to believe those involved in the attacks were refugees.
The Code of Conduct included the following advice:
Henriette Reker has received a huge amount of derision from Twitter users, who employed the hashtag #einarmlänge, which means "an arm’s length."
Reker says that a complete Code of Conduct will be posted online soon. Deutsche Welle and CNN
When there are stories that Boko Haram or ISIS commit mass rape on girls in villages they capture, the news analyses portray these as unique to Muslim terrorists, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
During a generational crisis war, when battles become completely chaotic, massacres occur and discipline breaks down, a soldier who is covered with mud and the blood of his comrades who had been killed by the enemy would not be likely to resist the temptation to rape a young girl whose brother, uncle or father had participated in killing the soldier's comrades. Rape would be both a sexual act and an act of revenge. If the girl hasn't seen a man in a while, she may viscerally not want to resist anyway. This is not particularly politically correct to say, but if it weren't true, then neither I nor the people reading this would exist today, since the human race would not have survived.
At the end of World War II, the Soviet army allegedly committed millions of rapes of German women. According to a German historian, 1.6 million American troops in Germany raped 190,000 German women within ten years after the end of the war. There have also been charges of mass rapes by American soldiers in France.
So it's not surprising that protecting women from rape became a big part of the European and American culture at the end of the war.
Henriette Reker's Code of Conduct was just the beginning. Women were advised to wear girdles, and men and women were separated in many environments.
When the 1960s generational Awakening era arrived, nobody wanted to talk about rape during WW II, so Boomers were literally completely unaware of it. They regarded such "Codes of Conduct" as unnecessary, and feminists blamed them on men's relentless of oppression of women, supposedly demanding that women remain in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, whatever that means.
So the 1960s launched a pendulum swing towards greater sexual freedom for women -- bra-burning, miniskirts, hot pants and free sex.
Today, we're in a new generational Crisis era. We're seeing the first sign of mass rapes again, whether in Syria or Nigeria. And now we have these charges of mass sexual assaults in Germany on New Year's Eve which, as I said, would be a major geopolitical issue if true. This is resulting in a swing of the pendulum back towards greater protection of girls and women, and Reker's Code of Conduct is just one sign of it.
Actually, this has been going on for a while. In 2004 I wrote "'It's going to be the 1950s all over again'", quoting feminist professor, Linda Hirshman, who found that 85% of high-powered married women she interviewed were staying at home to take care of the kids.
The events of the world today are increasingly showing how vulnerable women are to rape and sexual assault. Like it or not, this is part of human nature, and as I said the human race would not have survived if it didn't happen. As world chaos increases, more measures will be put into effect to protect women, and more Codes of Conduct will be published. Der Spiegel and Pew Research
China's Shanghai Stock Market index fell over 7% in the first half hour of trading on Thursday morning, triggering circuit breakers that ended trading for the rest of the day, for the second time this week. This occurred despite massive influxes of money into the banking system by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) to allow large companies to purchase stocks. As usual, China has already issued regulations that prevent many stocks from being traded, and that provide that any bloggers who use words like "stock market slump" should be arrested and hung in a cell by his ankles. Such is the Chinese way.
China's stock market is in a huge collapsing bubble, and whether the PBOC can find a way to slow down the implosion remains to be seen.
However, other Asian stocks also fell sharply on Thursday morning, after Wall Street and European stocks also fell sharply on Wednesday.
As regular readers know, Generational Dynamics predicts a major global financial panic and crash. It's possible that things will settle down in a few days, or it's possible that the predicted crash is now beginning. We won't know for sure for a while yet, but in the meantime, investors are advised to stay out of the stock market. Bloomberg
Today (January 7) is Christmas for the Russian Orthodox church and many other Orthodox Christian Churches (though not the Greek Orthodox Church, which celebrates Christmas on December 25). Russia Today
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 7-Jan-16 World View -- German 'Code of Conduct' for women shows pendulum swing on gender issues thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(7-Jan-2016)
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ISIS assault in Libya giving militants control of oil fields
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Ansar al-Sharia, the Libya branch of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) has been assaulting Libyan forces guarding the country's coastal oil terminals. For more than two days, ISIS militias have attacked oil facilities in the so-called "oil crescent" along Libya's northern coast.
During the "Arab Spring" four years ago, in 2011, the dictator Muammar Gaddafi was threatening to massacre thousands of civilians in Benghazi. Britain, France and the US intervened under a UN mandate by air and sea. Aided by rival Libyan factions united by their opposition to Gaddafi, the allied forces removed Gaddafi. After that, the rival factions turned on each other, and Libya has been increasingly chaotic.
