Generational Dynamics World View

Generational Dynamics World View - Printable Version

+- Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory (http://generational-theory.com/forum)
+-- Forum: Fourth Turning Forums (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Theories Of History (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-7.html)
+--- Thread: Generational Dynamics World View (/thread-51.html)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Tim Randal Walker - 01-03-2019

"Debt trap diplomacy" could be regarded as a form of loan sharking.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 01-03-2019

(01-03-2019, 01:29 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: "Debt trap diplomacy" could be regarded as a form of loan sharking.

China is a lender of last resort. That is the role of a loan-shark.

Every polity must ask the consequences of taking out a loan for anything. Is that impressive highway, airport, or seaport really necessary?

4-Jan-19 World View -- Britain may establish a military base in South China Sea after - John J. Xenakis - 01-03-2019

*** 4-Jan-19 World View -- Britain may establish a military base in South China Sea after Brexit

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Britain may establish a military base in South China Sea after Brexit
US State Dept issues elevated travel warning for China

****
**** Britain may establish a military base in South China Sea after Brexit
****

[Image: g190103b.jpg]

Gavin Williamson

In the 1800s, Britain was the world's superpower. Now, Britain's
Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson says that Britain could return
to being a "true global power" after Brexit.

According to Williamson, Britain will become a much more
important world player after Brexit:

<QUOTE>"This is our biggest moment as a nation since the end
of the Second World War, when we can recast ourselves in a
different way, we can actually play the role on the world stage
that the world expects us to play.

For so long - literally for decades - so much of our national
view point has actually been coloured by a discussion about the
European Union.

This is our moment to be that true global player once more - and
I think the armed forces play a really important role as part of
that.

I am very much looking at how can we get as much of our resources
forward based, actually creating a deterrent but also taking a
British presence. We are looking at those opportunities not just
in the Far East but also in the Caribbean as well."<END QUOTE>

Williamson did not specify specifically where the bases would be, but
unnamed sources say that one could be sited in Singapore or Brunei,
adjacent to the South China Sea. The other could be Montserrat or
Guyana in the Caribbean. The bases would be created "within the next
couple of years."

The U.K. already has bases in Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands
and Diego Garcia. Williamson said he expected a dramatic shift in
political focus after Brexit - with the UK building deeper
relationships with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Caribbean states
and nations across Africa.

China claims the entire South China Sea as its sovereign territory,
based on some fantasy historical claims. During the last few months,
I've been intensively studying Chinese history, and I've found that
not only do the Chinese have absolutely no historical claim whatsoever
to the South China Sea, but in fact they weren't even interested in
the South China Sea until after World War II, when they decided to
annex it in order to steal resources from other countries.

In fact, in 2016 the Philippines won a historic case in the United
Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague thoroughly
humiliating China by ruling that all of China's activities in the
South China Sea are illegal and in violation of international law.
However, as a criminal outlaw
state, China has continued building illegal military bases in the
South China Sea, annexing the region illegally just as Hitler annexed
Poland.

The Chinese claim that they would be a great nation today if they
hadn't been victimized by Britain in the Opium Wars of the 1840s. The
Chinese claim that they've been repeatedly victimized and humiliated
by the West for 170 years, when in fact that Chinese have repeatedly
been so credulous and so incompetent at governing themselves, they
actually allowed themselves to be humiliated time after time.

And so a new British military base in the South China Sea is certain
to provoke the usual hysterical screams from the paranoid Chinese
Communist Party, and there's no way to tell how they'll react, or
whether they'll retaliate militarily. Daily Mirror (UK) and Special Broadcasting Service (Australia) and Bloomberg

Related Articles

****
**** US State Dept issues elevated travel warning for China
****

The State Department has issued an elevated travel warning for people
considering travel to China. Particularly alarming is China's use of
exit bans to lure individuals back to China from abroad. Once in
China, individuals can be arbitrarily arrested and tortured, with no
access to lawyers or the outside world, and may be arbitrarily jailed
for years with no trial and even no charges.

The State Department advisory says the following:

<QUOTE>"Exercise increased caution in China due to arbitrary
enforcement of local laws as well as special restrictions on dual
U.S.-Chinese nationals.

Chinese authorities have asserted broad authority to prohibit
U.S. citizens from leaving China by using ‘exit bans,’ sometimes
keeping U.S. citizens in China for years. China uses exit bans
coercively:

to compel U.S. citizens to participate in Chinese
government investigations,
to lure individuals back to China from abroad, and
to aid Chinese authorities in resolving civil disputes in
favor of Chinese parties.

In most cases, U.S. citizens only become aware of the exit ban
when they attempt to depart China, and there is no method to find
out how long the ban may continue. U.S. citizens under exit bans
have been harassed and threatened.

U.S. citizens may be detained without access to U.S. consular
services or information about their alleged crime. U.S. citizens
may be subjected to prolonged interrogations and extended
detention for reasons related to “state security.” Security
personnel may detain and/or deport U.S. citizens for sending
private electronic messages critical of the Chinese government.

Extra security measures, such as security checks and increased
levels of police presence, are common in the Xinjiang Uighur and
Tibet Autonomous Regions. Authorities may impose curfews and
travel restrictions on short notice.

China does not recognize dual nationality. U.S.-Chinese citizens
and U.S. citizens of Chinese heritage may be subject to additional
scrutiny and harassment, and China may prevent the U.S. Embassy
from providing consular services."<END QUOTE>

Special care should be taken when visiting Xinjiang province, where
China has arbitrarily jailed as many as a million Muslim Uighurs,
subjecting them to "reeducation" torture, rapes and beatings.
US State Dept. and CNBC and Business Insider

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Britain, Gavin Williamson, Brexit,
China, South China Sea, Singapore, Brunei,
Caribbean, Montserrat, Guyana,
Cyprus, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, Diego Garcia,
United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration, PCA,
Opium Wars, Xinjiang Province, Uighurs

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

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

5-Jan-19 World View -- Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist separatists in Arakan Army in Rakhine - John J. Xenakis - 01-05-2019

*** 5-Jan-19 World View -- Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist separatists in Arakan Army in Rakhine State kill 13 policemen

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist separatists in Arakan Army in Rakhine State kill 13 policemen
EU considers revoking Myanmar's trade preferences because of Rohingya genocide

****
**** Myanmar (Burma) Buddhist separatists in Arakan Army in Rakhine State kill 13 policemen
****

[Image: g190104b.jpg]

Ethnic Rakhine people in Myanmar (Getty)

Myanmar's army has just recently completed most of the job of genocide
and ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine State, forcing
hundreds of thousands to flee for their lives to neighboring
Bangladesh, where they're trapped in refugee camps. Myanmar's army
began committing atrocities, including torture, rape, beatings and
slaughter, burning down entire Rohingya villages, targeting the
Rohingyas, starting as early as 2011. But they crossed the line into
full-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing after an August 25, 2017,
attack on Burma police outposts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army
(ARSA), killing 8 policemen. At that point, Burma's army began
full-scale "clearance operations," sending hundreds of thousands more
Rohingyas into Bangladesh.

With most Burmese Rohingyas now in Bangladesh, and with most Rohingya
villages burned to the ground, Burma's army may have thought its job
was done. But now they have a new problem, and they're launching
"clearance operations" again against a new group, ethnic Rakhines.

Ethnic Rakhine rebels, claiming to be part of the Arakan Army (AA),
which is a Buddhist ethnic Rakhine "army," as opposed to the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which is a Muslim ethnic Rohingya
"army," killed 14 "prisoners of war" in four police stations in
Rakhine State on Friday.

This has prompted the army to launch localized "clearance operations"
this time against the ethnic Rakhines. Clashes between AA and Burma's
army in recent months has already forced an estimated 2,500 people to
flee from their homes because of the violence. Many of them are
sheltering in local Buddhist monasteries.

Myanmar officials said that four police posts in northern Rakhine came
under attack from hundreds of Arakan Army fighters after daybreak on
Friday, killing 13 and injuring nine, and triggering the army's new
"clearance operations" in the area. Reuters and Special Broadcasting Service (Australia) and AP and Asia Times

****
**** EU considers revoking Myanmar's trade preferences because of Rohingya genocide
****

Trade unions in Myanmar are begging the European Union not to
revoke its grant of trade preferences to Myanmar

The trade preference program, known as Generalized Scheme of
Preferences (GSP), grants to Myanmar the right to export goods to the
EU without paying tariffs. The GSP "Everything But Arms" (EBA) status
allows Myanmar to sell any goods except weapons tariff-free into the
EU. The GSP privilege was granted in 2013. Exports from Myanmar to
the EU, especially in garments and foodstuffs, has risen tenfold in
the past five years.

After months of pressure from rights groups, the EU is considering
punishing Myanmar for "the blatant violation of human rights"
referring to ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas and the failure of civilian
leader Aung San Suu Kyi to resolve the crisis. EU’s trade chief
Cecilia Malmstrom said in October, "Our trade policy is
value-based. These are not just words. We have to act when there are
severe violations."

However, trade unions and workers groups in Myanmar say that over one
million workers might lose their jobs if GSP is revoked. According to
Maung Maung, chairman of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar
(CTUM):

<QUOTE>"Over 700,000 workers from the garment industry and
over 400,000 workers in fishery industry will lose their jobs and
their families will be in trouble. We don’t want to see this
situation. So, we request the EU not to revoke GSP."<END QUOTE>

Withdrawing GSP would also have a significant impact on foreign direct
investment, since investors who invest in Myanmar to gain access to
the EU export market will no longer be attracted.

Card Charles Maung Bo, archbishop of Yangon and the country’s first
cardinal, said, "I am completely against any form of sanction or
embargo against Myanmar. Experience shows that this type of measures
only harms the poorest sections of the population. They will suffer
the consequences, certainly not the rich and powerful."

An EU review team visited Myanmar in October to assess the situation,
but has not yet issued an opinion.

The same team is also considering withdrawing GSP for Cambodia,
because of substantial and increasing human rights violations under
the Hun Sen administration. Fibre2Fashion (Myanmar) and Mizzima (Myanmar) and Reuters (5-Oct-2018) and Asia News (Italy)

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Myanmar, Burma,
Rakhine State, Rohingyas, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, ARSA,
Buddhists, Rakhines, Arakan Army, AA,
European Union, Cecilia Malmstrom,
Generalized Scheme of Preferences, GSP, Everything But Arms, EBA,
Maung Maung, Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar, CTUM,
Card Charles Maung Bo, Cambodia, Hun Sen

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

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

6-Jan-19 World View -- Trump announces that US troops will be sent to DR Congo - John J. Xenakis - 01-05-2019

*** 6-Jan-19 World View -- Trump announces that US troops will be sent to DR Congo

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Trump announces that US troops will be sent to DR Congo
DR Congo delays releasing election results again
Ebola outbreak spreads more slowly than feared in DR Congo

****
**** Trump announces that US troops will be sent to DR Congo
****

[Image: g190105b.jpg]

American soldiers in a a combined training exercise with Senegalese troops in Thies, Senegal, on July 25, 2016 (AFP)

President Trump announced that US troops will be sent to Gabon, in
anticipation of "violent" demonstrations in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) if and when the results of the December 30 presidential
election are announced.

The announcement came in a Friday evening letter to House speaker
Nancy Pelosi:

<QUOTE>"Dear Madam Speaker:

United States Armed Forces personnel have deployed to Libreville,
Gabon, to be in position to support the security of United States
citizens, personnel, and diplomatic facilities in Kinshasa,
Democratic Republic of the Congo. This deployment of
approximately 80 personnel is in response to the possibility that
violent demonstrations may occur in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo in reaction to the December 30, 2018, elections there. The
first of these personnel arrived in Gabon on January 2, 2019, with
appropriate combat equipment and supported by military aircraft.
Additional forces may deploy to Gabon, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, or the Republic of the Congo, if necessary for these
purposes. These deployed personnel will remain in the region
until the security situation in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo becomes such that their presence is no longer needed.

This action was taken consistent with my responsibility to protect
United States citizens both at home and abroad, and in furtherance
of United States national security and foreign policy interests,
pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct United States
foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.

I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the
Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution
(Public Law 93-148). I appreciate the support of the Congress in
these actions.<END QUOTE>

The letter indicates that the U.S. is concerned with the safety of
American officials and facilities in Congo, not with the DRC electoral
situation itself. A State Department travel warning was issued in
mid-December, urging Americans to "reconsider travel" to DRC "due to
crime and civil unrest."

Gabon is a small country on the northwest border of DRC. Libreville
is the capital city. White House and CBS News and CNN

****
**** DR Congo delays releasing election results again
****

The president of CENI, the election commission of the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), indefinitely postponed the release of the
preliminary results of the December 30 presidential election, saying
that it was not yet clear when the results would be ready for release.

