Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 11-Sep-17 World View -- The colorful Mikhail Saakashvili 'invades' Ukraine from Poland and threatens revolution

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• The colorful Mikhail Saakashvili 'invades' Ukraine from Poland and threatens revolution
  
• Saakashvili to 'march on Kiev' and challenge Poroshenko government
  

****
**** The colorful Mikhail Saakashvili 'invades' Ukraine from Poland and threatens revolution
****


Mikhail Saakashvili (L) is joined by Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko ® and other supporters on Sunday after entering Ukraine from Poland (AFP)

Mikhail Saakashvili, the man who is stateless, no longer the citizen
of any country, "invaded" Ukraine from Poland on Sunday, despite
attempts by Ukraine's government to keep him out. Saakashvili is
variously described as colorful, ambitious, arrogant, divisive,
headstrong, and an egomaniac, has had his citizenship revoked in two
countries, Georgia and Ukraine, mainly because he's constantly pissing
people off.

Saakashvili, who has been based in Poland's capital city Warsaw, had
vowed to return to Ukraine on Sunday, and challenge the government or
president Petro Poroshenko:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I'll go through to the end, until victory. But it
> won't be my own victory, but that of the people over
> oligarchy."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Poroshenko has declared Saakashvili to be persona non grata in
Ukraine, and said that Saakashvili would be prevented from entering.

So on Sunday morning Saakashvili took a train to Ukraine. But when it
reached the Polish town of Przemysl, the woman in charge of the train
said that she had been ordered by authorities to stop the train there
until Saakashvili got off. Saakashvili told journalists on the train
that authorities were effectively holding hundreds of passengers
hostage. He said: "Can you imagine what kind of idiots we’re dealing
with?"

After several hours of delay, Saakashvili got off the train, and got
onto a bus that took him to the border of Ukraine, intending to walk
across. Polish border guards allowed him pass. But a line of
Ukrainian border guards stood arm-in-arm to block Saakashvili from
crossing the Ukrainian checkpoint.

All of these shenanigans were being covered live in the news, and
thousands of Saakashvili supporters had gathered at the border
crossing. In early evening, Saakashvili and his supporters broke
through the line of border guards, and entered Ukraine.

The Ukrainian border service said in a Facebook post that the crowd
broke through a checkpoint and that fighting broke out when guards
tried to block Saakashvili's supporters. Deutsche Welle and AP and VOA and
Reuters

****
**** Saakashvili to 'march on Kiev' and challenge Poroshenko government
****

Mikhail Saakashvili has had an extremely colorful career.

In 2003, at age 36, Saakashvili became president of the Republic of
Georgia, in the "Rose Revolution,"
massive public demonstrations that brought down
the pro-Russian president Eduard Shevardnadze, and brought Saakashvili
to power.

Saakashvili remained in power until 2013, but in the midst of that
period, he and Georgia suffered a major humiliating loss, when Russian
troops under Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, and captured two
Georgian provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are still under
Russia's control.

Saakashvili was praised for fighting corruption, he adopted
authoritarian policies that he said were necessary to continue
fighting corruption, but which became increasingly unpopular.

Finally, Saakashvili was removed from the presidency in 2013. In May
2015, Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko made him a Ukrainian
citizen, which resulted in the loss of his Georgian citizenship.

Saakashvili and Poroshenko had a lot in common. Saakashvili came to
power in the Rose Revolution of 2003. Poroshenko came to power in
2014 in a popular revolution similar to Ukraine's Orange Revolution of
2004. Just as Saakashvili had replaced the pro-Russian president
Eduard Shevardnadze, Poroshenko replaced the pro-Russian president
Viktor Yanukovych.

One more thing they had in common: Russian troops under Vladimir Putin
in 2014 invaded and annexed Ukraine's Crimea province, just as they
had invaded and annexed Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia provinces
in 2008. So Saakashvili and Poroshenko became friends.

So in May 2015, Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili governor of the
southern Ukrainian port city Odessa, with the direction to end
corruption and crime in the city. That didn't work out too well.
Saakashvili and Poroshenko started out as friends, but Saakashvili's
fight against corruption brought him into conflict with Poroshenko,
whom he accused of blocking the efforts to stop corruption. The two
then became enemies, and in November 2016, Saakashvili resigned from
his job in Odessa.

In November, Saakashvili announced the creation of a new political
party, the Movement of the New Forces, to oppose Poroshenko. In July
of this year, Poroshenko revoked Saakashvili's Ukrainian citizenship,
leaving him stateless, a man without a country. However, Saakashvili
claims that the revocation is illegal, since under international law
it's illegal to revoke someone's citizenship if it would leave him
stateless.

So on Sunday, Saakashvili returned to Ukraine, to lead his new
political party to the presidency of Ukraine. He will have many
hurdles to overcome, not the least of which is Poroshenko's threat to
extradite Saakashvili back to Georgia, where he's wanted on criminal
charges over alleged misappropriation of property and abuse of power.

Saakashvili has some powerful allies. When Saakashvili pushed through
the border guards into Ukraine on Sunday, there were several Ukrainian
politicians there to greet him. One was Yulia Tymoshenko, who also
had been a ally of Poroshenko, and then turned against him. On
Sunday, she said, "We've come to defend Mikhail, but we're also here
to defend Ukraine," saying that she wanted Poroshenko to be ousted,
just as Yanukovych had been ousted. BBC and AP and Deutsche Welle (11-Nov-2016)

Related Articles

• China rebuffs Russia over Georgia invasion. (29-Aug-2008)
  
  
• Russia continues to tighten its grip on a humiliated Georgia (14-Aug-2008)
  
  
• Russia and Georgia are in a 'state of war' (09-Aug-2008)
  
  
• Putin calls Georgia's Ossetia policy a 'stupid decision' (19-Aug-2004)
  
  
• Georgian President lays out South Ossetia battle lines (24-Aug-2004)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Georgia, Ukraine, Mikhail Saakashvili,
Petro Poroshenko, Yulia Tymoshenko,
Rose Revolution, Ukraine, Orange Revolution, Eduard Shevardnadze,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, Odessa

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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 12-Sep-17 World View -- Pakistan alarmed as highly educated students become terrorists

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Students at Pakistan's prestigious Karachi University implicated in terrorism
  
• Pakistan says that there is 'no terrorist wing at Karachi University'
  

****
**** Students at Pakistan's prestigious Karachi University implicated in terrorism
****


University of Karachi, Pakistan

Karachi police investigators and intelligence officials last week
conducted a raid on Ansar-ul-Sharia Pakistan (the supporters of
Islamic law in Pakistan, or ASP), capturing or killing almost all of
the members of the terror group.

Acting on a tip, police did a house-to-house search for members of the
group, and in the ensuing gunfight, four ASP members were killed and
several others injured. One cop was also killed, and another injured,
with the rest taken into custody. However, the ASP group's mastermind
Abdul Kareem Sarosh Siddiqui was injured in the gunfight, but escaped.

Siddiqui had studied Applied Physics at the University of Karachi,
where his father is a professor. A Siddiqui associate, Abu Saleh, was
captured by police yesterday. A search of his home resulted in one
laptop, two mobile phones, and a hard disk.

The group was made up of 10 to 12 highly educated people who had
studied at at well-known universities, including University of
Karachi, the Nadirshaw Eduljee Dinshaw University of Engineering and
Technology (NEDUET), and the Dawood University of Engineering and
Technology (DUET), all in Karachi, and three of the most prestigious
universities in the country.

ASP may have been formed as early as 2015, and obtained training from
al-Qaeda groups in Afghanistan and Syria. The group only became
active earlier this year, when they gunned down a policeman in
February, and then claimed responsibility for killing a retired
colonel in April. As ASP conducted additional targeted killings, they
became more confident, and they began killing once per month, and
later almost on a weekly basis.

As in the case of a TV crime drama where the FBI agents profile the
perps, police knew that the ASP militants were getting careless, and
that soon they would make a mistake that would allow them to be
captured. On September 2, they attempted an assassination of a
politician Khwaja Izharul Hassan, because he is a "pro-American MQM
leader," referring to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement–Pakistan (MQM-P)
political party. Hassan was unhurt by the assassination attempt, but
it led to the tip that allowed the ASP militants to be captured.
South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Dawn (Karachi) and The News (Pakistan)

****
**** Pakistan says that there is 'no terrorist wing at Karachi University'
****

Arrests of highly educated terrorists are proving an embarrassment to
Karachi universities and is raising alarm bells, raising the question
whether students are receiving terrorist training at these
universities.

At meetings of university officials last week, there were suggestions
that students should be vetted and cleared by police with "character
certificates" before being permitted to attend university, and that
student's personal registration data should be turned over to
intelligence agencies for investigation. Reportedly, some teachers
said that police verification wouldn’t be fruitful given the low
credibility of police department.