Libya now has two rival governments. One of them is in the far west in the capital city Tripoli, and is backed by an Islamist alliance called Libya Dawn. One of the factions is the terror group is ISIS-linked Ansar al-Sharia. The other government is a secular government in the far east in Tobruk, and is the official government internationally recognized.
The valuable oil fields have been in control of the Tobruk government, but many are controlled by individual militias, far out of control of any government. Ansar al-Sharia is now trying to take control.
The war between the two governments is actually a proxy war along a major Arab fault line that was exposed by the 2014 Gaza war of Israel versus Hamas. Hamas and the Islamists, including the Islamists in Libya and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, are aligned with Turkey and Qatar. The secularists, including the Libyan secularists and president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, are on the other side of this fault line, aligned with UAE and Saudi Arabia. Qatar and UAE have been supplying weapons to the opposing sides, and Libya has become awash with huge numbers of weapons. ( "26-Aug-14 World View -- Egypt and United Arab Emirates (UAE) enter the war in Libya")
The heartland of Ansar al-Sharia is Sirte, along the coast east of Tripoli. The ISIS fighters have been moving farther east, and fighting is now taking place around Sidra, where a missile launched by ISIS blew up a large petroleum storage tank two days ago. Whether Qatar is involved in the current efforts by ISIS to attack the oil fields is not publicly known, but it is known that Qatar has supplied weapons to Ansar al-Sharia in the past.
Reports indicate that around 5,000 Islamic extremists have already secured more than a dozen major oilfields, adding millions of dollars to their war chest. VOA and Political Geography Now (2015-Aug-22) and Al Jazeera
Libya is geopolitically very important for several reasons:
For these reasons, the West has been considering a new military intervention into Libya for several months. The plans are apparently now turning into implementation.
New reports indicate that UK Special Air Service (SAS) troops have already arrived in Libya, laying the groundwork for a large allied troop intervention. The force will include 1,000 British infantrymen, and will involve around 6,000 American and European soldiers and marines - led by Italian forces and supported mainly by Britain and France. Spain and Egypt may also participate.
According to Debka's subscriber-only newsletter (sent to me by a subscriber), US, British and French marines will land on shore for an operation billed as the largest Western allied war landing since the 1952 Korean War. One group will move west to take over Tripoli, to Libya’s central government there. The second group will move east to take control of Benghazi.
The military intervention will have several objectives:
According to Debka, in this military campaign, the US will not "lead from behind," but will be in front, indicating another reversal of President Obama's Mideast strategy.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is all on the same trend line that we've been describing for years, where the Mideast is headed for a major regional war pitting Israelis versus Arabs, Sunnis versus Shias, and ethnic groups versus each other. In just the last few days, this trend line has advanced significantly, with split between Saudi Arabia and Iran. There are already proxy wars in progress in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, with participants from Iran, Russia, the US, and several Gulf nations. A new proxy war in Libya will add significantly to the chaos. Daily Mirror (London) and Guardian (London) and Debka
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 6-Jan-16 World View -- US, Britain, France preparing new Libya military offensive early in 2016 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(6-Jan-2016)
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European and Wall St stocks fall sharply, following China
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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After attacks by Iranians on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, including setting the building on fire after looting the computers and documents, the Saudis cut diplomatic ties with Iran, as we reported yesterday. On Monday, the Saudis announced that they would end all air traffic and commercial relations with Iran. Bahrain and Sudan also cut all ties with Iran on Monday, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) downgraded its relations with Iran. Other Sunni Arab countries – Kuwait, Qatar and Oman – did not follow suit.
The Iranian attack was triggered by Saturday's execution on terrorism charges of 47 people, including Shia scholar Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 Sunnis. The Iranians, and the Shias in general, are particularly infuriated by the message that Shia terrorism and Sunni terrorism are equivalent. Shia protests continued in Iran and around the region.
The storming and burning of the Saudi embassy in Tehran has divided Iran's government. The hard-liners, generally represented by the older generation that survived the 1979 Islamic Revolution, see this as a victory. But for the moderates, generally represented by the generations growing up after the war, this is an embarrassment for Iran. Iran has a history of storming and looting foreign embassies for political purposes -- a major violation of international law. Iran created the 1979 hostage crisis by allowing students to storm the American embassy and take the 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. In November 2011, Iran's Revolutionary Guard attacked the British embassy in Tehran, forcing it to close. (See "30-Nov-11 World View -- Iran relives its glorious past as students storm Tehran's British embassy") Reuters and CS Monitor
The regional turmoil caused by the Saudi-Iran split is giving Lebanon's terrorist group Hezbollah an opportunity to initiate an attack on Israel across the Israel-Lebanon border.
