NB! Daily News Snippets

The pope enters the same-sex debate

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 05:21:00 +0000

Yesterday then Pope endorsed same-sex unions.

This is a minefield, but my cause is subtle. So, let me get the big stuff out of the way first. And I will start by saying that a civil union of any kind, as implied by the Pope, is a universal right.

The Pope's position is conservative and biased towards heterosexual norms but concedes to the kind of contract that is a common-law right in all society, for partners, associates, lovers, friends and same-sex unions.

It's how British law on same-sex marriages started out and it was under such auspices that Elton John forged his own initial union. South Africa still uses the language of a "Civil Union".

But things break down when it becomes same-sex marriage. That is a point of contention and many will dispute that marriage as we know it was a divine invention intended for a man and wife. I share that view.

However, where the law has overruled on that, such marriages are now normalized. A dear friend told me that UK churches aren't fighting that as they have bigger fish to fry, so they will cross that bridge when they must.

But it could be argued that the ten commandments were silent on the issue while revealing a constitution-like bias to inter-personal rights not personal choices - as in no murder, no stealing, no coveting another's wife, no adultery, etc.

As such, although it only had ten clauses and could not possibly cover every issue of life, it did define what Jesus rightly captured, that the law of God reduces to two basic themes - love God and love others. And so we do.

However, my concern runs a bit deeper than the obvious.

Sure, I get that we coexist in a secular world and, while our values as Christians are at odds with that world, it's not our job to change the world or judge it. We are only called to love the world and live a life that is exemplary of Christ.

That principle of coexistence is also implied in what I said earlier about the decalogue and loving our fellow man as we love God.

But, what I foresee coming, and what happened yesterday, portends a new morality that will presume to be biblical but will be the leading edge of future persecution. Indeed, atheists argue on such terms that they are more moral than Christians, so disparaging our biblical worldview.

It will ultimately imply that having a worldview in conflict with the world's moral stance, on such issues, will become a social fault-line. That churches face painful dilemmas in this space will be irrelevant when dissent becomes an offence.

I have spent a lot of time studying the spiritual trends of the world and see a God-less consciousness of self being deemed as spiritually worthy, despite how it abuses scripture to validate itself. Social gospel advocates like Osteen and others, are already leaning to non-biblical epithets and moral essays.

The idea of no Jew or Gentile will urge a single global religion and oppress those outside of that. No male or female will blur genders and oppress those who argue otherwise (its already happening). No bond or free will impose global socialism and a single class. And no Greek or Scythian will lead to a single world.

And, as such things evolve, many religious leaders who make subtle concessions to world trends today, will take harder positions in the future to ostracize or isolate those who dissent. What inquisitions are yet to be?

The world is unlikely to get better with time. I still feel that the world is essentially just and noble in most things and that government, as a principle, is of God. But I don't know how long that will last.

Part of the drive to address the climate and economic crises bearing down on us, will involve massive social reengineering. Its unavoidable and partly necessary.

And I don't think a secretive cabal is manipulating all of that, but that the masses are driving nations to it through rising anarchy, conspiracies, protests and civil disobedience.

Populism and nationalism is fast becoming a law unto itself, which will create the kind of power vacuums that draw in bad leaders and corrupt social order. But when it comes, we won't be pointing to an obvious instigator, for God will test and confirm that it all reflects majority consensus.

Maybe that trend is the real reason why I think Donald Trump could yet win, despite all the odds now against him, for the loss of reason and principle that has guided nations thus far is now capitulating to unreason.

Bye, bye, miss American Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 08:33:00 +0000

In a poignant reminisence of American Pie, Don McClean spoke of "nearing the end of the high dive".

His mystical lyrics have never been formally translated, whose genius song brought together a bit of country blues, rock 'n roll rhythm and rich lyrics in one of the longer songs of popular-music history.

Its a lament really. Not just to the death of his dad, which he predicted days earlier. Nor was it a lament to the deaths of a few greats like Buddy Holly.

In a separate interview he describes his lament for a world that had lost its innocence. Its full of metaphors about churchbells, singing and the father, son and Holy Ghost.

I used to think he was being irreverent with that, but no, he lamented the end of all we once held dear including the faith that once defined his nation.

But he needs to update it. For if the loss of innocence and the age of unreason that followed was cause for sadness, its gone well beyond that now.

The rise and fall of the Donald Trump era is another watershed.

The world will never be the same again. One of the pillars of western-society and global stability has been constitional democracy.

That was a holy grail in the 19th and 20th century. It never attempted to cover everything, because it relied on a framework that had enough checks and balances to guide itself through the murky future.

Yet, it broke down in the Civil War era and was severely challenged in the Civil Rights era. Even so the principle endured in the US and other nations for it was upheld by a code, a value system that was not in law, but in tradition or culture.

Never, in all my reading of history has a value system been so single-mindledly attacked and usurped than in the Trump era. Oh, he may acquiesce to Pro-Life values (if it gives him votes), but he is otherwise defiant of every value that was once so dear to his nation.

But, thanks to that, an undercurrent that was always there, is now surfacing everywhere, with the entire political status quo of our world and all that has ensured order and stability at least for the past 75 years, at risk.

But the gravest concern of men like Gorbachev is that as order fails in our world, nuclear risk rises.

The idea of all that power slowly slipping into the hands of people without principle, irrational leaders that are not beholden to national consensus, debate, the press or the pillars of constitutionalism and democracy, is scary.

The window on securing or saving the Iran nuclear deal is closing fast and even if Biden is elected in November, it might be too late.

After that, Iran will likely forge ahead and will quite possibly do so with impugnity as Trump has marginalised the US role in the region, but Turkey is also turning and will likely insulate Iran. Russia is also gaining ground in the region.

In Europe, Trump tore up Reagan and Gorbachev's Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty, which has allowed both Russia and the US to reposition shorter range missiles in Europe.

And then he started to turn from Germany so forcing them and Europe into a catch-22 that will ultimately lead to a new arm's race that will drag a reluctant Europe into a new escalation of power.

Now the last remaining nuclear treat, the START or Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, is all that is stopping further proliferation of nuclear weapons. But even that is not going to stop the build-up in the Middle East that will likely include Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Israel and maybe Egypt.

The Daily Telepgraph yesterday argued that Trump has been revolutionary. He did after all taken on China in a trade war and he tried but failed to sort out Kim Yong Un. He also turned away from the Paris accord. And he upended the Washington establishment. Great. I can see that in part.

He also cut corporate taxes, but left the poor and the middle class behind and he tried but failed to wall out Mexico. And he ended a raft of major treaties, withdrew from the Middle East (partly) and alienated NATO and the EU.

Okay, so maybe some good can derive from that, for no doubt some shaking up was needed. But the China trade-war has backfired on Trump, Kim Yong Un has now upped the ante with the biggest liquid fueled ballistic missile in the world, the China Sea region is at the edge and the Middle East is in turmoil.

Forget all else.

Just think back on Don McLean's sadness and then gaze into the abyss that the world has suddenly become. It needs a new song for I see a tear-filled sun rising over a nuclear winter if we do not sort ourselves out, now.

Even if a nuclear crisis never happens, existential crises relating to climate, world peace, disease and natural disasters now loom larger than ever.

Its not a pretty sight. Maybe Don was right in saying "Bye, Bye ..." but what should follow I do not know.

Coronavirus update

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 05:05:00 +0000

It seems that the US is entering its 3rd wave.

In the first wave, daily new infections eak at about 35,000 and then it tapered off to around 22,000.

But a second wave peaked at around 80,000 per day, which built on the groundswell already generated and the critical mass achieved across all states.

That then settled back to around 40,000 a day, but now it is rising for the 3rd time, with its current peak at about 70,000, but climbing.

However, daily deaths have continued to taper off from a high of about 2,500 per day to about 1,000 a day now.

Unfortunately, two factors now predict a surge. The irresponsible approach to super-spreader events such as mass rallies and conventions by Trump's electoral campaign, and the arrival of cooler autumn weather.

In Europe

The lessons being absorbed by European leaders are brutal. They shut down too late and reopened too early. That was in stark contrast to Asia-Pacific nations, which locked down immediately, held that and slowly reopened.

Now Belgium faces a Tsunami of infections that threatens to overwhelm that small nation of 11 million. They are reaching 10,000 new infections a day. Fortunately deaths are low. But infection rates will aggravate deaths.

Spain has a similar infection rate but its population is 45 million. The UK has reached up to 20,000 new infections a day and is now reentering a hard lock-down state. France is even higher at 30,000 a day. Even careful Germany has now reached 10,000 a day.

All of them have low death rates, but there may be a lag factor that will see deaths spike in coming weeks. As such, UK authorities are now warning of tens of thousands of deaths in its second wave.

The common denominator for all high-risk nations is bad management.

The worst nation of all has been the USA, which has now seen its top virologist disparaged by the president, while the nation's leader continues to defy best advice around masks, distancing and crowding.

Its been the same in Europe and, generally speaking, Europe as a whole is now overtaking US infection rates. Deaths are also climbing.

The long-feared impact of an advancing winter is now being felt. Its still mid-autumn, so will get colder, a lot colder. And behind that will come a dangerous surge in infections that will build on established thresholds.

Nations who under-managed through summer will now face the worst impacts.

A vaccine is unlikely to appear until early 2021, despite White House promises of a vaccine before election day, because the US FDA is bound to strict protocols in the roll-out of new treatments - to ensure public confidence in vaccines.

In summary.

So many have criticised governments and Covid-19 has provided a pretext for protest and dissent. But the biggest fallouts in all of this grim season have not been thanks to heavy-handed governments but the indifference of people.

It is one reason why I remain convinced that end-time judgments will not be directed at some elite cabal that supposedly pulls all the strings in some dark corner of the world, but at the follies evident in the majority of humans.

God will thus invoke a decision by that majority, and that decision will be as binding as Israel's vote to turn back from Canaan. It will be marked by a seal to confirm majority consensus on a godless future.

Age of conspiracy

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 15:44:00 +0000

Once again, conspiracies about Covid-19 are doing the rounds.

An academic in the far east, wrote an article claiming that Covid-19 was deliberately engineered. Of course, as so often happens, he then claimed to have been persecuted and shut down, which is a click-bait trick to feign authenticity.

It didn't take long for an army of academics to bash him for poor academic writing, lack of peer review consenses and weak research. But the biggest indictment is that he failed to reference the many academic articles that argue the opposite. Its part of academic rigor to reference both sides of an argument.