Karachi University (KU) Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Ajmal Khan
expressed pride in the students and faculty of the university, adding
that the issues being faced by the varsity were blown out of
proportion. He denied that there was any connection between the
University and terrorists:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"We do not want to irritate students and their
> parents. ... Provision of security is the job of law enforcers.
> There is no terrorist wing in [Karachi University]. We are
> standing by the side of law enforcement agencies but no decisions
> have been taken regarding handing over students’ data to
> intelligence agencies and demanding character
> certificates."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Another professor said that it was obvious that the university
education of ASP terrorists was irrelevant:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The primary reason is that the network in question –
> triggering scrutiny of university students – was being run via
> religious institutions and activities in Gulzar-e-Hijri area.
> Although Sarosh [Sidiqqi] and other members were university
> students, which most of the urban youth are, they hardly attended
> the universities. So, it is more than evident that university
> culture or formal education is not responsible for their
> deeds. The only institutions that need scrutiny are the religious
> ones."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Dawn (6-Sep) and
Saama TV (Pakistan) and The Nation (Pakistan) and Xinhua

Related Articles

• Dual terrorist bombings in Karachi, Pakistan (06-Feb-2010)
  
  
• Karachi Pakistan crawls back to life (10-Jul-2011)
  
  
• Sectarian violence in Karachi, Pakistan, leads to rise of Islamist terrorists (22-Apr-2012)
  
  
• Police crackdown tries to control exploding violence in Karachi, Pakistan (22-Oct-2013)
  
  
• Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafia (27-Aug-2015)
  
  
• Terrorists attack school, part of growing violence in Karachi Pakistan (05-Feb-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Karachi,
Ansar-ul-Sharia Pakistan. ASP, Abdul Kareem Sarosh Siddiqui,
University of Karachi, Muhammad Ajmal Khan,
Nadirshaw Eduljee Dinshaw University of Engineering and Technology, NEDUET,
Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, DUET,
Khwaja Izharul Hassan, Muttahida Qaumi Movement–Pakistan, MQM-P

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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 13-Sep-17 World View -- Qatar and Saudi Arabia have vitriolic exchange at Arab League meeting

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Donald Trump promises to solve the Gulf crisis 'fairly easily'
  
• Qatar and Saudi Arabia have vitriolic exchange at Tuesday's Arab League meeting
  

****
**** Donald Trump promises to solve the Gulf crisis 'fairly easily'
****


Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif (L) meets with Qatar's ambassador in Tehran on Monday. Close relations between Iran and Qatar are at the center of the Gulf crisis (Tehran Times)

On September 7, at a press conference at the White House with the emir
of Kuwait, president Donald Trump promised to end the Gulf crisis that
began on June 5 when four Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt -- imposed a land, sea and air
blockade on Qatar. The reasons given were Qatar's support for Iran,
Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which the four countries
consider to be a terrorist group, and Qatar's aggressive use of
al-Jazeera, especially the Arabic channel, to broadcast incitement to
overthrow their governments.

Kuwait had been attempting to mediate the crisis, and at the
press conference, he indicated that he would welcome help
from the United States. Trump said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>PRESIDENT TRUMP: "While I do appreciate and respect
> the mediation, I would be willing to be the mediator. I was
> telling the Emir before that if I can help between UAE and Saudi
> Arabia, where I have a very great relationship -- I spoke with the
> King yesterday, King Salman, who is a friend of mine, and we spoke
> on unrelated subjects, but we had a long conversation. If I can
> help mediate between Qatar and, in particular, the UAE and Saudi
> Arabia, I would be willing to do so. And I think you’d have a
> deal worked out very quickly.
>
> I think it’s something that's going to get solved fairly easily.
> Kuwait has been really the leader of getting it solved, and we
> appreciate that very much. But I do believe that we’ll solve
> it. If we don't solve it, I will be a mediator right here in the
> White House. We’ll come together. Very quickly, I think, we’ll
> have something solved."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So Trump phoned the leaders of both Qatar and Saudi Arabia and asked
these two leaders to speak to each other and resolve the issues.
Early on Saturday, Qatari ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had a phone conversation. It
was their first conversation since the crisis began, Unfortunately, no
issues were resolved. Instead, they got into a public spat about who
initiated the call, and who wanted it more than the other.

On Tuesday (yesterday), Trump called the leader of the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, stressing the
need to end terrorism. Tuesday’s call is Trump's third to bin Zayed
since the crisis began in June. Trump has also called Saudi King
Salman five times, and the emir of Qatar two times. White House (7-Sep) and The National (UAE) and Bloomberg (9-Sep)

Related Articles

• With Arab world in chaos, Arab League summit displays lack of leadership and influence (30-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Mideast turmoil increases after Arab League suspends Syria (15-Nov-2011)
  
  
• Arab League meeting in Iraq split by acrimonious divisions (29-Mar-2012)
  
  
• Arab League holds annual meeting among bitter splits (26-Mar-2014)
  

****
**** Qatar and Saudi Arabia have vitriolic exchange at Tuesday's Arab League meeting
****

If any proof was needed that the Gulf crisis will not be solved
"fairly easily," and in fact will not solved for a long time to come,
it was provided at the Arab League meeting held in Cairo on Tuesday.

Qatar's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad
al-Muraikhi immediately threw down the gauntlet by referring to Iran
as an "honorable country," and saying that ties had warmed since the
blockade began.

The increasingly belligerent relations between Saudi Arabia
and Iran, and the increasingly friendly relationship between
Qatar and Iran, have become perhaps the biggest difference
at the core of the acrimonious Saudi-Qatar relationship.

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia became explosive early in 2016
when Saudi Arabia executed 47 alleged terrorists -- 46 Sunnis and one
Shia, Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr. Iran and Shias were infuriated
because the execution implied that Shia terrorism is equivalent to
Sunni terrorism. Iranian mobs firebombed the Saudi embassy in Tehran,
and attacked the consulate in Meshaad. Saudi Arabia and Iran broke
diplomatic relations as a result. Other Saudi allies followed suit,
including Qatar.

However, Qatar restored diplomatic relations with Iran last month.
This is a move that was made since the June 5 blockade began, and
shows that the crisis is today less likely to be resolved than it was
just a few weeks ago.

So at the Arab League meeting, when Qatar's al-Muraikhi said
that Iran was an "honorable country," he was really rubbing
Saudi Arabia's nose in the disagreement.

In response, Ahmed al-Kattan, Saudi Arabia's envoy to the Arab League,
said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Congratulations to Iran and soon, God willing, you
> will regret it.
>
> If the brethren in Qatar think they may have a benefit in their
> rapprochement with Iran, I'd like to say that they have this
> evaluation wrong in every way. The Qataris will be held
> responsible for such a decision. ...
>
> The coming days will prove them wrong because we know that the
> Qatari people will never accept the Iranians to play a role in
> Qatar."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

That sounds like a threat to me.

UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"[The Gulf crisis continues] due to Qatar's
> unwillingness for peace.
>
> Their direction needs to change and we will continue our policies
> until Qatar changes its policies of aggression against the four
> boycotting countries, as long as Doha [Qatar] supports and funds
> terrorism and intervenes in the Middle East countries' internal
> affairs."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So Qatar's al-Muraikhi said that the crisis started when
UAE-backed hackers hacked the Qatar News Agency, posting fake news.
He added:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Then we saw this vicious media campaign against
> Qatar, waged by rabid dogs backed by some regimes. [UAE minister]
> Anwar [Gargash] forgot to mention that the four blockading
> countries tried a military action against my country in
> 1996."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Reuters and Al Jazeera (Qatar) and Arab News (Saudi Arabia)

Related Articles

[*] As Hajj approaches, Iran and Qatar remain in dispute with Saudi Arabia (27-Aug-2017)

[*] Egypt calls Qatar an 'enemy state' (30-Jun-2016)

[*] Gulf Arab states have major split over Egypt and Iran (06-Mar-2014)
[/list]


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
Bahrain, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, al-Jazeera, Kuwait,
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Mohammed bin Salman,
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi,
Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, Ahmed al-Kattan, Anwar Gargash

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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 14-Sep-17 World View -- Kidnapping and sham trial of Lee Ming-che brings China-Taiwan relations to another low

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China kidnaps and tortures Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che for sham confession
  
• Kidnapping and sham trial of Lee Ming-che brings China-Taiwan relations to another low
  

****
**** China kidnaps and tortures Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che for sham confession
****


Taiwanese editorial cartoon depicting commonly held attitude toward China's trial of Lee Ming-che (News Lens)

Lee Ming-che, a community college teacher in Taiwan who has posted
criticisms of the mainland Communist Party of China (CCP), was
kidnapped by Chinese authorities on March 19 in Macau, as he was
traveling to China to visit a friend. There was no word of his fate
until March 28, when Chinese authorities confirmed that he had been
jailed on charges of "pursuing activities harmful to national
security." Lee is the first Taiwanese to be accused based on a new
law that specifies harsh punishment for CCP critics.