The election was originally supposed to take place in December 2016.
Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president, is not permitted to run
again, according to the constitution, and so he has postponed
the election several times. The last postponement was from
December 23, 2018, to December 30, when the election finally took
place.

In the week prior to the election, Kabila's election commission said
that the election will still be held, but will be delayed until March
in three cities -- Beni, Butembo and Yumbi. The reasons given for
Beni and Butembo are that there are Ebola outbreaks in those cities,
and that voting would be "dangerous." However, voting has not been
delayed in other cities with Ebola outbreaks. What these three cities
have in common is that they are strongholds for anti-Kabila
opposition. On election day, the local government of Beni held its
own elections, just to prove that voting was not "dangerous."

Preliminary results were to be released today (Sunday, January 6),
until the CENI announcement on Saturday, delaying the release.

There are widespread suspicions that Kabila is trying to find a way to
rig the vote count so that the winner will be his hand-picked
successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. Many people believe that if
Shadary wins, then he will just be a puppet with Kabila as the
puppetmaster.

Kabila has shut down the internet all week, supposedly to prevent the
incitement of riots. Kabila has made it illegal for any organization
to announce election results before CENI does. It's believed that
these laws were specifically targeted to the Catholic Church, which
had sent more than 40,000 observers to poling stations across the
country.

On Thursday, the National Episcopal Conference Of Congo (CENCO)
released a lengthy statement about its conclusions. It listed several
irregularities in the voting procedures, and then reached a startling
conclusion: From its own data, CENCO knows who won the election, but
won't announce the name, in keeping with the law against announcing
election results.

CENCO called on the election commission to do the following:

<QUOTE>"In order to respect the will of the People and to
dispel any suspicion, CENCO proposes the following scheme for the
integrity of the results which will have to be published:

1 Only take into account the results from manual counting that
were published and posted in front of the polling and counting
stations;

2 Ensure that the consistency check at the Local Results
Compilation Centers (CLCR) is carried out in the presence of
observers and witnesses.

3 Publish the results polling station by polling
station."<END QUOTE>

CENCO did not name the purported election winner, but reports indicate
that it was the main opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu.

The capital city Kinshasa is very tense right now. There were almost
full-scale riots in December 2016, but the Catholic Church intervened
and quieted the situation. If CENI continues to delay announcing the
election results, or if it announces that Shadary is the winner,
there may be widespread riots again.

The situation is so serious that it's believed that this is the reason
that President Trump announced the deployment of troops to Gabon,
available to protect the safety of American officials and facilities
in DRC. Reuters and Guardian (London) and CENCO (DRC Catholic Church)

****
**** Ebola outbreak spreads more slowly than feared in DR Congo
****

The Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC is still growing, but not as quickly
as had been feared. The outbreak total is 613 cases, including 565
confirmed and 54 suspected cases. Health officials are still
investigating 54 suspected infections.

According to Tedros Adhanom, the Director-General of the World Health
Organization (WHO), the DRC Ebola outbreak would have been much worse
without the use of Merck's experimental Ebola vaccine, known as
VSV-EBOV. He based his assessment on the fact that infections haven't
grown exponentially. Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDRAP)

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Libreville, Gabon, Kinshasa,
Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi,
CENI election commission, Joseph Kabila,
Beni, Butembo, Yumbi, Ebola,
Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, Martin Fayulu,
National Episcopal Conference Of Congo, CENCO,
Tedros Adhanom, World Health Organization, WHO,
Merck, VSV-EBOV

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

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

7-Jan-19 World View -- Hamas vs Fatah relationship deteriorates sharply on Palestinia - John J. Xenakis - 01-07-2019

*** 7-Jan-19 World View -- Hamas vs Fatah relationship deteriorates sharply on Palestinian anniversary

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Hamas vs Fatah relationship deteriorates sharply on Palestinian anniversary
Bomb disposal robot detonates object carried into Israel by helium balloons

****
**** Hamas vs Fatah relationship deteriorates sharply on Palestinian anniversary
****

[Image: g190106b.jpg]

Employee inspects damage to Palestinian Authority media office in Gaza after attacks by five men (AFP)

Tensions between Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, and the
Palestinian Authority (Fatah), the governing authority in the West
Bank, have intensified substantially in the last few days.

The trigger for the latest fallout was apparently plans by Fatah's 83
year old leader Mahmoud Abbas to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the
launchng of Fatah's first attacks against Israel, and to do so by
holding several rallies throughout the Gaza strip, which is governed
by Hamas.

According to Fatah, Hamas prevented those rallies from taking place by
arresting 500 of its men in the Gaza strip, subjecting many of them to
torture, and also by raiding the homes of many Fatah officials and
activists, confiscating material and equipment that was supposed to be
used during the Fatah rallies.

Then, to make matters worse, Hamas allowed Abbas's political rival,
Mohammed Dahlan, and his supporters to hold their own rallies to
celebrate the 54th anniversary of Fatah’s first attack against Israel,
according to the Jerusalem Post.

This had led to vitriolic mutual accusations, with each side accusing
the other of the being a traitor. Abbas accused Hamas being "spies"
for Israel, while Hamas accused Abbas of being a dictator, senile, a
liar, and mentally unstable. Abbas was called a collaborator because
of the security coordination between his security forces and Israel in
the West Bank.

On Friday, five armed men entered the offices of the Palestinian
Authority's media headquarters in Gaza, assaulted the workers and
destroyed equipment, including cameras, equipment, furniture and
broadcasting equipment.

On Saturday, Hamas arrested five men and accused them of
being the perpetrators, and also announced that all five men
were Fatah employees whose motive was revenge for not
getting paid salaries. However, Fatah leaders hold Hamas
responsible.

On Friday evening, Abbas announced a halt to payment of salaries and
social welfare to thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which
amounts to $96 million monthly. Fatah also announced it would close
all its offices in Gaza "in anticipation of any attacks on them."

On Saturday, Fatah announced that it would be withdrawing its
employees from the Rafeh border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. This
border crossing is a lifeline to many Gazans, but it's been closed for
many periods in the last ten years. Thanks to Hamas-Fatah mediation
efforts by Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, the Rafah crossing
has been open continuously for several months, under the condition
that Fatah provides the guards to run the crossing. Egypt has not
commented, and it's not clear whether Hamas will be allowed to replace
Fatah in operating the crossing.

For several years, Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi has been
trying to mediate a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, so that
they can form a unity government representing all Palestinians. Once
that's done, the grand fantasy is that this unity government can then
negotiate with Israel for the boundaries in the two-state solution,
which will produce two nations, Israel and Palestine, side-by-side in
peace.

As I wrote in my very first Generational Dynamics analysis on May 1,
2003, when president George Bush published his "Mideast Roadmap to
Peace," which described the details of a two-state solution, that will
never happen. Generational Dynamics predicts that the plan would fail because the Jews and the Arabs
would be refighting the 1948 war that followed the partitioning of
Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.

All the machinations and negotiations for a unity government and a
two-state solution are completely naive. Polls have shown that young
Palestinians consider 83-year-old Mahmoud Abbas to be a fool. The
Hamas leaders get more respect because they're a generation younger,
but not much more respect. What they're all waiting for is a young
obsessed fanatic, their own version of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
to inspire them to inspire them to become martyrs for their
cause.

As I've written many times, Generational Dynamics predicts that the
Mideast is headed for a major regional war refighting the 1948 war
between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine and
the creation of the state of Israel. The war will also pit Sunnis
versus Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. Iran is
controlled by an ancient generation of hardliners whose policies are
strongly opposed by the growing population of younger generations.
Generational Dynamics predicts that in the approaching Clash of
Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China, Pakistan and the Sunni
Muslim countries will be pitted against the "allies," the US, India,
Russia and Iran. Jerusalem Post (2-Jan) and Mideast Eye and Al Arabiya (5-Jan) and Jerusalem Post (5-Jan) and Reuter

****
**** Bomb disposal robot detonates object carried into Israel by helium balloons
****

[Image: g190106c.jpg]

A police bomb disposal robot carries away a drone-shaped device from a carrot field that had been flown in from Gaza by a cluster of helium balloons on Sunday. (Israel Police)

On Sunday morning, a large object was flown into Israel from Gaza by
means of a large cluster of helium balloons. The object looked like a
drone glider, although it was apparently not capable of flight. The
name of a Gaza engineering college was printed on the side of the
object.

The device landed in a carrot field in southern Israel. A police bomb
disposal robot examined the device, causing it to explode like a bomb.
The drone lookalike was then carried away.

In retaliation, Israeli military helicopters attacked two observation
posts in Gaza controlled by Hamas. Times of Israel

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Gaza, West Bank, Hamas,
Fatah, Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan,
Egypt, Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi

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

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

8-Jan-19 World View -- Gabon has failed coup attempt as US troops arrive for DR Congo - John J. Xenakis - 01-07-2019

*** 8-Jan-19 World View -- Gabon has failed coup attempt as US troops arrive for DR Congo mission

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Abortive coup attempt in Gabon fails while president it out of the country
Brief generational history of Gabon
US troops in Gabon remain focused on DR Congo mission despite coup attempt

****
**** Abortive coup attempt in Gabon fails while president it out of the country
****

[Image: g190107b.jpg]

Gabon's president Ali Bongo. He is currently in Morocco recovering from a stroke (Getty)

Days after the US began deploying troops to Gabon for a mission in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a failed coup attempt occurred.

Rebel soldiers in Gabon launched an abortive coup attempt on Monday.
At around 4:30 am, five soldiers took over the state run radio and
television station and broadcast a statement calling on the people of
Gabon to "rise up," while the president, Ali Bongo, is in Morocco
recovering from a stroke.

A man identifying himself as Lt Kelly Ondo Obiang, flanked by two
armed men. They presented themselves as the Patriotic Youth Movement
of the Defense and Security Forces. Obiang read out a statement:

<QUOTE>"The eagerly awaited day has arrived when the army has
decided to put itself on the side of the people in order to save
[1]Gabon from chaos. If you are eating, stop; if you
are having a drink, stop; if you are sleeping, wake up. Wake up
your neighbors ... rise up as one and take control of the
street."<END QUOTE>

He called on Gabonese to occupy the country’s airports, public
buildings and media organizations. A few hundred people went into the
streets of Libreville to support the so-called coup, but they were
quickly dispersed.

Security forces stormed the state broadcasting headquarters, capturing
the rebel chief, killing two of his team and freeing journalists and
technicians who had been held hostage and forced to help the mutineers
make their broadcast. All five members of the Patriotic Youth
Movement of the Defense and Security Forces were arrested after a
chase.

According to a Gabonese journalist, "The people are afraid. When the
young soldiers asked everyone to come to the streets in support of the
coup, nobody did, because they were in panic."

The abortive coup attempt was apparently triggered by Ali Bongo's poor
New Year's eve speech. He was hospitalized in October in Saudi Arabia
after suffering a stroke, and he went to Morocco, where the president
is a long-time friend, in order to continue treatment. Ali Bongo
hasn't been seen in Gabon since then, and on a televised New Year's
Eve speech he slurred some words and did not move his right arm. It's
unclear if he is able to walk.

Gabon's former colonial power, France, has a permanent force of 300
soldiers in Gabon. France 24 and Al Jazeera and AP and Radio France International (Translation)

****
**** Brief generational history of Gabon
****

Since 1910, Gabon was part of France's colony French Equatorial
Africa (the equator runs through Gabon), consisting of
the colonies Gabon, Middle Congo (today's Congo-Brazzaville)
Ubangi–Shari–Chad (today's Chad and Central African Republic).

Gabon's last generational crisis war was World War II. All the
colonies except Gabon sided with Charles de Gaulle's Free French
government, while Gabon sided with the pro-Nazi French Vichy
government. In October 1940, General de Gaulle issues orders for
liquidation of the Vichy enclave in Gabon. The Free French forces
marched into Gabon's capital city Libreville. The Battle of
Libreville occurred between November 9-12, resulting in the victory of
the Free French.

In 1960, Gabon became independent of France. In 1967, Albert-Bernard
Bongo became president. In 1973, he converted to Islam and changed
his name to Omar.

After 40 years, Omar Bongo died in June 2009, and his son Ali Bongo
succeeded him after an election that many believed was rigged.
Ali Bongo narrowly won reelection in 2016, after violence
and rigging of the election.

Rigging an election to keep a dictator or dynasty in power for decades
is nothing new in Africa, as we've described in country after country,
where jailings, beatings, rapes, and killings are standard fare by
leaders who wish to make sure that they win elections, while at the
same time they call their elections "democratic, free and fair" in
order to please international media and governments, and keep aid and
investment money pouring in to benefit the country's elite.

