Where exactly are North and South Korea in terms of the saeculum?

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Where exactly are North and South Korea in terms of the saeculum?

WW II was the last crisis war. The Korean War was a First Turning war.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

WW II was the last crisis war. The Korean War was a First Turning war.

The following article contains a generational history
of South Korea since World War II:

** South Korean politicians are 'euphoric' over North Korea nuclear deal
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...16.htm#e070216

*** 26-Aug-15 World View -- Europe increasingly overwhelmed by tsunami of migrants

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Europe increasingly overwhelmed by tsunami of migrants
• Syrian migrants prepare carefully for trip to Europe
• China reduces interest rates after new stock market rout
• Wall Street turns around on Tuesday, goes from boom to bust in one hour

****
**** Europe increasingly overwhelmed by tsunami of migrants
****


Hundreds of migrants stand in line on a railway track as uniformed police watch on (Athena Pictures)

There are about 10,000 migrants on the Greece's Aegean Sea island of
Lesbos, having arrived from Turkey. There are also migrants on the
islands of Chios and Kos. Greece is running a ferry that's takes
2,000 migrants per day from the islands, in a trip that takes 12 hours
at sea. In Athens, Greece provides buses to the Macedonia border.

There are now about 3,000 migrants per day traveling along the route
from Greece to Macedonia to Serbia to Hungary, which is a Schengen
zone country. From there they can travel to wherever they want, but
in most cases the desired destination is through Austria to Germany.
Germany processed 173,070 asylum applications in 2014, and expects to
process 800,000 in 2015, which would add 1% to Germany's population.

The flow of migrants is so large that Germany decided it had no choice
but to suspend the "Dublin rules" for Syrian migrants. Under the
Dublin Rules, if a migrant reaches Germany and requests asylum, then
Germany would not even process the paperwork. Instead, the migrant
would be shipped back to the first EU country that the migrant arrived
in, usually Italy, Greece or Hungary. With almost 3,000 migrants
arriving every day, that would mean shipping 3,000 migrants per day
back to Italy, Greece or Hungary for processing, and those countries
are already overwhelmed. Under the new rules, Germany will process
the paperwork in Germany.

The tsunami of migrants is overwhelming Europe. Every attempt at a
fence or other border control is being swept away, and Europe is
showing little sign of finding a way to deal with the situation.
Telegraph (London) and Daily Mail (London) and AFP and Guardian (London)

****
**** Syrian migrants prepare carefully for trip to Europe
****

Paul Ronzheimer, a journalist for the German newspaper Bild, was
interviewed on al-Jazeera on Tuesday. He joined a group of Syrian
migrants from Aleppo as they traveled from Turkey to Germany, and
outlined what preparations the migrants make for the trip:

• They saved money for years and sold many of their
  possessions to have enough money to make the trip.
  
• However, they don't take all their money with them, since
  the smugglers will immediately confiscate all they have. They
  take a small amount to start, leaving the rest with their families.
  When they arrive in Athens, they use a special arranged code
  to receive money sent by their families. When they arrive in
  Zagreb, they do the same.
  
• They are well-equipped with smart phones, and they're in
  constant contact, chatting with special groups of activists who
  can help them. When they have to cross a border, the
  activists tell exactly where the border is open that day,
  which way to go, which fields to cross, how to avoid the
  police, and so forth.

Ronzheimer said that the group he was with were well-prepared,
but others just travel without advance preparation, and they
usually get into trouble with smugglers or the police.

****
**** China reduces interest rates after new stock market rout
****

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) lowered interest rates by 0.25% on
Tuesday, to make it easier to borrow money, after the Shanghai Stock
Exchange suffered another rout, falling 7.6%, falling a total of 22%
in four days since August 19.

Presumably the purpose of the move was to allow people to borrow money
to invest in the stock market, in the hope of pushing up the stock
market. However, some analysts criticized the move, because the stock
market bubble was caused by stock purchases using borrowed money, and
lowering interest rates makes the situation worse.

China's debts have increased by almost $21 trillion since 2007, and
total debt is now 282% of GDP. No big country has avoided suffering a
big crash, sooner or later, under these conditions. Bloomberg and Bloomberg

****
**** Wall Street turns around on Tuesday, goes from boom to bust in one hour
****

Wall Street stocks seemed finally to be bouncing back upward on
Tuesday from the 588-point rout in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on
Monday. China's interest rate cut seemed to encourage buyers, and at
one point the DJIA was up 442 points.

But starting at 3 pm, in the last hour before close, the stock market
plummeted, with the DJIA ending the day losing 205 points. This was
the sixth day of a losing streak on Wall Street.

Each day that passes in this way looks more and more of the prelude to
a major crash. As I wrote yesterday, I expected Wall Street to bounce
up on Tuesday, and I expected it to stay up through the close. ( "25-Aug-15 World View -- What to expect after Monday's global stock selloff"
)

So I was as surprised as anyone when stock prices plummeted in the
final hour.

However, as I wrote yesterday, the overall picture to expect a lot of
volatility, with possible huge gains one day and huge losses the next
day. With the S&P 500 price/earnings ratio (stock valuations) at
historic highs, this will continue until a panic occurs. USA Today


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Europe, Greece, Lesbos, Chios, Kos,
Athens, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Germany,
Dublin rules, Syria, Aleppo, Paul Ronzheimer,
China, People's Bank of China, PBOC

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*** 27-Aug-15 World View -- Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias
• History of Karachi Pakistan since World War II
• Wall Street on Wednesday goes from boom to super-boom in final hour

****
**** Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias
****


Pakistan army soldiers

Karachi, the huge port city in Pakistan's south, remains one of the
most dangerous cities in the world, almost ungovernable, with an
average of 2.7 murders reported per day in 2015, according to data
compiled by the UK-based Institute for Conflict Management(ICM).