Another academic wrote a 26-page article to claim that Covid-19 did not transmit from bats, despite the fact that Corona viruses in animals have a 96% DNA correlation with Covid-19. But, as its critics observed, Corona viruses have been in bat populations for decades, so it makes sense for them to mutate to Covid-19.

Indeed, SARS-like coronaviruses also occur in monkeys, pigs and feral animals, but may have passed through intermediary animals like the Pangolin. But evidence was found in 2018 that confirmed the transfer of such viruses to people living near to bat caves. So the evidence of animal to human transfer is robust.

Virologists have battled to replicate the cascade that led animal hosted viruses to transfer into humans. And if they don't know, surely no one knows. But a large team is being assembled to do tracing work over a large specimen base in China.

The so-called Yan report has tried hard to prove the conspiracies around Covid-19.

It is not holding up well. One claim it makes is that Coronaviruses battle to infect bats. But that doesn't stop the constant transfer of viruses between species. In fact many humans have been carriers only.

Another claim argues that SARS viruses are similar to bat viruses found in military labs, but in fact they are very different, by as much as 3,500 nucleotides.

Another is that a cleavage site that enhances infection transfer had to have been engineered, yet similar cleavage sites naturally occur in wild bat populations.

And then there was the Plandemic paper that actually reversed the logic by insisting that animal to human transfer did happen, but that the virus was refined in Wuhan laboratory. It was all claimed by a discredited crackpot.

Well, I could so go on about it all.

There is more than enough material. I might add that not even an arch-conspiratorialist like Trump, has been silent on most of this stuff.

Winston Churchill had this to say, 75 years ago, about fake news, truth and all their cousins:

United wishes and good will cannot overcome brute facts,’ Churchill wrote in his War Memoirs. ‘Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.

Its a good reminder that eventually truth always prevails.

But fake news and conspiracies are popular, travel faster than truth and are more readily believed for a number of complex social reasons.

National Geographic(a) reports the work of a data scientist, Sinan Aral, who 20 years ago predicted the fake news phenomenon. He is now the director of the MIT initiative on the global economy.

He believes that a concept called the "novelty hypothesis" demonstrates the almost unstoppable viral contagion of false news.

The argument goes on to show that humans prefer novel information and have a strong bias towards fake new or conspiracies, as it gives them a sense of having inside information that others don't have. As they say, knowledge is powerful.

But there is political gain in such speculative stories and powerful policitical figures inevitably show up somewhere in the paper trail. Yet they rarely carry credibility in civil society. They are just opportunists.

Political influence is based on psychology. Because so many feel they are victims of the state and that the state is out to get them, they are predictably responsive to fake news. As such, fake news is 70% more likely to be believed than truth.

If social media users are that predictable, its not surprisingly that darker political forces have found ways to use fake news so effectively that they can trigger riots and could yet start wars.

One of the greatest drivers of this phenomenon is a tendency for people to not verify fake news posts, but to pass on anything that looks suitably juicy or controversial. In no time it goes viral and ends up being validated by popularity.

Confirmation bias also comes into play, prompting readers to adopt information that intuitively confirms what they suspected or wanted to hear, without subjecting it to scrutiny or cross-reference.

And then there is the illusory truth factor that has been shown in widely publicised psychological studies to give greater credibility to something that is repeated, which is how advertising generally works. Repetition is also one way in which the brain retains memories, so repetition can crowd out truth.

I have said enough.

This kind of progaganda has been a military tactic throughout history. It preys on those too weak or lazy to inform themselves properly. But they become the masses that rise against governments.

It is not what Christians do. We love truth. That is a cornerstone of our faith and conviction. Satan loves lies and is the father thereof. We must trade in truth and be diligent in what we distribute. That is what God expects of us.

But the biggest caution comes from Jesus who insisted in Matthew 24 that the greatest features of this age, will be lies, conspiracies and false prophets. If anyone persists in it they may need to ask whose side they really are on.

(a) Why misinformation about COVID-19’s origins keeps going viral, by Monique Brouilette and Rebecca Renner, September 18,2020.

The answers are blowing in the wind

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 14:02:00 +0000

For some time now I have been saying President Trump could win a second term.

I am no longer as convinced. But, before saying more let me add that even his rival, Joe Biden, is concerned that it could happen, as their analysts argue that polls are uncomfortably close where it matters.

US elections are decided in the electoral college of each state, so that's all that really matters. National polls are moot. Hilary Clinton won the national poll in 2016, but lost on electoral college votes.

But to counter that, early and mail voting is being extensively supported by Democrats, with over 20 million votes already cast. Maybe Trump miscalculated there as they coudl have capitalised more on that trend.

I also hasten to add that I have no personal bias either way. Its better that way. But that all said, in my view Trump has done too much wrong. He has all but shot himself in the foot.

His biggest problem is that he is obsessed with his core base. They are less educated whites, largely male. He has other supporters too, but he appeals to his core as they stroke his ego enough for him to simply enjoy rallying with them. But he has not broadened his base and is losing parts of his existing base.

So, Mormons, historically red-blood through and through, are leaning left as they find in Biden an honest leader. Trump knows he needs more women to support him, but he keeps alienating them and he is also driving away the support of a valuable elderly population, notably in Florida.

I predicted that a destabilising event would come and Trump felt he had a winner in his "unmasking" conspiracy, in which he claimed that left-wing politicians had been given access to redacted names (blacked out for security reasons). That is called unmasking, but the conspiracy blew up in Trump's face.

Another two disruptive events came and went. The selection of a new judge for the Supreme Court initially boosted his polls a bit, but that has petered out, largely as the Democrats are now threatening to "stack the court".

And then he got Covid-19 but recovered within a few days. He had no tactics for capitalising on that until the horse had bolted, so it came to nothing.

He has also ordered his sychophantic Attorney General to investigate Obama, Clinton and Joe Biden's son, making it the first time that a sitting president has used his AG to investigate his personal enemies. It is an ominous sign of how much Trump could abuse power if given the chance.

And to crown it all, the nation, already punch-drunk from a badly mismanaged pandemic that is seeing Germany, South East Asia and Australasia recover faster, is now realising that Trump's much-touted claim to the best economy ever is empty. He barely grew the economy by 2.6%. Obama did far better.

Oh and he also dropped the ball in both a televised national debate and a Townhall broadcast, by being so argumentative that he failed to score any positive points with viewers.

In other news, even Republicans feel he has not done nearly enough to rein in global threats in the Middle East, North Korea or the China seas. Indeed, the world is dangerously more unstable now than when he took office.

In a nutshell, Trump really has not covered himself in glory. He has not been smart and the fact that his businesses are also in a mess, is now posing big questions over his ability to lead a nation in crisis.

Anyway, its up to the voters now and, although polling houses have corrected their 2016 mistakes enough to feel that they are calling the 2020 elections better, this could all still go either way, especially if a true bomb-shell saga breaks against Biden - which is totally possible.

If Trump does lose, he could trigger an election crisis that will harm the US, the Dollar and the economy. If he wins, China and Russia could harden their agendas in the China Seas and in an increasingly unstable Middle East.

Also US allies in Europe and the Trans-Pacific partnership could cut their losses and walk a road that veers away from the US.

Either way, these are unsettling times ahead.

Turkey's gobbling ways are starting to give us goose-flesh

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 06:02:00 +0000

Turkey is becoming a dominant force in the middle east.

In recent years they have asserted themselves in many aspects of Middle Eastern life. Notably they:

- Occupied half of Greek Cypress.

- Used naval power to assert oil exploration claims in the Med.

- Sent military personnel and equipment into Libya.

- Launched a military incursion into Syria.

- Shot down a Russian fighter aircraft.

- Sent mercenaries and fighters to Kurdic Azerbaijan.

- Expanded its operations against Kurds in northern Iraq.

For now, Turkey is still a NATO member and is the 11th ranked nation in the world on the Global Firepower index. They are the most powerful nation in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin (with the exception of France).

They also make their own military hardware and are funded by a strong economy, but they have a large military and are backed by a significant population. They are wielding all that power unilaterally, in defiance of multilateral interests, because the US support for Kurds convinced them to go it alone.

Turkey has always been at the strategic crossroads of east and west. The former nexus of the Ottoman empire is now expanding faster than at any time since the fall of that empire in 1918/20.

But since a failed coup in 2016, President Erdogan developed a coalition with nationalist parties in Turkey, to consolidate his power and crush Kurdish opposition parties that had surged in city and regional elections.

He also secured a constitutional amendment to replace Turkey's legislative democracy with a Presidential one (like the US), that has given him sweeping powers and the ability to aggressively assert Turkey's political position.

Under Erdogan, Turkey's attitudes to the west have hardened.

They remain in NATO as they are a key-point in the region and a vital stabilizer, but they are on a short-leash as they resent the UN, the US and western values.

They are also irking western powers over their conflict with Greece and their defiance of France in Libya. But worst of all they are realigning with Russia and China, which sets the scene for stronger ties with the Gog-Magog nations.

Ezekiel foresaw all of that and predicted a major alliance between Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Russia and other nations in that mix, that could yet include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and more. Its slowly surrounding Israel.

Where ISIS tried to restore the Ottoman/ Islamic caliphate but failed despite its profound aggression, Turkey may yet achieve a version of that to give the Islamic world a powerful center and regional dominance.

Israel is becoming increasingly vulnerable and US policies in the region have failed the Jewish state. US withdrawals from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, plus muddled policies, have facilitated the current trend.

Russia is already a big player in the region. Many thought that Obama let them in, but they were in Syria before Obama. They also used their alliance with Assad to defy Obama's red line and expand their role in the ISIS conflict.

But Russia has bigger ambitions.

They are more ambitious than Turkey, but their respective ambitions are complementary. They can help each other succeed. And that success could draw Russia into a major role that would displace the US and its oil interests.

Indeed, Turkey might yet boost that portfolio with Mediterranean oil fields. If that all happens, oil prices will likely rise to shore up Russia's own oil and gas fields, which would boost the Russian economy and its global footprint.

This is one of the major future hotspots that will define world order and peace in the decades to come.

It has the power to shift global power balances and neutralize US influence, while Trump remains distracted by his obsession with Iran and his need to show up Obama's role in that nation.

There is big trouble brewing and it could affect all of us. This is the region where biblical end-games are expected to play out and the pieces are falling into place.

Is the supreme court nomination process in the US compromised?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 06:44:00 +0000

The rushed senate hearing for US Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, is surfacing a lot of noise.