With Ali Bongo in Morocco recovering from a stroke, there is
widespread confusion about who is really making decisions, uncertainty
about when the newly elected National Assembly and a new cabinet will
begin work, and political maneuvers that appear designed to evade the
constitutional requirement that an incapacitated President be replaced
through a special election. Bongo's cronies and family members appear
to be running the country for now, but as the failed coup attempt
illustrates, it will be difficult to maintain stability with
provisional and ad hoc measures indefinitely.

Gabon has high unemployment and a country dependent on oil exports.
People accuse the government of corruption, with a wealthy political
elite that benefit from the country's riches, while millions of people
live in dire poverty. BBC and Council on Foreign Relations and Gabon timeline

****
**** US troops in Gabon remain focused on DR Congo mission despite coup attempt
****

The abortive coup attempt in Gabon comes just three days after the
White House ordered 80 combat-equipped military personnel to Gabon,
"to be in position to support the security of United States citizens,
personnel, and diplomatic facilities in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic
of the Congo" in case of violence. ( "6-Jan-19 World View -- Trump announces that US troops will be sent to DR Congo"
)

For the time being, the abortive coup will have no effect on the
mission of the US forces. “At this time there is no change in the
status of our forces in Gabon,” AFRICOM spokesman John Manley said as
events were unfolding Monday. The troops are not currently tasked with
securing diplomatic assets within Gabon, he said. Stars and Stripes

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Libreville, Gabon, Kinshasa,
Ali Bongo, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kelly Ondo Obiang,
Patriotic Youth Movement of the Defense and Security Forces,
France, French Equatorial Africa, Charles de Gaulle,
Free French, French Vichy, Battle of Libreville,
Albert-Bernard Bongo, Omar Bongo,
Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Donald Trump,
AFRICOM, John Manley

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

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

9-Jan-19 World View -- WSJ: China used bribery, corruption and 'leverage on other nat - John J. Xenakis - 01-09-2019

*** 9-Jan-19 World View -- WSJ: China used bribery, corruption and 'leverage on other nations' in Malaysia's 1MDB scandal

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Malaysia's '1MDB scandal' continues to grow as biggest financial scandal in world history
1MDB corruption mastermind Jho Low remains hiding out in China
WSJ: China used bribery, corruption and 'leverage on other nations' in Malaysia's 1MDB scandal

****
**** Malaysia's '1MDB scandal' continues to grow as biggest financial scandal in world history
****

[Image: g190108b.jpg]

Wanted fugitive Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) is believed to be hiding out in China (Malay Mail)

1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, was founded in 2009 just four
months after Najib Razak became Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The fund was supposed to attract global investors to finance
infrastructure and other economy-linked deals in Malaysia.
Unfortunately, the fund was unsuccessful at attracting investors, but
it did attract a lot of debt - $12 billion by 2016.

A great deal of that $12 billion was misappropriated to finance
finance spending sprees by corrupt officials and their associates. An
estimated $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB by high-level
officials and their associates between 2009 and 2014, according to the
US Department of Justice. $681 million landed in Najib's personal
bank account. Billions more were diverted into personal accounts
disguised to look like legitimate businesses, and kicked back some of
those funds to officials. The money was spent on things like real
estate, jewelry, a luxury yacht, a Hollywood movie, "The Wolf of Wall
Street," casinos, champagne and “Dustheads,” a painting by US artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Of the $12 billion in debt, much of it was arranged by Goldman Sachs.
Between 2012 and 2013, Goldman arranged three bonds worth $6.5 billion
for 1MDB with fees totalling $593 million. Malaysia has made criminal
accusations against Goldman and two employees for defrauding
investors, and is suing to recover the fees. Goldman denies the
charges.

Questions arose about the fund’s transparency and performance as early
as 2010. Suspicions about 1MDB began as early as 2013 when it asked
for a six-month extension to file its annual report. The company had
changed its auditors on three occasions at this point, furthering
suspicions. But international exposure became more pronounced in
2015, when 1MDB’s bonds, then worth around $12 billion, were
downgraded to junk status by ratings agencies Standard and Poor’s and
Fitch.

By 2016, the fund was far in debt, and was threatened with bankruptcy.
Wall St Journal and Bloomberg (17-Dec-2018) and Business Insider (12-Dec-2018) and Bloomberg (12-Dec-2018)

****
**** 1MDB corruption mastermind Jho Low remains hiding out in China
****

With 1MDB close to bankruptcy in 2016, prime minister Najib Razak
turned to Low Taek Jho, popularly known as Jho Low, an international
investor and bon vivant, who had been born of a wealthy family
in Malaysia, but had spent years embezzling and laundering billions of
dollars in America, Europe and Asia. Jho Low had advised in the
creation of 1MDB, but didn't hold a formal position in the fund.

Low was known since the 2000s in financial circles, but he began to
have star quality when he dated Miranda Kerr, an Australian supermodel
and former Victoria's Secret model. He wooed her by giving her a $1.3
million diamond necklace on Valentine's Day in 2014, and followed it
up with more jewelry obtained through money laundered through energy
deals and through 1MDB.

A few weeks later, at a party for Kerr's thirty-first birthday, Low
hired out a venue on Chelsea Piers in New York for a nineties-themed
party and flew in Salt-N-Pepa, Mark Morrison, and Vanilla Ice to
perform. Jamie Foxx was on hand to emcee, and Leonardo DiCaprio and
Swizz Beatz were among the hundred or so invitees.

Low had attended London's Harrow School, and had studied at Wharton's
business school, so it was natural that Najib Razak would turn to him
when 1MDB neared bankruptcy in 2016.

Low has been painted by U.S. prosecutors as a central figure in the
1MDB scandal. In December 2018, Malaysian prosecutors charged him with
receiving more than $1 billion from the state fund in 2009 and 2011,
adding to the eight counts of money laundering charges he was slapped
with in August.

He's currently an international fugitive, believed to be hiding out
under the protection of China. Through his public relations agency,
he issued a statement on Tuesday saying, "The article is a selection
of half-truths, mixed in with fiction, to create a misleading and
oversimplified narrative that has been peddled by a morally-bankrupt
Mahathir regime to advance its failing political cause," referring the
current prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. Business Insider (19-Sept-2018) and Bloomberg (12-Dec-2018) and Business Insider (2-Jan-2019)

****
**** WSJ: China used bribery, corruption and 'leverage on other nations' in Malaysia's 1MDB scandal
****

Malaysia's 1MDB scandal has been called the biggest financial scandal
in the history of the world. It involved corruption at the highest
levels of Malaysia's government, channeling billions of dollars
provided by China in 1MDB infrastructure projects into the private
accounts of Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak.

Now a new report by the Wall Street Journal alleges that the scandal
also involved the highest levels of China's government, including
president Xi Jinping and prime minister Li Keqiang.

In 2016, Najib turned to Jho Low to negotiate the deal with the
Chinese. Low set up meetings between Chinese and Malaysian officials,
where the details could be worked out. According to documents
examined by the Wall Street Journal:

The Chinese offered to bail out the 1MDB that had been
plundered by Najib.
At the same time, China offered to use its leverage on other
nations, including the United States, to discourage investigations of
the 1MDB scandals.
In return, Malaysia would commit to huge new infrastructure
projects in Malaysia that would benefit China. Najib signed $34
billion of rail, pipeline and other deals with Chinese state
companies, to be funded by Chinese banks and built by Chinese workers.
This is standard practice for Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
deals. China lends the money, and demands that the money be used to
pay Chinese workers' salaries and to purchase parts and services from
Chinese factories and businesses. So instead of benefiting the local
factories and workers, the money goes back to China to benefit
factories and people there. And then the country still has to repay
the loan, which means that they're repaying the loan twice.
The bailout would be funded by charging substantially more for the
infrastructure projects than was required by market prices. The
excess cash would be used to fund the bailout of 1MDB.
China also offered to bug the homes and offices of Wall Street
Journal reporters in Hong Kong who were investigating 1MDB, to learn
who was leaking information to them. It's not known whether this was
carried out.
Najib also had secret talks with China's leadership to let Chinese
navy ships dock at two Malaysian ports. This would have been a
significant concession to China, but it didn't come to pass.

China was clearly unsuccessful in discouraging investigations.
Malaysia has filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs and several
employees. There are investigations in multiple countries, including
the US, United Kingdom, Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Luxembourg, Switzerland, and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

These investigations would have been blocked if Najib were still prime
minister. But Malaysia and the world were shocked last year when
Najib unexpectedly was not reelected. ( "31-May-18 World View -- Malaysia shocked when 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad becomes prime minister"
)

China's embassy in Kuala Lumpur denies that it had anything to do with
the 1MDB scandal, saying that it adheres to a policy of
non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries:

<QUOTE>"China never attaches political conditions on our
cooperation with other countries. We promote the ‘Belt and Road’
initiative under the principles of wide consultation, joint
contribution and shared benefits, with an aim to pursue shared
development and prosperity. We do not accept any groundless
accusations made against China."<END QUOTE>

This is laughable. China has already acquired or is about to acquire
ports and other assets in several countries
-- Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana,
Kenya -- through its "debt trap diplomacy." Several other countries,
including Pakistan and the Maldives, are at risk. Malaysia is still
at risk, as well.

Furthermore, China lies about everything. China has repeatedly lied
about the South China Sea, claiming that there were no plans to
militarize it, and now the South China Sea is bristling with Chinese
military bases and weapons, and the Chinese are threatening anyone who
passes through, even though the United Nations Hague Tribunal has
declared that China's activities are illegal. The statement says, "We
do not accept any groundless accusations made against China," but
fortunately all these accusations are fully grounded. Channel News Asia and Malay Mail and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and Malay Mail and Malay Mail

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Malaysia, Najib Razak,
Low Taek Jho, Jho Low, Miranda Kerr, Goldman Sachs,
1Malaysia Development Berhad, 1MDB, Mahathir Mohamad,
Salt-N-Pepa, Mark Morrison, Vanilla Ice, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio,
China, debt trap diplomacy, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang,
United Kingdom, Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Luxembourg, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Ghana, Kenya,
South China Sea, United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration, PCA

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

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

10-Jan-19 World View -- Trump signs Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), focusing - John J. Xenakis - 01-09-2019

*** 10-Jan-19 World View -- Trump signs Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), focusing US military on China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

US military focuses on China and 'Indo-Pacific' region
Trump signs Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), focusing US military on China
China threatens retaliation if US implements ARIA in Taiwan

****
**** US military focuses on China and 'Indo-Pacific' region
****

[Image: g190109b.jpg]

Patrick Shanahan arrives at the Pentagon on Jan. 2, for his first day as acting Secretary of Defense. (DoD)

On his first day on the job, last week on January 2, the new Acting
Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan, appointed in the wake of James
Mattis' resignation, told his first meeting with secretaries of the US
military branches that the department's focus should always be on
"China, China, China."

Word of Shanahan's statement was interpreted by the Chinese to mean
that they should expect further military "provocations" by the
Americans, such as Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOs) by
American warships in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait, or that
American was going to take steps to "prevent China narrowing the
China-US military gap."

In fact, the American military is focusing a lot more on what used to
be called the "Asia-Pacific" region, and is now called the
"Indo-Pacific region," which one Indian analyst colorfully described
as stretching from Hollywood to Bollywood.

In August of last year, vice president Pence attended an Indo-Pacific
strategy that included investments of $300 million investments for
technology, energy and infrastructure in the region. ( "5-Aug-18 World View -- China mocks America's 'Indo-Pacific' strategy at ASEAN meeting"
)

This announcement was ridiculed by the Chinese, who attended the same
meeting, because China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has committed
$900 billion (with a "b") to Asian countries, in contrast to America's
"paltry" commitment of $133 million (with an "m"). Reuters and Global Times (Beijing) and Breaking Defense

****
**** Trump signs Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), focusing US military on China
****

In December, Congress passed the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act
(ARIA), which president Trump signed on December 31. It called for
America's increased engagement in the Indo-Pacific region and
strengthened support, including arms sales, for U.S. allies in the
region.

ARIA is a good example of the U.S. Congress exercising oversight over
the Executive through authorizing expenditure for specific activities,
requiring annual reports on a number of security issues, and mandating
specific strategies to achieve U.S. objectives.

ARIA authorizes $1.5 billion annually for 5 years to enhance U.S.
presence in the Indo-Pacific. This is ten times greater than the $133
million that was announced in August at the ASEAN meeting, but it's
still much less than the $900 billion that China's Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), has committed to Asian countries.

ARIA recognizes the vital importance to the security of the United
States of treaty allies (Japan, South Korea, Australia, the
Philippines, and Thailand), strategic partners (India), enhanced
security partnerships (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam),
and commitment to Taiwan. With respect to Taiwan, the Bill
significantly calls for the transfer of “defense articles” and
high-level official visits.

