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*** 12-Jul-17 World View -- China threatens military intervention in Kashmir on the side of Pakistan

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Thousands flee homes in Kashmir as Pakistan-India shelling escalates
  
• China threatens military intervention in Kashmir on the side of Pakistan
  

****
**** Thousands flee homes in Kashmir as Pakistan-India shelling escalates
****


Long lines of pilgrims visiting the Amarnath shrine in 2016. Inside the 40 m (130 ft) high cave, water drops from melting snow fall from the roof of the cave to the floor, creating a stalagmite that grows upward.

Thousands of people have fled their homes in the Pakistan side of the
Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir and Jammu, because of continued
shelling across the LoC between India and Pakistan. About 80% of four
villages along the LoC have fled.

On the other side of the LoC, in India-controlled Kashmir, Indian
security forces clashed with stone-throwing protesters on Saturday.
Saturday was the one-year anniversary of the death on July 8, 2016, of
Burhan Wani, 22, a 22-year-old commander in the separatist militia
Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), after being shot in a gunfight with Indian
security forces. Since then, dozens of civilians have been killed,
thousands of Kashmiris have been blinded in one or both eyes by pellet
guns used by Indian security forces, and thousands of youths have been
arrested.

On Monday, India was shocked after Kashmiri militants killed 7 Hindu
pilgrims traveling by bus to Hindu's holiest shrine, the Amarnath
Temple. Each year, over 200,000 people make the Amarnath Yatra
(pilgrimage) to the shrine, at an altitude of 3,888 meters. Terror
attacks on the pilgrims have been extremely rare because both Hindus
and Muslims respect the shrine.

Security personnel are expecting more violence tomorrow (Wednesday),
when Kashmiri Muslims mark "Kashmir Martyrs' Day," the anniversary of
the July 13, 1931, when dozens of Muslims were killed in a
confrontation with British security forces.

Although there have been a continuing clashes between Kashmiris and
Indian security forces, so far there hasn't been the explosion that
some people have feared this summer, and many people are hoping that
things will remain steady until winter comes and brings respite from
the violence for another season.

Indian security forces have come under harsh criticism for failing to
control the violence in the past year, and also for using pellet guns
that blinded hundreds of people. In February of this year, the police
tried a new policy -- meeting the parents of potential militants in
the hope of gaining their cooperation in convincing these young people
that violence is not the right path. At that time, an estimated 80
youths were believed to have joined militant outfits.

The plan was announced by Kashmir's Director General of Police (DGP)
Shesh Paul Vaid, who said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We won't like to harm our own children. We are
> reaching out to the parents and requesting them to convince their
> children for shunning the path of violence. In few cases, we have
> achieved success also. We want that our children should fight in
> debates, competitive exams and not with guns.
>
> I have made appeals through my district Superintendents of Police
> and conveyed that all missing cases need to be verified on ground
> and corrective steps to be taken. Our first attempt is always
> humanitarian so that we can bring misguided children back. We have
> given an assurance that a lenient view will be taken in case the
> youths surrender voluntarily."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

This approach appeared promising, but it has not been particularly
effective. Last month, India announced Operation All-Out,
a massive police operation "to deliver
a lethal blow to terrorism ... with a long-term plan for a lasting
peace in the trouble-torn Valley." This was never going to work, and
encourages tit-for-tat violence.

As I've written several times,

from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Kashmir is replaying
previous generations of violence according to a fairly standard
template. India's previous two generational crisis wars were India's
1857 Rebellion, which pitted Hindu nationalists against British
colonists, and the 1947 Partition War, one of the bloodiest wars of
the 20th century, pitting Hindus versus Muslims, when the British
colonists partitioned the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan.
Kashmir is at the heart of a re-fighting of those two wars, and there
is nothing that the Indian security forces can do to prevent it.
AFP and Washington Post and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) Times of India

Related Articles

• India's 'Operation All-Out' brings Kashmir closer to all-out war (24-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Kashmir violence surges as India launches massive house-to-house sweep (06-May-2017)
  
  
• Police clashes in India-governed Kashmir kill 36 and leave thousands injured (14-Jul-2016)
  
  
• Uprising in Kashmir growing into major regional war between India and Pakistan (01-Apr-2017)
  

****
**** China threatens military intervention in Kashmir on the side of Pakistan
****

We've been reporting
a standoff
between India's army and China's army on Doklam plateau in the tiny
country of Bhutan. China is attempting to annex the region, and on
June 16 sent Chinese troops and construction workers to begin road
construction. Bhutan troops tried to prevent the Chinese troop
incursion, but they were overrun. Bhutan invoked a treaty with India
and asked for help. India sent in its own troops, creating a
standoff, though no bullets have been fired. Neither the Chinese nor
the Indians appear ready to back down.

A Chinese official, Long Xingchun, is threatening to use the situation
on the Doklam plateau as justification for China to invade Kashmir on
the side of Pakistan:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Indian troops invaded China's Doklam area in the name
> of helping Bhutan, but in fact the invasion was intended to help
> India by making use of Bhutan. ...
>
> India controls Bhutan's defense and diplomacy, seriously violating
> Bhutan's sovereignty and national interests. Indians have migrated
> in large numbers to Nepal and Bhutan, interfering with Nepal's
> internal affairs. The first challenge for Nepal and Bhutan is to
> avoid becoming a state of India, like Sikkim. ...
>
> Even if India were requested to defend Bhutan's territory, this
> could only be limited to its established territory, not the
> disputed area. Otherwise, under India's logic, if the Pakistani
> government requests, a third country's army can enter the area
> disputed by India and Pakistan, including India-controlled
> Kashmir."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

At this point, we have to remind readers that China is an
international criminal, annexing the territories of other countries in
the South China Sea, and building illegal military bases, in violation
of international law as determined by a 2016 ruling by the United
Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague, which
declared China's activities in the South China Sea to be illegal.
China has used extortion and military force against some Central Asian
countries to annex territories. China had apparently hoped to bully
Bhutan to give up its territory without a fight, and is now furious
that India is defending Bhutan's territory.

So now China is threatening India, saying that if India can send
troops into Bhutan, then China can send troops into Kashmir. It's
hard to see any way that this can end well. Global Times (Beijing) and New Delhi TV and South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG - India)

Related Articles

• China and India have military confrontation over Bhutan's Doklam plateau (08-Jul-2017)
  
  
• As Narendra Modi visits Washington, China threatens India after border clash (28-Jun-2017)
  
  
• China's 'thuggery' transforms Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement into independence movement (30-Aug-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Jammu,
Line of Control, LoC, Amarnath shrine, Kashmir Martyr's Day,
Burhan Wani, Hizbul Mujahideen, Shesh Paul Vaid,
China, Bhutan, Doklam plateau, Long Xingchun

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 13-Jul-17 World View -- China establishes its first foreign military base, in Djibouti

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China establishes its first foreign military base, in Djibouti
  
• Russia, India, Japan prepare for war with China
  

****
**** China establishes its first foreign military base, in Djibouti
****


Chinese soldiers stand guard at a military port in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, on Tuesday, as warships with soldiers depart for Djibouti (Reuters)

Ships carrying Chinese military personnel are being sent to Djibouti
to set up a "logistics support base" to "ensure China's performance of
missions, such as escorting, peace-keeping and humanitarian aid in
Africa and west Asia." The base is clearly a military base, although
Chinese media and officials are denying that. In fact, Western media
are referring to it as China's first military base outside of China.

On Wednesday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang denied
that there was any military expansion:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"[The] establishment of this base is mainly aimed to
> enable China to better perform its escort missions in the Gulf of
> Aden and Somali waters as well as humanitarian relief and to make
> greater contributions to the peace and stability of Africa and
> beyond. In addition, I would like to reiterate that China stays
> committed to the path of peaceful development and follows a
> defensive national defense policy. This remains
> unchanged."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Apparently Geng Shuang thinks that all of us in the West are so stupid
that we don't remember that China told us exactly the same garbage
about the South China Sea artificial islands. We were told that they
were some sort of environmental project, with no military purpose
whatsoever. Now those artificial islands are huge military bases
bristling with missiles and aircraft, in clear violation of
international law, as determined by a 2016 ruling by the United
Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague, which
declared China's activities in the South China Sea to be illegal
Today, it's clear that China is planning further criminal activity in
the South China Sea, including launching military assaults to take
full control of the entire South China Sea.

So now Geng Shuang thinks we're going to believe the same laughable
nonsense about the Djibouti military base. Even more laughable is
that Chinese media are weeping and whining, complaining about media
bias. The Global Times says that "Many of the Western media has
described China's Djibouti facility as a military base and referred to
the move as military expansionism," and quotes Xu Guangyu, a military
official as saying that Western media reports on the base show their
prejudice:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"China's base in Djibouti has basic differences with
> military bases of other countries in scale, function and
> equipment. Compared with the specialized function of logistics
> support of the Chinese base, other military bases station more
> troops and fighters and conduct military training. ...
>
> Whether a country needs to build an overseas base should come out
> of its own concerns and it merely involves bilateral talks with
> the other nation. Why do some Western countries make carping
> comments about China's first overseas base, while they already
> have many?"<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Again, this is exactly the same kinds of things we heard from China
when China was building illegal military bases in the South China Sea.

Ironically, what makes the above whining by Xu Guangyu even more
laughable is that it's contradicted by Chinese language editions of
the Global Times:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"People's Liberation Army in Djibouti base 11 was set
> up.... This is the People's Liberation Army overseas base zero
> breakthrough, and thus subject to a lot of attention.
>
> We note that the base of the People's Liberation Army in Djibouti
> was described as a "base of protection" and was not addressed as a
> "military base". It is worth pondering.
>
> First of all, it is indeed the People's Liberation Army's first
> overseas base, where China will garrison. It is not a commercial
> supply point. It is justified by foreign public opinion that the
> base can support the Chinese navy to go further and thus be
> significant."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The Djibouti naval military base is the perfect endpoint to China's
"string of pearls," commercial deep-water ports in the Indian Ocean
that China could use in time of wars. Many of these ports were built
and often are operated by Chinese companies. These include deep-water
ports in Sri Lanka, in Colombo and Hambantota; Pakistan, in Gwadar and
Karachi; Myanmar, in Sittwe; and the Seychelles, in Port Victoria.
The Gwadar port in Pakistan is expected to be upgraded to a full
Chinese military base soon.

