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16-Aug-18 World View -- China-Cambodia grow closer militarily, as Hun Sen steals parl - John J. Xenakis - 08-15-2018

*** 16-Aug-18 World View -- China-Cambodia grow closer militarily, as Hun Sen steals parliamentary election

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • China-Cambodia grow closer militarily, as Hun Sen steals parliamentary election
  • China's military aid and infrastructure investments bring debt trap to Cambodia

****
**** China-Cambodia grow closer militarily, as Hun Sen steals parliamentary election
****

[Image: g180815b.jpg]
New casinos in Sihanoukville, a byproduct of Chinese investment (Bloomberg)

Nobody is surprised that the Cambodia People's Party (CPP), led by
Cambodia's dictator Hun Sen, won the recent national parliamentary
election. Still, it's breathtaking that the National Election
Committee (NEC) announced on Wednesday that the CPP had a clean sweep,
and had won all 125 parliamentary seats up for election.

65 year old Hun Sen came to power in 1985, in the midst of an invasion
by Communist Vietnam (1979-89), which followed the "Killing Fields"
civil war, where Communist leader Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge to kill
some two million civilians.

Cambodia used to have reasonably fair elections. It was an ally
of the United States, the European Union and the West in general,
helping it on the road to a democracy with fair and free elections.
Everything was swell, as long as Hun Sen was the overwhelming
victor in elections.

All that changed with 2013 election, when the opposition party, the
Cambodia National Rescue party (CNRP) came close to winning, with 44%
of the vote compared to 48% for the CPP. Rather than risk losing an
election, Hun Sen became increasingly authoritarian. Political
opponents were jailed or assassinated, and Hun Sen took control of all
the media, making the once independent newspapers nothing more than
government CPP party organs, and closing all radio stations critical
of the government, including Voice of America.

The coup de grâce came last year when the leader of the CNRP,
Kem Sokha, was jailed on trumped-up charges of "treason." Then
the court, under Hun Sen's control, ordered the complete dissolution
of the CNRP, the only viable opposition party. So that explains
how Hun Sen's party was able to win all 125 parliamentary seats.

These actions by Hun Sen in the last few years have come under
increasing international criticism by human rights organizations, and
by pressure from the West, including the United States, Australia and
the European Union. The United States has already sanctioned the
commander of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, for carrying out “serious acts
of human rights abuse against the people of Cambodia.”

The European Union is threatening to go farther, by threatening trade
sanctions against Cambodia, particularly by withdrawing the
"Everything But Arms" (EBA) trade preferences that Cambodia enjoys
with the EU. The EBA grants developing countries such as Cambodia
quota free and duty free access to the EU market. In 2017,
Cambodia had $6.2 billion in revenue from exports to the EU,
and avoided paying $676 million in duties because of the EBA.

That money would have to be paid if the EBA were withdrawn, resulting
in high unemployment among Cambodia's 700,000 garment workers, many of
whom are heavily indebted. Because withdrawing the EBA would hurt the
Cambodian people, rather than Hun Sen and the Cambodian leaders, there
is a big reluctance to do it. Reuters and The Conversation and VOA and Al-Jazeera

****
**** China's military aid and infrastructure investments bring debt trap to Cambodia
****

As the West has been increasingly critical of human rights abuses
in Cambodia, Cambodia has gotten closer and closer to China,
where human rights abuses, including torture, rape, jailings
and assassinations are perfectly OK.

In March of this year, hundreds of Cambodian and Chinese soldiers held
"Golden Dragon," a 15-day joint military exercise in central Cambodia,
involving live-fire rocket launches from helicopters, mock tank
battles, and anti-terrorism and emergency relief training.

Last year, Cambodia suspended a planned joint military exercise with
the U.S. Army, called Angkor Sentinel, that was to have been held for
the eighth year straight. Also canceled was a long-running U.S. Navy
program that provided humanitarian assistance in the country. Cambodia
said its forces were too busy to join the annual exercise.

Then in June, China pledged $100 million in military grants for
training and equipment for the Cambodian military. These grants
are, of course, made with no concern for human rights, as would
be the case with Western grants.

China is also providing funding for major infrastructure projects,
including dams along the Mekong River and hydroelectric plants. In
June 2018, a leaked environmental impact assessment report on the
proposed Sambor Hydropower Dam project in Cambodia revealed that
constructing a dam at the proposed site could "literally kill the
[Mekong] River."

Developing hydropower dams is the Cambodian government’s highest
energy priority. Currently, the government is aggressively pursuing
this goal with the help of Chinese companies, for which a series of
dam projects have been granted approvals.

So far, all of Cambodia’s hydropower plants have been developed under
50-year build–operate–transfer contracts. Under these contracts, all
revenue accrued will flow to the Chinese companies operating the dams.
Only at the conclusion of the contracts will each plant’s ownership
and revenue be transferred to the Cambodian government. Before this
time, the current hydropower plants are creating very little income
for Cambodia.

In fact, this is turning into yet one more example of a China "debt
trap" situation, in many ways similar to the situation in Pakistan
that I described yesterday,
and in
other countries as well. China has made huge infrastructure
developments in the capital city Phnom Penh, and more so in the
Sihanoukville seaport. One resident is quoted as saying:

<QUOTE>"Everything has changed in Sihanoukville in just two
years. Before it was really quiet here, but not any more with all
the Chinese construction. I am worried that it’s very destructive
to the environment, all this building.... And what will happen
when all the construction is finished and thousands more people
come? There will be no Cambodia left in
Sihanoukville."<END QUOTE>

Sihanoukville has given itself over entirely to Chinese investment,
with a $1.1 billion investment from China in just the past year.
Chinese casino owners have also taken advantage of the nonexistent
gambling regulation and lax money-laundering laws to set up an empire
that is accessible only to foreigners – because gambling is still
illegal for Cambodian locals.

The key complaint for many in Sihanoukville is that even though
Chinese investment brings wealth, it is mainly kept within their own
community. Chinese residents and visitors buy from Chinese businesses
and visit Chinese restaurants and hotels, ensuring the trickle-down
effect is minimal.

However, Cambodia has the fastest growing debt in all of Southeast
Asia. The debt trap will occur when Cambodia is unable to make the
payments on its debt. At that point, China will do as it's done
before: Take control of the infrastructure assets it funded, and leave
the country with a large enclave of Chinese workers and their
families, and enclave that will be there forever. VOA and The Diplomat and East Asia Forum and Asia Nikkei and Reuters

Related Articles:


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Cambodia, Phnom Penh,
Hun Sen, Cambodia People's Party, CPP,
Killing fields, Khmer Rouge,
Kem Sokha, Cambodia National Rescue party, CNRP,
Australia, European Union, Everything But Arms, EBA,
Golden Dragon, Angkor Sentinel, Mekong River,
Sambor Hydropower Dam project, Sihanoukville, debt trap

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John J. Xenakis
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18-Aug-18 World View -- New Pentagon military assessment details China's preparations - John J. Xenakis - 08-17-2018

*** 18-Aug-18 World View -- New Pentagon military assessment details China's preparations for war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • New Pentagon military assessment details China's preparations for war
  • China's 'low-intensity coercion' in the South China Sea
  • People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM)
  • China's preparations for war with Taiwan
  • The growing military threat from China

****
**** New Pentagon military assessment details China's preparations for war
****

[Image: g180817b.jpg]
China's Maritime Militia consisting of thousands of fishing vessels are trained by China's military for military action, giving deniability to Beijing (China Defense Blog)

The new edition of the Pentagon's annual report on China documents
major advances in a number of areas where China's military is
aggressively preparing for war against the United States and its
allies.

As we've been reporting for years, China has been developing numerous
intercontinental ballistic missile systems that have no military
purpose other than to target American cities, American bases, and
American aircraft carriers.

According to the new report, these capabilities are now being extended
to bombers:

<QUOTE>"The PLA (China's "People's Liberation Army") has long
been developing air strike capabilities to engage targets as far
away from China as possible. Over the last three years, the PLA
has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining
experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for
strikes against U.S. and allied targets. The PLA may continue to
extend its operations beyond the first island chain, demonstrating
the capability to strike U.S. and allied forces and military bases
in the western Pacific Ocean, including Guam. Such flights could
potentially be used as a strategic signal to regional states,
although the PLA has thus far has not been clear what messages
such flights communicate beyond a demonstration of improved
capabilities."<END QUOTE>

Whereas a fleet of bombers is of great concern to Americans, China's
neighbors are probably more concerned about China's activities in the
South China Sea. The report says that China has largely completed its
operation to create artificial islands, but continues to build
infrastructure on the islands it's created, in order to support
possible military operations in the future.

According to the report, China plans "floating nuclear power
stations":

<QUOTE>"China’s plans to power these islands may add a
nuclear element to the territorial dispute. In 2017, China
indicated development plans may be underway to power islands and
reefs in the typhoon-prone South China Sea with floating nuclear
power stations; development reportedly is to begin prior to
2020."<END QUOTE>

It's well-known that China's activities in the South China Sea were
declared illegal in 2016 by the United Nations Permanent Court of
Arbitration in the Hague, which ruled that all of China's activities
in the South China Sea are illegal and in violation of international law.
China claims it has the
right to violate international law any time, although it laughably
invokes international law when it's on their side. AFP and Dept. of Defense (PDF)

****
**** China's 'low-intensity coercion' in the South China Sea
****

The report documents the means by which China uses military threats to
enforce its claims to the South China Sea, referring to the techniques
as "low-intensity coercion." According to the report:

<QUOTE>"China continues to exercise low-intensity coercion to
advance its claims in the East and South China Seas. During
periods of tension, official statements and state media seek to
portray China as reactive. China uses an opportunistically timed
progression of incremental but intensifying steps to attempt to
increase effective control over disputed areas and avoid
escalation to military conflict. China also uses economic
incentives and punitive trade policies to deter opposition to
China’s actions in the region. In 2017, China extended economic
cooperation to the Philippines in exchange for taking steps to
shelve territorial and maritime disputes. Conversely, a Chinese
survey ship lingered around Benham Rise in the spring after the
Philippines refused several requests from China to survey the
area. Later in the spring, CCG boats reportedly fired warning
shots over Philippine fishing boats near Union Bank. In August
2017, China used PLAN, CCG, and PAFMM ships to patrol around Thitu
Island and planted a flag on Sandy Cay, a sandbar within 12 nm of
Subi Reef and Thitu Island, possibly in response to Manila’s
reported plans to upgrade its runway on Thitu Island. China
probably used coercion to pressure Vietnam to suspend joint
Vietnam-Spain drilling operations in a disputed oil block in the
South China Sea over the summer of 2017."<END QUOTE>

The South China Sea is international waters according to international
law. When American Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOs) are
performed by American warships passing through the SCS, they're
invariably met with harsh threats and demands to leave.

Ever since Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2006,
he's sided with China in the South China Sea, saying essentially that
he has no choice since China could crush the Philippines militarily.
However, this position has always been contentious domestically. When
Duterte first announced this position, I pointed out at the time that
polls showed that polls showed an approval rating around 90% for
Americans, but only around 50% for Chinese.

Duterte's policy is wearing thin. In the last week, there was an
incident where a Philippines plane was flying in the South China Sea,
and received a radio warning from the Chinese:

<QUOTE>"Philippine military aircraft, I’m warning you
again. Leave immediately or you will bear responsibility for all
the consequences!"<END QUOTE>

This implied threat of an attack by China's military is an example of
"low-intensity coercion." In response, Duterte on Friday criticized
China for using "nasty words" to its pilots:

<QUOTE>"You know very well that we will not attack.... We’re
not prepared to go to war with you so why do you have to say those
nasty words?"<END QUOTE>

I think it's safe to say that this whiny pleading by Duterte will not
have any effect on the Chinese. ABS-CBN (Philippines)

****
**** People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM)
****

An important part of China's coercion technique is the use of the
People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).