On Monday, Hezbollah set off a large bomb on the border, targeting Israeli armored vehicles. Israel army responded with cross-border artillery fire at targets in Lebanon. According to an army spokesman, "We have opened artillery fire, and created a smoke screen to cover the area. We are in control of the incident."
Israel's army has been concerned for some days that Hezbollah is preparing to launch an all-out attack on Israeli territory in the northern Golan Heights, and so has been engaged in an artillery bombardment for four days. Hezbollah has promised revenge in retaliation for Israel's assassination last month of Samir Kuntar, a former Hezbollah commander.
Furthermore, some reports indicate that Hezbollah officials are increasingly stressed by growing military cooperation between Russia and Israel with respect to the war in Syria. We've reported a couple of times in the last month that Israel has been bombing Hezbollah targets in Syria, including a weapons convey near Damascus, evidently with the approval of Russia. There are also reports that Israel is providing intelligence to Syria about anti-Assad rebels in southern Syria. This alliance directly threatens Hezbollah, whose only raison d'être is to attack Israel and the West, and it's thought that Hezbollah may be initiating an attack on Israel in the hope of derailing the alliance. Needless to say, this kind of reasoning is very dangerous, and could result in a new regional war. Jerusalem Post and Daily Caller and Debka
The growing split between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a major new problem for President Obama's plans to bring peace to the Mideast.
Obama had been pushing for one "peace process" to bring peace to Syria, and another "peace process" to bring peace to Yemen. Multinationals committees for each of these peace processes were scheduled to meet later this month. In both cases, both Saudi and Iran officials were to be part of the negotiations. But now, both of those peace processes are in chaos.
President Obama has been openly siding with Iran against Saudi Arabia since the start of the "Arab Awakening" in 2011, when he pressured Egypt's long-time leader Hosni Mubarak to step down. Since then, the Saudis have been increasingly angered by and contemptuous of Obama's policies. The culmination of this contempt followed the Iran nuclear deal with the West, which was achieved when the administration was perceived to repeatedly back down to Iran's negotiating demands. ( "15-May-15 World View -- Obama repudiates the Carter doctrine at bizarre GCC meeting")
As I mentioned above, Iran is especially infuriated that Nimr al-Nimr was executed along with 46 others as terrorists, sending the message that Shia terrorism and Sunni terrorism are equivalent. This message is intolerable to Iranian officials, and Saudi officials would have known that. This suggests that they performed this mass execution to send an unmistakable message to Obama that enough was enough.
Starting with his "apology tour" in 2008, Obama had fantasized that he could bring peace to the entire Mideast. As has been increasingly clear in the last few years. Obama has no clue what's going on in the world, and this is one part of it. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the Mideast was headed for a sectarian war that couldn't be prevented, so the approaching Mideast can't be blamed on Obama, as some of his opponents claim. But he can be blamed for dissipating all of America's influence and prestige by a policy which was no more realistic than tilting at windmills.
So the Saudi-Iran split is producing bitter problems for Obama. Obama has thrown the Saudis under the bus, and has pandered to the Iranians, so neither of them trusts nor believes him. And yet, events are moving quickly, and at some point Obama may be forced to choose.
Long-time readers know that almost ten years ago I predicted, based on a Generational Dynamics analysis, that Iran would become our ally and the Saudis our enemy. ( "9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement") This analysis seemed crazy at the time, but in the last few years, but it has been increasingly true in recent years, as Obama clearly has favored Iran over the Saudis. It would be strongly against trend for Obama to side with the Saudis against Iran, and so when Obama is forced to choose between the two, the chances are enormously greater that he'll choose Iran. Washington Times
On Friday of last week, a gunman opened fire in Tel Aviv, Israel, on of the busiest arteries in the city and a popular hangout for both locals and tourists. The shooting spree began at the crowded Simta Bar, where young Israelis were gathered for a birthday party, then continued at a restaurant next door before ending at the bustling Sidewalk Cafe. Two people were killed.
The suspected gunman is a 31-year-old Arab-Israeli citizen named Nashat Milhem. Police have thus far refrained from calling the shootings a terrorist act, saying that Nashat Milhem’s motives are not yet known and that his modus operandi was not necessarily that of a terrorist. His father, a volunteer policeman, called police after seeing security camera footage of the attack on television and recognizing his son. Milhem has not been caught, and there's a massive manhunt in progress. According to reports, the Israelis have asked for help from the Palestinian Authority in finding him.