China's base in Djibouti is at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on
the route to the Suez Canal. Thus, in time of war, China will be able
to block traffic through the Suez Canal.

Hosting foreign military bases is big business for Djibouti, which
also hosts American, Japanese and French bases. Xinhua and CNN and China's Foreign Ministry and Global Times (Beijing) - (Trans)

Related Articles

• Djibouti, Eritrea border clash looms after Qatar withdraws peacekeepers (17-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Concerns grow about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) (10-Jun-2017)
  
  
• China and India have military confrontation over Bhutan's Doklam plateau (08-Jul-2017)
  

****
**** Russia, India, Japan prepare for war with China
****

Each year since 1992, the United States and India have deployed
warships, submarines and aircraft as part of the joint Malabar
exercises in the Bay of Bengal, adjacent to India and the Indian Ocean.
Because of the increased military threat from China, the military
exercises are the largest in 22 years, and will include Japan for only
the second time. The week-long series of war games will involve a
total of 16 ships -- including the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz, India's
INS Vikramanditya, a reconditioned Russian-built aircraft carrier, and
Japan's JS Izumo, a helicopter carrier with an emphasis on
anti-submarine warfare -- as well as two submarines and more than 95
aircraft.

Most readers won't find it surprising that India and Japan are
preparing for war with China, but may be more surprised that Russia is
also preparing for war with China.

If China and Russia have friendly relations, it's only because of a
transitory "honor among thieves" phenomenon. Both of these countries
are doing what Hitler did -- invading and annexing territories
belonging to other countries -- and so they support each other's
criminal activities in the UN Security Council. When Hitler did it,
it led to World War II. China and Russia are no different. What
China and Russia are doing is one of the factors leading to World War
III.

However, the fact that Russia and China are supporting each other in
criminal activities does not mean that they are going to be allies in
any future war.

Russia and China have been historic enemies for centuries, at least
since the Mongols conquered the Han Chinese in 1206, merged with them
culturally, and then went on to brutally attack the Russians. Those
wars are not forgotten today, and Russians and Chinese have deep
hatreds for each other that will not be mitigated by a brief period of
mutual support in the UN Security Council. In fact, China and Russia
almost had a full scale war with each other in the 1960s.

In early June 2017, Russian media reported that the powerful
road-mobile 9K720 Iskander-M missile system was installed in Russia's
Eastern Military District. This joins three other major missile
installations that took place in 2013, 2015 and 2016, respectively.
These installations have very limited ability to strike American or
Japanese targets. Their only logical purpose is to strike China.
Indeed, the system’s ability to deliver a wide range of cluster
munitions makes it particularly suitable for use against People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) armor and infantry in the event of an armed
confrontation.

In 2014, Russia held the massive Vostok military exercises in the Far
East, explaining that the military drills were necessary to prepare
for war with the United States. And yet, the assets deployed during
this exercise were more consistent with preparing for a defense of the
Far East, a region that America would be unlikely to invade if it
wanted to invade Russia at all. The only state actor that against
which such a defense is needed is China. And so it appears that
Russia and China claim that they're each preparing for war with the
United States, but they're also preparing for war with each other.
CNN and The Diplomat and Lowy Institute (Australia)

Related Articles

• Mongol invasion of China in 1206 has impact today (06-Dec-2010)
  
  
• Vietnam buys cruise missiles from Russia to threaten China (02-May-2015)
  
  
• Russia's concerns about China's 'invasion' of the Far East continue (21-Jun-2015)
  
  
• Russia holds massive Vostok 2014 military exercises amid anti-US hysteria (26-Sep-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Djibouti, Geng Shuang,
South China Sea, United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration, PCA,
Xu Guangyu, Gwadar port, Pakistan, Red Sea, Suez Canal,
India, Japan, Malabar exercises, 9K720 Iskander-M missile system,
Vostok 2014 military exercises

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 14-Jul-17 World View -- Turkey's assault on Kurds in Afrin, Syria, may jeopardize the battle in Raqqa

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey threatens the Kurds in Afrin, Syria, with Operation Euphrates Sword
  
• Turkey's assault on Afrin may jeopardize the battle in Raqqa
  

****
**** Turkey threatens the Kurds in Afrin, Syria, with Operation Euphrates Sword
****


Map showing areas of control in Syria for government, ISIS, Kurds and rebels. Afrin is north eastern Syria in the region shown in yellow in the top-left. (al-Jazeera)

Turkey has for months talked about an assault on the Kurdish-held city
of Afrin in Syria's northeast, near the border with Turkey, and there
are signs that the assault is imminent. (Afrin is in the northeast
region shown in yellow on the above map.)

Turkish forces and Kurdish forces north of Afrin have been exchanging
cross-border fire for weeks, and early this week a convoy of six
military vehicles was sent as reinforcements to a city on Turkey's
border with Syria. Over the weekend, Turkey's president
Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a press conference at the G20 summit
in Hamburg, Germany. Kurds in Syria have links to the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been designated a
terrorist group by America and countries in Europe, and which
have conducted terrorist actions and low-level violence in
Turkey for 30 years.

Erdogan considers all Kurds in Syria to be terrorists. He called
Afrin a "threat" to Turkey and left little doubt that the assault on
Afrin is going to occur:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We will never remain silent or unresponsive to the
> backing and arming of terrorist groups, and the formation of
> terror islets right next to our border.
>
> We will not hesitate to use our legitimate right to defense
> against formations that threaten our country’s security. We will
> not allow a YPG threat. Afrin is a threat for us, we will give the
> necessary response.
>
> As long as this threat continues, we will activate our rules of
> engagement and will continue to give the necessary answer to those
> in Afrin."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The military operation against Afrin and Kurdish enclaves and militias
is called Operation Euphrates Sword, which has not yet begun, but may
begin at any time. Turkey claims that the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF)
and Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies have amassed a force of 17,000
fighters for the assault.

Last year, Turkey launched an earlier operation, Operation Euphrates
Shield, whose purpose was to prevent the Kurds from taking control of
Syria's entire northern border, and declaring an independent Kurdish
state called Rojava. The result was that Turkish-backed rebel forces
have control of the light blue area in the map above, on the border
with Turkey, but separating the two regions controlled by the Kurds.

Although Turkey prevented the Kurds from taking control of that light
blue area, Turkey is still concerned that the Kurds might still link
the two yellow regions by going further south. The assault on Afrin
will prevent that.

The assault on Afrin could be very difficult, long and bloody,
according to some analysts. Afrin is heavily defended by Kurdish
militias, and the terrain too rugged, covered with forests and olive
groves, for easy movement of armored vehicles. AFP(9-July) and Reuters and Yeni Safak (Ankara) and Arab News

Related Articles

• Turkey builds a northern Syria 'National Army' from Free Syrian Army militias (31-May-2017)
  
  
• Turkey's warplanes strike Kurdish militias fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq (26-Apr-2017)
  
  
• Turkey's 'Operation Euphrates Shield' turns into full-scale invasion of Syria (26-Aug-2016)
  

****
**** Turkey's assault on Afrin may jeopardize the battle in Raqqa
****

As we've been reporting, the battle to liberate Raqqa from the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) is ongoing, led
by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which contains some Arabs and
mostly Kurds from the People's Protection Units (YPG).

According to some reports, some 3,000 fighters from Afrin are
taking part in the operation to expel ISIS from Raqqa. If
Turkey's assault on Afrin begins, those 3,000 fighters are
expected to leave Raqqa and return to defend Afrin. This would
put the Raqqa operation in jeopardy.

For this reason, the US has asked Turkey to delay the assault on Afrin
as long as possible, so that the attack on Raqqa can be completed.
Turkey sees this from the opposite direction. Turkish officials say
that the Afrin assault has to take place as quickly as possible, while
the Kurdish forces are still tied up in Raqqa.

The US is using the Kurds in Raqqa because they've proven to be the
most effective fighting force against ISIS. This infuriated Turkish
officials, who wanted to have their Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters
lead the operation. They also strongly objected to giving US weapons
to the YPG, because some will ultimately end up in the hands of PKK
terrorists in Turkey.

Because the attack on Afrin has not yet taken place, there
has been a great deal of speculation, including the following
from different reports:

• Some analysts are suggesting that because of the complexity of
  the operation, Turkey has no intention of attacking Afrin, but is
  using the threat of an attack as a bluff to gain concessions.
  
  
• According to some reports, Russia had stationed troops in
  Afrin to prevent the Turkish operation, but withdrew them two
  months ago because the Russians are angry at the Kurds for
  working so well with the Americans.
  
  
• Another report says that Russia withdrew its troops in a
  tit-for-tat exchange to buy cooperation from the Turks in
  planned operations in Idlib later this year.
  
  
• A variation of that report says that Iran and Russia are willing
  to hand over Afrin to Turkey "in exchange for concessions" in other
  parts of Syria, especially related to Russia's de-escalation
  zones.
  
  
• The Kurds took control of Afrin in 2013, by driving the Syrian
  regime army out. Another report says that Russia is asking the Kurds
  to hand Afrin back to the Syrian regime in order to stop the attacks
  from Turkey.

Much of this speculation will only be resolved if and when the
military operations in Afrin and Raqqa are completed. Jerusalem Post and Kurdistan 24 and Daily Sabah (Turkey) and Sputnik News (Moscow)

Related Articles

• In dramatic development, US warplanes smash fortified wall in Raqqa, Syria (05-Jul-2017)
  
  
• US will 'quickly' arm Kurdish militias in Syria, despite Turkey's opposition (11-May-2017)
  
  
• Final push to expel ISIS from Raqqa, Syria, to begin in June (16-May-2017)
  
  
• US-backed Kurdish militias in Syria make surprise announcement of Raqqa operation (07-Nov-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Syria, Afrin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Operation Euphrates Shield, Operation Euphrates Sword,
Free Syrian Army, FSA, Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF,
Kurdish People's Protection Units, YPG, Rojava, Russia, Iran,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Syria, Afrin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Operation Euphrates Shield, Operation Euphrates Sword,
Free Syrian Army, FSA, Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF,
Kurdish People's Protection Units, YPG, Rojava, Russia, Iran,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 15-Jul-17 World View -- Paranoid China races to censor news of death of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Paranoid China races to censor news of death of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo
  
• China responds with outrage at countries praising Liu Xiaobo
  

****
**** Paranoid China races to censor news of death of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo
****


Iconic photo of Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia

Chinese censors and Chinese Communist Party officials have been
working overtime to protect the Chinese people from learning anything
about what happened to international peace activist and Nobel Peace
Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who died of liver cancer on Thursday after
Chinese authorities for weeks refused to allow him to travel outside
of China to receive care that might have saved his life.