ARIA identifies three major security challenges to the “United
States-backed international system”:

China’s illegal construction and militarization of artificial
features in the South China Sea and coercive economic practices.
North Korea’s acceleration of its nuclear and ballistic missiles
capabilities; and
The increased presence throughout Southeast Asia of the Islamic
State... and other international terrorist organizations that threaten
the United States.

In particular, ARIA says the following specifically about China:

expresses grave concerns over Chinese actions that seek – (a)
to further constrain space for civil society and religion within
China; and (b) undermine a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific
region.
encourages China to play a constructive role in world affairs by
demonstrating consistent respect for the rule of law and international
norms;
seeks to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive
relationship with China – (a) by expanding areas of cooperation; and
(b) by addressing areas of disagreement, including over human rights,
economic policies, and maritime security; and
is committed to working with China on shared regional and global
challenges, especially – (a) upholding and strengthening the
rules-based international system; and (b) the denuclearization of
North Korea.

ARIA expresses serious concern over the rule of law and civil
liberties in five countries – Cambodia, China, North Korea, Laos,
Thailand, and Vietnam. More significantly, ARIA highlights
“unacceptable human rights developments” in Myanmar (Burma), the
Philippines, and China. Diplomat and IndraStra Global (India) amd US Congress

****
**** China threatens retaliation if US implements ARIA in Taiwan
****

Last week, China's president Xi Jinping gave the military its first
order of 2019 - prepare for war:

<QUOTE>"All military units must correctly understand major
national security and development trends, and strengthen their
sense of unexpected hardship, crisis and battle.

[China's armed forces must] prepare for a comprehensive military
struggle from a new starting point.... Preparation for war and
combat must be deepened to ensure an efficient response in times
of emergency."<END QUOTE>

China's foreign ministry spokesman gave a specific answer to the
portion of the new ARIA law having to do with Taiwan:

<QUOTE>The above-mentioned Act seriously violates the
one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint
communiques, and grossly interferes in China's internal
affairs. The Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction with
and resolute opposition to the US insisting on signing the Act
into law and has already made stern representations with the US.

I would like to remind the US side of the speech made by President
Xi Jinping at the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to
Compatriots in Taiwan. He stressed solemnly that the Taiwan
question belongs to China's internal affairs, concerns China's
core interests and the national bond of the Chinese people and
allows no interference from the outside.

We urge the US side to abide by the one-China principle and the
provisions of the three China-US joint communiques. The US must
not implement the relevant contents of the Act and should
carefully handle the Taiwan-related issues in a cautious manner so
as not to impair the overall situation of the China-US relations
and cross-Straits peace and stability."<END QUOTE>

Just as the United States laws and rhetoric are becoming increasingly
belligerent, China's are doing the same.

Today, in 2019, many nations of the world are deep into a generational
Crisis era. As I've been writing for years about country after
country, many countries of the world are becoming increasingly
nationalist and xenophobic, as the survivors of World War II have
almost completely disappeared. This is true today in North America,
Europe and Asia. And this is not an abstract concept. It has real
consequences in that the survivors of World War II were willing to
compromise, but the generations growing up after World War II are not.
So most countries today have become more willing to escalate small
crises into larger ones, and less willing to accept compromises to
prevent war. Even a simple misunderstanding today could trigger a
military response, resulting in a tit-for-tat escalation leading to
war. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and China's Foreign Ministry

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, ARIA,
Indo-Pacific region, Patrick Shanahan, South China Sea, Taiwan Strait,
China, Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, Mike Pence, Taiwan,
Xi Jinping

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

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

11-Jan-19 World View -- Malta takes in 49 migrants after deal with EU that infuriates - John J. Xenakis - 01-10-2019

*** 11-Jan-19 World View -- Malta takes in 49 migrants after deal with EU that infuriates Italy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Malta takes in 49 migrants after deal with EU that infuriates Italy
Malta - EU migrant deal splits Italy's government

****
**** Malta takes in 49 migrants after deal with EU that infuriates Italy
****

[Image: g190110b.jpg]

Migrants sit on the deck of the Sea Eye rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea (AP)

At total of 49 migrants in two rescue boats, including a baby and
several children, who had been rescued weeks ago in the Mediterranean
Sea as they traveled in dinghies from Libya trying to reach Europe,
will be permitted to disembark in the island nation of Malta. The two
rescue ships are the German vessel Sea Watch 3 and the Dutch boat Sea
Eye.

For years, Malta has refused to take in migrants from rescue boats,
forcing the boats to continue northward to Italy. This infuriated the
Italians, who were receiving thousands of migrants that they were
forced to take in under international and European law.

However, Italy has been closing its ports to rescue ships in the last
year, and in November, Italy's parliament passed a tough anti-migrant
law put forth by Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The law
restricts the conditions under which migrants will be permitted to
stay in Italy, and makes it much easier to deport them.

The deal reached between Malta and the EU also took into account the
fate of 249 migrants already in Malta, having been rescued in
December. The 298 migrants will be distributed to other EU countries
under the deal.

176 would be sent to Germany, France, Portugal, Ireland, Romania,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy. Another 78 will be allowed to
stay in Malta, while 44 Bangladeshi migrants will be repatriated.

In a tweet, Sea Watch International said: "The EU decided to release
their 49 hostages. After 19 days at sea, our guests will finally reach
a safe port. This represents a confession of state failure, policy
must not be made at the expense of people in distress."

However, Italy's interior minister Salvini refused to authorize the
deal, and said that Italy would not take in any additional migrants.
Salvini said that other European countries had not fulfilled their
previous commitments to accept migrants who had already reached Italy.

In July 2018, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and Malta agreed to
each take in 50 of around 450 migrants disembarked in Sicily by the
Italian coastguard vessel Diciotti after being rescued at sea.
According to Salvini, France has taken its 50, but Germany only 23,
Spain 21, Portugal 19 and Malta none. Ireland, which said it would
take in 20, has received 16 migrants, he said.

This resulting in name-calling between Salvini and Malta. The
government of Malta disputed Salvini's figures, expressing "disdain
and surprise at the inaccurate allegations by Minister Salvini."

Salvini responded: “We’re not going to take any lessons from Malta,
which closed its eyes for years so that boats could head for Italy.
The music has changed, you can only come to Italy if you have a
permit. We’ve already taken in too many, it’s time for others to wake
up." AFP (29-Nov-2018) and Al Jazeera and Guardian (London) and Reuters

****
**** Malta - EU migrant deal splits Italy's government
****

Readers may recall that when Italy held nationwide elections in March
of last year, the elections failed to produce a majority party. Two
particularly bitter rivals were the left-wing Five Star Movement
(M5S), led by Luigi Di Maio, and the right-wing La Lega (The League),
led by Matteo Salvini. The two parties received a combined total of
49% of the vote and, incredibly, these two parties got together and
formed a governing coalition.

They're far apart on many issues, but they do share similar attitudes
on three issues: a nationalistic anti-euro attitude, a xenophobic
anti-immigrant attitude, and a complete lack of fiscal discipline.
Much to everyone's surprise, they formed a governing coalition based
on these three principles. And after a lengthy period of negotiation,
Di Maio and Salvini decided that neither of them could be prime
minister, and they selected a technocrat, Giuseppe Conte, to fill that
role.

Wednesday's deal between Malta and the EU provoked something of a
crisis in this governing coalition. Salvini refused to authorize the
deal, or to accept any more migrants. But Salvini, Di Miao and Conte
had an all-night working session on Wednesday evening, and Di Maio
sided with Conte against Salvini to accept the deal, which required
Italy to take in ten migrants.

Salvini was infuriated by that decision:

<QUOTE>"There is convergence within the government on a hard
line: ports closed, fight against smugglers and NGOs,” Salvini
said on Thursday.

“And I add that any new arrival must not cost Italian citizens a
cent. [I]t’s the interior ministry that handles
immigration."<END QUOTE>

A compromise was agreed by which Italy’s Waldensian Evangelical Church
would take in the 10 migrants.

In 2015, millions of migrants entered Greece. After the "Balkan
route" was closed, most migrants entered Europe through Italy in 2016
and 2017. Italy's government was begging the other EU states to take
their fair share of migrants, but the pleas fell mostly on deaf ears.
In 2018, the new government shut Italy's ports. This caused a huge
international outcry that continues to this day, but now most migrants
enter Europe from Morocco through Spain. AFP and The Local (Italy) and El Pais (28-Nov-2018)

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, European Commission, Italy, Malta,
Five-Star Movement, M5S, Luigi Di Maio,
La Lega, The (Northern) League, Matteo Salvini.
Giuseppe Conte, Sea Watch 3, Sea Eye,
Bangladesh, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, Ireland,
Romania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Waldensian Evangelical Church

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

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

12-Jan-19 World View -- China's economy destabilizes as Huawei introduces cheap smart - John J. Xenakis - 01-11-2019

*** 12-Jan-19 World View -- China's economy destabilizes as Huawei introduces cheap smartphone

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Huawei plans to become world's biggest smartphone supplier as it introduce Huawei P Smart 2019
Poland arrests Huawei employee on spying allegations
Chinese economic expert Xiang Songzuo warns that economy shows signs of crashing
Xiang's Headline statistic: At most 1.67% GDP rate of growth
China's Five phases of consumption
Major misjudgments about China's economy

****
**** Huawei plans to become world's biggest smartphone supplier as it introduce Huawei P Smart 2019
****

[Image: g190111b.jpg]

Huawei P Smart 2019

Huawei (WHA way) has surpassed Apple as the world's second-largest
smartphone supplier, behind Samsung, but aims to become the largest
with the introduction of a new low-cost smartphone, the "Huawei P
Smart 2019," selling for around $200.

It includes a number of features that once would have appeared only in
much more expensive smartphones, including a dual-camera array, face
unlocking, fingerprint scanning and AI in the camera app to identify
what you’re shooting. It uses the Huawei's powerful Kirin chipset,
giving it more power and performance than even more expensive
competitive devices. It's only disappointment, according to
reviewers, is that the camera isn't as powerful as those on
competitive phones.

As I've said in the past, I've spent a part of my career as a senior
software engineer developing chip-level operating system software for
embedded systems, so I know exactly how any chip or any electronic
device can be turned into a tool for espionage. Furthermore, I can
tell you that not only is it doable, it's not even particularly
difficult for someone with the right skills.

This could not be detected by tests, because the chip would work
normally until a backdoor is activated by receiving, say, a secret
1024-bit code. Then it will execute commands sent to it by Chinese
engineers. Thus, the Chinese are then in control of any devices with
Huawei chips, and it cannot be detected until it's too late. And
since Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei was previously an officer and
engineer in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), there's little
question that these steps have been taken.

China's biggest natural resources is its population of 1.4 billion.
China sends them overseas to work or get educated, and controls them
by the United Front Work Department (UFWD). China's officials even
call them "secret weapons." China's fleet of fishing boats in the
South China Sea and East China Sea have crews that have been trained
by the military for espionage, and even to fight in battle.

This is how China works, and now China's Huawei is launching low-cost
smartphones to be purchased by the millions around the world, and
which can be controlled by China's military, at the right time.

As I've written in detail in the past,
if Huawei really wants to convince Westerners that their
products do not contain secret "backdoors," then they should invite
American and Western engineers to work side-by-side with Chinese
engineers in development centers in China, so that American engineers
can examine all the internal code and scripts, just as Chinese workers
work in development centers in America. Expert Reviews and IDC (11/2/2018) and Bloomberg

Related Articles:

****
**** Poland arrests Huawei employee on spying allegations
****

Poland's Internal Security Agency (ISA) has arrested two individuals.
One is a Chinese national going by the name “Weijing W” or Stanislaw
Wang, who works as a sales director for Huawei in Poland. The other
is a Polish national, "Piotr D," a former high-ranking officer of
Poland’s ISA. Both were charged with spying against Poland for China.
ISA officers raided the homes of both suspects on Tuesday morning.
They also seized documents and electronic data from the offices of
Huawei and mobile phone operator Orange Polska, where Piotr D had
worked recently.

This comes after the December arrest by the Canadian police, at the
request of the United States, of Ms. Meng Wanzhou (Sabrina Meng), the
chief financial officer (CFO) of China's Huawei Technologies, which
was founded by her father Ren Zhengfei. According to reports, China
has retaliated by arresting as many 13 Canadian citizens.

At the same time, many European countries are becoming more aggressive
at prohibiting the use of Huawei technology, since it might have
"backdoors" that permit espionage or control. This is increasingly
becoming a more serious tit-for-tat escalation of actions that shows
no sign of ending and may spiral into something much bigger.