Lee was not permitted visits by his family, and he had no lawyer
except one appointed by the CCP. Only when his trial began, on
Monday, September 11, were his wife and mother permitted to see him in
the courtroom.

On Monday, the CCP released videos of Lee confessing to his alleged
crimes, referring to comments written in an instant messaging group:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I spread some attacks, theories that maliciously
> attacked and defamed China’s government, the Chinese Communist
> Party and China’s current political system, and I incited the
> subversion of state power."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

There are few people who doubt that Lee's "confession" was coerced,
probably by means of torture.

Lee’s wife Lee Ching-yu said to the Taiwanese media, "Please forgive
Lee Ming-che if you see him doing or saying something disturbing in
court under duress. That is just the Chinese government skillfully
extracting a 'guilty confession.'" Taipei Times (28-Mar) and Reuters and News Lens (Taiwan)

****
**** Kidnapping and sham trial of Lee Ming-che brings China-Taiwan relations to another low
****

The Chinese kidnapped, jailed, tortured, coerced a confession from and
tried in court someone who was effectively a nobody, and nothing that
he said could possibly have done any harm to the Chinese government.
So the question arises why China would spend millions of dollars to do
this with no apparent purpose.

According to Taiwanese Judicial Reform Foundation executive director
Kao Jung-chih, the timing of the trial was deliberately set for Monday
to stop Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu, from traveling to Geneva,
Switzerland, on Sept. 10 and reporting on her husband’s case at a
meeting of the UN working group on arbitrary detention and enforced
disappearances, since the court trial disqualified Lee Ming-che as a
victim of enforced disappearance, which international law treats as a
crime against humanity.

Many analysts believe that China is using the Lee case to send a
warning that a crackdown on Taiwan is coming. According to
one analyst:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Beijing has been in the mode of demonstrating that
> China is not happy with Taiwan and can cause Taiwan pain in a
> variety of ways. In that sense, Beijing welcomes a deterioration
> of relations with Taiwan."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Taiwan's premier William Lai begged China to return Lee to Taiwan:
"Lee works at a non-profit organization as a human rights advocate.
There is no way he could subvert the Chinese government. I felt sorry
for Lee being forced to confess at a trial in a manner nobody could
accept." Sentinel (Taiwan) and VOA and Taipei Times and News Lens (Taiwan)

Related Articles

• In a major victory for China, Panama switches allegiance from Taiwan to China (14-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Taiwan says it must defend against increasingly threatening China (18-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Taiwan's president responds to military threats from China (01-Jan-2017)
  
  
• New Taiwan poll shows overwhelming support for independence from China (02-Jun-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Taiwan, Lee Ming-che,
Lee Ching-yu, Kao Jung-chih, William Lai

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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 15-Sep-17 World View -- Burma's (Myanmar's) ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas leading to humanitarian catastrophe

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Burma's (Myanmar's) ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas leading to humanitarian catastrophe
  
• At press conference, Boris Johnson and Rex Tillerson make delusional statements
  
• Rohingya genocide forces India to choose between Burma and Bangladesh
  
• North Korea fires another ballistic missile over Japan
  

****
**** Burma's (Myanmar's) ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas leading to humanitarian catastrophe
****


Aung San Suu Kyi giving her ironic Nobel Peace Prize lecture in 2012, wherein she called for international protection of refugees

Genocide and ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingyas in northern Rakhine
state by Burma's Buddhist army continues.

According to the United nations, 389,000 Rohingyas have fled into
Bangladesh since August 25, 10,000 in just the last 24 hours. 60% of
those arriving are children. Dozens are being killed or losing limbs
by tripping land mines placed by Burma's army on the border with
Bangladesh.

Within Bangladesh, there's a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Bangladesh officials are restricting NGOs from delivering food, water
and other humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas,
because that would only encourage them to stay. Bangladesh officials
are insisting that Burma must take back all the Rohingyas that have
fled across the border. Burmese officials are refusing, or saying
that they'll only take back the ones who have papers proving Burmese
citizenship -- which none of them have.

Starting in 2011, Buddhists have been attacking Muslims in villages
across Burma, particularly the 1.1 million ethnic Rohingyas in Rakhine
State. Mobs of Buddhists have attacked Muslims, conducting atrocities
including torture and rape, killing hundreds and forcing hundreds of
thousands to leave their homes to flee from the attacks. Buddhist
civilians have joined the Burmese army in burning down entire Rohingya
villages to the ground. On August 25, Rohingya activists retaliated
with carried out coordinated attacks against 30 Burma police outposts.
This triggered massive violence by Buddhist civilians and the Buddhist
army.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that the
attacks by Burmese security forces on Rohingyas are "completely
unacceptable." He told reporters:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The humanitarian situation it is catastrophic. When
> we met last week there was 125,000 Rohingya refugees who had fled
> into Bangladesh. That number has now tripled to nearly 380,000.
> Many are staying in makeshift settlements or with those
> communities who are generously sharing what they have. But women
> and children are arriving hungry and malnourished.
>
> [Question: Is this ethnic cleansing?]
>
> A third of the [Rohingya] population had to flee the country - can
> you find a better word to describe it?"<END QUOTE>[/indent]

BBC and
AP

****
**** At press conference, Boris Johnson and Rex Tillerson make delusional statements
****

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the word
"catastrophic" certainly does apply to this situation, not just
because of the humanitarian aspects, but because of the explosive
nature of this event for entire region.

Long-time readers are aware that I keep pointing out that it's a core
principle of Generational Dynamics that, even in a dictatorship, major
decisions are made by masses of people, by generations of people. The
attitudes of politicians are irrelevant, except insofar as they
represent the attitudes of the people. So, for example, the Holocaust
and World War II would have occurred with or without Adolf Hitler. It
was the masses of German people who brought about the Holocaust, not
Adolf Hitler.

So it's true that Burmese officials, including Aung San Suu Kyi, are
to be condemned for supporting and conducting genocide and ethnic
cleansing targeting the Rohingyas. But it's the masses of Buddhist
Burman people who are bringing about the genocide and ethnic cleansing
of the Rohingyas, as we described last week,
as acts of revenge for what happened in World War II.
At that time, the Buddhists were on the side of the Imperial Japanese,
fighting the British colonists and the Rohingyas. There were massive
atrocities committed on all sides, and those atrocities by the
Buddhist Burmans, by the Muslim Rohingyas, and by the Christian
British, are now being paid back. As that article describes, the
murderous Buddhist hatred for the Rohingyas is deep and entrenched,
and cannot be changed by some vote in the UN Security Council.

So that's why statements by Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson
and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a press conference in
London on Thursday are naïve to the point of being delusional.

Boris Johnson said (my transcription):

> [indent]<QUOTE>"To answer directly your point about Daw Suu state
> counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi - let's be clear. She led Burma
> after a period of decades of repression by a military junta. And
> I yield to no one in my admiration of what she stood for, and the
> way she fought for democracy. I think many people around the
> world share that admiration. But I think it's now vital for her
> to use that moral capital and that authority to make the point
> about the suffering of the people of Rakhine.
>
> And I think - nobody wants to see a return to military rule in
> Burma. Nobody wants to see a return of the generals. But it's
> also vital that the civilian government and that is Daw Suu - for
> whom as I say I have a great deal of administration - but it is
> vital for her now to make clear that this is an abomination, and
> that those people will be allowed back, to Burma - and that
> preparation is being made, and that the abuse of their human
> rights and the killings hundreds, perhaps even thousands, the
> killings will stop."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

For an example of very deep historical irony, read Aung San Suu Kyi'
"Nobel Peace Prize Lecture" when she won the Nobel Peace Prize in
2012: Nobel Prize Foundation

Boris Johnson obviously has great affection for Aung San Suu Kyi, whom
he calls by a familiar name Daw Suu, but if Daw Suu were suddenly to
express any sympathy for the Rohingyas, and for the atrocities, rapes
and murders that her government is perpetrating on the Rohingyas, she
would probably raped or murdered herself. As Leo Tolstoy says,
describing Napoleon's invasion of Russia, where "millions of Christian
men killed and tortured each other": "Had Napoleon then forbidden [his
soldiers] to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and have
proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable."

So now let's turn to Rex Tillerson's statement:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"With respect to the horrors that we are witnessing,
> occurring in Burma, I think it is a defining moment in many ways
> for this new emerging democracy - although it is a power sharing
> arrangement - we all clearly understand that - and so we
> appreciate the difficult and complex situation Aung San Suu Kyi
> finds herself in, and I think it is important that the global
> community speak out in support of what we all know is the
> expectation is towards the treatment of people, regardless of
> their ethnicity, and that this violence must STOP, this
> persecution must STOP, it's been characterized by many as ethnic
> cleansing - that must STOP. And we need to support Aung San Suu
> Kyi and her leadership, but also be very clear and unequivocal to
> the military power sharing in that government that this is
> unacceptable, and this is going to many ways define the direction
> that Burma will take. They need our strong support, we should
> give them our strong support."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

This statement is just a delusional as Boris Johnson's statement. The
violence will not stop, the persecution will not stop, and the ethnic
cleansing will not stop. Even if some agreement could be reached for
a ceasefire, it would be only a temporary ceasefire.