Residents of the area are close to panic because Milhem for years worked in the area as a delivery man, and has an intimate knowledge of streets and buildings in the city, so he may be living in an empty apartment he knew about. This is leading to fears that he might emerge and repeat his gunfire attack. As a result, many residents are staying at home, and keeping their children out of school. Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Washington Free Beacon and Jewish News
The Dow Jones industrial average closed about 275 points lower, or 1.58%, for its worst start on the first day of the year since 2008. Earlier, the index fell 467 points, or more than 2.5%, temporarily on pace for its largest percent decline on the first trading day of the year since 1932. European stocks closed sharply lower, with the German DAX 4%, and the STOXX Europe 600 closing 2.5% lower.
It appears that European and American stocks were following the Shanghai stock market on Monday. Shanghai stocks fell 5%, triggering a circuit breaker that closed trading for 15 minutes. But after lunch, stocks another 2%, and trading was quickly ended for the day. Analysts blamed the plunge on bad manufacturing data the came out on Monday.
There are concerns that closing trading is going to result in panic selling on Tuesday.
China's Shanghai stock market appeared to be in a full-fledged crash in the middle of last year. China's government responded with an almost unbelievable set of interventions -- forbidding government owned corporations from selling stocks, arresting people who "spread malicious rumors" (like "stocks are slumping), or who "meddle" in the stock market by selling stocks. In addition, Every day around 2 pm, the Chinese used government-backed funds to make huge purchases of shares in large capitalization companies. ( "2-Sep-15 World View -- China leads a worldwide stock selloff")
As I wrote last year, it's impossible for the government to cause, prevent or stop a full-fledged stock market crash. The Chinese government was able to stop the Shanghai slide last year, by intervening so thoroughly that it wasn't really a market any more, but they didn't (and couldn't) do anything about the underlying imploding bubble and except prop it up for a while. At some point, the implosion will have to continue, and it's possible that that time is now.
I listened to numerous analysts on Monday explain why Wall Street stock fell so sharply. A typical opinion was the following (paraphrasing): "The Chinese plunge shouldn't have happened, because the bad manufacturing data was really expected. For the same reason, the Wall Street plunge was only temporary, and once investors look at the fundamentals and how cheap stocks are, 2016 should be a very good year for the stock market."
I heard several variations of that, and it's so ridiculous that it's laughable. By very careful wording, the Shanghai bubble was not mentioned at all. And Wall Street stocks are not only not cheap, but they're in a huge bubble. Needless to say, the words "bubble" and "price/earnings ratio" were not mentioned by any of the analysts on Monday.
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As I've repeated many times, Generational Dynamics predicts that we're headed for a global financial panic and crisis. According to Friday's Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stock valuations index) on Friday morning (December 31) was at an astronomically high 22.95. This is far above the historical average of 14, indicating that the stock market is in a huge bubble that could burst at any time. Generational Dynamics predicts 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.
Update: The Shanghai Stock Market recovered slightly on Tuesday morning, after the Chinese government injected $19.9 billion into the banking system, to provide liquidity to push stocks back up. CNBC and Bloomberg
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 5-Jan-16 World View -- President Obama may have to choose between Saudi Arabia and Iran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(5-Jan-2016)
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Sunni vs Shia sectarian tensions grow rapidly
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Shia Muslims continued protests in Iran and eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday. In Bahrain, Shia protesters had violent clashes with police. The protests spread as far as Pakistan, where Shia groups held protests in Quetta, Lahore and Karachi. The Shia community in Indian-administered Kashmir also staged outraged protests, which were violent at times.
The Shia world is shocked that Saudi Arabia executed Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr at all, that they executed him suddenly at this time, and that they executed him in a mass execution in the company of 46 alleged Sunni terrorists, as we reported yesterday.
Iran's media has been demanding that Iran take revenge. Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei said that al-Nimr "neither invited people to take up arms nor hatched covert plots. The only thing he did was public criticism." In addition, he tweeted:
"Doubtlessly, unfairly-spilled blood of oppressed martyr #SheikhNimr will affect rapidly & Divine revenge will seize Saudi politicians."
Shia Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said that the execution of al-Nimr underlines Al Saud's terrorist arrogance and insistence on murdering all who speak out truth and right. He said:
"Sheikh al-Nimr's blood will plague Al Saud till the Day of Resurrection. ...The corrupted Saudi court, where the defense lawyer cannot argue with the judge, failed to prove that Sheikh Nimr held weaponry since he was peaceful as all the clerics in the Eastern Province in Saudi and in Bahrain. ...