Related Articles:

****
**** Chinese economic expert Xiang Songzuo warns that economy shows signs of crashing
****

In a speech given in early December by Professor Xiang Songzuo, Deputy
Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for International Monetary
Research at China’s Renmin University in Beijing, he said:

<QUOTE>"You can look at the history: only the Wall Street
Crash of 1929 can compare to the steep decline that the Chinese
stock has experienced this year. Many stocks are down 80 or even
90 percent."<END QUOTE>

In his speech, Xiang backed up his concerns with numerous facts and
figures. Such speeches are normally dismissed, but in this case the
speech has so alarmed Chinese officials that it was banned from the
internet, though it was translated into English and posted outside of
China before it was banned. Furthermore, a number of financial firms
are taking Xiang's conclusions very seriously.

I've often said that, as many problems as the US economy has, China's
economy is much worse because of real estate bubbles, ghost towns,
shadow banks, and a hugely leveraged credit bubble that could crash at
any time. While I can make a general statement like that, Xiang has
backed up those concerns with specifics.

Many people believe that since China is a Communist dictatorship, they
can't have a recession because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will
control the economy enough to prevent it. It doesn't work that way.
Like every Socialist economy, China's economy was headed for disaster
until it was opened to free markets in the 1970-80s. In fact, every
Socialist economy has either opened up to free markets to some extent,
or ended in disaster and massive bloodshed. Today, only Venezuela and
North Korea have refused to open up to free markets, and both of those
are disasters, with bloodshed in the future.

China today is subject to the same market forces and the same
generational forces as every other country. People fool themselves
into believing that politicians can actually change things. In China,
only the politics will be different, but the outcomes will be the
same. China Change (28-Dec-2018) and National Interest and Naked Capitalism and Don Tai (29-Dec-2018)

****
**** Xiang's Headline statistic: At most 1.67% GDP rate of growth
****

The headline statistic in Xiang's speech is his claim that China's GDP
rate of growth is at most 1.67%, or may even be negative. China's
official National Bureau of Statistics claims that China’s rate of GDP
growth is at 6.5%. This one statistic alone could explain why the CCP
felt it necessary to censor Xiang's speech.

Nobody is surprised that China lies about statistics. Mao Zedong lied
about agricultural statistics during the Great Leap Forward in
1958-59, with the result that tens of millions of Chinese died from
starvation or were executed.

The problem is that you can lie about statistics only for a while, and
then reality causes a financial crisis, which is what Xiang is
predicting.

Since the CCP can pump money into any business at will, it would seem
that any financial crisis can be prevented. The problem is that any
business that can count on being bailed out has no motivation to
become efficient, and so loses money.

Xiang says that this has happened with almost all Chinese businesses:

<QUOTE>"Look at our profit structure. To put it plainly,
China’s listed companies don’t really make money. Then who has
taken the few profits made by China’s more than 3,000 listed
companies? Two-thirds have been taken by the banking sector and
real estate. The profits earned by 1,444 listed companies on the
SME board and growth enterprise board are not even equal to one
and half times the profit of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of
China. How can this kind of stock market become a bull market?

When we buy stocks, we are buying the profits of the company, not
hype and rumors. I recently read a report comparing the profits of
China’s listed companies with those in the U.S. There are many
U.S. public companies with tens of billions dollars in
profits. How many Chinese tech and manufacturing companies are
there that have accomplished this? There is only one, but it’s not
listed, and you all know which one that is. [Xiang is referring to
Huawei, the Chinese tech company.] What does this tell
us?"<END QUOTE>

Xiang says that there are major risks in the economy, and major
battles to be fought:

<QUOTE>"China’s economic decline indicates that there is a
major issue with the focus on expansion and growth: It has
deviated from the fundamental and moved to speculation. ... What
are our current financial risks? They are hidden, complex, acute,
contagious, and malevolent. Structural imbalance are massive, and
violations of law and regulations are rampant. ... We have
rampant speculations everywhere, in too many
aspects."<END QUOTE>

According to Xiang, "Basically China’s economy is all built on
speculation, and everything is over leveraged." This is significant,
because when a company is over-leveraged, then when there's an
economic downturn it won't be able to meet its debt payments. If
every company is like that, then when one company goes bankrupt, it
will create a chain reaction that sends every company into bankruptcy.

This is the basis of Xiang's statement that China's stock market is
facing a huge crash greater than America's 1929 crash.

****
**** China's Five phases of consumption
****

According to Xiang, in the four decades following economic reform,
China has undergone five phases of consumption:

Solve the food problem.
The “New Big Three” - short for refrigerator, color TV, and
washing machine.
Consumption of information
automobiles
real estate

According to Xiang:

<QUOTE>"But these five waves have essentially all come to an
end. Car sales have dropped sharply and real estate spending is
also substantially decreasing, so we are facing serious
problems. This is the crux of the six stabilities called for by
the Politburo [stable employment, stable finance, stable foreign
trade, stable foreign investment, stable investment and stable
expectations], or as some internet users have joked, the six
“tender kisses” [ , kiss, is a homophone for ,
stability]."<END QUOTE>

Xiang says that China made a historic mistake by relying on
consumption:

<QUOTE>"Look at these numbers. That China faces a long-term
economic downturn is not a problem by itself. But you may have
noticed that the consumption and the service sectors now make up
78.5 percent of GDP. Going by the government’s logic, this should
be a good thing, since it means the economic transition to a
consumption economy has been successful: we used to rely on
investment and export, now we rely on consumption and the service
sector. This sounds reasonable, but think about it: in a country
like China, as investment slows dramatically, how can we maintain
economic stability by solely relying on consumption?"<END QUOTE>

Xiang says that consumption and services comprise 78.5% of GDP, which
is good news to some extent, but it's far eclipsed by negative
implications of low investment.

****
**** Major misjudgments about China's economy
****

Xiang says that in the past year, China has made major misjudgments
about the economy.

The first misjudgment was vastly underestimating the negative effects
of the US-China trade war on China:

<QUOTE>"First, the trade war between China and the U.S.. Did
we make some inaccurate assessment? Did we underestimate the
severity of the situation? Let’s recall some slogans from the
mainstream media at the beginning of the year:

"In the trade war between U.S. and China, the Americans are
lifting rocks only to smash them on their own feet"
"China is sure to win."
"China will win the trade war without a doubt, be the battles
big or small.”

What’s behind this kind of thinking? To this day, we keep
suffering from a cognitive dissonance between our understanding of
the Sino-U.S. trade war and the international reality. This calls
for deep reflection."<END QUOTE>

The second misjudgment has caused private businesses to lose
confidence in the national leadership, with the result that investment
by private business owners has falled substantially. According to
Xiang, this has occurred because the Chinese media have been
suggesting that the economic reforms of the past 40 years will be
reversed, and there will be a return to full-scale Socialism:

<QUOTE>"Since the beginning of the year, though, all kinds of
ideological statements have been thrown around: statements like

“private property will be eliminated,”
“private ownership will eventually be abolished if not
now,”
“it’s time for the private enterprises to fade away,” or
“all private companies should be turned over to their
workers.”

Then there was this high-profile study of Marx and the Communist
Manifesto. Remember that line in the Communist Manifesto?
Abolition of private property. What kind of signal do you think
this sends to private entrepreneurs?"<END QUOTE>

With regard to the trade war, Xiang says that it's really a clash of
value systems, with no solution in sight:

<QUOTE>"In addition to this, there are three major external
challenges. The first is the trade war, which is in fact no longer
a trade war but rather a clash between two opposed value
systems. It can be said with certainty that the
Sino-U.S. relationship has come to a crossroads right now and
faces significant historic challenges. What are we to do? To be
honest, I don’t think we have really found much of a solution.

You are aware that Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou was recently detained
in Vancouver. In the past two days, mainstream media such as BBC
and CNN have been reporting on how the U.S. is going at Huawei on
all fronts. What this tells us is that this issue is not simply
about trade or economics."<END QUOTE>

Unless the date is postponed, China and the US have until March 1 to
reach agreement on a huge list of trade and trade secret protection
issues, before the US substantially increases tariffs on Chinese
imports.

What this almost certainly means is that the can will be kicked down
the road. This could mean that the can will be kicked down the road,
or it could mean that president Trump will simply increase the
pressure on China by increasing tariffs by a small amount.

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China,
Huawei Technologies, Ren Zhengfei, People's Liberation Army, PLA,
Meng Wanzhou, Sabrina Meng, United Front Work Department, UFWD,
Poland, Internal Security Agency, ISA,
Weijing W, Stanislaw Wang, Piotr D,
Xiang Songzuo, Renmin University

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

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

13-Jan-19 World View -- India-Iran and Saudi-Pakistan alliances form and strengthen i - John J. Xenakis - 01-13-2019

*** 13-Jan-19 World View -- India-Iran and Saudi-Pakistan alliances form and strengthen in Asia

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

In turnaround, Saudi Arabia will give $10 billion to Pakistan, rejecting Iran
India takes over operations at Iran's Chabahar port, despite US sanctions

****
**** In turnaround, Saudi Arabia will give $10 billion to Pakistan, rejecting Iran
****

[Image: g190112b.jpg]

Pakistan's president Imran Khan and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman meet in October in Riyadh (SPA)

From the first day that Pakistan's prime minister took off in August,
the country has been facing an imminent financial crisis and
bankruptcy, due to a lack of foreign reserves (that is, US dollars
that it can use to purchase imported goods).

First, Imran Khan, self-described as "desperate," went begging to
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a loan, but
returned empty-handed.

Then Khan went begging to its "all-weather friend," China, but
once again came back empty-handed.

What China really wanted was for Khan to get money from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), so that the IMF, and the US
taxpayer, would be supplying money to repay China's loans for
the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and the Gwadar seaport.
The IMF was willing, but insisted first that all details of all
contracts between Pakistan and China be made available to the
IMF, and China vetoed that idea. So the negotiation with the IMF
failed.

Then there was a world-shaking event that changed everything:
Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was bizarrely killed in the
Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, and everyone in the world
was blaming Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Imran Khan
was able to return to return to Saudi Arabia as almost the only
national leader left who was willing to support MBS. Khan leveraged
MBS's embarrassment to obtain a $6 billion loan from Saudi Arabia.

However, Pakistan still needed an additional $12-15 billion
in aid to survive through 2019. A renewed request to the IMF
yielded the same results as before.

But now there's been a turnaround. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are
likely to sign memoranda of understanding for more than $10 billion
Saudi investment in Pakistan this month. This will be in addition
to the $6 billion in aid already agreed.

There are two major geopolitical effects from this deal.

First, Imran Khan, before he was prime minister, was one of
the most vocal opponents of the proposal to send Pakistani
troops to join the war in Yemen on the side of Saudi Arabia.
The $16 billion in Saudi aid to Pakistan may have come
with strings attached, namely that Pakistan will have to provide
some sort of support, perhaps even troops, to the Saudi effort
in Yemen.

The second effect is related to the first, since the Yemen war
is proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Pakistan has
been trying to remain neutral between the two countries, possibly
even taking the lead in mediating. This situation means that
Pakistan will be clearly on the side against Iran, and
both the Arab and Iranian press have been saying so.

The Generational Dynamics prediction for almost fifteen years has been
that in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, China and
Pakistan would be allied with Saudi Arabia. As a result of the $16
billion in aid, Pakistan is now clearly allied with China and Saudi
Arabia. Dawn (Pakistan) and Arab Weekly and Global Village Space

Related Articles:

****
**** India takes over operations at Iran's Chabahar port, despite US sanctions
****

India has taken over operations of the strategic Chabahar port, on the
coast of Iran near Pakistan. India and Iran signed a deal in 2016 too
develop the port, so that India can bypass Pakistan in shipping goods
to Iran, and from there to Afghanistan, Central Asia or Europe.
( "25-May-16 World View -- Iran-India sign 'historic' Chabahar port deal to counter Pakistan-China"
)

During the last year, development of the Chabahar port
faced special difficulties after the US re-imposed sanctions
on Iran, making the Chabahar port project a violation of
the sanctions, since it required India to import Iranian oil.
However, India and Iran received one of the waivers that
the Trump administration gave, so the port project could proceed.

In addition, Iran and India have signed banking agreements that allow
imports and exports, as well as other financial needs, can be handled
despite the sanctions. Part of these agreements allow goods to be
exchanged in a barter system. For example, India can provide steel
rails and locomotive engines to Iran and Iran can provide urea to
India.