Except for North Korea, the situation with the Rohingyas is probably
the most dangerous in the world right now, the most likely to trigger
a major war.

It's expected that hundreds of thousands more Rohingyas will flee
Burma for Bangladesh, where they're not wanted. This is going to
bring about a great deal more Rohingya activism, and terrorist attacks
in Burma. At some point, Bangladesh may feel it necessary to take
military action to force the Rohingyas back to Burma, the only
alternative being to set up huge new refugee camps. Jihadists from
Saudi Arabia to Indonesia are taking notice of the atrocities that the
Buddhists in Burma are perpetrating on the Muslim Rohingyas, and it's
almost certain that there will be backlash from al-Qaeda. Telegraph (London) and AFP and Reuters

Related: Burma's ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas witnessed by BBC reporter (09-Sep-2017)

****
**** Rohingya genocide forces India to choose between Burma and Bangladesh
****

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi initially took a position
completely on the side of Burma, with the foreign ministry saying that
India stands firmly with Myanmar in its "fight against terrorism."

This came on the heels of an announcement by the home office that
India would deport its entire Rohingya population, thought to number
about 40,000.

According to an Indian analysis, there are several reasons why Modi
sided so heavily with Burma, and against Bangladesh and the Rohingyas:

• One, Myanmar helps India tackle insurgency threats in the
  latter’s northeastern states.
  
  
• Two, Myanmar is key to the success of India’s Act East policy.
  The purpose of this policy, announced in 2014, is to promote security,
  stability and prosperity of the northeastern states of India, and this
  requires cooperation with Myanmar. (However, it also requires
  cooperation with Bangladesh.).
  
  
• Three, a public condemnation of Myanmar will only push it closer
  to China. Myanmar is anyway dependent on Beijing’s veto in the UN
  Security Council should the Rohingyas issue reach there.
  
  
• Four, India is also aware of the possible role of Pakistan-based
  terror groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in the 25 August terrorist
  attacks by Rohingya activists.

It's significant that Myanmar has announced categorically that its
territory will not be allowed to be used for militant activities
against India.

However, Narendra Modi has had to slightly modify his policy, by
acknowledging the seriousness of the situation caused by the flow or
refugees. The reasons are:

• Like Myanmar, Bangladesh too is important to India’s
  counter-insurgency efforts and Act East policy.
  
  
• Bangladesh's pro-India government is threatened by a domestic
  backlash because of the massive rush of refugees, and this backlash
  would be strengthened by India's full support for Myanmar.
  
  
• India's full support for Myanmar's policies would strengthen the
  cooperation between anti-India elements in both Bangladesh and
  Pakistan.

India is walking a tightrope between Myanmar and Bangladesh, but has
not yet been able to condemn Myanmar’s excessive use of force in the
Rakhine state. Live Mint (India) and Swarajya (India) and BBC (5-Sep)

****
**** North Korea fires another ballistic missile over Japan
****


Map showing that the new missile test is considerably more powerful than the previous one on August 29, and that Guam is now within reach (Korea Times)

As I'm writing this on Thursday evening ET, North Korea has launched
another ballistic missile.

Several leaders and analysts have come out with strong hard-hitting
statements like, "This is completely unacceptable," and "No one's
going to tolerate this sort of thing."

The United Nations Security Council will have another emergency
meeting on Friday. Korea Times

Related Articles

• North Korea and Russia continue to incite a new Korean War (06-Sep-2017)
  
  
• America's UN ambassador Nikki Haley says North Korea is 'begging for war' (05-Sep-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Burma, Myanmar,
Buddhists, Burmans, Muslims, Rohingyas,
Aung San Suu Kyi, Bangladesh, António Guterres,
Boris Johnson, Rex Tillerson, Leo Tolstoy, Napoleon,
India, Narendra Modi, Pakistan, North Korea

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
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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

[John J. Xenakis]

(09-15-2017, 10:51 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: > Buddhist majority countries in SE Asia routinely demonstrate that
> main stream Asian Buddhism is not the benign, "peaceful," "non
> judgmental" force many Western adherents claim it to be. For
> Western adherents, the main attraction of Buddhism is, that it is
> not of direct Abrahamic origin. Ergo, it's not your (GI) parents
> religion. Ergo, it is for the Blue Boomers who claim Abrahamic
> religion is part of "Western Paternalistic Oppression. "

> Although even this truism is subject to questioning, since in the
> time line of religious development, Judaic beliefs predated
> Buddhist ones, and the Diaspora brought Jews to the very states in
> India where Buddhism started. A number of the Buddhist precepts
> are identical to a subset of the 10 Commandments. Verrrrry
> interesting.

Back in college I took a comparative religions course, and the
professor remarked that many people believe that many elements of the
story of the life of the Buddha were copied from the life of Jesus.
He added that the only problem with this belief is that the Buddha
lived several hundred years before Jesus. (Actually, I sat in on the
comparative religions course for four semesters because it was so
fascinating and always different. It was taught by world renowned
religions expert Huston Smith, who died earlier this year at age 97.)

On the other hand, there are ancient texts in Hinduism and Judaism
that date back millennia BC, and there are known contacts between the
Babylonians and the Persians, and between the Persians and the Hindus,
and these ancient civilizations must have borrowed from one another.
The Moses concept of "10 commandments from God" is bound to be very
appealing because of its utter simplicity, and it seems very likely,
as you suggest, that it traveled to other ancient civilizations.

It's also very interesting that there are significant differences
between the versions of the Ten Commandments adopted by different
religions -- Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and Muslim.

https://undergod.procon.org/view.backgro...eID=000824

Whenever I write about Burma, commenters on the Breitbart site simply
cannot grasp the concept of non-peaceful Buddhists, even though
Buddhists could not possibly have conquered such huge regions of Asia
without the usual torture, rape, massacres, and genocide that all
ethnic and religious groups perpetrate in all crisis wars. If I write
a sentence like "Buddhists are raping and murdering Muslims in Burma,"
the commenter will reinterpret this as "Muslims are raping and
murdering Buddhists in Burma." This drives me crazy.

[Warren Dew]

Maybe the Breitbart commenters want to have their own "religion of peace" to counter the Blues' muslim "religion of peace".

I think the Shakers might have been an actual religion of peace. Certainly the fate of their religion is that of any actual religion of peace.

[pbrower2a]

(09-15-2017, 11:37 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(09-15-2017, 10:51 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: >   Buddhist majority countries in SE Asia routinely demonstrate that
>   main stream Asian Buddhism is not the benign, "peaceful," "non
>   judgmental" force many Western adherents claim it to be. For
>   Western adherents, the main attraction of Buddhism is, that it is
>   not of direct Abrahamic origin. Ergo, it's not your (GI) parents
>   religion. Ergo, it is for the Blue Boomers who claim Abrahamic
>   religion is part of "Western Paternalistic Oppression. "

>   Although even this truism is subject to questioning, since in the
>   time line of religious development, Judaic beliefs predated
>   Buddhist ones, and the Diaspora brought Jews to the very states in
>   India where Buddhism started. A number of the Buddhist precepts
>   are identical to a subset of the 10 Commandments. Verrrrry
>   interesting.

Back in college I took a comparative religions course, and the
professor remarked that many people believe that many elements of the
story of the life of the Buddha were copied from the life of Jesus.
He added that the only problem with this belief is that the Buddha
lived several hundred years before Jesus.  (Actually, I sat in on the
comparative religions course for four semesters because it was so
fascinating and always different.  It was taught by world renowned
religions expert Huston Smith, who died earlier this year at age 97.)

I remember seeing a theory that Jesus in his missing years was a ship's carpenter on one of the many ships that plied a trade between India and Rome. Jesus would have gotten an introduction to Buddhism and adopted it to his Jewish teachings.

Quote:On the other hand, there are ancient texts in Hinduism and Judaism
that date back millennia BC, and there are known contacts between the
Babylonians and the Persians, and between the Persians and the Hindus,
and these ancient civilizations must have borrowed from one another.
The Moses concept of "10 commandments from God" is bound to be very
appealing because of its utter simplicity, and it seems very likely,
as you suggest, that it traveled to other ancient civilizations.

Except for "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and the demand that people keep the Sabbath holy, any culture would insist upon people obeying commandments like the other eight. Murder, theft, adultery, fraudulent oaths, perjury, and disrespect for parents would rend any pre-industrial society. Covetousness? Know thy place, ye peons!