However, as bad as those figures are, they're a very big improvement
of 2014, when there were 5.7 murders per day in the same period.

Pakistan's army is taking credit for the dramatic reduction in violent
crime from the "evil nexus" between terrorism, perpetrated by
Taliban-linked jihadists, and criminal mafias, represented in the
major political parties, particularly the Muttahida Qaumi Movement
(MQM) political party.

Pakistan's army launched the "Karachi Operation" in September
2013, at a time when the death toll from murders was mounting.

Although MQM leaders initially supported the operation, they now claim
that the Pakistan Rangers have singled them out, and that 4,000 of
their supporters have been arrested over the past two years, with some
saying they were tortured for crimes they did not commit. However,
the army points to hundreds of arrests this year alone of suspects
allegedly associated with al-Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP),
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
(AQIS). The Rangers “are arresting criminals across the board,”
according to retired brigadier supporting the operation.

On August 10, the Pakistan Rangers announced that the first
stage of the operation has been completed, and that the
second stage will begin:

<QUOTE>"[We] are well prepared to start Stage 2 from Aug 14th
2015 till the time it is successfully completed. Stage 2 will be
more severe than Stage 1 as the main task is to hunt down Land
Grabbers, Target Killers, Extortionists, Kidnappers, Terrorists to
Justice. Pak Rangers Sindh is committed not to spare any
criminal. If you have information or if you are a victim yourself
than please do not hesitate to contact Pakistan Rangers Sindh
through email or telephone numbers. Do not worry even if the
criminals are very powerful because Pakistan Rangers Sindh are
more powerful by the will of Allah. Credentials of the complainant
will be kept highly confidential."<END QUOTE>

The News (Pakistan) and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Washington Post (27-July)

****
**** History of Karachi Pakistan since World War II
****

One of the worst wars of the 20th century was the bloody genocidal war
between Hindus and Muslims that followed Partition, the 1947
partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. The
scale of civilian displacement from their homes was so massive that it
was called by some an "exodus of biblical proportions."

The Partition war occurred when the new boundaries between India and
Pakistan were put into place. The politicians, including India's
Mahatma Gandhi and Pakistan's Muhammad Ali Jinnah is the founder of
Pakistan, had thought that the remaining Muslims living in India and
the remaining Hindus living in Pakistan could all live in peace with
their neighbors. Instead, there was a forced migration of 14 million
people and the killing of a million more, making it one of the largest
mass migrations in history.

That war occurred mostly in along the northern border between India
and Pakistan, mainly in Punjab province, with the fiercest fighting
between Muslim Punjabis and Hindu Punjabis. The Kashmir and Jammu
regions are still a source of continuing conflict between the two
countries.

But after the Partition war, millions more Urdu-speaking Muslims
living in India migrated to Pakistan, where they became known as
Mohajirs ("migrants") and formed the the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM -
Migrant National Movement) political party. This party changed its
name to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (United National Movement) in the
1990s, but its members are still referred to as Mohajirs.

The Mohajirs settled mainly in Karachi, which became a
business-oriented city, a cosmopolitan home to many ethnic groups.

The first major fault line emerged after the Soviet Union's invasion
of Afghanistan in 1979. Karachi became one of the biggest refugee
camps for Afghans fleeing the war, mostly Pashtuns. This provided a
big boost for religious organizations and in 1983 the first
large-scale Shia-Sunni riots broke out. This also occurred near the
end of a generational Awakening era, a typical time for this kind of
riot to occur, but then to fizzle quickly.

After 9/11, a new fault line grew between the Pashtuns and
Taliban-linked jihadist organizations versus the MQM and Shia groups.
This resulted in increased sectarian violence throughout the 2000s
decade.

Then in 2010, a major disaster happened to Pakistan and to Karachi.
( "5-Aug-10 News -- Multiple crises overwhelm Pakistan"
)


Almost the entire Indus River valley was flooded in 2010 (BBC)

It's hard to overstate the catastrophic impact of the massive 2010
floods in Pakistan, the worst floods since 1929, since before Pakistan
was even a country. The flooding wiped out hundreds of villages from
the top of Pakistan to the bottom, along the Indus River. All the
major roads and bridges have been destroyed and so are the police
stations, administration buildings, and telephone exchanges. Thousands
of houses were razed to the ground by the storm and at least one
million people became homeless.

This created a huge new crisis for Karachi, as massive numbers of
refugees flooded into the city.

After that, the city became almost completely lawless. There were
jihadist groups. There were ethnic, sectarian, and anti-state
militants -- generally two young men on a motorcycle—engage in daily
targeted killings of their rivals and enemies. There were
extortionists, real estate mafias, terrorist networks and kidnappers.
And there was violence between MQM and the city's other political
parties, as they fought for governmental control.

For many residents of Karachi, the arrival of the Pakistan Rangers and
the "Karachi Operation" in September 2013 have been welcome, because
of the reduction in crime. But no one believes that the violence is
over. Pakistan is in a generational Crisis era, meaning that fault
lines are likely to be inflamed into current violence. With the
Pakistan Rangers having made so many enemies, a backlash may bring
back the violence worse than ever. Center for the National Interest (Washington)

****
**** Wall Street on Wednesday goes from boom to super-boom in final hour
****

Wednesday on Wall Street was sort of the opposite of Tuesday.