The PAFMM is the only government-sanctioned maritime militia in the
world. In the past, the vessels in the PAFMM were from companies or
ordinary fishermen. What's changed now, according to the report, is
that China is building a large state-owned fishing fleet. These are
like vigilante boats that harass and block fishing boats from other
nations, and perform other functions in conjunction with the PLA.
According to the report:

<QUOTE>"In the South China Sea, the PAFMM plays a major role
in coercive activities to achieve China’s political goals without
fighting, part of broader PRC military doctrine stating
confrontational operations short of war can be an effective means
of accomplishing political objectives. The militia has played
significant roles in a number of military campaigns and coercive
incidents over the years, including the 2009 harassment of the
USNS IMPECCABLE conducting normal operations, the 2012 Scarborough
Reef standoff, the 2014 Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig standoff, and a
large surge of ships in waters near the Senkakus in
2016."<END QUOTE>

The PAFMM unit operating in the South China Sea is paid salaries
independent of any clear commercial fishing responsibilities, and
recruited from recently separated veterans.

This appears to be similar to China's practice of establishing large
communities of Chinese students or workers in other countries, keeping
them under the control of Beijing's international coercive propaganda
agency, the "United Front Work Department" (UFWD). As I've described in the past,
there is almost a
form of mind control involved in these communities, which the Chinese
describe as "Magic Weapons." On command from the UFWD, these students
and workers demonstrate, complain or riot to implement Chinese policy.
China Defense Blog (30-Jun-2016)

****
**** China's preparations for war with Taiwan
****

The report says that "One of the overarching goals of the structural
reforms now reshaping the PLA is to construct a military capable of
conducting complex joint operations, including those that would be
involved in a Taiwan contingency."

The report lists several "courses of action" that China's military
could take to invade Taiwan:

  • Air and Maritime Blockade. PLA writings describe a Joint
    Blockade Campaign in which China would employ kinetic blockades of
    maritime and air traffic, including a cut-off of Taiwan’s vital
    imports, to force Taiwan’s capitulation.

  • Limited Force or Coercive Options. China might use a variety
    of disruptive, punitive, or lethal military actions in a limited
    campaign against Taiwan, probably in conjunction with overt and
    clandestine economic and political activities. Such a campaign
    could include computer network or limited kinetic attacks against
    Taiwan’s political, military, and economic infrastructure to
    induce fear in Taiwan and to degrade the Taiwan population’s
    confidence in their leaders.

  • Air and Missile Campaign. China could use missile attacks and
    precision air strikes against air defense systems, including air
    bases, radar sites, missiles, space assets, and communications
    facilities to degrade Taiwan’s defenses, neutralize Taiwan’s
    leadership, or break the Taiwan people’s resolve.

  • Invasion of Taiwan. Publicly available Chinese writings
    describe different operational concepts for an amphibious invasion
    of Taiwan. The most prominent of these, the Joint Island Landing
    Campaign, envisions a complex operation relying on coordinated,
    interlocking campaigns for logistics, air, and naval support, and
    EW. The objective would be to break through or circumvent shore
    defenses, establish and build a beachhead, transport personnel and
    materiel to designated landing sites in the north or south of
    Taiwan’s western coastline, and launch attacks to seize and to
    occupy key targets or the entire island.

If the United States should intervene in the takeover of Taiwan, China
would try to delay effective intervention and seek victory in a
high-intensity, limited war of short duration.

****
**** The growing military threat from China
****

In a sense there's nothing particularly new in this report, since it's
just the next annual iteration of China's preparations for a
pre-emptive attack on the United States at a place and time of its
choosing, which I've been writing about for well over a decade.

As I've mentioned before, people my age have never understood how it
was possible for Adolf Hitler to so thoroughly fooled the British
government in 1938. The Nazis were spending enormous amounts of money
building an army, navy and air force whose only real purpose was to
attack the British Isles, but it was completely ignored by the British
public except, famously, for Sir Winston Churchill, who warned of the
approaching attack, but was scorned and ridiculed for doing so.

Today, few people want to contemplate the possibility of a pre-emptive
attack by China, even though it's just as certain as the Nazi attacks
that started World War II. But there are differences today. The
Pentagon has been aware for years of the military buildup by the
Chinese, and has been producing the annual reports for years as well.

China's activities in the South China Sea have repeated Nazi
activities by annexing regions belonging to other nations. These
activities have been so blatant and obvious that anyone with even the
slightest knowledge of what's going on in the world is aware of it.

But even before the South China Sea became an issue, Taiwan was an
issue. China has been preparing for a full-scale invasion of Taiwan
at least since the 1990s, and the US has been preparing to defend
Taiwan militarily for at least as long.

So the Pentagon and the United States military have been preparing
militarily for war with China at least since the 1990s.

The presidency of Donald Trump has brought a new urgency to the danger
from China.

As I've written many times, everything that the Trump administration
has done in foreign policy since Donald Trump took office makes
complete sense to me, because everything he does is consistent with
the Generational Dynamics analyses that I've been posting for years.
Trump understands these analyses because he was educated by his former
principal advisor Steve Bannon, whom I've worked with for years, and
who is an expert on both military history and Generational Dynamics.
The mainstream press and mainstream analysts are always completely and
totally baffled by the administration's foreign policy, which is one
of the reasons that few analysts and journalists have any idea of the
danger from China.

As regular readers know, Generational Dynamics predicts that there is
an approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, pitting the "axis" of
China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries against the "allies,"
the US, India, Russia and Iran. Part of it will be a major new war
between Jews and Arabs, re-fighting the bloody the war of 1948-49 that
followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state
of Israel. The war between Jews and Arabs will be part of a major
regional war, pitting Sunnis versus Shias, Jews versus Arabs, and
various ethnic groups against each other. The Trump administration is
generally aware of all this, even if the mainstream media are not.

Related Articles:


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Cynic Hero '86 - 08-17-2018

The predominant US stance on the Taiwan issue as well as NATO expansion up to Russia's doorstep are the twin geopolitical babies of the Boomer globalists. Common sense dictates a different policy on both of these issues other than the policy we actually have, however boomers are emotionally attached to the current positions because they symbolize the boomers dream of democratizing Russia and China. Maintaining the Current Position regarding the "Great Game" vs Russia and China is one of the primary motivations behind the boomers tyranny. Selfish Boomers know that if they allow anyone born after 1955 any real decision making power, those cohorts would immediately change US policy so that the US is not rammed up deep into to Russia and China's faces. Acknowledging that the governments of Moscow and Beijing have the right to rule their own countries means that those nations would not be forcibly democratized is an unacceptable option for boomers for emotional reasons.

Yes There are nationalists in both China and Russia calling for expansion against their immediate neighbors but even so this by itself would not mean war with the US. What would cause a war clash between China vs the US or Russia vs the US is NOT just irredentism on the Russian and/or Chinese leadership side vs Cool and collected leaders on the American Side. What would cause the Clash would be irredentism on the Russian and/or Chinese leadership side vs American leaders who have visions of the entire planet being democratized, with notions of a star trek style world government floating in the heads of the Current generation of American leaders. The sooner the government in Washington abandons such delusions, the better, regardless of what boomers both on the right and on the left believe in.

Such globalist delusions on the part of American and Western Boomers motivates several hard stances the West currently has that are otherwise incomprehensible. Apart from the Already mentioned stances on NATO expansion and the Taiwan issue and associated issues. Other issues that could cause a great power showdown as well as several ideological stances are also the result of these boomer delusions: Notably the Irrationally hostile stance toward Bashar al-Assad. Assad hasn't attacked anyone outside of Syria's borders, yet western leaders clearly won't be satisfied unless Assad is dead or in a prison cell. This irrationally hostile stance toward Assad coupled with NATO expansion has brought the west several times to the brink of war with Russia when the Russian could otherwise have been courted as an ally against China. However boomers want it both ways, characteristic of their selfishness. Other examples of this selfishness is the western stance toward Burma and the US seeking the overthrow of the Hun Sen government instead of Simply offering Hun Sen a better deal than what the Chinese are offering him.

Such selfishness and delusions from the boomers also explains certain American stances regarding several active combat zones: The reason why US participation in the Middle east wars are limited to deploying special forces when a large-scale deployment of ground troops would have eliminated ISIS much faster. Similarly boomers have never supported an actual campaign in afghanistan. Most prominently, the lack of a nuclear first strike on North Korea even though the Norks threatened us first is an obvious manifestation of this selfishness and love for globalism. A nuclear first strike on North Korea would have forced every country in the world to reevaluate their relations with the US, that boomers don't grasp that this reevaluated international system would have been much safer for Americans than the current international system show the Boomer leaders obvious stupidity. North Korea is really a test case for a showdown with both China and Russia, so far boomer leaders of the US have been failing the test.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Galen - 08-18-2018

(08-17-2018, 11:26 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Selfish Boomers know that if they allow anyone born after 1955 any real decision making power, those cohorts would immediately change US policy so that the US is not rammed up deep into to Russia and China's faces. Acknowledging that the governments of Moscow and Beijing have the right to rule their own countries means that those nations would not be forcibly democratized is an unacceptable option for boomers for emotional reasons.

You are correct about the foreign policy angle but there are other rather self serving reasons.  They expect that their children and grand-children will pay for the retirement that they aspire to.  They still can't figure out that the warfare-welfare state is too expensive.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 08-18-2018

(08-18-2018, 03:42 AM)Galen Wrote:
(08-17-2018, 11:26 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Selfish Boomers know that if they allow anyone born after 1955 any real decision making power, those cohorts would immediately change US policy so that the US is not rammed up deep into to Russia and China's faces. Acknowledging that the governments of Moscow and Beijing have the right to rule their own countries means that those nations would not be forcibly democratized is an unacceptable option for boomers for emotional reasons.

You are correct about the foreign policy angle but there are other rather self serving reasons.  They expect that their children and grand-children will pay for the retirement that they aspire to.  They still can't figure out that the warfare-welfare state is too expensive.

Lew Rockwell is a website that promotes conspiracies, pseudoscience and fringe economic theories. Lew Rockwell uses minimal loaded words in their headlines and articles, but they typically source to far right or questionable sources such as Brietbart, Zerohedge and the #1 purveyor of pseudoscience Joseph Mercola. Some of the topics you will find on the website are those related to anti-vaccination propaganda, Mind Control, False Flags, and anti-immigration articles from other questionable sources.  Further, the Lew Rockwell website has been placed on the Hatewatch list by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A factual search also reveals that Lew Rockwell has a very poor track record with fact checkers. For more information I recommend, RationalWiki who has done a fantastic job of putting all of it together. (7/19/2016) Updated (6/13/2018)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/lew-rockwell/

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Cynic Hero '86 - 08-18-2018

(08-18-2018, 08:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(08-18-2018, 03:42 AM)Galen Wrote:
(08-17-2018, 11:26 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Selfish Boomers know that if they allow anyone born after 1955 any real decision making power, those cohorts would immediately change US policy so that the US is not rammed up deep into to Russia and China's faces. Acknowledging that the governments of Moscow and Beijing have the right to rule their own countries means that those nations would not be forcibly democratized is an unacceptable option for boomers for emotional reasons.

You are correct about the foreign policy angle but there are other rather self serving reasons.  They expect that their children and grand-children will pay for the retirement that they aspire to.  They still can't figure out that the warfare-welfare state is too expensive.

Lew Rockwell is a website that promotes conspiracies, pseudoscience and fringe economic theories. Lew Rockwell uses minimal loaded words in their headlines and articles, but they typically source to far right or questionable sources such as Brietbart, Zerohedge and the #1 purveyor of pseudoscience Joseph Mercola. Some of the topics you will find on the website are those related to anti-vaccination propaganda, Mind Control, False Flags, and anti-immigration articles from other questionable sources.  Further, the Lew Rockwell website has been placed on the Hatewatch list by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A factual search also reveals that Lew Rockwell has a very poor track record with fact checkers. For more information I recommend, RationalWiki who has done a fantastic job of putting all of it together. (7/19/2016) Updated (6/13/2018)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/lew-rockwell/

Yeah a biased assessment by the same boomers who got upset that Italy elected a government that actually represented that country's people. What is about freedom that gets boomers so worked up about?