Quote:It's also very interesting that there are significant differences
between the versions of the Ten Commandments adopted by different
religions -- Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and Muslim.

https://undergod.procon.org/view.backgro...eID=000824

I shall have to look.

Quote:Whenever I write about Burma, commenters on the Breitbart site simply
cannot grasp the concept of non-peaceful Buddhists, even though
Buddhists could not possibly have conquered such huge regions of Asia
without the usual torture, rape, massacres, and genocide that all
ethnic and religious groups perpetrate in all crisis wars.  If I write
a sentence like "Buddhists are raping and murdering Muslims in Burma,"
the commenter will reinterpret this as "Muslims are raping and
murdering Buddhists in Burma."  This drives me crazy.

Although the Buddha is undeniably a man of peace, his followers need not be. It is worth remembering that the Japanese of WWII (really nasty cause) used Buddhist concepts to encourage young men to fly kamikaze missile-aircraft.

Westerners who wanted to fill a spiritual void with a religious heritage that demands comparatively little but offers them what they want (a rationale for peace in a war-torn world and an intellectual challenge that alienated intellectuals invariably crave) fit Buddhism to their values. For many that can work well.

So the Buddhism that they do not know well is better than the Christianity or Judaism that they know perhaps too well.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 16-Sep-17 World View -- What you should do about the huge Equifax data breach

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• The huge Equifax data breach puts makes many people vulnerable to identity theft
  
• Steps you should consider taking to protect yourself
  
• Equifax and the rise of Generation-X
  
• Release of DOJ memo reveals massive criminal fraud by JP Morgan in financial crisis
  

****
**** The huge Equifax data breach puts makes many people vulnerable to identity theft
****


Equifax headquarters

Here's something that I wrote in my Feb 26 2013 World View article:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Apparently, Equifax's networks and databases have
> been hacked
>
> I use different e-mail addresses for almost everything. That way,
> I know whether a company is using my e-mail address for spam.
>
> In 2005, I registered with the Equifax web site to do some
> research for a brief period. Starting about a month ago, I've
> been receiving several spam messages a day to that e-mail address.
>
> Therefore, I conclude that Equifax's networks and data bases have
> been hacked, and e-mail addresses have been stolen at the very
> least. Whether Equifax's credit card databases have also been
> hacked is something I have no way of knowing."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

I still receive spam messages to that e-mail address. The latest one
was from someone named Natasha who is writing to "foreigners as they
are fascinated by the beauty and simplicity of Slavic women," and by
the "simplicity and the intense aura of emotions which we have."
Tempting, huh?

Apparently, Equifax didn't take network security seriously, even after
they'd already been hacked. This doesn't surprise me in the least.
When I was working for Ability Networks, their servers were hacked by
a combined Phishing/Ransomware attack. No data was stolen, but I
warned my employer that they should at least encrypt the social
security numbers in their main data base. My warnings were ignored
because spending money on security doesn't generate sales.

So here it is over four years later, and Equifax's data bases have
been the target of possibly the worst data breach in history. Some
143 million people had their personal information stolen, including
social security numbers names, driver's license numbers, dates of
birth, and so on. Most of the people are Americans, but some are from
Canada, Britain and Europe, and possibly other countries as well.

Somebody who had all that information about you could take out a big
loan in your name, commit fraud in your name, or steal your entire
identity.

Somebody now has a copy of all that Equifax information in their own
database. They can start selling it to other people, or they could
use it for other purposes. Since social security numbers can't
change, this can happen for years to come. Economist and Fox Business

****
**** Steps you should consider taking to protect yourself
****

I got a phone call today from a perky-sounding girl who said that I
qualify for a big discount on the vacation of my dreams, and all she
needs is a little information. This is a typical scam for collecting
information, sometimes to augment additional information available to
the hacker, to get a complete picture to be used for fraud or identity
threat. Do not, under any circumstances, give any information to
anyone under such circumstances, even the name of your pet cat.

A variation is a "Spear Phishing" attack. You receive an e-mail
message from someone you know, perhaps your boss or a friend or
coworker or your bank or your broker. The message contains personal
information, proving that the message is legitimate. It asks to click
on a link, which ends up infecting your computer with malware,
allowing the hacker to steal your banking information. The e-mail
information was carefully crafted to fool you, perhaps combining
information from several sources, such as the Equifax hack, plus your
Facebook page, plus a scam phone call. If you receive an e-mail
message that asks you to download something, even if it's from someone
you know, then contact the supposed sender, and ask him why the hell
he's so stupid that he's sending you something so dangerous and
inappropriate.

For the protection of your computer, you should make sure that you
have anti-virus and anti-malware software installed, and that it's up
to date.

For protection from identity theft, you might consider getting a
"credit lock" or "credit freeze." This is a service offered by each
of the three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion and
Experian, for about $10 per year each. Equifax is waiving its fee for
one year, but you'll still have to pay the others. This service
prevents someone from getting your credit report without your
permission, blocking them from taking out a loan in your name. It's a
pain in the neck to administer, but you may consider it worth the
trouble.

The following are links to articles that provide additional
information on the above and other steps to protect yourself: Federal Trade Commission and CBS News and NPR and CNBC and Engadget

****
**** Equifax and the rise of Generation-X
****

As I wrote above, Equifax obviously didn't really care much about
network security. In my experience, Gen-Xers ignore warnings about
things like security if the warnings come from a Boomer, of whom many
Gen-Xers are often contemptuous.

Having been in the computer industry my entire life, I've seen several
disasters for exactly that reason. At Computer Sciences Corp., a
Gen-Xer sabotaged someone's code. At a couple of places, including
Fidelity and CACI, managers fired people who warned that the project
was headed for failure, and then the project failed anyway. Every
disaster of this type that I've personally seen has always involved a
dysfunctional action by a Gen-Xers to sabotage a Boomer. I've written
about this on my web site dozens of times over the years, and it
apparently stems from their anger at their parents' divorce in the
1980s.

The most amazing example is what happened on the afternoon of October
1, 2013, when President Obama stood up at a press conference to launch
Obamacare. When a reporter asked why so few people could log on, he
answered that millions of people were enrolling for insurance, so the
web sites were slow. As it turned out, only six people across the
country were able to enroll on that day.

How is it possible that Obama and the entire White House were so
completely blindsided by the disaster that was already unfolding that
they didn't even know what was going on hours after the launch had
begun? How many people had to lie? How many people had to commit
fraud? How many people had to be silenced or fired? How many layers
of management were lied to, to prevent Obama from knowing the size of
the disaster, hours after the disaster was already in progress?

I wrote about this at length in "Healthcare.gov -- The greatest software development disaster in history". As I described, the reason that Obama was
completely blindsided on Oct 1, 2013, is because the thousands of
people on the healthcare.gov project all lied, every one of them.
Obama got what he deserved, and the rest of the country got screwed.

This is the world we live in now, where black is white and white is
black, whether you're in the mortgage industry, the computer industry,
the newspaper industry, or any other industry, and anyone who talks
about what's really going on is subjected to being silenced, one way
or another.

Here's something that a web site reader recently wrote to me:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I have spent my entire adult life in mortgage lending
> and the amount of corruption is stunning. I have in the past tried
> to report issues. What I got was referred to agency after agency
> to ending in frustration. There was even one time that after
> getting my personal info the guy started asking me if I had some
> kind of grudge. I said no but asked how that would matter anyway
> if the information was correct. He then started just burrowing
> into me, didn't ask a thing about the subject I called about.
>
> It's like there is this secret club with wholesalers and
> government workers. Like nothing I had seen before. Scared me;
> thought I was going to be targeted."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

These things were almost unthinkable prior in the 1980s and 1990s,
when the Silent and Boomer generations were in charge. They only
became possible with the rise of Generation-X.

So now getting back to the situation at Equifax, it's even a lot worse
than described above.

Equifax learned about the hack on July 29, but didn't inform the
public for several weeks. Two days later, on August 1, three Equifax
executives sold $1.8 million worth of shares, allegedly to avoid
losing money from the stock price falling when the breach was made
public. Equifax claims that they were going to sell the shares
anyway, and didn't know about the breach.

Equifax itself is in serious trouble for incompetence in protecting
consumers' personal data. The attackers breached Equifax's server in
April because of a vulnerability in the "Apache Struts" web
application software. The Apache Software Foundation had released a
patch for the vulnerability in March, but Equifax didn't bother to
install the patch, which would have taken minutes.