As of 3 pm on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had had
gained about 400 points. Then, as I wrote yesterday,
Wall Street went from boom to bust in the final
hour with a wild 600 point downward swing, resulting in a loss for the
day of 205 points.

But not on Wednesday. At 3 pm, the DJIA was up about 400 points,
but in the last hour of trading it started going up by a point
every few seconds, ending up 620 points for the day, for a kind
of "super-boom."

Wednesday was the kind of day that I was expecting and wrote about two
days ago ( "25-Aug-15 World View -- What to expect after Monday's global stock selloff"
). The
expectation is of wild swings upward and downward, and Wednesday
was a wild swing upward.

The USA Today headline reads, "Dow roars back, rallies 620 points, in
sign of market stabilization." It's a sign of the foolishness of the
mainstream media that these wild swings could be interpreted as
"market stabilization."

There are two scenarios. One scenario is that these swings
really do stabilize in the next few days and weeks, and that
the DJIA goes up or down no more than 50-100 points in a single
day.

The other scenario is that these wild swings increase in amplitude,
triggered by events such as the continuing crash in China's stock
market. In that scenario, a Wall Street panic and financial crisis is
increasingly likely. As I've repeatedly pointed out, the S&P 500
Price/Earnings ratio index (stock valuation index) is over 21, far
higher than the historic average of about 14. And by the Law of Mean
Reversion, it will return to the 5-6 level, which it did several times
in the last century. When it does, the DJIA will fall well below
3000. USA Today


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan Rangers,
Operation Karachi, Tehrik-e-Taliban, TTP, Pakistan Taliban,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, LeJ, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, AQIS,
Mohajir Qaumi Movement, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, MQM,
India, Partition, Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
Punjab, Kashmir, Jammu, Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Indus River,
Wall Street, China

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*** 28-Aug-15 World View -- Explanation of Price/Earnings ratio and Stock Valuations

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Discovery of decomposing corpses worsens Europe's migrant crisis
• Commemorating the Kellogg-Briand pact that outlawed war
• Explanation of Price/Earnings ratio and Stock Valuations

****
**** Discovery of decomposing corpses worsens Europe's migrant crisis
****


Migrant routes into Europe (Washington Post)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was meeting in Vienna Austria on
Thursday with leaders of the western Balkan countries -- Croatia,
Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and
Albania -- to discuss the "huge challenges" the countries face in view
of the huge tsunami of migrants

entering Europe.

However, the meeting was overshadowed by the discovery of 30-50
corpses in the back of a truck abandoned off of a highway in
Austria near Vienna.

When the police first approached the putrid-smelling truck, they
thought it was just having motor difficulties. But then they
discovered that there was no driver, and blood was leaking. They
opened the truck and found the corpses. The truck had been parked for
several days in the searing summer heat, and the bodies were so
decomposed that it was impossible for the police even to determine how
many there were.

Merkel said of the horrific discovery: "This reminds us that we must
tackle the issue of immigration quickly and in a European spirit.
That means in a spirit of solidarity - to find solutions."

Unfortunately, Europe is finding few solution. The massive influx of
migrants and refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa is
forcing the European Union into discussions of whether the EU has any
morality.

There are two agreements under particular discussion. One is the
Schengen Agreement of 25 nations that permit free travel with no visa
requirements or border restrictions. Once a migrant reaches a country
like Hungary in the Schengen zone, he can travel freely to any other
country.

The other agreement is the "Dublin Regulation," which establishes
which country is responsible for processing the asylum application.
This is usually migrant's first country of entry to the EU, but this
ends up placing an enormous burden on Greece and Italy.

The core problem is that hundreds of thousands of migrants are
expected to enter Europe illegally this year, and the EU has
no coherent policy for dealing with them, or for distributing
them among member nations.

The gruesome discovery of the decomposing Austrian corpses is making
it more difficult to decide exactly what the European Union stands
for. Al-Jazeera and Washington Post and Schengen Agreement and Dublin Regulation

****
**** Commemorating the Kellogg-Briand pact that outlawed war
****

In Camelot, there's a legal limit to the amount of snow that can fall
in Winter. As far as I know, the US has never made earthquakes or
snowstorms illegal, but on August 27, 1928, the United States signed a
pact making war illegal.

The agreement was signed in Paris. Fifteen nations signed the pact on
that day in Paris. Signatories included France, the United States, the
United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
India, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy and
Japan. Later, an additional forty-seven nations followed suit.

Did it work? I guess not.

The first major test occurred in 1931 with the Manchurian Incident or
Mukden Incident, which I described a couple of weeks ago. ( "15-Aug-15 World View -- Japan's Shinzo Abe blames WW II on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act"
)

Japan had signed by Kellogg-Briand pact, but still invaded Manchuria
in 1931, and no other country nor the League of Nations did a thing to
stop them.

Like Barack Obama and probably John Kerry, Secretary of State Frank
B. Kellogg received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929 for his work on the
Kellogg-Briand pact, which made war illegal. Dept. of State

****
**** Explanation of Price/Earnings ratio and Stock Valuations
****


S&P 500 Price/Earnings Ratio (P/E1) Index (Stock Valuations), 1871-present

If you listen to CNBC or Bloomberg TV, then you know that they're
always showing graphs, and they're always talking about stock
valuations, but for some strange reason they never show graphs
of stock valuations. One look at the above graph, which shows
the S&P 500 Price/Earnings Ratio back to 1871, and you know
why they never show it.