19-Aug-18 World View -- Socialist Venezuela introduces new fantasy currency and new S - John J. Xenakis - 08-18-2018

*** 19-Aug-18 World View -- Socialist Venezuela introduces new fantasy currency and new Socialist changes

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Socialist Venezuela introduces new fantasy currency and new Socialist changes
  • Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that capitalism has not always existed

****
**** Socialist Venezuela introduces new fantasy currency and new Socialist changes
****

[Image: g180818b.jpg]
Maduro holds a new sovereign bolivar note (Reuters)

Venezuela's Socialist president Nicolás Maduro announced a bizarre set
of new economic regulations to try to reverse the economic destruction
he's inflicted for years. In his Friday night speech he said:

<QUOTE>"I want the country to recover and I have the
formula. Trust me."<END QUOTE>

The first part of his "trust me" formula was to devalue the bolivar
currency by 96%, and then introduce a new currency, the Bolivar
Soberano ("sovereign bolivar") which is pegged to a
pseudo-bitcoin-like crypto-currency called the "petro," which is
pegged to the price of oil, where oil is produced by Venezuela's
collapsing oil industry.

The second part of the formula is that the minimum wage will be
increased by 3000%. This means that many business owners will have to
lay off employees, substantially increasing unemployment in the
country.

The third part of the formula is to increase the corporate tax rate.
Businesses that survive the minimum wage increase many not survive
higher taxes.

The fourth part of the formula is to remove the subsidy on gasoline.
Businesses that depend on transportation costs to receive or deliver
goods will be hit hard. Millions of workers who have been buying
gasoline at subsidized rates will be hit hard as well. But this is
necessary, says Maduro, to prevent fuel smuggling. There will also be
new taxes on luxury goods.

Socialist Venezuela's inflation rate is above 40,000%, and the IMF
predicts that it will reach one million percent this near. The only
way to stop inflation is to produce more goods. If the people need
two million loaves of bread to avoid starvation, and if the country's
bakeries only produce one million loaves, then one million people will
go without bread, irrespective of what currency is being used.
Furthermore the price of bread will soar, irrespective of what
currency is being used. That's not rocket science. That Economics
1.01. The fact that Maduro and other Socialist politicians in other
countries are unable to grasp that simple fact shows how incredibly
stupid they are. And the results speak for themselves.

Venezuela's Socialist economy is destroying not only Venezuela, but
the entire region, as more than a million migrants have fled
starvation and violence in Venezuela and crossed the border into
Colombia.

From there, many have continued on, planning to live in Ecuador or
Peru. But Ecuador, which has been receiving 4,000 new migrants every
day, crossing the border from Colombia, has closed the border, and
says that no more Venezuelans will be admitted unless they have a
passport. Peru has announced a similar measure to take effect next
week.

Socialist Venezuela is becoming one of the top three economic
hyperinflation disasters of the last century, along with Zimbabwe
under Robert Mugabe, and 1920s Germany under the Weimar Republic.
CNBC and Independent (London) and Reuters

****
**** Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that capitalism has not always existed
****

[Image: g180818c.jpg]
Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Wonder girl Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the new face of the
left, apparently thinks that capitalism has just been invented.
Here's what she said in an interview:

<QUOTE>"Capitalism has not always existed in the world and
will not always exist in the world."<END QUOTE>

So let's be clear. Tens of thousands of years ago, when the first
cavemen formed a community and started bartering with each other for
products and services -- "You make me a wheel, and I'll kill a deer in
exchange" -- that was a free capitalist market. So Ocasio-Cortez is
an idiot.

There's also a lot of nonsense these days about Sweden and Norway
being Socialist countries. No they aren't. They're capitalist
countries. Maybe the government pays for some services, like doctors
and education, but that's also partially true in the United States,
with Medicaid and school scholarships.

Let's review. As I've written many times in the past, Socialism is
mathematically impossible as population grows. Socialism may work OK
when you have a feudal society of a few hundred people, but the number
of regulators grows exponentially faster than the population grows, so
by the time you get to, say, a million people, everyone would have to
be a regulator. So the Socialist system collapses.

Furthermore, Socialism is much worse than Nazism. Nazism killed
tens of millions of people in the last century, but Socialism killed
hundreds of millions. There is literally nothing worse than
Socialism.

Somebody should tell Ocasio-Cortez that it's Socialism that hasn't
been around forever. It was invented in 1848 by Karl Marx, and it's
been a disastrous failure every time it's been tried, for the reasons
I just gave. Whether Ocasio-Cortez likes it or not (and I'm sure she
doesn't), it's mathematically provable that Socialism will always
fail.

That's why countries like Cuba, Russia, China, East Germany, Norway,
Sweden and others that have tried Socialism have been forced to end it
and return to free markets, and a great deal of capitalism.

The only two mostly Socialist countries that I'm aware of in the world
today are Venezuela and North Korea. All others are mostly
capitalistic. I keep wondering how stupid you have to be to support
Socialism, which has a 100% failure record, but we only have to look
at Socialist politicians like Kim Jong-un, Nicolás Maduro, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Jeremy Corbyn for the answers.
Daily Caller

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro,
Bolivar Soberano, sovereign bolivar, petro,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Zimbabe, Robert Mugabe, Weimar Republic,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Socialism, Nazism,
Kim Jong-un, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn

Permanent web link to this article
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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

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Galen - 08-19-2018

(08-18-2018, 08:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Lew Rockwell is a website that promotes conspiracies, pseudoscience and fringe economic theories. Lew Rockwell uses minimal loaded words in their headlines and articles, but they typically source to far right or questionable sources such as Brietbart, Zerohedge and the #1 purveyor of pseudoscience Joseph Mercola. Some of the topics you will find on the website are those related to anti-vaccination propaganda, Mind Control, False Flags, and anti-immigration articles from other questionable sources.  Further, the Lew Rockwell website has been placed on the Hatewatch list by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A factual search also reveals that Lew Rockwell has a very poor track record with fact checkers. For more information I recommend, RationalWiki who has done a fantastic job of putting all of it together. (7/19/2016) Updated (6/13/2018)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/lew-rockwell/

Given the generally leftward bias of Politifact this is hardly surprising.  In this case I was looking for a copy of an article by Gary North and that is what the search engines came up with.  I don't consider Lew Rockwell to be an authority on anything other than economics.

As for problems with vaccines it would seem that some problems with the MMR measles virus is showing up in the wild.  No technology is perfect and this is equally true with vaccines.  I speak as someone who makes good living fixing broken technology.  Do this long enough and you learn not to trust gadgets as much as the general public, who are generally clueless about such matters, does.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 08-19-2018

(08-19-2018, 04:39 AM)Galen Wrote:
(08-18-2018, 08:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Lew Rockwell is a website that promotes conspiracies, pseudoscience and fringe economic theories. Lew Rockwell uses minimal loaded words in their headlines and articles, but they typically source to far right or questionable sources such as Brietbart, Zerohedge and the #1 purveyor of pseudoscience Joseph Mercola. Some of the topics you will find on the website are those related to anti-vaccination propaganda, Mind Control, False Flags, and anti-immigration articles from other questionable sources.  Further, the Lew Rockwell website has been placed on the Hatewatch list by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A factual search also reveals that Lew Rockwell has a very poor track record with fact checkers. For more information I recommend, RationalWiki who has done a fantastic job of putting all of it together. (7/19/2016) Updated (6/13/2018)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/lew-rockwell/

Given the generally leftward bias of Politifact this is hardly surprising.  In this case I was looking for a copy of an article by Gary North and that is what the search engines came up with.  I don't consider Lew Rockwell to be an authority on anything other than economics.

As for problems with vaccines it would seem that some problems with the MMR measles virus is showing up in the wild.  No technology is perfect and this is equally true  with vaccines.  I speak as someone who makes good living fixing broken technology.  Do this long enough and you learn not to trust gadgets as much as the general public, who are generally clueless about such matters, does.

Occasionally some crazy person says something  that any sensible person would consider crazy  and it turns out to be right. The proverbial line between genius and madness is that the genius has lots of crazy ideas and sorts out the crazy ideas that might be right and can either prove them right (as in mathematics or physics) or package them (as in literature or art) attractively as something profound and  worthy of attention. The geniuses do not publish or present unambiguous junk, as they know what builds and what detracts from their reputations. They destroy pages that have mathematical errors, wrong notes, or ideas that go nowhere. They can look at sketches for a canvas that they recognize have no promise. They also know enough to not assert as their own discovery something that someone else in their field has already offered.

To put it into my terms, a dullard is someone incapable of thinking for himself. An ordinary person has the humility to recognize that he is lacking in originality and might as well just do his work and go home (and today he would do this) watch a movie or sitcom on television. A genius is capable on occasion of doing something that before the fact is crazy but after some appropriate refinement  is able to make it seem obvious to the rest of us. A madman thinks that his craziness is brilliance.

Yes, some lunatic occasionally says something unique and interesting. More often it is about how his bowels feel. Albert Einstein had some crazy ideas going through his mind -- but he knew enough to check them out before expressing them publicly.

Today, power in America is clearly with the Hard Right, with people who believe that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as it enriches or pampers them or enforces their will. Reality, including mass sentiment, about all else defaults with the Left when the Hard Right uses its power exclusively for selfish purposes. This is the mirror image of the situation in Venezuela, where power is in the hands of people who hold contempt for the free market -- and reality is clearly on the Right.

20-Aug-18 World View -- Afghanistan's president Ghani announces ceasefire with Taliba - John J. Xenakis - 08-19-2018

*** 20-Aug-18 World View -- Afghanistan's president Ghani announces ceasefire with Taliban

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Afghanistan's president Ghani announces ceasefire with Taliban
  • Taliban says no peace in Afghanistan until foreign 'occupation' withdraws

****
**** Afghanistan's president Ghani announces ceasefire with Taliban
****

[Image: g180819b.jpg]
Afghan security forces stand guard in Ghazni, Afghanistan, on Aug. 15, 2018. (EPA)

Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, gave an Independence
Day speech on Sunday announcing a ceasefire with the Taliban,
on the condition that the Taliban also announce a ceasefire.

The ceasefire is to begin on Monday, the first day of the Eid
holiday, and is to end on November 19, which is Mohammed's birthday.

<QUOTE>"As we approach Eid-ul-Adha, and to respect the wishes
of different segments of Afghan society including religious
scholars, political parties, politicians, women and civil society
leaders, youth and members of high peace council in all 34
provinces, and to respect the wishes of the religious scholars of
the Islamic world that were gathered in the holy mosques and to
respect the wishes of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC)
and the custodians of the two-holy mosques, the King of Saudi
Arabia, we announce a ceasefire that would take effect from
tomorrow, Monday, the day of Arafa, till the day of the birth of
the prophet (PBUH) i.e., Milad-un-Nabi, provided that the Taliban
reciprocate."<END QUOTE>

President Ghani further added that peace is one of the main demands of
the nation. He said it would not be acceptable that there would be
ceasefire in part of the country while that conflict would continue in
its other parts.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement approving
of the ceasefire, and saying "It is time for peace":

<QUOTE>"The United States welcomes the announcement by the
Afghan government of a ceasefire conditioned on Taliban
participation. This plan responds to the clear and continued call
of the Afghan people for peace....

There are no obstacles to talks. It is time for
peace."<END QUOTE>

Pakistan's Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "Pakistan fully
supports all such efforts that contribute to achieving durable
stability and lasting peace in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan
deserve it."

It sounds like peace for our time. I hope everyone in Afghanistan can
now go home and get a nice quiet sleep. Khaama News (Afghanistan) and Reuters and Dawn (Pakistan)

****
**** Taliban says no peace in Afghanistan until foreign 'occupation' withdraws
****

This was the week that the Taliban surprised government forces and
captured the strategic town of Ghazni long before the Afghan army
could react. It took almost a whole week to recapture the town, and
that was possible only because they were supported by US warplanes
that conducted dozens of airstrikes.

Even today, Ghazni is still unsafe, with the roads peppered with
unexploded IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and mines.

The Taliban conducted numerous other operations across the country in
the last week alone. This is the middle of the annual Taliban
fighting season, and the Taliban are in the ascendant, and so it's
very unlikely that the Taliban will agree to a three month ceasefire.

The Taliban have said for years that they will never negotiate with
the "corrupt regime" -- the Afghan government. They are demanding
negotiations with the American military, with the objective of the
negotiations to be the full withdrawal of the "occupying forces" --
the US and Nato forces.