So Equifax is in trouble for multiple reasons: They didn't install the
patch; when the breach was discovered, they didn't notify anyone for
weeks; and executives sold their shares, possibly violating insider
trading laws. And we won't even both to list the ways in which
Equifax botched the announcement of the breach. Based on my
experience and years in the computer industry, these are the actions
of a bunch of dumb, incompetent kids who think they know everything
and really know nothing. They're getting what they deserve. Law.com and Wired and
Engadget

Related: Obamacare: 500M lines of code, $500M, only 60% completed (01-Dec-2013)

****
**** Release of DOJ memo reveals massive criminal fraud by JP Morgan in financial crisis
****

I've been writing for years that it was mathematically provable that
the banks had committed massive fraud in knowingly selling defective
subprime mortgage backed synthetic securities, causing the financial
crisis. These fraudulent synthetic securities were created by
Gen-Xers who earned Master's degrees in "financial engineering" in the
1990s, and applied their skills to defraud their fathers' generation
in the 2000s. It's provable that the fraudulent securities were
created by Gen-Xers, since their Boomer bosses had no clue how to do
it. But it's also provable that their Boomer bosses knew what was
going on, because the financial engineers were taking B-rated
securities, slicing and dicing them, and magically converting them
into AAA-rated securities, which was mathematically impossible. I
wrote about all this in my 2010 article, "Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud".

I've repeatedly accused the Obama administration of purposely covering
up this criminal activity, and instead allowing JP Morgan, Citibank,
and other banks to contribute billions of dollars to Obama's campaigns
and pet projects, effectively becoming co-conspirators in the massive
criminal fraud that caused the financial crisis.

A 2013 memo from the Obama Justice Department, obtained through the
Freedom of Information Act, was just released, and it proves that
these accusations were all true:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"By this action, the United States seeks to recover
> civil penalties [against JPMorgan Chase] for a fraudulent and
> deceptive scheme to package and sell residential mortgage-backed
> securities [that the bank] knew contained a material amount of
> materially defective loans. ...
>
> JPMorgan knowingly securitized and sold billions of dollars of
> mortgage loans that were originated in material violation of
> underwriting guidelines and law."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Other revelations in the 92 page memo include:

• JPMorgan Chase knew that “many of these loans were tainted
  with fraud” and “knowingly misrepresented” that the loans met its
  underwriting guidelines, even though they clearly did not.
  
  
• "These fraudulent misrepresentations [cost investors] to suffer
  billions of dollars in losses."
  
  
• The bankers and traders who committed the fraud were rewarded with
  bonuses running into millions of dollars each.
  
  
• CEO Jamie Dimon became aware in October 2006 that the synthetic
  securities were failing, but: "despite knowledge at the highest levels
  that underwriting had deteriorated across the industry and early
  payment defaults were spiking, JPMorgan continued to purchase and
  securitize subprime loans without addressing the known breakdown of
  its due diligence practices and without disclosing its knowledge to
  investors." This is exactly what other banks did, as I wrote about
  years ago. As the fraud was being discovered, bankers doubled or
  tripled the volume of their sales, in order to make as much as they
  could, while they could.

The 2010 article that I wrote was about Citibank, and it proved
mathematically that Citibank must have committed exactly this kind of
criminal fraud. The memo about JP Morgan shows that the Obama Justice
Department was fully aware of this criminal fraud, and was committed
to using the Justice Department to cover up the criminal fraud in
return for billions of dollars in payments and contributions.

This week there's a lot of stuff coming out about the Obama
administration, such as Susan Rice's illegal unmasking of political
opponents, confirmation that the Lois Lerner's IRS illegally targeted
political opponents. I'm a pretty cynical person. I look upon this
as happening because the Obama administration had a Generation-X
culture, with little regard for the law or common sense. Let's hope
that the Boomer culture of the Trump administration does better.
Vanity Fair

Related Articles

• Wells Fargo receives laughable 'punishment' for massive criminal fraud (29-Sep-2016)
  
  
• 'The Big Short' - an infuriating movie about the financial crisis (26-Dec-2015)
  
  
• Peter Schweizer exposes massive Washington corruption on '60 Minutes' (14-Nov-2011)
  
  
• Financial Crisis Inquiry hearings provide 'smoking gun' evidence of widespread criminal fraud (14-Apr-2010)
  
• Barack Obama to Boomers: Drop dead! (23-Jan-2007)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Equifax, TransUnion, Experian,
Spear Phishing, Healthcare.gov, Obamacare, Generation-X,
JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, Citibank

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

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

[Warren Dew]

(09-15-2017, 10:28 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: For protection from identity theft, you might consider getting a
"credit lock" or "credit freeze."  This is a service offered by each
of the three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion and
Experian, for about $10 per year each.  Equifax is waiving its fee for
one year, but you'll still have to pay the others.  This service
prevents someone from getting your credit report without your
permission, blocking them from taking out a loan in your name.  It's a
pain in the neck to administer, but you may consider it worth the
trouble.

So you can get it for free from the company that loses your personal information, or pay for it from someone else.  Gee, what to do?

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 17-Sep-17 World View -- Global food price increases affecting world political stability

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Global food price increases affecting world political stability
  
• UN identifies three causes of increase in world hunger
  

****
**** Global food price increases affecting world political stability
****


FAO Global Food Price Index, 1961-present

Hunger is a major source of geopolitical instability, whether on a
regional or a global level. If a man is unable to feed his family,
then he may feel he has no choice but to join an army or militia that
will give him money that he can send to his family. And if the army
or militia is fighting someone whom the leaders or the politicians
blame as being the cause of high food prices and hunger, so much the
better if he gets to kill those people.

Food prices surged throughout the 2000s decade, and then began to fall
as the global financial crisis forced to buy less expensive foods,
such as cereals and sugar instead of meat. However, food prices began
to spike again in 2016, raising concern among UN officials. Food
prices fell slightly in August, but they're still significantly higher
than in August of last year.

Regional food shortages are even worse. The situation is
unprecedented in recent times, with four countries simultaneously
facing a food crisis.

South Sudan was officially declared to be in a state of famine in
February 2017, the first such declaration in six years. Some 100,000
people in South Sudan are facing famine, while 4.9 million people are
classified as facing a food crisis.

In Yemen, 17 million people, or two-thirds of the population, are
estimated to be food insecure, with the risk of a famine declaration
very high.

In northern Nigeria, 8.1 million people are facing acute food
insecurity conditions, and in Somalia, an estimated 2.9 million people
have been severely food insecure from six months ago.

Other countries are in near-crisis condition: Afghanistan, Burundi,
the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Iraq, Myanmar and Syria.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, food shortages and
increasing food prices are major factors in leading to the next
generational crisis war, or world war. After World War II, officials
sought to end hunger forever through the Rockefeller Foundation's
"Green Revolution," which brought modern agricultural techniques and
technology to countries around the world. These technologies included
new hybrid and genetically modified seed varieties and the use of
pesticides.

Today, however, the advantages of the Green Revolution have been
dissipated. Pesticides and fertilizers have been overused, and have
been damaging the land and environment. Genetically modified seeds
and foods have generated political controversy, and have plateaued in
effectiveness.

And finally there's the unavoidable problem that population keeps
increasing. More people means there are more mouths to feed, and more
people mean that farmland is used up by urban sprawl, so there's less
food production for more people.

If men cannot feed their families, then they will go to war rather
than starve. The "good thing" about this is that a generational
crisis war kills a lot of people, making more farmland available, and
leaving fewer people to be fed. That's the way the world works.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) Food Price Index and
United Nations and Guardian

****
**** UN identifies three causes of increase in world hunger
****

Some 815 million people were hungry in 2016, about 11% of the world
population, an increase of 38 million from 2015. Of these, 489
million hungry people live in countries affected by war.

In an interview with the BBC, Kostas Stamoulis of the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that they've identified three
reasons for the sharp increase in the number of undernourished people
from 2015 to 2016 (my transcription):

• "One is conflict. In the last 10 years, the extent of
  conflicts, the violence associated with conflicts, has increased
  dramatically. Those conflicts are not necessarily among nations, but
  even within nations they get regionalized and internationalized
  sometimes. So 489 million people live in countries affected by
  conflict 155 million children today are stunted, 122 million live in
  countries affected by conflict."
  
  
• "The second reason we have found out is violent weather events,
  which one or the other way may be associated with climate change, as
  for instance, as those associated with El Niño, and La Niña. Those
  have caused reduction in food availability in the harvests of
  people."
  
  
• "And then there is a group of countries that have not been
  affected either by conflict or violent weather events. Some of them
  are in the Latin America, especially South America, but they have been
  hit by economic slowdowns. They have based their economies on export
  earnings from high commodity prices -- agriculture or non-agriculture,
  and when the prices drop, their export earnings have dropped, the
  economic activity has slowed down, their ability to import food has
  come down, and also the ability of governments to have the necessary
  fiscal revenues for social protection systems, that would protect
  their people from hunger have come down."