Liu Xiaobo was present at the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in
Beijing, where college students from all over the country had come for
peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations. By coincidence, CNN was in
Beijing for another reason, and the protests could be seen worldwide.
I still recall those scenes live on CNN, and listening to Bernard
Shaw, who was on the air almost 24 hours a day, saying that this was
the most amazing thing he had seen in his life.

On June 4, the peaceful protests came to an end. The Chinese army
came in and massacred thousands of college students who had come to
Beijing for peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations. Liu Xiaobo's
extremely courageous act was to negotiate with the military to allow
several hundred student protests to have safe passage and leave,
rather than be slaughtered mercilessly. Liu was jailed for 21 months
for calling for political reforms and greater freedoms for the people
of China.

Liu was repeatedly jailed after that for supporting democracy in
China. In 2008, he was arrested for drafting a democracy manifesto,
and was never again free.

In 2010, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long nonviolent
struggle for fundamental human rights in China." At that point, his
wife Liu Xia was also jailed, and has been in jail ever since.

Now that he's dead, the Chinese censors are working night and day to
make sure that the Chinese people are kept in complete ignorance.
Social media posts mourning him are banned. A simple phrase like
"RIP" is banned. An image of a burning candle is banned. Online
searches that reference any aspect of his life are banned.

You really have to laugh at this. Chinese officials like president Xi
Jinping and the other Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials are good
at a lot of things. They're good at raising enormous armies with huge
weapons systems. They're good at invading and annexing other
countries' regions in violation of international law, including in the
South China Sea. They're good at threatening war and conducting war
for anyone who doesn't do what they're told. They're good at
torturing, killing and massacring people.

But Xi Jinping and the other CCP officials turn into whimpering fools
at the thought of anyone in China commemorating the death of Liu
Xiaobo. Or of posting an image of a burning candle. Or of wishing
that he rest in peace. It's really amazing.

By the way, here's a small bit of historical trivia. Liu was not the
first Nobel Peace Prize winner to die while in prison. German
pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, died in a hospital while held by the
Nazis in 1938. CNN and Asian Age (India) and Mashable

****
**** China responds with outrage at countries praising Liu Xiaobo
****

The United States, Germany, France, the European Union and the United
Nations criticized Chinese officials after he died for not allowing
him to receive medical care outside the country. Germany and the
United States had offered to take him in for medical care.

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that Liu should never have
been given the Nobel Peace Prize:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Conferring the [Nobel Peace] prize to such a person
> goes against the purposes of this award. It's a blasphemy of the
> peace prize."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The Chinese are calling the awarding of the peace prize "meddling" in
China's national affairs. However, Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chairman of
the Norwegian Nobel Committee, says that argument is not valid,
because human rights is an international affair, not a national
affair:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"When it comes to the argument of interference, the
> point of view of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is that our task is
> to hand out the Peace Prize. And we hand out the Peace Prize to
> the most deserving person of that year, who has contributed who
> has contributed to worldwide peace. Now the standard of human
> rights is not a national affair; it is an international affair.
> People have basic human rights, because they are people, and so
> this is not a valid argument in my point of view. And Nobel Peace
> Prize formally been handed out to other critics of their regimes
> in smaller countries, for instance, Aung San Suu Kyi [of Myanmar]
> and Lech Walesa [of Poland]. And this time in 2010 it was Liu
> Xiaobo and it was the first time a citizen of such a world power
> was handed the peace prize for human rights struggle, and the
> struggle for democratic reforms. It would have been cowardly of
> the peace prize if we were hesitant because our candidate came
> from a powerful nation, and if we only awarded prizes to
> individuals from smaller nations. And we do not look to
> that."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Much to the consternation of Chinese officials, on Friday, a number of
countries issued statements highly critical of the Chinese
government's handling of Liu, and commemorating his death.

In addition, many foreign leaders are demanding that Liu's wife, Liu
Xia, who has been under arrest since her husband won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2010, should now be freed from prison, and permitted to leave
China.

A spokesman for Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel quoted her as
saying: “I mourn Liu Xiaobo, the courageous fighter for civil rights
and freedom of opinion. Deep condolences to his family.” Foreign
minister Sigmar Gabriel said, “She and her brother, Liu Hui, should
immediately be allowed to leave for Germany or another country of
their choice if they wish to."

France's President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “Tribute to Liu Xiaobo,
Nobel Prize Peace Laureate, great freedom fighter. Thoughts and
support to his relatives and his wife Liu Xia.”

Norway's Prime minister Erna Solberg said: “It is with deep grief that
I received the news of Liu Xiaobo’s passing. Liu Xiaobo was for
decades a central voice for human rights and China’s further
development. My thoughts go now to his wife, Liu Xia, and his family
and friends.”

Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said, “I offer my sincere
condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Liu and to his many
supporters around the world. In particular, my thoughts go to
Mr. Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, herself a tremendous symbol of courage and
poise, who remains under house arrest. We continue to call for the
release of all political prisoners.”

These statements wouldn't be all that important if it were for the
fact that China is infuriated at them to the point of hysteria.
Incredibly, China's ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that China was
lodging official protests with these countries for interfering in
China's "judicial sovereignty."

The European Union issued a statement saying, “We appeal to the
Chinese authorities to allow his wife, Ms. Liu Xia and his family to
bury Liu Xiaobo at a place and in a manner of their choosing and to
allow them to grieve in peace."

Now, that's an interesting request -- allow Liu's family to bury him
at a place of their choosing. This is something that the paranoid CCP
officials would never allow, because they don't want Liu's grave to
become a place where pilgrims can come and conduct vigils. Chinese
authorities will want to dump Liu's body in as obscure a place as
possible, and they may have him cremated.

Another interesting statement came from Taiwan's President Tsai
Ing-wen: “We hope that the Chinese authorities can show confidence in
engaging in political reform so that the Chinese can enjoy the
God-given rights of freedom and democracy. This will be a turning
point in cross-strait relations. The Chinese dream is not supposed to
be about military might. It should be about taking ideas like those
from Liu Xiaobo into consideration. Only through democracy, in which
every Chinese person has freedom and respect, can China truly become a
proud and important county.”

One can only imagine the red hot fury of Chinese officials reading
that statement from Taiwan's president. State-run media called Tsai's
statement "dangerous" and "reckless," and quoted Ma Xiaoguang,
spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Taiwan authorities ... have made reckless remarks on
> the mainland's political system upon Liu Xiaobo's death. ...
>
> Ma said that the DPP and its leader had lifted the deceptive veil
> of "maintaining the current situation," attacked the mainland
> repeatedly and aggravated cross-strait conflicts, attempting to
> pull cross-strait relations back to tensity and turbulence.
>
> "Such behavior is very dangerous," said Ma.
>
> Only people on the mainland have the right to judge the mainland's
> political, economic and social development, said Ma, adding that
> the DPP should focus on and reflect on the chaos they have brought
> to the island and the harm they have done to cross-strait
> relations."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Americans have a special connection to Liu Xiaobo because he was
living in America prior to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and
returned to China at that time specifically to work for democracy in
China. On Friday in Washington, Senator Ted Cruz is reintroducing a
bill to change the name of the street in front of the Chinese Embassy
in Washington to "1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza." When similar legislation was
being discussed last year, Chinese officials said that the bill would
have "severe consequences" if passed. AFP and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and China Daily (Beijing) and Nikkei

Related Articles

• China's people commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre, June 4, 1989 (04-Jun-2009)
  
  
• China scrambles to suppress Tiananmen Square terror attack reports (30-Oct-2013)
  
  
• Hong Kong and Taiwan commemorate China's Tiananmen Square massacre (05-Jun-2011)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia,
Tiananmen Square, CNN, 1989, Carl von Ossietzky,
Geng Shuang, Berit Reiss-Andersen, Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Germany, Angela Merkel, Sigmar Gabriel, France, Emmanuel Macron,
Norway, Erna Solberg, Canada, Chrystia Freeland,
Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, Ma Xiaoguang, Ted Cruz

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Phone: 617-864-0010
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Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 16-Jul-17 World View -- EU countries refuse to help Italy deal with massive refugee crisis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• EU countries refuse to help Italy deal with massive refugee crisis
  
• Italy considers a 'code of conduct,' and possibly the 'nuclear option'
  
• Italy's 'nuclear option' would force other countries to absorb refugees
  

****
**** EU countries refuse to help Italy deal with massive refugee crisis
****


Migrants wait to disembark after being rescued at sea (AP)

Reports are describing Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni with
words like "furious" and "livid" over the fact that the European Union
is refusing to help Italy deal with the massive refugee crisis the
country is facing.

Almost 100,000 refugees, mostly crossing the Mediterranean from Libya,
have landed on Italy's shores so far this year. In the last week of
June alone, 10,000 more refugees arrived. Italy has been left
entirely on its own to care for them. Instead of being helped, Italy
finds itself constantly criticized for not doing enough. While
100,000 refugees have reached Italy, another 2,500 drowned while en
route, and Italy is often criticized for not providing enough boats to
prevent those drownings. Italy also receives criticism for not doing
enough to care for the hundreds of thousands of refugees that the
country is hosting.

What really infuriates Gentiloni and other Italian officials is that
lots of politicians full of moral outrage criticizing Italy for not
doing enough, but they refuse to accept any refugees into their own
countries. In 2015, the EU agreed that 160,000 asylum seekers should
be relocated from Greece and Italy to other member states, in the name
of burden-sharing. To date, only about 22,500 of the 160,000 have
actually been transferred. Several central and eastern European EU
members - including large countries like Hungary and Poland - have
absolutely refused to take in any asylum-seekers.

At best, EU countries pay lip service to helping Italy, and even
sympathize with poor Italy's misfortune, but they refuse to take the
step that would really make a difference -- distributing
asylum-seekers to other countries.