On Saturday, just hours before Ghani announced the supposed ceasefire
with the Taliban, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issued
a statement repeating all their demands:

<QUOTE>"Afghan Mujahid Nation! This year's [Eid holiday]
approaches us as our Jihadi struggle against the American
occupation is on the threshold of victory due to the help of Allah
Almighty. The infidel invading forces have lost all will of
combat, their strategy has failed, advanced technology and
military equipment rendered useless, sedition and
corruption-sowing group defeated and the arrogant American
generals have been compelled to bow to the Jihadic greatness of
the Afghan nation...

Bringing peace and security is from among the highest priorities
of the Islamic Emirate, but peace will remain elusive during an
occupation and neither is salvation possible without the
establishment of an Islamic authority....

This war that is has been called the longest, costliest and most
futile war in American history, plunged the entire region and the
world including Afghanistan into insecurity and chaos.

A war that has cost Americans loss of security, prestige and
mental wellbeing globally and even inside America itself...

But the Islamic Emirate continues to call America towards
understanding and sound logic instead of force and points them
towards options that can guarantee the secession and end of this
long war, and that lone option is to end the occupation of
Afghanistan and nothing more....

The regime based in Kabul and forced upon the Afghan people at the
expense of huge American military, financial and human loss has
disappointed American officials and they have lost all trust in
the regime due to corruption, incompetency, impotence and failure.

The leadership of this corrupt regime has been given to a figure
who has spent all his time in power squabbling with officials of
his government, battling his chief executive, battling his
deputies, battling his cabinet and even battling his governors....

Even now if they show readiness for direct dialogue with the
Islamic Emirate by accepting the ground realities of Afghanistan,
we will view it as a sound step by America.

Sincere, transparent and result-oriented negotiations are an
important part of our policy, But negotiations must be sincere and
productive free from any fraud and deception and must revolve
around the core issue and not be used for propaganda or misleading
the common thinking."<END QUOTE>

The statement goes on to give additional demands for negotiations with
the Americans, and for American withdrawal.

Each time I write an article about the Afghan war, it seems more and
more like a Gothic fantasy. Ghani's statement and Akhundzada's are so
completely out of touch with one another, that it seems clear that
they can only be play-acting. Pompeo's statement that "It's time for
peace" seems even more surreal. And the statement from Pakistan's
foreign office seems to be mocking and making fun of all of them.
Ghani and Pompeo are not stupid men, so there's no chance that they
believe anything they're saying.

And we haven't even mentioned ISIS-K, the Afghanistan branch of ISIS,
which is not included in the supposed ceasefire.

As I've said, the only thing that makes sense is the larger strategy
for the region. If America withdraws, it would destabilize the
region, and would be a political disaster for the American
administration. The larger picture is that Donald Trump and the
military understand that this war cannot be won, but they also
understand that war with China and Pakistan is approaching. As war
with China and Pakistan approaches, president Trump wants to keep
American troops active in Afghanistan, and to continue to maintain
several American military bases in Afghanistan, including two air
bases in Bagram and Kandahar International Airport. These bases will
be valuable in any future war with China. Under these circumstances,
having troops in Afghanistan is what matters, whether the Taliban are
defeated or not. Tolo News (Afghanistan) and Long War Journal and Long War Journal

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Afghanistan, Taliban, Ashraf Ghani,
Mike Pompeo, Nato, Bagram, Kandahar International Airport,
Hibatullah Akhundzada, Ghazni,
ISIS Khorasan, Wilayah Khorasan, ISIS-K, ISKP

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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-Aug-18 World View -- ISIS claims credit for coordinated attacks across Russia's Ch - John J. Xenakis - 08-20-2018

*** 21-Aug-18 World View -- ISIS claims credit for coordinated attacks across Russia's Chechnya region

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • ISIS claims credit for coordinated attacks across Russia's Chechnya region
  • Brief generational history of Chechnya

****
**** ISIS claims credit for coordinated attacks across Russia's Chechnya region
****

[Image: g180820b.jpg]
Grozny, Chechnya, after massive slaughter and destruction by Russians in 1999

ISIS is taking credit for a series of coordinated terror attacks on
security forces in several suburbs of Grozny, the capital city of
Russia's autonomous republic of Chechnya.

In one incident, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a
police station, injuring several policemen. The attacker survived and
was hospitalized.

In another incident, two men with knives entered a district police
department and wounded two policemen and a female bystander with
knives. The two assailants were shot dead.

In another incident, two assailants tried to blow up a truck loaded
with gas canisters in a suicide mission, but the vehicle failed to
explode. The two were shot dead by police.

In yet another incident, an attacker was allegedly shot dead after
hitting a traffic policeman with his car. There were also reports of
a shoot-out between police officers and attackers in the street,
killing one officer.

All of the assailants were teenagers, aged 11-17. Five were shot
dead.

Amaq, the public relations agency for the so-called Islamic State (IS
or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) claimed credit for the coordinated attack.
ISIS frequently claims credit for terror attacks in which it didn't
participate, and that appears to be true in this case. However,
executing several coordinated attacks at separate locations requires a
moderate amount of sophistication, and since the terrorists were all
teens, they might have had help from someone.

Chechnya is one of Russia's provinces in the North Caucasus region,
which is largely populated by Muslims. Xenophobic tensions between
the Christian Orthodox ethnic Russians and the Muslim Caucasians have
been growing in recent years.

Ramzan Kadyrov is president of Chechnya. He's bloody and brutal, and
will use any means necessary to keep the region stable, and he is also
extremely loyal to Russia's president Vladimir Putin. International
human rights groups, however, have accused Kadyrov of rampant rights
abuses, including arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings by his
feared security forces.

Kadyrov played down the importance of the terror attacks on Monday,
said that extremist propaganda that "confuses the young men" was to
blame for the assaults. He said the attacks were staged to "darken"
the festivities as Muslims celebrate the Eid al-Adha holiday.
Tass (Moscow) and
RFE/RL and Al Jazeera and AP

****
**** Brief generational history of Chechnya
****

The fact that Monday's coordinated terror attacks were perpetrated by
teenagers aged 11-17 is a lot more significant than Chechnya's
president Ramzan Kadyrov is saying.

But first, let's briefly look at the terrorist bombings at the Boston
Marathon on April 15, 2013.

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were ethnic Chechens (from Chechnya),
but they were born in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. What were ethnic
Chechens doing in Kyrgyzstan?

Chechnya and Russia had fought numerous wars for centuries, but
Russia's dictator Josef Stalin finally decided to adopt a "final
solution." In 1944, there was a mass deportation of ethnic Chechens,
forced to move from Chechnya to Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan.
It was apparently this forced deportation that radicalized the
Tsarnaev brothers, and caused them to carry out the Boston Marathon
bombing in 2013.

In August 1957, six years ago this month, ethnic Russians living in
Chechnya revolted against the authorities when Moscow allowed the
Chechens who had been deported from there in 1944 to return and take
back property and power that had passed from that ethnic community to
Russians the authorities had moved in to occupy the territory. Of
course, the returning Chechens found that their former homes were
occupied by ethnic Russians.

Going back to the 1990s, there were two major "Chechen wars" between
Russian forces and Chechen separatists. In December 1994, the Russian
army was sent into the capital city Grozny to take care of some
protesters. They expected the operation to take no more than a day or
two. Instead, the Russian army forces were ambushed by Chechen
separatist forces. A bloody battle ensued that lasted into February,
and although the Russian forces finally won, it was extremely
humiliating for the Russians, since tens of thousands of combatants
and civilians were killed before it ended.

Russian troops got their revenge in 1999, when they had to respond to
a new insurgency of pro-separatist activists. In Russia's 1990s war
Chechnya, Russian warplanes bombed schools and hospitals in order to
create a refugee crisis, and to empty the urban residential areas.
Once that was achieved, heavy weapons could be deployed to eradicate
opposing forces, entailing widespread destruction of homes and
infrastructure.

This is the same strategy, known as the "Grozny Model," that Putin and
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad have been using in Aleppo, Ghouta,
Daraa and other Syrian battlegrounds, although al-Assad is speeding up
the creation and slaughter of refugees by using chemical weapons,
including Sarin gas and chlorine gas.

So Monday's terrorist attackers are all teenagers, aged 11-17. Ramzan
Kadyrov played down the attack, saying that the attackers were
"confused young men," but that's far from the truth. This is a new
up-and-coming generation of kids growing up after the Grozny mass
slaughter in 1999.

In fact, authorities reportedly identified the 17-year-old attacker as
Ali Akhmatkhanov -- a younger brother of Khizir Akhmatkhanov, who was
sentenced to a lengthy prison term for his involvement in a terrorist
attack in the Chechen city of Gudermes in 2001.

So this is not a generation of confused kids. This is a generation of
kids is looking for revenge. It would not be surprising to see more
terrorist acts by Chechens in the months to come. Eurasia Review and Global Security and Rand Corp.

Related Articles:


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Chechnya, Grozny, Ramzan Kadyrov,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Boston Marathon, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Kyrgyzstan,
Grozny Model, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Aleppo, Ghouta, Daraa,
Ali Akhmatkhanov, Khizir Akhmatkhanov

Permanent web link to this article
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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

22-Aug-18 World View -- Taiwan says that China is 'out of control' after El Salvador - John J. Xenakis - 08-21-2018

*** 22-Aug-18 World View -- Taiwan says that China is 'out of control' after El Salvador switches allegiance

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • El Salvador receives harsh criticism for switching allegiance from Taiwan to China
  • Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen says that China is 'out of control'

****
**** El Salvador receives harsh criticism for switching allegiance from Taiwan to China
****

[Image: g180821b.jpg]
El Salvador's foreign minister Carlos Castaneda and China's foreign minister Wang Yi share a toast in Beijing on Tuesday (Reuters)

El Salvador's president Salvador Sanchez Ceren announced Monday night
in a televised address that his country would end diplomatic relations
with Taiwan, and will establish diplomatic relations with China.
China refuses to have diplomatic relations with any nation that has
diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and force countries to choose.

China has been using a variety of economic incentives, threats and
sanctions on numerous countries to force them to switch diplomatic
relations from Taiwan to China. Since the beginning of 2016, when
Taiwan's current president Tsai Ing-wen took office, four other
countries previously switched -- Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic,
Sao Tome and Principe and Panama.

The Pacific Ocean island of Palau, which has diplomatic relations with
Taiwan, is under tremendous pressure from China to switch. In order
to pressure Palau, China banned tour groups from China from using
Palau as a destination. The ban has devastated the tourist industry
in Palau, cutting the number of tourists in half.

China's foreign ministry defended their practice of using economic
pressure with a statement saying, "The one China principle is the
pre-condition and political foundation for China to maintain and
develop friendly cooperative relations with all countries around the
world."

This wording is similar to statements by Chinese officials with regard
to China's illegal activities in the South China Sea. China has
militarily threatened other nations and has prevented other nations
from exploiting fishing and drilling for oil in their own territorial
waters. China says that there's no problem as long as each country
maintains friendly, cooperative relations, which is China's way of
saying, "Do as I say or we'll kill you."

The announcement by El Salvador's president was particularly
contentious, since Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said El
Salvador repeatedly asked for a “large amount of funding” to develop
its La Unión port, but Taipei declined since it decided it was an
unrealistic project and could generate high debts for the two states.

El Salvador's presidential spokesman said that Taiwan's allegations
were totally false, but then seemed to confirm the allegations by
saying, "We cannot turn our back on the world, ignore that China is
the second largest power in the world and the leading export economy
on the planet. It is key for our country."

Opposition lawmaker Margarita Escobar said: "The position from Taiwan
is that [the El Salvador governing party] asked it for money to
finance the campaign in 2019. That is called selling sovereignty and
allowing another state to intervene in the internal affairs of El
Salvador."