I get and empathise with the abortion cause and the value of tilting the court further right in the hope of securing a review or reversal of Roe vs Wade. But throwing the baby with the bathwater is not a better outcome.

This judge is flawed. She lacks a substantive track record and has insufficient case history to extrapolate into a true perspective of her world-view.

That in itself is a problem. This is an austere court that demands judges of surpassing sobriety and the ability to rise above everything else in the execution of the weightiest public role in the US.

Its not a job for novices. Okay, maybe she is not altogether novice material, having taught law when not serving in the 7th circuit court.

But she is a novice to the ethereal context of the supreme court's purview. And no, its not a place for on the job training.

A nominee is supposed to be robustly tested (the shortest hearing period thus far was three and a half months, not 3 weeks). Everything needs to be surfaced by intense examination, not only to get all the issues out there, but to facilitate public consensus and to test the mettle of the candidate.

But President Trump is more interested in securing his own tenuous future by stacking the court before election day, so that he has enough backing for whatever will follow that. Its the same reason why he has stacked lower courts.

This is something that cannot be rushed if America cherishes its values. And it should, by all reasonable principle, be held over until the election is decided, by the precedence set by Republicans over an Obama nominee.

Anyway, what the hearings have surfaced is a tendency in Barrett to prevaricate or side-step thorny issues. That implies lack of transparency and honor, hardly the best features of her resume.

However, her rulings history is littered with heavily biased perspectives and indifference on issues like racism, poverty and so on.

She is not a Christian in the general or popular sense, but an ultra-conservative Catholic belonging to a movement called "People of Praise". That is not representative of either secular America or its Christians and it adds another Catholic to a court that has not one evangelical in it.

No court, least of all the supreme court should be politically biased. At worst, judges have a leaning but never an overt bias and their leaning is part of the perspective they bring to peer debates. But in all things they are meant to rise above political bias.

The nation is torn by partisanship. It is at an intolerable level and it also threatens the status quo in Washington. Its healthy to disagree and the system designed a strong tension into the checks and balances of the constitution.

But the Senate and, even more so, the supreme court, were meant to balance out the cut and thrust of party politics with virtues like statesmanship, reason, maturity and sobriety. That's why every state has an equal number of Senate nominees, because the upper house is a leveler.

But above that is the court, the supreme leveler. It is insulated from partisan biases by two layers to ensure that it holds a dignified custodial role in defending the constitution and upholding the court's significance in society.

It should not admit rush jobs to its ranks, ever. But now I am concerned that this rush job might yet backfire on the President.

If the issues now surfacing are amplified by an all-out social and media objection (and it came close to that with the previous nominee's sexual history), the fair chance of playing a decisive hand in generational history, will be overplayed.

Even if Barrett is confirmed, as the Senate seems to have already decided to do in the dying moments of what is likely to end Republican dominance of the house, the long-term impact on the credibility of a social cornerstone could be felt for generations to come.

This is being rushed into play at all costs, when the nature of the process is best served with care and patience. Too much is at stake.

Taiwan is in China's cross-hairs

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 05:39:00 +0000

It seems that war over Taiwan is inevitable.

One would think it is unthinkable, but you must understand the Chinese mindset. It is irrational for them not to have total control. That is an inconsistency that would be welcomed in the west but keeps Chinese authorities awake at night.

No doubt Taiwan would be a big boost to China's economic standing and its dominance in the China Sea, but other than that what they gain in the near-term will be lost in the long-term, because what always made Taiwan and Hong Kong work was the freedom of self-determination.

Anyway, Xi Jinpeng, the Chinese eader, has been doing his rounds, urging military bases to up their readiness for war and to hold their alert levels.

He has also sent multiple sorties of military aircraft up to and beyond the median line between the two nations.

Experts believe it will be another 5 to 10 years before China is ready for such a war, so maybe right now they are just rattling sabers.

However, sometimes history presents windows of opportunity that are best grasped when they present themselves. That window may be about to open for China if the US elections devolve into a serious electoral crisis.

There is a real threat of that happening if Trump loses. He will then almost certainly defy a peaceful transition of power and will likely also resort to every trick in the book to cling to power.

But while that is happening they will be far too distracted to deal with other things, so as happens in so many homes, if the cat is not quite at home, the mice will come out to play. This may be one of many issues that could overboil in the interregnum period.

The Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 and Japan ruled the island until 1949, when it acquired independence but under military rule. It subsequently achieved full democratic status to become a highly prosperous state.

The US is now shoring up Taiwanese defensive capabilities with fighter aircraft and sophisticated missile defense batteries. It is likely that the US will also reopen an old Naval base on the island. China is diplomatically objecting to US interference.

The US rightly sees the risks of losing Taiwan to China and the resulting domino effects that will close out the region to US interests. Japan sees a similar threat to its trade routes. Other nations are as concerned.

Okay, some of that I have explored before, so I won't go there now. But what is now happening in terms of China's belligerence and US-Taiwanese defensive postures, is relevant. A spark could turn the entire situation into a wild-fire.

If that happens, gloves could come off in the Koreas and the simmering tensions between India and China could also overboil. The entire region may be heading into troubled waters if China continues its expansionist policies in the China sea.

But they are unlikely to back off as their long-term goal is global significance. At some stage they will go for broke and force their hand, gambling quite logically that no one would have the will to take on the Chinese monolith.

The altered state of life in the world of altar boys

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 05:03:00 +0000

In what seems to be the first of its kind, the Vatican is trying two criminal cases.

Since 2012 the primary accused, Rev Gabrielle Martinelli, has abused boys inside the exclusive St Pius X Youth Seminary, which prepares 12 to 18-year-old boys to serve as altar boys, at papal masses inside the Vatican Basilica.

This was reported to the Vatican authorities by other boys who witnessed the abuse, details of which I prefer to not amplify.

Boys as young as 15 saw these events and were even forced to watch, as the intimidating Martinelli imposed his will on one specific victim.

But the authorities ignored written appeals and other representations, evidently because of an instinctive bias in favor of the priests. The argument was that considerable time had been spent training such priests and they carried significant responsibilities that could not be easily replaced.

So on it went for 8 years until 2017, when the victim and his whistleblowing room-mate went public with their allegations.

That brought the second charge, one of obstructing justice, against Rev Enrico Radice, who consistently covered up the offences and downplayed the complaints of the victim and his friend.

But eventually the Pope, who had instituted a no-tolerance policy, overturned a statute of limitations and obliged the case to be brought to court.

Under normal circumstances Vatican tribunals only go so far as defrocking those found guilty by it, but this case is unique in that it all happened within the state boundaries of the Vatican state, giving it full criminal jurisdiction.

Well, it's interesting. Sorry, I know it's shocking and should never have happened, but it just seems to not be going away. This pattern of abuse keeps raising its ugly head in the secretive sanctums of Catholicism.

A part of me cries out about the folly of celibacy. It's not biblical but seems to be an attempt to mimic the lives of Jesus and Paul. But mimicry doesn't make anyone Christ-like or righteous. Indeed, the greatest mimicry of all will happen when antichrist takes to the global stage.

Marriage is biblical and is also by far the safest and most logical way (according to the teachings of Paul), to avoid these issues. Celibacy never made anyone virtuous. If anything it merely drives underground the rampant thoughts that sexuality provokes in any unfulfilled person. Besides sex is sacred in marriage.

That said though, sexual offences happen in non-celibate churches as well. It's a sordid story that has brought down numerous leaders across Christendom.

No doubt such things are inevitable.

It happened in Paul's day and he was unequivocal in prosecuting the offence, which was not the kind of case that would even have broken a law in today's world. But it was wrong and shameful, an intolerable event in the Corinthian church that was also covered up until the Apostle intervened.

I say it is inevitable because these things happen across society. It's one of the consequences of being human. Most will do right most of the time, but errant individuals or moments of madness will creep into every system.

To me the greater offence happens when church authorities play it down or suppress it. Facing it and dealing with it robustly is by far the better option, because denying it will never make it just go away.

However, with marriage under threat everywhere and homes in disarray across the world, what is happening at an offence level belies a deeper crisis simmering away at the heart of society - and that needs to be resolved.

Sadly, however, as with other major issues, like Climate, we may be at or past the point of no return and the next generation will push the boundaries on sexual tolerance even further until there is no way back from the edge.

Hard lessons on how to fight a pandemic

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 06:53:00 +0000

The global economy is not doing as badly as expected.

It is headed for a relatively soft-landing. But that's only because Chinese and other far east economies are balancing out the negative trends in the west.

China, by all accounts, stopped the virus through the most stringent quarantines and lock-downs ever seen. But other oriental nations also applied tough measures, early, and that is now setting them up for an economic bounce.

Who knows, this may mark a global shift in economic power. It may yet prove to have been a watershed event. It will also, almost certainly, undo all that the US tried to avoid by imposing tariffs on China, especially as Chinese imports to the US have now risen due to suppressed domestic productivity.

In the UK, Boris Johnson has shown himself to be a lot of inept hot-air, as his leadership in this crisis has been sorely lacking. As a result, the UK is now the 13th most infected nation in the world and the worst in Europe. It will be at 12th position within days, with current new infections exceeding 12,000 per day.

The US has very similar leadership or lack thereof, with President Trump doing all he can to publicly scorn what is a very dangeous virus. He is staging rallies that may well be described as super-spreader events. But his followers so dote on him that they say they will only wear masks if he says so.

In the White House alone there were more new infections than in the whole of Taiwan, thanks to a super-spreader event there that was led by Trump, who, having now seen off his own infection has gone on a rampant campaign drive that is putting many more at risk.

Thanks to general indifference to the virus, Europe is now recording more new infections than past leaders like Brazil or the USA, while in most of the Asia-Pacific region economies have largely normalised, thanks to stringent epidemiology.

South Africa was the 7th most strident lock-down nation and although she surged badly in the winter months, current trends are good with 90% recovery rates and new infection rates at around a 1,000 a day. Deaths are also down. Maybe, like its oriental counterparts, SA can gain an economic advantage in this.

Indeed, thanks to the looming likelihood of post-election turbulence in the US, regardless of who wins, US investment banks are urging investors to reinvest in currencies like the Rand or the Indian Rupee. Gold is also holding its price.

There are lessons being learned here that will be definitive to nations in the post-pandemic era, but as I have said for so long, that will not have been the work of a few string-pullers or an act of God, but the consequence of human actions. We are, when all is said and done, our own worst enemy.

Nations in the Asia-Pacific region have resumed live sports and entertainment events, because they followed a strict protocol throughout the pandemic. Now they are benefitting early. So is Germany, for the same reason, as an outlier in Europe.