One policy that the EU has tried is that of making sure that whoever
rescues migrants from the Mediterranean stays long enough to burn down
or otherwise destroy the boat that the human traffickers had used to
transport them out of Libya. Pro-immigrant activists say that this is
a dangerous policy because human traffickers have adapted. They're
simply using cheaper, less secure boats, like expendable rubber
dinghies that are purchases in large quantities from China. Activists
say that the result of the boat-burning policy has been to make the
trip more dangerous for refugees.

Another policy that the EU has been trying is to push the problem to
Libya, by paying Libya's coastguard to prevent departures of refugee
boats from Libya, by intercepting boats in Libyan waters and bring
them back to Libya. Amnesty International has been strongly
criticizing this policy, because the Libyan coastguard has reportedly
been abusing the refugees that it captures.

Amnesty International is demanding that the EU pull its funding of the
Libyan coastguard:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Rather than acting to save lives and offer
> protection, European Ministers meeting today are shamelessly
> prioritizing reckless deals with Libya in a desperate bid to
> prevent refugees and migrants from reaching Italy.
>
> European states have progressively turned their backs on a search
> and rescue strategy that was reducing mortality at sea in favor of
> one that has seen thousands drown and left desperate men, women
> and children trapped in Libya, exposed to horrific
> abuses."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

As usual with these activist organizations, there are only criticisms,
never solutions, and only demands to spend an unlimited amount of
money, even if doing so wouldn't make any difference.

The summer season is just beginning, and refugee flows across the
Mediterranean have not yet reached their peak. As many as 100,000
more refugees are expected by the end of the year. CNN and Deutsche Welle and Guardian (London) and Amnesty International

****
**** Italy considers a 'code of conduct,' and possibly the 'nuclear option'
****

Italy is considering two plans to relieve the refugee crisis for
itself. The purpose of both of the plans under consideration is not
necessarily to reduce the refugee flow, but instead to force other
European countries to share the burden.

First, Italy is considering an 11-point code of conduct for NGOs
(non-governmental organizations) that rescue most the refugees from
the Mediterranean.

The way it works now is that human traffickers launch rubber dinghies
filled with dozens of refugees from the Libyan coast, charging each of
the refugees thousands of dollars. The dinghies are flimsy, and
usually have just enough fuel to leave Libyan waters. The human
traffickers tell the refugees that once they're out of Libyan waters,
they should call a specific number in Italy, and a boat will be
dispatched to save them from the rubber dinghy.

Italian officials are suspicious that the NGOs that receive funding to
pick up refugees are cooperating by phone with the human traffickers,
and even getting kickbacks from them. The NGOs vehemently deny these
charges.

So Italy is expected in the next few days to present its 11-point code
of conduct to nine NGOs that regularly deploy rescue boats to rescue
refugees. The plan hasn't been officially released, but some of the
rules have leaked out, and are already being criticized by
pro-immigrant activists.

• NGOs will be banned from making phone calls or firing flares
  that might signal to human traffickers that they could push their
  migrant boats out to sea.
  
  
• The NGO vessels will also be obliged to let police travel with
  them to help root out any human traffickers hidden amongst the
  migrants.
  
  
• NGOs will be required to always keep their ships' transponders
  turned on. These are radar identification systems that allow the
  ships to be tracked remotely. Some commercial ships turn them off to
  avoid being asked to carry out rescue operations. Some NGOs turn off
  the transponders to avoid being tracked into Libyan waters.
  
  
• The boats will no longer be allowed to transfer refugees to other
  ships, but will instead have to bring them to port themselves,
  limiting their operations.
  
  
• There will be a categorical ban on NGOs entering Libyan waters
  unless human life is clearly in danger.

Italian officials claim that the NGOs are encouraging migrants to put
to sea, and that the number of migrants would be reduced if they
weren't being encouraged, if NGOs followed this code of conduct.

If any group refuses to accept the terms, they risk being barred
access to Italian ports, meaning they would have to divert to other
countries to disembark the refugees and migrants.

An official with Amnesty International says that if this code of
conduct is enforced, then it will interfere with operations to the
extent that it will put many lives in danger:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Attempts to restrict NGO search and rescue operations
> risk endangering thousands of lives by limiting rescue boats from
> accessing the perilous waters near Libya."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Human Rights Watch says that the code of conduct is the wrong
approach, and more must be done for the refugees:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"NGOs are out there in the Mediterranean rescuing
> people because the EU is not. Given the scale of tragedies at sea
> and the horrific abuses migrants and asylum seekers face in Libya,
> the EU should work with Italy to enhance robust search and rescue
> in the waters off Libya, not limit it."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

An Amnesty International official said that the code of conduct
proposals were part of a "concerted smear campaign" against NGO rescue
ships by right-wing groups. Reuters and Independent (London) and EU Observer (7-July) and
Deutsche Welle (7-July)

****
**** Italy's 'nuclear option' would force other countries to absorb refugees
****

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's fury at other EU countries for
abandoning Italy and refusing to accept any refugees is being
translation into consideration of what is being called "the nuclear
option."

The plan would take advantage of a little-known and near-forgotten
European Council Directive 55 from 2001, drafted after the Balkans
conflict, to give temporary EU entry permits to "displaced people."

If implemented, Italy would give temporary visas to 200,000 migrants
that it's currently hosting. This would permit them to travel freely
throughout the 26 nations of Europe's Schengen Zone.

An analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations says that the
result would be severe:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"If migrants continue to arrive and Italy decides to
> give them papers to cross borders and leave Italy it would be a
> nuclear option. Italians have lost any hope of getting help from
> the EU and may say, 'If you won’t make it a common challenge, we
> will.'"<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The outcome would be a truly major political crisis across the EU.
However, it's not known whether Gentiloni is really considering this
option, or whether he's just bluffing to get concessions. The National (UAE) and The Sun (London) and Daily Mail (London)

Related Articles

• Italy begs for help after 12,000 migrants arrive in four days (30-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Italy prepares for possible Mediterranean refugee crisis this summer (05-May-2017)
  
  
• With Libya in chaos, migrant deal with Italy collapses (16-Jan-2017)
  
  
• Monday's EU summit to show that Europe 'not detached from reality' over migrants (14-Sep-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Italy, Paolo Gentiloni, Hungary, Poland,
Libya, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch

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Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

(07-09-2017, 10:30 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]The 1206 victory of the Mongols over the Han Chinese still has
enormous impact on Chinese thinking today.

** 6-Dec-10 News -- Mongol invasion of China in 1206 has impact today
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e101206

Han Chinese adopted much from Mongol culture, and many aspects of the
two cultures merged -- culturally, not ethnically.

After the Mongols conquered the Han Chinese, they went on to attack
the Russians.  The Russian culture has definitely NOT merged with the
Mongol/Chinese culture.  For example, the Chinese adopted the Mongols'
agricultural tax system and a four-tiered system for bureaucratic
preference, while the Russians did not do anything of the sort.

I read your link.  It doesn't appear to substantiate what you're trying to claim here.  For example, it says, "The xenophobia between Mongol and Han Chinese is still a powerful force today", which suggests that the cultures have in fact not merged.

It also says the agricultural tax system was only adopted by the Mongol rulers after they took over China - which of course makes sense, since the Mongols were a pastoral, not an agricultural, society before taking over China, and so would not have had an agricultural tax system to start with.  That was an adjustment of the Mongol rulers to Chinese traditions, not a merging in of Mongol traditions, and it likely was the result of the advice of the Han neoconfucian advisors who advised each consecutive dynasty.

Even today, the Uighurs and other successors of the Mongols continue to constitute the biggest security threat to China - and they are still also a security threat to Russia, as well.

*** 17-Jul-17 World View -- Tensions at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount surge again

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Muslim leaders express outrage at metal detectors at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount
  
• Concerns grow of a new round of violence at compound
  

****
**** Muslim leaders express outrage at metal detectors at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount
****


Muslims pray in front of metal detectors placed outside of al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount on Sunday

Muslim leaders are expressing outrage at the security measures taken
by Israel at the al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount compound in East
Jerusalem, at its reopening after a two-day closure triggered by a
deadly gun battle on Friday morning.

On Friday morning, three gunmen, killed two police officers. The
gunmen were Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. The victims were
two Druze policemen.

Immediately following the incident, Israeli police closed the mosque
and prevented worshipers from entering the compound during Friday
prayers for the first time since 1967. (There is some confusion about
this point, because Israel closed the mosque for two days in 2014,
after several days of violence. Apparently, this was the first
closure during Friday prayers since 1967.)

During the closure, Israeli police swept for weapons, and installed
security devices, including closed-circuit television cameras and
metal detectors. Israeli officials say that the police sweep through
the compound found knives, slingshots, batons, spikes and unexploded
ordnance.

When the mosque was reopened on Sunday, Ahmed Omar al-Kiswani,
director of al-Aqsa mosque, told Muslim worshippers not to go through
the metal detectors:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The closure of al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the
> occupation in itself and the prevention of the call for prayers
> are all unfair and unjust and constitute a violation to the United
> Nations resolutions and the international agreements.
>
> We hold the Israeli government responsible for the changes they
> have made in the al-Aqsa Mosque and taking its control away from
> us. We will stay outside the mosque until we get back the way it
> was taken from us. ...
>
> We won’t agree to this violation of the status quo, and we will
> only return to the mosque once it is restored. We will not accept
> security checks at Al-Aqsa. ... Don’t go through the
> gates."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Muslim worshippers appear to be split. While dozens of worshippers
did as al-Kiswani told them and refused to go through the metal
detectors, and instead prayed outside the mosque, hundreds more did go
through the metal detectors and prayed inside as usual.

Jordan and Israel have been jointly providing security to the
compound, under an agreement reached in November 2014 after days of
violent confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis. However,
after Friday morning's shooting, Israeli security took complete
control of the compound and shut out the Jordanian guards. According
to some news reports, Jordan’s King Abdullah II telephoned Israel's
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening, and demanded
that the mosque be reopened.

Now the mosque is reopened, but some Muslim leaders are saying that
the metal detectors and security cameras that were installed without
consultation with the Jordanians change the status quo of the mosque,
and are part of an effort to completely shut out all Muslims from the
compound.