Is not it high time to say courageously and regardless of all scores that the principle and spirit of the takfiri thought which destroys, murders, commits massacres and threatens the whole world is produced by Al Saud? Is not it high time to speak out right before the tyrant which is destroying Islam and the Islamic Umma?"
Express Tribune (Pakistan) and Al Manar (Lebanon)
The Saudis late Sunday announced that they were cutting diplomatic ties with Iran, and requiring all Iranian diplomats in Saudi Arabia to withdraw within 48 hours. This was in reaction to partially violent protests continuing outside of Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran and outside of the Saudi consulate in the city of Mashhad in northwestern Iran. This was a day after protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and set fire to it.
The Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir said that Saudi Araboa will no longer deal with a country that sponsors terrorism and sectarianism. He delivered the following speech:
"After having been briefed on the details of the hostilities which the Saudi diplomatic mission in Iran sustained, I would like to further inform you that the Iranian regime has a long record of violations of foreign diplomatic missions. I, herewith, cite the occupation of the U.S. embassy in 1979, the attack against the British embassy in 2011 and yesterday's offense against the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran and consulate general in Mash-had.Such continual assault on diplomatic missions constitutes a flagrant violation of all international agreements, charters and treaties.
Also, these attacks come after aggressive statements issued by Iranian prominent figures, a blatant provocation that encouraged others to attack the Kingdom's missions.
These offenses are considered a continuation of the Iranian hostile policy in the region aiming at destabilizing the region's security and stability and spreading sedition and wars.
This matter is certain as the Iranian regime provides safe havens on its territories for Al-Qaeda leaders since 2001.
The Iranian regime has also provided protection for a number of the involved in Al-Khober Towers explosion in 1996.
In addition to these hostile attacks, the Iranian regime has managed to smuggle weapons and explosives, plant terrorist cells in the region, including the Kingdom, aiming to spread chaos and unrest.
The history of Iran is full of negative and hostile interference in Arab countries affairs, always accompanied with subversion, demolition and killing of innocent souls.
Upon these realities, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announces cutting its diplomatic ties with Iran and demands all the members of Iran's diplomatic mission (embassy, consulate and other offices affiliated to them) to leave within 48 hours.
The Iranian ambassador to the Kingdom was summoned to notify him of this development."
The ministry accused Iran of “blind sectarianism” and said Iran’s reaction only shows that it is a “partner in their crimes in the entire region.” Saudi Press Agency and Arab News (Riyadh) and CNN
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Jan-16 World View -- Saudi Arabia cuts diplomatic ties with Iran as violent Shia protests spread around region thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(4-Jan-2016)
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Execution of Shia cleric Nirm al-Nimr triggers mass protests in Mideast
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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On Saturday, protesters in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, stormed the Saudi Arabian embassy, setting it on fire, and burning the entire insides, according to reports. There were widespread Shia protests in other parts of the Mideast, including the coastal city of Qatif in eastern Saudi Arabia, and in northwest Iran.
What triggered the Shia protests was that Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 47 prisoners -- 45 Saudi citizens, one from Egypt and one from Chad.
According to Saudi news media, most of those executed were Al-Qaeda members convicted for their involvement in bombing major government facilities 2004, the Ministry of Interior and the Emergency Forces in the same year, killing several security men and citizens. They were also found guilty of bombing the US Consulate in Jeddah in 2004, killing four security men; and attacking the water refinery in Abqaiq in 2006, which claimed the lives of two security men.
According to the Saudis, the executed men were convicted of embracing takfiri (deviant) ideology, contradicting the Koran and the Sunnah. The Sunnah are the writings of Muslim scholars in the centuries following the death of Mohammed, and they are one of the bedrocks that distinguish the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam.
Embracing takfiri ideology apparently meant not just the Shia ideology, but also the Al-Khawarij doctrine. The Khawarij were the first sect, in 657, to split from the mainstream Muslims following the death of Mohammed. They're rejected by both Sunni and Shia governments because they oppose much of the rule of law, even Sharia law, except their own interpretation. The Khawarij are still active today and, according to some scholars, the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) is a Khawarij sect. Arab News (Riyadh) and Arab News and Call To Islam
Iran officials have been harshly condemning the 47 executions, particularly the execution of Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, a well-known Shia cleric who spent more than a decade studying theology in Iran. He became an anti-government protester in Saudi Arabia, and has encouraged Shia protests in eastern Saudi Arabia. He was arrested in July 2012 and sentenced to death on October, 2014. Since then, Iran has frequently condemned the killing of al-Nimr, and demanded his release.