In his last point, Stamoulis is certainly referring to, among others,
Venezuela, which wasted billions of dollars building a "Socialist
Paradise" when oil prices were high, with the result that happens 100%
of the time: A "Socialist Catastrophe," where people starve and, in
the case of Venezuela, can't even afford toilet paper. United Nations
and World Food Program

Related Articles

• Food - Green revolution v Malthus effect (28-Jun-2004)
  
• As population increases in India, agriculture becomes a crisis. (22-Apr-2007)
  
  
• World food price index holds steady at historic highs (09-May-2011)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO,
South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia,
Rockefeller Foundation, Green Revolution,
Kostas Stamoulis, Venezuela

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John J. Xenakis
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
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[Warren Dew]

Wars, even crisis wars, do not generally result in a reduction in the number of people. For example, the US had a higher population in 1865 than in 1860, despite the terrible toll of the Civil War.

I think what's going on is that the slowdown in the industrialized world due to globalization has resulted in the population there being worried about themselves, and less worried about shipping off food to starving people in places that could grow their own food but don't.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 18-Sep-17 World View -- Hamas announces it will reconcile with the Fatah and Palestinian Authority

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hamas announces it will reconcile with the Fatah and Palestinian Authority
  
• Egypt forces Hamas to capitulate to Fatah and reconcile
  

****
**** Hamas announces it will reconcile with the Fatah and Palestinian Authority
****


Mahmoud Abbas ® and Hamas members (L) (Reuters)

We've heard this several times before: Hamas and and Fatah
(Palestinian Authority), the two Palestinian groups, have agreed to
reconcile and form a "unity government." The new government will
contain ministers and MPs from both Hamas and Fatah, and will govern
both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Palestinians took control of the Gaza Strip in 2005, after Israel
voluntarily withdrew in a move to promote a new step in the peace
process between Israel and the Palestinians. However, the terror
group Hamas took control of Gaza and used it as a launchpad for
attacks on Israel. In 2007, Fatah attempted to use force to take
control of Gaza, with the plan to form a "unity government" between
Hamas and Fatah. But the entire Mideast was shocked when Hamas overpowered and defeated the much more powerful Fatah forces.
This brief war was punctuated by many
atrocities and a great deal of vitriol, resulting in what seems a
permanent split between Hamas and Fatah.

Israel and Hamas had brief wars early in 2009, and again in 2014, and
these wars triggered renewed calls for a unity government between
Hamas and Fatah. A particularly forceful attempt in 2014 raised
hopes, but ended quickly.

So Hamas's statement on Sunday morning saying that it was ready to
reconcile with Fatah, form a unity government, and hold general
elections came as a surprise.

However, there's little reason to believe that reconciliation
will last any longer this time than it has in the past,
since neither Hamas nor Fatah have kept their promises in the past.
Times of Israel and Palestinian News Network and Arab News (Saudi Arabia) and Al-Jazeera (Qatar)

****
**** Egypt forces Hamas to capitulate to Fatah and reconcile
****

The reconciliation announcement was brought about through the
determination of Egypt's president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who called
Fatah and Hamas delegations to meet in Cairo last week for
reconcilation talks. According to reports, the Hamas delegation
refused to be in the same room as the Fatah delegation.

Hamas had refused to reconcile with Fatah in the past, but was forced
to do so now for several reasons:

• Gaza is blockaded on three sides by Israel, and on a fourth
  side by Egypt. Egypt used the blockade as leverage to force Hamas to
  agree to reconciliation.
  
  
• Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah's Palestinian Authority (PA), has
  been squeezing Hamas for several months by cutting payments to Israel
  for the electricity that Israel supplies to Gaza. This lead to sharp
  reductions in power in Gaza, less than four hours on some days, and
  never more than six hours. This was creating a desperate situation in
  Gaza, and reconciliation was the only way for Hamas to get the
  electricity restored.
  
  
• Hamas has been increasingly isolated internationally since June,
  when Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt
  imposed a land, sea and air blockade on Qatar. Qatar used to fund a
  large chunk of Hamas's operating budget, but has been under increasing
  financial pressure because of the blockade, and has cut its aid to
  Hamas.

All of this has lead to a financial crisis for Hamas. So with a
financial gun to its head, Hamas was forced by Egypt to announce a
capitulation, and an agreement to reconcile with Hamas.

How long this magnanimous feeling of reconciliation will last is
anyone's guess, but even if it succeeds, there may be unitended
consequences. Since the US, Europe and Israel list Hamas as a terror
organization, the West may be restricted from negotiating with or
providing aid to a unity government. Going further, if there are
elections, it's quite possible that Hamas would win the elections
giving it governing control of both Gaza and the West Bank. Asharq Al-Awsat (London) and Al-Ahram (Cairo) and The National (UAE)

Related Articles:

• Hamas' stunning Gaza victory shocks entire Mideast (22-Jun-2007)
  
  
• Mideast realignment continues following the Gaza war (03-Sep-2014)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Gaza Strip, West Bank, Hamas,
Fatah, Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas,
Egypt, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

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John J. Xenakis
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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

[Warren Dew]

(09-17-2017, 10:57 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The Palestinians took control of the Gaza Strip in 2005, after Israel
voluntarily withdrew in a move to promote a new step in the peace
process between Israel and the Palestinians.  However, the terror
group Hamas took control of Gaza and used it as a launchpad for
attacks on Israel.  In 2007, Fatah attempted to use force to take
control of Gaza, with the plan to form a "unity government" between
Hamas and Fatah.  But the entire Mideast was shocked when Hamas overpowered and defeated the much more powerful Fatah forces.
This brief war was punctuated by many
atrocities and a great deal of vitriol, resulting in what seems a
permanent split between Hamas and Fatah.

This is a little revisionist.

Israel withdrew from Gaza because they were losing more people policing the place than it was worth.

Hamas may be a terror group, but they took control of Gaza by winning an election.

If Hamas defeated Fatah, it's hard to argue Fatah had "more powerful" forces.  More numerous, maybe.

Agreed with your bottom line, though, and interesting that the blockade on Qatar is having this effect.

[John J. Xenakis]

(09-16-2017, 10:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Wars, even crisis wars, do not generally result in a reduction in
> the number of people. For example, the US had a higher population
> in 1865 than in 1860, despite the terrible toll of the Civil
> War.

It's more nuanced than that. The entire US may have increased in
population during the Civil War, but that includes regions that
weren't involved in the war, and had plenty of farmland growing food.
But particular regions were wiped out, and it would be an interesting
research project to determine whether those regions are correlated
regions that lacked food. I would guess that there is a correlation,
since urban areas with highly dense population would be the easiest
targets of a war, and would also be the places where food is the most
scarce.

Here's a graph of the population of China from 200 BC to 1700 AD.
Every time the population goes above the line, people are starving --
until the next war kills enough millions of people so that "food
technology" can catch up, and the population falls below the line.



In my 2010 article on the Mongol invasion of China, I wrote about
this:

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

I quoted the "Chinese Malthus" who figured out that population grows
faster than the food supply.

And that's the whole point. The population grows faster than the food
supply. Both grow exponentially, but the population grows faster.
(This has to be true, because if the population grew slower than the
food supply, then there would be excess food and people would have
more children, so the population would grow faster than the food
supply.)

So there's really no choice. There has to be something -- wars of
extermination, disease, famine -- at regular intervals to redress this
imbalance. And that's why it has to be true that generational Crisis
wars have to kill off enough people so that everyone else can be fed.
However, the exact mechanisms that bring that about have to be
researched.

[John J. Xenakis]

Here's something that I posted in the Generational Dynamics forum in
2010, several days before posting my article on the Mongol invasion.
I copied it from a web site that's no longer available.


** A Chinese Malthus

** A Chinese Malthus: Hong Liang-ji's idea on population increase

A Chinese Malthus: Hong Liang-ji's idea on population increase

Hong Liang-ji (1746-1809) was born in Wujin county, Jiangsu
province. He was a famous man of letters and geography. In 1790, when
he was 44 years old, he became ‘jinshi'( a title given to the
successful candidate of ‘keju' examinations ). In 1799, when a big
peasant revolt had happened in Sichuan,Shanxi and Hubei provinces, he
wrote a letter attacking bad policy as one causative factor of the
revolt, thus incurring the Emperor's anger. He was exiled to Ili
district near the Russian boarder. He lived during the
Qianlong-Jiaqing period( 1736-1820 ). A hundred years after the Manchu
conquest, the economic situation developed and cultivated land
increased considerably. But population growth was more rapid than
growth in land and consumer goods. Therefore, in 1774( Qianlong 39
nian ) Wang Lun's peasant revolt happened in Shandong province. In
1796( Jiaqing yuan nian ), the Bailianjiao revolt occurred and
continued for nine years, spreading to nine provinces. These facts
stimulated Hong's thinking.

Hong continued on the theme of Xu Guang-qi (1562-1633 ), who said that
population doubled every thirty years, and Hong developed it as
follows :

‘As peace has existed for a long time, the population has increased
five times from thirty years ago, ten times from sixty years ago. If
compared with a hundred years ago or more, it has increased more than
twenty times.'