As the graph shows, the historic average for the P/E ratio is 14.
The P/E ratio today is 21.63, which is far above the historic
average. In fact, thanks to the Tech Bubble, the Real Estate
Bubble, the Credit Bubble, and the Stock Market Bubble, the
P/E ratio has been well above 14 continuously since 1995.

By the Law of Mean Reversion, the P/E ratio not only must
fall below 14 again, it has to stay well below average to make
up for the 20 years it was above average. Roughly speaking,
that means it will be below average for 20 years.

How low will it go? Well, it fell to the 5-6 range three times
in the last century -- in 1917, in 1949, and in 1980. That's
going to happen again with absolute certainty, and that means
that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will fall below 3000.

Let me go on to mention a couple of very technical points.

As I've said many times, analysts on CNBC lie constantly about stock
valuations. I used to quote analysts doing this, hoping to name and
shame them. (See, for example, "14-Apr-12 World View -- Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel is lying about stock valuations"
from 2012.) However, these people
don't shame. After Monday's 4% plunge on Wall Street, I saw one
analyst on CNBC say that now is the time to buy stocks because stock
valuations are the lowest in decades.

Starting in the 2000s, analysts found the best way to lie. If
you listen to them, listen for the words "based on forward earnings"
or "based on operating earnings." The P/E ratio is computed by
dividing the stock price by the annual earnings, and the easiest
way to lie is to use bloated earnings that come from a company's
public relations department. "Oh yes," a company president might
say, "our earnings next year will be twice as high as this year!!"
If you increase the earnings, then the P/E ratio goes down.

Then to complete the lie, they refer to the historical average of 14.
"Universal Widgets stock has a P/E ratio of 12, based on forward
earnings, which is much lower than the average of 14!!!"


S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio, based on one year trailing earnings, at astronomically high 21.63 on August 21 (WSJ)

That historical average of 14 is only valid for P/E ratios based on
"one year trailing earnings." Those are the company's earnings in the
past 12 months, as actually reported in SEC filings and tax forms.
They're not public relations numbers, and they're the only numbers you
can count on.

If you want to use "forward earnings" or "operating earnings" to
compute the P/E ratio, then you can, provided you use the correct
historical average -- which I've estimated to be about 8. So if
Universal Widgets stock has a P/E ratio of 12, based on forward
earnings, then it's way overpriced, much higher than the historical
average of 8.

One more technical note. Professor Robert J. Shiller of Yale
University, who compiles the price/earnings data that I use, prefers
to use "PE10", referring to the price of the stock divided by the
average annual earnings for the past ten years. I prefer to use PE1
because it gives essentially the same results, and because it's easier
to explain. Robert J. Shiller online data


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Germany, Angela Merkel, Balkan countries,
Austria, Vienna, Schengen Agreement, Dublin Regulation,
Greece, Italy, Kellogg-Briand pact, Japan, Frank B Kellogg,
Price/Earnings ratio, stock valuations, Law of Mean Reversion,
trailing earnings, forward earnings, operating earnings,
Jeremy Siegel, Wharton School, Robert J. Shiller, Yale University

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The Boomer establishment is still trying to shove Globalism and "Human Rights" down our throats. People especially Gen-Xers and Post-college millennials, are not buying this nonsense anymore. Why do you think that trump is so popular among the people? I'm not even fully ideologically aligned what he advocates (I'm lean more toward the old-style left with a dash of meritocratic-aristocratic old style right-wing tendencies as well) but I can see what he tapping into gain support. Since you are a fan of ancient Greece, I will use an example of what the younger generations want and what trump seems to locked onto; take the standoff between Macedonia and Athens that is considered to have marked the transition out of the classical Greek era. What we want is for America to be the "Macedonia" analogue; not the "Athens" analogue. We're tired of feminized establishment politicians. We want to have greatness, like what Rome was in its day, or like Spain and France back in the 1500s when they contended for power. Another example in various struggles of the 1600s to the beginning of the 1800s and the frequent wars between England and France in those eras. My generation has more understanding of what France what fighting for in those days than what England was fighting for.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> People especially Gen-Xers and Post-college millennials, are not
> buying this nonsense anymore. Why do you think that trump is so
> popular among the people?

By constantly referring to Mexicans as rapists and murderers, Trump is
appealing to the worst nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies of the
people. It's hard for me to imagine anything worse.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

By constantly referring to Mexicans as rapists and murderers, Trump is
appealing to the worst nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies of the
people. It's hard for me to imagine anything worse.

Trump's approach is of course less than optimal. Of course we do need to renorm the terms correctly. On the other side is the idiotic PC brigade that uses cute labels like "undocumented workers". The proper term is "illegal aliens". Borders exist for a reason. The US government is being utterly stupid in messing with stuff it should abandon like mucking with the housing market. I'd love to use a virtual neutron bomb on Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/HUD , and any other entity which constitutes corporate welfare in any shape, form , and fashion to housing and any other private business. I'd certainly include dorking around with interest rates with this.

Back to the Mexico situation, Mexico has the same problem on its other border:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanie...-other-border/

I think this points to one of main culprits which is this inane US "War on Drugs" policy. It's doing nothing but creating a huge black market and a set of narco gangs providing the supply. Guatemala has major headaches from it, Mexico has major headaches from it, and the US has major headaches from it. It's a doomed and failed policy which should be scrapped. As far as illegal immigration, sure beef up the border security. I'd also see if Mexico would be willing to deport the coyotes to the US so they can be charged with human trafficking in the US. Mexico of course has an option of bringing them up for charges if it wishes and the US should be willing to help. Next, of course deport illegal aliens. Finally, ensure sanctions against employing illegal aliens are rigorously enforced. I know this is a broad set of policies and not some short soundbyte. Rarely do complex problems lend themselves to short soundbytes. I'm fine if there's a reasonable quota of legal immigration from Mexico. Incoming immigrants need to be checked out medically for nasty things like dengue fever, Chagas' disease, and other tropical diseases so global warming fueled spread is mitigated to some extent. I think controlled immigration is a reasonable policy since my maternal great grand parents went though that sort of thing.