Just as the aid deal cemented the relationship between Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan, the Chabahar port has cemented the relationship between
India and Iran. For almost fifteen years, Generational Dynamics has
predicted that America, India, Iran and Russia would be allied in the
approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, and the Chabahar port
deal brings that alliance one step closer. Actually, Hindus and Shia
Muslims have been allied against Sunni Muslims for centuries, going
back as far as the seminal Battle of Karbala in 680. Tehran Times and India Today and Eurasian Times

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,
Iran Khan, Mohammed bin Salman, MBS,
International Monetary Fund, IMF, China,
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC, Gwadar seaport.
Jamal Khashoggi, Istanbul, Turkey,
India, Iran, Chabahar seaport, Battle of Karbala, Russia

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

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

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 01-13-2019

Ironic about Iran: at one time its biggest import was, of all things -- gasoline. The country did not have a refinery. It typically exported petroleum to India, which refined it for resale to Iran.

14-Jan-19 World View -- Greece's government in crisis over Prespa Agreement to change - John J. Xenakis - 01-13-2019

*** 14-Jan-19 World View -- Greece's government in crisis over Prespa Agreement to change name of Macedonia

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Macedonia's parliament approves country's name change to North Macedonia
Greece's government in crisis over Prespa Agreement to change name of Macedonia

****
**** Macedonia's parliament approves country's name change to North Macedonia
****

[Image: g190113b.jpg]

Greek Orthodox nuns holding Greek and Byzantine flags protest the Macedonia name deal. (Deutsche Welle)

After a highly tense and emotional debate lasting several days,
Macedonia's parliament approved four constitutional amendments that
change the country's name to "Republic of North Macedonia." This
ratifies the Prespa Agreement (Prespes Agreement) made last year with
Greece, and after Greece's parliament ratifies the same agreement, it
will be possible for North Macedonia to join the European Union and
Nato.

This has been a highly emotional issue in both Macedonian and Greece
since 1991, when the Republic of Macedonia declared independence from
Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Macedon is an ancient name, dating back
centuries BC, and is the birthplace, in 356 BC, of Alexander the
Great.

But Greece objected to that country's use of the name Macedonia,
claiming that having that name would give the country a claim to
Greece's own province of Macedonia. These concerns were increased
because of a clause in the country's constitution referring to "the
rights of all persons belonging to the Macedonian people in
neighboring countries, as well as Macedonian expats." Although this
clause refers to cultural development, Greece raised concerns that the
clause could be used in the future to attempt to annex Greece's
Macedonia province.

For 25 years, Greece has vetoed attempts by Macedonia to join either
Nato or the EU because many Greeks consider "Macedonia" to be pure
Greek name, and they oppose another other country using it as part of
their own name. They are especially infuriated by Macedonia's claims
that Alexander the Great was Macedonian. They claim that he was Greek
because at that time the Kingdom of Macedon was part of Greece.

[Image: g180204c.jpg]

The statue of Alexander the Great in Freedom Square in the heart of Skopje, Macedonia's capital city, infuriates the Greeks

Macedonia was admitted to the United Nations in 1993 under the name
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). It has also been
admitted to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
under the name FYROM. The European Union and Nato also recognize only
the name FYROM. However many countries, including Russia and the
United States, also recognize the name Republic of Macedonia, or just
Macedonia.

During the last year, there has been tremendous international pressure
to resolve the dispute. A variety of alternate names for the country
were proposed, including:

The Republic of New Macedonia
The Republic of North Macedonia
The Republic of Upper Macedonia
The Vardar Republic of Macedonia
The Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)

Last week, Macedonia's parliament voted in the four constitutional
amendments with 81 votes and none against and no abstentions, as the
opposition VMRO-DPMNE party boycotted the session.

During the vote, several hundred people protested in front of the
parliament, chanting “Traitors”. VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski
joined the protests and said January 11 was “black Friday” for
Macedonia.

The four amendments change the name of the country to "Republic of
North Macedonia," guarantee sovereignty and territorial integrity of
the country and protection of Macedonian cultural and historical
identity, as well as rights of diaspora. They also eliminate the
ambiguity about a claim to Greece's province of Macedonia.

The constitutional amendments will take effect as soon as Greece's
parliament ratifies the Prespa Agreement. After that, it's expected
that the Republic of North Macedonia should be able to join the
European Union and Nato. Balkan Insight and BNE IntelliNews and Greek Reporter and Nezavisen (Macedonia) and Deutsche Welle

****
**** Greece's government in crisis over Prespa Agreement to change name of Macedonia
****

[Image: g180122b.jpg]

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks in Thessaloniki (Salonica), the capital city of Greece's administrative region of Macedonia, last year protested any name change to the Republic of Macedonia that includes the word 'Macedonia' (Kathimerini)

Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras has called for a vote of
confidence on Wednesday, after the Independent Greeks (ANEL) party
announced its departure from the ruling coalition. The split occurred
over the issue of ratifying the Prespa Agreement (Prespes Agreement),
under which the Republic of North Macedonia will be permitted to apply
for membership in the European Union and Nato, having agreed to change
its name from Republic of Macedonia. ANEL leader Panos Kammenos said,
"The issue of Macedonia, an issue for which thousands died, does not
allow me not to sacrifice the minister’s chair."

If Tsipras loses the vote of confidence, then he will have to call for
new elections. New elections are scheduled for September anyway.
Guardian (London) and Greek Reporter and Kathimerini (Athens)

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Macedonia, North Macedonia,
Prespa Agreement, Prespes Agreement, Hristijan Mickoski,
Kingdom of Macedon, Alexander the Great,
Greece, Independent Greeks Party, ANEL, Panos Kammenos

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

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

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 01-14-2019

I see a solution: call it "Slavic Macedonia". The part of historical Macedonia that Greece has does not have much of a Slavic population, but the Republic of Macedonia is not at all Greek. The Slavic population in Macedonia was not there until about 600 AD.

Alexander was Greek. The Slavs of the Republic of Macedonia have no connection to Alexander except to living in parts of what had once been his kingdom.

15-Jan-19 World View -- Kenya's leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap - John J. Xenakis - 01-14-2019

*** 15-Jan-19 World View -- Kenya's leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap details

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Kenya's leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap details
Leaked clauses in Kenya-China BRI contract
Uganda's auditor warns that Uganda may be in similar China debt trap as Kenya
India pledges $1.4 billion to Maldives to help with China debt trap

****
**** Kenya's leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap details
****

[Image: g190114b.jpg]

Celebrations at Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). (Railway Gazeti)

China has signed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) contracts with
dozens of countries, with the requirement that the details be
kept secret, even from the countries' ministers or central banks.

For months I've been describing the onerous details of such
contracts, based on incomplete reports or vague statements by
politicians. It's always been clear that the reason why China
demanded total secrecy was because these contracts are
extremely favorable to China and are used for "debt trap diplomacy,"
allowing China to take control of a country's infrastructure when
unable to make the loan payments.

The poster child for debt trap diplomacy is China's seizure of control
of the Port of Hambantota after Sri Lanka was unable to pay the
onerous debt payments that China had demanded. China has already
acquired or is about to acquire ports and other assets in several countries
-- Sri Lanka, Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Zambia, Kenya -- through its "debt
trap diplomacy." Several other countries, including Pakistan and the
Maldives, are at risk. Malaysia is still at risk, as well.

Now, a partially leaked BRI contract between Kenya and China reveals
details that are far more shocking and onerous than have been revealed
or inferred so far. With Kenya's debt repayments to China scheduled to triple this year,
all of
Kenya's national assets are at risk, unless public pressure forces
China to relent.

The new headline revelation is that all Kenya's assets, within Kenya
or abroad, are now subject to Chinese seizure if Kenya can't make its
debt payments. Up until now, Kenyans had worried that its Port of
Mombasa, which would be extremely valuable to China for use as a
military base, was in danger of seizure by China. But the leaks
reveal that any Kenyan asset can be seized.

The leaked document refers to the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR)
project, a railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, funded by two separate
$1.6 billion loans from China. The debt was to be repaid from revenue
from the SGR, but that has been far below the optimistic estimates
made in 2014. Clause 5.5 of the "Preferential Buyer Credit Loan
Agreement on the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR" says the following:

<QUOTE>"Neither the borrower (Kenya) nor any of its assets is
entitled to any right of immunity on the grounds of sovereignty or
otherwise from arbitration, suit, execution or any other legal
process with respect to its obligations under this Agreement, as
the case may be in any jurisdiction."<END QUOTE>

Strictly interpreted, this clause forfeits all of Kenya's rights,
sovereign or otherwise, to any Kenyan asset, whether the Port of
Mombasa, another asset within Kenya, or a Kenyan asset abroad. None
of the news reports I've seen provides a list of foreign assets that
might be vulnerable, except to suggest that all of them are.
According to legal experts, in case of default, China can take over
many critical resources — anything from airports and natural resources
to embassies abroad.

****
**** Leaked clauses in Kenya-China BRI contract
****

Other clauses of the leaked contract reveal the following:

Kenya must keep the contract secret. Clause 17.7: "The
borrower (Kenya) shall keep all the terms and conditions hereunder or
in connection with this agreement strictly confidential. Without the
prior written consent of the lender (China), the borrower shall not
disclose any information hereunder or in connection with this
agreement to any third party unless required by applicable law."
The agreement is governed by Chinese law. According to one Kenyan
lawyer: "The agreement is being made in Kenya, the railway is built in
Kenya and the assets they are talking about are in Kenya, so why is it
being governed by the laws of China? Had there been more transparency
or choices of who funds the railway then Kenya may have got a better
deal."
Any disputes can be resolved only by a Chinese agency, the China
International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (Cietac).
According to the agreement, "The arbitration award shall be final and
binding on both parties. The arbitration shall take place in Beijing."
In normal contracts, disputes are settled by a neutral and impartial
arbitrator. For example, in 2017 Kenya signed a pipeline security
commercial contract with Israel, and disputes will be submitted to an
arbitrator in London.
Kenya pays the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) $10
million per month to run the railway. As is usual in China's BRI
contracts, the Kenyans are not permitted to run their own railroad or
to hire their own workers. This despite the fact that CRBC has been
repeatedly accused of abusive behavior towards Kenyans,
and of "neo-colonialism, racism and
blatant discrimination." Kenya's Auditor-General Edward Ouko has
repeatedly violated Kenya's laws by not releasing regular reports on
payments to CRBC.
Kenya is compelled to import goods, technology and services from
China. This is standard practice for China's BRI deals. China loans
a huge amount of money to a country like Kenya. Kenya must use the
money to pay Chinese workers. and buy goods, technology and services
from China. So all the money goes right back to China and benefits
Chinese factories and workers, rather than Kenyan factories and
workers. And yet, Kenya still has to repay the loan, which means that
it's repaying the loan twice, or else have all its assets seized and
confiscated by the Chinese.
China is charging considerably more for the project than would be
standard in other countries. This is a sign of corruption.
If Kenya tries to pay off the loan with alternate funds (I assume
this means a loan from another country), then China can refuse to
accept that payment.

The agreement contains other clauses that protect China, and
almost guarantee that the loan will not be repaid, allowing
China to seize Kenyan assets.

Kenya's government has repeatedly promised to publicly release
the contract, but has always stalled, presumably because doing
so would violate the contract with China, and and would
also expose massive corruption and incompetence among
Kenyan government officials.

Kenya's government is promising to release the contract by the end of
the week. Now that many of the clauses have already been publicly
revealed, perhaps it might actually happen. The Nation (Kenya) and Mwakilishi (Kenya) and Tuko (Kenya)

Related Articles:

****
**** Uganda's auditor warns that Uganda may be in similar China debt trap as Kenya
****

Uganda's Auditor General John Muwanga is warning that Uganda
may be subject to the same risk as Kenya. He points out that
Uganda's national debt had gone from $3.3 billion in June 2017
to $4.1 billion in June 2018. Furthermore, according to Muwanga,
Uganda's contracts with China contain exactly the same clauses
as Kenya's contracts. According to Muwanga:

<QUOTE>"These conditions include waiver of sovereign immunity
by government over all its properties and itself from enforcement
of any form of judgment, adoption of foreign laws in any
proceedings to enforce agreements, requiring government to pay all
legal fees and insurance premiums on behalf of the
creditor."<END QUOTE>

However, Uganda's Minister of Finance Matia Kasaija dismissed
the Auditor General's report:

<QUOTE>"I am not worried about China taking our assets. They
can do it elsewhere, I don’t know, but not here. I don’t think it
will ever happen."<END QUOTE>

Tuko (Kenya)

****
**** India pledges $1.4 billion to Maldives to help with China debt trap
****

India will provide the Maldives with a $1.4 billion credit line, after
the new president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih visited India's prime minister
Narendra Modi in New Delhi last month. The credit line will permit
the Maldives to avoid default on payments on its debt to China, which
is estimated to be between $1.5 billion and $3.2 billion.