But the rest of Europe and North America is facing significant political tension and states of emergency are now beckoning, because they did not follow standard procedure.

I can only conclude that while conspiratorialists insisted this was all about control, they are now inviting the control they tried to avoid, while those who trusted their governments are feeling liberated.

The fact that Trumpers say they will wear masks if the president says so, highlights the contradiction, for the rallying cry of Trump's right has always been about limiting control. Well, whatever, now control is becoming increasingly likely and Trump's use of state machinery to investigate his enemies proves that.

I also know that the worst is yet to come as the affected nations move into winter. Cases are rising, as are death rates. Maybe those who deferred action will yet have to serve their time and bite the bullet while others go out to play.

But that is questionable as a new narrative is emerging in those nations, as polticians now argue that it is too late to follow the Oriental examples. As such, they are caught between policy extremes and dithering as the storm approaches.

Pensioners stand in the flower-protests of Belarus. The end is nigh.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 05:49:00 +0000

One of the most intriguing news events to me, is the struggle over Belarus. It has been inspiring to watch a housewife take on a dictator.

The situation has been simmering for 2 months, ever since President Lukashenko rigged the elections by jailing his expected opponents and by doctoring the vote count. Intimidation also applied.

The housewife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, took over where her jailed husband couldn't and techically won the election against all odds, but was then denied victory by the rigging that followed.

That's the background. But it all led to an endless stream of peaceful public protests, largely staged by women, basically because they were so disarming to armed security authorities. It also allowed their men to keep working.

Well now it has taken a new turn. Tikhanovskaya has issued an ultimatum that if jailed opponents are not released and if oppression doesn't cease, within 13 days, the nation will shut down.

By that they mean that roads will be blocked, factories will shut, businesses will board up, public places will be closed off.

Their demands are perfectly reasonable, for, as she argued, opponents cannot negotiate from behind iron bars. Either political activity is freed from fear and allowed to engage the public discourse, or there'll be no talks, just action.

This is the most assertive the protesters have got. The movement was at risk of being waited out by the president in the hope that the world would lose interest and citizens would return to work and give up the struggle.

Not on your life. Their position is hardening. Mrs Tikhanovskaya speaks from her exile in Lithuania, but she is leading a defiant and resilient struggle against Europe's last dictator.

The EU have also helped by engaging the opposition and by applying personal and broader sanctions on the government.

I predicted a while back that the government would topple, which I still believe to be so, but its taken a much longer fight to get there and they are still not there. However, their persistence is wearing down the state.

Police are increasingly reluctant to abuse or jail their own country(wo)men, especially as they almost certainly will have to answer to that if the regime changes. But the opposition has identified all those working for the state and publicly shamed them, which has strengthened their reluctance.

This has been one of the smartest resistence movements I have ever seen. It is highly organised and enjoys popular support, largely because it has remained peaceful. So, to me, it is inevitable that they will win.

I hope so. If she pulls it off, Tichanovskaya will either assume the presidency or will get her husband out of jail and support him in that role, but either way I would see her becoming a strong Nobel candidate.

The war in Azerbaijan-Armenia escalates

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 06:00:00 +0000

The situation in has worsened after a failed cease-fire.

The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh pleasant pastures, green hills and mineral riches, has defied all peace efforts.

The disputed region is occupied by Armenians, but is recognised in international law as Azeri territory. Its a mess.

A whole new form of warfare has erupted, ironically helped along by drones supplied to Muslim Azerbaijan, by Israel. Turkey is also supplying its own drones plus fighter aircraft.

The drones are like loitering munitions that search a target, swarm towards it and then commit suicide to ignite their warheads.

Armenia is also using drones, but doesn't have the quantity or sophistication of Azerbaijan.

The Azeri have also been recruiting mercenaries in Syria, fighters that are at least veterans of the Syrian conflict but likely also with some past association with ISIS. The Armenians call them Jihadists.

Its fast becoming a religious war. Russia supports both sides due to legacies, but it leans more towards Armenia due to its orthodox culture.

But for now it looks like Moscow is feeding both sides with weapons and exploiting the dispute as a market for weapons.

The fighting has destroyed towns and villages, but left about 300 dead. It has also affected most areas in the region.

This war is happening right on the doorstep of Europe and may well force Europe's reluctant hand to avoid the conflict getting out of hand. At some point Russia may also get involved, which could turn it into a regional conflict zone.

Certainly, neither side is willing to back down. Armenia will not be able to hold out for as long as Azerbaijan can, so I suspect that, unless Russia does step it, Turkey will want to crush Armenia and Islamicise the entire region.

This little war has started the way Covid-19 started. It was small, in an area that few had ever heard about and it was not worth noticing. But as Covid-19 grew from obscurity to become a global concern, this war now has the potential to grow into a nasty situation.

I am not going to get all emotive about it, but I do know that it is happening in the region that will ultimately forge the Gog-Magog nations into the Ezekiel 38 confederacy that the prophet predicted. It has all the ingredients for that.

South Africa presses on with its proposed expropriation without compensation bill

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 06:52:00 +0000

The draft bill, which replaces the existing exproporiation bill, is now before parliament.

First the good news. A lot of the bill is sensible and sustainable. The most important conditions for exproporiation are:

👎 Land not in use, being held only for appreciation.

👍 State owned land not in use.

👍 Abandoned land or buildings.

👍 Where the cost of restoring the land is higher than the land value.

👍 Where a court rules against compensation.

👍 Viable or operational farm land is not at risk.

The bad news is that land not in use is now open to arbitrary expropriation, and that is bound to be abused. Is investment land that can't yet be occupied or fallow land or land that needs further investment, all fair game?

I cannot see that standing up to Constititutional review. It is too broad. I don't know what the alternative is and, in principle, I think its headed in the right direction. However, it is at odds with the text of the constitition and the spirit therof. It also violates international precedence.

I have no doubt that Land Reform and reallocation is needed. The biggest oversight of the New Constitution was the legacy of past Land Acts that were simply wrong and need to be redressed.

But two wrongs will never make a right. Giving the state a free hand to take land without compensation, is not just for those holding such land. The law cannot preempt how such land was acquired.

It has followed a land claims process for years that allowed for the restoration of land to individuals previously disinherited. If that process has been exhausted then whatever land remains was, in principle, legitimately acquired.

That is not universally true, but is at least a fair principle. Land claims processes had to have a sunset. They could not keep on digging up the past. But through it, the state had a major opportunity. It just lacked the means and the will.

That is not good enough reason to now hide their deficiencies behind the ruse of expropriation without compensation, for unused land. I cannot see the Concourt buying that, and their first obligation is to the constitution.

It will be argued in that court that the other options in the act are reasonable and should be pursued for now, but that a court should rule on unused land.

Besides, right now, after the killing of a young farm manager in Senekal, the farmers have risen up to show that they are at or near to breaking point. Their protest action was strident and a worrisome warning to the state.

I would not put the burly SA farmer's back to the wall and I am not sure it will be a white fight either. Many blacks stood in sympathy with their call, because they too have been disadvantaged by the state's land program.

No government wants to stir up such a hornet's nest. They must surely see that. the combination of farm killings, unfair land expropriation and a high level of illegal land occupation, makes for a heady cocktail in a world that is shifting back to extreme populism and right-wing nationalist sentiments.

This could spark major strife in SA and prejudice fragile food security at a time when the economy is writhing in enough problems of its own.

I am even surprised that they could not hold this back until the first priority of economic recovery could be resolved. Which adds another concern. Who would want to plough new investments into such an uncertain environment? Does the state really want to frustrate economic recovery and sow chaos?

Well, its in play now and it remains to be seen how it plays out. Certainly, the law is generally reasonable. The devil is in the detail. I can only hope that democratic debate will temper the proposed legislation.

I am also, however, painfully aware that if something is not done or seen to be done, a very different riot will result and expose the nation to extreme left wing radicalism. Something has to be done. No doubt about that. But its a political minefield either way and its happening in the worst of times.

Well, lets watch and see.

The US is at the threshold of an unknown future in the closing stages of the election

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 05:24:00 +0000

On paper, it looks like the US is about to see a major shift in its political alignment. Not so quick.

Sure, most polls show Biden in a commanding position, with a 12-point lead over Trump. But that may well be inflated by polling errors and by a phenomenon seen in the 2016 election where many right-wingers refused to express their voting intents in polls.

That said, no doubt Trump is facing a lot of head-wind. Over the weekend I played Devil's Advocate and imagined how I would have played Trump's illness to maximum effect.

It didn't take much to think it out. And no doubt I would have surged in the polls, but a number of the ideas I did have were actually tried, just too late for it to help Trump. The horse bolts too quickly in the fluid political landscape of America.

Anyway, at least by doing relatively nothing bar a bit of grandstanding at a White House gathering, he at least didn't do what he apparently wanted to do. He planned to rip open his shirt to reveal a superman T-shirt, to a proud boast of having beaten the virus and how you could do the same.

Even boasting that Regeneron and Remdesivr are effective against the virus is highly misleading. He had a 95% chance of little to no symptoms and a 97% chance of not dying. Okay, given his age, lets make that a 75% chance.

And he is not alone. Brazil's Bolsonaro, Britain's Johnson and numerous other leaders have come through it fine, helped along of course by exceptional medical care. But to then argue that what worked for him is as viable as bleech, hydroxychloroquine and other quack fixes, is naive.

No one even knows which therapy actually worked or if it would have worked anyway if Trump was in the 75% who wouldn't never have succumbed to it.

But that and other astonishingly crass public stunts were pulled over the past few days as Trump's election prospects faced so much pounding that even Republicans started to doubt the outcomes.

Yet he still has a real chance of winning.

Its interesting that in the battleground or swing states where the election will be decided under the electoral college system, Joe Biden has the same if not a worse standing than Clinton, who lost those states to Trump in 2016.

I have long said that if Trump can reach 46% of the national vote, he could win on an electroral college basis. He is not far from that. And make no mistake, his surviving Covid-19 is just one of many twists that could play out in his favor in the last three weeks.

You must appreciate that on a popular national poll, Biden is ahead by more than any other leader since polls started in 1936, with a margin of 12 points. But as 2016 confirmed, the electoral college system is what will decide this, not the popular vote which Clinton also won last time round.

I want to remain poltically neutral and just call it as I see it, but from what I do see, Trump could yet win. I strongly suspect that it will be Biden's turn to face some shocks and shakings in the last three weeks that are all that will ultimately matter regardless of what has already happened.