*** 29-Aug-15 World View -- Iran calls for Yemen ceasefire as Saudi-backed troops threaten Sanaa

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Iran calls for Yemen ceasefire as Saudi-backed troops threaten Sanaa
• Carnage grows in Yemen as both sides commit war crimes
• Deadly MERS virus cases surge in Saudi Arabia as Hajj approaches

****
**** Iran calls for Yemen ceasefire as Saudi-backed troops threaten Sanaa
****


Men dig through rubble at residential compound struck by Saudi warplanes last month (HRW)

In what could be a major humiliation for Iran, Yemen
Saudi Arabia-backed government in exile says that it's prepared
to launch an attempt to recapture the capital city Sanaa
within two months.

The Iranian-back Shia ethnic Houthi militias seized Sanaa last
September, forcing the president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to flee to the
south to the port city of Aden, Yemen's second largest city. The
Houthi militias then swept south, first capturing Taiz, the third
largest city, and continuing to the south to Aden. Hadi was forced to
flee to Saudi Arabia as a government in exile.

A Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on
March 26, in support of Sunni militias allied with Hadi. These
recaptured Aden and then Taiz. Reportedly, some troops from the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) have taken part in some fighting in the
south. On Friday, Yemen's foreign minister in exile said that
government forces intend to launch the battle to recapture Sanaa with
two months.

Saudi Arabia has appeared loath to send their own troops into the war,
but for the first time, Saudi Arabian troops have entered Yemen,
crossing the Saudi border into Yemen near a site where Houthis have
launched shelling attacks on Saudi targets.

If Hadi government forces are able to recapture Sanaa, then it would
be a major victory for Saudi Arabia, and a major humiliation for Iran.
Earlier this year, Iran was bragging endlessly that it was in control
of four major Mideast capital cities -- Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and
Sanaa, in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, respectively. The loss of
Sanaa would be particularly humiliating, in view of the recent defeats
that have been inflicted on Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.

Iran has never called for a ceasefire by the al-Assad regime in Syria
to stop using chlorine-laden barrel bombs on innocent women and
children civilians in Syria, but it's now desperately calling for a
ceasefire in Syria. Iran is demanding that the Saudi-led airstrikes
on Houthi targets in Yemen must stop, and that an immediate ceasefire
must be followed by negotiations, since “adopting a political solution
and avoiding war” would be beneficial not only for Yemen but for the
entire region as well. Arab News and
International Business Times

****
**** Carnage grows in Yemen as both sides commit war crimes
****

Yemen has always been one of the poorest countries in the world, and
the war in Yemen that began with the Houthi capture of Sanaa last year
in September has brought a great deal of destruction to the country.

According to the United Nations, more than 4,300 people have been
killed in the conflict, most of them civilians, but that figure is
consider to be an almost certain underestimate.

According to Human Rights Watch, the blockade imposed by the Saudi-led
coalition has had a severe impact on civilians. The activist
organization says that 80% of the population need assistance, and half
the population face food insecurity. The blockade has made it
difficult to deliver food and medicines, according to HRW.

HRW says that both sides are guilty of war crimes. Houthi militias
repeatedly fire mortar shells and rockets indiscriminately into
populated area. But HRW particularly condemns the Saudi airstrikes
which it says have killed nearly 2,000 civilians, including hundreds
of children.

HRW is also claiming that Saudi warplanes have been dropping cluster
munitions. Cluster bombs release hundreds of bomblets in order to
cause blanket damage over a wide area. Some bomblets will often fail
to detonate and remain on the ground as a latent explosive threat.
More than 100 countries have signed the Convention on Cluster
Munitions, which bans the use and stockpiling of the weapons, though
Saudi Arabia and the United States have not. Human Rights Watch and Vice News and AP

****
**** Deadly MERS virus cases surge in Saudi Arabia as Hajj approaches
****


Pilgrims attending last year's Hajj wore nose and mouth masks (AFP)

A surge in cases of deadly MERS-CoV (the Middle Eastern Respiratory
Syndrome coronavirus) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital city, has
killed 26 people in just the last two weeks. Saudi officials are
taking immediate steps to isolate all cases as quickly as possible.
There's an additional threat of spreading when more than 5 million
Saudi students resume school on Sunday after summer vacation.

The sudden surge in new MERS cases is raising concerns because the
annual Hajj will take place this year from September 20-25. The Hajj
is a pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is required to make at
least one in his lifetime. Plane loads of Muslims have already begun
to arrive for this year's Hajj. Millions of Muslims from around the
world will arrive in Saudi Arabia in the next few weeks for their once
in a lifetime Hajj pilgrimage.

Saudi officials are saying that even one case of MERS can present a
major threat. With millions of people attending, a single infected
person could transmit the disease to many others. The danger is
increased because an infected person may not show symptoms for several
days.