Solih shocked the Maldives by winning the presidential election on
September 23 by unexpectedly defeating the incumbent Abdulla Yameen
Abdul Gayoom. Yameen had close relations with China, and had signed
several BRI infrastructure contracts with China that place the
Maldives into a great deal of debt.

When Solih took office, he discovered that it was almost impossible to
learn the details of the contracts with China. ( "24-Nov-18 World View -- Maldives can't determine how much money it owes to China"
)

Solih vowed that he would find out exactly what was in the deals with
China, and at the time I expressed the hope that Solih would make the
China deal public so that, for the first time, we could see all the
details in one of China's BRI deals.

Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet, though I'm still hoping. In
an interview last week, Solih said:

<QUOTE>"Our government is still reviewing the extent of the
debt incurred under the previous government. No doubt, the debt
situation has put us in an extremely challenging situation. A vast
number of infrastructural projects have been undertaken and we are
in the process of reviewing the terms of these
agreements."<END QUOTE>

Perhaps the leaking of the Kenya deal will make it possible for Solih
to release the details of the Maldives' deal.

The Maldives islands occupy a major strategic position in the Indian
Ocean. India's promise of $1.4 billion in aid to the Maldives has the
geopolitical effect of moving Maldives away from China and closer to
India. India Times and Maldives Times and Diplomat

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Standard Gauge Railway, SGR,
China, Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, debt trap diplomacy,
Mombasa port, Sri Lanka, Hambantota port,
Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Ghana, Zambia, Pakistan,
China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, Cietac,
China Road and Bridge Corporation, CRBC,
Edward Ouko, Uganda, John Muwanga, Matia Kasaija,
Maldives, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih,
India, Narendra Modi

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

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

16-Jan-19 World View -- Somalia terror group al-Shabaab attacks Nairobi, Kenya, hotel - John J. Xenakis - 01-15-2019

*** 16-Jan-19 World View -- Somalia terror group al-Shabaab attacks Nairobi, Kenya, hotel complex

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Somalia terror group al-Shabaab attacks Nairobi, Kenya, hotel complex
Al-Shabaab continues to threaten eastern Africa

****
**** Somalia terror group al-Shabaab attacks Nairobi, Kenya, hotel complex
****

[Image: g190115b.jpg]

CCTV footage: A suspected assailant in the Nairobi hoel attack (Kenyans)

The Somalia-based al-Qaeda linked terror group al-Shabaab attacked the
luxury hotel Dusit-D2 in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday, killing at least
15.

Al-Shabaab is considered the deadliest terrorist organization in
Africa, and has conducted several spectacular terrorist attacks in
Somalia and Kenya.

The attack on Tuesday came three years to the day after al-Shabaab
extremists attacked a Kenyan military base in neighboring Somalia,
killing scores of people.

Tuesday's attack comes on the third anniversary, to the day,
of an al-Shabaab ambush on the El-Adde camp in Somalia,
killed 170 Kenyan soldiers.

In April 2015, al-Shabaab killed 147 students at the Garissa
University College in Kenya. ( "3-Apr-15 World View -- Al-Shabaab kills 147 mostly Christian students in Kenya school"
)

Al-Shabaab also conducted the horrific three-day terror attack on
Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall, killing 67 people. ( "23-Sep-13 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears"
)

The reason that the Westgate Mall attack lasted for three days is that
the Nairobi police were ill-prepared to respond to it, and received a
great deal of criticism as a result. The Dusit hotel is less than 2
km away from the Westgate mall. Tuesday's attack on the Dusit hotel
was handled more efficiently by Nairobi's police, though it still
lasted several hours.

CCTV footage has emerged showing that there were four assailants who
carried out the attack. The hotel is in a supposedly very secure part
of Nairobi, but the attackers gained acccess to the hotel by hurling
grenades at the security officers manning the gate.

The Dusit hotel complex consists of a number of buildings, and many of
the buildings were attacked. Police went from building to building
and rescued hundreds of people who were trapped in hotel rooms or
offices.

One of the CCTV images captured what appears to be a US Navy SEAL
rescuing civilians and then returning to the scene of the fighting.
The Pentagon has US special forces in a number of countries in Africa,
describing their mission as "advising and assisting." In Kenya, the
US has a small presence at Camp Simba, where they reportedly train
naval special forces.

Al-Shabaab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to
Somalia since 2011. The al-Qaeda-linked group has killed hundreds of
people in Kenya, which has been targeted more than any other of the
six countries providing troops to an African Union force in Somalia.
Kenyans and AP
and The Star (Kenya) and Business Insider

****
**** Al-Shabaab continues to threaten eastern Africa
****

Al-Shabaab is a Somalia-based terror group that has pledged allegiance
to al-Qaeda. In 2014, they debated changing allegiance to ISIS but
rejected the change, resulting in the formation of a small splinter
group. The group conducts massive terror attacks in Somalia, Kenya
and Tanzania. It has an estimated 3,000-6,000 members, including
members that it has successfully recruited from the Somalia diaspora
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the case of the Westgate Mall attack,
three terrorists were from the United States, including two are the
Somali community in the twin cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) region
of Minnesota.

Al-Shabaab's predecessors have been around in Somalia since the 1980s.
During the 2000s, they were responsible for numerous pirate attacks on
vessels off the coast of eastern Africa. Since 2007, the African
Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), consisting of troops from Kenya,
Burundi, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, have targeted the group. US drone
strikes and airstrikes have killed several of the group's leaders.

Al-Shabaab's targets are usually governmental, with the stated goal of
ejecting Western influence and converting Somalia into an Islamic
Sharia state.

The UN Security Council had ordered the withdrawal of AMISOM troops
starting in October of last year, after which Somalia security forces
were expected to begin taking over. However, the withdrawal was
postponed until February of this year. However, a recent spate of
successful attacks, despite the presence of AMISOM troops, has given
credence to the view that Somalia security forces are too weak to
take over, and the departure of AMISOM would result in the complete
al-Shabaab takeover of Somalia. Jamestown (12-Oct-2018) and Council of Foreign Affairs (11-Dec-2018) and International Crisis Group (21-Sep-2018)

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Nairobi, Somalia, al-Shabaab,
Dusit-D2 hotel, Westgate Mall, El-Adde camp,
Garissa University College, Westgate Mall, Minneapolis,
African Union Mission in Somalia, AMISOM,
Burundi, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone

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

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

17-Jan-19 World View -- Cambodia's Hun Sen threatens to kill opposition politicians i - John J. Xenakis - 01-16-2019

*** 17-Jan-19 World View -- Cambodia's Hun Sen threatens to kill opposition politicians if EU ends preferences

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Cambodia's Hun Sen threatens to kill opposition politicians if EU ends preferences
Brief generational history of Cambodia

****
**** Cambodia's Hun Sen threatens to kill opposition politicians if EU ends preferences
****

[Image: g190116b.jpg]

Employees at Cambodian clothes factory whose business is benefiting from EU trade preferences (Reuters)

Cambodia's prime minister Hun Sen is threatening to kill opposition
politicians if the European Union revokes its grant of trade
preferences to Cambodia.

The trade preference program, known as Generalized Scheme of
Preferences (GSP), grants to Myanmar the right to export goods to the
EU without paying tariffs. The GSP "Everything But Arms" (EBA) status
allows Cambodia to sell any goods except weapons tariff-free into the
EU.

The EU threat follows elections last year in July, when Hun Sen's
government party won all 125 parliamentary seats up for election. In
order to guarantee his victory, early last year Hun Sen jailed Kem
Sokha, the leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue party
(CNRP), the only viable opposition party, and then ordered the
complete dissolution of the CNRP. That's how Hun Sen's party won all
125 seats.

On Monday, Hun Sen threatened to retaliate against CNRP politicians if
the trade preferences were withdrawn, and that critics should
be prepared to flee to other countries:

<QUOTE>"If you (the EU) want the opposition dead, just cut it
[the EBA]. If you want the opposition alive, don’t do it and come
and hold talks together. People are prepared to flee, be
prepared. I won’t forgive them."<END QUOTE>

At the request of Hun Sen, Cambodia's Supreme Court banned 118 CNRP
party members in 2017, accusing them of working with the United States
to plot a coup. These 118 people are presumably the ones who
would be at risk of retaliation if EU withdraws the trade
preferences.

The EU is also considering withdrawing the same EBA trade preferences
from Myanmar (Burma) for the human rights atrocities associated with
the government's actions, led by Buddhist Monk Ashin Wirathu, of
torture, beatings, rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Muslim
Rohingyas in Rakhine State. ( EU considers revoking Myanmar's trade preferences because of Rohingya genocide (05-Jan-2019)
)

Hun Sen regularly threatens violence against political critics. At an
ASEAN summit meeting held a year ago in Sydney, Australia, he and
Myanmar leaders were both met with large groups protesting human
rights violations in both countries. Hun Sen warned protesters,
"I will follow you all the way to your
doorstep and beat you right there ... I can use violence against you."
There have been no reports that he followed up on these threats.
Asia Times and Reuters

****
**** Brief generational history of Cambodia
****

Hun Sen is following the same generational pattern that I've described
in numerous leaders from other countries, such as Bashar al-Assad in
Syria, Paul Biya in Cameroon, Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi, Paul
Kagame in Rwanda, the military junta in Thailand, Yoweri Museveni in
Uganda, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Salva Kiir in South Sudan, Joseph
Kabila in DRC, as well as Hun Sen in Cambodia.

What these countries have in common is that the previous generational
crisis war was a bloody ethnic or tribal civil war. After the war
ends, the leader of the country, usually from the winning tribe or
ethnic group, refuses to give up power, and becomes increasingly
violent and authoritarian, using as an excuse that peaceful protests
or negative news articles can turn into a new civil war. This excuse
provides justification for mass slaughter, rape, torture, mass
jailings, mutilations, and so forth. This happens in country after
country, differing only in level of violence. Bashar al-Assad in
Syria exhibits the most violence, using missiles, barrel bombs, Sarin
gas, chlorine gas, and other atrocities on hospitals, marketplaces,
schools, and civilian neighborhood, resulting in genocide and ethnic
cleansing of his Sunni Arab political enemies. ( "1-Dec-18 World View -- Evidence grows of Assad's 'final solution', extermination of Arab Sunnis in Syria"
)

Cambodian culture dates back to at least 5000 BC. During the period
500 BC to 500 AD, the Khmer people in Cambodia were strongly
influenced by Indian culture, via India traders, bureaucrats and
priests. When Khmer became a written language in about 300 AD, Indian
characters were adapted for its alphabet. Cambodia adopted some
Indian gods, but not the caste system of Hinduism. In the 1200s,
there was a mass conversion of Cambodians to Theravada Buddhism, a
religion that was also adopted by the neighboring Thais. There were
several centuries of wars between the Khmer and the Thais, until the
French arrived in the 1860s.

Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863. Cambodia gained
independence from France in 1953, and supported the North Vietnamese
against the South Vietnamese and the Americans in America's Vietnam
war. It's easy to underestimate the horror of what happened next,
since in the vitriolic political atmosphere following the Vietnam war,
leftists like Jane Fonda vocally denied it was even going on, saying
"I will never criticize a Communist government."

And yet, the Buddhist society of the China-backed Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia in 1975-79, led by Pol Pot, perpetrated one of the three or
four top mass genocides of the 20th century, comparable to the huge
genocides of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong.

The Buddhist Cambodian "Killing Fields" genocide, 1975-79, killed
something like 1.7 to well over 2 million people, out of a population
of 8 million. So around 20% of Cambodia's population were killed,
making it possibly the worst genocide, on a percentage basis, of the
20th century. By contrast, the Nazi Holocaust killed around 5
million, which was less than 3% of Germany's population. Pol Pot was
trying to imitate Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward in China, which was
a genocide that killed tens of millions of people out of some two
billion. Mao Zedong and Pol Pot may be comparable in their genocides.
In all cases, these millions of people were the subject of almost
unimaginable atrocities, including torture and rape.

By January 1979, the Khmer Rouge had so destroyed Cambodia that the
country was too weak to fight off an invasion by Vietnamese forces.
At the time, many Cambodians welcomed the Vietnamese invasion, because
it freed them from the Khmer Rouge. The war between the Vietnamese
and Cambodians was extremely bloody, until the Vietnamese finally
withdrew in 1989.

In 1991, prime minister Hun Sen signed a peace agreement called the
Paris Peace Accords, a document that guaranteed democracy and human
rights in Cambodia. However, like other leaders we've described
following an ethnic or tribal civil war, Hun Sen has become
increasingly authoritative and dictatorial, using as an excuse that
unlimited violence is justified to avoid returning to the violence of
the civil war.