According to analyst Daoud Kuttab:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"This is a very worrisome change. "It sounds like it
> is going to be troublesome for the days to come. Those who killed
> the soldiers are not from the West Bank or Jerusalem. They came
> from Israel. They are Israeli citizens. Palestinians are being
> punished for what Israeli Palestinian citizens of Israel have
> done."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

It would seem to me that the security measures are for the protection
of both Muslims and Jews, but we live in a world today where everyone
on all sides of any issue refuses as a matter of principle to make any
sense. Times of Israel and Washington Post and al-Jazeera

****
**** Concerns grow of a new round of violence at compound
****

When the al-Aqsa mosque was shut down for two days in October 2014,
for the first time since 2000, Palestinian Authority (PA) president
Mahmoud Abbas said that the move was "tantamount to a declaration of
war" by Israelis on Palestinians. Those words indicate the
explosive levels of tensions that exist.


Dome of the Rock in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem (AFP)

The al-Aqsa mosque compound is known to Muslims as Al-Haram al-Sharif
(the Noble Sanctuary), which the golden Dome of the Rock shrine and
Al-Aqsa mosque. It's the third-holiest site in Islam after the Grand
Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, both in Saudi
Arabia, and it's believed to be where the Prophet Mohammed made his
night journey to heaven.

The Jews refer to the same compound as Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount,
and is the holiest site in the Jewish religion, because it's believed
that buried underneath the Mosque are the remains of the Temple at
Jerusalem. In 66 AD, the Jews in Judea began a rebellion against
their Roman colonizers. The Romans massacred tens of thousands of
Jews and destroyed the city of Jerusalem including, in 70 AD, the
Temple at Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem, including the compound, was seized and annexed by
Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, but this annexation has never been
internationally recognized, and most news media refer to it as an
"occupation."

In 2000, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon went to Temple Mount and
prayed there, infuriating the Palestinians, and triggering the "second
intifada," the Palestinian uprising against the Israelis that lasted
until 2005. A compromise was devised that would permit Jews to visit
Temple Mount as tourists, but not to pray there.

In 2014, East Jerusalem was the epicenter of increasing clashes
between Palestinians and Israelis ever since the bodies of three
Israeli teenage settlers were found weeks after they were abducted on
June 10 by terrorists that Israelis believe were commissioned by
Hamas. They were the subject of an extensive manhunt throughout the
West Bank, during which hundreds of Palestinians, mostly members of
Hamas, were arrested. Israel was shocked three weeks later, when the
teens were found dead in a pit in the West Bank.

This was followed by a spiral of violence that led to the 57-day war
between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in July and August 2014. Even after
the war ended, there were continuing clashes in East Journalism,
especially around the al-Aqsa mosque. Israel shut down access to the
mosque for two days in October, leading Palestinian president Mahmoud
Abbas to call it "tantamount to a declaration of war," and Jordan to
recall its ambassador to Israel.

Sporadic violence continued throughout 2015, when knife attacks by
Palestinian teenagers on Israelis were becoming fairly common.
Israeli security officials were baffled about how to prevent the knife
attacks because, unlike suicide bomber vests, a knife can easily and
openly be carried from place to place and wielded at a moment's
notice. It was feared that the number of attacks would grow.
However, by the end of the year it appeared that that the teenage
knife attacks had run their course, despite encouragement from Hamas
that they be continued.

Since then, there's been little international news about violence in
Jerusalem, mainly because the "Israeli - Palestinian issue" has been
pushed out of the news by other issues, particularly the war in Syria
and, more recently, the split between Qatar and four Arab nations.

However, this state of affairs is not to the liking of many
Palestinian leaders, who want the Palestinian issue once again to
be the main topic of discussion and news reporting throughout
the world.

One sign of the times is that few if any Palestinians leaders are
willing to condemn the murders that took place on Friday morning, and
indeed the chairman of Jordan's parliament, Atef Tarawneh, said, "May
God have mercy on our martyrs who watered our pure soil. One gets
gets the impression that Palestinian leaders would like to see more
such murders take place. AFP and YNet News (Israel) and Jerusalem Post

Related Articles

• Palestinians accuse Israel of 'declaration of war' as tensions mount in Jerusalem (31-Oct-2014)
  
  
• Jordan returns its ambassador to Israel (03-Feb-2015)
  
  
• Abbas's UN speech raises concerns about a Palestinian 'third intifada' (05-Oct-2015)
  
  
• Israeli-Palestinian violence spreads across West Bank as anger grows (09-Oct-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Jerusalem,
al-Aqsa Mosque, Al-Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary,
Har HaBayit, Temple Mount, Ahmed Omar al-Kiswani,
Jordan, King Abdullah II, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Daoud Kuttab,
Ariel Sharon, Atef Tarawneh

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Phone: 617-864-0010
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Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

(07-16-2017, 07:14 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: [ -> ]> I read your link. It doesn't appear to substantiate what you're
> trying to claim here. For example, it says, "The xenophobia
> between Mongol and Han Chinese is still a powerful force today",
> which suggests that the cultures have in fact not merged.

> It also says the agricultural tax system was only adopted by the
> Mongol rulers after they took over China - which of course makes
> sense, since the Mongols were a pastoral, not an agricultural,
> society before taking over China, and so would not have had an
> agricultural tax system to start with. That was an adjustment of
> the Mongol rulers to Chinese traditions, not a merging in of
> Mongol traditions, and it likely was the result of the advice of
> the Han neoconfucian advisors who advised each consecutive
> dynasty.

> Even today, the Uighurs and other successors of the Mongols
> continue to constitute the biggest security threat to China - and
> they are still also a security threat to Russia, as well.

The fact that Han and Mongols have fought crisis wars with each
other means that there is still a lot of animosity between the
two. That doesn't affect the fact that Russia and China will
be on opposites sides in WW III. I haven't done any sort of
historical generational analysis of Mongolia, so I don't know
whether they'll choose Russia or China when they're forced
to choose.

Xenakis beliefs regarding the disposition of Russia and China and his belief that boomer leadership is the best option for the US and west and finally his recently stated belief in Poland as the cradle of the west and not carolingian france is a series of interrelated delusions of his. This is coupled with his belief that boomer values are quitessentually American and that democracy and human rights are popular among Americans as the official ideology of the US.

*** 18-Jul-17 World View -- China bans Winnie The Pooh because Xi Jinping looks like him

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China bans Winnie The Pooh because Xi Jinping looks like him
  
• Indonesia defies China and renames part of the South China Sea
  

****
**** China bans Winnie The Pooh because Xi Jinping looks like him
****


June 2013 graphic comparing Winnie the Pooh and Tigger to Xi Jinping and Barack Obama (Reuters)

China has banned Winnie the Pooh from Chinese social media because he
looks too much like China's president Xi Jinping. On Weibo and WeChat
and other Chinese social media sites, many bloggers posted comparisons
between the two, and also referred to Winnie the Pooh's self
description as the "bear of very little brain" in the comparisons to
Xi Jinping.

After a 2013 California summit between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama,
who was US president at the time, Chinese bloggers noticed an uncanny
resemblance between a White House photo of the two presidents to a
cartoon of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, and the two images side by side
in the combined image shown above.

In 2014, Chinese bloggers took notice of an extremely uncomfortable
handshake between Xi Jinping and Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe,
and compared it to a cartoon image of Winnie the Pooh gripping the
hoof of his gloomy donkey friend Eeyore.


2014 graphic comparing Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore to Xi Jinping and Japan's Shinzo Abe

It turns out that China and Xi Jinping are going through one
humiliation after another these days, and the humiliations are
particularly stinging because a big Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
congress is coming up later this year. They include:

• The death of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo
  last week was a tremendous humiliation to Xi Jinping and
  China because the international community ridiculed China for having
  jailed him for years simply for advocating greater democracy in
  China. Liu's name has been banned from social media. So has the
  phrase "RIP" or an image of a burning candle.
  
  
• And now the international community is demanding that his wife,
  Liu Xia, be freed from jail. She's been jailed since 2010 for the
  crime of being Liu Xiaobo's wife.
  
  
• An exiled Chinese billionaire, Guo Wengui, living in New York,
  continues to publish evidence on Twitter and Youtube that Xi Jinping
  and other party officials are guilty of graft and corruption.
  
  
• The recent commemoration of the handover of Hong Kong to China
  exposed the fact that China had lied
  when it promised "One Country, Two Systems."
  
  
• The Dalai Lama, vitriolicly hated by the Chinese officials,
  celebrated his 82nd birthday on July 6.
  
  
• June 4 was the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre,
  where Chinese soldiers massacred thousands of peaceful pro-democracy
  students. Anything related to the massacre is banned from the
  internet.
  
  
• July is the anniversary of the 1999 crackdown on the Falun Gong
  spiritual movement that grew out of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
  Older people would get together to meditate and do exercises. Beijing
  became alarmed, and declared in 1999 that practicing the Falun Gong
  was illegal. Millions of Chinese have been jailed, tortured and
  killed simply for doing the equivalent of Richard Simmons
  exercises.

Xi Jinping and other CCP are international criminals for invading and
annexing regions in the South China Sea belonging to other countries,
in violation of international law, which is what Hitler did. China is
building missile systems whose only purpose is to attack American
cities, military bases, and aircraft carriers. China is preparing to
launch on its neighbors, as well as on America, which it believes it
will win. Instead, China will cause a catastrophe to itself and the
rest of the world, and history will look back on China as a worse
disaster to the world than the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese
combined.

There have also been reports today that China is going to shut down
all use of virtual private networks (VPNs) on the internet. VPNs were
used by universities and businesses to bypass China's censors and
communicate with universities and businesses outside of China. Xi
Jinping is turning China into an isolated police state and jail.

So Xi Jinping is a good Nazi, but he can't stand the thought of anyone
posting a picture of Winnie the Pooh on social media. That's why Xi
Jinping is such a pathetic loser. As Winnie the Pooh described
himself, he's a "bear of very little brain." Shanghaiist and AFP and Reuters

Related Articles

• Paranoid China races to censor news of death of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo (15-Jul-2017)
  
  
• China repudiates its Hong Kong 'One Country, Two Systems' agreement with Britain (01-Jul-2017)
  
  
• 'Tiananmen Mothers' commemorate China's Tiananmen Square massacre (04-Jun-2016)
  

****
**** Indonesia defies China and renames part of the South China Sea
****

Indonesia has announced that its renaming the portion of the South
China Sea belonging to Indonesia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as
the "North Natuna Sea."