The United States ambassador to El Salvador, Jean Manes, is expressing
concern that China plans to use the new relationship with El Salvador
to build a Chinese military base there. "Without a doubt, this will
impact our relationship with the government. We continue supporting
the Salvadoran people." Senator Marco Rubio is planning a bill to end
foreign aid to El Salvador. AP and Hong Kong Free Press and Reuters and South China Morning Post

****
**** Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen says that China is 'out of control'
****

Since 1992, China, Taiwan and the US have adopted the "One China
Consensus," which says that there is just one China, be leaves
ambiguous what that means. However, since winning the presidential
election early in 2016, Tsai Ing-wen has refused to endorse the 1992
consensus, instead saying that she "respected ... the common
understanding" between China and Taiwan, without saying what that
means.

This refusal has infuriated China, which has mounted a series of
increasingly belligerent measures to threaten Taiwan. These measure
include staging naval and warplane military drills around Taiwan, and
also waging economic warfare by blocking Taiwan from attending a
growing list of international events, and by using economic threats to
force countries to switch diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China.

In July, China forced the East Asian Olympic Committees (EAOC) to
cancel Taiwan as host of the 2019 East Asian Youth Games. The EAOC
made the announcement with no prior notice and no explanation.

Last week, the 85C Bakery, a Taiwan coffee chain with stores in
America and China, was dropped from all Chinese meal-ordering
platforms, after Tsai Ing-wen visited one of its stores in Los
Angeles. The firm earns more than 60 percent of its revenue in China,
and losing its presence on food delivery apps would be devastating.

In 2005, China passed the Anti-Secession Law,
which orders the army to invade Taiwan if any
Taiwanese official makes any move toward independence, whether by word
or by deed. So Taiwan authorities have been careful since then not to
say anything that might trigger the Anti-Secession law although, in
fact, over the years of things have been said which could arguable
trigger it.

So Tsai's words following El Salvador's announcement were considerably
harsher than we usually hear from Taiwanese officials. She vowed to
fight China’s "increasingly out of control" behavior:

<QUOTE>"China nowadays is not only a threat to cross-strait
peace. What China has been doing now globally – interfering in
other countries’ internal affairs and destroying the order of the
international market – have caused high levels of global
instability....

We have to remind the international community once again – that
this is not only a matter for Taiwan. The situation is so dire
that we cannot tolerate it anymore."<END QUOTE>

The question here is whether Tsai's remarks fit the requirements to
trigger a Chinese invasion under the anti-secession law. The
statement that China is interfering in "other countries' internal
affairs" could refer to Taiwan.

At any rate, it's significant that the level of harshness is
increasing. Taiwan is now discussing taking retaliatory measures
against China. The particular issue is that China has suddenly begun
demanding that any international airline that lists "Taiwan" as a
destination must change it to "China Taiwan" or be blocked from
landing in China.

This has infuriated the Taiwanese, and has led Taiwan to consider
counter-measures against airlines that comply with China's demands.
According to Taiwanese media:

<QUOTE>"The Civil Aviation Administration of China recently
sent a letter to 44 foreign airlines requesting that Taiwan not be
reclassified as a "state" and must be named "China Taiwan". 44
foreign airlines have all changed on the July 25 deadline. The
Ministry of Communications recently studied the countermeasures
against the airlines that added the name of "China" to Taiwan's
title, and considered punishing the practice of not allowing
bridges and adjusting time zones [forcing airline passengers to
board and deplane farther from the terminal, and at less
convenient times]....

Officials from the Ministry of Communications said that foreign
airlines have ignored reality and succumbed to China's political
pressure, which has seriously hurt Taiwan's dignity and national
sentiments. There are many counter-measures that we can take, and
various schemes will be evaluated by the Ministry of
Communications....

[Taiwan official] Wu Hongmou said in an interview today that
Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country, but it has been
renamed by foreign airlines. "We can't accept it, and it is
necessary to counter it."<END QUOTE>

The statement that "Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country" is
accepted as truth by many Taiwanese, but saying it represents a major
hardening of positions on the Taiwan side, just as China is becoming
increasingly arrogant and contemptuous, and taking increasingly
offensive and belligerent actions. This is a typical tit-for-tat
pattern that leads to a major war in a generational Crisis era, when
xenophobia and nationalism are at a peak in all countries.

By the way, I hope that there's nobody left who believes that China
will never invade Taiwan because it's bad for business. History has
shown that a business relationship makes a war MORE likely, since the
business relationship can be used as an additional weapon of war,
through such things as tariffs, blockades and boycotts. I doubt that
a business relationship has ever prevented any war in history.
Hong Kong Free Press and Focus Taiwan and
AFP and Hong Kong Free Press and United Daily News (Taiwan)
(Trans)

Related Articles



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, China,
El Salvador, Sanchez Ceren, Carlos Castaneda, Wang Yi,
Palau, Joseph Wu, Jean Manes, Marco Rubio, Margarita Escobar,
East Asian Olympic Committees, EAOC, 85C Bakery,
anti-secession law

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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

23-Aug-18 World View -- Russia demands that US and EU pay to rebuild Syria - John J. Xenakis - 08-22-2018

*** 23-Aug-18 World View -- Russia demands that US and EU pay to rebuild Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Russia demands that US and EU pay to rebuild Syria
  • Putin pressures Germany's Angela Merkel to fund rebuilding Syria
  • Bolton says that Iran must withdraw from Syria

****
**** Russia demands that US and EU pay to rebuild Syria
****

[Image: g180822b.jpg]
Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are demanding that the West pay $250 billion to rebuild Syria (Getty)

Ever since the "Arab Spring" began in 2011, Bashar al-Assad, the
Shia/Alawite president of Syria, has used peaceful demonstrations as
an excuse to use missiles and barrel bombs, including Sarin gas and
chlorine gas, to kill his hated Sunni enemies, and to destroy their
homes, markets and schools. In 2015, Russia's president Vladimir
Putin joined in with his "Grozny strategy," where warplanes attack
hospitals, schools and markets with the objective of creating millions
of refugees, who can then be attacked while they're out in the open.
Between the two of them, al-Assad and Putin have destroyed and
flattened villages and cities, and has forced millions of innocent
Syrian civilians to flee the violence into Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq,
Turkey and Europe.

Now Vladimir Putin is demanding that Europe and the US should pay
billions of dollars to rebuild Syria, and to repair all the
destruction that Putin and al-Assad caused. Putin combines his demand
with a threat: If you don't pay to rebuild Syria, then those millions
of refugees that fled to Europe will never go home.

There are six million internally displaced refugees in Syria, and five
million that have fled to other countries, with 3.5 million in Turkey,
almost one million in Lebanon, another million in Iraq and Jordan, and
over a million in Europe. Estimates are that it will cost $250
billion to rebuild Syria.

Lebanon is strongly in favor of the policy of allowing the West to pay
for rebuilding Syria, so that the million or so refugees in Lebanon
will leave Lebanon and return home.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil on Monday thanked Russia “for
putting forward an initiative aimed at resolving the refugee issue,”
and said Lebanon wants "quick, gradual, safe return of displaced
Syrians that is in no way linked to a political solution."

Bassil just wants the EU and US to pour the money in, without
demanding a "political solution" in return. The "political solution"
would be a process that removes Bashar al-Assad from power. What's
the point in rebuilding Syria, if some group is just going to start
peacefully protesting, and that will cause al-Assad to destroy Syria
all over again?

In fact, Russia is accusing the United States of holding up the
process of rebuilding Syria. Russia would get agreement from the US.
According to the US State Department, the United States and other
countries would not contribute to Syria’s full reconstruction until
there was a “credible and irreversible” political process underway to
end the conflict.

However, the State Department has also said that it has reached
agreement that other countries would provide $300 million to begin
rebuilding Syria, including a $100 million commitment from Saudi
Arabia. The National (UAE) and Reuters and Washington Post

****
**** Putin pressures Germany's Angela Merkel to fund rebuilding Syria
****

Vladimir Putin has been particularly applying pressure to Germany's
Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel has suffered considerable backlash
from her 2015 decision to allow over a million Syria refugees to
arrive in Germany. Merkel's political position would presumably be
helped if many of these refugees could return to Syria.

Last weekend, Vladimir Putin met with Angela Merkel in her elegant
retreat at Meseberg Palace north of Berlin.

Saying that the population of refugees is "potentially a huge burden
for Europe," he said:

<QUOTE>"We need to strengthen the humanitarian effort in the
Syrian conflict. By that, I mean above all humanitarian aid to
the Syrian people, and help the regions where refugees living
abroad can return to. I think it’s in everyone’s interests,
including Europe’s."<END QUOTE>

Unsurprisingly, Merkel made no commitment to aid, but reiterated the
need for constitutional reforms that would be opposed by al-Assad and
elections in Syria. Merkel said the priority in Syria was "to avoid a
humanitarian catastrophe," particularly in the Idlib region, which is
held by rebel groups and militants. AFP and iNews (UK) and Middle East Eye

****
**** Bolton says that Iran must withdraw from Syria
****

US national security advisor John Bolton is demanding that Iran be
compelled to withdraw from Syria before any negotiations on rebuilding
Syria can take place, but that Putin on Wednesday said that Russia
cannot compel Iran to leave.

Bolton also said that Putin is "stuck" in Syria, and wants to get out:

<QUOTE>"But he also told us that his interest and Iran’s were
not exactly the same. So we’re obviously going to talk to him
about what role they can play.

We’re going see what we and others can agree in terms of resolving
the conflict in Syria. But the one prerequisite there is the
withdrawal of all Iranian forces back in Iran.

[The] Russians are stuck there at the moment. And I don’t think
they want to be stuck there. I think their frenetic diplomatic
activity in Europe indicates that they’d like to find somebody
else, for example, to bear the cost of reconstructing Syria -
which they may or may not succeed in doing."<END QUOTE>

Russia and al-Assad have been announcing, and sending out their trolls
to say that the war in Syria is now pretty much over, after the
reconquest of Daraa in southern Syria. However, nobody serious
believes that, since Idlib province still has some 2.5 million
civilians, and is still controlled by thousands of anti-Assad rebels,
including both "moderate" rebels and militants in al-Qaeda linked
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

In each of al-Assad's previous targets, including Aleppo, Ghouta and
Daraa, Putin's "Grozny strategy" was used. One particularly effective
technique was to drop barrel bombs filled with metals, explosives, and
chlorine gas. The metals would kill as many people as possible, and
the chlorine gas, which is heavier than air, would fall into basements
and bunkers where women and children were hiding. Once they were
forced out into the open, additional barrel bombs and missiles or
Sarin gas could kill the women an children en masse.

In each of these regions, al-Assad and Putin were forced by
international pressure to permit civilians and rebels to leave the
region on buses and travel to Idlib. In this way, the horrific
slaughter in those regions was brought to an end though a kind of
negotiated settlement.

Hundreds of thousands of people who fled to Idlib are trapped there,
just south of the border with Turkey. Al-Assad has vowed to recapture
Idlib in the same way as Aleppo and the others, and this certainly
means the same kinds of attacks with barrel bombs, missiles, chlorine
gas and Sarin gas.

But as analysts have been saying, "There is no Idlib for Idlib." This
means that the al-Assad will have to kill most of the 2.5 million
people living there, since they'll have nowhere to go. This would be
a major new humanitarian crisis of gargantuan proportions. In some
scenarios, Turkey might open the border and allow the refugees to flow
through Turkey into Europe, creating a new European refugee crisis.
This is what Angela Merkel, quoted above, meant when she said that the
priority in Syria was "to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe."

It's well to remember, as we've been reporting for years, that Bashar
al-Assad is a sociopathic monster, the worst war criminal so far this
century, comparable to Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot from the last
century. Whatever fantasy Vladimir Putin is having to end the war and
rebuild Syria, al-Assad will not end the war until either he's forced
to or until he's slaughtered most of the millions of people in Idlib.
Reuters and Washington Examiner and The National (UAE)

Related Articles



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Grozny strategy,
Lebanon, Gebran Bassil, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
Germany, Angela Merkel, Idlib province,
John Bolton, Iran, Aleppo, Ghouta, Daraa,
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS, Grozny strategy,
chlorine gas, Sarin gas

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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

24-Aug-18 World View -- South Africa politics roiled by Trump tweet on killing white - John J. Xenakis - 08-23-2018

*** 24-Aug-18 World View -- South Africa politics roiled by Trump tweet on killing white farmers

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • South Africa politics roiled by Trump tweet on killing white farmers
  • Cyril Ramaphosa defends land expropriation policy

****
**** South Africa politics roiled by Trump tweet on killing white farmers
****

[Image: g180823b.jpg]
White farmer in South Africa (Reuters)

South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday reconfirmed that
the country plans to go ahead with a land reform constitutional
amendment that would explicitly permit confiscation of farms without
compensation. The amendment is believed to be targeted at farms owned
by white farmers, but some in the government dispute that.