In October 2016, as Hun Sen was brutally cracking down in preparation
for these new elections, he said the following in a speech:

<QUOTE>"Don’t imagine you can hold a meeting like the Paris
Peace conference again because the Paris Peace [Accords] agreement
is like a ghost."<END QUOTE>

He told people to stop "dreaming" and harking back to the ideals of
the agreement, because the Khmer Rouge were gone now, and so the
agreement was useless "unless the Khmer Rouge returns."

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cambodia, Hun Sen,
Kem Sokha, Cambodia National Rescue party, CNRP,
Australia, European Union,
Generalized Scheme of Preferences, GSP, Everything But Arms, EBA,
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN,
Cambodia People's Party, CPP, Paris Peace Accords,
Pol Pot, Killing fields, Khmer Rouge, Vietnam,
Myanmar, Burma, Rakhine State, Rohingyas,
Buddhists, Rakhines, Ashin Wirathu

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

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

18-Jan-19 World View -- Zimbabwe returns to violence of Mugabe era with police beatin - John J. Xenakis - 01-17-2019

*** 18-Jan-19 World View -- Zimbabwe returns to violence of Mugabe era with police beatings and abductions

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Zimbabwe returns to violence of Mugabe era with police beatings and abductions
It's possible that Mnangagwa is changing Zimbabwe, making it worse

****
**** Zimbabwe returns to violence of Mugabe era with police beatings and abductions
****

[Image: g190117b.jpg]

Angry protesters block highway in Zimbabwe (AFP)

Zimbabwe's government has reacted to public protests of high gasoline
and fuel prices by a massive police and military crackdown. At least
eight people have been killed in four days of sometimes violent
protests, and dozens are being treated for gunshot wounds. Hundreds
have been abducted in their homes and thrown into crowded jails, where
they are sometimes beaten and tortured.

It's possible that there are far more casualties, as the government
shut down the internet most of the week, to prevent news of the
violence from being reported.

Some reports indicate that the government security forces, which are
mostly members of Mugabe's Shona tribe, were particularly targeting
the city of Bulawayo. Bulawayo is a government opposition strongly,
largely with a population from Mugabe's hated Ndebele tribe, of which
Mnangagwa is also a member. Mugabe's violence always targeted the
Ndebele tribe, including the 1980s Operation Gukurahundi, which was a
massive act of genocide and ethnic cleansing targeting the Ndebele
tribe.

The protests began on Monday after Zimbabwe's president Emmerson
Mnangagwa announced a sharp rise in fuel and food prices. The
announcement triggered panic buying that left store shelves bare.

According to one lawyer representing 30 people, including children, in
the central prison in the capital city Harare, "Most said they had
been abducted from homes by masked men with AK47s who dragged them out
and beat them up. They are being held without charges or
representation, with no food or water ... The brutality of what is
going on is shocking."

The U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe says it is “alarmed” by credible reports
that security forces are targeting and beating activists and labor
leaders.

The protests were led by Evan Mawarire, a Christian pastor and
prominent social activist, who called for a nationwide strike on
Monday after the price increases were announced. He was arrested in
his home early on Wednesday, charged with inciting violence. Mawarire
said, "I cannot tell you how heartbreaking it is. We thought we had a
new country and a new way of doing things. None of what I am being
accused of is what I have done at all."

Actually, that hope was completely delusional, as I wrote in several
reports in 2017 when Mugabe was being ousted. It was quite a
remarkable show. One week, 93 year old Robert Mugabe was universally
loved by everyon the country and would rule Zimbabwe forever, even
from his grave when he died, according to his 53 year old wife, Grace
Ntombizodwa Mugabe. ( "19-Nov-17 World View -- Ecstatic throngs in Harare Zimbabwe demand that Robert Mugabe step down"
)

One week later, Mugabe was universally hated, with tens of thousands
of people cheering ecstatically and marching, carrying banners that
read "Mugabe must go!" and "Leadership is not sexually transmitted"
-- the latter an allusion to the attempt by Grace Mugabe to succeed
her husband as president. Another sign read, "Mugabe must rest now!",
alluding to the fact that Mugabe falls asleep during meetings.

There was never any chance that replacing Mugabe with Mnangagwa would
suddenly change Zimbabwe. Mugabe was a vicious, violent racist who
spent decades destroying Zimbabwe's economy, and it will take a
similar amount of time to repair the damage.

Mnangagwa has been trying to convince foreigners to invest in Zimbabwe
again. After the continuing violence, possibly with the worst yet to
come, investors may not be interested. Mail & Guardian (South Africa) and Guardian (London) and AFP and Zimbabwe Mail

****
**** It's possible that Mnangagwa is changing Zimbabwe, making it worse
****

Zimbabwe was never going to be better under Emmerson Mnangagwa than it
was under Robert Mugabe because both of them cooperated in four
decades of horrific crimes that have destroyed Zimbabwe economically
and socially, turning it from a country that used to export food into
a country that can't even feed itself.

They're both in the Shona tribe, and they both are responsible for
Operation Gukurahundi, the genocidal war crime that brought in North
Korean soldiers to help exterminate tens of thousands of civilians in
the hated Ndebele tribe in the early 1980s.

They've both cooperated in turning Zimbabwe into a police state, where
anyone who speaks against the government was likely to be arrested,
tortured and killed. This is particularly true of the members of the
Ndebele tribe that managed to survive Operation Gukurahundi. This was
supposed to have changed with Mnangagwa, but the events of the last
week show that it hasn't.

They both worked together on Mugabe's "indigenization" program, which
threw out farm and business owners who knew how to run a farm or a
business, and replaced them with thugs and cronies from Mugabe's and
Mnangagwa's Shona tribe who didn't know how to run a farm or business.
Over three decades, Mugabe and Mnangagwa turned Rhodesia, which was a
wealthy country and the breadbasket of southern Africa, into today's
Zimbabwe, which is an economic basket case. At one point, the
inflation rate was in the millions of percent.

However, there are signs from this week's violence that the situation
under Mnangagwa is even worse than it was under Mugabe. Mnangagwa was
on a trip to Eurasia when the protests started, and is still out of
the country. In his absence, the security forces have conducted large
scale violence not seen in over ten years. One analyst says that what
is different this time is "the open militarization of the state."

Alex Magaisa, a Zimbabwean lawyer and professor at the University of
Kent, says, "People wanted to see Mugabe go, but they didn’t realize
that they were actually creating a bigger monster. The military is
now very much in control - and very powerful."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is the kind of
thing that always happens to a country following a generational crisis
civil war between two ethnic groups or tribes. The tribe in power
after the war, usually the winner, uses the fear of renewing the civil
war as a never-ending excuse to use tactics of abuse, violence,
jailings, rapes, beatings and executions, supposedly to prevent
another war. However, once the survivors of the civil war grow old
and are no longer in charge, and are replaced by people in younger
generations with no personal memory of the war, then a new
generational crisis civil war starts, and it all repeats. Foreign Policy

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe,
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, Shona, Ndebele,
Bulawayo, Harare, Operation Gukurahundi, North Korea,
Evan Mawarire, Rhodesia, Alex Magaisa

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

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

19-Jan-19 World View -- Ebola outbreak in DR Congo now spreading exponentially faster - John J. Xenakis - 01-19-2019

*** 19-Jan-19 World View -- Ebola outbreak in DR Congo now spreading exponentially faster

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Ebola outbreak in DR Congo now spreading exponentially faster
Local DRC population giving little cooperation to health officials

****
**** Ebola outbreak in DR Congo now spreading exponentially faster
****

[Image: g190118b.jpg]

A woman cries during the funeral of a child, suspected of dying from Ebola. (Reuters)

The number of Ebola cases recorded each day in the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC) has doubled, indicating that it may spread to other
regions and other countries.

According to Jean-Philippe Marcoux, country directory for Mercy Corps
in DRC:

<QUOTE>"Now it’s doubling – it’s very possible that it can
double again. If we don’t significantly increase the resources,
it will keep increasing. It will spread progressively to other
health areas and it will be there for a long time."<END QUOTE>

If this doubling continues, it would represent exponential growth.

The current Ebola outbreak in DRC began in July 2018, and is now the
largest in that country’s history and the second largest ever
recorded. According to the country’s health ministry, as of January
17, 2019 there have been 668 cases and 410 deaths in the outbreak

The cases are centered in two northeastern provinces, North Kivu and
Ituru, which is a war zone in an extremely violent ongoing ethnic
civil war. No cases have yet been identified outside DRC, but the
increasing rapid spread of the disease is raising concerns that it
will soon travel to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and even South Sudan.

The epidemic was originally centered in Beni, with a population of
232,000. But it's spread to Butembo, with a population of over a
million, a densely populated trade city near the Uganda border.
Further south along the highway from Butembo are the million-plus
population cities Goma and Bukavu. The World Health Organization
(WHO) has been focusing its efforts on preventing a spread to the
latter two cities, since "all bets are off" for stopping the epidemic
if it reaches there.

The problem is that the continuing war causes the disease to spread in
an uncontrolled and unexpected fashion. The result is that new cases
of Ebola keep popping up in unforeseen places and people.

Normally, the medical professionals use contact tracing to identify
potential chains of transmission before they occur. Once a person is
suspected of having Ebola, all the people that he might have had in
contact with are identified and given a vaccine. But the ongoing war
often makes contact tracing impossible, with the result that nearly
70% of the newly discovered cases have fallen outside of known chains
of transmission. Another problem is that rape is common in any war
zone, and so Ebola can be spread among women, soldiers, gangs, arms
smugglers and rapists. More than one-third of the Ebola cases have
been in children, and the majority of identified adult infections have
been in women.

WHO is predicting that the outbreak will continue for six more months
or even longer. But even if the outbreak could be contained quickly
-- and it can't -- then the it could quickly be restarted because the
disease can be transmitted sexually up to 18 months after an
individual’s cure, and it can also pass from pregnant mothers to their
fetuses. Guardian (London) and Kaiser Family Foundation and Daily Mail (London)

****
**** Local DRC population giving little cooperation to health officials
****

The local population in the North Kivu war zone in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) are often refusing to cooperate with health
officials to stop the epidemic. Even worse, health officials have
been kidnapped or killed by armed groups, and treatment centers have
been ransacked.

There are several issues:

The best tools for preventing further spread of Ebola are
contract tracing and quarantining people who may be sick, in order to
block chains of transmission. But in the war-torn North Kivu area,
there is neither the freedom of movement nor the public compliance
necessary to do this.
DRC's capital city Kinshasa is thousands of miles away from the
outbreak region, and the government is still in crisis because the
winner of the presidential election is still in doubt, so it's not
clear who in DRC is even in charge of solving the Ebola problem.
Health officials complain that the Trump administration decided
months ago that the security situation was too risky to allow any
U.S. government employees, including CDC Ebola veterans, into North
Kivu.
There have been United Nations peacekeepers in the region for
years, since the civil war began, but there's no peace to keep, and
anyway, the local population views the UN with suspicion.
Merck, which manufactures the experimental vaccine that has been
so successful in protecting against Ebola, is showing no signs of
ramping up vaccine production to replenish or increase supplies, which
will be necessary if the outbreak spreads to Goma.

It's interesting to trace the changes in public mood and attitude
toward Ebola.

When the huge outbreak began in western Africa in 2014, there was
almost international hysteria. It continued into 2015, and only
really subsided when the outbreak ended in 2016.

Early in 2018, there was an outbreak in western DRC (the other end of
the country from the current outbreak). This raised international
concern, but world health officials ended it quickly, thanks to the
new experimental vaccine.

Then in July 2018, the new outbreak began in eastern DRC, in North
Kivu. Having an active outbreak of Ebola has become the "new normal"
in people's minds, and so there has been little concern or media
coverage. And why should there be any media coverage, when there are
more important subjects -- Brexit in Europe, the border wall in
America, and jailing Canadians in China.

But even among the local population in North Kivu, there seems to be
little concern. Many people don't believe anything the UN says, and
don't believe there's an Ebola outbreak. Others just assume that it
will be quickly ended, like the previous Ebola outbreaks. Others
simply have other worries on their minds -- getting beaten, raped, or
shot by gangs or warring militias.

If a few cases pop up in neighboring countries, health officials will
move quickly to contain them, and will probably succeed since they
aren't in war zones. The real danger is that Ebola will become
endemic in North Kivu and become a continuing source of infection that
can go on for years. Foreign Policy and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Related Articles:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ebola, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC,
North Kivu, Beni, Butembo, Goma, Bukavu,
Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan,
World Health Organization, WHO, Merck,
Centers for Disease Control, CDC,
Doctors Without Borders, Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF
Jean-Philippe Marcoux, Mercy Corps

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

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