There were numerous statements form Iranian officials, including one by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei who compared Saudi Arabia to ISIS in its ideology and the brutality of its executions. A statement appearing on the web site of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) seemed designed to encourage Shia's to protest:
"The criminal act of execution of Sheikh Nimr the leader of Shia in Saudi Arabia is part of a Zionist [Israeli] conspiracy to sow discord among the world Muslims which will be aborted by the Heavenly blessings coming down to us by the pure blood of these martyrs. Definitely, Muslims will react to this atrocity and violence through consolidation of unity, which will contribute to the resistance ideals of liberation of the holy Quds [Jerusalem].The medieval act of savagery by the Saudi regime is blatant violation of Sheikh Nimr’s inalienable rights and the freedom of expression, and a clear evidence that Takfirist [deviant] ideology of Wahhabist teachings, now championed by ISIL, has dominated the files and ranks of the Saudi government. ...
Saudi regime will definitely pay heavy prices for the execution of Sheikh Nimr as unabashed and rash conduct."
Widespread Shia protests began shortly afterwards the eastern coastal city of Qatif in Saudi Arabia, in Bahrain, outside the Saudi consulate in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, and at the Saudi embassy in Iran. Protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and set it on fire, burning the entire inside of the building according to reports.
There was a BBC World Service special show that aired a couple of days ago -- an hour of the top BBC reporters and analysts predicting what would happen in 2016. Most of it was pretty fatuous, but the thing that really made me start laughing was when one of the reporters -- I think it was Lyse Doucet -- predicted that in 2016, Saudi Arabia and Iran would get together to start peace talks, and would settle many of their differences by the end of the year. That was two days before the current incident. I don't tell this to criticize Lyse Doucet, who is a fine reporter and analyst, but rather to show that reporters in general are extremely liberal and have no clue what's going on in the world, even in the countries they report from as correspondents.
As I've been saying for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major war between Arabs and Jews, between different ethnic groups, and most particularly, a massive sectarian war between Sunnis and Shias. Thanks to numerous events in 2015, including the war in Yemen, the rise of ISIS, the military intervention of Russia, and Iran's nuclear deal with the west, this sectarian war between Sunnis and Shias has moved a lot closer. And now it's only January 2, 2016, and these new events are going to have major repercussions in the weeks and months to come. Mehr News (Tehran) and Press TV (Tehran) and Reuters
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 3-Jan-16 World View -- Mideast sectarian tensions surge as Iranians burn down Saudi embassy in Tehran thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(3-Jan-2016)
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India imposes men-only driving restrictions in Delhi to curb pollution
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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With pollution levels in the capital city Delhi some of the highest in the world, India is imposing an even-odd system to limit the number of cars in Delhi. For the next two weeks, only cars with odd-numbered license plates will be allowed on the roads on odd-numbered dates, with only even-numbered plates on other days.
However, the restrictions apply only to men. Women are free to come and go in Delhi on every day, irrespective of license plate. I'm guessing that the reason for this exemption is to do nothing to prevent women from coming to Delhi to shop. But a woman with an adult male in her car is still subject to the restrictions.
Politicians, judges and VIPs will also be free from restriction.
Motorcycles and motor scooters will also be free from restriction, even though they're extremely heavy polluters.
Pollution in Delhi in 2015 was significantly worse in 2015 than in 2014 For example, the pollution level was "severe" in Delhi for 73% of the days in November 2015, versus 53% in November 2014. New car sales are soaring in India, with 1,400 extra cars taking to the capital's streets every day.
After the two-week pilot project is complete, Indian officials will evaluate the result to determine whether a permanent restriction should be ordered. BBC and The Hindu and AFP
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been strongly advocating a constitutional change that would take some power away from the parliament and give it to the president, creating a much stronger presidential system. Erdogan has indicated that this constitutional change will be a major political objective for him in 2016.
A reporter on Thursday asked Erdogan whether a presidential system could be adopted while keeping the country's unitary structure. His response:
"There is no such thing as 'no presidential system in unitary states.' There are examples of this around the world. There are examples in the past, too. When you look at Hitler's Germany, you can see it there. You can see later examples in other countries as well. What is important is that a presidential system should not disturb the people in its implementation. If you provide justice, there will be no problem because what people want and expect is justice."
The comparison of Turkey to Hitler's Germany has caused quite a bit of outrage, especially among Erdogan's opposition, but still one wonders what the heck he was talking about.
