We specialize in
selected topics and in-depth research.
By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
For your own comments about related subjects, you can
contact us via: ericvandenbroeck1969@gmail.com
21 April 2021: Following is an analysis of positive thinking,
self-help, and certain strands of modern Psychology. As we will see some
psychologists see the present limitations of their field clearly. We also
indicate how an ascendant power elite defined by the concurrent drives to do
well and do good, to change the world while also profiting from the status quo.
It consists of enlightened businesspeople and their collaborators in the worlds
of charity, academia, media, government, and think tanks. So what is with Psychological science?
18 April 2021: Enchanted determinism explains newspaper headlines
such as ‘Can algorithms prevent suicide?’ or ‘can AI read emotions?’ Nobody has
come close to such remarkable results, yet the dream that a machine can read
emotions or stop people from ending their life is stronger than ever. These
illusions distract from the far more relevant questions: Whom do these systems
serve? What are the political economies of their construction? And what are
the wider planetary consequences? In part two of dismantling Artificial
Intelligence's myths (AI), we look, among others at, the new Mappa Mundi? AI, the Myth of Clean Tech, AI and algorithmic
exceptionalism, games without frontiers, facial recognition, and language
prediction. Dismantling the myths of
AI Part Two.
16 April 2021: Context is as important for Artificial
Intelligence(AI) as it is for people. Just like people need to orient when
looking for answers (you don’t look for iPhone solutions in a car repair
manual), AI's data source requires curation and context. For sure is, data
governance is more important than ever. What data is owned by the organization?
What can be done with it? What are the data sources, and how is it being
consumed or translated by other systems and processes? How well is data being
leveraged to produce value for the enterprise and the customer? How can data
issues be addressed and remediated? Dismantling the
myths of AI.
15 April 2021: Last week, UNESCO commemorated the Rwandan
genocide against the Tutsis. 27 years ago the Rwandan genocide erupted
following the plane crash of then-President Juvenal Habyarimana. For the next
100 days, armed militias engaged in a killing spree against the ethnic minority
Tutsis and moderate Hutus. In total, some 800,000 people died. The French, who
were allies of the Hutu government under Habyarimana, had sent a special force
to evacuate their citizens and set up safe zones. Although they witnessed the
horror all around them, to this day, they are accused of having done very
little to stop the killing. Major
Case Study. Investigating the real story behind
the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis.
14 April 2021: Yesterday Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said
the island will defend itself "to the very last day" if attacked by
China. While yesterday the U.S. blacklists seven Chinese supercomputing
entities citing national security concerns. Accidental war and territorial
sovereignty. Part Seven Can a potential future Pacific War be
avoided?
12 April 2021:
5 April 2021: Because so many people in Myanmar supported the
military's 2017 slaughter of Rohingya, the generals seem to have concluded that
they can get away with shooting people in Myanmar whom they don't like, such as
pro-democracy protesters.
Only concerted pressure can get
the generals to talk to the civilians and thereby put Myanmar onto a less
ruinous path. The alternative is a failed state at the heart of Asia. What next with Myanmar.
3 April 2021: Chinese military aircraft simulated missile attacks
on a US aircraft carrier during an incursion into Taiwan’s air defence zone three days after Joe Biden’s inauguration,
according to intelligence from the US and its allies.The
revelations highlight that the intense military competition between the two
superpowers around Taiwan and the South China Sea has not eased, posing a
challenge to any attempts the Biden administration might make to improve US
relations with Beijing. Part Six Can a potential future Pacific War be
avoided?
1 April 2021: At the heart of the conflict between the United
States and Japan during the 1930s was the importance of two competing ideologies
of world order, liberal internationalism and Pan-Asianist
regionalism. From the Manchurian crisis of 1931 up through fruitless
negotiations in the fall of 1941 discord consistently turned on basic
principles about world governance, tied to rising geopolitical stakes. This
also includes the American reception of the Japanese government's efforts
to shape American public opinion in the 1930s through a vigorous program of
cultural diplomacy. By tapping the empire’s cultural riches or “soft power.”
Japan’s leaders hoped to combat negative perceptions in the United States and
legitimize their regionalist aspirations on the continent. Part
Five Can a potential future Pacific War be avoided?
29 March 2021: On Saturday, China and Iran, both subject to
U.S. sanctions, signed a 25-year cooperation agreement. The deal is
expected to increase bilateral trade and military cooperation as US rivals move
to deepen ties. As we will point out, this does not come as a surprise as this
relationship goes back many years. The enduring relationship
between China and Iran.
27 March 2021: Efforts to dislodge stuck Suez Canal ship with tug
boats suspended till today with authorities cannot predict when it may be
dislodged.
26 March 2021: Following the heated debate during the US-China
Alaska meeting, President Joe Biden got a taste of what the next four years may
look like: a new era of bitter superpower competition with China since it
opened diplomatic relations with the United States. This is also where Japanese
and U.S. defense chiefs agreed in their meeting last week to cooperate in the
event of a military clash between China and Taiwan closely. Making it time for
us to continue our multi-article, the purpose of this is too to understand
potentially could lead to a futures second pacific war if China follows up on
its threats to attack Taiwan with as a purpose to take control of what China
terms the South China Sea. Part Four Can a potential future Pacific War be
avoided?
24 March 2021: Based on the invention of Erich von Däniken, whose origins we will explore, with on the side
some remnants of the theories by neo-Nazi's like Ernst Zundel, Wilhelm Landig, and Rudolf J. Mund, who
argued that Nazis invented flying saucers had taken their breakthrough
technology to bases deep under the South Pole, the American History Channel has
a series titled "Ancient Aliens" that claims to explore the
controversial theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for millions of
years from the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Egypt and present what as we
will see can best be described as a sensationalized bricolage. Secret Nazis and the return of the Ancient
Aliens.
16 March 2021: After a year of canceled concerts, closed-door
sporting events, and restricted air travel, vaccine passports are being touted as
a way to quicken the route back to normalcy. But as explained, there are still
some open questions including some reasons for concern. Papers, please, and then:
15 March 2021:
12 March 2021:
On 9 March
Asia Pacific commander Philip Davidson said that China could invade Taiwan in
the next six years and that (as has been clear for sometime
China is the world's rising power while the US is currently a declining power)
Beijing wants to take Washington’s world leadership role by 2050. This comes
after Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on troops to "put all
(their) minds and energy on preparing for war" in a visit to a military
base in the southern province of Guangdong. Following is an overview of the
wider background that led up to the current
situation. Major Case
Study. The lead up to present-day China and the making
of the ChinaTaiwan crisis.
8
March 2021:
5 March 2021: Having aspired to be a member of the civilized community
by adopting the Western political and social norms, the Chinese now discovered
that the nation-state system was not fair and open; rather, it was dominated by
Western powers eager to protect their own interests the Chinese realized that
Westernization alone would not win them recognition in international affairs.
Instead, they focused on recovering national sovereignty through diplomatic
negotiations and treaty revisions. Paradoxically they believed that although
the nation-state system was a tool used by the Western powers to control the
world, the system allowed a discussion of national sovereignty as expounded in
Wilson’s Fourteen Points. To them, the only way to beat the system was to
protect China’s territorial sovereignty. Part Three Can a potential future Pacific War be
avoided?