So, in my view, this race is not over until it is over. They tell me that 90% of Americans have already made up their minds. I know that about 8 million votes have also been cast already, so the screws are tightening, but its not over.

The world will watch with bated breath as it plays to a finale. No doubt, if Trump wins, the last threads of US alliances will rend and global power will be irreversibly realigned. US allies have had enough and are saying as much.

And prophetically speaking, I suspect that that is what many darker forces around the world are hoping for and have been trying to achieve for a long time. America is a spanner in the works for broader global ambitions and was as much so in the last two world wars. Global amibitions need to exclude America.

The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, start this week and that, maybe more than most things, will boost Trump's prospects.

But no doubt there will still be many twists and turns before a result is declared. Yet, even then, one way or another there will be a lot of tension and a potential electoral crisis that could impact the US global image, roil global markets and destablise the US environment.

So, even if Biden wins, the future is far from certain. This is going to be a rough ride. Best we accept that and brace for the coming storms.

North Korea shows off, while showing up human folly

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 04:32:00 +0000

The weekend's somewhat grotesque display of North Korean military strength poses some challenges.

Firstly, they rolled out what now seems to be the world's biggest liquid-fueled rocket system on earth.

If it performs as it looks, it would be able to hit major targets around the globe. That they want to do that at all worries me more.

Kim Yong Un is no stranger to stage-effects. He has paraded equipment before that was obviously fake.

Now their current star-performer may not be quite as fake as his previous very fake fakes, but it has never flown and there is no evidence it will.

Now that may be false comfort. Make no mistake, poor as they are, that nation has shown the ability to build some sophisticated things.

The missiles it has flown are home-grown but clearly capable and they have also built nuclear warheads, although of small, Hisoshima-like A-bomb yields. That confirms their significant technological capabilities.

I would also say that should Kim get his behemoth off the ground, it will have to deal with a wall of counter-measures that will flatten its nose quite quickly.

Its hardly a threat and shouldn't be seen as such. But, a notably fattened Kim left his computer game-console to show it off anyway.

But if that country could set aside its paper-tiger pretensions and repurpose its very scarce resources to build an open economy, it would surge. Its so obvious that one wants to cry over the lost opportunity.

They don't even have to do much new. If they just stopped playing the clown in a world where they don't even command the attention that real clowns do, they would boost their prospects. Just not doing what they are doing would help, a lot.

But no, such is the naivety of the people and all of Kim's fawning followers, as he struts in his new clothes, that he is simply better off maintaining the pretence of power. It works for his ego, his image and his clench on power.

So, now I ask, should that be of concern?

Well, South Korea thinks so, despite having twice the population and 30 times the defence budget. They worry about their manic neighbor every day of their lives, for his unpredictable and has nothing to lose.

But I am more concerned with global patterns. The US is also spending disproportionately on defence. Its budget is more than the the next 13 nations combined.

And it is also applied as an ego-stroker to manage perceptions of power and authority not only for the nation but also its leaders.

But its just never enough. Just this past week, a highly innovative and technologically advanced Russia show-cased a hypersonic missile, a game-changing drone-torpedo that could arguably wipe out large areas, a flying-wing stealth bomber and a few other world-class military initiatives.

And just like that, US dominance is in enough doubt to force more spending by all parties, to either stay ahead of get ahead, the latter being the goal of China which is rapidly expanding its military power aand arguably spending the same as the US is on a purhasing power parity basis i.e. their Yuan goes further than a Dollar.

So where will this all end? I can't see it ending well. With so many egomaniacs in charge of so much fire-power, what will happen if some event triggers a dangeous domino effect in some future moment of global tension.

But all of that is happening while most of the world starves. Its one thing to point at Clown Kim and laugh at his follies, but in truth most other leading nations are doing much the same. Men and their toys just never seem to have enough.

Mikhail Gorbachev is still alive and vital enough to have said that nuclear arms are by far the biggest threat to our world. Yet, right now, not only are global tensions escalating but global firepower is becoming dangeously unwieldy.

Will the madness never end? Whoever is in our sights is a fellow human, people with families, children, grandparents and the same daily survival priorities we all have, but we paint them as enemies to justify our bombs. Where will it end?

The gathering storm

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 08:10:00 +0000

After the two kingdoms of Israel separated into north and south, or Israel (Samaria) and Judah, both charted different courses.

The northern Kingdom was ruled by 19 different kings, most of whom were evil. In fact, only one, Jehu, who reigned for 27 years, seems to have been any good.

Well, eventually, after just over 200 years of it and more than adequate warning of an impending judgment, the axe fell, and they were led into exile by the brutal Assyrians. They were then dispersed and assimilated into that empire to be lost forever.

But the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin, lasted another 150 years. That was long enough for Babylon to annihilate the Assyrians, whom God quickly came to despise for their barbaric ways.

Yet Assyria closed in on them too and made Judah a vassal state, subject to tribute, until the great king Hezekiah defied them.

They then laid siege to the last stronghold, the city of Jeusalem. Only by an act of God were they spared after enduring all kinds of torments and mockings. But overnight the Assyrians died in thousands, before Sennacherib fled back home where he was assassinated.

Until then their kings were generally good, but after that, they too went downhill. Indeed, Josiah was the only outstandingly good king of that era and yet his end was due to a moment of madness. They too were warned of a coming disaster, as have we.

The southern kingdom was then led into exile in Babylon for a period of 70 years. The world had significantly shifted by then, so they survived and were not assimilated. It was by the nuances of God that their delayed exile preserved their identity and changed their destiny.

As such, they eventually received the seal of the king to resume the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the revival of their kingdom. Their salvation was so delicate but all in the long-term plan of God. He no longer needed a recidivistic Samaria but kept Judah.

Now to the point and its a prophetic point.

Many nations have been in slow, steady decline in the past 30 or so years, despite many warnings. A lot of the gains of World War 2 have been compromised. True freedom has succumbed to hedonism and profligacy. Leaders or kings have corrupted their nations.

And that has brought the nations to a crossroads. As for both Israel and Judah, the decline and collapse of modern civilisation and global order hangs like a grim writing on the wall. It cannot go on like this for much longer. The old darkness is gathering again.

Hebrews 13:8 predicts a shaking of the heavens and the earth, so that what can stand may remain and what can't may fall away. The heavens will be shaken to cast Satan and his hoard to the earth. The earth will be shaken by that and by global changes.

However, shaking does not presume annihilation, but a shake up of the status quo. Some things will evidently outlast that. Notably what is built of wood, hay and stubble, will fail, but gold, silver and precious stones will endure.

What is the prophetic message?

The patterns of history and eschatology suggest that the old darkness will return to the central nations, namely Europe, Russia and its satellites and the Middle East. It was so in Roman timess, through the dark ages, through the heavings of later history and two world wars.

They will be slowly drawn into an amalgam, which will finally forge into one that which has been attempted without sucess so often before. And that will strip away national identities to forge a new "empire" or superpower, which is already in the making.

It potentially already has the largest economy and largest army, but extremist groups and gaining ground while others are sowing the seeds for that through social upheaval and the overthrow of their governments. Existing order is at risk.

Those who choose to stand up for what is right and resist the trends, may well escape a lot of what is coming.

The case for that is in the simple biblical definition of righteous. It has a few inflections, but the most generalised definition is "on the right side of the law". God is not demanding righteous purity of secular nations, but he will honor those that uphold virtuous principles or rule of law.

A shake-up of the existing order of things will also see the upliftment of the downtrodden, bringing change to a world that is currently unsustainable. But that is least likely to happen in nations overwhelmed by extremist groups or trends.

Nations that turn will be shaken not stirred, as happened to Judah to enable it to escape Assyria and persist through history. But it can be a delicate thing.

What kind of change would be virtuous and pincipled?

Margaret Thatcher spoke against socialism in an era where that was more appropriate, but she parenthicised her distaste for the worst traits of socialism, namely laziness, opting out, abdication or indifference - you know, the kind of patterns we also see in capitalism.

But anyone who arbitrarily disavows socialism is out of touch. Its simply not sustainable for 70% of our fellow humans to face such deplorable disadvantages. And arguing that as symptomatic of laziness is nonsense. Its far more complex than that.

Poverty is not simply due to laziness. Whoever holds that view ought to reopen their bibles, because there are all kinds of reasons for poverty - indeed, Hekekiah could barely feed his beleaguered people after they defied Sennacherib, but not because they were lazy.

No one can tell me capitalism is virtuous. It can be profoundly evil (as can socialism), but capitalism feeds on greed, materialism and power. It has now shifted income disparity, even in the US, to 75% of wealth in the hands of 20%. How can that be sustained?

So, a shake-up in all of that is inevitable - and with nations in upheaval over such disparities and the joblessness created by Covid-19, the shaking is underway. Only those who can navigate the uncertainty and rebuild on sound foundations will endure.

What will fall will be the social veneer, the wood, hay and stubble of a society built on cheap materials that lose value so quickly. So much of western society is shallow, empty, cheap and over-commercialised.

The gold, silver and precious stones specifically speak of enduring faith, duly tried and refined in the fire of struggle. But speaking more broadly it alludes to the stuff behind the veneer, namely our humanity, our timeless and tried values and our precious communities.

The regression of the two kings takes us back to the nub.

Many nations will be like the northern kingdom of Israel, so consumed with their own follies that they are overtaken by that and taken captive by their own desires to be assimilated into a new amalgam of nations, a final superpower comprising former nations.

But not all will walk that path, including but not limited to the forgotten third world. The old club of America, the UK, her Commonwealth allies and other nations far removed from main events, could choose a different path, but they face significant choices right now.

Who knows, the current US elections may present that nation with a last, tenuous opportunity to shed itself of the rotten core that has tried so hard to drag that nation down the dark path of extremist-dominated nationalism or a possible dictatorship.

I am not predicting anything. Nor did prophets of old always predict the inevitable, but they warned of what could happen and sketched their choices. Thus, even Nineveh was temporarily saved by the intervention of Jonah even though he thought they were toast.

What is almost certain is that the global geopolitical status is busy changing and will face significant but also painful change that will suck many nations into a political vortex that will draw a dark shroud over them. But not all nations will share that.

Forces are also tugging at Britain to stay in Europe. It is quite possible if not likely, given Britain's defiance of European consolidation throughout history, that they will go it alone and face the kind of pains that Hezekiah faced, to ultimately emerge better off.

The bottom line.

It is politically naive to think that the issues of our time are about abortion or other narrow perspectives. That matters, sure, I wish for change in such things.