Indonesia says that every country has the right to name any area
belonging to the country's territory. Indonesia will register the
name through the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the
United Nations.

The name change is symbolic, and won't make any difference to the
Chinese, who will use their vast military power to try to kill anyone
who tries to prevent them from annexing other country's territory.

In March of last year, a large Chinese coast guard warship entered
Indonesian waters and rammed an Indonesian patrol vessel that was
towing a Chinese fishing boat that had been illegally fishing in
Indonesian waters around the Natuna Islands.

The Natuna Islands have always been sovereign Indonesian territory.
They are far away from China, but because of the rich fishing grounds,
there's little doubt that China will its military power to seize the
islands from Indonesia. Antara News (Jakarta) and The Diplomat and Global Times (Beijing)
and CNN

Related Articles

• China's coast guard warship rams vessel in Indonesian waters (24-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Tensions grow with China over Indonesia's Natuna Islands (21-Oct-2014)
  
  
• China builds illegal surface-to-air missile sites in South China Sea (03-Jul-2017)
  
  
• Philippines humiliates China in harsh Hague Tribunal ruling over South China Sea (13-Jul-2016)
  
  
• China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax (22-Jun-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Xi Jinping, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore,
Shinzo Abe, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia, Guo Wengui, Hong Kong,
Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square massacre, Falun Gong,
South China Sea, Indonesia, Natuna Islands, North Natuna Sea,
International Hydrographic Organization, IHO

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

Except that India as we speak is directly challenging chinese border claims yet if china is so aggressive as you claim; why hasn't their been any meaningful chinese response to India standing up directly against china. Curious reaction for an aggressive-militaristic power. Why hasn't china attacked India yet given the current standoff there if the world alliances are what you claim them to be?

(07-17-2017, 10:10 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: [ -> ]> Except that India as we speak is directly challenging chinese
> border claim yet if china is so aggressive as you claim; why
> hasn't their been any meaningful chinese response to India
> standing up directly against china. Curious reaction for an
> aggressive-militaristic power. Why hasn't china attacked India yet
> given the current standoff there if the world alliances are what
> you claim them to be?

Because India is just as nationalistic and xenophobic as China is at
this time, and a military attack on Bhutan's Doklam region would
trigger full-scale war between China and India, reviving their war
from the 1960s. Such a war would spread to Pakistan, and bring Russia
or the US in on the side of India, and China isn't ready for that.

(07-17-2017, 10:35 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-17-2017, 10:10 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]>   Except that India as we speak is directly challenging chinese
>   border claim yet if china is so aggressive as you claim; why
>   hasn't their been any meaningful chinese response to India
>   standing up directly against china. Curious reaction for an
>   aggressive-militaristic power. Why hasn't china attacked India yet
>   given the current standoff there if the world alliances are what
>   you claim them to be?

Because China is just as nationalistic and xenophobic as China is at
this time, and a military attack on Bhutan's Doklam region would
trigger full-scale war between China and India, reviving their war
from the 1960s.  Such a war would spread to Pakistan, and bring Russia
or the US in on the side of India, and China isn't ready for that.

I'm assuming you mean't India being just as nationalistic as china in that first sentence. Given what you just said if china wants to avoid war with India or even Japan and Vietnam in the immediate time frame; why would they challenge the US instead? Everyone knows that the US is stronger than both India and Russia? Why would that be deemed by Chinese leaders as a less risky option?

(07-17-2017, 10:43 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: [ -> ]> Given what you just said if china wants to avoid war with India or
> even Japan and Vietnam in the immediate time frame; why would they
> challenge the US instead? Everyone knows that the US is stronger
> than both India and Russia? Why would that be deemed by Chinese
> leaders as a less risky option?

These questions have to do with the scenario that will start WW III.
There's no way to predict the scenario, since there are so many
possibilities, but we can look at the scenarios that started previous
wars and try to learn lessons from them.

• WW II did not begin with the Anschluss of Nazi Germany and
  Austria, nor did it begin with the Nazi invasion Czechoslovakia.
  Hitler was using the "salami technique" of one conquest after another,
  each one thought to be too small to trigger an all-out war.
  Nonetheless, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Britain felt it had to
  intervene.
  
  Today, China is using the same "salami technique" in the South China
  Sea and elsewhere, as it plans to take control of their entire region
  and control all access to it. At some point, China will take a step
  too far, and Vietnam or the Philippines or India or Australia or the
  United States will feel obligated to oppose the Chinese. Another
  example is that North Korea is using a kind of "salami technique" to
  develop a nuclear-tipped ICBM that could reach American soil. At some
  point, North Korea may conduct one more nuclear weapon test or one
  more ballistic missile test that will cause the US or China to decide
  to do something to stop further nuclear development, and that could
  trigger a war.
  
  However, a "small action" doesn't always trigger a world war. There
  are numerous examples -- US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, US
  invasion of Iraq over fear of WMDs (58 year hypothesis), Israel's
  invasion of Lebanon because of Hezbollah's actions (58 year
  hypothesis), Saudi Arabia's invasion of Yemen, the proxy war in Syria,
  Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, Russia's invasion of South
  Ossetia and Abkhazia, and so forth.
  
  
• The Pacific theatre of WW II began when Imperial Japan attacked
  Pearl Harbor and other American targets. Today, China may decide to
  launch a direct attack on the US and/or India.
  
  
• WW I began when a high school student decided to shoot and kill
  the archduke of another country. We can imagine many variations of
  this today. In 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab
  province, tried to reform the blasphemy laws, and was shot dead by his
  own bodyguard. So, if an official from India had been visiting Taseer
  that day, that same bodyguard might have decided to shoot and kill the
  Indian official, and that might have triggered retaliation or a war.
  As another example, in December of last year in Ankara, a member of
  Turkey's security forces shot and killed Russia's ambassador to
  Turkey. Russia decided not to retaliate, but they might have. As a
  final example, one country's "special forces" might infiltrate another
  country and kill the country's leader, and that could trigger
  retaliation and a war.
  
  
• The War of the Spanish Succession began with a legal issue:
  The death of the King of Spain, and a will that bequeathed
  Spain to the grandson of the King of France, triggering
  the war. Today, some sort of legal issue in Taiwan might appear
  to Beijing to be moving Taiwan in the direction of independence,
  which would trigger a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Or we're
  seeing this crazy blockade of Qatar by four Arab countries,
  based on little more than legalisms. That could trigger some
  sort of war.
  
  
• Many wars have begun with popular rebellions. There's Russia's
  Bolshevik Revolution, China's Taiping Rebellion, China's Communist
  Revolution, Iran's Great Islamic Revolution, the French Revolution,
  and so forth. This could happen today in countries like China,
  Russia, Egypt, and so forth.
  
  
• Some country (China) could trigger one of America's mutual defense
  treaties. The United States has some sort of mutual defense treaty
  with many countries: Japan, South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, the
  Philippines, the Marshall Islands, the ANZUS agreement with Australia
  and New Zealand, a special treaty with Iceland, and the NATO agreement
  with all of Europe.

So you can take your pick as to which scenario is most likely.

Many of these situations would not have triggered a world war during
an Awakening or Unraveling era, but will do so in a Crisis era because
the populations are extremely nationalistic, xenophobic, and
irrational.

** 29-Jun-14 World View -- What could trigger another world war?
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e140629

Xenakis, what are the possibility of China adopting a "strike north" policy, as opposed to a "strike south" policy?

(07-18-2017, 01:36 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: [ -> ]> Xenakis, what are the possibility of China adopting a "strike
> north" policy, as opposed to a "strike south" policy?

It's certainly possible. China did "strike north" in 1969 and
attack Russia, but with both countries in a generational
Awakening/Unraveling era, the conflict fizzled quickly.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buz...-war-20750

So it certainly could happen again, and in fact, Russia apparently
expects it, as they're preparing for war with China.

** 13-Jul-17 World View -- Russia, India, Japan prepare for war with China
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e170713

*** 19-Jul-17 World View -- Eritrean government laughably uses Christian Patriarch as show prop

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Eritrean government laughably uses Orthodox Christian Patriarch as show prop
  
• Eritrea's Christian crackdown centers on Medhane Alem Orthodox Church
  
• The violence of generational Awakening eras
  

****
**** Eritrean government laughably uses Orthodox Christian Patriarch as show prop
****


This Medhane Alem Orthodox Christian Church in Ethiopia is carved directly out of rock

Patriarch Abune Antonios, the 90 year old former head of the Eritrean
Orthodox Christian Church, was trotted out from government prisons on
Sunday to attend a mass for the first time since he was arrested in
2007.

The Eritrean government, which is possibly the most vicious and
repressive government in the world, has been under international
pressure from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN
Special Rapporteur on Eritrea, the French government, the United
States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the
European Parliament.

So they let Antonios out of prison for the first time in ten years,
and let him participate in the mass on Sunday. Seeing the patriarch
for the first time in ten years was considered a blessing by the
worshippers, but the whole show was really a farce, and probably a
humiliation to Antonios. They forbade him from saying a word, and
after the mass they bundled him back to prison. These morons in the
Eritrean government think that if the 90-year-old Patriarch Antonios
were allowed to say anything, then it would bring down their
government. What idiots. Christian Post and Independent Catholic News

****
**** Eritrea's Christian crackdown centers on Medhane Alem Orthodox Church
****

In 2004, Eritrea's government decided that it disapproved of the
religious beliefs of the Medhane Alem Orthodox Church, an evangelical
offshoot of Eritrea's Orthodox Christian Church. They arrested three
priests without charges, and sentenced by a secret administrative
procedure to five years each.

At that time, Patriarch Abune Antonios was head of the Eritrean
Orthodox Church. Antonios protested the detention of the three
priests, and in general for the government's interference in church
affairs. The government demanded that Antonios close the Medhane Alem
church, and that he excommunicate its 3,000 members.

In January 2006, Antonios was notified that he had been dismissed from
office, and on May 27, 2007, he was arrested and imprisoned in an
unknown location. The Eritrean government has placed people of their
own choosing in charge of the church.

The Eritrean government has always persecuted Christians, but in
recent months that persecution has become particularly vicious.
Police have been going from house to house, demanding to know the
occupants' religious beliefs, and arresting them if they give the
wrong answer. It's believed that hundreds of Orthodox Christians have
been arrested since May.