Ramaphosa's government was thrown into turmoil on Thursday after
president Donald Trump issued a tweet condemning the land reform plan:

<QUOTE>"I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely
study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations
and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government
is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson
@FoxNews"<END QUOTE>

Trump's tweet is based on a Wednesday evening segment by Fox News
analyst Tucker Carlson, which was highly inflammatory and misstated
some facts.

The South African government responded with an inflammatory tweet of
its own rejecting this claim:

<QUOTE>"South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception
which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our
colonial past. #landexpropriation @realDonaldTrump
@PresidencyZA"<END QUOTE>

I've written a few articles about South Africa's land expropriation
issue in the past, so I'm aware of the frequent claims that there's a
mass killing or even a genocide of white farmers going on, but I never
mentioned that in my articles because the claim is so outlandish, with
no basis in fact.

According to published figures, 47 white farmers were killed in
2017, and that was a 20-year low, with a peak in 1998 of 153.
Now 47 murdered white farmers might seem like a lot, and indeed
it is a lot, but other published figures indicate that 30-40 people
in South Africa are murdered every day.

So say what you want about South Africa -- that it's a very dangerous
country with a very racist population and a very high murder rate, and
even mass killings across the country -- but 47 in one year is a
minuscule number compared to the total number of murders, and is
nowhere near the level of mass killings or genocide of white farmers.

This controversy has provoked the usual hysterical name-calling on the
right and the left. The left claims that Trump's tweet is racist and
white supremacist, and the right claims that it proves that South
Africa is racist and black supremacist.

Julius Malena, the popular young politician that heads the Economic
Freedom Fighters (EFF), advocating land seizures without compensation,
responded to Trump's tweet on Thursday: "They will kill us for
that. There’s a group of white right-wingers who are being trained by
Jews in Pretoria to be snipers." Times Live (South Africa) and CBS News and Guardian (London, 27-Jun) and The Citizen (South Africa)

****
**** Cyril Ramaphosa defends land expropriation policy
****

While Malena was his usual hysterical and incoherent self,
other South Africa politicians said that Trump's tweet raised
valid concerns.

Government official Lindiwe Sisulu issued a statement saying that she
"has noted the unfortunate comments on Twitter by [Trump]."
redistribution and crime‚

The South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR) issued a statement
pointing out that the policy of land confiscation without compensation
would create enormous problems for South Africa, particularly in
trying to attract investment funds:

<QUOTE>"Seen alongside South Africa’s decision to terminate
its bilateral investment treaties‚ expropriation without
compensation has prompted a great deal of concern about the
security of their assets‚ particularly among the European
investors most directly impacted.

Even President [Cyril] Ramaphosa’s investment envoys have referred
to the difficulties that expropriation without compensation has
created for them in attempting to attract desperately needed funds
to South Africa."<END QUOTE>

Indeed, after Trump's tweet the rand currency weakened against the
dollar by 1.7%, and some officials raised concerns that Trump would
impose sanctions on South Africa, as he's done with Turkey. Many
outside investors are concerned that South Africa will go the way of
Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe confiscated white-owned farms and turned
them over to his tribal cronies who knew nothing about farming, with
the result was that a country that was exporting food in the late
1990s was facing almost total starvation ten years later.

Ramaphosa has been dealing with very explosive land reform issue in
South Africa, which is divided not only by race but by tribe. Black
South Africans account for 91% of the population,but they own just
1.2% of the land. Since independence in 1994, attempts to acquire
white-owned farms with fair compensation and distribute them to black
farmers has been an almost total failure.

Ramaphosa has insisted that South Africa has learned from the
experience in Zimbabwe, and it would not be repeated. On Wednesday,
he parliament that increasing access to land for the poor would happen
in an orderly fashion and would initially focus on making state
property available.

Ramaphosa outlined some instances where expropriation without
compensation might be justified:

<QUOTE>"unused land‚ derelict buildings‚ purely speculative
land holdings‚ or circumstances where occupiers have strong
historical rights and title holders do not occupy or use their
land‚ such as labour tenancy‚ informal settlements and abandoned
inner-city buildings."<END QUOTE>

Ramaphosa insists that the proposed amendment to the constitution
would prohibit "the arbitrary deprivation of property."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it's highly unlikely
that South Africa will ever reach the point where it's confiscating
farms. South Africa is in a generational Crisis era, and an explosive
racial issue like land reform is more likely to trigger a tribal war.
Times Live (South Africa) and Bloomberg and Times Live

Related Stories:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa,
Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Mike Pompeo,
Julius Malena, Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF,
Lindiwe Sisulu, South African Institute of Race Relations, IRR

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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

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 08-24-2018

Xenakis --

The white farmers in isolated parts of South Africa were always in a precarious position, and they needed Apartheid and its permissions (go ahead and eliminate anyone who seems a threat, because we will excuse anything in our legal system) for self-defense. Maybe they were the only ones who could bring South African agriculture into the modern world in  the only middle-latitude country south of the Sahara in Africa. South Africa may be in the middle latitudes, but most of it is in the desert or semi-desert belts even if the climate is otherwise mild.

Farming is not a growth industry, and even where it is prosperous, it is an activity becoming less labor-intensive. Farm machinery replaces labor, and in South Africa that means that ill-paid farm laborers become (in Marxist terms) 'the reserve army of the unemployed'. For an analogy, consider what happened when mechanization came to the cotton fields of the American South. Machines could chop and pick cotton, so "King Cotton" no longer needed so many field hands. Jim Crow practice and Apartheid were very different, to be sure, but they were both raw deals. Also, South African farmers seem to have not planted cotton.

In America, farmers often have large families practically as a tradition, but many of the kids leave farming. After attending college the kids are more likely to go into some other field well prepared for the sophisticated, urban and suburban world. Farmers are not hicks, and their kids may have learned some good work habits. I know. I live in a farming area.

I'm guessing that even without the fear that white farmers have in South Africa of some disgruntled farm-hands becoming new manifestations of Perry Smith and Richard "Dick" Hickock (The reference is to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which has nothing to do with 'socialism' of any kind), there would be some consolidation of small farms into bigger corporate farms, as in America, with the bigger farmers buying out the smaller ones. Scions of small farmers take the money and invest in businesses at best, and McMansions at worst.


Criminals like Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are never socialists; they seek to steal income and wealth from others, and not to share it.

By the way -- it is not the mixed socialist-capitalist order of social democracy that is so deadly; it is Marxism-Leninism and its variants that do the mass killing that you ascribe to socialism.

25-Aug-18 World View -- In dreaded scenario, Ebola spreads to densely populated war z - John J. Xenakis - 08-24-2018

*** 25-Aug-18 World View -- In dreaded scenario, Ebola spreads to densely populated war zone in Congo

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • In dreaded scenario, Ebola spreads to densely populated war zone in Congo
  • The dreaded tribal war zone scenario

****
**** In dreaded scenario, Ebola spreads to densely populated war zone in Congo
****

[Image: g180824b.jpg]
A health worker gets ready to perform Ebola medical checks in North Kivu (AFP)

Dr. Peter Salama, from the World Health Organization (WHO), said on
Friday:

<QUOTE>"For the first time really we have a confirmed case
and contacts in an area of very high insecurity. It really was the
problem we were anticipating and the problem at same time that we
were dreading."<END QUOTE>

The reason for the statement of concern is that several simultaneous
conditions in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) have given rise to a situation where an explosion of new
infections is likely, in a densely populated tribal war zone.

The new outbreak of Ebola
was
identified on August 1, just one week after the previous outbreak of
Ebola officially ended on July 24.

The earlier outbreak
had occurred
in far western DRC province of Equateur, centered on a port city on
the Congo River. Applying lessons learned from the huge Ebola
pandemic of 2014-16 in West Africa, the WHO moved very quickly contain
and eliminate that outbreak. WHO medical personnel barely had time to
relax when they received word of the new outbreak in the far eastern
provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. Both the previous and current
outbreaks were caused by the "Zaire strain" of the Ebola virus.
However, scientific evidence shows the two outbreaks are unrelated.
This means that the virus has again made a jump from the environment
(through bats or animals) to people. Daily Mail and BBC and AFP

****
**** The dreaded tribal war zone scenario
****

The earlier outbreak occurred in one large city, but mostly in small
villages, where doctors could easily and aggressive use "contact
tracing" to prevent the virus from spreading. When an Ebola patient
is identified, then all that person's contacts and contacts of
contacts are tracked down, and are warned to remain indoors for an
incubation period of 21 days. A newly developed vaccine can be given
to suspected victims to prevent illness.

So far, 63 people are believed to have died in the outbreak that began
on August 1. There are about 103 confirmed and probably cases.

The biggest cause for concern is that one of the confirmed cases is
that of an unidentified WHO physician who has been identifying and
diagnosing Ebola patients. However, he wasn't infected by one of his
patients. He was infected by his own wife when she returned from a
nearby city.

The doctor had been in contact with over 100 people in the town of
Oicha, about 50 km from DRC's border with Uganda. About 97 of these
people have been identified, and WHO officials have been using
contact tracing and vaccinations to stop the spread. The problem
is that the spreading could go out of control.

North Kivu province is rich in mineral sources, including gold.
In August 2007, DRC government forces attacked civilians in order
to obtain these mineral sources, creating an enormous refugee
crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing intorefugee camps
in Uganda. In 2017, the number of refugees has been surging, because
of tribal violence between DRC government forces and a rebel
coalition known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

Currently, the city of Oicha itself is not under ADF control, but the
entire region surrounding Oicha is under ADF control, where aid
workers, priests and government officials are being held hostage.
North Kivu is the most densely populated province in DRC, so there are
many scenarios where the virus could spread explosively -- into a
region controlled by the AFD, or into a refugee camp in Uganda.

The situation is even further complicated by the fact that the ADF has
used violence against US peacekeepers in the region. United Nations
officials were stunned in December by the worst attack on United
Nations peacekeepers in recent history, when 15 people were killed and
54 wounded in Kivu state, near the border with Rwanda and Uganda.
World Health Organization and International SOS

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC,
North Kivu, Oicha, Uganda, Rwanda,
Ebola, World Health Organization, WHO,
Allied Democratic Forces, ADF

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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

26-Aug-18 World View -- China, North and South Korea confounded by cancellation of Ki - John J. Xenakis - 08-25-2018

*** 26-Aug-18 World View -- China, North and South Korea confounded by cancellation of Kim Jong-un meeting

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • China, North and South Korea confounded by cancellation of Kim Jong-un meeting
  • Trump pursues risky strategy, trying to avoid a greater risk

****
**** China, North and South Korea confounded by cancellation of Kim Jong-un meeting
****

[Image: g180825b.jpg]
Mike Pompeo and Kim Jong-un shake hands prior to their May 9 meeting in Pyongyang (Reuters)

President Donald Trump announced on Friday morning that he was
canceling the planned meeting of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with
North Korea's president Kim Jong-un in three tweets:

<QUOTE>"I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go
to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making
sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula...

...Additionally, because of our much tougher Trading stance with
China, I do not believe they are helping with the process of
denuclearization as they once were (despite the UN Sanctions which
are in place)...

...Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the
near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China
is resolved. In the meantime I would like to send my warmest
regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him
soon!"<END QUOTE>

This is the first time that I'm aware of that Trump has tied together
these two major issues -- denuclearization of North Korea and the
trading dispute with China. Significantly, he seems to imply that
negotiations with North Korea will be put on hold until some
resolution is reached on the trading issue.

Finally, the tweets imply that China is at fault, and that Kim is just
doing what China is telling him to do.

By ending negotiations with North Korea, these tweets undercut
repeated demands by the North Koreans for the US, North Korea, South
Korea and China to sign a peace treaty officially ending the 1950s war
in Korea, which ended in 1953 with a ceasefire armistice agreement.