A "unitary system" is one in which all power is held by the central government, and none by the states or provinces that make up the nation. Here are internet definitions of the three systems:
Other web sites list many other countries with a unitary system: France, Spain, Italy, many more European countries, as well as many countries in Africa, Asia, and South America.
So Erdogan had plenty of examples to choose from, without going to Hitler's Germany. He issued a statement saying that the news stories have distorted his message, that he was saying that Hitler's Germany was a unitary system that went from a parliamentary to a presidential system the wrong way, and that Turkey should do it the right way. Zaman (Istanbul) and Reuters and Skyline College and Lewis Historical Society
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 2-Jan-16 World View -- In bizarre gaffe, Erdogan compares Turkey's government to Hitler's Germany thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(2-Jan-2016)
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Angela Merkel urges Germans to see refugees as an 'opportunity'
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
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Over one million refugees have arrived in Germany seeking asylum in 2015, and it seems likely that there will be another million in 2016. Many people blame the flood of refugees on the welcoming remarks of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this year. Merkel has been increasingly criticized, even by people in her own party, and her poll ratings have fallen.
In her New Year's Eve speech to the nation, Merkel stood firm and responded to her critics, calling the influx of refugees an "opportunity":
"Next year is about one thing in particular: our cohesion. It is important we don't allow ourselves to be divided - not into generations, not into social groups, and not into those that are already here and those that are new citizens. ...It is crucial not to follow those who, with coldness or even hatred in their hearts, lay a sole claim to what it means to be German and seek to exclude others.
Our values, our traditions, our sense of justice, our language, our laws, our rules, [apply] to all who wish to live here.
[The efforts put in to cope with the challenges would be worth it in the end because] countries have always benefitted from successful immigration, both economically and socially. ...
I am convinced that, handled properly, today's great task presented by the influx and the integration of so many people is an opportunity for tomorrow."
Her reference to "those who, with coldness or even hatred in their hearts," referred to Pegida, an anti-immigration party considered by many to be xenophobic, but which has been rising in the polls. Deutsche Welle and Expatica Germany
After ten years, December 31 is the last day in office for UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres. In an interview with the BBC, Guterres had a great deal of criticism for the European Union and for other nations, who were not responding to appeals for money to provide food and help for refugees.
I take note of the fact that although the audio portion of the interview is available on the BBC web site, there is no transcript available, and even the BBC news stories that quote Guterres only quote two or three sentences. Since I've become an exceptionally jaded and cynical person, I can't help but wonder if the BBC is playing down the interview because what Guterres said was so fantastical.
At any rate, what follows is my transcription of excerpts from the interview. He starts with harsh criticisms of the European Union, especially those countries that try to make themselves look as bad as possible, so that refugees will want to go to other countries:
"For the first time in meaningful numbers, refugees and other migrants came to Europe, and Europe was totally unprepared for that. But not only was Europe unprepared then, it's still unprepared today. And it was unable to get its act together, and the divisions in Europe do not allow for a European response. to this situation.The first thing one needs to look at is what the reality is, not what the perceptions are. We reached one million people that have crossed the Mediterranean. But we are talking of the European Union of more than 500 million people.
So we have less than two refugees per thousand people in the European Union. Now if you go to Lebanon, we have one refugee for each 3 or 4 Lebanese. So it is clear that this problem could have been managed, but to be managed it would be necessary to have all European countries assume a common responsibility. First of all, doing their best to address the root causes, doing their best to contribute to the peace in Syria or of other crises.
But at the same time recognizing that many will come, preparing that arrival with adequate reception conditions at entry points, making sure that people at entry points could be welcomed, could be given shelter. This would require an important investment if proper reception conditions would be in place. And a fair distribution of people by plane in normal circumstances to all European countries, this crisis would have been perfectly managed.
Now, what we are seeing is that countries are trying to solve the problem by themselves, trying basically to avoid refugees to come into their borders, and to go into the neighbors' one. And some countries that are trying to have a regime that is a little bit worse than the neighbor's regime, to make sure that the refugees go into the neighbors, and not their own country."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Guterres is wishing for a return to the 1990s, a time when people were wealthier and the mood was egalitarian. Today, in this generational Crisis era, people in America and Europe are sharply divided politically, and nationalism and xenophobia are rising.
Guterres was asked whether he was receiving all the money necessary for his work, and he said that countries have been contributing only about 50% of the needed amounts.
The BBC reporter asked him which countries disappointed him, because they could afford to pay more. He was obviously looking for criticism of the US or Britain, but Guterres surprised him:
"Everybody, to a certain extent. There is a number of countries that are now emerging as new relevant economies in the world that are not also coming with their expectable share of responsibility of the new emerging economies. I would hope that they would be able to increase their contributions too."