So the worshippers were thrilled on Sunday to see Patriarch Antonios
for the first time in ten years, but you really have to laugh at the
Eritrean government bringing out Antonios on Sunday for mass,
apparently thinking that doing so will make up for the vicious,
repressive treatment of huge numbers of Orthodox Christians for no
reason whatsoever.

Eritrea has one of the poorest human rights records in the world.
Anyone can be arrested and tortured at any time on the unsupported
charge of criticizing someone in the government, or for attending the
wrong religious institution.

What is unique about Eritrea is the extent of military repression as
practiced through a strictly-enforced conscription regimen and martial
culture. Eritrea’s army is about 600,000 strong, which is one tenth of
the population of about 6 million. Few countries anywhere, other than
North Korea or the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge, have one tenth of
their population in the army. Some people are forced to serve in the
armed forces until age 50.

Many people are forced to work at government jobs essentially as
slaves. The average monthly salary is $12. If someone escapes to
Europe as a migrant to earn money, the remittances that the migrant
sends back to his family are heavily taxed by the state.

That's why many of the migrants and refugees that are crossing the
Mediterranean to reach Italy are from Eritrea. Christian Solidarity Worldwide and UNHCR (2-Mar-2015)
and PJ Media (8-July) and Missionary Network News

****
**** The violence of generational Awakening eras
****

A generational Awakening era begins about 15-20 years after the end of
the previous generational crisis war, at the time when the first
generation of children with no personal memory of the war come of age
and begin to make themselves heard.

In their foundational work on generational theory in the 1980s and
early 1990s, William Strauss and Neil Howe glorified generational
Awakening eras as times for the birth of new ideas for society
and even new religions. Strauss and Howe's work was limited to
Britain and America since the 1400s, and their characterization
of Awakening eras seems to make sense in those cases.

But as I've worked on Generational Dynamics for 15 years, and
have extended generational theory to apply to all countries and
societies at all times in history, I've found their characterization
of Awakening eras to be wrong most of the time.

In the last 10-20 years we've seen one example after another where
Awakening eras are a time of violence. In Syria, Zimbabwe, South
Sudan, Burundi, Thailand, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, China,
Cameroon, and so forth, and now Eritrea, the group that wins the civil
war takes power and then uses torture, massacres and genocide during
the Awakening era to keep from giving up power, reneging on promises
of free elections made during the settlement of the civil war. What
makes this violence different from the crisis war is that in the
crisis wars the two populations really want to kill each other, while
in the Awakening eras, the war-weary populations just want peace,
while government leaders perpetrate everything from repression to
jailings, torture and genocidal massacres, depending on the country.

As I described last year in a generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea,
mostly Christian
Ethiopia and mostly Muslim Eritrea had an extremely bloody
generational crisis war with heavy involvement by the Soviet Union.
The war ended in May 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Today, Eritrea is in a generational Awakening era, and the government
is close to a state of hysteria over the possibility that Christians
might hold a prayer meeting, so they're using house to house searches,
jailings and torture to combat a threat that exists only in their
fantasies.

In Syria, Bashar al-Assad is conducting a genocidal war against Sunni
Muslims. In Burundi, the president Pierre Nkurunziza, a Christian
Hutu, is conducting torture, sexual violence, arbitrary jailings, targeted assassinations and summary executions
against his political opposition, almost all from the
Christian Tutsi tribe. In Thailand, there's been sporadic violence by
the army, backing the "yellow shirt" market-dominant light-skinned
Thai-Chinese elite minority against the the "red shirt" dark-skinned
Thai-Thai indigenous ethnics. And just today (Tuesday), South Sudan's
president Salva Kiir declared a new three-month state of emergency, as
he pursues tribal violence designed to keep himself in power. The
situations in the other countries listed above is similar. Reuters

Related Articles

• Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war (14-Jun-2016)
  
  
• Ethiopia declares extraordinary six-month state of emergency (10-Oct-2016)
  
  
• South Sudan increasingly parallels Syria in genocidal violence (24-Dec-2016)
  
  
• The Gambia's leader, refusing to step down, declares state of emergency (18-Jan-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Christian Church,
Abune Antonios, Medhane Alem Orthodox Church,
Ethiopia, Awakening eras, Syria, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Burundi,
Thailand, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Cameroon

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 20-Jul-17 World View -- Cambodia bans all sales of sand to Singapore

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Cambodia bans all sales of sand to Singapore
  
• The world is running out of sand
  

****
**** Cambodia bans all sales of sand to Singapore
****


Cambodian villagers protest sand dredging after nine homes collapsed into the river (Khmer Times)

Cambodia's Ministry of Mines and Energy has banned all sales and
exports of sand to other countries. For years, the principal customer
of Cambodia's sand exports has been Singapore, which has used the sand
to reclaim land along its coasts. Using land reclamation, Singapore
has expanded its landmass by more than 20% since its independence in
1965. During the same period, Singapore's population tripled.

The new decree, issued on July 10, bans all exports of "construction
sand and mud sand" from southwestern Koh Kong province to overseas but
stops short of outlawing domestic sales. Other southeast Asian
countries, including Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, have implemented
bans in the past.

Environmental groups have been pressing the government to stop the
export of sand, saying the digging and dredging has had a serious
impact on coastal ecosystems and surrounding land. In one Cambodian
district where sand dredging had been taking place, nearly 200 people
last month held a protest against the sand dredging. They called on
authorities to take action after nine homes collapsed into the river,
as a result of the dredging.

Cambodia had already suspended sand exports in November of last year,
because of a corruption scandal. Singapore claims that it had
imported 72.2 million tonnes of sand between 2007 and 2015, the
Cambodian government officials said that only 16 million tonnes had
been sent. In money terms, the UN said that Cambodia had exported
$752 million in sand, but Cambodia claimed it was only $5 million
worth of sand.

Environmental activists are skeptical that the new ban will be
enforced. After Cambodia suspended sand exports in November of last
year, illegal exports continued despite the order. Khmer Times and Khmer Times (12-June) and Radio Free Asia (2-Nov-2016) and AFP and Radio Free Asia (5-May)

****
**** The world is running out of sand
****

In 2014, the United Nations Environment Program concluded that:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Sand and gravel represent the highest volume of raw
> material used on earth after water. Their use greatly exceeds
> natural renewal rates. Moreover, the amount being mined is
> increasing exponentially, mainly as a result of rapid economic
> growth in Asia. ...Negative effects on the environment are
> unequivocal and are occurring around the world. The problem is now
> so serious that the existence of river ecosystems is threatened in
> a number of locations."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Sand and gravel are used for land reclamation, as in the case of
Singapore, but for a lot of other things as well. They're the main
constituents in concrete and asphalt that are used in building
constructions, roads, and many other structures. A typical American
house requires more than two hundred tons of sand, gravel, and crushed
stone for the foundation, basement, garage, and driveway, as well as
the section of street in front of it. A mile long highway requires
38,000 tons.

In the last four years, China has used as much concrete as the United
States in one century, according to Pascal Peduzzi, the author of the
UN report quoted above. In India, sand is so scarce that
markets for it are dominated by criminal "sand mafias."

According to the UN report:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Five countries — China (58%), India (6.75%), the
> United States (2%), Brazil and Turkey — produce 70% of the world’s
> cement. However, cement demand by China has increased
> exponentially by 437.5% in 20 years, while use in the rest of the
> world increased by 59.8%. Each Chinese citizen is currently using
> 6.6 times more cement than a U.S. citizen. Demand continues to
> increase with new infrastructure and renewal of existing
> infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, houses) — all dependent on
> the availability of aggregates."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

UN's Peduzzi says that Lake Poyang, for example, is China's biggest
freshwater lake but also its biggest source of sand, with estimates of
over 230 million cubic meters of sand extracted each year. This is
lowering the lake's water level, potentially damaging surrounding
wetlands and affecting the flow of nearby rivers, including the
Yangtze.

According to Peduzzi, the exponentially growing demand for sand cannot
continue without substantially harming the environment, and the world
needs a "reporting mechanism at the global level which allows
recording the amount of sand and gravels used by countries." New Yorker (29-May) and UN Environment Program (PDF, 2014) and Nikkei

Related Articles

• An amazing video of Ukrainian sand artist, Kseniya Simonova (29-Sep-2009)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cambodia, Koh Kong, Singapore,
United Nations Environment Program, Pascal Peduzzi,
China, Lake Poyang, India

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 21-Jul-17 World View -- Relations between Germany and Turkey spiral into crisis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Relations between Germany and Turkey spiral into crisis
  
• Turkey commemorates first anniversary of attempted coup
  

****
**** Relations between Germany and Turkey spiral into crisis
****


Young men stand on a Turkish army tank in Ankara on July 16, 2016, the day after the attempted coup. (Reuters)

The diplomatic crisis between Germany and Turkey deepened on Thursday
when Germany's foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel told a press conference
that it was no longer safe for German people and businesses to travel
to Turkey. The announcement was triggered by Turkey's detention of a
Germany human rights defender and two German journalists with no
credible charges or supporting evidence.

Gabriel broke off his summer vacation and returned to Berlin to deal
with the crisis that arose out of the arrests, particularly of German
human rights activist Peter Steudtner for allegedly aiding a "terror"
group.