The Chinese would very much like to get an agreement officially ending
the Korean war, since such an agreement would then be followed by
demands to remove American troops from South Korea, and particularly
to remove the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) currently
deployed in South Korea. Nominally, THAAD is an anti-missile system
deployed to protect South Korea from North Korean missiles, but the
Chinese particularly object to the THAAD's powerful radar capabilities
that see far into Chinese territory and could provide an early warning
of a Chinese missile attack.

China's foreign ministry issued a statement saying the following:

<QUOTE>"China's position on the Korean Peninsula nuclear
issue is consistent and clear. We are committed to achieving
denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, maintaining peace and
stability on the Korean Peninsula, and resolving this issue
through dialogue and consultation. For all these years, China has
been making unremitting efforts for this issue's proper
settlement. We have been playing an important and constructive
role and comprehensively and strictly implementing the
DPRK-related resolutions of the Security Council. All these
efforts are witnessed by the international
community."<END QUOTE>

South Korea's foreign ministry issued a statement saying the
following:

<QUOTE>"It’s most important to maintain a long-term view
while maintaining a momentum for dialogue and concentrate
diplomatic efforts to faithfully implement the agreements from the
summits between South Korea and North Korea and between North
Korea and the United States, instead of attaching meaning to each
change in the situation.

While we consider the delay of the visit to North Korea as
unfortunate, we believe it’s most important for the North
Korea-U.S. dialogue including Secretary Pompeo’s visits to North
Korea to contribute to substantial progress in complete
denuclearization and the establishment of a permanent peace regime
in the Korean Peninsula."<END QUOTE>

Regular readers know that Generational Dynamics predicts that China
and the US are headed for a major world war with 100% certainty.
Furthermore, North Korea will never agree to denuclearization, after
decades of having starved, tortured and brutalized the North Korean
people, promising that it was all worth it because one day North Korea
would be nuclear power and would be a great nation, a peer to the
United States. The Hill and Foreign Ministry of China and AP and South China Morning Post (28-Jul) and VOA

****
**** Trump pursues risky strategy, trying to avoid a greater risk
****

The media is filled with the usual statements about Trump's unhinged
policies borne out of personal frustration, or about how State
Department personnel were blindsided by the announcement. So it's
pretty clear that the mainstream media don't have even the slightest
clue what's actually going on.

On the other hand, Dear Reader, if you're one of the ones who believe
that Trump is the grandmaster at "The Art of the Deal" and you want to
learn something, the best way to proceed is from the assumption that
there's an actual rational strategy behind the tweets.

If you want to try to make sense of what Trump is doing, then you have
to start with the Generational Dynamics predictions that we're headed
for a world war with China, and that under no circumstances will North
Korea agree to denuclearize, and that their only objective is to get
the sanctions lifted while continuning development of nuclear missiles
targeting the United States. Donald Trump is aware of these
predictions, because he was educated by Steve Bannon, who is an expert
on both military history and Generational Dynamics, since I worked
with him off and on for a number of years.

What's been obvious from the day that Trump took office is that
everything he's done in foreign policy is based on being aware of
these predictions and on his determination to keep them from actually
coming to pass. And as I've said many times, I'm not going to
criticize Trump for taking actions to try to prevent a world war, even
if preventing a world war is impossible.

Trump's aggressive tariffs and trade policy toward China makes sense
if you understand it as a strategy of trying to throw China's entire
entire political strategy off-balance, in order to derail continued
preparations for war. China keeps insisting that it wants nothing but
stability, in North Korea and in trade, and that's true, because they
don't want to be distracted in war preparations. Trump's imposed
tariffs are causing significant economic disruptions to China's
economy -- which is already in a great deal of trouble -- while North
Korea's threats to the United States are keeping US military forces
deployed in the region, and THAAD anti-missile and radar systems
deployed in South Korea.

Trump's strategy makes sense, but that doesn't mean it's going to
work. It's highly risky in the sense that it could trigger an earlier
war. I've mentioned on several occasions that we're already in a
tit-for-tat escalation pattern with China, and so is Taiwan. This is
exactly the pattern that leads to a major war in a generational Crisis
era. But the "soft diplomacy" strategy employed by the Obama
administration was certain to lead to war as well. Every strategy
today leads to unavoidable war.

The negotiations have been completely stalled for weeks. North Korea
has shown no sign of denuclearization. According to some reports,
Mike Pompeo was demanding that the North Koreans should produce a list
of all its secret nuclear and missile development sites, so that
inspections can begin. According to another report, Pompeo is asking
that North Korea hand over 60-70% of its nuclear warheads, so that
another country can remove them from North Korea. Intelligence
officials say that North Korea is unwilling to agree to either of
these steps, even under considerable concessions from the American
side.

Furthermore, the US has found that shipping and trading firms based in
China, Russia and Singapore have been using clandestine methods to
cheat on the United Nations sanctions,

So there was really no point to the Pompeo-Kim meeting anyway, so
cancelling the meeting makes sense just from that point of view alone.
But it also shows that -- take your pick -- Trump is completely
unhinged or a hardheaded negotiator. Whichever one the politicians in
Pyongyang, Beijing and Seoul believe, they still have to deal with
Trump, and maybe North Korea will be willing to get rid of at a least
10% of its nuclear arsenal. It's possible that's what Trump is hoping
for. South China Morning Post and Vox and Politico and Vox (8-Aug)

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, North Korea, South Korea,
Mike Pompeo, Kim Jong-un,
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD

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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
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27-Aug-18 World View -- Genocide of Rohingyas in Burma (Myanmar) appears to be almost - John J. Xenakis - 08-26-2018

*** 27-Aug-18 World View -- Genocide of Rohingyas in Burma (Myanmar) appears to be almost complete

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Genocide of Rohingyas in Burma (Myanmar) appears to be almost complete
  • Syria, Cameroon, Sudan Darfur genocides follow the same pattern

****
**** Genocide of Rohingyas in Burma (Myanmar) appears to be almost complete
****

[Image: g180826b.jpg]
6,000 acres of Bangladesh land, valued at $86.67 million, have been deforested to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. (United News of Bangladesh)

If a government wants to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing against
an ethnic or religious population, then the old ways that our
grandfathers' generations used are no longer practical. Sending
people to concentration camps and setting up an elaborate
extermination system is way too expensive these days. And starving an
entire population, as Stalin did to the Ukrainians in the 1930s and
Mao did to the Chinese in the Great Leap Forward, could not be kept
hidden from the global media, as it was in those days.

Today's generations of genocidal leaders have new, modern ways for a
government to commit genocide now, and we've seen them practiced in
Syria, Chechnya, Cameroon, and elsewhere. The basic technique is to
make up some excuse to selectively target members of the group to be
exterminated with bombs, missiles, jailings, rape, torture and
slaughter, saying that the people being targeted are ordinary
criminals. Then when activists in the target group do something in
retaliation, then the government can declare the entire target ethnic
group to be terrorists, including women and children, and use massive
force to kill as many of them as possible, and force the rest to flee
to other countries.

These new techniques appear to be spectacularly successful in Myanmar
(Burma).

Since 2011, Burma's mostly Buddhist security forces have been
committing mass atrocities on mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingyas living in
Rakhine State, in what the United Nations says is "a textbook example
of ethnic cleansing," and which some Western governments are calling
genocide. The atrocities by Buddhist security forces include gang
rape, violent torture, execution-style killings and the razing of
entire villages, in a scorched earth campaign.

In August of last year, the Buddhist security forces got the excuse
that they wanted, when a group of activists calling themselves the
Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and armed with machetes killed
several Burmese security forces in attacks against 30 Burmese police
outputs. Using this attack as an excuse, the Burmese army began
conducting massive slaughter and atrocities against the Rohingyas,
causing hundreds of thousands to flee across the border into
Bangladesh.

Today, there are about 700,000 Rohingyas living in refugee camps in
Bangladesh -- the world's largest population of stateless people, not
citizens of Burma, not citizens of Bangladesh.

The Buddhist army in Burma burned down Rohingya villages as part of
the atrocities, and after the population left, the army bulldozed the
villages. This was a purposeful act to make it impossible for the
Rohingyas to return.

So you have these farcical situations where Burmese authorities claim
that the Rohingyas burned down their own villages, or even bulldozed
them.

However, in September of last year, BBC reporter Jonathan Head was on
a trip through Rakhine state sponsored by Burma's government. The
reporters were closely monitored by Burmese minders, but he happened
to see smoke rising through the trees and was able to escape his
minder and arrive at the village. He actually interviewed the Buddhists who were burning down the village,
who said that they were helped by the Burmese police. He
was able to see one house after another go up in flames, as the
Buddhists burned them down.

It was really a pathetic sight. And yet we hear from Burmese
officials that the Rohingyas burned down their own villages, and
mainstream media reports dutifully report this as if it were some kind
of reality. That's how far the farce of fake news has gone today.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel prize winner, has played an important
role, a kind of 21st century Hitler. She sweetly tells reporters,
"Oh, it's not so bad" or "No that's wrong, it isn't ethnic cleansing,"
and so Adolf Aung San Suu Kyi Hitler is just part of the genocide
farce. She previously spent several decades under arrest by the army,
but today it seems that the reason they let her go is because she
promised to support the genocide.

Bangladesh and the international community are demanding that the
Rohingyas be permitted to return to their homes in Burma. But of
course that's impossible, since the homes have been burned down and
bulldozed.

In fact, Human Rights Watch has been interviewing Rohingyas who are
newly arrived in Bangladesh. They report that the Buddhist security
forces in Burma are still raping, torturing, mutilating, and killing
Rohingyas.

So the Burmese genocide and ethnic cleansing has been wildly
successful. They "cleansed" the area of hundreds of thousands of
Rohingyas, who will no longer be around to ignore them. It's the
modern way of doing things, and the results speak for themselves.
Reuters and United News of Bangladesh and Dhaka Tribune and Economist

Related Articles:


****
**** Syria, Cameroon, Sudan Darfur genocides follow the same pattern
****

Over the past few years, we've reported Generational Dynamics analyses
of countries following exactly the same kind of pattern. The
government targets an ethnic or religious population with rape,
torture, jailings or other violence, in order to provoke some kind of
violent reponse, even an extremely minor one. Once that happens, the
government declares the entire population to be terrorists, and
launches full scale genocide and ethnic cleansing.

After peaceful protests began in Syria in 2011, the country's
president Bashar al-Assad launched air attacks on women and children
in schools and markets. Once there was a violent reaction, al-Assad
could do what he wanted. He began by massacring thousands of innocent
women and children in a Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia in August
2011. He used missiles and barrel bombs, including Sarin gas and
chlorine gas, to kill his hated Sunni enemies, and to destroy their
homes, markets, hospitals and schools. In 2015, Russia's president
Vladimir Putin joined in with his "Grozny strategy," where warplanes
attack hospitals, schools and markets with the objective of creating
millions of refugees, who can then be attacked while they're out in
the open. Between the two of them, al-Assad and Putin have destroyed
and flattened villages and cities, and has forced millions of innocent
Syrian civilians to flee the violence into Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq,
Turkey and Europe. There are six million internally displaced refugees
in Syria, and five million that have fled to other countries, with 3.5
million in Turkey, almost one million in Lebanon, another million in
Iraq and Jordan, and over a million in Europe.

Then, to complete the ethnic cleansing, al-Assad in April passed "Law
#10," which requires anyone wishing to return to Syria to provide
paperwork immediately proving ownership of his or her property. The
obvious intent is to make it impossible for these millions of people
to return to their homes.

In Cameroon, the Francophone (French-speaking) government has used
extremely repressive measures to marginalize the Anglophone
(English-speaking) population in the region known as the Southern
Cameroons. These government atrocities began in November 2016,
when the Francophone
(French-speaking) Cameroon government security forces began beating
and killing peaceful anti-government demonstrators in the South
Cameroons, the Anglophone (English-speaking) regions of Cameroon. The
demonstrators were protesting systematic bias, discrimination and
marginalization towards Anglophones by the Francophone government.