This is now the third year that MERS has appeared as a serious threat
to the Hajj. Saudi officials are confident that the procedures that
they followed for the last two years will keep everyone safe this
year. Arab News and On Islam


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Sanaa, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Human Rights Watch, Houthis, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, Taiz, Aden,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Lebanon, Iraq, Mecca, Hajj,
Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, MERS-CoV

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*** 30-Aug-15 World View -- Egypt inflames tensions with Qatar with al-Jazeera reporter verdicts

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• International outrage over sentencing of al-Jazeera reporters
• Al-Jazeera journalists used as pawns by Egypt and Qatar

****
**** International outrage over sentencing of al-Jazeera reporters
****

Egypt triggered international outrage on Saturday when a court
sentenced three al-Jazeera journalists to three years in jail. The
three men had originally been sentenced to 7-10 years in jail on
charges of spreading lies to help a terrorist organization, referring
to the Muslim Brotherhood, but those charges were apparently dropped
in this new trial.

Instead, the Egyptian judge said that they "are not journalists and
not members of the press syndicate" and broadcast with unlicensed
equipment. The three were convicted of "operating without a press
license and broadcasting material harmful to Egypt," charges that
almost everyone outside of Egypt consider to be farcical.

In the past, Egypt's president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi has said that
he wished that the journalists had never been brought to trial because
of the huge international outcry against Egypt, and he suggested that
if they were convicted then he might pardon them. Many people are
hoping that al-Sisi will do exactly that. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Jerusalem Post

****
**** Al-Jazeera journalists used as pawns by Egypt and Qatar
****

It's widely believed that the three al-Jazeera journalists are being
used as pawns by Egypt against Qatar, where al-Jazeera is funded.

When Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government were in
power in Egypt, then Egypt and Qatar had close relations, and Qatar
was providing aid to Egypt. However, in July 2013, army general Abdel
al-Fattah al-Sisi engineered a coup that overthrew Morsi, and later
became president himself.

Since then, Al-Sisi has conducted an extremely brutal and bloody
crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters, beating, torturing and
jailing innocent protesters, and sentencing hundreds to death in phony
trials.

This caused a serious split between Egypt and Qatar, but the split
deepened substantially over last summer's 60-day war between Gaza and
Israel.

As I wrote several times, the Gaza war brought about a major Mideast realignment
, splitting
the Gulf nations apart. When the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas
began last summer, al-Sisi supported Israel and the Palestinian
Authority, and turned against Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Iran and Turkey supported Hamas. This created a de
facto realignment of the Mideast, with Israel plus Egypt plus
Saudi Arabia plus the Palestinian Authority in alliance versus Hamas
plus Qatar plus Turkey plus Iran.

This fissure ran very deep, although there have been several major
events since then that have served to bring Egypt and Qatar closer
together:

• The rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or
  Daesh) has threatened all the Gulf nations, and has increased
  terrorist attacks around the region.
  
• The war in Yemen is viewed as a proxy war between the Sunni
  nations and Iran, and has served to align the interests of Egypt and
  Qatar, at least on paper.
  
• The Iran nuclear deal with the West is considered an existential
  threat to some Gulf nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, and once again
  has served to align interests.

In fact, I wrote last month in "19-Jul-15 World View -- Behind the scenes in the Iran nuclear deal"
, that the Iran nuclear deal is forcing yet another
realignment in the Arab world, as the entire region continues to
deteriorate into war.

Saturday's court actions amount to more than the sentencing of three
reporters. They're also a slap in the face of al-Jazeera and Qatar,
and relations between the two countries are certain to be inflamed
further. AP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Al-Jazeera, Muslim Brotherhood,
Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen,
Iran, Gaza, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Israel,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

By constantly referring to Mexicans as rapists and murderers, Trump is
appealing to the worst nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies of the
people. It's hard for me to imagine anything worse.

Ah, the horror! A candidate that actually looks outs of AMERICAN interests and puts the interests of America ahead of that of foreigners. Unlike the establishment candidates, people like Trump, Sanders and Paul will not shove human rights and globalism down our throats.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

> By constantly referring to Mexicans as rapists and murderers,
> Trump is appealing to the worst nationalistic and xenophobic
> tendencies of the people. It's hard for me to imagine anything
> worse.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> Ah, the horror! A candidate that actually looks outs of AMERICAN
> interests and puts the interests of America ahead of that of
> foreigners. Unlike the establishment candidates, people like
> Trump, Sanders and Paul will not shove human rights and globalism
> down our throats.

The reason that generational theory works is that people are
completely incapable of learning the lessons that history teaches over
and over and over and over.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

The reason that generational theory works is that people are
completely incapable of learning the lessons that history teaches over
and over and over and over.

Trump understands that if left with no choice, it is better to be a Nazi than to be a Jew or a Pole. Its safer to be the predator than the prey.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

> By constantly referring to Mexicans as rapists and murderers,
> Trump is appealing to the worst nationalistic and xenophobic
> tendencies of the people. It's hard for me to imagine anything
> worse.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> Trump understands that if left with no choice, it is better to be
> a Nazi than to be a Jew or a Pole. Its safer to be the predator
> than the prey.

I'm not aware of any Mexican Panzer or Luftwaffe attacks in the works.
Or any other military attack.

We've had seven years of a president who has absolutely no clue what's
going on in the world, and it's been fairly disastrous. We don't need
another eight years like that. Or of anyone whose foreign policy
towards a country is to stoke xenophobic attitudes by constantly
referring to their people as rapists and murderers.

The boomer elite loves forcing us to wait four years for elections rather than allowing electoral reform. They know the people would reverse their policies if the political system is not dominated by money. The lesson of 9/11 and Iraq is that we have not been brutal enough. Iraq would have been won easily if we adopted the tactics used by a variety of nations in the Balkans during WW2: For every US soldier killed by insurgents 200 Iraqis have to go, for every soldier wounded 100 Iraqis. This globalist nonsense goes back to Wilson during WW1. FDR Just used the war as an excuse to follow the same basic policies that were implemented after 1918 and caused WW2 in the first place. You should read von-kuehnelt-leddihn's Leftism Revisited which describes the ideological history of the past 1000 years in great detail.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Trump understands that if left with no choice, it is better to be a Nazi than to be a Jew or a Pole. Its safer to be the predator than the prey.