1 March 2021: Having recently covered; Where will the China/US competition lead the
world? Turning our view to SE Asia China looks the more likely
prize-winner. It is the region’s biggest trading partner and pumps in more
investment than America does. At least one South-East Asian country, Cambodia,
is in effect already a Chinese client state. And none is willing to cross China
by openly siding with America in the superpowers’ many rows. Trade and
investment among the countries of South-East Asia outweigh the business they do
with China. Another mechanism is strengthening ties with other Asian countries
such as Japan and South Korea, one ASEAN has rightly embraced. The rivalry between America and China in
South-East Asia.
27 Feb. 2021: The U.S.-Japan rivalry escalated in the aftermath of
the First World War to the point where the new Republican administration under
President Warren Harding felt that it was necessary to initiate a naval limitation
conference when strategic thinking permeated the Japanese Navy. Of course, the
Japanese Navy was far from being a monolithic entity as illustrated by the
clash between Admiral Katō Tomosaburō
and Vice Admiral Katō Kanji, who differed vastly in
their view of global naval strategy and the future course that Japan should
take. Part Two Can a potential future Pacific War be avoided?
25 Feb. 2021: In the following, we proceed with investigating the
dynamics of modern China, Korea, and a strengthened Japan. The period under
discussion is when the non-Western world focused increasingly upon issues of
race and ethnicity, nationality and sovereignty, and the multiple ways East
Asians formed and re-formed their own realities in the wake of the First World
War. Can
a potential future Pacific War be avoided?
23 Feb. 2021: When President Joe Biden entered the White House
determined to restore the world’s confidence in the United States. That task is
particularly important in context of China. Where will the China/US
competition lead the world?
21 Feb.
2021: The following map
shows the largest trading partner of each European country.
19 Feb. 2021: A subject, we covered extensively further below
China in retrospect now suddenly honors 4 soldiers who died during the Galwan clash,
disproves AltNews’ sly attempts to discredit India’s
claims of Chinese casualties...
7 August 2020: Today the World Health Organization has warned
against “vaccine nationalism”, cautioning richer countries that if they keep
treatments to themselves they cannot expect to remain safe if poor nations
remain exposed. It
is no secret that Scientists fear that the current pandemic could lead to a
geopolitical fight over vaccines. And that ‘vaccine nationalism’ threatens global
plan to distribute COVID-19 shots fairly. But there are also other
approaches. Vaccine Nationalism and its alternatives. 8 August 2020: Beirut explosion: Angry protesters take to
streets 10 August 2020: Tonight, Lebanon's government stepped down, less than
a week after a massive explosion in Beirut killed more than 160 people and
sparked days of violent protests.
13 August 2020: People wash their clothes as Mount Sinabung in
Indonesia spews ash: 17 August 2020: World Population Projections. 21 August 2020: Minsk, Belarus: 22 August 2020: The economy of Colonialism: Major Case Study:
Part one, Part two, Part three. 25 August 2020: Replica of planet earth using NASA imagery goes on
display in the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. 29 August 2020: Unsealed Archives Give Fresh Clues to Pope Pius
XII’s Response to the Holocaust Several documents that have emerged from the
newly opened Vatican Archives on the papacy of Pius XII bolster accusations
of indifference to Jewish suffering, but some scholars say the full picture
has yet to emerge. Major Case
Study: The Vatican
archives and World War II. 3 Sept. 2020: This week, Indian troops moved firmly and preemptively
to stop China’s new attempt at land grabs. China’s People’s Liberation Army
was getting active in areas south of the strategically important Pangong
Lake. But Indians took the heights near Rezang La
and Requin La, allowing
them an unfettered view of a key garrison inside China. The operation was
led by India’s covert Special Frontier Force, which is drawn mostly from Tibetans
whose families escaped Chinese oppression. 10 Sept. 2020: Two Myanmar soldiers have
admitted on video to the mass killing and rape of Rohingya Muslims in 2017.
The video confessions of the two deserters were filmed by a rebel group
fighting the Myanmar military and have been deemed credible by a human rights
group. If the confessions are legitimate, they would represent the first
admissions by members of Myanmar's military that a campaign of violence
against the minority ethnic group took place in the country's western Rakhine
State. The two soldiers are believed to now be in the Hague at the
International Criminal Court where an investigation into the Rohingya crisis
is underway. As for now, there is no obvious end to the ongoing tragedy that faces the Muslim Rohingya
communities of western Myanmar. Yet, with two important international
legal cases underway at the International Court of Justice and the
International Criminal Court, there are now important opportunities to
maintain pressure on Myanmar’s government. Myanmar’s current government – a
fusion of militarist, democratic, ethnic-nationalist, and conservative
interests – has consistently sought to downplay the seriousness of the
situation. This attitude, and the fraught, but politically effective, nexus
between Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and the
military, has done much to encourage a culture of impunity among military and
civilian decision-makers. Nevertheless, with crucial national elections
scheduled for November 2020, and an economy battered by the global COVID-19
shutdown, Myanmar faces a confluence of grave challenges. Under these
conditions, key decision-makers in Naypyitaw may
hope that international scrutiny of violence against the Rohingya will fade.
Given these court actions, however, this is unlikely. Whatever sympathy we
may have for Aung San Suu Kyi’s predicament, she will not recover her
reputation. And she will forever face hard questions about her inability to
prevent, and, more importantly, refusal to condemn, ethnic cleansing. 17 Sept. 2020: Having published an extensive five-part study of
Russian Freemasonry we now like to revisit our earlier topic of Freemasonry
during the fascist era. Nazi Policy on Masons became unequivocal after the
Night of the Long Knives – the savage purge of the SA and other political
enemies. Thereafter, the SS assumed control of the Masonic Question. And in
the spring of 1935, the former Masonic organizations were told to dissolve
themselves completely or be forced to do so. Yet we also will see how and why
Hitler toned down his initial anti-masonic rhetoric. Major Case Study: Freemasonry during the Nazi state. 19 Sept. 2020: Having highlighted Nazi-Germany we next move on
to Spain where there was a belief, shared by all the different forces on the
Nationalist side, that a conspiratorial Masonic influence permeated the
Republic so thoroughly that almost anyone could be an instrument of the
Lodges. An intriguing part of this history as we will see is a spy network
known as APIS, which transmitted dozens of fake Masonic documents. In fact,
one can safely say that APIS was the espionage equivalent of the great Taxil hoax of the late nineteenth century. Major Case Study: The war against
Freemasons in Spain. 21 Sept. 2020: A sense of history has always been crucial to
Freemasonry. But as we have seen all too often, the Masons have squeezed their
history into rosy identity narratives. Freemasonry’s past is as chequered as a Lodge floor. Hence in part one, we saw how
Hitler toned down his initial anti-masonic rhetoric in order to focus
primarily on his Jewish conspiracy theory whereby in Catholic Spain Fascists
were less restrained. In this third part, now we come to our present era with
among others Stephen Knight claims about a Masonic conspiracy, activities
like those of the Ndrangheta, when as recently as
four weeks ago $193m in assets were seized, Dan Brown's masonic musings in
The Lost Symbol, including the role of Freemasonry in British India and the
little, researched influence on Indian Nationalism. Major Case Study: Investigating
Freemasonry today. 25 Sept. 2020: 26 Sept. 2020:
With or
without a vaccine, the coronavirus will remain part of life well into next
year. Alas as I show in the article, some governments (including America’s
and Britain’s) have been botching the job. Terrible as illness, death, and
disruption are in rich countries, COVID-19 is costing poor ones even more. Why governments get COVID-19 wrong. 29 Sept. 2020: 30 Sept. 2020: An Armenian soldier fires artillery during fighting
with Azerbaijan’s forces this while a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down an
Armenian warplane as fighting intensified near the long-disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh region and fears grew of an outbreak of a new, full-scale
war between Armenia and Azerbaijan: 1 Oct. 2020: The United Kingdom and Canada have imposed travel
bans and asset freezes on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, his son,
and other senior officials while French President Emmanuel Macron called for
a "peaceful transition" in the country after he met the exiled
opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in
Lithuania on Tuesday. President Macron also visited a military base with
Lithuania's president on Tuesday: 2 Oct. 2020: The last quarter of 2020 furthermore will be among
others a waiting game -- like for example waiting for the results of the U.S.
election in November, waiting on economic numbers, and waiting to see how the
COVID-19 crisis plays out. 3 Oct. 2020: President Trump was taken to Walter Reed hospital
out of caution after testing positive for Covid-19. At least seven people,
including two U.S. senators, who had attended Saturday’s Rose Garden ceremony
announcing Amy Coney Barrett as President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee have
since tested positive for the coronavirus. The White House on Saturday
created a startling amount of confusion on the timing of President Trump’s
coronavirus diagnosis and the status of his health through conflicting
statements, injecting an extraordinary degree of uncertainty into the
nation’s understanding of the president’s condition and who may have been
exposed to the deadly virus. 8 Oct. 2020: President Trump said he will not
participate in the next presidential debate with Joe Biden after the commission
said it will be held virtually. The Biden campaign rejected
Trump's demand to delay the next two debates. Whereby the other news in
the US was that thirteen people were charged Thursday in
an alleged domestic terrorism plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer, federal and state officials announced. 9 Oct. 2020: Will we ever know the true toll that the
coronavirus pandemic has taken on the globe? We have the tally provided by
Johns Hopkins, but there is no way we can truly know how accurate the numbers
are. This is especially the case in countries in which the numbers are
manipulated to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic. 10 Oct. 2020: -The 2020 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to
the United Nations World Food Programme. “In the
face of the pandemic, the World Food Program has demonstrated an impressive
ability to intensify its efforts,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
said as she announced the prize in Oslo. -'The president is likely toast': Trump's
woes raise GOP fears of a blue wave. -More than 200 people have already been killed in
fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh,
a disputed enclave populated largely by (Christian) Armenians that broke away
from (Muslim) Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union collapsed. Armenia supported it
during a war that killed tens of thousands of people. America and Russia
helped bring about the ceasefire in 1994. But America has almost entirely
abandoned the long, thankless slog of routine peace-maintenance. In a world
where the democratic
superpower is resentful, consumed and distracted, averting wars is far
harder. That is one reason why a recent rise in tension in
the Taiwan Strait is causing alarm. Few expect an imminent Chinese
invasion. But America’s commitment to the defence
of Taiwan cannot be guaranteed. 11 Oct. 2020: India's confirmed coronavirus cases cross 7
million, second after US; last 1 million rise is within the last 13 days. 12 Oct. 2020: The pandemic has created a massive economic
contraction that will be followed by a financial crisis in many parts of the
globe, as nonperforming corporate loans accumulate alongside bankruptcies.
Sovereign defaults in the developing world are also poised to spike. The Coming COVID-19 Economic Crisis. 14 Oct. 2020: Turkey threatens Armenia with direct military
intervention in Karabakh War. 16 Oct. 2020: It remains the most audacious spy plot in British
and American history, a bold and extremely dangerous operation to invade
Russia, defeat the Red Army, and mount a coup in Moscow against Soviet
dictator Vladimir Ilich Lenin. After that, leaders
in Washington, Paris, and London aimed to install their own Allied-friendly
dictator in Moscow as a means to get Russia back into the war effort against
Germany. Along with the British and the French the plot we now know had the
“entire approval” of also President Woodrow Wilson. As he ordered a military
invasion of Russia, he gave the American ambassador, the U.S. Consul General
in Moscow, and other State Department operatives a free hand to pursue their
covert action against Lenin. The result was thousands of deaths, both
military and civilian, on both sides. Major Case Study: Spys Invade Russia P.1. 17 Oct. 2020: As a civil war began in Russia, Washington,
London, and Paris worked to ally themselves with anti-Lenin forces, the
Whites, and eventually, send troops. Their ultimate goal was to defeat the
Red Army, mount a coup against Lenin and then install their own Allied‑friendly
dictator in Moscow as a means to get Russia back into the war. Covert American military
aid would be laundered by the French and British, then passed along to the
Cossacks in a plot to overthrow Lenin and the Bolsheviks. As Lansing
suggested, some might say this was illegal. Still, Lansing directed Walter
Hines Page, U.S. ambassador to Britain, to act “expeditiously” and confer
with France and Britain on the matter. “This has my entire approval,” Wilson
said. Major Case Study: Spys Invade Russia
P.2. 19 Oct. 2020: To the surprise of some, Chinese President Xi
Jinping has called on troops to "put all (their) minds and energy on
preparing for war" in a visit to a military base in the southern
province of Guangdong on Tuesday, according to state news agency Xinhua. This
came shortly after Beijing increased military drills around Taiwan. Almost 40
Chinese warplanes crossed the median line between the mainland and Taiwan on
18-19 September, one of several sorties the island's President Tsai Ing-wen
called a "threat of force."Thus there was
no doubt what President Xi Jinping was referring to, and some analysts say
China could move against Taiwan should the U.S. presidential election result
in political chaos, Reuters reported. Will a coming conflict make
the military disasters of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq pale in comparison? 21 Oct. 2020: So far, American, French, and British diplomats
in Russia had been sharing information with one another. America and France
had spies in Russia, but the British Secret Service had not contributed any
high-level agents but that changed now when Sydney Reilly and Bruce Lockhart
joined the plot. Where the initial idea was to persuade Russia’s new
Bolshevik leaders to continue the war and rebuild the Eastern Front against
Germany, the Western powers soon devised an ambitious scheme to trigger
regime change by landing troops at the ports of Vladivostok, Murmansk, and
Archangel and there join with pro-tsar ‘White’ forces and armed Czechoslovak
former prisoners of war who had seized control of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Major Case Study:
Spys Invade Russia
P.3. 22 Oct. 2020: Allied forces invaded Russia and fought the Red Army
in an attempt to support the Moscow plotters. But Wilson and Prime Minister
Clemenceau made a mistake in placing the U.S. and French troops under British
command. Most of the British officers resented being shuffled off to a
“sideshow” like Russia and took out their anger on the American and French
troops under them. Some sanity arrived after the British commander was sacked
and replaced with Brigadier General Edmund Ironside. Spys Invade Russia
P.4. 23 Oct. 2020: Today a ‘Borat’ sequel has been released with an
Election 2020 plot twist...In the current film, Borat is dispatched by the
Kazakh government to the US to present a bribe to an ally of Donald Trump to
ingratiate his country with the Trump administration... A bit rough to watch at times, in the following
scene (dressed up as a Ku Klux Klan member) Borat tries to sneak (and is able
to get through) into CPAC where vice president Mike Pence is speaking... In the U.S., the Kazakh American Association in a
20 October letter to Amazon officials asked that the film’s release be
canceled and goes on to write that if comedian Sacha Baron Cohen really was
trying to target U.S. President Donald Trump and racist Americans, he would
have created a fictitious country. Cohen, for his part, told
The Financial Times that he and his crew always planned to film and
release the sequel ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections. “Borat is the perfect
character for the Trump era, because he is just a slightly more extreme
version of Trump. They are both misogynistic and racist, they both don’t care
about democracy, and they’re both laughable characters,” Cohen said. An
article in today's NYT today added that Rudy Giuliani is
just the latest in a long line of people pranked by Sacha Baron Cohen. 24 Oct. 2020: Perhaps the British agents knew nothing of SR
plans, either in Ukraine or in Moscow, but gave them money for general
purposes only. It is fair to wonder, however, whether some of his money might
have helped to fund one assassination or the other, and fair to point out as
well that in July 1918, with his country and Germany still at war, he would
have had every reason to consider it money well spent. Spys Invade Russia
P.5. 25 Oct. 2020: American Consul-General Poole sent a cyphered
telegram (the Bolsheviks had not broken American codes) to Washington, DC. He
anticipated acts of sabotage carried out by the conspirators, then Allied
intervention, clashes between Whites and Reds, and between General Poole’s
advancing army and the Reds. The telegram said in part: “every effort must be
made to remove allied functionaries and nationals from that part of Russia
controlled by the Bolsheviks . . . this territory must be regarded as
hostile." On 14 August 1918, two Latvians – Jan Sprogis
and Captain Berzin of the Rifle Brigade – called on
Lockhart. The brigade was disaffected from Bolshevism, they said, and ready
to help its overthrow. This seemed to Lockhart and later to Reilly like the
answer to a prayer. Lockhart promised money, as well as Allied support to
establish a free and independent Latvia, and wrote the visitors safe-conduct
passes to reach Poole. But both men, well primed by Peters, were Cheka
double-agents. Spys Invade Russia
P.6. 28 Oct. 2020: Taylor, the former chief of staff at the
Department of Homeland Security, was the anonymous author of The New York
Times Op-Ed
article in 2018 and the author of “A Warning,” a book he wrote the
following year. Both roiled Washington and set off a hunt for his identity.
He acknowledged that he was the author of both the book and the opinion
article in an interview and in a three-page statement he posted online. 30 Oct. 2020: A Communist Party conclave concluded on Thursday
with a rousing statement lauding President Xi as the party’s helmsman,
affirming his broad mandate as the leader who will steer China through
perilous waters for years to come. The meeting of the Central Committee, a
council of senior officials, laid out ambitions for China to mature as an
economic, military, and cultural power despite rising uncertainty abroad. An official
summary from the meeting read, “we will certainly be able to conquer the
range of hardships and dangers that lie on the path forward.” The following is a major expose about the
creation of China and among others it's manipulating with maps. Some of the
discoveries are breathtaking. And reveal that the People's
Republic's sense of self is far too fragile to admit for example that the
shape of the country may have been different 300 years ago. No debate over
the state's ‘core interest' of territorial integrity is permitted and the
result is absurd denials of any historical evidence that underpins a
different story of the past. The only acceptable version of history is the
invented version that suits the needs of the Communist Party's current
leadership. Much about today's China that's presented as ancient, traditional
and immutable is, in fact, recent, imported and defined by the political
imperatives of the present. And as we further detail, the aggressive pursuit
of claims to tiny rocks and submerged reefs, the elevation of Taiwan’s status
to a question of existence, and the frequent provocations in the Himalayas
reveal that these ‘sacred’ boundaries are largely twentieth-century
innovations dreamed up by nationalist imaginations. This is the first of a three
part investigation. Major Case
Study. The secrets of China's new maps unveiled. 2 Nov. 2020: Tonight around 8 pm local time an attempted terrorist
attack took place in Vienna in the street (and the obvious target) where the
Jewish Synagogue and Israeli Embassy next door are with a police officer who
guarded the place shot. Reminiscent of an ISIS type attack it began just
hours before Austria was due to introduce new coronavirus restrictions,
including a curfew from midnight to 6 am, and bars and restaurants in the
network of narrow streets known to locals as the “Bermuda triangle” were
packed. At least one attacker was identified, but more are believed to be
involved. One, armed, attacker is believed to be still at large. 4 Nov. 2020: We all know, later today there will be the US
election. But what if Trump refuses to accept US election defeat and go
quietly. The election could be a highly fluid situation. 6 Nov. 2020: Variously called the Ambassadors' or Envoys'
Plot was covered up in America for many years, yet it was studied and
analyzed in the Russian spy school. And by many seen as the origin of the
cold war, succeeding generations of Soviet bosses have used it to justify
stealing thousands of Western military secrets. Spys Invade Russia
P.7. 7 Nov. 2020: 9 Nov. 2020: As present-day China retreated from Maoist communism
in the late twentieth century, it searched for new ways to generate the
loyalty of its citizens. One key foundation of its right to rule became
‘performance legitimacy’: the delivery of ever-higher living standards to
most of the country’s population. However, proletarians and bourgeois cannot
live by bread alone and the party also sought a new guiding idea to fill
their souls and lead them in the right direction. The new people’s opium
would be nationalism – not the kind that makes mobs march through the
streets, but an official kind, defined by those at the top and stressing
homogeneity and obedience. Whereby even the idea of the majority ethnic group
in China, the Han, as the Chinese 'race' is a relatively new construct. This
is the second of a three part investigation. Major Case Study. The re-invention of Chinese History, Nation,
Language, and Territory. 11 Nov. 2020: At 5:00 am on this day in 1918, the Allied
powers and Germany signed an armistice document in the railway carriage of
Ferdinand Foch, the commander of the Allied armies, and thus the First World
War came to an end. It is generally accepted that the First World War which
at the time was seen as a clash of civilizations and a contest of rival
national values still reverberates today. Almost every day it seemed possible
that the crisis could be settled as so many had been over the previous
decade; almost every day there was a new suggestion that gave statesmen hope
that war could be avoided without abandoning vital interests. Major Case Study. A
new investigation about the First World War. 13 Nov. 2020: A sensation took place when on Monday the German
company BioNTech and the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced via a press
release that their jointly developed vaccine candidate had outperformed
expectations in the crucial phase 3 trials, proving 90% effective in stopping
people from falling ill. Will people start to be inoculated by
mid-December as is claimed? |
19 Nov. 2020: Our third part of analyzing China's
nation-building. Problems stem from the country’s two contradictory views of
the past. In the first, China sees itself in imperial terms, as the natural
center of East Asia, where borders are immaterial to power. In the second,
China sees itself in Westphalian terms, determined to incorporate every scrap
of territory, every rock, and reef, within the homeland’s ‘sacred’ national
border. The territory we recognize today as China bore the name of each
successive dynasty that ruled it. Just as its name changed with the name of
the dynasty, so did the shape of its borders and lands. This is an
uncomfortable reality for the Chinese Communist Party today as it continues
to make new claims in the name of historical "rights" to
territories also claimed by its neighbors. Major Case Study. The
re-invention of Chinese History, Nation, Language, and Territory Part Three. 20 Nov. 2020: A video is projected on to the Houses of
Parliament in Westminster: 22 Nov. 2020: Trump’s last-ditch efforts to overturn results so
far have failed to make a dent in Biden's victory. With his denial of the
outcome, Trump has endangered America’s democracy and duped supporters into
believing, perhaps permanently, that Biden was elected illegitimately. 24 Nov. 2020: Obama on the cover of In Style Magazine: 27 Nov. 2020: The impact of Isaac Newton’s work is—in a
word—legendary. The size of his groundbreaking treatise, known as the
Principia, in which Newton laid out his three laws of motion, was until now
thought to be small, partly reflecting a long-held notion that the book was
virtually incomprehensible outside of a small circle of expert
mathematicians. The volumes cover 27 countries on five continents, including
Africa and Australia with nine copies that showed up in Japan. The astronomer
Edmond Halley took it upon himself to present copies to influential people,
including England’s King James II, Royal Society President Samuel Pepys, and
German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who is commonly credited with
co-inventing calculus at the same time as Newton. A copy also likely went to
Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. 29 Nov. 2020: In
a soon to be published book written by Tonio Andrade
"The Last Embassy" tells the story of the Dutch mission of 1795,
bringing to light a dramatic but little-known episode that transforms our
understanding of the history of China and the West. One
challenge created by all of this psychological diversity is that we generally
see and understand the world through our own cultural models and local
intuitions. When policymakers, politicians, and military strategists infer
how people in other societies will understand their actions, judge their
behavior, and respond, they tend to assume perceptions, motivations, and
judgments similar to their own. However, even when implemented perfectly,
policies can have one effect in London or Zurich and very different effects
in Baghdad or Mogadishu because the people in each of these places are
psychologically distinct. Major
Case Study. Developmental forces in East and West as drivers of
psychological change. 1 Dec. 2020: Visualizing the Human Impact on the Earth’s
Surface 2 Dec. 2020: 3 Dec. 2020:
The History
Channel has a series titled "Ancient Aliens" that claims to explore
the controversial theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for
millions of years from the dinosaurs' age to ancient Egypt and present what,
as we will see, can be described as a sensationalized bricolage. Investigating
the Ancient Aliens theory. 5 Dec. 2020: The pandemic has reshaped expectations of higher
education—but it’s also created an opportunity for institutions to accelerate
their digital transformation. By providing more wellbeing resources, career
support, and flexibility, universities can drive trust and support their
students’ needs in the new normal. 8 Dec. 2020: Whereby The end of Europe's empires has so
often been seen as a story of high politics and warfare, using the new
technology of cheap printing presses, global travel, and the widespread use
of French and English, young radicals from across Asia were able to
communicate in ways simply not available before. These clandestine networks
stretched to the heart of the imperial metropolises: to London, to Paris, but
also increasingly to Moscow. They created a secret global network that
was for decades engaged in bitter fighting with imperial police forces. They
gathered in the great hubs of empire - Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Penang,
Batavia, Hanoi, Shanghai, and Hong Kong - and plotted with ceaseless
ingenuity, both through persuasion and terrorism, the end of the colonial
regimes. Then on 24 July 1924 five at Canton when an unsuccessful
attempt was made on the life of M Martial Henri Merlin, Governor-General of
French Indochina. Major Case
Study. Asia's secret networks Part One. 10 Dec. 2020: The myth of the absence of politics was shared
across colonial Asia. In the Indies, the Dutch called the zaman normal, a
return to ‘normal time’, or rather the pretense of it. Normal time revived
the illusion that colonial governments could dictate political futures.
Imperial regimes never provided an adequate answer to the question as to what
precisely was on offer for colonial subjects who still sought to work within
the system and its laws. The reality was, in most cases, far less than was
offered earlier. Major Case
Study. Asia's secret networks Part Two. 11 Dec. 2020: China had been thrown into a revolutionary
ferment by the depredations of Western powers beginning with the First Opium
War in 1839. As we have seen there were many grievances against the Qing
emperor and the social structure, as had often been the case in Chinese
history, but what ultimately discredited these entities was their failure to
defend China and their obvious inadequacy compared to the leading
powers. While anti-imperialism was already present therefore in the
minds of Chinese intellectuals, Marxism was nearly nonexistent in China
before the popular movement that began on May 4, 1919. Major Case Study. The
Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang and its unexpected relationship with
Communism: Asia's secret networks Part
Three. 12 Dec. 2020: Very different from the Revolution in Russia
the May 4, 1919 protests in China was a Nationalist
reaction objecting to the decision of the victorious Allied powers at
the Versailles conference to award former German possessions in the Shandong
Peninsula to Japan. Yet the shock of defeat at the hands of foreigners had
not only ignited nationalist sentiment it also slowly and fitfully led
to a recognition that fundamental political, and economic changes would be
necessary if China were to survive, let alone compete, in the modern
world. The Chinese Communist Party was founded two years later with even
the Nationalist Kuomintang developing a relationship with
the Bolshevists in Moskau. Major Case Study. Asia's secret networks Part Four. 13 Dec. 2020: The most populous countries in the world are
China, India, and the U.S—but global population trends may be shifting faster
than you think: 14 Dec. 2020: After Nicholas II of Russia abdicated in 1917
meanwhile, the world's tempests outside blew directly into the households of
Surabaya and Semarang. On seizing power, Vladimir Lenin had looked to
Europe’s working classes to foster wider revolution. When that hope fizzled,
the revolutionary potential of Asian peasantries, whom Lenin, like the
colonialists, had hitherto deemed backward, was reassessed. Asian radicals
were now summoned to Moscow. Major Case Study. Asia's secret networks Part Five. 15 Dec. 2020: In 1902, Japan had allied with Britain in East
Asia, and now events were drawing her closer to France. A series of
sensationalist reports in the Écho de Paris in
January 1905, headlined ‘The Yellow Peril,’ claimed that Japan planned to use
Taiwan, now also a colony of Japan, as a base to attack the French in
Indochina. By strange osmosis of animosity and opportunism, Japan responded
by strengthening ties with France. A Franco-Japanese Treaty was signed in
1907, and the French immediately used it to put pressure on Japan’s
Vietnamese émigrés. As the Governor-General of Indochina explained it to the
minister of the colonies in Paris in July 1908, the people of Vietnam could
not be indifferent ‘to the events occurring in this theatre of nations’ when
their country, because of its long border with Siam, rail links to China and
sea lanes to the ports of China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, lay in the middle
of ‘the great Far Eastern highway.’ Major Case Study. Asia's secret networks Part Six. 16 Dec. 2020: In June 1919 a petition circulated among
delegates to the peace conference at Versailles. The “Demands of the Annamite
People” claimed to speak for the inhabitants of the part of French Indochina
that is today the heart of Vietnam. The petition, writes, was one of many
into which were decanted the hopes of entire peoples. Its demands seemed
moderate enough, things like freedom of the press, the right to education,
the abolition of government by decree, and it was received politely by
Woodrow Wilson and even the president of the French republic. But its tone,
of presuming to speak directly to power, got under the skin of the French
authorities, who had built an empire in Indochina on the back of forced
labor, while plantations ran their own private prisons. As the document
circulated among the diplomatic missions and, within two months, hit the
streets of Hanoi, the security services knew that its author, Nguyen Ai Quoc,
a pseudonym meaning “Nguyen the Patriot” (today better known as Ho Chi
Minh) was in some way important. They were to maintain that conviction for
more than three decades. Briefly, Nguyen Ai Quoc would break cover, for
instance, to address political meetings in Paris, scruffily dressed. Yet the
expanding secret-police files on him reflected official frustration. He lied
about his age, his name, his origins, and his profession. He changed his
accent to suit. Time and again, Nguyen Ai Quoc slipped like quicksilver
through the fingers of imperial powers. His shadow was found in libraries,
cafés, and boarding houses across France, in port cities such as Singapore
and New York, and even in the London suburb of Ealing;
one rumor had him as a pastry chef under the great Escoffier. His writings
surfaced in illicit journals in China and Korea. But just when the Sûreté Générale picked up his scent again, he was
gone. Major Case Study. Asia's secret networks Part Seven. Xiang Jingyu, head of
the Women’s Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party, executed by the Kuomintang
in Hankou, 1928. 17 Dec. 2020: A recent article asked will the COVID-19 vaccine
bet in China pay off? An emergency use authorization, based on China’s
Vaccine Management Law, allows the use of unapproved vaccine candidates among
people at high risk of infection for a limited period of time. Chinese
vaccine and patriotic drive. 18 Dec. 2020: Transnational Asia was without borders. The
opening of the Suez Canal in 1867 had brought the west dramatically
closer. The wealth, goods, and styles of Asia had never been more
accessible to the European public. It was a time of great ‘universal’
expositions – Paris in 1900, Brussels in 1910, the Festival of Empire in
London in 1911 – which brought in colonial products, and even imperial
subjects, as objects of curiosity. The London extravaganza of 1911 – together
with the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, imperial-themed clubs,
museums and monuments, and the Imperial College of Science and Technology –
marked the crescendo of attempts fashion London into a city that better
reflected its world-encompassing status. It was certainly a lure to its new
colonial subjects. This was still a world of circulating monarchs, and Indian
and Malay princes gravitated to the courts of Europe and took the waters at
their aristocratic playgrounds, in a reprise of the old Grand Tour. Major Case Study. Asia's secret networks Part Eight. 19 Dec. 2020: Europe's first wave vs its second wave. Notice for
example Slovakia initially was a poster boy of successfully dealing with
the virus but then recently had to declare a national state of
emergency. Similarly in Slovenia. 20 Dec. 2020: In our further research, we highlight among others the High
Treason Incident (大逆事件, Taigyaku Jiken),
which provoked an unprecedented press blackout with the trials held in camera.
Nevertheless, in the way it polarized opinion, it became the ‘Dreyfus Affair
of Japan.’ Also the so-called Delhi Conspiracy case. It was later shown
that Rash Behari Bose threw the bomb. He successfully evaded capture for
nearly three years, becoming involved in the Ghadar
conspiracy before it was uncovered. Bose fled to Japan in 1915, under the
alias of Priyanath Tagore, a relative of
Rabindranath Tagore. There, Bose found shelter with various Pan-Asian groups.
Major Case
Study. Asia's secret
networks Part Nine. 22 Dec. 2020: 23 Dec. 2020:
After Tsar
Nicholas II of Russia abdicated in 1917, the world's tempests outside blew
directly into the households of Surabaya and Semarang. On seizing power,
Vladimir Lenin had looked to Europe’s working classes to foster wider
revolution. When that hope fizzled, the revolutionary potential of Asian
peasantries, whom Lenin, like the colonialists, had hitherto deemed backward,
was reassessed. Asian radicals were now summoned to Moscow. Major Case Study.
Asia's secret networks Part Ten. 24 Dec. 2020: This shows when the coronavirus vaccine will be
widely available. Rich countries will have their population vaccinated way
earlier than poor countries. That said, Africa as a whole managed the
pandemic better than most of the rich West. 26 Dec. 2020: Perhaps the simplest indication of the
different natures of the respective revolutions is the difference in the terms
that Russians and Chinese use, to this day, to describe their own
revolutions. In Russian, the period before 1917 is naturally referred to as dorevoliutsionnyi, literally “prerevolutionary.” In
Chinese, however, the period before 1949 is not called geming
qian, “before the revolution,” but rather jiefang qian, “before the
liberation.” Though similar means were adopted by both sides, at least until
the late 1970s, the underlying aims of the two revolutions were different, a
fact that would impact not only the domestic conduct of the revolution, but
also understandings of global processes and historical trends and,
ultimately, the respective abilities of each side to reform. In this section,
we cover topics like Henk Sneevliet's task as
instilling Comintern discipline in China,
sovereignty (the 'lost' countries), Canton as one of the most unruly and
radical of China’s cities, sovereignty (the 'lost'
countries), Siam, Vietnam,
India, Malaysia, Japan, and so on...Major Case Study. Asia’s
secret networks Part Eleven. 29 Dec. 2020: Whereas the US still has to manage its
relations with China, which extends far beyond the regional canvas. The
dilemma the US cannot escape is how to integrate into the international system
a rising power which will eat into American predominance in the world, much
more difficult is this in South-East Asia countries. South-East Asia between China and the US. 30 Dec. 2020: Lights are projected on the Louvre’s Pyramid during a
rehearsal of David Guetta’s ‘United at Home’ concert that will be broadcast
for New Year’s Eve. 1 Jan. 2021: A few countries to look
out for the next six months. 2 Jan. 2021: China watcher Andrew Chubb recently wrote
that "if Xi Jinping was to conclude that Indian nationalist sentiments are
so strong as to make escalation inevitable, then he might be inclined to
strike first, as Mao did in 1962." However, this statement has a whole
background that remains underresearched as we shall
see to date. In a year that challenged policymakers across the world, one
development will perhaps have the most significant long-term impact in the
Indo-Pacific, the ongoing standoff between India and China in the Himalayas. Major Case Study. Investigating
the India-China standoff Part One. 4 Jan. 2021: There are several global developments jostling
for the world’s attention right now—the upcoming inauguration of U.S. President-elect
Joe Biden, Britain’s exit from the European Union, a worrying hack of U.S.
government systems, and the race to administer coronavirus vaccines across
the planet. Amid these major news stories, the 8-month-old military standoff
in the Himalayas between Asia’s two biggest countries, China and India, has
fallen off the radar of global concern. While pundits agree that Asia is the
site of an ongoing shift in the global power balance, what gets little
attention is how New Delhi’s reworking of military priorities, forced by
events on the disputed Sino-Indian border, will have far-reaching
geopolitical consequences for the world. Major Case Study. Investigating the India-China
standoff Part Two. 6 Jan. 2021: In off-the-record conversations, Indian
officials accept that a diplomatic solution to the Ladakh crisis is unlikely
because of how the two countries have different understandings of the status
quo. These officials consider the army’s performance and sustenance through
this winter as the critical factor for their plans to deal with Chinese
aggression in Ladakh. They contend that if the Indian soldiers manage to get
through the next few months relatively unscathed, New Delhi will have
found an answer to its troubles with Beijing. Major Case Study. Investigating the India-China
standoff Part Three. 8 Jan. 2021: Lasting till 5 February Harbin
International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in China have opened to
visitors, featuring frozen towers, palaces, and castles revealing Harbin's interesting Russian history. 10 Jan. 2021:
COVID-19 jabs will
eventually help tourism start again, but expect a trip full of immunity
passports, mouthwash tests, and weary travelers. What vaccines mean for the return of the travel. 13 Jan. 2021:
While the counter-culture
of the 1960s marked a distinct period in popularising
a variety of ‘eastern’ religions and spiritualities in the global context,
its influence has often been over-estimated. Occultists explored the ‘hippy
trail,’ alternative religions, in the early twentieth century, marked a
‘widening of the road’ rather than the paving of new ground of what became an
estimated $11.56 billion business. Investigating
the invention of Yoga. 15 Jan. 2021: The Chinese Army has constructed an underground
facility (UGF) barely 50 km from the India-China border, and just 60 km from
the Indian forward posts at Demchok in Ladakh. So
far, there was just one UGF in Tibet, with another one being a bit away in
the Xinjiang Region. Seen here are members from the People's Liberation Army
who for the first time walk along the Pakistan
border in Xinjiang: 19 Jan. 2021: Italy’s largest mafia trial in three decades
will begin tomorrow with a high-security 1,000-capacity courtroom, 900
witnesses testifying against more than 350 people, including politicians and
officials. But there is an odd aspect to this, Freemasonry. Italy's underground Freemasonry. 20 Jan. 2021: Today millions of people watched an apparently
well-documented video
about Putin's rise to power and the oligarch who followed him. Striking
is also that Alexei Navalny was willing to release it while in a Russian
jail: 22 Jan. 2021: Following the article we posted on 6 July 2019,
we received a lot of mails asking for more information when we reported that
"Prince Michael of Albany"alias Lafosse's center of activities became the Czech Republic,
where he is the 'Grandmaster' of 'order' listed among the
self-proclaimed knightly orders in the Czech Republic. Lafosse and the Královský řád Moravských rytířů svatých Rastislava a Kolumbana. 25 Jan. 2021: In the middle of the seventeenth century,
statesmen and scholars all over Europe looked at China as a beacon of commercial,
intellectual, and cultural potential, offering the promise of wealth as well
as global civilizational convergence. Russia’s earliest ventures eastward
became interesting to a variety of audiences as an indication that this
convergence was to be realized together with Europe’s commercial ambitions.
In the end, it was the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion that provided the
Russian Empire with the opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength.
In the following article, we look at early Russian spycraft.
Imperial Russia and Qing China. 26 Jan. 2021: 27 Jan. 2021: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was freed
after serving 30 days in jail on Monday - but was then immediately detained
and jailed for a further 20 days on charges of staging an illegal protest. 28 Jan. 2021: Taking advantage of the withdrawal of the Russian
state from Siberia after the Bolshevik Revolution and the general weakness of
warlord-era Republican China, Buryat nationalists seized their opportunity to
establish a new nation along the Russo-Chinese border. Initially, their
interests coincided with those of Japanese pan-Asianists.
The story of the Buryat national movement in 1919 moves us away from both
empire-centric and Eurocentric views of the history of East Asia in the early
twentieth century. The Japanese Attempt to
Solve the Mongol Question. 1 Febr. 2021: 4 Febr.2021: In
the following article, we show that the Enlightenment was not a blank slate
on which Europeans sketched a new world. It was more like a piece of old
parchment imperfectly scraped clean, still bearing traces of past ideas
around which modernity took shape. Rather, magical beliefs and occult systems
were part of the natural philosophies that proliferated in the
Enlightenment. Whose Enlightenment? |
29 May 2020: While initially it was expected that Beijing
would send troops into Hong Kong which in fact later was confirmed that this
was the plan, it does not come as a surprise China's parliament has backed a
new security law for Hong Kong which would make it a crime to undermine
Beijing's authority in the territory. There is a new brand of diplomacy
taking hold in Beijing and its chief architects have a suitably fierce
nickname to match their aggressive style, they are the wolf warriors. China’s
move however also has implications far beyond Hong Kong. China's larger geostrategic game. 1 June 2020: As recently once more explained in The Yogasūtra of Patañjali: A New
Introduction to the Buddhist Roots of the Yoga System by Pradeep P. Gokhale
(29 May 2020) much of what is said about yoga is misleading. It is neither
five thousand years old, as is commonly claimed, nor does it mean union, at
least not exclusively. In perhaps the most famous text, as Gokhale details,
the aim is separation, isolating consciousness from everything else. As for
the popularization of Yoga in the West, this in turn was influenced by the
notion of occultism and modern physical culture. The
re-invention of Yoga. 2 June 2020: Invoking an 1807 law threatening military to take
control throughout the USA President Trump next posed with a bible in front
of a church: 4 June 2020: On 28 May 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice
President M Venkaiah Naidu, and others paid tributes to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who popularized the term Hindutva.
Today exemplified by Modi Savarkar is loved by the Hindu right with centrists
and Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists, in India, not to mention Kashmir,
having a different opinion. Major
Case Study: The Hindu right in context. 5 June 2020: In an interesting twist today reporting came in that
three men were arrested Saturday on the way to a protest in downtown Las
Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in
glass bottles. An informant stated that the “idea behind the explosion was to
hopefully create civil unrest and rioting" whereby the complaint filed
in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday said they self-identified as
part of a movement, which U.S. prosecutors said in the document is to signify
coming civil war and/or fall of civilization. White Supremacists as a growing
menace. 8 June 2020: Because I soon will be involved with a number of travels
and upcoming presentations one earlier subject that I like to bring to a
degree of completion is the Wandering Bishop subject at the end of a
discussion about the mimic Order of St John that I hoped to come back to that
at a later point. From tribulations of the Old Catholic
Church to an alleged order of St.John. 9 June 2020: Dickens on Westminster Abbey: 10 June 2020: With protesters who have created an“Autonomous Zone” in the center of Seattle, A&E
announcing today that itis stopping production of "Live PD",
various mayors in the US that ban chokehold, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
who said today that the United States past few days have been traumatic. The
keystone of a worldwide movement. 12 June 2020: Beijing fears second wave of coronavirus after
spike shuts market: 13 June 2020: Atlanta police chief resigns after officer fatally
shoots black man on Friday night: 17 June 2020: Worst India-China clash in decades: 20 Indian
troops killed, see our updated article about the Ladakh
fighting.