But by far the most compelling issues facing us are existential choices that will be decided by thin margins. Those who choose well, in terms of elected representation, morality, justice and equality, will give themselves a chance to transcend the chaos.

The alternative will be a deviant form of universality involving: a form of socialism where all are equally poor and wretched, not the disadvantaged lifted up; and a nihilist amalgam of race, gender and nationality, instead of dignified racial or gender equality of opportunity.

Why do I think it could be so? Because extremists to the left and right may speak differently, but they share a common sense of exclusion and victimisation that refuses to rise above itself but prefers to bring everything down to its level of failure.

Before us all are the kinds of choices that shape history, the kind that Elijah imposed on Israel long before the axe fell, when he asked them "choose this day who you will serve?" They chose right then, but stayed on course to disaster. Lets not do the same.

The Azeri-Armenian conflict is threatening to internationalise

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 07:13:00 +0000

The concerns I have previously voiced about the conflict turning into a regional one, are now being voiced by world leaders.

At the apparent heart of the conflict is the Nagorno-Kahabakh region that is occupied by Armenians but was ceded by the British to Azerbaijan.

For many years Paris, Washington and Moscow have tried to broker peace arrangements between the two belligerents, but now that is being defied as fighting passes the two-week mark and enters towns and cities.

The wild-card in all of this is, to my mind, one of the most reckless and dangerous demagogues around right now: Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan.

He has taken sides with Islamic Azerbaijan and positioned Turkish fighter-planes there, in a deliberate act of interference that has raised temperatures and stoked the fires of war. The French have accused Turkey of internationalising the conflict.

Turkey has a long-standing grudge against its Christian neighbors, that dates back to the 1920 pogrom against Armenians, so their interference is making Armenia the more angry - after all they have 1.5 million reasons to despise Turkey.

Now Iran, already in a clench over existing sanctions, a pandemic and the anouncement of further US sanctions overnight, is raising the alarm about being sucked into the conflict. They cannot afford that. It would be the last straw for them.

Moscow is, ironically, symapthetic to Georgia and Armenia as they share Eastern Orthodox roots. As such, Putin has warned Turkey to stay out of it. But they, as yet, have not budged either. And all the while, the conflict rages on.

Undoubtedly, Azerbaijan is more powerful, bigger and better financed, so this could just result in Armenia being humbled, but they are not showing any concern for that as they fight tooth and nail for what they believe should always have been their own territory.

They are probably right. The partitioning by Britain was arbitrary and they made similar mistakes over the Kashmir and in Transjordan. Indeed, they may have set up a lot of the conflicts that still rage in that part of the world.

Currently only 320 souls have died, mainly military personnel, which is way short of the 30,000 that died in the 1991-1994 war. But this still has all the potential to erupt into a major event and it doesn't help that the US is raising the heat right now with further sanctions.

I am not alone in saying that US policy in the region is way off kilter.

It is irrational and doing more harm than good. The UN and EU are both at odds with US policy. Iran is still allowing nuclear inspections and would do far better being negotiated from its current position on disarmerment than in being forced into a corner.

The situation in northern Syria that has allowed Turkey to expand its role and to start bossing the region, was also instigated by the US and it will all, ultimately, inflame the region and put at risk the one small nation that US policy has tried so hard to protect, namely Israel.

If Iran collapses under the current weight, I am not sure I will shed too many tears for what I regard as a deplorable regime. I understand US antipathy for them. But there are better ways of securing peace than what now threatens to spiral out of control.

US policy is also likely to paint Syria into a corner. But when people are cornered and have their backs to walls, they tend to become irrational and dangerous. Its always best to calm things down and negotiate a more sensible outcome.

But where reason fails, radicalism thrives. And that will overheat the conflict into a madness that could be very hard to contain and could get well out of hand. Dangerous players are likely already smelling the chance to turn this to their advantage (notably ISIS, who need a fillip).

As mentioned before, this is the region and these are the nations foreseen by Ezekiel 38 as the Gog-Magog confederation that will turn on Israel. The biggest player in that is also predicted to be Russia, who stand to gain significant strategic leverage if they play it right.

Russia is already well entrenched in Syria and maintains a significant military presence in that nation. But the two nations in conflict are potentially a gateway for a future military intrusion by that country into the Middle East. If Iran also falls, they will have a veritable highway.

This situation may well be brought under control and I so hope it does, but bigger wars have been started by the follies and unthinking actions of smaller players. I hope leaders keep their cool and pull this mess back together again.

Kyrgyzstan appears to have capitulated

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 08:07:00 +0000

The sudden, drastic reaction of Kyrgyzstanis, to a compromised election, has resulted in a storming of government buildings.

Prime Minister Boronov has resigned and the election has been nullified. It happened so quickly that most of the world barely saw it happening.

Hopefully the nation will restage its elections and return to order. But the demonstrators learnt a lesson that may well have leaders of other nations shaking in their boots. Maybe the standoff in Belarus could be informed by these events as well.

It could, of course, in any other circumstance, have gone off the rails and devolved to a dangerously violent standoff between the opposing sides.

In America, the gun lobby clings to gun rights for fear of what a future government might yet impose on its people. But in truth, if push came to shove, the state could suppress such an uprising. It might be political folly to do so, but the power balance is well in favor if the state.

The point I wish to make is that states do have significant power in most contexts and they could well unleash all their power if order is severely threatened. Its not happened much in recent history, but Germany did utterly suppress the people in World War 2.

What worries me potentially more, although both options in the debate are equally worrying, is that the effectiveness of runaway demonstrations may embolden other groups around the world to go for broke and defy their authorities, to overturn governments.

That's fine, if the government is rotten and if free and fair elections follow to restore order and sound government in what would be a just cause.

But in so much of life, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. That masses can overthrow governments like that, points to the real risk of popular uprisings not just dethroning existing authorities but setting themselves up as new authorities.

That could have happened in the French Revolution, but powerful forces restored order and stabilise the republic. The masses don't know how to rule themselves, but they also may have no power against an overt ruler, which their destabilising actions may well bring to power.

Churchill said: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect and all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst for of Government except for all the others".

And he was right. Anarchy is definitely worse and what follows that, namely autocracy or totalitarianism, is even worse. But whenever power does implode as has now happened in Kyrgyzstan, power vacuums will draw in disparate players as was starting to happen when outsiders gatecrashed US racial riots.

Kyrgyzstan is a poor, small, fragile nation, but most big expirements start on a small scale and lessons learnt at scale are then applied to real-world programs. But don't underestimate how both states and poltical groupings might eye what has just happened.

It could lead to violently oppressive governments or equally oppressive mob rule, but either way nations can be rapidly destabilised and overrun by cynical forces if democracy fails.

Its happening in Lebanon too. The big explosion there led to a bigger implosion of government and a devolution of order that risks returning the nation to its former conflict status, where powerful warlords overtake all order and become the law in that place.

I hate to say it, but the US elections, while being far better insulated from such outcomes by the organs of state and a robust democracy, could face a constitutional crisis that will awaken the militants if the results are not accepted. They are already on "stand-by".

I would like to think its unlikely, but its not impossible. And that is not my view. I am referencing what I have read across multiple news channels and informed political opinion about the potential risks in the elections and the complex processes that would trigger.

The pandemic's best friend right now is political folly

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 06:27:00 +0000

Covid-19 has become a political football.

Its like watching couples fight over the custody of a child, while turning it into a football and so harming the very thing they both so want to protect, but can't because of egos.

In Sweden, a nation that boasted of a consistently minimalist approach to lockdowns and voluntary isolations, a resurge is forcing them question whether its compliant society can achieve herd-immunity or maintain safe distancing.

But it has somewhat painted itself into a corner by trying to rest on its laurels or live up to the symbolic image it has cultivated in the minds of lockdown dissenters. It risks losing face, so has taken a compromise position by urging at least one week of self-isolation, if positive.

In the UK, the worst hit nation in Europe, Boris Johnson dragged his heels over responsiveness, to pursue political priorities. But now what they put off has come back to bite them badly and it has cost Johnson all the poll gains that Covid once gave him.

In Brazil, where Bolsanaro just did nothing and is still doing little more than that, because that is his political ideal, almost 5 million were infected and 150,000 died. The disease has moderately tapered in the advancing summer, but a resurge is inevitable.

But no nation has had it worse than the USA with almost 8 million cases and 215,000 deaths. Yet, partisanship is so intense that the virus became the football that has detracted from the objectives of the game, which is about closing ranks to save lives.

However, no one has done more to make it such a football than the US president, who having tested positive, defied all medical wisdom, refused to self-isolate, shed his mask and ignored the fact that the virus is now rampant in the White House.

It completely baffles me. He had such an opportunity to show dignity, humility and face-saving grace at a time when the nation felt most empathetic towards him. Why stomp on that to make it all worse? Anyway, sure, its not limited to him.

Massive pressure has been exerted on Big-Pharma to derive a viable vaccine before 3 November. I guess it will happen, but making that a poltical football risks major judgment errors that could result in a flawed vaccine and the potential to make matters far worse.

Russia is starting to roll out its own rush-job solution, so for once I am starting to tilt in favor of vaccine dissenters. I am okay with vaccines in principle, but if it is badly developed I would be disinclined to put my family at risk.

I suspect many others will do likewise, so either it will fail in use or it will fail due to low take-up. Either way the polticians are shooting their feet.

The bible does predict a pandemic that could wipe out a third of humanity.

Some would argue that it happened with the Great Plague, which coincidentally is now on high-level alert in China due to a surge of bubonic plague infections, rat deaths and so on.

If not the plague, then the more likely candidate in history was Smallpox, which killed hundreds of millions but was stopped by vaccines. No that is not likely to resurge, unless vaccines lose all credibility in society.

I really don' know how things will play out, but this I do read between the lines, that when the pawpaw finally hits the fan it will not be because some obscure, sinster group of elites did this to us, but because humans brought it all on themselves.

It must be so for God to judge it justly. And it will be confirmed to be the choice of a majority by the taking of an identification mark.

The world is entering a phase of serious global crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:01:00 +0000

The political temperature is rising all over the planet as leaders try to dominate and the people rise against that.

The latest is Kyrgyzstan where another disputed election that only saw parties aligned to President Jeenbekov make it into parliament. Seems the people saw right through that.

But unlike Belarus, where a standoff persists amid sanctions and ongoing demonstrations against Europe's last dictator, Kyrgyzstanis have stormed parliament. Maybe the people watched the peaceful demonstrations in Belarus and said, "not for us".