Yo, CH, just to let you know, you have some buddies in high places.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar14/...state3-14.html

Originally Posted by CH

Ah, the horror! A candidate that actually looks outs of AMERICAN interests and puts the interests of America ahead of that of foreigners. Unlike the establishment candidates, people like Trump, Sanders and Paul will not shove human rights and globalism down our throats.

1. I certainly agree that globalism sucks.
2. By "American interests", I differ. I'm for American interests which means butting out as opposed to deep state interests which lie in maintaining and expanding American empire.
3. I also agree on your choice of candidates. Shrub and Shillery suck.

of utmost service,

-Rags.

Originally Posted by John

I'm not aware of any Mexican Panzer or Luftwaffe attacks in the works.
Or any other military attack.

True enough. We do have an influx of drugs and some of the gang related violence from that. However, that's a self inflicted wound due to the war on drugs. It's one of those things where you point 1 finger at someone else , but you have 4 pointing right back at you.

Again compare England between 1360 and 1860; particularly before 1713 and compare it to France during the same period; particularly between 1450 and 1815. What the Younger generation wants for our policies to be similar to those earlier great powers in terms of objectives rather than our current policies. Instead the boomer neoliberal elite tries to shove down effeminate personality archetypes as "leaders" and suppresses true masculine values.

*** 31-Aug-15 World View -- Colombia and Venezuela withdraw ambassadors over border dispute

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Colombia and Venezuela withdraw ambassadors over border dispute
• European officials demand forced fingerprinting of migrants

****
**** Colombia and Venezuela withdraw ambassadors over border dispute
****


Venezuelan soldiers check ID cards of bus passengers near the Colombian border on Wednesday (AP)

Venezuela and Colombia each recalled its ambassador to the other
country on Thursday. This was the latest diplomatic action in a
bitter border dispute between the two countries.

The situation was triggered by an attack two weeks ago, when
unidentified gunmen left three Venezuelan border guards and one
civilian injured. Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro quickly
announced that Colombia was at fault -- particularly paramilitary
groups within Colombia linked to Colombia's former president Alvaro
Uribe.

Maduro then sent troops into the shantytowns on Venezuela's
side of the border, where Colombians have been living. Under
Maduro's orders, over 1,000 Colombian immigrants were
deported with almost no notice given to collect belongings.

Colombians and Venezuelans are accustomed to crossing the border
freely for shopping. Colombians cross into Venezuela to purchase
gasoline and food that is subsidized by Maduro's socialist government.
Venezuelans cross into Colombia to purchase medicines and other goods
unavailable in Venezuela because of disastrous shortages caused by
price controls.

Apparently there's no firm evidence of Colombian government
involvement in the attacks on the border guards, although it is common
for armed Colombian groups to cross into Venezuela and purchase large
quantities of price-controlled fuel and food, and then smuggle them
back into Colombia to sell at much higher prices. Venezuela's
president Maduro and Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos Calderón
have been on nationwide television in their respective countries, each
accusing the other of causing the crisis.

Colombia and Venezuela are two of three countries (the third being
Ecuador) that emerged from the victories of the indigenous population
led by Simón Bolívar in the 1810s-1820s over the colonial powers from
Spain. There have been numerous border disputes since then.
The 1948-58 civil war known as La Violencia was a shared
generational crisis war of the two countries.

Maduro routinely blames capitalist speculators or other countries,
usually the United States, for any problem. This time the Colombian
refugees in Venezuela have been picked as the scapegoat. AP and Bloomberg

****
**** European officials demand forced fingerprinting of migrants
****

As each week goes by, Europe's migrant crisis seems to get even worse.
Just on Saturday morning, around 100 inflatable boats reached the
Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean sea, carrying over 4,000
refugees. This is a factor of 4 higher than just a few weeks ago.
Lesbos is turning into a vast camp of undocumented migrants, with
hundreds of refugees packed in squares and sidewalks, and with women,
children and even elderly people sleeping on the ground.

Many migrants are refusing to be fingerprinted when they arrive in
Greece or Italy. Most migrants prefer to reach the wealthier
countries such as Britain or Germany, and if they're fingerprinted
then they be forced to remain in Greece or Italy.

According to one EU official:

<QUOTE>"Over the last year it became apparent that certain
nationalities (Syrians and Eritreans) were refusing to comply with
fingerprinting procedures.

‘This cannot go unchallenged: we agree with the [European]
Commission that individuals must be given the opportunity to
understand that non-compliance will have
consequences."<END QUOTE>

It's now being proposed that coercion will be used to fingerprint
migrants when they arrive, and to deport any migrants who refuse to be
fingerprinted. Greek Reporter and Daily Mail (London)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro,
Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, La Violencia, Simón Bolívar, Ecuador,
Greece, Lesbos, Aegean Sea, Italy, Britain, Germany

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Selfish boomers only want to shove their nonsensical globalism down everyone's throats. I'll use a simple example; take the schoolyard bully. A normal person sees the outcome as either the bully has his way over the others, or the other student fights back either by themselves or with allies after which the bully is deterred from his activities or seeks weaker prey instead. Now compare this with how a selfish boomer thinks: in the above situation before the kids can begin to fight, a teacher or a nanny appears, the confrontation is broken up and the kids involved are given detention slips. The boomers worldview is thus a subversion of the natural order of things. This idiocy is relevant to the state of both domestic and foreign politics. When 9/11 occurred boomers refused to allow the nuclear bombardment of Islamist cities and population centers, they refused to allow mass punitive reprisals for insurgent attacks on US troops. Boomers refused to see the root cause of 9/11 was muslim contempt for western mercy and that the solution was to dissabuse the muslims of such notions. The nuclear bombardment of muslim cities and population centers would have reestablished deterrence. The young despise boomer ideologues for turning the western world into a pathetic caricature of its former glory. The people love trump because they want to see a MAN in the white house not a feminized girly-man. The younger generations do not want to be converted into a nation of effeminate globalized metrosexuals.