‘If a man marry and make three children, and those children also
marry, the family will be eight. If each child marries and makes three
grandsons, and they also marry, the family will be more than twenty,
although some of them will pass away. Thus the family will be more
than fifty or sixty persons including the next generations. Of course
some families will disappear, but some prosperous families will
compensate for the decreased number.' (Hong Bei-jiang Shiwenji, Poems
and Letters of Hong Bei-jiang , Bei-jiang is a pen name of Hong
Liang-ji).

On the other hand, he observed, the increase of social wealth such as
cultivated land and houses is very slow. So population increase
exceeds by a great degree that of land and houses. ‘Therefore land and
houses are always inadequate, households and population are always
surplus.' Hong's view on the relation between cultivated land and
population has been regarded as very similar to that of Malthus's view
( 1766-1834 ).

Then what were the bad results of excess population and Hong's
solution for the population problem ? In the first place, the standard
of living will decrease rapidly. ‘If one family with four persons has
ten rooms and 100 mu ( a Qing measure, which equals about 6.0 hectare)
land, they are rich. In the sons' days, even if the family members are
fewer than ten persons, rooms and land will be scarcely enough. In the
grandsons' days ‘family members will be more than twenty persons, so
even if they eat measuring their share and live measuring their space,
those will certainly be insufficient.'( Hong Bei-jiang )

In the second place, inflation will bother people's lives. ‘Nowadays
peasants have increased more than ten times within the same
land. Merchants have increased more than ten times within the same
commodity.' Thus the rice price increased six or seven times, and the
cotton cloth price increased five or six times. Some honest people
even if they worked hard their whole lives, could not escape from
hunger and coldness.

Lastly, unemployment and social unrest. ‘When households increase ten
times compared with former days, those who live in idleness increase
several times more than ten.' In this situation if natural disasters
such as floods and droughts attack people, they cannot wait for death
to come. They will make rebellion.

Hong's solutions are two. One is ‘ heaven earth adjustment', which
means adjustment by floods, droughts and epidemic diseases. The other
one is ‘ Emperor's adjustment', which means development of production,
immigration for reclamation, decrease of taxation, opposition to
luxuriousness and annexation of land.

http://www25.big.or.jp/~yabuki/doc/po199003.htm
[This web page is no longer available.]

[John J. Xenakis]

In reviewing Hong's work from the previous posting, it's
interesting to list Hong's solutions to the problems:

• Floods
  
• Drought
  
• Rebellion
  
• Epidemic diseases
  
• Development of production
  
• Decrease of taxation
  
• Opposition to luxuriousness
  
• Annexation of land

I assume that "Annexation of land" means invasion of someone else's
land and extermination of the existing population. This is typical of
Chinese thinking today, as be seen in China's relations with the South
China Sea, Japan, India, and so forth. The Chinese see annexation of
someone else's land as the natural thing to do.

[Warren Dew]

(09-18-2017, 09:30 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(09-16-2017, 10:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   Wars, even crisis wars, do not generally result in a reduction in
>   the number of people. For example, the US had a higher population
>   in 1865 than in 1860, despite the terrible toll of the Civil
>   War.

...

So there's really no choice.  There has to be something -- wars of
extermination, disease, famine -- at regular intervals to redress this
imbalance.  And that's why it has to be true that generational Crisis
wars have to kill off enough people so that everyone else can be fed.
However, the exact mechanisms that bring that about have to be
researched.

Sure, there's something.  It's not war, though; local depopulation through war cannot solve the problem when overall population still increases.

In addition, agricultural output has actually outpaced population growth so far in the industrial age.  That will of course end eventually, but in the meantime, we still have crises, so they're not just driven by population growth outstripping food production.

[Warren Dew]

(09-18-2017, 09:54 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: In reviewing Hong's work from the previous posting, it's
interesting to list Hong's solutions to the problems:

• Floods
  
• Drought
  
• Rebellion
  
• Epidemic diseases
  
• Development of production
  
• Decrease of taxation
  
• Opposition to luxuriousness
  
• Annexation of land
  

I assume that "Annexation of land" means invasion of someone else's
land and extermination of the existing population.  This is typical of
Chinese thinking today, as be seen in China's relations with the South
China Sea, Japan, India, and so forth.  The Chinese see annexation of
someone else's land as the natural thing to do.

Your assumption is likely wrong; China through the ages has been an agricultural country surrounded by nonagricultural regions, so China could annex land, increase its food productivity using agriculture, and assimilate the population without any extermination.

Nor is it at all "typical of Chinese thinking" today:  Chinese thinking today still ranks development of production highest among solutions, for example with their active development of alternative power sources.  The South China Sea is the only place where China is showing any tendency toward expansionism, and no one lives there to be exterminated.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 19-Sep-17 World View -- Turkey removing evolution from textbooks, adding more on jihad

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Next, Turkey will teach that the sun orbits around the earth
  
• Stanislav Petrov, 'The man who saved the world,' dies at age 77
  

****
**** Next, Turkey will teach that the sun orbits around the earth
****


High school students in Istanbul protest the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkish high schools. This protest occurred prior to the July 15, 2016, coup (BBC)

Secularists in Turkey are outraged that Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution is to be removed from high school textbooks and curricula on
biology, and replaced with claims that forms of life are unchanged.
Supposedly, mechanisms like adaptation, mutation and natural and
artificial selection will still be taught, but students apparently
will not be permitted to conclude that these mechanisms cause life
forms to evolve.

At the same time, there will be more classes on Sunni Islam religion,
and the new textbooks have increased emphasis of the importance of
jihad or holy war, saying that it means "love of homeland."

The new curriculum will also have much less information about Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk, the revered founder of Turkey after the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire. Ataturk declared that Turkey would be a secular
state, with freedom of worship for people of all religions, including
Jews and Christians.

The reason being given for all of these changes is that they're
necessary for the protection of Turkey, following the aborted coup
attempt on July 15, 2016. Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
declared that he wants to create a "pious generation," and these
changes are necessary.

However, as usual for Erdogan, that's a lie. 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.

In June of last year, a month before the coup attempt, there were a
wave of protests in hundreds of schools across Turkey over
restrictions on student freedom on overtly religious grounds.
Students protested restrictions on holding concerts at school, on not
allowing girls' hockey teams, and on secular literature or poetry
societies. They feared that ordinary high schools would turning in
strict religious schools, where girls and boys are segregated, with
increased emphasis on teaching Sunni Islamic religion and religious
practices.

Since the coup, Erdogan has ordered the firing or jailing of well over
100,000 people in all professions, from waitresses to judges. This
purge has included the firing of more than 33,000 of the nation's
teachers, about 4%. In addition, nearly 5,600 academics have been
dismissed and some 880 schools closed for alleged links to terror
groups. AP and Hurriyet (Ankara) and BBC (21-June-2016)

Related Articles

• In Turkey, May 16 election may bring Islamist President into power (15-Apr-2007)
  
  
• More than a million of secularists rally in Turkey (14-May-2007)
  
  
• Iranian police swoop down on women with loose headscarves (25-Apr-2007)
  

****
**** Stanislav Petrov, 'The man who saved the world,' dies at age 77
****

It's been revealed that Stanislav Petrov died on May 9 at age 77,
though his death only became widely known this month.

Petrov is credited as being "The man who saved the world," because of
events that transpired on September 26, 1983.

Petrov was on duty at a Russian nuclear early warning center, when a
siren sounded, and he received a computer readout saying that the
United States had launched a missile. The big, back-lit red screen
had the word "launch" on it. According to Petrov in 2013:

<QUOTE>"A minute later the siren went off again. The second
missile was launched. Then the third, and the fourth, and the
fifth. Computers changed their alerts from 'launch' to 'missile
strike'."<END QUOTE>

Petrov was frozen in place. He believed that if he passed the aler up
the military chain, then the Soviet Army would immediately launch a
retaliatory missile strike. Instead, he debated with himself what to
do, and ended up doing nothing:

<QUOTE>"Twenty-three minutes later I realized that nothing
had happened. If there had been a real strike, then I would
already know about it. It was such a relief."<END QUOTE>

Petrov violated military protocol, but he was not reprimanded for
doing so. Instead, he received an official reprimand not correctly
updating his log book.

It's possible, as many people believe, that Petrov's hesitancy saved
the world from a nuclear war, but I actually doubt that conclusion.
Russia was in a generational Unraveling era, where the entire Soviet
bureaucracy, just like Petrov, would have been extremely hesitant to
take the word of a computer that a war had begun. I think that it's
most likely that the military leadership would have taken a few
minutes to verify the attack before launching a counterattack, and war
would have been averted anyway. But that's just my guess. We'll
never know for sure. Russia Today and BBC (26-Sep-2013)



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Tayyip Recep Erdogan, Charles Darwin,
Soviet Union, Stanislav Petrov

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