Few violent uprisings persist because they fail to draw the majority of society, so the Belarus protests have enjoyed broad support at home and abroad, with a growing respect for the opposition leader.

Well, whatever, Kyrgyzstan is in trouble. Its a small, poor relic of the Soviet Union that sits on the border of China and its large neighbor, Kazakhstan. The people are probably not just inflamed by a corrupt election but by a history of poor governance.

Then there is a major conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh disputed region, that has now taken warring into the cities. A truce was attempted, but the rage runs too deep. However, Turkey is threatening to tilt the odds against Armenia.

Russia is evidently not going to allow that, for Putin is empathetic to Orthodox Christianity. But in any case, he would want to control the game, which he can do but holding both Georgia and Armenia close, which would force Muslim nations to negotiate the future with Russia.

Turkey on the other hand is stirring trouble in Greek maritime territories and in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, so that is a challenge that could fester into a nasty situation. For now the nation abides Erdogan, but if sanctions come they will riot too. Iran is already at the edge and could implode soon due to the virus and choking US sanctions.

Chile, Peru and Spain are also facing unrest over various issues. But Germany has seen some severe pushback over the virus and both it and France are facing a menacing rise in far-left and far-right political power.

Not far away, Belgium has now settled a 500 day, 16 month stalled election outcome with a 7-party coalition that locked out the two parties that dominated the election, to give power to a hotchpotch of Greens, Liberals and Socialists.

But the so-called 'Vivaldi Coalition' has tried to appease the Flemish (Dutch) and Wallonia (French) communities, which it is unlikely to sustain with a liberal Flemish PM. It is almost inevitable that Belgium is heading for a split along its political fault line.

And of course the US is facing ongoing racial tensions and may well be headed into a political storm in the November elections. Actually, whatever happens, is unlikely to bode well for the immediate future of that nation. But the UK is also facing disquiet from Extinctionists.

So is there a common thread in all of this?

One obvious common thread is that people are becoming increasingly emboldened and ever more cynical about being governed at all. That is leading to a breakdown of order in the world that will devolve to mob rule and lawlessness that will eventually devolve to a new order.

The resentment of formal government control, order and social intervention, is typically a right-wing cause, which I do not mean cynically. That is just their world-view. Far-right elements are more anxious to impose that agenda, but to replace it with what?

Other causes are the growing income disparities in many nations. America is clearly sitting on a time-bomb in that regard, but its an issue in many nations. People are wanting change and that change is likely to impose a broader socialist footprint on our world.

Why do I say that? Because socialism is perceived to be the logical way to eliminate income disparity. It won't make nations richer, but will make everyone equally poorer. Yet, for the current disadvantaged from the far-left and far-right that is their common ground.

Another burning issue is corruption. Thankfully, and I hope not too late, corruption cases are erupting in South Africa. The existing administration is consolidating against former corrupt players and bringing them to book. It is a good sign. I hope it persists.

But corruption is a global concern. And not far behind that is a rising concern among peoples for the impacts of climate change. But all of those issues are being aggravated by the pandemic. Its set fear and anger in the hearts of many.

Trouble is coming.

The next six months will be a deeply trying time for nations. Especially in the North. The virus is pushing nations back into lock down and that will raise temperatures and agitate the people to rise against their governments.

The fear of control is almost certainly misguided. Governments of the world are genuinely trying to find a way through the storm that Covid-19 has caused. Its not the devil we know that nations should be worried about but the devil we don't know.

For, out of all the confusion and unrest that is shaking nations will arise a dark force that will exploit the broken play. It has happened so often in history. And that will promise things like socialism, but it will destroy freedom and impose offensive control.

Just think of the similarities between our current world and the environment that allowed Hitler to take control of Weimar and then subjugate the nations of Europe. His entire strategy relied on chaos and disorder, but was answered with oppressive control.

It does not look good. Trouble is at the door. Hebrews 12:26 predicted a shaking of the world so that which can stand may endure and that which can't may fall away. But evidently churches that have built with wood, hay or stubble face similar times of brokenness.

President Trump returns to the White House

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 04:35:00 +0000

If I was a CEO and had tested positive, but chose to defy all that and go back to work, how would you regard me?

You ought to regard me as reckless and selfish. But if I did so after eleven of my colleagues also tested positive, you would call it downright irresponsible.

In March, an overweight, straw headed, controversial and outspoken Boris Johnson tested positive but tried to defy the odds by soldiering on, although at least he self-isolated. He also 'tweeted' that thanks to advanced technology he was doing fine and had mild symptoms.

In Seoul, one woman who refused to be tested for CV-19, went to a mega church and became the vector for a major outbreak involving thousands. That's how rampant the virus is. Its not something to be familiar with or to underestimate.

Well thanks to everything he did or didn't do, Johnson's government was affected, but after a week or so, despite his denials, his condition deteriorated until he was admitted to ICU. He is still battling with long-term effects.

When the virus hit the UK, his ratings rose to 50% but now they are in steady decline as his own mismanagement of the crisis has left the UK with the worst case history in Europe.

Of course, the one key difference between him and President Trump, is that the latter is in the final month of a tense election season. Its not easy to let go.

And sure, I get that. The problem is that the crisis is of his own making. He has never taken the pandemic seriously but has consistently down-played it, ignored advisors and manipulated the news to claim he has done a fantastic job.

To add to all that, the latest White House wave likely happened in what some have dubbed a "super-spreader event" when a gathering in the Rose Garden, without masks or distancing, evidently led to a wave of infections.

He had a small window of opportunity to reframe the crisis by taking more responsibility for it. Had he come out of his brief encounter duly humbled and willing to talk more openly about the risks to his people, his ratings would have risen, materially. But that window is already shut.

Both gentlemen have put their nations at severe risk. I was always told that a man's character is proved in crisis, which leaves me questioning character in both of them. Has this not been the truest test of their fitness for office? But then again, who really got it right?

Ah well, I am sure those who are loyal to Trump will stay loyal, for his core base has consistently maintained a minimum support level of about 42/43%.

I heard yesterday that he has privately disparaged his evangelical supporters while publicly endorsing them, but the commentary said that evangelicals were unfazed by that as their priorities relate to abortion and other things they have pressed into Trump's agenda.

Well maybe. I get that too. I understand their repugnance for abortion and I accept that they have fought for too long to be derailed by Trump himself. I sincerely get that. I am not sure what they get with the deal, but I get them anyway.

And even though I read news across the spectrum, from left to right, I accept that there is always noise in the news and a bias that makes it really hard at times to discern fact from fiction. The hospitalization of Trump has been truly tough to contextualize.

Well, whatever, maybe the US is seeing a slow decline in infection and deaths, so maybe it will yet sort itself out, yet the northern world is also seeing a rise in cases as winter advances, while the southern world is recovering.

Its certainly not a time to take off masks as Trump did in a renewed and hardened defiance of the pandemic in the face of 210,000 deaths.

Rather, I think the situation calls for safe hands, sober leadership, wise statesmanship and sound management of a crisis, the likes of which none of us have ever seen before.

The US president may be sick, but the saga around that may need to go into ICU

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 04:58:00 +0000

Its really sad to see how, no matter what the subject is, Trump and his White House insist on making matters worse.

I would think that the White House is staffed and equipped, through decades of media experience, to handle anything it faces, with sensibility.

But everything now turns into a saga. And as fast as they try to wriggle out of the truth they get caught out by an equally robust press corps.

I am sure the press are no angels. Churchill felt their sting 80 years ago, but said even then that "politicians complaining about the press are like sailors complaining about the sea".

He also said, "a free press is the sleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.

But over the past century, most governments, especially the US, have learned how to manage the press, professionally. After all, both parties are represented by professionals. Instead the current administration shot itself in the foot by offending the press.

Anyway, let me not digress. The fact is just that everything around Trump's illness is being mismanaged. And, as such, an issue that has been denied and downplayed, has struck back to reclaim center-stage in the current election debate.

Its hard to know what to make of it all, but where other media channels failed, the Hindustan news made three points - firstly, Trump's support will hold, at around 42%, secondly that mismanagement of this event confirms a dysfunctional administration and thirdly that the virus is once again become a primary election factor.

Global markets are affected by it. The continuity of state is affected by it. The latest Supreme Court nomination is likely to be affected by it. And the election is definitely affected.

So the news is mixed. His physicians say he is doing well enough to be discharged today. His chief of staff immediately told the press another story. Then to counter that, Trump went on a ride-about in a secret-service vehicle, to wave at his supporters and show he is okay.

But the resentment that is building relates to his cynical response to the pandemic. He has never taken it seriously, has mismanaged everything around it and broken trust, but now the virus that would not be put down is confirming his own misjudgments.

Quite a few WH staffers are also positive, so one would think that even if he does recover quickly it would be wise to be humbled by the disease and to use the immediate crisis to reset the messaging around it. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen.

Instead, the saga continues like something from a soap opera or a Netflix series. They just cannot or will not carry off anything with quiet dignity, honesty and professionalism.

Not even the second-in-succession, the House Speaker, is being properly informed. But if that is so, then no one can blame the public for assuming the worst. If there was good news, surely that would be told, but denial of information hints at bad news.

The fact is that the nation is responding with the greater dignity. The Biden campaign eliminated all negative campaigning and US society in general has toned down criticism in a genuine show of empathy and support.

Why not then reciprocate and use the moment to win over what have been strident critics, by reimagining the news cycle and giving the kind of feedback the nation is evidently needing?

Well, sorry, its all I can say. Not even Trump's most supportive news channel, Fox, has anything to report, let alone anything positive. And that is playing out in the closing phases of a turbulent election season that hinges on every misstep that the players make.

Oh well, I just hope it works out okay. I am still inclined to say that the president will recover and bounce back, maybe not as fast as he would like, but not as slow as some suggest.

The pieces are slowly falling into place in the Middle East

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 07:31:00 +0000

A war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has erupted over the disputed highlands of Nogorno-Karabakh.

Like the disputed Kashmir which is claimed in various aspects by India, Pakistan and China, the current dispute has a long history.

Interestingly, the etymology of the highlands is Black-Garden. Immediately south of it, where the Tigris and Euphrates meet near the Persian Gulf was the garden of Eden.

That garden was the proverbial Pandora's box of history, the cradle of nations and the confluence of the two dominant religious themes of this world, deism and paganism.

But you need to see the map below to see that the region occupies the path that links Russia to Iran and the middle east. It is also a link for China and India.