The 2000 years between roughly the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC and the treaty of Utrecht/and the Hanoverian succession to England's throne in 1713 and 1714 AD was the most glorious era in Human History. The rightful born leaders were in charge in practically every country in the world. Today's boomer elites want to create the opposite of that era. Only trump has indicated that he intends to help return the world in the direction of its rightful social order.

Weird. Really really weird.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The 2000 years between roughly the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC and the treaty of Utrecht/and the Hanoverian succession to England's throne in 1713 and 1714 AD was the most glorious era in Human History. The rightful born leaders were in charge in practically every country in the world. Today's boomer elites want to create the opposite of that era. Only trump has indicated that he intends to help return the world in the direction of its rightful social order.

Well the post 1713 world is unraveling. Some here allude to a Mega-Unraveling, and that may well be what the Mil Saec leads to. Not sure we'll see something like the span from Antiquity to "The Enlightenment" but I reckon it will be way, way different from what most Westerners (especially the Anglo-Saxon subset) have been used to for the past 300 some odd years.

As a number of people have commented, we are in transition from one age into….what?

*** 1-Sep-15 World View -- Kiev violence triggered by proposal to give east Ukraine more autonomy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Kiev violence triggered by proposal to give east Ukraine more autonomy
• Troops from Chechnya fighting on both sides in Ukraine

****
**** Kiev violence triggered by proposal to give east Ukraine more autonomy
****


Demonstrators clash with police outside the Parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, on Monday (Reuters)

Protesters outside the parliament building in Kiev, the capital city
of Ukraine, killed a national guardsman and injured near 90 other
national guardsmen on Monday. The violence is blamed on a highly
nationalistic political party Svoboda ("Freedom"), sometimes accused
of being neo-Nazi.

The protesters are opponents of a bill discussed in the parliament.
The bill would grant special autonomous status to the Donbas (East
Ukraine), the region being held by ethnic Russians following last
year's Russian invasion of both Crimea and the Donbas. Russia annexed
Crimea after invading it, but the Donbas has been much more
problematical for Russia.

According to one legislator opposing the law, it is "a betrayal of
Ukrainian national interests" by giving too much autonomy to the
Russian separatists:

<QUOTE>"They get their own police, their own courts,
prosecutors, taxes, they have the right to special relationships
with neighboring Russian regions. So what next, will they be
allowed to open their own embassies tomorrow? ...

Europe is selling us out and giving us up as it did Czechoslovakia
in 1939. This is a humiliation of the national dignity of the
Ukrainian nation."<END QUOTE>

The legislation to grant the Donbas special autonomous status is a
central part of the so-called "Minsk agreements," a peace agreement
negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, in February.

Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko was opposed to the Minsk
agreements because they dismember the country Ukraine even further,
following the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea.

However, France, Germany and the United States pressured Poroshenko to
accept the deal in the hope that by providing Russia's president
Vladimir Putin an honorable way to back down, then he might actually
do so. With Russia in severe economic trouble from plunging oil
prices, Putin may be anxious to be free of the enormous expenses of
supporting the Donbas separatists.

Monday's violence suggests that there's a long fight head to get the
law passed. There's a great deal of opposition to granting the
separatists so much autonomy, and Poroshenko may be unable to pull
together all the votes he needs when there's a final vote later this
year.

The Russian separatists may not go along with it either. They're
discussing holding elections in October under their own rules, not
Ukrainian ones. This would effectively negate the Minsk agreement.
Reuters and Bloomberg

****
**** Troops from Chechnya fighting on both sides in Ukraine
****

Reports indicate that Russian militias fighting in Donbas often
contain troops from Chechnya, Dagestan or Ingushetia or other
non-ethnic Russia groups.

There are indicates that this is a conscious Moscow policy, mainly
because ethnic Russians often sympathize with the Ukrainians.

According to one Moscow analyst:

<QUOTE>"Because ethnic Russians, even the most pro-Putin and
most committed vatniks ... in an extreme situation always find a
common language and point of contact with Ukrainians. ...

There are many occasions when Russian ‘volunteers’ phone Ukrainian
‘fighters’ and say: well, guys, you’d best get away from here, we
will be firing on you there.’ Such situations are not rare in the
opposite direction as well."<END QUOTE>

The situation is further complicated by the fact that some Chechens
are fighting on the side of Kiev. There are two battalions of about
150 Chechen fighters each on the Kiev side in Ukraine. Many of these
fighters might otherwise have gone to Syria.

Russia’s military presence in and occupation of Donbas territory is
much less popular among Russian-speaking Ukrainians than Putin
initially predicted in 2014. However, Chechens appear to be willing
to fight on either side. Paul Goble and Jamestown (13-Aug) and Washington Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ukraine, Kiev, Crimea, Donbas,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, Germany, France,
Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia

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