Gabriel declared a “re-orientation” of Germany's Turkey policy, and
said that the country’s actions show it's “departing from the basis of
European values.":

> [indent]<QUOTE>"[Steudtner] never wrote about Turkey, he had no
> contacts in the political establishment ... and never appeared as
> a critic. ...
>
> One can’t advise anyone to invest in a country when there is no
> legal certainty and where companies, completely respectable
> companies, are presented as terrorists. I therefore do not see
> how, as the government, we can still guarantee German company
> investments in Turkey if, as has happened, arbitrary
> expropriations for political reasons have not only been threatened
> but have already taken place. ...
>
> German citizens are no longer safe from arbitrary arrests in
> Turkey. We have no other choice -- because we are responsible for
> the protection of our citizens of our country -- but to adapt our
> travel and safety advisory to Turkey and let Germans know what can
> happen to them when they travel to Turkey.
>
> We can’t go on as we have before. ... We have to be clearer than
> before so that those in charge in Ankara understand that such a
> policy won’t be without consequences."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for Turkey's president Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We think these are domestic political statements for
> the upcoming elections in Germany. Unfortunately, this has become
> fashionable in Germany. People are being anti-Turkey and
> demonstrating their paranoid animosity against our president to
> score political points. ...
>
> We are strongly condemning suggestions that German nationals
> visiting Turkey would not be secure. We think that those
> unfortunate statements are an investment for internal politics
> aimed at the approaching elections in Germany.
>
> How come Germany tolerates this? When we talk about them, they
> respond ‘We have justice and independence.’ Well, why don’t they
> respect Turkish justice? This is disrespectful to Turkey. They
> will respect our justice. ...
>
> There was direct interference in the Turkish judiciary and the
> comments used overstepped the mark. The comments again show the
> double standards in their approach to the law of those who prevent
> terrorists from being brought to justice while embracing members
> of terrorist groups who target our country."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Germany's actions were triggered by Steudtner's arrest, and also
because Turkish authorities had, several weeks ago, handed their
German counterparts a list of 68 German companies they accused of
having links to Erdogan's enemy Fethullah Gülen. Deutsche Welle and Al Monitor and Hurriyet (Ankara)

****
**** Turkey commemorates first anniversary of attempted coup
****

Life in Turkey has changed dramatically in the year that's passed
since the failed coup attempt on July 15 of last year. Well over
100,000 people have lost their jobs or been arrested with no credible
charges and no supporting evidence.

Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says all of these people were
involved in the coup attempt, because they had a connection to his
former friend, and now enemy, Fethullah Gülen, the 76-year-old
political enemy of Erdogan, living since 1999 in self-imposed exile in
the Pocono Mountains in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, after splitting
with Erdogan.

Gülen is a Muslim cleric with a worldwide network of schools and
businesses, run by his followers. For Erdogan, this worldwide network
was for many years a good thing, a sign of a progressive Turkey,
fighting extremism, and providing education and jobs. But relations
between Erdogan and Gülen started to sour in 2012, and were severed
completely in 2013. Since then, this huge international network has
turned in Erdogan's eyes from a good thing to a bad thing, promoting
terrorism instead of fighting extremism. Erdogan now claims that last
year's coup was planned and executed under the direction of Gülen and
the Fethullah Terror Group (FETO).

Gülen's name is linked to large numbers of schools and businesses, and
Erdogan is accusing anyone linked to these schools and businesses, as
being linked directly to Gülen and to last year's coup. For example,
anyone who has an account in the Gülen-linked Aysa Bank, who has
placed children in Gülen-linked schools, who has participated in
fund-raising events for Gülen linked humanitarian causes can be fired
or arrested and jailed. Anyone having a phone with the encryption
application BYLOCK, allegedly used by the Gülen organization, is also
assumed to be guilty of participating in the coup.

There are many reasons why Erdogan's reasons for firing and jailing
over 100,000 people do not make sense:

• Obviously, no more than a dozen or so people could have been
  involved in coup planning, or the details would have leaked out.
  
  
• Few people find credible the claim that 76-year-old Gülen
  orchestrated the coup from his easy chair in the Pocono mountains of
  Pennsylvania.
  
  
• In fact, Erdogan has repeatedly demanded that the US extradite
  Gülen back to Turkey, but Erdogan has been unable to provide any
  evidence that would meet American court standards to satisfy an
  extradition request.
  
  
• Erdogan started his purge well before the coup attempt. In
  particular, four months before the coup, Turkey and the world were
  shocked when Erdogan shut down Zaman,
  the country's major opposition newspaper, the largest
  newspaper in the country.
  
  
• In the days following the coup attempt, an extremely large and
  complex purge was put into place, with Erdogan giving himself increasingly dictatorial powers.
  Many
  analysts believe that the purge was in the planning stages for several
  months, waiting for the right opportunity to implement it.
  
  
• For years, starting long before the coup attempt, Erdogan has been
  aggregating power to himself, and has been changing Turkey's character
  from a secular state to a conservative Islamist state. This made him
  popular with millions of pious Turks who had felt ignored by the old
  secular elites. This all came to a head in 2007 over the issue of
  women wearing headscarves.
  
  However, Ataturk, the revered founder of Turkey after the collapse of
  the Ottoman Empire, declared that Turkey would be a secular state,
  with freedom of worship for people of all religions, including Jews
  and Christians. Ataturk asked the army to be the preserver of the
  secular state, and many in the army today see it as their job to stop
  Erdogan's changes. In fact, this split within the army between those
  who honor Ataturk and those who honor Erdogan may have been the reason
  that the coup was attempted in the first place.

During the last year, Erdogan's Turkey has been arresting tens of
thousands of Turkish citizens, and only occasionally a foreign
national. The arrest of German national Peter Steudtner appears to
have been a "last straw" for the Germans.
Irish Examiner and Hurriyet (Ankara) and AFP

Related Articles

• Turkey's Erdogan gives himself dictatorial powers, moving Turkey away from the West (22-Jul-2016)
  
  
• Turkey's 'shameful day for free press' as government seizes Zaman media (06-Mar-2016)
  
  
• More than a million of secularists rally in Turkey (14-May-2007)
  
  
• 26-Feb-10 News - Turkey debates Islam versus secularism (26-Feb-2010)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ibrahim Kalin,
Fethullah Gülen, Fetullahist Terror Organization, FETO,
Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, Peter Steudtner
Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Fethullah Gülen, Fetullahist Terror Organization, FETO,
Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, Peter Steudtner

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John J. Xenakis
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Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

*** 22-Jul-17 World View -- Palestinian 'day of rage' in Jerusalem results in six deaths, hundreds injured

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Palestinian 'day of rage' in Jerusalem results in six deaths, hundreds injured
  
• Power struggle over metal detectors as Mahmoud Abbas threatens to cut ties
  

****
**** Palestinian 'day of rage' in Jerusalem results in six deaths, hundreds injured
****


Palestinian protesters give Israeli security forces the finger during clashes in Jerusalem on Friday (Reuters)

Thousands of Palestinians heeded the words of Muslim leaders and
Palestinian political factions and came to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque
on Friday to protest the metal detectors that Israeli security forces
had placed outside the al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount compound. Three
Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured in the worst Jerusalem
violence in years at the al-Aqsa mosque, while three Israelis were
killed in their homes by a knifing attack in the same time frame.

Thousands of Palestinians refused to enter the al-Aqsa Mosque for
Friday prayers, which would have required going through metal
detectors. Instead, they filled the streets and prayed peacefully,
facing Mecca. Israel had deployed 3,000 police and soldiers in and
around Jerusalem’s Old City, in order to keep the situation under
control.

But after the Friday prayers ended, many of the Palestinians
confronted police, throwing stones and other objects, as police
responded with stun grenades, water cannons and tear gas. Three
Palestinians were shot dead in separate incidents during the clashes.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian teenager broke into an Israeli
home in a West Bank settlement as the family were eating dinner and
began stabbing family members, killing a man and two of his children.

A number of anti-Israel protests were held in capitals across the
Middle East and Asia on Friday. Thousands gathered in Amman, Beirut,
Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur Friday afternoon in solidarity with
Palestinian worshipers in Jerusalem who have been protesting the metal
detectors. BBC and
Times of Israel and Reuters and Times of Israel

****
**** Power struggle over metal detectors as Mahmoud Abbas threatens to cut ties
****

The metal detectors were installed last week after a deadly gun battle
inside the al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount compound on Friday morning,
July 14. Three gunmen, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, killed
two police officers.

Israeli officials point out that metal detectors are used in Jewish
and Muslim holy sites around the worl, including at the mosques in
Mecca and Medina. However, Palestinian activists insist that they
can't be used at the al-Aqsa mosque. Some have accused the Israelis
of a plot to take control of the al-Aqsa mosque, and of using the
metal detectors as a step in that plot. One Israeli Islamic leader,
Kamal Khatib, accused the Israelis of inserting chemical substances
into the al-Aqsa Mosque wall to cause corrosion, and give the Israelis
an excuse to take over the mosque as its walls deteriorate.

Israeli government officials themselves have been split on this issue,
with some arguing that the metal detectors are so divisive that it
would be better to remove them. However, the government made a final
decision that they would not be removed.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas announced late on Friday
that he was freezing all contacts with Israel:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I, on behalf of the Palestinian leadership, announce...
> a freeze of all contacts with the occupation state on all levels
> until Israel commits to canceling all the measures against our
> Palestinian people in general and Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque in
> particular.
>
> [The measures were] falsely presented as a security measure to
> take control over Al-Aqsa mosque.
>
> The steps taken by Israel are leading to a religious confrontation
> and an evasion from a diplomatic process."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Israeli security forces have announced that the metal detectors and
other security measures are necessary for the safety of the
worshippers, and will not be taken down.

So it appears that a major power struggle is in progress, and one side
or the other will have to step down.

Abbas is very unpopular with the Palestinian people, who see him as a
failed leader who has been unable to do anything to end Israel's
occupation of the West Bank, despite having been in power for years.
Friday's announcement was undoubtedly motivated at least partially to
increase his popularity.

However, Abbas appears to have left ambiguous the question of whether
"a freeze on all contacts" means that the security agreement that the
Palestinians have with Israel will also be frozen. Under this
agreement, Palestinian security forces arrest Palestinians in the West
Bank who are suspected of planning terror attacks on Israel. This
agreement has undoubted prevented many terror attacks, but it's very
unpopular with the Palestinians, who see it as a way for the
Palestinian security forces to be doing Israel's dirty work.

If the security agreement were suspended, it would mean that Israel
would have to deploy thousands of its own police in cities across the
West Bank, something that would be even less popular with Palestinians
than the agreement itself. Abbas has threatened to end the security
agreement in the past, but has never done so, probably for these
reasons. Washington Post and Times of Israel and MEMRI

Related Articles

• Tensions at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount surge again (17-Jul-2017)
  
  
• Mahmoud Abbas, 81, reelected leader of Fatah/Palestinian Authority (30-Nov-2016)
  
  
• Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive (18-Oct-2015)
  
  
• Palestinians accuse Israel of 'declaration of war' as tensions mount in Jerusalem (31-Oct-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Jerusalem,
al-Aqsa Mosque, Temple Mount, Jordan,
Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Kamal Khatib

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe