*** 2-Mar-16 World View -- Russian and Syrian war crimes are 'weaponizing' the refugee crisis for Europe

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Bulldozers bury the 'Jungle' refugee camp in Calais France
• Russian and Syrian war crimes are 'weaponizing' the refugee crisis for Europe

****
**** Bulldozers bury the 'Jungle' refugee camp in Calais France
****


Evicted migrant walks past riot police in 'The Jungle' in Calais (EPA)

Two weeks ago, officials in France announced that they would evict
about some or all of the 4,000-5,000 migrants living in "The Jungle,"
the refugee camp in Calais, France's closest point to Britain, where
migrants come in the hope of hitching a ride to Britain to seek asylum
and take advantage of the welfare benefits.

France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the evictions would
be done "progressively, by persuasion and with respect for people's
dignity."

So that isn't exactly what happened on Monday and Tuesday when the
bulldozers arrived. There have been violent clashes at the site,
where French police have been forcibly evicting migrants from their
tents and shanties. Migrants retaliated by setting tents on fire and
throwing rocks at the police, resulting in several arrests and the use
of teargas to disperse the migrants.

According to Cazeneuve on Tuesday:

<QUOTE>"The activism of a few No Borders militants, radical
and violent, cannot stop it: This operation will go on in the next
days, with calm and discipline, and will offer each and every
(migrant) a spot as the government promised."<END QUOTE>

However, it's not always clear where evicted migrants, many of whom
are women and children, are supposed to go, or where the government's
"spot" can be found.

French authorities say that it wants people to move either into an
adjoining compound of converted shipping containers, or to take buses
to accommodation centers elsewhere in France. However, many migrants
are afraid to take advantage of any "official" refugee accommodations
provide by France, because they would be required to register and
request asylum in France, which would preclude them from requesting
asylum in Britain. CNN and Guardian (London) and Independent (London)

****
**** Russian and Syrian war crimes are 'weaponizing' the refugee crisis for Europe
****

On Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
spokesman Adrian Edwards said:

<QUOTE>"Europe is on the cusp of a largely self-induced
humanitarian crisis.

The crowded conditions are leading to shortages of food, shelter,
water and sanitation. As we all saw yesterday, tensions have been
building, fueling violence and playing into the hands of people
smugglers."<END QUOTE>

The accusation that the crisis is "self-induced" is the kind of
bizarre thing that one hears from the United Nations, as if Greece,
which is going through a major ongoing economic crisis, could ever
have predicted that a million migrants would have poured into Greece
in the last year. If the UNHCR made such a prediction a year ago, I'd
like to see a link to it.

According to the testimony of Nato commander Air Force Gen. Philip
M. Breedlove, the UNHCR should actually be blaming Russia for the
continuing refugee crisis. Breedlove says that Russia and Syria's
president Bashar al-Assad are "weaponizing" the refugees by using
barrel bombs on civilian villages in Syria. According to Breedlove:

<QUOTE>"Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately
weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European
structures and break European resolve.

I can't find any other reason for [barrel bombs] other than to
cause refugees to be on the move and make them someone else's
problem."<END QUOTE>

According to Breedlove, the barrel bombs have no military value except
to worsen the refugee crisis.

In January, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that Bashar al-Assad is a war criminal,
for
his massive use of "atrocious acts" and "unconscionable abuses"
against civilians. Al-Assad has been continuing his war crimes with
attacks on entire civilian villages by regime warplanes and Russian
warplanes, indiscriminately dropping barrel bombs loaded with
explosives, metals and chemical weapons.

Breedlove's comments indicated that the continued perpetration of
these war crimes have no military purpose except to flood Europe with
refugees.

About 131,000 refugees have reached Europe so far this year, two to
three times the 2015 rate. It's expected that the rate will increase
even further as the warm spring and summer weather approaches, and
there may be well over one million more migrants headed for Europe by
the end of the year. This is a pressure cooker waiting to explode.
Reuters and LA Times and US Dept. of Defense


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, France, Calais, Bernard Cazeneuve,
Britain, Greece, Syria, Russia, Bashar al-Assad, Ban Ki-moon,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR,
Adrian Edwards, Nato, Philip M. Breedlove

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*** 3-Mar-16 World View -- India about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine, in challenge to China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• India about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine, in challenge to China
• China's military takes control of another Philippines fishing ground
• Mideast Sunni-Shia split grows as GCC says Hezbollah is terrorist organization

****
**** India about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine, in challenge to China
****


History of India's Arihant nuclear submarine

The 6,000-ton 110-meter long nuclear submarine Arihant, developed by
India over the past three decades under a secret government program,
is ready to become fully operational and could be commissioned in a
few weeks, after completing in secret five months of deep sea diving
drills and weapons launch tests.

India says that the Arihant is "indigenously built." It's believed
that work began in the 1980s with help from the Soviet Union,
particularly on the vessel’s miniaturized reactors. A Russian diving
support ship -- the RFS Epron that arrived on October 1 -- has been
accompanying the Arihant on its deep sea dives and launch tests.

The deployment would complete India’s nuclear triad, which means that
it could deliver atomic weapons from land, sea and air. Only the
U.S. and Russia are considered full-fledged nuclear triad powers now,
with China and India’s capabilities still largely untested. India
would become the sixth country to have nuclear-armed submarines in
operation, after the US, UK, France, Russia and China.

As we reported six weeks ago ( "27-Jan-16 World View -- India deploying 'submarine killer' planes to counter China's submarines"
), India has detected
Chinese submarines in the Bay of Bengal, close to India's territorial
waters around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Since the islands are
largely undefended, India has been concerned that a lightning attack
by the Chinese would be successful. With both Chinese and Indian
nuclear submarines patrolling the Bay of Bengal, the possibility of
dangerous miscalculations is growing. India Times and Bloomberg

****
**** China's military takes control of another Philippines fishing ground
****

Philippine officials report that China's warships are taking over yet
another traditional fishing ground of Philippine fishermen in the
South China Sea, and are preventing them from fishing there. The new
acquisition is Quirino or Jackson Atoll, which has been a rich source
of catch for a long time.

According to China's foreign ministry, China is doing the
Philippine fishermen a favor:

<QUOTE>"According to information from relevant departments in
China, at the end of the year 2015, a foreign vessel was grounded
near Wufang Jiao of China's Nansha islands. The owner of the
vessel tried many times to tow it away but failed. He then decided
to abandon the ship and dismantled and took away its main
equipment. If the vessel was left aground for a long time, it
might cause possible impediment to navigation safety and damage to
the marine environment. Therefore, China Rescue and Salvage of
Ministry of Transport recently sent salvage ships to tug the
grounded vessel out of the shallow water for proper
disposal. During the operation, the Chinese side advised fishing
boats near the waters to stay away for navigation security and
operation safety. The Chinese ships have returned after the
operation."<END QUOTE>

It's unclear whether China's actions are really temporary. China has
repeatedly said that it's planning to use its military to take control
of the entire South China Sea, including the vast regions that have
historically belonged to other countries, so it's unlikely Philippine
fishermen are going to be doing much more fishing in this area, if
any. Philippine Star and China's Foreign Ministry and The Diplomat

****
**** Mideast Sunni-Shia split grows as GCC says Hezbollah is terrorist organization
****

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Wednesday declared Hezbollah to
be a terrorist organization. The GCC is an organization of most Sunni
Arab nation, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based Shia political and militia organization,
funded and supported by Iran, recognized as a terrorist organization
by the US and other Western countries, and now by the GCC.

Sectarian Sunni versus Shia tensions have been rising continuously
since 2011, when Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad began
his genocidal attacks on innocent Sunni protesters in Syria.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran took a major step towards
increased hostility in January, 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. Saudi
Arabia and Iran broke diplomatic relations as a result. Other Saudi
allies followed suit. ( "18-Jan-16 World View -- Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran"
)

According to Wednesday's announcement, the GCC took its actions
because of hostile acts being carried out by elements of those
militias to recruit young people of GCC member states for carrying out
terrorist acts, smuggling of weapons and explosives, and inciting
sedition, disorder and violence in a flagrant violation of their
sovereignty, security and stability:

<QUOTE>"The GCC states consider Hezbollah militias' practices
in the Council's states and their terrorist and subversive acts
being carried out in Syria, Yemen and Iraq contradict moral and
humanitarian values and principles and the international law and
pose a threat to Arab national security."<END QUOTE>

Up until a few months ago, the Gulf states had a good relationship
with Hezbollah, especially as long as they could talk about a common
enemy, Israel. But Hezbollah's alliance with Bashar al-Assad,
attacking Sunni civilians in Syria, has turned them into enemies.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that Saudi Arabia seeks
to instigate "strife" between Shias and Sunnis in the region.
Arab News
and Saudi Press Agency and Al Manar (Lebanon)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Arihant nuclear submarine,
Soviet Union, Russia, China, nuclear triad, Bay of Bengal,
Andaman Island, Nicobar Island, Philippines, Jackson Atoll,
South China Sea, Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC,
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates, UAE, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran,
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Syria, Bashar al-Assad

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 3-Mar-16 World View -- India about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine, in challenge to China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• India about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine, in challenge to China
• China's military takes control of another Philippines fishing ground
• Mideast Sunni-Shia split grows as GCC says Hezbollah is terrorist organization

****
**** India about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine, in challenge to China
****


History of India's Arihant nuclear submarine

The 6,000-ton 110-meter long nuclear submarine Arihant, developed by
India over the past three decades under a secret government program,
is ready to become fully operational and could be commissioned in a
few weeks, after completing in secret five months of deep sea diving
drills and weapons launch tests.

India says that the Arihant is "indigenously built." It's believed
that work began in the 1980s with help from the Soviet Union,
particularly on the vessel’s miniaturized reactors. A Russian diving
support ship -- the RFS Epron that arrived on October 1 -- has been
accompanying the Arihant on its deep sea dives and launch tests.

The deployment would complete India’s nuclear triad, which means that
it could deliver atomic weapons from land, sea and air. Only the
U.S. and Russia are considered full-fledged nuclear triad powers now,
with China and India’s capabilities still largely untested. India
would become the sixth country to have nuclear-armed submarines in
operation, after the US, UK, France, Russia and China.

As we reported six weeks ago ( "27-Jan-16 World View -- India deploying 'submarine killer' planes to counter China's submarines"
), India has detected
Chinese submarines in the Bay of Bengal, close to India's territorial
waters around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Since the islands are
largely undefended, India has been concerned that a lightning attack
by the Chinese would be successful. With both Chinese and Indian
nuclear submarines patrolling the Bay of Bengal, the possibility of
dangerous miscalculations is growing. India Times and Bloomberg

****
**** China's military takes control of another Philippines fishing ground
****

Philippine officials report that China's warships are taking over yet
another traditional fishing ground of Philippine fishermen in the
South China Sea, and are preventing them from fishing there. The new
acquisition is Quirino or Jackson Atoll, which has been a rich source
of catch for a long time.

According to China's foreign ministry, China is doing the
Philippine fishermen a favor:

<QUOTE>"According to information from relevant departments in
China, at the end of the year 2015, a foreign vessel was grounded
near Wufang Jiao of China's Nansha islands. The owner of the
vessel tried many times to tow it away but failed. He then decided
to abandon the ship and dismantled and took away its main
equipment. If the vessel was left aground for a long time, it
might cause possible impediment to navigation safety and damage to
the marine environment. Therefore, China Rescue and Salvage of
Ministry of Transport recently sent salvage ships to tug the
grounded vessel out of the shallow water for proper
disposal. During the operation, the Chinese side advised fishing
boats near the waters to stay away for navigation security and
operation safety. The Chinese ships have returned after the
operation."<END QUOTE>

It's unclear whether China's actions are really temporary. China has
repeatedly said that it's planning to use its military to take control
of the entire South China Sea, including the vast regions that have
historically belonged to other countries, so it's unlikely Philippine
fishermen are going to be doing much more fishing in this area, if
any. Philippine Star and China's Foreign Ministry and The Diplomat

****
**** Mideast Sunni-Shia split grows as GCC says Hezbollah is terrorist organization
****

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Wednesday declared Hezbollah to
be a terrorist organization. The GCC is an organization of most Sunni
Arab nation, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based Shia political and militia organization,
funded and supported by Iran, recognized as a terrorist organization
by the US and other Western countries, and now by the GCC.

Sectarian Sunni versus Shia tensions have been rising continuously
since 2011, when Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad began
his genocidal attacks on innocent Sunni protesters in Syria.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran took a major step towards
increased hostility in January, 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. Saudi
Arabia and Iran broke diplomatic relations as a result. Other Saudi
allies followed suit. ( "18-Jan-16 World View -- Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran"
)

According to Wednesday's announcement, the GCC took its actions
because of hostile acts being carried out by elements of those
militias to recruit young people of GCC member states for carrying out
terrorist acts, smuggling of weapons and explosives, and inciting
sedition, disorder and violence in a flagrant violation of their
sovereignty, security and stability:

<QUOTE>"The GCC states consider Hezbollah militias' practices
in the Council's states and their terrorist and subversive acts
being carried out in Syria, Yemen and Iraq contradict moral and
humanitarian values and principles and the international law and
pose a threat to Arab national security."<END QUOTE>

Up until a few months ago, the Gulf states had a good relationship
with Hezbollah, especially as long as they could talk about a common
enemy, Israel. But Hezbollah's alliance with Bashar al-Assad,
attacking Sunni civilians in Syria, has turned them into enemies.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that Saudi Arabia seeks
to instigate "strife" between Shias and Sunnis in the region.
Arab News
and Saudi Press Agency and Al Manar (Lebanon)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Arihant nuclear submarine,
Soviet Union, Russia, China, nuclear triad, Bay of Bengal,
Andaman Island, Nicobar Island, Philippines, Jackson Atoll,
South China Sea, Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC,
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates, UAE, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran,
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Syria, Bashar al-Assad

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

India's renewed conflict with China may eventually cause India to question the SCO overall and from that point of departure, ultimately, question Moscow.

*** 4-Mar-16 World View -- Australia's defense plans stress huge naval buildup targeting China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Australia's defense plans stress huge naval buildup targeting China
• China threatens Australia with economic retaliation for criticizing it

****
**** Australia's defense plans stress huge naval buildup targeting China
****


Royal Australian Navy Seaman Steward Ronelle Fitzgerald

Australia's government last week released the 2016 Department of
Defense White Paper, which has become controversial because it heavily
criticizes China's military buildup in the South China Sea and
proposes large military spending increases.

Australia's new defense plan emphasizes a major naval buildup over the
next 10 years, include twelve long-range submarines, nine new frigates
and twelve offshore patrol vessels. In addition, the plan honors
existing commitments to acquire 72 F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, Air
Force capabilities will be boosted by fifteen P-8A maritime patrol
aircraft, twelve EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and seven
Triton surveillance drones. Furthermore, the paper stresses the need
for Australian forces to be able to operate seamlessly with US forces
at sea and in the air.

The emphasis on naval strength has been triggered by China's actions
in the South China Sea, where freedom is navigation is vital to the
commercial trade of Australia and other countries. The report is
specifically critical of China's land reclamation activities in the
South China Sea:

<QUOTE>"2.77 Australia does not take sides on competing
territorial claims in the South China Sea but we are concerned
that land reclamation and construction activity by claimants
raises tensions in the region. Australia opposes the use of
artificial structures in the South China Sea for military
purposes. Australia also opposes the assertion of associated
territorial claims and maritime rights which are not in accordance
with international law, including the United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) .

2.78 Australia has called on all South China Sea claimants to halt
land reclamation and construction activities, which involves the
dredging of sea floor material for use as landfill in creating
artificial structures . Australia has also called on all claimants
to exercise self-restraint, take steps to ease tensions and
refrain from provocative actions that could increase tension and
uncertainty in the region . Australia is particularly concerned by
the unprecedented pace and scale of China’s land reclamation
activities."<END QUOTE>

China responded with heavy criticism of the white paper:

<QUOTE>"We are seriously concerned about and dissatisfied
with the white paper’s negative statement on issues concerning the
South China Sea and the development of China’s military strength.

It is hoped that the Australian side would take a correct and
positive view of China’s development and strategic intention, take
concrete steps and make joint efforts with China to increase
mutual trust and safeguard regional peace, stability and growth.

We definitely do not want to see tensions or arms race in the
region. We hope that the Asia-Pacific would be a region where
people from all countries enjoy peace, stability, development and
prosperity, and that relevant parties would stop the so-called
joint military drills and patrols, and cease constant
reinforcement of military buildup in the
Asia-Pacific."<END QUOTE>

The naval buildup is in one sense a reaction to several years of
former prime minister Julia Gillard's Labor government, which did not
consider China to be a military threat, and which substantially cut
defense spending. The current prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, whose
government produced the new white paper, is making Australia a part of
a military buildup that's occurring throughout the Pacific.

Japan has recently reinterpreted the "defense-only" clause of its
constitution to permit "collective self-defense," which would permit
foreign wars. The Philippines has invited the US Navy back to its
Subic Bay naval base after throwing us out in the 1990s. India is about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine.
Vietnam is preparing for a repeat of its
1979 border war with China. Basically, China is scaring the crap out
of everyone in the region, and they're all beefing up their militaries
to prepare for war.

The white paper contains the words "rules-based" 57 times, indicating
an anxiety over the fact that China is not following the established
international rules. Australia is looking to the United States to be
the one to enforce the rules:

<QUOTE>"2.8 The United States will remain the pre-eminent
global military power over the next two decades. It will continue
to be Australia’s most important strategic partner through our
long-standing alliance, and the active presence of the United
States will continue to underpin the stability of our region. The
global strategic and economic weight of the United States will be
essential to the continued stability of the rules-based global
order on which Australia relies for our security and prosperity.
The world will continue to look to the United States for
leadership in global security affairs and to lead military
coalitions that support international security and the rules-based
global order. The United States is committed to sustaining and
advancing its military superiority in the 21st century, including
through its Defense Innovation Initiative."<END QUOTE>

In other words, Australia expects the United States to continue to be
Policeman of the World, even if some American politicians don't.
Australia Defense White Paper (PDF) and Sydney Morning Herald and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and Guardian (London) and Lowy Institute (Australia)

****
**** China threatens Australia with economic retaliation for criticizing it
****

Many people believe that China will never go to war with anyone
because it's bad for business. If that principle were true there
would never be any wars. In fact, the opposite is true, as China
showed in September 2012, when China declared economic war on Japan.
Chinese media is now hinting at
economic reprisals against Australia as retaliation for criticizing
China:

<QUOTE>"Unsettled by the rapid rise of China, in recent years
Australian officials such as foreign and defense ministers have
switched from discretion to blatant criticism of China and
enhanced coordination with the US and Japan. However, at the same
time Canberra walks a fine line by promoting strategic and
economic cooperation with China given the latter's sizable market
and investment capability. ...

How can these politicians believe that they can benefit enormously
from relations with China and meanwhile feel free to castigate
China in disputes? ...

[S]uch hypocrisy will amount to nothing but harm to Australia's
relationship with China."<END QUOTE>

However, any suggestion of economic sanctions may be an empty threat
because China is highly dependent on business with Australia.
Australia is a major supplier of commodities to China, and China has
plans to use the large ports and railways of the Australian firm
Asciano as a crucial part of its logistics chain in its "One Belt, One
Road" initiative. Global Times (Beijing) and Reuters and Asia Times

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, China, Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 4-Mar-16 World View -- Australia's defense plans stress huge naval buildup targeting China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Australia's defense plans stress huge naval buildup targeting China
• China threatens Australia with economic retaliation for criticizing it

****
**** Australia's defense plans stress huge naval buildup targeting China
****


Royal Australian Navy Seaman Steward Ronelle Fitzgerald

Australia's government last week released the 2016 Department of
Defense White Paper, which has become controversial because it heavily
criticizes China's military buildup in the South China Sea and
proposes large military spending increases.

Australia's new defense plan emphasizes a major naval buildup over the
next 10 years, include twelve long-range submarines, nine new frigates
and twelve offshore patrol vessels. In addition, the plan honors
existing commitments to acquire 72 F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, Air
Force capabilities will be boosted by fifteen P-8A maritime patrol
aircraft, twelve EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and seven
Triton surveillance drones. Furthermore, the paper stresses the need
for Australian forces to be able to operate seamlessly with US forces
at sea and in the air.

The emphasis on naval strength has been triggered by China's actions
in the South China Sea, where freedom is navigation is vital to the
commercial trade of Australia and other countries. The report is
specifically critical of China's land reclamation activities in the
South China Sea:

<QUOTE>"2.77 Australia does not take sides on competing
territorial claims in the South China Sea but we are concerned
that land reclamation and construction activity by claimants
raises tensions in the region. Australia opposes the use of
artificial structures in the South China Sea for military
purposes. Australia also opposes the assertion of associated
territorial claims and maritime rights which are not in accordance
with international law, including the United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) .

2.78 Australia has called on all South China Sea claimants to halt
land reclamation and construction activities, which involves the
dredging of sea floor material for use as landfill in creating
artificial structures . Australia has also called on all claimants
to exercise self-restraint, take steps to ease tensions and
refrain from provocative actions that could increase tension and
uncertainty in the region . Australia is particularly concerned by
the unprecedented pace and scale of China’s land reclamation
activities."<END QUOTE>

China responded with heavy criticism of the white paper:

<QUOTE>"We are seriously concerned about and dissatisfied
with the white paper’s negative statement on issues concerning the
South China Sea and the development of China’s military strength.

It is hoped that the Australian side would take a correct and
positive view of China’s development and strategic intention, take
concrete steps and make joint efforts with China to increase
mutual trust and safeguard regional peace, stability and growth.

We definitely do not want to see tensions or arms race in the
region. We hope that the Asia-Pacific would be a region where
people from all countries enjoy peace, stability, development and
prosperity, and that relevant parties would stop the so-called
joint military drills and patrols, and cease constant
reinforcement of military buildup in the
Asia-Pacific."<END QUOTE>

The naval buildup is in one sense a reaction to several years of
former prime minister Julia Gillard's Labor government, which did not
consider China to be a military threat, and which substantially cut
defense spending. The current prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, whose
government produced the new white paper, is making Australia a part of
a military buildup that's occurring throughout the Pacific.

Japan has recently reinterpreted the "defense-only" clause of its
constitution to permit "collective self-defense," which would permit
foreign wars. The Philippines has invited the US Navy back to its
Subic Bay naval base after throwing us out in the 1990s. India is about to deploy its first nuclear-armed submarine.
Vietnam is preparing for a repeat of its
1979 border war with China. Basically, China is scaring the crap out
of everyone in the region, and they're all beefing up their militaries
to prepare for war.

The white paper contains the words "rules-based" 57 times, indicating
an anxiety over the fact that China is not following the established
international rules. Australia is looking to the United States to be
the one to enforce the rules:

<QUOTE>"2.8 The United States will remain the pre-eminent
global military power over the next two decades. It will continue
to be Australia’s most important strategic partner through our
long-standing alliance, and the active presence of the United
States will continue to underpin the stability of our region. The
global strategic and economic weight of the United States will be
essential to the continued stability of the rules-based global
order on which Australia relies for our security and prosperity.
The world will continue to look to the United States for
leadership in global security affairs and to lead military
coalitions that support international security and the rules-based
global order. The United States is committed to sustaining and
advancing its military superiority in the 21st century, including
through its Defense Innovation Initiative."<END QUOTE>

In other words, Australia expects the United States to continue to be
Policeman of the World, even if some American politicians don't.
Australia Defense White Paper (PDF) and Sydney Morning Herald and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and Guardian (London) and Lowy Institute (Australia)

****
**** China threatens Australia with economic retaliation for criticizing it
****

Many people believe that China will never go to war with anyone
because it's bad for business. If that principle were true there
would never be any wars. In fact, the opposite is true, as China
showed in September 2012, when China declared economic war on Japan.
Chinese media is now hinting at
economic reprisals against Australia as retaliation for criticizing
China:

<QUOTE>"Unsettled by the rapid rise of China, in recent years
Australian officials such as foreign and defense ministers have
switched from discretion to blatant criticism of China and
enhanced coordination with the US and Japan. However, at the same
time Canberra walks a fine line by promoting strategic and
economic cooperation with China given the latter's sizable market
and investment capability. ...

How can these politicians believe that they can benefit enormously
from relations with China and meanwhile feel free to castigate
China in disputes? ...

[S]uch hypocrisy will amount to nothing but harm to Australia's
relationship with China."<END QUOTE>

However, any suggestion of economic sanctions may be an empty threat
because China is highly dependent on business with Australia.
Australia is a major supplier of commodities to China, and China has
plans to use the large ports and railways of the Australian firm
Asciano as a crucial part of its logistics chain in its "One Belt, One
Road" initiative. Global Times (Beijing) and Reuters and Asia Times

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, China, Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull

Permanent web link to this article
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To draw a loose analogy ... The Mekong Gap is like the Fulda Gap. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia are respectively like West Germany, Benelux and France. Australia therefore would occupy a UK-like role, in this scenario. BTW, just like the case of Fulda back in the day, there are now good roads leading both into and out of the gap. The PRC has been hard at work building up its autobahns. I call them tankways instead of motorways. BTW - if you think Russian tanks and the Chinese licensed versions of them are fast, they are even faster with the tracks taken off, rolling on an autobahn. Also, the TELs can go reasonably fast as well. Just a few dozen of them suddenly forward deployed onto the Malay Peninsula would give the Australians something to think about. Except the Battle of Australia will feature thermonuclear bombing, yes, quite a Blitz would be in store.

*** 5-Mar-16 World View -- A look back at Libya in 2011 as the West debates another military intervention

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Italy debates military intervention in Libya after ISIS kills Italian hostages
• Looking back at the 2011 'Arab Spring' Libya military intervention
• Russian media calls Gaddafi's Libya an 'oasis of stability'
• Police in Turkey use force to shut down opposition newspaper

****
**** Italy debates military intervention in Libya after ISIS kills Italian hostages
****


A 14-Mar-2011 picture in the Guardian of Libyan protesters, with the caption, 'Even if Gaddafi does succeed in quelling the Libyan uprising, it will be no more than a temporary setback for the wider Arab revolution.' (Reuters)

Two Italian construction workers among four that have been held
hostage by the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh)
in Libya last July, and have been held ever since, were killed on
Wednesday in a gunfight. The other two hostages were freed within 48
hours. Local militias claimed credit for freeing the two during a
raid.

The death of the two Italian hostages at the hands of ISIS has given
added urgency to calls for Italy to intervene militarily in Libya.
There have been discussions among Western nations -- the US, Britain,
France, and Italy -- to intervene militarily to stop the growth of
ISIS in Libya, and to prevent the capture of Libya's oil fields by
ISIS. Serious planning has been made on this military intervention since January.

For weeks, there have been increasingly alarmist headlines in Italy
about imminent military action in Libya. Britain, France and possibly
America have already sent dozens of special forces to Libya, and John
Phillips, the US ambassador to Italy, said in an interview, "Italy has
made a commitment to provide in the range of 5,000 troops" as part of
an international force to stop ISIS. American warplanes have been
bombing ISIS targets in Libya. ( "20-Feb-16 World View -- US warplanes strike suspected ISIS training base in Libya"
)

A military intervention in Libya is a particularly sensitive subject
in Italy because Libya was a former colony of Italy, and there are
still many personal and familial ties between the two countries.
Furthermore, Italy has for five years been the recipient of a flood of
refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean from Libya.

The plans for an international military intervention in Libya
were always contingent on approval by a unity government in Libya.
There are two governments in Libya, an internationally recognized
government in the east, headquartered in Tobruk, and a rebel
government in the west, headquartered in Tripoli.

So a full-scale military intervention has not gone ahead because the
two governments have refused to approve the military intervention.
And indeed, Khalifa Haftar, the head of the government in Tobruk,
scored a victory against ISIS in Benghazi this week, and is claiming
that his forces can defeat ISIS with no outside military intervention.

Haftar's confidence does not quell the fears of Westerners that before
long ISIS is going to achieve a point of no return in taking control
of Libya's "oil crescent" in the Sirte basin south of Benghazi, with
billions of barrels of oil of estimated reserve. At that point, ISIS
will be sufficiently entrenched that it would be much harder to
dislodge than it would be now, and it would more easily allow ISIS to
use as a launching pad for terrorist attacks on Europe. . AP and Reuters and AFP and Bloomberg and Guardian (14-Mar-2011)

****
**** Looking back at the 2011 'Arab Spring' Libya military intervention
****


The Arab Spring in Sanaa Yemen in 2011 (AFP)

A web site reader commented on one of my articles by accusing accused
America of causing the Syrian and European refugee crisis by its
decision to bomb Libya in 2011. It's a bizarre accusation, based on
the usual technique of starting by making up facts that fit the
agenda.

As it turns out, I'm in a good position to evaluate this claim, since
I was writing about the Arab Spring in 2011 almost every day. So I
went back to read all the articles I had written in the first months
of 2011 to see what happened.

What's clear is that the accusation is completely backwards. It
wasn't American bombing of Libya that caused the refugee crisis. The
refugee crisis was already in full swing when the bombing began. It
was the refugee crisis that brought about the American bombing and the
Libyan military intervention in 2011.

This trip back through time turned out to be pretty fascinating,
because the events of that time were so incredible. The "Arab Spring"
was one of the major generational events since WW II, and it's
actually still going on if you count the wars in Syria, Iraq and
Yemen.

Here's a summary of what happened:

• Jan: Triggered by the death of a Tunisian food vendor, there
  were massive protests and gun battles in Tunisia, forcing the
  president to flee the country. There were violent protests in Egypt,
  and there were anti-government demonstrations in Yemen. There were
  fears that instability would continue to spread. Lebanon's government
  collapsed.
  
• Jan: There were worldwide food riots as food prices reached
  historic highs. Egypt's stock market crashed, and economic
  instability spread to other countries.
  
• Feb: Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down.
  
• Feb: Refugee crisis in Tunisia, sends thousands of Tunisians
  across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy.
  
• Feb: Bloodbath in Libya spreads from Benghazi and Tobruk in the
  east to Tripoli in the west. Muammar Gaddafi threatens to shoot to
  kill protesters, and says he'll crush any enemy.
  
• Mar: Mideast riots spread to Bangladesh and Oman. Saudi Arabia
  was locked down over 'Days of Rage'. Bahrain uprising becomes
  explosive. Yemen fighting escalates.
  
• Mar: Massive refugee crisis in Libya, with hundreds of thousands
  of refugees pouring into neighboring countries. Anti-government
  rebels demand that US, Britain and Nato establish a no-fly zone.
  
• Mar: Arab League unanimously requests no-fly zone over Libya.
  
• Mar: Gaddafi declares war on protesters in Lybia. Said that "the
  moment of truth had come" for Benghazi.
  
• Apr: In Syria, street protests that had been growing for weeks
  became explosive, after tens of thousands of Syrians poured out into
  the streets. At least 90 people were killed and dozens injured when
  Syrian security forces fired live bullets and teargas at the
  protesters.

The interesting thing is that the accusation that American bombing in
Libya caused the refugee crisis is exactly backwards. The refugee
crisis had already begun in Tunisia and Libya, with hundreds of
thousands of people pouring into neighboring countries, and thousands
crossing the Mediterranean to Italy. It was this refugee crisis that
caused Libyans to demand a no-fly zone, and for the Arab League to do
the same, after which the UN Security Council passed a resolution.

So the refugee crisis created the demand for the no-fly zone, and the
bombing by the West. A lot of the motivation for the West to get
involved was the fear of a flood of refugees crossing the
Mediterranean, and they hoped to stop that. That didn't work.

For those who would like to go into more detail, I've created a
lengthy posting on the Generational Dynamics forum with pointers to
all the original articles, along with some excerpts from many of them.
The posting can be found on the Generational Dynamics forum

****
**** Russian media calls Gaddafi's Libya an 'oasis of stability'
****

The web site reader who posted the comment accusing American bombing
in Libya of causing the Syria refugee crisis had anti-American agenda,
and was probably a paid Russian internet troll.

The commenter was parroting Russian state media as illustrated by this
claim:

<QUOTE>"Five years after the brutal murder of Libya’s leader
Muammar Gaddafi, the country that was once an oasis of regional
stability now has two competing governments and is actively being
colonized by Daesh terrorists as they seek to relocate their
headquarters to Libya."<END QUOTE>

This "oasis of regional stability" had Gaddafi declaring war on
peaceful protesters, forcing hundreds of thousands of refugees to
flood into neighboring countries and across the Mediterranean.
Sputnik News (Moscow)

****
**** Police in Turkey use force to shut down opposition newspaper
****

Freedom of the press in Turkey suffered a major blow on Friday when
government forces used force to shut down Zaman, the major opposition
newspaper. Police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse
protesters as they stormed the Zaman offices in Istanbul. There are
now more than 30 journalists behind bars in Turkey. BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Libya, Italy, Britain, France,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Khalifa Haftar, Tobruk, Benghazi, Tripoli, Russia, Arab Spring,
tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Hosni Mubarak, Mummar Gadaffi,
Bangladesh, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Zaman

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*** 6-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media
• Felhullah Gülen: One of the most powerful Muslim clerics in the world

****
**** Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media
****


Today's Zaman's last front page prior to government confiscation

An angry Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has ordered a
government takeover of Turkey's most important opposition media, the
Zaman media group, publishers of Turkey's largest newspaper Zaman, its
English language version, Today's Zaman, plus the Cihan News Agency
and Aksiyon magazine.

After obtaining a court ruling on Friday favorable to the government
Turkish police forcibly entered the Zaman building, firing tear gas
and rubber bullets to disperse protesters who had gathered outside.
Later, police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters.

The newspaper released its final edition ahead of the raid declaring
the takeover a "shameful day for free press" in the country. The
newspaper will now be controlled by a government appointed "trustee
council," which will presumably take orders from Erdogan. A statement
by the Turkish Journalists’ Association (TGC) board said, "The
mentality that has been silencing the media through detentions,
arrests, Internet bans and heavy fines, now burdens newspapers and TV
channels and destroys them via trustee panels."

Zaman is owned by a political enemy of Erdogan, an exiled Muslim
cleric Felhullah Gülen. They once were allies but in 1999 Erdogan
accused Gülen of trying to overthrow the government Gülen fled to the
United States in 1999, and has lived in Pennsylvania since then.
Erdogan's government has declared Gülen to be a terrorist and has
asked the US government for extradition, but has been refused.

According Human Rights Watch, the raid on Zaman was "nothing but a
veiled move by the president to eradicate opposition media and
scrutiny of government policies." BBC and Hurriyet (Ankara) and Reuters

****
**** Felhullah Gülen: One of the most powerful Muslim clerics in the world
****

For all the obsessiveness that Americans have about Muslims and
especially Muslim clerics, it's surprising that so few people have
hear of Felhullah Gülen.

Gülen heads the powerful Hizmet movement, a worldwide network of
millions of Muslims in over countries.

The Gülen empire has schools in over 140 countries, the huge Zaman
media organization in Turkey (now under direct control of Erdogan's
government), a hospital, banks and other financial institutions and
hundreds of interfaith and intercultural dialog and charitable
institutions around the world. "We are the first movement in the
history of mankind that is completely and utterly devoted to charity,"
says Mustafa Yesil, a Gülen confidant in Istanbul.

Gülen's critics sometimes refer to him as a cult leader. They point
to the residences in many countries for schoolchildren and university
students, often free of charge, but dictating a strict daily routine
of work, prayer and sleep, and a demand that they devote their lives
to "Hizmet," or service to Islam.

In his book "Fasildan Fasila," (From Time to Time) Gülen writes that a
pupil must be "on the go day and night" and cannot be seen
sleeping. "If possible, he sleeps three hours a day, has two hours for
other needs, and must devote the rest entirely to hizmet. In essence,
he has no personal life, except in a few specific situations."

Within the Muslim community, he's been accused of violating the
principles of the Koran. According to Gülen, "My efforts for
interfaith dialogue were criticized as softening Muslims' perspectives
on Jews and Christians. I have not done anything that I did not
believe to be in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammed. He was the one
who stood for a funeral procession of a Jewish resident of Medina,
showing respect for a deceased fellow human being."

Erdogan has repeatedly pledged to crush Gülen's conservative religious
movement, which he said has infiltrated the police, judiciary and
bureaucracy since his party won power in 2002. Erdogan particularly
declared war due to a corruption investigation targeting him, led by
police believed to be Gülen followers. Saturday's raid on Gülen's
media empire, turning Turkey's leading opposition newspapers into
state-sponsored media equivalent to Moscow's Sputnik News or the
Tehran Times or China Daily, is a blow to Turkey's free press and to
Turkey's relations with the West. There's certain to be blowback, and
I doubt that it will end well. AFP and Der Spiegel (8-Aug-2012) and The Atlantic (14-Aug-2013) and Debka


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Zaman Media Group, Cihan News Agency, Aksiyon magazine,
Felhullah Gülen, Hizmet

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*** 7-Mar-16 World View -- EU and Turkey summit in Brussels to discuss refugees, as number of women and children surges

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Number of women and children refugees to Europe surges
• EU and Turkey meet in Brussels for major showdown over refugees
• Death of Nancy Reagan reminds us of generational differences

****
**** Number of women and children refugees to Europe surges
****


Migrants block the railway track at the Greek-Macedonian border (Reuters)

In January, women and children made up 54% of the arrivals in Greece
and Italy, while men made up 46%. Those figures are a significant
reversal from just six months earlier, when women and children
represented 26% and men 74%.

It's believed that this substantial surge in the number of female
refugees is occurring because male refugees who were granted asylum in
Europe last year are now telling their wives and families to follow
and make the trip themselves. Unfortunately for them, things have
changed drastically, borders along the "Balkan route" closed, and
thousands of women and children now stranded in Greece on the border
with Macedonia. Deutsche Welle

****
**** EU and Turkey meet in Brussels for major showdown over refugees
****

Expect tempers to flare on Monday when officials from EU countries and
Turkey meet in Brussels for a summit meeting on the refugee crisis.

The EU Commission has already promised 700 million euros ($769
million) in emergency aid to Turkey. Whether that money will
materialize remains to be seen.

With 2,000 migrants continuing to arrive in Greece from Turkey every
day, Turkey clearly has by far the better negotiating position.
Europe wants Turkey to prevent the vast majority of refugees within
Turkey's borders from leaving for Greece. Whether it's even possible
for Turkey to slow the flow of refugees, and whether they're will to
do so are two questions that also remain to be answered.

The timing of the summit is bad because European officials are in
shock over Turkey's shutdown of the country's major opposition
newspaper, the largest newspaper in the country. ( "6-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media"
) European Parliament President Martin Schultz has said
the storming and closure of an anti-government newspaper show that
"Turkey is in the process of gambling away the historic opportunity
for rapprochement with Europe."

There may also be a confrontation at the summit between Germany's
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austria's Chancellor Werner Faymann.
Merkel has accused Faymann and the Balkan countries of tipping the EU
into crisis by closing their borders, and holds him jointly
responsible for the chaos in Greece.

Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has also criticized Faymann for
"ruining Europe." Tsipras also has high hopes for financial aid from
Europe to provide for new refugee camps for 50,000 or more refugees.
It also remains to be seen whether that money will be provided.
Deutsche Welle and Kathimerini and BBC

****
**** Death of Nancy Reagan reminds us of generational differences
****

Coverage emphasizes how he was an American first, considering himself
a true liberal. He famously had an excellent personal relationship
with another Irishman, House Speaker Tip O'Neill, the most important
Democrat of the time. Could we imagine President Obama having any
remotely cordial relations today with any Republican?

In the 1980s, the Silent Generation, the generation of people who had
grown up during the horrors of World War II were running the country.
They remembered the bloody battles, massacres, rapes, genocides and
atrocities that had occurred, and they remembered the nationalism and
xenophobia that had brought them about, and they knew the important of
America's role as Policeman of the World. They understood the
importance of compromise, truthfulness, ethics and honesty.

In the 1980s, the Republicans and the Democrats cooperated with each
other to change the Social Security system to make it a sounder
system. After that, they cooperated again to specify new rules to
control the budget deficit. Compromise was still possible in 1996,
when Democratic President Bill Clinton, saying that "the era of big
government is over," cooperated with the Republican congress to
eliminate the welfare entitlement. But there isn't a single such
issue on which compromise is possible today.

So everything they say about Nancy and Ronald Reagan's kindness,
generosity and loving relationship were true, but it's also true that
they were a product of their generation, the GI Generation, a
generation that still understood how the world worked.

Things started changing around 2000 with the rise of Generation-X,
reacting to the excesses of the Boomer generation that grew up after
the war. While the Boomers passively accepted the values of the
Silent generation, the Gen-Xers, and the Millennials in the generation
that followed were openly contemptuous of those values, and considered
people in the Silent and GI generations to be full of crap.

We've already had one major national disaster: Generation-Xers who
became "financial engineers" in the 1990s, and used their skills to
knowingly create trillions of dollars in phony synthetic securities,
and knowingly defrauded investors, thinking they were screwing their
fathers' generation. People were defrauded of trillions of dollars,
causing millions of people to lose their homes and jobs and savings.
And worse, President Obama and other Gen-Xers don't even seem to care
about this, as not a single one of these criminals has been
prosecuted, leaving them with their fraudulent winnings and able to
defraud other people.

By contrast, President Bush #1 and President Clinton reacted to the
Savings and Loan crisis by prosecuting thousands of bankers.
President Bush #2 reacted to the Enron scandal by prosecuting several
top managers. But President Obama has prosecuted nobody. Things have
changed with the new generation of politicians. That's why, for ten
years, I've been writing about the destructiveness and
self-destructiveness of Generation-X, and the worst is yet to come.

According to Pepperdine Law Professor Linnea McCord, in her book
The Wisdom of Ants:

<QUOTE>"Over the past four decades, we have strayed far from
the simple and clear ethical standards of the ... ethics-based
American Rule of Law. We have forgotten (or never learned) that
long-term prosperity, peace, stability, and security require
ethical conduct. Unethical conduct leads to economic failure,
political instability, social disharmony, and insecurity from
internal and external threats. It's not complicated."<END QUOTE>

If you're in Generation-X and you hate the values of the Silent and GI
generations, then you may wish to consider the fact that they weren't
born with those values. What you don't understand is that your
generational predecessors -- the Lost Generation before WW II and the
Gilded Generation before the Civil War -- were exactly like you -- few
morals or ethics, but willing to see anyone screwed. They learned
bitter lessons in the wars that followed, and most didn't survive. So
if you hate the Silent generation, then understand that they got that
way because they and their parents were just like you and learned
their lessons the hard way. If you're even still alive ten years from
now, you'll be just like them.

On Sunday, analysts talking about Nancy Reagan's death wondered why
the political climate was so different today than in the 1980s. The
Democrats blame the Republicans, and the Republicans blame the
Democrats. But it's not the political parties that are to blame.
It's the generations of people in them. But don't worry. The people
in both political parties are soon going to learn all about the
lessons of morals and ethics, in the same way that their
great-grandparents did.

But if you end up being just like Ronald and Nancy Reagan, that wouldn't
be so bad, would it. AP and The Hill (12-Mar-2015)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, European Union, Turkey, Brussels,
Greece, Macedonia, Balkan route, Alexis Tsipras,
Germany, Angela Merkel, Austria, Werner Faymann, Martin Schultz,
Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan

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*** 8-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey and Hungary play hardball at EU-Turkey refugee summit

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey and Hungary play hardball at EU-Turkey refugee summit
• With summer approaching, European politicians may be close to panic

****
**** Turkey and Hungary play hardball at EU-Turkey refugee summit
****


German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Brussels, on Monday

Monday's summit in Brussels between leaders of the European Union and
Turkey ended in failure, after Turkey and Hungary played hardball,
dashing the hopes and dreams of the desperate European leaders that
Turkey would solve the refugee crisis for them.

Turkey started the ball rolling by making some additional demands:

• The EU had already promised three billion euros in aid
  for refugees in Turkey, and Turkey demanded an additional three
  million.
  
• Turkey demanded that the plans to give all 70 million Turkish
  citizens visa-free travel in Europe, scheduled for implementation next
  year, be moved up to June. This would be a major victory for Turkey's
  president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, since it would be extremely popular
  among the Turkish people.
  
• Turkey demanded that progress on Turkey's long-stalled bid for EU
  membership be sped up.
  
• Turkey proposed a one-for-one refugee swap under which the EU
  would resettle one Syrian refugee from Turkey in exchange for every
  Syrian refugee that Turkey takes back from Greece.

The issue of EU aid to Turkey was already contentious because Turkey
claimed that the three billion euros should have been paid four months
ago. EU rejected the claim, saying that the money had been held up
because Turkey had not fulfilled its own commitments under the
agreement. Turkey justified its new demands for an additional three
billion euros because there were many more Syrian refugees in Turkey,
with many who are not in designated refugee camps.

The purpose of the one-for-one refugee swap plan was to provide a
disincentive for people smugglers. Any Syrian who came to Europe
illegally would be sent back to Turkey, while Syrians resettled in
Europe would come from legal Turkish refugee camps.

Hungary vetoed the one-for-one refugee swap plan, because it would
presumably mean that Syrians from Turkey who resettled in the EU would
be distributed among the EU nations, including Hungary. However, how
the resettled refugees would be distributed would be subject to
negotiation, and Hungary might be able to opt out. Kathimerini and AP

****
**** With summer approaching, European politicians may be close to panic
****

Theoretically there shouldn't be a major problem. The EU has 500
million people so absorbing one or two million refugees really
shouldn't be so hard. But the painful lessons of World War II,
incorporated into the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which led to the creation
of the European Union, are forgotten. In this generational Crisis
era, xenophobia and nationalism are rampant in Europe and in many
countries around the world, as they were before WW II.

So now the numbers, tiny compared to the size of the entire EU
population, seem staggering:

• Around 32,000 migrants are currently stranded in Greece, a
  number that the Greek Interior Ministry says could quickly swell to
  70,000. Doctors Without Borders Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières,
  MSF) is even expecting 200,000 refugees, and Greece's bailout economy
  is already on death watch.
  
• Of those, 12,000 refugees are camped out on Greece's border with
  Macedonia, which has recently been slammed closed.
  
• There are about 2,000 new migrants arriving in Greece every day,
  despite the cold weather. By the time summer arrives, that number
  could rise substantially, perhaps as high as 10,000 per day.
  
• About 54% of the new arrivals are women and children whose
  husbands arrived in Europe last year and have sent for their
  families.
  
• The above figures apply just to Syrian refugees. There are also
  hundreds of Afghan refugees entering Greece from Turkey each day, and
  the EU isn't even thinking about them.

As a result, discussions among European leaders are becoming
increasingly toxic. Last week it got to the point where Greece
withdrew its ambassador from Austria. Slovakia's Prime Minister
Robert Fico in turn warned Greece that if the country didn't move to
secure its borders that, "there will be one single hotspot and it will
be called Greece." Perhaps, he added, it may be necessary to sacrifice
Greece for the sake of Europe's well-being.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has been taking the lead in
attempting to set Europe's refugee policy. Last summer she announced
that Germany would welcome refugees, but she's been widely condemned
for making the refugee problem worse with that statement. Now she's
changed her policy completely, to focus on getting an agreement with
Turkey to stop the refugee exodus to Europe.

Merkel has opposed the policies of Austria and the Balkan states to
close their borders, and she's been warning of the EU's disintegration
"into small states" that will be unable to compete in a globalized
world, as well as of the possibility that border controls might soon
be reintroduced all across Europe. Merkel also wants to prevent
Greece from drifting into chaos: "We did not keep Greece in the euro
to abandon the country now."

The problem is that Europe's refugee crisis worsens significantly
every day, and no one realistically has the vaguest idea how to fix
it. BBC
and Der Spiegel and Reuters


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Hungary, European Union,
Angle Merkel, Ahmet Davutoglu, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Syria, Afghanistan, Greece, Austria, Slovakia, Robert Fico

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 7-Mar-16 World View -- EU and Turkey summit in Brussels to discuss refugees, as number of women and children surges

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Number of women and children refugees to Europe surges
• EU and Turkey meet in Brussels for major showdown over refugees
• Death of Nancy Reagan reminds us of generational differences

****
**** Number of women and children refugees to Europe surges
****


Migrants block the railway track at the Greek-Macedonian border (Reuters)

In January, women and children made up 54% of the arrivals in Greece
and Italy, while men made up 46%. Those figures are a significant
reversal from just six months earlier, when women and children
represented 26% and men 74%.

It's believed that this substantial surge in the number of female
refugees is occurring because male refugees who were granted asylum in
Europe last year are now telling their wives and families to follow
and make the trip themselves. Unfortunately for them, things have
changed drastically, borders along the "Balkan route" closed, and
thousands of women and children now stranded in Greece on the border
with Macedonia. Deutsche Welle

****
**** EU and Turkey meet in Brussels for major showdown over refugees
****

Expect tempers to flare on Monday when officials from EU countries and
Turkey meet in Brussels for a summit meeting on the refugee crisis.

The EU Commission has already promised 700 million euros ($769
million) in emergency aid to Turkey. Whether that money will
materialize remains to be seen.

With 2,000 migrants continuing to arrive in Greece from Turkey every
day, Turkey clearly has by far the better negotiating position.
Europe wants Turkey to prevent the vast majority of refugees within
Turkey's borders from leaving for Greece. Whether it's even possible
for Turkey to slow the flow of refugees, and whether they're will to
do so are two questions that also remain to be answered.

The timing of the summit is bad because European officials are in
shock over Turkey's shutdown of the country's major opposition
newspaper, the largest newspaper in the country. ( "6-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media"
) European Parliament President Martin Schultz has said
the storming and closure of an anti-government newspaper show that
"Turkey is in the process of gambling away the historic opportunity
for rapprochement with Europe."

There may also be a confrontation at the summit between Germany's
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austria's Chancellor Werner Faymann.
Merkel has accused Faymann and the Balkan countries of tipping the EU
into crisis by closing their borders, and holds him jointly
responsible for the chaos in Greece.

Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has also criticized Faymann for
"ruining Europe." Tsipras also has high hopes for financial aid from
Europe to provide for new refugee camps for 50,000 or more refugees.
It also remains to be seen whether that money will be provided.
Deutsche Welle and Kathimerini and BBC

****
**** Death of Nancy Reagan reminds us of generational differences
****

Coverage emphasizes how he was an American first, considering himself
a true liberal. He famously had an excellent personal relationship
with another Irishman, House Speaker Tip O'Neill, the most important
Democrat of the time. Could we imagine President Obama having any
remotely cordial relations today with any Republican?

In the 1980s, the Silent Generation, the generation of people who had
grown up during the horrors of World War II were running the country.
They remembered the bloody battles, massacres, rapes, genocides and
atrocities that had occurred, and they remembered the nationalism and
xenophobia that had brought them about, and they knew the important of
America's role as Policeman of the World. They understood the
importance of compromise, truthfulness, ethics and honesty.

In the 1980s, the Republicans and the Democrats cooperated with each
other to change the Social Security system to make it a sounder
system. After that, they cooperated again to specify new rules to
control the budget deficit. Compromise was still possible in 1996,
when Democratic President Bill Clinton, saying that "the era of big
government is over," cooperated with the Republican congress to
eliminate the welfare entitlement. But there isn't a single such
issue on which compromise is possible today.

So everything they say about Nancy and Ronald Reagan's kindness,
generosity and loving relationship were true, but it's also true that
they were a product of their generation, the GI Generation, a
generation that still understood how the world worked.

Things started changing around 2000 with the rise of Generation-X,
reacting to the excesses of the Boomer generation that grew up after
the war. While the Boomers passively accepted the values of the
Silent generation, the Gen-Xers, and the Millennials in the generation
that followed were openly contemptuous of those values, and considered
people in the Silent and GI generations to be full of crap.

We've already had one major national disaster: Generation-Xers who
became "financial engineers" in the 1990s, and used their skills to
knowingly create trillions of dollars in phony synthetic securities,
and knowingly defrauded investors, thinking they were screwing their
fathers' generation. People were defrauded of trillions of dollars,
causing millions of people to lose their homes and jobs and savings.
And worse, President Obama and other Gen-Xers don't even seem to care
about this, as not a single one of these criminals has been
prosecuted, leaving them with their fraudulent winnings and able to
defraud other people.

By contrast, President Bush #1 and President Clinton reacted to the
Savings and Loan crisis by prosecuting thousands of bankers.
President Bush #2 reacted to the Enron scandal by prosecuting several
top managers. But President Obama has prosecuted nobody. Things have
changed with the new generation of politicians. That's why, for ten
years, I've been writing about the destructiveness and
self-destructiveness of Generation-X, and the worst is yet to come.

According to Pepperdine Law Professor Linnea McCord, in her book
The Wisdom of Ants:

<QUOTE>"Over the past four decades, we have strayed far from
the simple and clear ethical standards of the ... ethics-based
American Rule of Law. We have forgotten (or never learned) that
long-term prosperity, peace, stability, and security require
ethical conduct. Unethical conduct leads to economic failure,
political instability, social disharmony, and insecurity from
internal and external threats. It's not complicated."<END QUOTE>

If you're in Generation-X and you hate the values of the Silent and GI
generations, then you may wish to consider the fact that they weren't
born with those values. What you don't understand is that your
generational predecessors -- the Lost Generation before WW II and the
Gilded Generation before the Civil War -- were exactly like you -- few
morals or ethics, but willing to see anyone screwed. They learned
bitter lessons in the wars that followed, and most didn't survive. So
if you hate the Silent generation, then understand that they got that
way because they and their parents were just like you and learned
their lessons the hard way. If you're even still alive ten years from
now, you'll be just like them.

On Sunday, analysts talking about Nancy Reagan's death wondered why
the political climate was so different today than in the 1980s. The
Democrats blame the Republicans, and the Republicans blame the
Democrats. But it's not the political parties that are to blame.
It's the generations of people in them. But don't worry. The people
in both political parties are soon going to learn all about the
lessons of morals and ethics, in the same way that their
great-grandparents did.

But if you end up being just like Ronald and Nancy Reagan, that wouldn't
be so bad, would it. AP and The Hill (12-Mar-2015)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, European Union, Turkey, Brussels,
Greece, Macedonia, Balkan route, Alexis Tsipras,
Germany, Angela Merkel, Austria, Werner Faymann, Martin Schultz,
Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan

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I had no problems with my GI and Silent bosses when I was doing contract tech work during college days, and as a new grad. The problems for me started as the GIs then eventually the Silents retired (or died trying to get there). Boom ... boom ... boom ...

*** 9-Mar-16 World View -- Bizarre EU-Turkey one-for-one refugee deal meets strong opposition

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Bizarre EU-Turkey one-for-one refugee deal meets strong opposition
• Europe faces two additional major crises: Grexit and Brexit

****
**** Bizarre EU-Turkey one-for-one refugee deal meets strong opposition
****


Gleeful European and Turkish leaders at Brussels meeting (Reuters)

Leaders from the European Union and Turkey met long into the night at
the Brussels summit on Monday night, but failed to reach any agreement
because Turkey and Hungary played hardball,
as we reported yesterday.

And yet, they declared victory with a "breakthrough agreement" that
would bring the "irregular flows of migrants along the Western Balkan
route ... to an end."

Apparently, the person who really wanted to be able to announce this
"breakthrough" was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, because she is
facing three key regional elections this weekend, with polls
predicting huge gains for the anti-immigrant AfD party. So she needed
a victory on the migration issue. For that reason the "breakthrough"
deal is only an outline, and supposedly the details will be worked out
in a new Brussels summit meeting on March 17-18. If it collapses at
that time, the election will be in the past.

Having a negotiating advantage, Turkey on Monday demanded 6 billion
euros in aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey, visa-free travel in Europe
for Turkish citizens starting in June, and a speed-up of the accession
talks for Turkey to become a member of the European Union.

However, Turkey's arch-enemy Greek Cyprus is firmly opposing the
speedup of the accession talks. And several EU countries are said to
oppose paying any more money to Turkey.

But the big headline-grabbing part of the breakthrough deal was the
bizarre one-for-one refugee swap agreement.

Under the plan, all migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey would be
be sent back to Turkey, where they would be put into a refugee camp.
Then, an equal number of Syrian refugees in Turkish refugee camps
would be put on a plane to be distributed to EU countries.

Last year, almost a million migrants reached the EU. So, for example,
if 5,000 migrants from Turkey arrive in Greece one day, then then
security forces would gather them up, and force them onto boats to be
sent back to Turkey. What could possibly go wrong with that??

And then 5,000 migrants from Turkey would be piled onto planes to be
distributed to EU countries. But Britain won't take them. Hungary
and the East European countries won't take them. Opposition has been
building in Germany to admitting more migrants.

At any rate, the reason given why this is a "breakthrough" plan is
that it will eliminate incentives for migrants to come to Greece by
boat.

According to Iverna McGowan, Amnesty International:

<QUOTE>"EU and Turkish leaders have sunk to a new low,
effectively horse trading away the rights and dignity of some of
the world's most vulnerable people."<END QUOTE>

Vincent Cochetel, United Nations Refugee Agency, says:

<QUOTE>"An agreement that would be tantamount to a blanket
return of any foreigners to a third country is not consistent with
European law."<END QUOTE>

This breakthrough deal was born of desperation, the fear that the EU
is facing an existential crisis because there's no way to get control
of the refugee crisis. Hurriyet (Ankara) and BBC and EurActiv and BBC

****
**** Europe faces two additional major crises: Grexit and Brexit
****

The refugee situation isn't the European Union's only existential
crisis. The EU is also facing two other major crises: Grexit and
Brexit.

"Grexit" refers to the proposal for Greece to exit the euro
currency.

As I've been writing for years, the Greece financial crisis has no
solution, and all the numerous bailouts have done is "kick the can
down the road." The time is now approaching for a new bailout payment
crisis. Greece has to pay 3.8 billion euros in debt servicing between
March and June. That money isn't readily available, but the Greek
government can do what it's done in the past -- confiscate money from
banks and take other emergency measures to meet those payments.

But there's another 2.8 billion euro payment due in July, and there's
no way that the Greek government can make that payment without more
bailout money. For that, it will need the next tranche of the bailout
by its "troika" of lenders -- IMF, European Commission, ECB.
Inspectors are already returning to Greece to verify that Greece has
complied with previous austerity demands required to receive the next
tranche. What they're going to find is that Greece has NOT met those
requirements, especially with respect to pension payments, which
Greece's government does not wish to curtail. Therefore, there's
going to have to be a big negotiation with all the parties, and the
IMF and Europe are feuding over who is going to bear most of the
burden. That's why, once again, Grexit is on the table, and Greece
may be forced to leave the euro currency and return to its historic
drachma currency.

"Brexit" refers to the proposal for Britain to exit the European
Union.

On Thursday, June 23, Britain will hold a referendum to decide whether
Britain should remain in the European Union.

Many people are predicting that if Brexit occurs, it will be
devastating for both economies -- the British and European. Mark
Carney, the head of the Bank of England, says that "Brexit is biggest
domestic risk to financial stability" for Britain." Others claim it
will make no difference whatsoever.

People who support Brexit are usually motivated by the migrant issue,
and it's not just the issue of migrants from Syria. Many Britons are
equally opposed to allowing EU citizens from Poland and other eastern
European countries to come to Britain.

Those who support Brexit believe that it will "solve" the migrant
problem. Many of those who oppose Brexit claim that it will worsen
the migrant problem, because France will no longer be obligated to
slow the flow of migrants through Calais to Britain.

With these three major crises -- the refugee crisis, Grexit and Brexit
-- we can use the "perfect storm" cliché to say that the European
Union is going to have to fight hard in 2016 to stay in existence.
Kathimerini and Reuters and Kathimerini and Guardian (London) and BBC and Mirror (London)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Hungary, European Union,
Angela Merkel, Syria, Greece, Iverna McGowan, Amnesty International,
Vincent Cochetel, United Nations Refugee Agency,
Grexit, Brexit, Britain, Mark Carney, Bank of England

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*** 10-Mar-16 World View -- Hackers steal thousands of employee W-2 tax documents from Seagate Inc.

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Deep Saudi-Lebanon crisis widens the Mideast's sectarian fault line
• Hackers steal thousands of employee W-2 tax documents from Seagate Inc.
• Bangladesh bank says hackers stole $100M from its New York Fed account

****
**** Deep Saudi-Lebanon crisis widens the Mideast's sectarian fault line
****


Hezbollah supporters in south Lebanon carry Hezbollah and Lebanese flags (Reuters)

On Monday, an official delegation from Lebanon was denied a visa to
travel to the Saudi Arabia's ally United Arab Emirates (UAE) amid
reports that Saudi Arabian Airlines has ordered a stop in ticket sales
to Lebanon.

This is only the latest in a string of increasingly bitter blows to
the relationship between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Last month, Saudi
Arabia announced it was cutting $4 billion in aid to the Lebanese army
and security forces, a decision that could severely cripple Lebanon's
economy at a time when it's already reeling from having to host
millions of Syrian refugees, to the point where there is one refugee
for every 3 or 4 Lebanese.

The heart of the Saudi dispute with Lebanon is Hezbollah, which is
recognized as a Shia terrorist group by the West, funded and supported
by Iran and committed to the destruction of Israel, but is also a
powerful political force in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia and Lebanon got
along well for years, as long they could agree that Israel was the bad
guy. But things started deteriorating in 2011 when Syria's
Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad started attacking innocent
Sunni protesters as if they were cockroaches to be exterminated, and
and Hezbollah's militias began fighting in Syria in support of
al-Assad's army.

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia's relationship with Iran has also been
deteriorating rapidly. Iran's nuclear deal with the west, which
removed sanctions and freed billions of dollars to be returned to
Iran, has infuriated the Saudis, who believe that Iran will use the
money to provide further funding to Hezbollah and to fund Saudi
Arabia's Houthi enemies in Yemen. Undoubtedly, the new availability
of this money to Iran is one of the motivations for ending aid to
Lebanon, since presumably Iran will be forced to use some of the freed
sanction money to replace the missing Saudi aid money.

In January, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people who had been convicted of
terrorism -- 46 alleged Sunni terrorists and one alleged Shia
terrorist, Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, a cleric well respected in
Iran. The execution triggered mass Shia protests throughout the
Mideast and even in Shia communities in India and Pakistan, and the
firebombing of the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia cut
diplomatic ties with Iran, and several other Arab countries followed,
but Lebanon refused to do so, further infuriating the Saudis.

Then last Wednesday, the Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of six
Arabian Gulf nations led by Saudi Arabia, formally declared
Lebanon-based group Hezbollah to be a terrorist group, and began to
take steps to blacklist Lebanon, including asking tourists not to
visit Lebanon. However, two Sunni Arab states, Algeria and Tunisia,
opposed the blacklisting.

The situation has become extremely alarming. With the unprecedented
deterioration in the ties between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, Lebanon's
prime minister Tammam Salam took the extraordinary step of asking
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah to stop making verbal attacks
on the Saudis:

<QUOTE>"Hezbollah played a role in resisting Israel before
going abroad and interfering in the affairs of other countries
[referring to Syria]. I call on Sayyed Nasrallah to stop
attacking the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ...

I tell the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, that the
historic ties between us and them will continue and will remain
strong and we are exerting efforts to consolidate them.

We admit that a mistake has happened and has strained the relation
between us and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries [referring to
the refusal of Lebanon to condemn Iran's firebombing of the Saudi
embassy in Tehran]. We have not been successful in implementing
the dissociation policy in a proper manner. ,,,

The current government cannot compel any group to do anything and
consensus must govern all issues. ...

We will not allow Lebanon's collapse and I don't think that the
GCC states do not want the presence of a government in Lebanon
although they have the right to address remarks to us.

We cannot unravel the relation we have now in the cabinet
[referring to Hezbollah's presence in the cabinet] because that
would subject Lebanon to collapse."<END QUOTE>

The relationship is becoming increasingly toxic. In recent days, Arab
coalition spokesman Ahmad Al-Asiri wrote on his Facebook page:

<QUOTE>"[Saudi Arabia] respects Lebanon's sovereignty over
its territory, but if the need arises, we will target any
organization that poses a direct threat to Arab national security,
while coordinating [our actions] with the countries in which these
organizations are located."<END QUOTE>

As we've been saying since 2003,
Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major
regional war between Arabs and Jews, between Sunnis and Shias, and
between various ethnic groups. It seems now that every week brings
this prediction a major step closer. Memri and
Al Bawaba (Palestine) and Naharnet (Lebanon)

****
**** Hackers steal thousands of employee W-2 tax documents from Seagate Inc.
****

Seagate Inc. has confirmed that the W-2 tax documents of several
thousand current and former employees of the company ended up in the
hands of fraudsters after an employee fell victim to a phishing
attack.

I read stories like this almost every day. Hackers get into company
databases and steal trade secrets or customer credit card information.
It could be any kind of information that could be traded for money. I
decided to write about this one because I thought that the angle of
acquiring W-2 tax form information was interesting.

What almost all of these kinds of hacker attacks have in common is
that they begin with a "phishing" or "spear phishing" attack. If
you're not familiar with these terms, you really should be.

A phishing attack is less a computer attack than a human on human
attack, with the objective of getting you to click on something
dangerous. A phishing attack is straightforward: The attacker sends
out a million e-mail messages promising money or sex or a wrinkle free
face or a cure for cancer or a Hawaiian vacation or reverse brain
aging, and all you have to do is click on this link. (I read that
list off some of the most recent messages in my spam folder.)

A spear phishing attack is far more sophisticated. The attacker
spends several days gathering information about you personally by
searching through the internet. They'll check your Facebook page and
everything else they can find, to collect a portfolio of information
about you. They'll know who you are, they'll know your family, your
boss, your coworkers and your job. They'll use that information to
carefully craft an e-mail message designed to trick you into thinking
it's a real message. "Frank, download the attached report, check it
over, and send it to Marty for approval. Thanks." If you're fooled,
then the attack has succeeded.

That's the first part of the attack. Once you've clicked on the
malicious link, then any of several things can happen:

• You may go to a web site that can infect your computer.
  This is called a "watering hole attack," because it's like
  poisoning a watering hole in Africa, so that all the animals that
  go to drink from it die.
  
• You might download an executable that turns your computer
  into a "bot" that can be remotely and invisibly controlled by
  the hacker.
  
• The executable might encrypt all your data files, and then
  give you instructions for paying $1,000 to get them decrypted.
  This is called a "ransomware" attack.
  
• The executable might give the hacker access to your company's
  entire network and databases. The hacker then downloads information a
  little bit at a time every day, so it won't be noticed, even if it
  goes on for months. This is how the Chinese military has obtained
  trillions of dollars' worth of commercial and military secrets.
  
• The hacker may simply destroy everything on your hard disks,
  because the hacker is a sexually frustrated teen working in
  a basement in Russia who gets off on destroying people's hard
  disks.

According to the statement by Seagate:

<QUOTE>"The information was sent by an employee who believed
the phishing email was a legitimate internal company request. When
we learned of the incident, we immediately notified the IRS which
is now actively investigating it along with federal law
enforcement. At this point we have no information to suggest that
employee data has been misused, but caution and vigilance are in
order. We deeply regret this mistake and we offer our sincerest
apologies to everyone affected."<END QUOTE>

Since the breach only came to light on March 1, it's likely
that the hackers haven't had time yet to do much with the
information from thousands of W-2 tax forms. The hackers could
sell it to other hackers, who could then use it for identity
theft.

Seagate claims it’s in the process of making changes to prevent future
incidents. Haha, this is funny. In the recent past, I advised a
company to encrypt the social security numbers in their database, and
told them how to do it easily, so that if the data is stolen, it would
be useless to a hacker. But the harsh reality is that protecting
social security numbers doesn't generate any new sales, so most
companies ignore all warnings until the data is stolen. Then the
company puts out a statement saying that they're in the process of
making changes to prevent future incidents. Haha.

As I said, I read stories like this all the time, and those are only a
small fraction of the actual corporate breaches, since most companies
keep the breach from the press. I know that nobody's going to pay
attention to this, but I'll write it anyway: If you have
responsibility for a corporate database containing such things as
names, addresses, social security numbers, medical information, and so
forth, then put other things on hold and immediately launch a project
to encrypt each critical data element, even it means losing a few
sales. Haha. Security Week and Ars Technica

****
**** Bangladesh bank says hackers stole $100M from its New York Fed account
****

The Bangladesh Central Bank blamed the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York for a lack of security that made it easy for the unidentified
hackers to steal $100 million from its bank account. The money has
been traced as far as a casino in the Philippines, before most of it
disappeared. New York Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Hezbollah, Iran, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah,
Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, Algeria, Tunisia, Tammam Salam,
Ahmad Al-Asiri, Facebook,
Seagate Inc., phishing, spear phishing, waterhing hold, ransomeware,
Bangladesh Central Bank, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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*** 11-Mar-16 World View -- In desperation move, European Central Bank further lowers negative interest rates

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• North Korea liquidates all commercial projects with South Korea
• In desperation move, European Central Bank further lowers negative interest rates
• ECB tries to target the velocity of money

****
**** North Korea liquidates all commercial projects with South Korea
****


Cruise ship prepares to dock at the port in the Kumgang Mountain Resort in North Korea (AFP)

North Korea says it will liquidate all South Korean assets in joint
projects that have served over the years the dual purpose of, first,
providing foreign currency to North Korea, and second, providing
"hope" that the two countries wouldn't restart the 1950s Korean War
between the North and the South, which official is still ongoing but
ended in an armistice (armed truce) in 1953.

This announcement came after North Korea fired two short-range
ballistic missiles into the sea on Thursday in defiance of
U.N. Security Council resolutions. In a hard-hitting response, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he was "gravely
concerned," and he called on North Korea to "cease destabilizing
acts."

North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on January 6, an act condemned by
the US, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United Nations. ( "9-Jan-16 World View -- China-North Korea tensions high after nuclear test"
)

Following the nuclear test, the United States, South Korea and China
have all agreed to impose sanctions on North Korea. These have
particularly required that all goods sent from other countries to
North Korea be subject to inspection -- a requirement that even China
has been complying with.

North Korea has responded with almost daily threats of war, including
the threat to destroy South Korean capital city Seoul, and has fired
short-range ballistic missiles into the ocean several times.

Thursday's announcement marks further deterioration in the
relationship of the North and South. The North Koreans have announced
that all economic agreements between North and South will now be
invalid, and that South Korean assets in the North will be liquidated.

The principal effect will be to the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which
is a major source of foreign exchange to North Korea.

Kaesong Industrial Complex was built in North Korea in 2004 as a joint
venture between the North and South, and was considered a symbol of
peaceful cooperation, with over 100 South Korean companies working
there, employing some 53,000 North Korean workers. In April 2013, The
North Koreans suddenly withdrew their workers from the project,
effectively shutting the complex down. Kaesong was a major source of
hard currency for the North Koreans, tens of millions of dollars per
year, so it wasn't surprising that the complex reopened in September
of that year. After international sanctions were imposed in January
following the nuclear test, North Korea announced that it was limiting
entry to the Kaesong complex, once again shutting it down. According
to Thursday's announcement all the South Korean assets will be seized
and liquidated, representing several hundred million dollars worth of
investment by South Korean companies.

Also affected is the Mount Kumgang resort, another joint project, a
mountain resort set up mainly for South Korean tourists to visit the
North. It's been closed since 2008, but was occasionally used for
reunions of families that were split by the 1950s war. Thursday's
announcement effectively brings an end to all economic cooperation
between the two Koreas, and any hope of further family reunions.

It's hard to know what to make of all this. North Korea's child
dictator Kim Jong-un is a total loon who has practiced this kind of
brinksmanship before with no serious consequences. Still, in this
generational Crisis era, it's quite possible that Kim and his advisors
might fantasize that if they start a war, then they'll end up
governing both the North and South. Unfortunately, this kind of
insanity is not uncommon throughout history, and always leads to
disaster. Reuters and AP (20-Oct-2015)

****
**** In desperation move, European Central Bank further lowers negative interest rates
****

The European Central Bank (ECB), facing a continuing deflationary
spiral that it hasn't been continually unable to control, announced
what is being described as a "bazooka," an attempt to flood the
banking system with huge new amounts of "printed" money, in an attempt
to reverse the deflationary spiral, and raise the inflation rate to
the target rate of 2%.

According to the ECB, the 2016 inflation rate is now forecast for
0.1%, versus a previous forecast of 1%. The inflation rate was -0.2%
in February 2016, compared with 0.3% in January.

ECB President Mario Draghi on Thursday made several dramatic
announcements. One set of announcement had to do with lowering
interest rates:

• If a bank wants to borrow money from the ECB, the interest
  rate charged will be 0%, down from the previous setting of 0.05%.
  This the rate for "main refinancing operations," or MRO. The purpose
  of the zero interest rate is to encourage banks to borrow money from
  the ECB, and then lend that money to citizens and businesses, in order
  to stimulate growth and inflation.
  
• There is also an emergency overnight borrowing rate called the
  "marginal lending facility" for special situations. That borrowing
  rate has been reduced to 0.25%, down from 0.3%.
  
• If a bank wants to deposit money with the ECB, using the ECB's
  "deposit facility," then the interest rate is -0.40%, down from
  -0.30%. What that means is that a bank will have to pay the ECB 0.40%
  interest to accept the deposit.

Lower interest rates usually target only banks, so there was another
set of announcements having to do with quantitative easing (QE). QE
targets other institutions besides banks, by purchasing bonds issued
by those entities, so that the entities can use the money for hiring
or purchases or investment or construction. Draghi's announcements
were:

• The ECB will expand its monthly purchases of these assets from
  60 to 80 billion euros per month.
  
• In what many analysts consider to be the most significant
  announcement of all, the list of bonds eligible for ECB purchase will
  be expanded to corporate bonds. Past asset purchases were sovereign
  bonds -- that is, bonds issued by countries such as Greece or Italy.
  Under the new announcement, a struggling corporation can issue bonds
  that are eligible for purchase by the ECB.

There were also announcements of targeted longer-term refinancing
operations (TLTRO II), and expanded versions of previous targeted
operations.

According to Draghi:

<QUOTE>"While very low or even negative inflation rates are
unavoidable over the next few months, as a result of movements in
oil prices, it is crucial to avoid second-round effects by
securing the return of inflation to levels below, but close to, 2%
without undue delay. ...

The risks to the euro area growth outlook remain tilted to the
downside. They relate in particular to the heightened
uncertainties regarding developments in the global economy, as
well as to broader geopolitical risks."<END QUOTE>

A typical analyst quote I heard was, "Draghi must think that the
economy is in very serious trouble to have made this announcement."

In "normal" times, the ECB might announce a change in one interest
rate or one QE policy. The fact that Draghi announced reductions in
its three key interest rates PLUS an expansion of the quantitative
easing program PLUS the inclusion of corporate bonds in the QE program
was view as a move of desperation. And indeed, with the euro in a
continuing deflationary spiral, the desperation may well be justified.
Market Watch and Reuters and Business Insider

****
**** ECB tries to target the velocity of money
****


Velocity of money, 1920 to present (St. Louis Fed Fred Graph #282038)

Most people, including most economists, believe that the inflation
rate is determined solely by the amount of money in circulation. But
in fact the inflation rate is determined by two factors -- the amount
of money in circulation and 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.

If a bank lends out a billion dollars, and people just store that
money in their matresses or bank accounts, then there won't be any
inflation. Money has to be used and reused to generate inflation.

The amount of money in circulation is determined by the central bank.
The velocity of money depends on the moods and behaviors of the entire
population, and in fact it's a generational variable, in that it
varies predictably with the generational cycle.

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.

Thursday's "bazooka" ECB announcement is attempting to change history
by pouring so many trillions of euros into the economy that the
liquidity will somehow overcome the generational trend in the velocity
of money. But it's hard to see how that will change the behaviors and
moods of entire generations of people. It's just as likely that
people will see the ECB as panicking, and become even more reluctant
to spend what little money they have.

Indeed, last week the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) issued a
warning that negative interest rates will suffer from the law of
diminishing returns, and reach a "tipping point" where they're no
longer effective. Many analysts are alarmed by the use of negative
interests rates because banks and other financial institutions depend
on higher interest rates to make money. Thus lower interest rates
undercut the entire business model of financial institutions and
introduce instability into the banking systems. There have already
been signs of a selloff in bank stocks.

Negative interest rates have been set in central banks in Denmark, the
eurozone, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan. These moves have had the
effect of weakening these currencies internationally, making these
countries more competitive internationally, and at the same time
strengthening the US dollar, making the US less competitive. There is
some fear that the world is on the verge of a "currency war," where a
currency devaluation by one country is countered by currency
devaluations in other countries, in a tit-for-tat downward spiral.

One thing is certain: The velocity of money has continued to plummet,
and there are no signs that this trend will be reversed. As I've been
writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that the world is
headed for a global financial crisis and stock market panic and crash.
Thursday's ECB announcement pushes the financial system one step
closer in that direction. Sydney Morning Herald and CNBC and Bank of International Settlements (BIS)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, South Korea,
Kumgang Mountain Resort, Ban Ki-moon, Kaesong Industrial Complex,
US, China, Russia, South Korea, Kim Jong-un,
European Central Bank, ECB, Mario Draghi,
negative interest rates, quantitative easing,
velocity of money, Bank of International Settlements, BIS,
Denmark, eurozone, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan

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*** 12-Mar-16 World View -- Arab League brands Lebanon's Hezbollah a terrorist organization

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Arab League brands Lebanon's Hezbollah a terrorist organization
• U.S. blames Iran for cyber attack on a New York dam

****
**** Arab League brands Lebanon's Hezbollah a terrorist organization
****


Arab League meeting on January 10 (AP)

Sectarian tensions in the Mideast took another surge on Friday, when
the Arab League in Cairo declared Hezbollah to be a terrorist
organization. As we recently reported,
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) made the same
declaration last week. The GCC is an organization of Arab nations
(Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates (UAE)) on the Arabian Gulf. Friday's decision extends the
designation to the Arab League, with 22 members, reaching as
far as Morocco and Algeria in northwest Africa.

The Arab League decision was not unanimous, according to a statement
issued after the meeting, which said that Lebanon and Iraq had
"expressed reservations."

The objections were much stronger than mere reservations. Lebanon, of
course, Sunni and Shia power centers, the latter represented by
Hezbollah, with large militias well-funded by Iran. And Iraq's
government is also well-funded by Iran, and is heavily engaged in a
war with the country's Sunni majority, including the so-called Islamic
State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).

In fact, the Saudi delegation stormed out of the Arab League meeting
when Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari praised Hezbollah,
along with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization forces (PMF):

<QUOTE>"PMF and Hezbollah preserved the dignity of the Arabs
and whoever accuses them of terrorism they are themselves
terrorists."<END QUOTE>

Syria would undoubtedly have also opposed the Arab League declaration,
but Syria was expelled from the League in November 2011.

It had been reported several days ago that Morocco and Algeria didn't
support the GCC decision, but there was no indication that they
opposed Friday's Arab League decisions.

The GCC and Arab League declarations firmly polarize the entire
Mideast along sectarian lives. For years, the Arab world was largely
unified on most issues, especially in support of the Palestinians
against Israel. But that's no longer true, with the Sunni Arab world
is firmly aligned with Saudi Arabia, leaving most of the Shia Arab
world aligned with Iran.

Even in the years since 2011 when the Syrian civil war began, there
have been political differences, but the Arabs were able to paper them
over, or kept secret. Israel's 67 day war with Hamas in Gaza in 2014
caused a temporary breach in Arab relations, but those differences
were largely resolved.

But now the Arab world is clearly coming apart along sectarian lines,
especially after two events in the last year that have substantially
destabilized the entire Mideast. One is Iran's nuclear deal with the
West, which is widely regarded in Saudi Arabia as America and the West
siding with Iran against the Saudis. And the second was Russia's
military intervention in Syria, reinforcing Bashar al-Assad genocidal
extermination of Sunnis, and reviving memories of Russia's war in
Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The storming and firebombing of the Saudi embassy in Tehran in early
January, causing Saudi Arabia and several Arab countries to terminate
relations with Iran, indicates that a point of no return has
pretty much been reached.

After the Arab League meeting, Saudi's ambassador to Egypt Ahmed
Kattan said that the Gulf states would be taking further measures
against Hezbollah:

<QUOTE>"We will deal with Hezbollah as we deal with any
terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries have
begun preparing measures it will take against that terrorist party
and they will be announced at the right time."<END QUOTE>

According to reports, the Obama administration has been warning Saudi
Arabia not to "overreact" in Lebanon, and risk destabilizing the
country. However, after the Obama administration has treated the
Saudis largely with contempt for most of the past seven years, it's
unlikely that they'll pay any attention.

There are a lot of people who think that somebody is going to wave a
magic wand and things will return to the "normal" of ten years ago,
but in this generational Crisis era, that's not going to happen.
AP and Reuters and Al Manar (Lebanon/Hezbollah)

****
**** U.S. blames Iran for cyber attack on a New York dam
****

A probe by the Justice Department has determined that Iran was
responsible for a 2013 cyberattack on the Bowman Avenue Dam, a small
structure in Rye Brook, about 20 miles north of New York City. The
dam is used for flood control. An indictment is expected in the next
few weeks. It wasn’t clear whether the indictment would charge
specific people within the Iranian government, or Iran itself.

Reports conflict as to whether the hackers accessed the control
system, or only back office systems that are not part of the
operational systems of the dam. CNN and AP and Washington Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Hezbollah, Iran,
Algeria, Morocco, Arab League, Ibrahim al-Jaafari,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Iraqi Popular Mobilization forces, PMF, Egypt, Ahmed Kattan,
Bowman Avenue Dam, Rye Brook

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*** 13-Mar-16 World View -- Despite rapid growth of ISIS in Libya, West cannot agree on a strategy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Google's AlphaGo computer defeats world champion at game of Go
• Despite rapid growth of ISIS in Libya, West cannot agree on a strategy

****
**** Google's AlphaGo computer defeats world champion at game of Go
****


Final position after black (Lee Se-dol) resigned, and white (AlphaGo) won

World Go champion Lee Se-dol was forced to resign the third game of a
five-game match against Google's AlphaGo computer and software in
Seoul on Saturday, handing the victory for the whole match to the
computer. As I wrote several weeks ago, this victory by a computer at
the game of Go is a significant step on the road to the Singularity,
the point in time where computers become more intelligent than humans,
with an uncertain future for humanity. ( "28-Jan-16 World View -- China's game of Go beaten by Google's AI software, bringing the Singularity closer"
)

The reason that this is a very big deal is because artificial
intelligence (AI) experts had not expected to reach this milestone for
another ten years. This means that those researchers that had
estimated that the Singularity would not occur until 2040 or 2050 now
have to recalibrate their timelines. My own estimate of 2030, which I
originally published in 2005, still stands, and increasingly appears to be the best
estimate.

World Go champion Lee Se-dol apologized for losing to the computer,
and responded to questions about whether computers are already smarter
than humans:

<QUOTE>"I don’t know how to start or what to say today, but I
think I would have to express my apologies first. I should have
shown a better result, a better outcome, and better content in
terms of the game played, and I do apologize for not being able to
satisfy a lot of people’s expectations. I kind of felt
powerless. If I look back on the three games, the first one, even
if I were to go back and redo the first game, I think that I would
not have been able to win, because I at that time misjudged the
capabilities of AlphaGo. The second game, I think, would have been
the make or break.

If you look at the beginning of the second game, the game did flow
the way that I have intended, and there were a [number of
opportunities] which I admittedly missed. Looking at the third
match, yes, I do have extensive experience in terms of playing the
game of Go, but there was never a case as this as such that I felt
this amount of pressure. So I was incapable of overcoming the
amount of pressure that I was experiencing.

And lastly, since I lost the third match, there is now a clear
winner. However, when it comes to human beings, there is a
psychological aspect that one has to also think about. So as I
play the fourth and fifth match, I do ask that you continue to
show interest and follow what happens. ...

I do apologize for not being able to satisfy people's
expectations. Lee Se-dol is the one who lost today, not
humanity."<END QUOTE>

If Lee were able to win at least one of the two remaining games, then
it would be significant because it would show that computers still
have plenty of room for improvement.

However, even if Lee won both of the two remaining games, it would
still be a Pyrrhic victory. Computers have been doubling in power
every 18 months or so, and will continue to do so. Software engineers
will continue to take advantage of this computer power to write more
and more sophisticated brute force algorithms and solve larger and
larger pieces of human intelligence, until finally all of human
intelligence can be surpassed. Korea Times and Venture Beat and The Verge

****
**** Despite rapid growth of ISIS in Libya, West cannot agree on a strategy
****

Any thought of a Western military action to destroy the so-called
Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh), as has been in the
planning stages for several months, has been put on indefinite hold
because the two governments in Libya are unable to form a single
"unity government," or Government of National Accord (GNA), that would
approve the intervention.

This is despite the fact that there are now 5,000 ISIS fighters in
Libya, according to Italy's foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni:

<QUOTE>"According to our analyses, there are today around
5,000 Daesh fighters in Libya.

They are concentrated particularly in the area of (the city of)
Sirte but from there they have the capacity to carry out dangerous
incursions (into neighboring states)."<END QUOTE>

These remarks followed a terrorist attack on Monday on an army
barracks and police and national guard posts Tunisian town of Ben
Guerdane on the border with Libya. Tunisia is blaming ISIS for the
attack, and says that their security forces have killed 43 suspected
jihadists since the attack.

According to a United Nations report, the political and security
vacuum in Libya is being exploited by ISIS, which has "significantly
expanded" the territory it controls. While ISIS has not been able to
exploit oil installations in Libya for revenue, many young jihadists
from around the world who had been going to Syria to fight are now
going to Libya for training in terrorist skills.

Some analysts have advocated, in lieu of a Western military
intervention, supplying weapons to non-ISIS militias in Libya that are
fighting ISIS. According to one analyst:

<QUOTE>"In Libya there are many such forces who oppose ISIS,
but these forces and a coalition of convenience can be made, and
the Libyan nation can be rebuilt by bringing together these main
fighting forces to work together against ISIS."<END QUOTE>

However, Ibrahim Al Dabashi, Libyan Ambassador to the UN, opposes such
a plan:

<QUOTE>"I would like to warn against any attempt to bolster
the capabilities of Libyan militias based on the assumption that,
if equipped, they will fight ISIS in Sirte. ... Such an attempt
would [would only lead to] more complications of the Libyan
crisis."<END QUOTE>

The fear is that once the military intervention ended, ISIS could
quickly regain control in Sirte, and the militias that had been
fighting ISIS would use the weapons to fight each other.

The West's last military intervention in Libya is being widely
described today as a disaster. This is the nature of politics. But
at the time of the 2011 intervention, a major refugee crisis had
already begun in Tunisia and Libya, with hundreds of thousands of
people pouring into neighboring countries, and thousands crossing the
Mediterranean to Italy. It was this refugee crisis that caused
Libyans to demand a no-fly zone, and for the Arab League to do the
same, after which the UN Security Council passed a resolution
authorizing a no-fly zone, which turned into the 2011 military
intervention. ( "5-Mar-16 World View -- A look back at Libya in 2011 as the West debates another military intervention"
)

Nobody seems to doubt that ISIS is rapidly getting stronger in Libya,
and no analyst that I've seen claims that doing nothing will lead
anywhere except to a crisis. But after the 2011 experience, the West
is paralyzed. It seems fairly likely that a military intervention
will be taken at some point, but only when the crisis becomes so great
that it's a full scale emergency, and intervention cannot be avoided.
UN Security Council and AFP and VOA


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Google, artificial intelligence, AI, DeepMind,
AlphaGo, Singularity, Lee Se-dol
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Libya, Government of National Accord, GNA, Tunisia, Ben Guerdane,
Ibrahim Al Dabashi, Sirte

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*** 14-Mar-16 World View -- Yet another terrorist bombing in Ankara Turkey kills 34

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Yet another terrorist bombing in Ankara Turkey kills 34
• AQIM takes credit for armed terror attack on Ivory Coast beach resort

****
**** Yet another terrorist bombing in Ankara Turkey kills 34
****


Footage from central Ankara just before and just after the bomb went off

A suicide car bomb exploded in central Ankara in Turkey on Sunday,
killing at least 34 people and wounding 125.

Turkey has been reeling from a series of suicide bombing attacks in
the last five months. On February 17, 29 were killed in a car bombing
targeting the Turkish military in Ankara. A branch of the Kurdish
separatist terror party, PKK, took credit. On January 12, a suicide
attack blamed on the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or
Daesh) killed eleven German tourists in Istanbul. On October 10, 103
people were killed in twin suicide bombings targeting a pro-Kurdish
peace rally in Ankara.

After a massive terror attack in July of last year in the town of
Suruç on the border with Syria, Turkey declared war on PKK,
ending a ceasefire agreement that had
been in effect since 2012. Turkish troops began attacking PKK
strongholds in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, and Turkey's
president Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to defeat the PKK. Now, after
several further massive terror attacks on an almost monthly basis,
Erdogan is becoming increasingly belligerent.

Two weeks ago, Turkey shut down the main opposition newspaper. ( "6-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media"
)

That act obviously did nothing to prevent Sunday's terror attack on
central Ankara, although it does make it more difficult anyone to know
what's going on in Turkey. That was all the more clear on Sunday when
the government shut down access to social media, including Facebook
and Twitter.

Either the PKK or ISIS is the likely perpetrator. Nobody has claimed
credit yet for Sunday's attack, but Turkish officials are suggesting
that the bomb was similar to the bomb used in the February 17 attack,
for which a branch of the PKK claimed credit. Erdogan issued this
statement:

<QUOTE>"Our state will never give up its right to
self-defense against all kinds of terror threats.

Terror organizations and their pawns are targeting our innocent
citizens in the most immoral and heartless way as they lose the
fight against our security forces.

Terror attacks - which intend to target the integrity of Turkey,
unity and solidarity of our people - do not diminish our will to
fight against terror, but further boost it.

[The country's fight against terrorism will] successfully conclude
by bringing down terror to its heel."<END QUOTE>

I doubt that anyone seriously believes that. Hurriyet (Ankara) and Anadolu (Turkey) and Reuters

****
**** AQIM takes credit for armed terror attack on Ivory Coast beach resort
****

Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the North African branch of
al-Qaeda, claimed credit for an attack by armed gunmen at a beach
resort in the town of Grand-Bassam in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) on
Sunday. There were 14 civilians, two special forces, and six
assailants killed in the assault and subsequent gunfight when security
forces arrived.

Tourists are increasingly under attack by jihadists in Africa. ISIS
was responsible for several terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year.
AQIM, whose roots are in Algeria, has been focusing on tourist sites
in former French colonies. It attacked a hotel in Mali in November,
and then a hotel and cafe in Burkina Faso in January. Côte d'Ivoire
borders both of those countries, and it was feared that AQIM would
strike there next, as happened on Sunday.

AQIM had been slowing down its activities until recent months. The
escalation of AQIM's operations coincides with the rise of ISIS in
Libya, and it's thought that AQIM and ISIS are in competition.
CNN and AP

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Ivory Coast, Côte d'Ivoire,
Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM,
Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Tunisia

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*** 15-Mar-16 World View -- Saudi's Prince Faisal sharply rebukes Obama's 'free riders' accusation

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Saudi's Prince Faisal sharply rebukes Obama's 'free riders' accusation
• The World View of President Barack Hussein Obama

****
**** Saudi's Prince Faisal sharply rebukes Obama's 'free riders' accusation
****


Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud

Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki bin al-Faisal Al Saud has written an
article strongly rebuking President Barack Obama's remarks branding as
"free-riders" who "aggravate" him several of America's allies,
including Britain, France and Saudi Arabia. The accusations appeared
in a lengthy Atlantic article by Jeffrey Goldberg, entitled "The Obama
Doctrine - The U.S. president talks through his hardest decisions
about America’s role in the world."

According to Faisal:

<QUOTE>"No, Mr. Obama. We are not “free riders.” We shared
with you our intelligence that prevented deadly terrorist attacks
on America.

We initiated the meetings that led to the coalition that is
fighting Fahish (ISIS), and we train and fund the Syrian freedom
fighters, who fight the biggest terrorist, Bashar Assad and the
other terrorists, Al-Nusrah and Fahish (ISIS). We offered boots on
the ground to make that coalition more effective in eliminating
the terrorists. ...

Your treasury department officials have publicly praised Saudi
Arabia’s measures to curtail any financing that might reach
terrorists. Our King Salman met with you, last September, and
accepted your assurances that the nuclear deal you struck with the
Iranian leadership will prevent their acquiring nuclear weapons
for the duration of the deal. You noted “the Kingdom’s leadership
role in the Arab and Islamic world.” The two of you affirmed the
“need, in particular, to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities.”

Now, you throw us a curve ball. You accuse us of fomenting
sectarian strife in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. You add insult to
injury by telling us to share our world with Iran, a country that
you describe as a supporter of terrorism and which you promised
our king to counter its “destabilizing activities.”

Could it be that you are petulant about the Kingdom’s efforts to
support the Egyptian people when they rose against the Muslim
Brothers’ government and you supported it? Or is it the late King
Abdullah’s (God rest his soul) bang on the table when he last met
you and told you “No more red lines, Mr. President.”

Or is it because you have pivoted to Iran so much that you equate
the Kingdom’s 80 years of constant friendship with America to an
Iranian leadership that continues to describe America as the
biggest enemy, that continues to arm, fund and support sectarian
militias in the Arab and Muslim world, that continues to harbor
and host Al-Qaeda leaders, that continues to prevent the election
of a Lebanese president through Hezbollah, which is identified by
your government as a terrorist organization, that continues to
kill the Syrian Arab people in league with Bashar Assad?

No, Mr. Obama. We are not the “free riders” that to whom you
refer. We lead from the front and we accept our mistakes and
rectify them. We will continue to hold the American people as our
ally and don’t forget that when the chips were down, and George
Herbert Walker Bush sent American soldiers to repel with our
troops Saddam’s aggression against Kuwait, soldiers stood shoulder
to shoulder with soldiers. Mr. Obama, that is who we
are."<END QUOTE>

According to the BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner, Obama's
criticism of the Saudis was "an extraordinary thing to say ... the
Saudis are really stung by this, and the fact that it's Turki
al-Faisal saying this needs to be taken seriously."

The BBC reporters have always been fawning idolaters of Obama, and the
easiest way to see this is to look back at the BBC's attitudes towards
President George Bush -- BBC reporters open ridiculing Bush with jokes to make him appear dumb,

and even Tony Blair blasting the BBC's anti-Americanism.
The contrast between the vitriolicly
hateful BBC then and the breathless adoration of Obama today is
enormous.

So Gardner chose his words very carefully when he was asked on the BBC
World News why Obama had made such a remarkable criticism of the
Saudis (my transcription):

<QUOTE>"Well, President Obama wants he Middle East legacy to
be that he's the guy that made peace with Iran, and brought Iran
in from the cold, and in a Middle East context, it's sort of like
Nixon reaching out to China. And he sees Saudis as being the
stumbling block in this. He's pretty fed up and feels that they
are being obstinate. He just wants to put the Saudis and the
Iranians in a room and say, guys, make peace, end your rivalry.
And that isn't going to happen, because if you look at the map --
Saudi Arabia feels as I mentioned they feel pretty much surrounded
actually. If you look at the map, there's Hezbollah, which is the
Iranian proxy in Lebanon, and they're also present in Syria, and
that's a war where you've got Shia militia loyal to Iran in Iraq,
so the Saudi fear is that Iran effectively controls five capitals
in the Middle East."<END QUOTE>

Just to be clear, the five capitals that Gardner refers to are Tehran
Iran, Baghdad Iraq, Damascus Syria, Beirut Lebanon, and Sanaa Yemen.
The Saudis are surrounded on all sides by Iranian proxies, a concept
to which Obama appears to be oblivious.

This is what I mean when I say that President Obama came into office
having no clue what's going on in the world, and after seven years
still has no clue what's going on in the world. It's almost as if
pieces of his mind are missing. He blames the Israeli leadership
because for preventing him from solving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, apparently not even aware that Hamas and Hezbollah are
building tunnels and amassing rockets to attack Israel, and he blames
the Saudis because the Saudis and Iranians don't get along. It simply
boggles the mind that he has no grasp of these things.

Just to be clear for new readers, I wrote in May 2003 in "Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace?"
that it would never work, because Generational Dynamics predicts that
Arabs and Jews would be refighting the 1948 war that followed the
partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. I
said that President Bush's peace plan would fail, so it shouldn't
surprise anyone that I'm pointing out that President Obama's peace
plan is failing. However, you would think that twelve years later,
after multiple Mideast wars between Israel and Hamas, Israel and
Hezbollah, and Fatah and Hamas, that Obama would begin to understand
these things, but he's totally oblivious to them. The Atlantic and Arab News and NBC News

****
**** The World View of President Barack Hussein Obama
****

The 22,000 word Atlantic article was apparently originally intended to
be more idolatrous praise of President Obama's foreign policy views,
but it turned out to unintentionally expose a great deal of ignorance,
balanced by arrogance and contemptuousness.

I'll take one of the most important examples, the flip-flop about
striking Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime when he killed hundreds of
people with Sarin gas, after Obama had said the use of chemical
weapons were a "red line" that would demand a response.

Obama says that the American experience in Vietnam influenced him: "So
we dropped more ordnance on Cambodia and Laos than on Europe in World
War II, and yet, ultimately, Nixon withdrew, Kissinger went to Paris,
and all we left behind was chaos, slaughter, and authoritarian
governments that finally, over time, have emerged from that hell."

The story has been told many times. Obama took a walk around
the White House lawn, and during the walk he decided to
renege on his commitment. He says:

<QUOTE>"I'm very proud of this moment. ... The perception was
that my credibility was at stake, that America's credibility was
at stake. And so for me to press the pause button at that moment,
I knew, would cost me politically."<END QUOTE>

So President Obama was mainly worried about politics. But credibility
was more than a perception. America's credibility WAS at stake. But
the decision to fight in Vietnam left behind "slaughter, and
authoritarian governments," but it never even occurs to him that his
flip-flop on chemical weapons ALSO caused "slaughter, and
authoritarian governments." The loss of American credibility
emboldened the jihadists that were coming from all over the world to
fight against al-Assad, and those jihadists formed the so-called
Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). But it never occurs to
him that it was his flip-flopping, and loss of American credibility,
that was a major contributor to the formation of ISIS.

Instead, he blames it on the French, the British, and the Saudis,
saying: "Free riders aggravate me." It's now been three years since
the flip-flop occurred, and Obama apparently has no idea what
happened.

Here are some other comments on the Atlantic article.

For CNN, Frida Ghitis wrote a generally laudatory article
on Obama's policies, but wrote:

<QUOTE>"Syria is a total catastrophe, with nearly half a
million dead, millions more displaced, the region destabilized,
refugee flows at levels not seen since World War II and a
terrorist group continuously surpassing its own level of
brutality. No, if Obama wants to talk about his accomplishments,
he should steer clear of Syria. ...

Obama clearly thinks highly of himself, as he should. ... In a
telling anecdote, Obama is sitting with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is lecturing him about the Middle East. He
interrupts him to say, "I'm the African-American son of a single
mother, and I live here, in this house. I live in the White
House. I managed to get elected president of the United
States. You think I don't understand what you're talking about,
but I do."<END QUOTE>

Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson wrote a lengthy point by
point critical analysis of the Obama doctrine in the Atlantic,
beginning with this:

<QUOTE>"It is a criticism I have heard from more than one
person who has worked with President Obama: that he regards
himself as the smartest person in the room -- any room. Jeffrey
Goldberg’s fascinating article reveals that this is a considerable
understatement. The president seems to think he is the smartest
person in the world, perhaps ever.

Power corrupts in subtle ways. It appears to have made Obama
arrogant. As described in Goldberg’s story, he is impatient to the
point of rudeness with members of his own administration. His
response to Secretary of State John Kerry when he hands him a
paper on Syria is: “Oh, another proposal?” “Samantha, enough,” he
snaps at [Samantha Powers], the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations. “I’ve already read your book.” We learn, too, that he
“secretly disdains ... the Washington foreign-policy
establishment.”"<END QUOTE>

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute writes:

<QUOTE>"The Obama that emerges from the Atlantic interview is
preternaturally icy, contemptuous of both his adversaries and his
own staff, thin-skinned, angry, and oddly self-satisfied. That
character portrait aside, it would have been nice if the article
had shed light on the worldview that governs Obama’s
decisions. Rather, it illuminated the fact that he doesn’t have a
worldview. Instead, the president of the United States has
opinions, and lots of them. And people he really doesn’t like, and
lots of them. And countries he thinks don’t count, like those that
make up the Sunni Middle East. ...

And seven years into his presidency, Obama clearly also still
defines himself as the anti-George W. Bush. One thread that
emerges in this portrait of the president is that seven years in,
when confronted with a challenge, he still silently asks himself,
“What would Bush do?” — and then does the opposite."<END QUOTE>

As I've written many times, I was fooled by Obama. When Obama was
campaigning in 2008 and said incredibly stupid things ("the earth will
heal and the tides will recede"), I assumed that those were just silly
campaign promises, and that if he won the election he'd become more
sensible. But what I didn't fully understand is that his, as is the
case of many Gen-Xers, his hatred of Boomers and his father's
generation is so deep that it trumps everything else, which has led to
one major foreign policy disaster after another. To this day, Obama
has no idea what's going on in the world, except that Bush is at
fault. Prince Faisal's remarks suggest as much.

Obama was going to unify the nation and make the world love America
again. He's failed disastrously, because somebody who is so driven by
hatred is going to make one stupid decision after another, and allow
campaign promises to become irrelevant. This is something that you
should think about, Dear Reader, as you decide whom to support for
President. The Atlantic and CNN and American Enterprise Institute


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Jeffrey Goldberg, Barack Obama,
Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki bin al-Faisal Al Saud,
BBC, Frank Gardner, Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, George Bush,
Britain, France, Iran,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Frida Ghitis, Niall Ferguson, Danielle Pletka, Samantha Power

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*** 16-Mar-16 World View -- Analysts wonder why Russia announced a partial withdrawal from Syria now

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russia announces a surprise partial military withdrawal from Syria
• Opinions vary on why Russia pulled back from Syria now

****
**** Russia announces a surprise partial military withdrawal from Syria
****


Russian fighter jets in Syria (dpa)

Catching almost everyone by surprise, Russia's president Vladimir
Putin issued the following statement on Monday:

<QUOTE>"I believe that the objectives set before the Defense
Ministry and the Armed Forces have on the whole been achieved. I
therefore order the Defense Minister to begin the withdrawal of
the main part of our task force from the Syrian Arab Republic
starting from tomorrow. ...

Meanwhile our bases, the naval one in Tartus and the air one at
the Humaymim aerodrome, will operate as before. They should be
reliably protected from the ground, from the sea and from the
air. This part of our military task force was traditionally
stationed in Syria, for many years before, and these days it will
have to perform the very important function of monitoring the
ceasefire and creating conditions for the peace
process."<END QUOTE>

Russia will keep its two military bases, and will continue to launch
air strikes as before. Other reports indicate that Russia will leave
its advanced S-400 air missiles would stay in Syria. These missiles
have a range of 400 km, which covers a great deal of Turkey, Iraq and
Israel. In addition, Russia's warships in the Caspian and
Mediterranean seas are expected to remain and be prepared to launch
cruise missiles. This means that Russia can re-deploy at any time, if
desired. Reuters and Eurasia Review

****
**** Opinions vary on why Russia pulled back from Syria now
****

Putin says "that the objectives set before the Defense Ministry and
the Armed Forces have on the whole been achieved," but nobody I heard
seriously believes that. The major stated objective was to "end
terrorism" in Syria, but al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra
Front) and the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh)
are both still active in Syria.

In fact, Russia never really targeted either al-Nusra or ISIS. Since
2011, when Syria's Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad began
massacring innocent Sunni women and children as if they were
cockroaches to be exterminated, Russia has simply joined in the
slaughter, flattening entire Sunni villages with missiles and
chlorine-laden barrel bombs, leaving the al-Nusra and ISIS free to
continue.

There's no question that one of Putin's objectives was a larger
influence and military presence in the Mideast, and with two military
bases in Syria protected by advanced S-400 missiles, he's certainly
met that objective. Another objective was to save Bashar al-Assad's
army from defeat, as the army was near collapse before the Russians
intervened.

But there were huge downsides for Russia as well, as I described last
year in "13-Sep-15 World View -- Russia opens a dangerous new chapter in Syria and the Mideast"
.

The Russians have no desired to be involved in another quagmire like
the one they were in during the 1980s in Afghanistan. The 1980s war
was portrayed by Salafists as a Christian country invading a Muslim
country. Many Salafists in Saudi Arabia went to fight Russia in
Afghanistan, and that led to the rise of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Today, Saudi Salafists portray Russia's intervention into Syria as,
once again, a Christian invasion of a Muslim country. This time, many
jihadists from Chechnya are receiving training in Syria, and are
prepared to use those skills back in Russia, and Putin may believe
that a partial withdrawal will slow that trend down.

Another issue is how long the fighting is going to go on. Russia's
economy is under severe pressure, and the government is rapidly
depleting its foreign reserves because of the collapse in the price of
oil. Russia simply cannot afford another military quagmire, even if
Putin wanted one.

Furthermore, now that Russia has its bases and missiles in place,
Putin may feel that there's no further need to continue fighting.
There have been many, many stories in the past few weeks that Putin
and the Obama administration are united in pushing the current Geneva
peace talks to bring the fighting to an end. As a byproduct, it's
hoped that this would bring an end to the tsunami of Syrian refugees
flooding into Turkey and the European Union.

This development has has implications with the regimes in both Syria
and Iran. According to some reports, neither al-Assad nor the
Iranians want to end fighting. Recall that al-Assad started
massacring peacefully protesting Sunni civilians in 2011 for reasons
that are hard to discern. If al-Assad wanted to massacred Sunni
civilians in 2011, then he would want to massacre Sunni civilians
today, for the same reason.

Iran is no different. Iranians have not forgotten the brutal
treatment they received from Saddam Hussein and the Sunnis in Iraq
during the 1980s Iran/Iraq war, and Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali
Khamenei may well have the same motivations as al-Assad.

Finally, it may be that even Vladimir Putin is sickened and disgusted
with supporting the greatest sociopath of the modern era. As I've
written many times,
Bashar
al-Assad is the greatest genocidal monster in today's world,
comparable to Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Stalin from the last
century. For years, he's been killing thousands of Syrian civilians
every week with complete impunity, using Russian-supplied barrel bombs
on civilian neighborhoods. And he's used sarin chemical weapons on
civilians. He uses the most gruesome forms of torture on a personal,
individual scale, as well as on a mass scale. There is no mass weapon
of destruction, nor any gruesome form of torture, that he won't use to
satisfy his psychopathy.

Putin and Khamenei have enthusiastically aided and supported these
horrendous crimes against humanity, but once possibility that we have
to consider that Putin, at least, can take only so much of al-Assad's
sickening sociopathy. So that's a possible personal motive of Putin
in announcing the partial withdrawal.

However, Syria's army was losing ground before Russia's intervention,
and Syria's army may start losing ground again. This is going to make
al-Assad and Khamenei very unhappy, and so it's possible that this
Russian withdrawal is not only partial but also temporary. Guardian (London) and Deutsche Welle (Berlin) and Debka and American Enterprise Institute


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Salafists,
al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Turkey, Israel, Iran, Seyed Ali Khamenei,
Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Stalin

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*** 17-Mar-16 World View -- Taliban reject Pakistan pressure on Afghanistan peace process

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Taliban reject Pakistan pressure on Afghanistan peace process
• Bomb blast in bus in Peshawar Pakistan kills 15

****
**** Taliban reject Pakistan pressure on Afghanistan peace process
****


Afghan soldiers stand guard Tuesday (AP)

As American and Nato forces withdraw from Afghanistan, an important
lynchpin of the "peace process" to bring peace between the Afghan
government and the Afghan Taliban is that the Pakistan can pressure
the Taliban to accept a peace deal. The Pakistanis have leverage over
the Taliban since the Afghan Taliban depend on safe havens in Pakistan
where they can avoid hot pursuit by Afghan security forces.

Pakistani officials met with the Taliban Supreme Council in a secret
meeting about two weeks ago, and threatened to expel Afghanistan's
Taliban from its bases in Pakistan if they did not join the Afghan
peace talks scheduled for early March. Instead, the Taliban rejected
the demands.

The reason is that, by this time, Pakistan's threat is pretty much an
empty threat. When the Nato and American forces were fully engaged in
Afghanistan, the Taliban had nowhere to hide in Afghanistan, and had
to flee to Pakistan. (The irony was that the the headquarters of the
Afghan Taliban was in Pakistan, while the headquarters of the Pakistan
Taliban was in Afghanistan.)

However, as American and Nato forces have been drawn down, the Taliban
have been taking control of more and more of Afghanistan. This means
that safe havens in Pakistan are not needed as much.

As we reported in December,
a
Department of Defense assessment found that the security situation in
Afghanistan was deteriorating, and this deterioration has continued.
The Taliban insurgency has expanded since foreign troops left the
country in 2014 and as Afghans have become increasingly fed up with a
government seen as weak and corrupt. Afghan army, police personnel
and security forces have suffered from heavy casualties, desertions
and low morale since then.

In November 2009, President Obama announced the "surge" that would
last for 18 months: "I have determined that it is in our vital
national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to
Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home."

To the surprise of no one, President Obama has been repeatedly forced
to extend the 18-month deadline. In the latest version of the
withdrawal plan, the US will maintain its current force of 9,800 in
the country through 2016, and after that will leave a force of 5,500
troops in place to train Afghan forces and conduct counter-terrorism
missions.

Currently, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan can strike the Taliban only
when its fighters pose a direct threat to U.S. forces or when Afghan
troops are in grave danger of being overrun. Gen. John F. Campbell,
the outgoing commander of U.S. and international forces in
Afghanistan, has made a request to broaden authorities to once again
permit offensive strikes against the Taliban. The request has
apparently been rejected by the White House, exposing what may be a
major rift between the military and senior administration officials
over the U.S. role in the war in Afghanistan.

For the Taliban, this is particularly bad timing for a "peace
process," since the warm weather is coming and the Taliban are about
to launch their annual fighting season. According to one senior
Taliban official:

<QUOTE>"We already have started focusing on the spring
offensive, and that's why the majority of the fighters and
commanders are going there (Afghanistan)."<END QUOTE>

The Taliban plan is to gain more territory. Whether the Afghan
Taliban will even need their safe havens in Pakistan in the fall
remains to be seen. Reuters and Washington Post and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India)

****
**** Bomb blast in bus in Peshawar Pakistan kills 15
****

In Pakistan, terrorist bomb explosions are almost as common as traffic
accidents, and Wednesday was no exception. A powerful bomb, detonated
by a timing mechanism, exploded in a bus carrying government employees
in Peshawar on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and causing
injuries to 25.

Lashkar-e-Islam, a militant group allied with the Pakistani Taliban,
claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to avenge a
military court's sentencing of 13 militants to death on March 15.

The bus is normally parked overnight at a petrol station, and that may
be when the bomb and timer were inserted. The police didn't inspect
the bus before it left on its route because it was privately-owned,
and it was the responsibility of the contractor to perform security
checks.

Peshawar has seen scores of attacks on civilians as well as law
enforcement personnel in the past. The city is also the home to the XI
Corps, an administrative corps of the Pakistan Army which manages all
military activity in KP and is currently engaged in a full-blown
operation against the Taliban in North Waziristan. Pakistan Today and Dawn (Pakistan) and RFE/RL


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Afghanistan, Taliban, Pakistan,
John F. Campbell, Peshawar, Lashkar-e-Islam

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*** 18-Mar-16 World View -- Saudi Arabia says it will 'end major combat operations' in Yemen

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Saudi Arabia says it will 'end major combat operations' in Yemen
• Over 100 civilians killed in Saudi airstrike in Yemen

****
**** Saudi Arabia says it will 'end major combat operations' in Yemen
****


Pro-Houthi Yemenis protest Saudi-led airstrikes (AP)

Saudi Arabia's Brig. Gen. Ahmad Al Assiri announced on Thursday that
major combat operations in Yemen are coming to an end, after which the
Saudi-led coalition will work on “long-term” plans to bring stability
to the country.

It was almost exactly a year ago, on March 26, that Saudi Arabia
announced that a 10-country coalition was conducting airstrikes in
Yemen.

Up until late 2014, Yemen had been governed by a government closely
allied with Saudi Arabia. In late 2014, the Iran-backed Shia Houthi
militias from northwest Yemen moved south and took control of the
capital city Sanaa, and then continue to move south, capturing
portions of the port city of Aden.

At the time, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the US, explained
the airstrikes: "We are determined to protect the legitimate
government of Yemen. Having Yemen fail cannot be option for us or for
our coalition partners."

After a year of war, most observers consider the war to have been a
failure. The Houthis are still in control of Sanaa, while other parts
of the country have gone back and forth between control of the two
sides. Furthermore, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has made
strong gains in the last year, and the so-called Islamic State (IS or
ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) is establishing a presence.

Still, the Saudis claim that they've met most of their objectives.
According to Yemeni army spokesperson, Brigadier Samir Al Haj:

<QUOTE>"Actually, we are at the threshold of fighting the
final battle to free Sanaa and the rest of the northern cities,
as well as Taiz.

Most probably, we don’t need major combat operations, and this is
a confirmation to the statement of Brigadier Al Assiri. ...

We are just few kilometers away from Sanaa."<END QUOTE>

It's hard to know what this means, since no analyst I'm aware
of believes that the Yemeni army and Saudi airstrikes have
a serious hope of recapturing Sanaa.

However, there have been reports in recent weeks of secret talks
between the Saudis and Houthis, and it's possible that Al Haj's
remarks are related not to a Saudi victory in Sanaa but to a peace
agreement, establishing some sort of unified government. Gulf News (Dubai) and Middle East Eye and VOA

****
**** Over 100 civilians killed in Saudi airstrike in Yemen
****

The death toll from three air strikes on Tuesday by the Saudi-led
coalition on an outdoor market in Houthi controlled Hajjah province in
northwest Yemen has risen to more than 100. Most of the casualties
were civilians, including 22 children.