The government got what it wanted in November 2016, when Anglophone
Cameroonians began peaceful protests. The Francophone security forces
began violently attacking Anglophone protesters. In September of last
year, activist separatists began using small bombs to target local
security forces.

The government announced that "President Paul Biya has declared war on
these terrorists who seek secession." In the increasingly violent
Francophone government crackdown that followed, hundreds of people
were arrested, and helicopter gunships were used to fire on innocent
civilians and kill them. At least 5,000 people have fled across the
border to neighboring Nigeria to escape the violence.

Back in 2006, I wrote a generational analysis of the genocide in
Darfur, Sudan, following the statement by UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-Moon, that the Darfur genocide was caused by global warming,
and therefore by America and Europe.

That fatuous reasoning led me to write an extensive generational
analysis of what happened in Darfur, starting in the 1970s and
continuing forward. That analysis is still correct, but I now realize
that a part of it is in exactly the same pattern we've been talking
about in Burma, Syria and Cameroon.

In April 2002, a Darfurian farmer complained to the local authorities
that they were being harassed by a local herder militia group.
Instead of listening, the farmers were jailed. This had the effect
desired by Sudan's government. The farmers were infuriated, activists
attacked a police station. The response from Sudan's government was
to unleash the Janjaweed militias for a full scale genocide of the
Darfurians.

Related Articles



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Burma, Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi,
Rohingyas, Rakhine State, Bangladesh,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Sarin gas, chlorine gas, Russia,
Cameroon, Francophone, Anglophone, Southern Cameroons, Paul Biya,
Sudan, Darfur, Ban Ki-Moon, Janjaweed Militias

Permanent web link to this article
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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

28-Aug-18 World View -- Saudis target women and children in Yemen to make them 'shive - John J. Xenakis - 08-27-2018

*** 28-Aug-18 World View -- Saudis target women and children in Yemen to make them 'shiver' for generations

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Saudis target women and children in Yemen to make them 'shiver' for generations
  • US Military under pressure to end support of Saudis in Yemen

****
**** Saudis target women and children in Yemen to make them 'shiver' for generations
****

[Image: g180827b.jpg]
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman

The war in Yemen between a Saudi Arabia backed coalition and
Iran-backed ethnic Houthis has been going on since 2015, with no end
in sight. The Saudis and their coalition partner United Arab Emirates
(UAE) have been under increasing international pressure to avoid
civilian casualties.

Now the United Nations says that airstrikes launched by Saudi Arabia
on Friday killed at least 26 children and four women in al-Hodeidah
seaport, which is controlled by the Houthis. Two weeks earlier,
another airstrike killed dozens of children traveling in a school bus.

UN official Mark Lowcock wrote:

<QUOTE>"I echo the recent statement by the Secretary-General
on Yemen, condemning such attacks on civilians and calling for an
impartial, independent and prompt investigation into these most
recent incidents. I am also deeply concerned by the proximity of
attacks to humanitarian sites, including health facilities and
water and sanitation infrastructure. The UN and partners are doing
all they can to reach people with assistance. Access for
humanitarian aid workers to reach people in need is critical to
respond to the massive humanitarian crisis in Yemen. People need
to be able to voluntarily flee the fighting to access humanitarian
assistance too."<END QUOTE>

On Monday, Lise Grande, another UN official, called for an
“independent and impartial investigation” into the attacks on
civilians. Grande stated that “what is happening in Yemen is
unimaginable” and added that “the time has come to wake up to the
terrible reality of the war and its human cost and the need to work
together to end hostilities.”

According to unnamed "informed sources," Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad
bin Salman (MBS) ordered his coalition military generals to ignore the
international pressure:

<QUOTE>"Do not care about international criticism. We want
to leave a big impact on the consciousness of Yemeni
generations. We want their children, women and even their men to
shiver whenever the name of Saudi Arabia is
mentioned."<END QUOTE>

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, whether MBS actually
uttered this statement or not, it's quite likely that it reflects his
attitude. MBS is young, 32 years old, and has been extremely
aggressive and belligerent since taking power two years ago.
Furthermore, the world was shocked in years past when video emerged of
atrocities, such as the beheading of a civilian by a jihadist, or by
the abduction of numerous girls to serve as sex slaves. Today, as
we've gone deeper and deeper into a generational Crisis era, these
kinds of atrocities are the new normal, and do not shock people
anymore.

One thing that characterizes a generational Crisis era is that the
value of an individual human life goes down continually, while
increasingly the only thing that matters is the survival of the entire
nation and its way of life. So, for example, in 1944 Americans were
willing to send tens of thousands of their soldiers onto the beaches
of Normandy, despite knowing that thousands would be immediately
killed.

Both the Saudis and the Houthis have been increasingly willing to use
civilians, including women and children, s cannon fodder in the cause
of fighting the Yemen war. The Houthis use children as human shields
to protect military installations, and the Saudis kill the children in
order to strike at the military installations. That's what always
happens in a generational crisis war. Relief Web and NY Magazine and Bellingcat (9-Aug)

****
**** US Military under pressure to end support of Saudis in Yemen
****

Although the US military is not part of the Saudi-led coalition in
Yemen, the US military does provide help in the form of air refueling
for Saudi aircraft and intelligence support. In addition, the US
sells weapons to the Saudis.

The recent spate of news stories about civilian deaths in Yemen has
caused international pressure on the US to reduce or end military
support to the Saudis. In addition, there are claims that the weapons
that have killed civilians in recent weeks are American made, but this
claim has been challenged, as the Saudis also obtain weapons from
other sources.

Reports indicate that the Pentagon is warning the Saudis that the US
will reduce military and intelligence support if the Saudis don't
demonstrate they are attempting to limit civilian deaths in
airstrikes. And Democrats in Congress want to amend the defense
appropriations bill to make American support contingent on the
U.S. defense secretary certifying that the coalition air campaign is
not violating international law and U.S. policy related to the
protection of civilians.

However, reducing American support to Saudi Arabia would probably just
hand a victory over to Iran and the Houthis. In fact, the Saudis have
provided evidence to the UN Security Council that Iran is sponsoring
Hezbollah militants in the Yemen war, so that a Houthi victory in
Yemen would give Iran almost complete effective control of the country
-- insofar as it's possible for anyone to control Yemen.

It seems unlikely that President Donald Trump, who views the Saudis as
an essential ally, would agree to a reduction of military support. In
fact, because of the strategic importance of the al-Hodeidah seaport,
whose recapture is the current objective of the Saudi coalition's
current military operation, Trump is said to be considering increasing
U.S. military support for that operation.

The UN has repeatedly described Yemen as the world's worst
humanitarian crisis. The al-Hodeidah seaport is crucial to whatever
humanitarian efforts are possible in Yemen. NGOs use this seaport to
import badly need humanitarian aid, including food, water and
medicines, for 8 million Yeminis, out of a total population of 22
million. Many Yemenis are already on the verge of starvation, and the
closure of the port for even a few days could be disastrous. Defense News and CNN and The National (UAE) and Gulf News

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates, UAE, al-Hodeidah,
Mark Lowcock, Houthis, Iran, Hezbollah

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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

29-Aug-18 World View -- China ends two-child policy, but considers a 'wacky' three-ch - John J. Xenakis - 08-28-2018

*** 29-Aug-18 World View -- China ends two-child policy, but considers a 'wacky' three-child policy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • China ends two-child policy, but considers a 'wacky' three-child policy
  • China evaluates the failure of the two-child policy
  • China may adopt a 'wacky' policy with a 'reproduction fund'

****
**** China ends two-child policy, but considers a 'wacky' three-child policy
****

[Image: g180828b.jpg]
China's new Year of the Pig stamps

For four decades, China has been attempting to control family planning
decisions for individual families through the "one-child policy,"
announced in 1979, which called for forced abortions, forced
sterilizations, and harsh fines to prevent families from having more
than one child, and which was revised to a "two-child policy" in March
2016, allowing two children instead of just one.

Early in August, China's government announced new postage stamps to be
used starting in the Year of the Pig, next year. One of the stamps
displays a happy family of five pigs, a mama pig, a papa pig, and
three little baby pigs.

To many Chinese, these Year of the Pig stamps appeared to confirm
long-rumored plans to eliminate even the two-child restriction. This
claim was reinforced by the memory that in 2016, the Year of the
Monkey, China had released a similar stamp showing two baby monkeys.

However, Chinese officials denied this claim about the 3-piglet stamps
when they were announced three weeks ago. In particular, the designer
of the stamps, 81-year-old Chinese folk artist Han Meilin denied this
claim through his spokesman, who said that Han decided to draw three
piglets because they made the composition of the painting more
balanced. Moreover, the five pigs on the stamp echo an auspicious
Chinese proverb "five blessings gathering together" and the design is
set to bring good luck to the public in the coming year, according to
the spokesman.

Well those denials are now turning out to be false. China announced
in a Weibo social media post on Monday that all family planning matter
has been removed from the new draft civil code that is scheduled for
enactment in March 2020.

This means that all family planning controls should end. There will
be no more one-child policy, no more two-child policy, no more forced
abortions, no more forced sterilizations, and no more harsh fines.

According to Zhang Juwei, director of the state-run Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences’ Institute of Population and Labor Economics, "It has
become an irresistible trend to allow people to make their own
decisions on fertility, which will be the direction for the adjustment
of population policy in the future." Daily Mail (8-Aug) and Reuters and South China Morning Post

****
**** China evaluates the failure of the two-child policy
****

The one-child policy was arguably a disaster for China's society.
Women who had unapproved pregnancies could be violently dragged from
their homes and forced to abort and be sterilized. If an unapproved
child was born, then the child could not be registered, and
essentially did not exist, so could not get schooling or other social
benefits.

The negative consequences of the one-child policy were apparent almost
as soon as it was adopted in 1979. The policy accelerated the aging
of the population, and a decline in the working-age population, which
threatened economic growth. Furthermore, with fewer children, fewer
elderly people could be cared for by their children.

The one-child policy did have an effect on the demographics of China's
population. The most well-known is that many parents aborted their
unborn babies when ultrasounds showed that the babies were girls,
because many parents wanted a boy who would take care of his parents
when they got old, something that girls rarely did. The sex ratio
peaked at 121/100 (121 boys for each 100 girls) in 2005, with recent
estimates at 116/100, and as high as 140/100 in parts of rural central
China.

Aborting girl babies creates a vicious cycle. The number of births in
a population grows exponentially based not on the total size of the
population, but rather on the number of females in the population. So
if there are fewer girls, then there will be fewer females, and fewer
births. This vicious cycle is in fact occurring, as statisticians are
predicting a sharp fall in China's population in the next decade for
exactly this reason.

The two-child policy did little to improve these figures. Many
couples chose not to have a second child simply because they don't
trust the authorities, and feared reprisals. For those who do have a
second child, the birth ratio problem is exacerbated. Those with a
daughter, knowing that they could have only one more child, almost
universally aborted a female baby.

The population growth rate is below what was promised, and is far from
satisfactory. In fact, in some regions the number of births is
decreasing. In the first six months of this year, the number of
births in many provinces in mainland China fell by 15-20% from the
year before. East Asia Forum and US National Institutes of Health

****
**** China may adopt a 'wacky' policy with a 'reproduction fund'
****

With the failure of the one-child policy and the two-child policy, one
of the proposals being considered, sometimes called the three-child
policy because of the three piglets, is receiving massive outrage in
China.

The proposal is to impose a brand new tax on all working adults under
age 40, and put the money into a "reproduction fund." The money would
go to subsidize families with more than one child.

Although it's only a proposal, many women fear that it's a return to
forced family planning by China's government. Whereas the Chinese
government used fines, forced abortions and sterilizations to prevent
unapproved births under the one-child policy, under the new policy the
Chinese government would use heavy taxes to effectively force women to
have a second child, whether she wants it or not. So the government
would be back in the family planning business as soon as it got out.

According to one female journalist commenting on the new Year of the
Pig stamps, "However, we are not pigs. And when it comes to having
babies, we should have free will, and the freedom to choose."
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Global Times (Beijing) and South China Morning Post

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Year of the Pig, Year of the Monkey,
one-child policy, two-child policy, three-child policy,
reproduction fund, Han Meilin, Zhang Juwei

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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