The overall region is called the Caucasus because both nations lie along the southern flank of the Caucasus mountains, home to Europe's highest peak (5,600m Elbrus).

The Caucasus was the traditional watershed of nations. Of Noah's three sons, Japheth crossed the mountains and fathered the northern people, which the bible collectively calls the kings of the north.

Indeed, the eponymous Caucasian people of Europe, with their fairer, non-middle-eastern skin tones, hail from that cradle.

The conflict started when Joseph Stalin integrated the trans-Caucasian nations of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan into the Soviet Union.

That was disputed then through a number of smallish wars, resulting in the Karabakh enjoying a degree of autonomy. But the Turkish Ottomans occupied the territory towards the end of World War 1 following Armenia's annexation of Eastern Turkey.

Turkey reversed that, but it resulted in one of the bloodiest pogroms of history which claimed up to 1.5 million Armenian lives and brought untold misery to a nation that has had stilted growth compared to its bigger, more powerful neighbor. Indeed, they are caught in a cleft.

But the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of the war so ending Turkey's occupation of Armenia, but Britain muddied the waters as sadly she often did, by placing the Karabakh under Azerbaijani administration. That set up a long stand-off of simmering tensions.

Now Turkey, which is becoming increasingly expansive in its territorial ambitions in the Med and in Syria, is looking eastwards at a conflict that seems ripe for exploitation. Who knows, maybe the conflict was instigated by Turkey and/or Russia. All I know is that Turkey has stationed its own F16 fighters in Azerbaijan.

There is little hope for Armenia in this as they are a third of the size of Azerbaijan and as a Christian majority nation they are prejudiced by Turkey's pro-Muslim preference for Azerbaijan.

Iran, another Muslim nation is to the south, leaving only Georgia, a minor power but a strong Orthodox Christian nation, to support it from the north. As such, Armenia is at risk of being a pawn sacrificed to a bigger cause.

Its early days, but I see it all through the eyes of Ezekiel.

His famous prophecy in chapter 38, predicts a coalescence of nations involving Russia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, in a future war against Israel.

Russia would see Armenia as a strategic corridor worth trading with Turkey and Azerbaijan, for they have no other direct route to the Middle East. They would not want to go through Turkey but the large Caspian sea is to the east, so they have a relatively narrow corridor.

Yesterday I read that Iran may be on the brink of economic collapse due to a rampant Covid-19 outbreak and crushing US sanctions. That may well set the region alight and raise the stakes. If so, Russia will not only become a major player, she will likely lock out the US.

And if the US is locked out, the flow of oil from that region will dry up and cause major problems in the USA. Russia is ambitious enough and well poised to exploit the loose-play in the region, which is one big reason why Putin prefers a Trump presidency.

It may be too late for the US to reclaim its presence in the region, but if not the window is closing fast.

If Iran falls any time soon, the entire region will realign and that will leave an already vulnerable Israel without much cover.

Worse yet, China's dispute in the Kashmir, may well open an even narrower corridor through Afghanistan, should they wish to enter the fray over the significant oil prize that will fall to whichever superpower wins it. So a major war is possible if not likely in the future.

Look, I don't know if Ezekiel 38 is about to be fulfilled. I don't know a lot of things. All I know is that what is happening in the Middle East and in Washington portends a very unsettling period in our world, one that may well see Europe rise to super-power status.

Covid-19 trumps the White House

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 06:15:00 +0000

After months of denial, squabbles over masks and obfuscation, the US president, his wife and some advisors have tested positive.

I am sure that like Boris Johnson, they will recover. The level of care he will receive will be far superior to what most of us can get.

But he has been reckless. He is in a high-risk category, at 74 and with obesity as a co-morbidity. That is a dangerous combination.

Two of my clients contracted the virus and were profoundly ill, yet in both cases they were younger and healthier.

The one reported just lying on the floor as his children waited on him and his wife.

I can't speak for the other client, but a world-class epidemiologist in the UK, who had previously been involved with Ebola and other major illnesses, without getting ill, knew he had it when he woke with a pounding headache, fever and impaired breath.

He described how painful it was to lie in silence, in a room full of other patients, unable to speak or think for 3 or more weeks. But he also confirmed a long recovery period that affected his walking, his energy levels and other aspects of his health.

Now that is the truth that a leader should be airing and managing. Denying is not a recognized treatment regime for CV-19 and I am sure Trump's other therapies won't apply now.

It is undoubtedly a blow to his presidential campaign at a time when his opponent has built a significant war chest that will likely be spent over the next four weeks through waves of media messages. Indeed, even if he got ill, that kind of campaigning could continue.

So, after Tuesday's appalling debate, the tide in this see-saw election has turned again. Its a bit like watching a boxing match going all 12 rounds.

The opponents have circled each other, danced in and out of reach, laid some blows but without any knock-outs, and withdrawn again to their corners. Maybe it will be a points decision, but the chance of a decisive knock-out blow cannot be discounted.

I thought that the death of Ginsberg might be decisive and it certainly did boost Trump's polls by 1%. Indeed, it might be enough to tilt battleground states like Florida and Texas.

I can understand why. The long denied dream of achieving a reversal of Roe v Wade came somewhat closer as the president was given the chance to achieve a generational shift in the Supreme Court. I really get that. For many Trump supporters that is all that matters.

I do, however, worry that the price of that may prove to be astonishingly high as the bathwater that goes with the baby is not mere bathwater, it is a screed of profoundly serious issues that may look like grey water or grey issues but have brought our world to the edge.

Anyway, as said, I am sure the president will recover. He is in surprisingly good health and is certainly resilient. But, no doubt it will keep him from public campaigning.

But watch this space.

There are likely to be a few more twists to this drama. Don't forget that Clinton was leading right up to the moment that the FBI head spoke of a new investigation into her emails, within the last week of the 2016 campaign.

With active interference from Russia and potentially others, to my mind a disruptive moment in this election is inevitable.

But even if it doesn't happen before election day, an electoral crisis is looming. The scenarios are grim but too technical to recount here.

If the results are disputed (you may recall Bush disputed the Florida results against Gore and won by a slender margin in a state that could be decisive once more), all kinds of machinations will come into play to deliver a final result that will be unfair to someone.

This is the most momentous election I have witnessed and it will have grave implications for global order, international peace, climate issues and the world economy.

China's sticks and carrots are starting to pay off in terms of global influence

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Missing) — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 06:20:00 +0000

It seems like China is starting to fill the void left by a reluctant US.

In recent UN debates, China has been winning the PR war. Over the Hong Kong issue, China secured 53 votes for its position, largely because so many members who previously stood with the US have since been offended by Trump.

Indeed, the US didn't even lead the counter-vote. Britain did. But they only secured 27% of votes in opposition to China's patently offensive action in Hong Kong. It was the first real sign that the US has lost its dominant influence in the UN.

Its not just in that arena either, I must add. The US lost support for Iran sanctions too, but China is winning support across the planet with its belt and road initiative.

That is a remarkably smart strategy. Belt implies a recovery of ancient land-based trade routes, while road alludes to sea-trade.

Its smart because it turns inflows into the Chinese economy into outflows of capital funding to a wide range of nations. That keeps the Yen stable and protects its export propensity, but it also buys it favor and influence among nations. And finally, it also builds up a store of value that will flow back into China as a reserve, in years to come, when the US is weaker.

The US policy of putting itself first, well under Trump anyway, has marginalized its influence in the world. It has also built too much debt to be able to participate meaningfully in the kind of funding projects that are now boosting China's global influence.

China is now also winning on a second front, by raising its own bar on emissions and climate mitigation. That is winning it support among old enemies, maybe for no other reason than that the US chose to exit the Paris accord or to remain skeptical of climate change.

All that aside, the greatest reason why China is gaining global influence, is because the US keeps putting its foot in things. The White House has managed to offend most nations, but notably its greatest allies.

Where will that lead?

Well the US was a reluctant entrant into the first and second world wars, so they have never really been keen to use their massive military capability. But now the world is tilting away from them and even Europe is starting to go it alone.

Make no mistake, the US has played a massive role in global geo-politics, both in restraining renegade nations and in holding back the darkness that threatens world order.

I have no doubt that US influence has also been a major moral check on global politics. They also defended Israel and held the Middle East together, while defying some of the most despotic regimes on earth. But they are losing ground, fast.

Given all that, I can see why Russia is so desperate to help Trump win a second term. If anything, they are even more ambitious than China and have a technological advantage in military hardware. Indeed, Russia has often been better at that than the US.

But Putin would very much like to expand his footprint. Obama stalled him, but Trump not only allowed him, he helped him by cancelling the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and by withdrawing military support for Germany. Putin definitely prefers more of Trump.

China is asserting that it wants less of Trump, as US trade sanctions have hurt them. Trump also seems to have clipped their wings in terms of global influence. But I suspect that China still sees better options with Trump, as that opens up its scope of influence.

Whatever, there is a worrying eastward shift in geopolitical power that can no longer be stabilized by the US, well not by the current administration anyway. That, in turn, will drive Europe into an increasingly assertive role until they fill the void left by the US.

If dark forces do manipulate world affairs as conspiratorialists claim, then I am tempted to say what even sober-minded journalists have said, that for Europe to assume center stage again, it needs the US and the UK out of the way. That is now happening.

The first formal signal of all that is the understated but symbolic engagement of the "European Army" in the Sahel zone on the southern flank of the Sahara. Its the first time that the term has been used.

It may well be messy now, but France has for some time been punting the idea of a united European Army, after Trump started to withdraw support from Europe and NATO.

Germany is likely to buy into that more as things develop, but Europe still faces an uphill struggle in the Sahel due to lack of coordination. That will alert European leaders to the risks of independent armies in Europe, which will lead to greater consolidation.

If there is a conspiratorial twist to all of that, then Trump (possibly knowingly) played a role in both masking global agendas and in bringing Europe to center-stage.

If so, then his next role will be to suppress US involvement with his US-first policies and, as political commentators now fear, totalitarian rule and an end to democracy.

I don't want to go that far. Its too alarmist. But in all that noise lies the reason why Trump may well win, whether by legitimate ballot or by defying the results of the upcoming elections. That may sound alarmist, but respected journalists have started sounding such alarm bells.

Forgive me though. I do not in any way want to be conspiratorial or alarmist. I actually respect that there is a genuine counter-thrust happening in the US that, on-paper anyway, appears to be heading for a peaceful, democratic win in November.

I hope so, because if that doesn't happen, far-right and far-left movements in the US, Europe and elsewhere will be emboldened and world order will be severely challenged.