This was one of the most deadly attacks by the Saudi-led coalition.
The Saudis insist that they never target civilians, but according to
the United nations, more than 6,200 people, half of them civilians,
have been killed in Yemen’s conflict since the Saudi-led intervention
began. Reuters and CNN and Independent (London)



================================================== ====================
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Houthis, Iran,
Ahmad Al Assiri, Adel al-Jubeir, Samir Al Haj, Jahhah,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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*** 19-Mar-16 World View -- Desperate European Union leaders sign refugee agreement with Turkey

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• EU will start returning migrants to Turkey on Sunday
• UN and others object to EU-Turkey deal on humanitarian grounds
• Greece's refugee camp at Idomeni becomes disgusting an explosive

****
**** EU will start returning migrants to Turkey on Sunday
****


Friday in Brussels: The three EU officials look grim. The only one smiling is the Turkey's prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, second from the left. (AFP)

Desperate to find a solution to the migrant crisis, the European Union
agreed to numerous demands by the government of Turkey and signed an
agreement that few believe will actually solve the migrant crisis.

Some of the terms of the agreement are as follows:

• Starting on Sunday (tomorrow), migrants crossing from Turkey
  to the Greek islands will be returned to Turkey:
  
  
  <QUOTE>"All new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into
  Greek islands as from 20 March 2016 will be returned to
  Turkey. This will take place in full accordance with EU and
  international law, thus excluding any kind of collective
  expulsion. All migrants will be protected in accordance with the
  relevant international standards and in respect of the principle
  of non-refoulement. It will be a temporary and extraordinary
  measure which is necessary to end the human suffering and restore
  public order.
  
  Migrants arriving in the Greek islands will be duly registered and
  any application for asylum will be processed individually by the
  Greek authorities in accordance with the Asylum Procedures
  Directive, in cooperation with UNHCR. Migrants not applying for
  asylum or whose application has been found unfounded or
  inadmissible in accordance with the said directive will be
  returned to Turkey."<END QUOTE>
• The "One for One" agreement: For every Syrian returned to Turkey,
  another Syrian will be resettled in the EU from Turkey. It's expected
  that tens of thousands of Syrian refugees will be resettled in the EU.
  Notice that the previous point refers to "migrants", while this one
  refers to "Syrians."
  
• Visa liberalization: Turkish citizens will be able to travel in
  the EU without a visa by the end of June 2016.
  
• The EU will pay Turkey 3 billion euros, disbursed as quickly as
  possible, followed possibly by another 3 billion.
  
• The EU and Turkey will "reenergize the accession process" to make
  Turkey a member of the European Union.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that the deal will hit the people
smugglers' business model hard and send a "clear message" to dissuade
would-be migrants to Europe. BBC and Reuters and Hurriyet (Ankara)

****
**** UN and others object to EU-Turkey deal on humanitarian grounds
****

The Office of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) immediately
issued a statement saying:

<QUOTE>"Today’s agreement clarifies a number of
elements. Importantly, it is explicit that any modalities of
implementation of the agreement will respect international and
European law. ...

Ultimately, the response must be about addressing the compelling
needs of individuals fleeing war and persecution. Refugees need
protection, not rejection."<END QUOTE>

Around 90% of those arriving in the Greek islands say they are fleeing
conflict, primarily from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. Under
international law, each person's case must be heard on an individual
basis, not as a group, because they may have very good reasons for
seeking protection.

Turkey is not a full member of the Geneva Convention. It does not
offer Syrians asylum, only a lesser form of international
protection. And other groups like Iraqis and Afghans don't even have
that option in Turkey. So while returning Syrians is questionable,
returning non-Syrians may be even more problematic.

Many officials on the EU side are objecting strongly to the agreement.
Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán has said that it must be
possible for a country (Hungary) to opt out of receiving any Syrian
refugees. Officials in France and other countries fear strong
anti-immigrant backlash if visa-free travel is permitted. The deal
could also affect the "Brexit" referendum vote on June 23 over whether
Britain should exit the European Union. As a separate issue, Turkey
will have to recognize the Greek-Cypriot government in Nicosia, which
it has not done to date.

Other officials are concerned that Turkey is becoming an increasingly
authoritarian government, as president Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to
amass more and more power. Europeans were especially shocked earlier
this month when Erdogan's government seized the country's largest
opposition newspaper. ( "6-Mar-16 World View -- Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media"
)

Some people claim that the EU-Turkey deal may help in the short term,
but will have little or no impact on the long term.

There are about 3 million Syrian refugees living in squalid conditions
in refugee camps in Turkey. Many of them are determined to reach
Europe. If they can't reach Europe via the Greek islands, then they
may take other routes, including a boat trip from Libya across the
Mediterranean. Whatever international law permits about returning
refugees to Turkey, the law is going to be much stricter about
returning refugees to Libya.

Another problem is that the agreement really only covers Syrian
refugees. There are thousands of refugees from wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan also traveling through Turkey to Greece, and there are
refugees from countries in Africa as well. No solution has been
proposed for these refugees. United Nations
and AP and BBC

****
**** Greece's refugee camp at Idomeni becomes disgusting an explosive
****

Reports indicate that incidents of violence and fights between groups
are increasing in Greece's refugee camp at Idomeni. Idomeni is a
small village on the border with Macedonia, where thousands of
refugees who had hoped to cross the border into Macedonia and proceed
northward to Germany have been blocked.

Conditions have gotten significantly worse in the last few days
because of several days of rain, creating six inches of mud, while
portable toilets are becoming increasingly foul.

Greece's interior minister Panagiotis Kouroumplis says that the
Idomeni camp is a modern version of the Dachau camp operated by the
Nazis in Germany. He blamed the problem on the European countries
that have closed their borders.

After Friday's refugee between the EU and Turkey was signed, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged migrants to leave the Idomeni camp:

<QUOTE>"I want to take the opportunity to tell the refugees
at Idomeni that they should trust the Greek government and move to
other accommodation where the conditions will be significantly
better. ... From there, Greece will put asylum procedures in
motion or redistribution to other European countries will take
place."<END QUOTE>

Many refugees have risked everything because they wish to reach a
specific country, usually Germany. Moving to the "other accomodation"
would require applying to asylum and risking remaining in Greece or
being sent back to Turkey. Kathimerini and Lawfare Blog and AP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, European Union, Turkey, Germany, Greece,
Angela Merkel, Ahmet Davutoglu, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, Libya, Greece, Idomeni,
Panagiotis Kouroumplis

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*** 20-Mar-16 World View -- Istanbul terrorist attack is the latest in a string of attacks on Turkey

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Istanbul terrorist attack is the latest in a string of attacks on Turkey
• Israel participating in investigation of Istanbul attack

****
**** Istanbul terrorist attack is the latest in a string of attacks on Turkey
****


Police secure the shopping and tourist district in central Istanbul after Saturday's bombing (Reuters)

Five people were killed and 39 others were injured in a suicide bomb
attack on Saturday in the heart of the business district in Istanbul,
Turkey. Among those killed were foreign nationals: three Israeli
citizens and one Iranian.

This is only the latest in a series of major terrorist attacks in
Turkey's cities in the last few months.

There was a suicide car bombing in Ankara last Sunday that killed 37
people, and another one in Ankara on February 17, killing 30 people.
Both of those attacks were claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons
(TAK), a splinter group from the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK), which has been engaged in violence with the Turkish government
for three decades.

On October 10 of last year, there was a massive terror attack at a
'peace rally' in Ankara that killed 103 people. It was referred to as
the worst terrorist massacre in Turkey's history, or as "Turkey's
9/11." In that case, the attack was blamed on the so-called Islamic
State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). ( "13-Oct-15 World View -- Turkey is seen as increasingly unstable after Ankara massacre"
)

So either TAK or ISIS may be responsible for Saturday's attack in
Istanbul, though neither has yet claimed responsibility.

However, Turkish authorities suspect that the suicide bomber was Savas
Yildis, a 33 year old terrorist. Authorities have detained Yildis'
father and obtained a blood sample in order to verify that Yildis was
among those killed in the bombing. Yildis was a suspected ISIS member
and is suspected of involvement in two previous attacks in Turkey last
year, in the cities of Mersin and Adana. Hurriyet (Turkey) and Times of Israel and Daily Mail (London)

****
**** Israel participating in investigation of Istanbul attack
****

Because three Israelis were killed in the attack, the investigation
will attempt to determine whether Israelis were specifically targeted.
The Israelis were reportedly part of a group of 14 Israeli tourists on
a culinary tour.

Saturday's attack was clearly targeting tourists. If the PKK/TAK was
responsible, it would represent a change in tactics. In the past, PKK
violence has attacked military targets, so civilian targets are a new
tactic. The TAK have warned foreigners about supporting the country's
tourism industry which the group says feeds the Erdogan regime.

In December, Israel and Turkey reached an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations
between the
two countries. Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with Israel
after the deaths of nine Turkish citizens on May 31, 2010, in a
confrontation between Israel's navy and the boat Mavi Marmara in a
flotilla headed for Gaza in violation of Israel's Gaza blockade.
Since then, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has specified three
conditions that Israel would have to fulfill, in order to restore
normal relations: Israel would have to apologize, pay monetary
compensation to the families of the victims, and lift the blockade of
Gaza. December's agreement mentioned only the first two of these
three conditions.

The Mavi Marmara incident was a major news story for a long time in
2010, but now with a thousands of people being killed every day in
Syria, with millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey attempting to reach
Europe, and with hundreds of Turkish citizens being killed in a series
of terrorist attacks by the PKK/TAK and ISIS, the Mavi Marmara
incident is but a footnote to the events of the 2010s decade.

In the last year, Turkish resorts have become a popular destination
for Israeli tourists, especially during the spring vacation. This is
especially true now, after the shootdown by Turkey of a Russian
warplane on November 25 of last year, sharply reducing the number of
Russian tourists visiting Turkey. International Business Times and CS Monitor and Debka and Foreign Policy


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Ankara, Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, TAK,
Savas Yildis, Israel, Mavi Marmara, Gaza, Russia

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*** 21-Mar-16 World View -- Pentagon to expand a secret military firebase in Iraq after Marine killed

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• In Greece, banks can charge you for making change
• Pentagon to expand a secret military firebase in Iraq after Marine killed
• Whom to support for President?

****
**** In Greece, banks can charge you for making change
****


Exchanging a 500-euro note for smaller bills can set you back five euros in Greece

Banks in Greece are collecting a commission of 1.5% when changing
500-euro bills for notes of lower denominations. The charge is 3-5
euros (depending on the bank), while the maximum charge comes to
200-250 euros.

During last year's Greek bank crisis, when people feared that they
would lose all their savings, many people withdrew their savings in
500-euro notes, because large notes are easier to store under
mattresses. So now they want to cash those 500-euro notes in, but are
being charged a commission to do so. The banks say that the
administrative cost of supplying their branches around the country
with smaller banknotes is unusually high at present with the capital
controls still in place. Kathimerini

****
**** Pentagon to expand a secret military firebase in Iraq after Marine killed
****

On Saturday, Sgt. Louis F. Cardin of the 26th Marine Expeditionary
Unit, Camp Lejeune, was killed in Iraq by a rocket fired by the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) from 15 km away.
Several other Marines were wounded. A second rocket fell harmlessly
to the ground.

The Pentagon had initially announced Cardin's death as being from
"indirect fire," but the death has revealed the existence of a
previously secret firebase in Iraq, occupied by a "couple of hundred"
Marines living in tents near Makhmour in northern Iraq. ISIS had
apparently identified the firebase by observing soldiers moving
around. The Pentagon plans to expand the firebase further with
Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to fight ISIS.

A "firebase" is a small remote location designed to use its artillery
to support infantry troops at forward locations. The Pentagon says
that they had planned to reveal the existence of the firebase later
this week.

President Obama has said many times that there would never be "any
kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground." Like
many of his campaign promises, his promises of complete withdrawal
from Iraq and Afghanistan have not been kept.

Cardin is the second American that has been killed in combat with ISIS
in Iraq since the U.S. reentered the country in late 2014. In October
of last year Master Sergeant Joshua L. Wheeler was killed by enemy
small-arms fire during a raid that freed 70 hostages from ISIS
captivity in northern Iraq. Washington Post and CNN and "ABC News

****
**** Whom to support for President?
****

In response to my recent article, "15-Mar-16 World View -- Saudi's Prince Faisal sharply rebukes Obama's 'free riders' accusation"
, a web site reader has
posted a response:

<QUOTE>Whom to support for President of the US?? Let's see
our choices are:

• A woman who should be elected just because she's a woman
  even though she has thrown any and all fellow women under the bus
  if they've had any involvement with her husband - including rape!
  Oh and by the way she's being investigated by 100+ FBI agents for
  a variety of things - things that if any normal person had done
  they would be in prison for now. A GREAT choice.
  
• Another narcissist - one of the most insulting and
  inflammatory individuals I've ever seen in politics. Any time any
  one disagrees with him - he responds with personal attacks. He has
  no coherent policy - but a great slogan. Oh.. and although most
  Republicans really aren't racist, he actually is. And people love
  him because he tells it like it is.
  
• A loonie but nice old fellow who has never had a real job. Who
  thinks money grows on trees and the rich ought to just give
  everything they have to the government. Oh.. and he thinks all our
  wars are caused by global warming and the solution to our problems
  is go to deeper into debt. But he does seem to be the most honest
  and sincere of the candidates - maybe..
  
• A fellow who really hasn't been in government long enough to
  do anything productive - but he sure has figured out how to piss
  all his colleagues off by his insistence of following his own set
  of rules and looking out for what's best for him. So much so, that
  behind the scenes several seem to be saying that they would rather
  have the opponent win. But hey - it's not like the President of
  the US has to actually get along with anyone and compromise right?
  I mean President Obama sure hasn't made that a priority.
  
• Another fellow that hasn't had much of a real job, and doesn't
  show up to vote for the job he currently has either - because he's
  too busy trying to get a promotion. He looks pretty, talks nice,
  spends personal money like there's no tomorrow and likes his
  perks. I'm pretty sure within 48 hours he's going to hang it up
  anyway and go do something else (likely on a government paycheck)
  with his life. Ain't America great?
  
• A seasoned politician that seems to mostly like the status
  quo. The status quo that has the citizens so upset they are mostly
  lining up behind two crazies. He mostly talks nice, has something
  of a decent record - at least he hasn't totally screwed his state
  up. Of course he's pretty much in last place.

Yep a great set of choices we have.<END QUOTE>

It's an exercise for the reader to match up the descriptions with
the candidates.


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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

whom to support for President?
Let's see our choices are:

• A woman who should be elected just because she's a woman
  even though she has thrown any and all fellow women under the bus
  if they've had any involvement with her husband - including rape!
  Oh and by the way she's being investigated by 100+ FBI agents for
  a variety of things - things that if any normal person had done
  they would be in prison for now. A GREAT choice.
• Another narcissist - one of the most insulting and
  inflammatory individuals I've ever seen in politics. Any time any
  one disagrees with him - he responds with personal attacks. He has
  no coherent policy - but a great slogan. Oh.. and although most
  Republicans really aren't racist, he actually is. And people love
  him because he tells it like it is.
• A loonie but nice old fellow who has never had a real job. Who
  thinks money grows on trees and the rich ought to just give
  everything they have to the government. Oh.. and he thinks all our
  wars are caused by global warming and the solution to our problems
  is go to deeper into debt. But he does seem to be the most honest
  and sincere of the candidates - maybe..
• A fellow who really hasn't been in government long enough to
  do anything productive - but he sure has figured out how to piss
  all his colleagues off by his insistence of following his own set
  of rules and looking out for what's best for him. So much so, that
  behind the scenes several seem to be saying that they would rather
  have the opponent win. But hey - it's not like the President of
  the US has to actually get along with anyone and compromise right?
  I mean President Obama sure hasn't made that a priority.
• Another fellow that hasn't had much of a real job, and doesn't
  show up to vote for the job he currently has either - because he's
  too busy trying to get a promotion. He looks pretty, talks nice,
  spends personal money like there's no tomorrow and likes his
  perks. I'm pretty sure within 48 hours he's going to hang it up
  anyway and go do something else (likely on a government paycheck)
  with his life. Ain't America great?
• A seasoned politician that seems to mostly like the status
  quo. The status quo that has the citizens so upset they are mostly
  lining up behind two crazies. He mostly talks nice, has something
  of a decent record - at least he hasn't totally screwed his state
  up. Of course he's pretty much in last place.

Yep a great set of choices we have.

-- I'm going with candidate #3. Kasich ain't all that, btw

Originally Posted by marypoza

[/I][/INDENT]

-- I'm going with candidate #3. Kasich ain't all that, btw

Why are women so attracted to loonies?