So Guterres was apparently criticizing China, not the US, which was certainly a surprise to me.
Guterres things it's strange that the "global public good" is funded by voluntary contributions, and he's looking for ways to make the contributions mandatory - a "system such that every country in the world has to contribute in way that is predictable and is fair."
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the most interesting part of the interview was the end, where he described a world spiraling down into total chaos:
"It's important to be aware that we are just looking at just one of the symptoms of a deeper problem, and a central question is, the reason why [the refugees] are fleeing. It's this dramatic multiplication of conflicts in the world. It's the fact the international community has lost much of its capacity to avoid conflicts, to prevent conflicts, and then to timely solve them. And this what leads in my opinion to have a "surge" in diplomacy for peace.Ten years ago, we had about 38 million people displaced by conflict in the world. Now we have about 60 million people.
According to the numbers of the first semester of this year, things are still getting worse in 2016. 5% more people displaced, 80% more individuals by requesting help. And worse than that, ten years ago, we were helping one million people go back home every year. Now in the last year, we only helped 130,000 people go back home, which means we are having more and more people forced to flee, and less and less people being able to find a solution for their plight.
We are like a nurse that provides an aspririn to a patient. we are able to alleviate the pain, but we don't solve the problem. That is the political dimension of the humanitarian crisis. Humanitarians need to be impartial, neutral, to abide by humanitarian principles, not to be political. But we need to be humble enough to recognize that there is no humanitarian solution for this problems. The solution is political."
His desire to have "a 'surge' in diplomacy for peace" is somewhat amusing. Of course he's contrasting to the American troop "surges" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suggesting that diplomats should surge as well. This is something that might have been possible in the 1990s, but is completely impossible in today's generational Crisis era. BBC and United Nations
A couple of sentences from Guterres' interview are worth repeating: "It's this dramatic multiplication of conflicts in the world. It's the fact the international community has lost much of its capacity to avoid conflicts, to prevent conflicts, and then to timely solve them."
He couldn't have chosen better or more accurate words to describe what happens in a generational Crisis era. Guterres pointed out that the number of refugees in the world now exceeds 60 million, but in the last year his agency was able to help only 300,000 of them, a much worse ratio than ten years ago.
For most countries, the current generational Crisis era began around 2003, 58 years after the climax of World War II, a time when the retirement of the survivors of WW II accelerated and caused them to lose almost all influence over the rising generation, Generation-X.
I happen to have in my archives a Boston Globe article from August 29, 2004, that says that the number of war deaths has been decreasing substantially:
"[T]he number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meantime, are growing in number."International engagement is blossoming," said American scholar Monty G. Marshall. "There's been an enormous amount of activity to try to end these conflicts."
For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq and Afghanistan have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and Canadian non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a general decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.
The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a 2004 Yearbook report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication, says 19 major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in 2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars counted in 1991.
The Canadian organization Project Ploughshares, using broader criteria to define armed conflict, says in its new annual report that the number of conflicts declined to 36 in 2003, from a peak of 44 in 1995."
So as most of the world ended its generational Unraveling era, when the last of the WW II survivors were in charge, and entered a generational Crisis era, things changed.
Since then, we've had four or five wars among the group consisting of Israel, Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Gaza. We've had a huge surge of Muslims killing Muslims through the Mideast, in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, following the "Arab Awakening." That includes President Obama's new Iraq war, following the rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Ukraine's Crimea, the first such peacetime action in Europe since Adolf Hitler's Nazi army had invaded, occupied and annexed a portion of Austria (the Anschluss) on March 12, 1938.
There's also the "surge" in Afghanistan, and African wars in Mali, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. We'd also have to count the slaughter of Muslims by Buddhists in Myanmar (Burma). And while the world seemed very prosperous ten years ago (the middle of the real estate and credit bubble), we've had to endure a financial crisis after the bubbles imploded.
Will there be any more conflicts in 2016? Almost certainly. Let's take a look at the current situation:
The thing that makes a generational Crisis era unlike other eras is that, with rising nationalism and xenophobia, something that might be considered trivial at other times could be a cause for war now. In 1914, a Serb, Gavrilo Princip, shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, and his pregnant wife Sophie. Assassinations were not uncommon in the world, then or now, but to most of the world's complete astonishment, this assassination triggered World War I.
A similar thing could happen 2016, in any region of the world.
Happy New Year!
(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Jan-16 World View -- 2016 and the 'dramatic multiplication of conflicts in the world' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be
posted anonymously.)
(1-Jan-2016)
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