The genesis of the current crisis has to do with India's revocation last year
of the special status granted to Jammu and
Kashmir, and the splitting of the former Indian state into two
territories. 20 June 2020:
Yesterday a
monument of Albert Pike was removed in Wahington
D.C. The statue was erected by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and depicted
Pike on a granite pedestal, which features the allegorical Goddess of
Masonry, who holds the banner of the Scottish Rite. And while protesters
accurately saw Pike as a senior officer in the Confederate Army, the US
Congress at the time was satisfied with the Masons’ reassurance that Pike
would be depicted as a civilian rather than as a soldier. But so one of the
interesting questions here also is: What was the Scottish Rite to begin
with? 21 June 2020: First day of summer (summer solstice) with the
Fête de la musique in Paris today: |
25 June 2020:
Seventy years
ago today, the North Korean People’s Army of the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea (DPRK) swept south across the 38th parallel. This had divided the
Korean peninsula as Japanese troops were driven out by the Allies at the end
of the Second World War. On the 27e the US announced it would send troops
that soon were to rule Pyongyang. But the US never declared war. Apart from
the US fifteen other nations sent combat troops in aid of South Korea under
the United Nations Command. Chinese troops intervened on the North Korean
side. A war that for many however is still very much alive. Major Case Study: The
Korean War in context. 29 June
2020: People
celebrate COVID Farewell on Prague's Charles Bridge: 1 July 2020:
Filling the
news cycle since 25 May has been the issue of racism in the US which soon
also led the UK to re-examine its colonial history. A recent development came
yesterday when the Belgian King gave in to a standing recommendation by the
United Nations to apologize, by sending his 'regrets' to the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (but stopped short of apologizing). Staying with the
US, we delved into the surprisingly under-researched history of how modern
slavery developed. Or when a Spanish-led invasion in 1526 brought enslaved
Africans who together with American Indians rebelled and destroyed the
Spanish capacity to sustain their would-be colony, in turn, made place for the
English to establish a permanent settlement. Major Case Study: London, Madrid, and the creation of Washington,
D.C. 7 July 2020: After a deadly clash with India, China today
makes a new claim on the eastern border with Bhutan. Tenzing
Lamsang, Editor of the Bhutanese newspaper in
Thimphu typified the Chinese claims as a pressure tactic. China's
new claim about the border with Bhutan. 9 July 2020: On 7 July 1898, the US annexed the Hawaiian
Islands while deposing the last Hawaiian Monarch Queen Liliuokalani. This
paved the way for the islands to become a territory (1900) and later a U.S.
state (1959). Yet it deserves mentioning that the Hawaiian Kingdom was the
first non-Western state to achieve full recognition as a co-equal of Western
powers notably England France and Belgium. The Hawaiian kingdom’s
nineteenth-century vision of a Polynesian confederation furthermore was a
political project to create a Hawaiian-led entity encompassing Fiji, Tahiti,
Samoa, and Tonga. Rediscovering Hawaii's place in the pacific. 11 July 2020: Floodwaters are discharged at the Three Gorges
Dam in China 12 July 2020: Voting underway in Poland: 13 July 2020:
The sweeping
new security law in Hong Kong has further eroded what little support there
was in Taiwan for unifying with the mainland. If China makes Taiwan its next
target, it would not be surprising. However, if Beijing takes recourse to
similar measures in Taiwan, it would have serious geopolitical consequences
and the implications would be far-reaching. After Hong Kong deterrence vs
Taiwan? 14 July 2020: On July 14, 1789, Paris was in a state of alarm as
crowds were storming the Bastille. Meanwhile, celebrations held in Paris
today to commemorate the event’s 231st anniversary were firmly
characterized by European history’s latest chapter, the coronavirus pandemic.
“To all those involved in the fight against the pandemic, to all the
caregivers who have saved so many lives since the start of the crisis: July
14 pays you homage,” read a message
posted on the Elysée’s official Twitter account. 15 July 2020: Dr. Fauci on the cover of Style Magazine: 16 July 2020: As the reason for his currently bestselling book,
Michael Shellenberger writes: Much of what people
are being told about the environment, including the climate, is wrong, and we
desperately need to get it right. I decided to write Apocalypse Never after
getting fed up with the exaggeration, alarmism, and extremism that are the
enemy of a positive, humanistic, and rational environmentalism. Apocalypse Never: 17 July 2020: A member of the expedition sent to Everest to
find George Mallory's camera 18 July 2020: From Oxford University offers the best hope for the
Covid-19 vaccine this year, or Coronavirus Vaccine developers rise after Dr.
Fauci's comments (not to mention that the Russians tried to hack them) the
new Moderna
vaccine and a 'game-changing' coronavirus antibody test, Vaccine research is
worth delving into. How the coronavirus pandemic will play out in the
next few years. |
A new forecast from Institute of Health Metrics and
Evaluation at the University of Washington says the world’s population will
peak at 9.7bn in 2064, well below the UN’s latest projections:
8 Jan. 2020: Assessment of what will be leading trends in 2020
including the US-China relations, Hong Kong, North Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Algeria, United Kingdom, Germany, European Union, Italy,
Argentina, Venezuela, Russia and China, Ukraine and Russia,
Russian Foreign Policy, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Indian Foreign Policy, South Africa, Ethiopia, The Sahel, Guinea,
Sudan. Major Case Study:
The outlook of the world in 2020. 9 Jan. 2020: The alert came to the White House shortly after
2pm Tuesday 8 January, a flash message from US spy agencies that officials
sometimes call a "squawk". In the coming hours, it warned, an
Iranian attack on American troops was almost certain. The warning sent
Vice-President Mike Pence and Robert O'Brien, the White House national
security adviser, to the basement of the West Wing, where aides were
assembling in the Situation Room. The early warning provided by intelligence
helps explain in part why the missiles exacted a negligible toll, destroying
only evacuated aircraft hangars as they slammed into the desert sand in
barren stretches of the base. No Americans or Iraqis were killed or wounded,
and Trump, who indicated to advisers he would prefer to avoid further
engagement, was relieved. 12 Jan. 2020:
While Turkey
had successfully deployed an army of high-priced lobbyists to stop the
measure for years, on its fourth try, the US Senate voted on Thursday to
recognize the Armenian genocide as a matter of American foreign policy, a
move that was made over the objections of the Trump administration. So what
really happened in Armenia. 14 Jan. 2020: Tomorrow 15 January it will be exactly 49 years
ago when Charles Manson puts a nation on trial. Also keenly timed to the 50th
anniversary of the series of murders is Quentin Tarantino’s celebrated new
film, “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” where characters bump up against
the Manson “family” of Charles and his followers and their legend. But
contrary to popular belief while Manson’s cult arose out of San Francisco’s
predatory hippie culture and ended in the shadow of Hollywood, the murders
had nothing to do with the occult or were a countercultural revolt. Here is a
primer that untangles the who, what, where, and why of the case. 15 Jan. 2020:
As predicted by us on 8 Jan. Taiwan President Tsai
Ing-wen won re-election by a historic landslide on Saturday, a decisive
result widely seen as a rebuke to Beijing’s efforts to gain control over the
island democracy. Taiwan was the center of propaganda from both sides. The
CPC wanted to "liberate" Taiwan, while Kuomintang wanted to
"recapture the mainland." And in a way, similar propaganda is still
used by China today. Taiwan offering an alternative model of Chinese
modernity is one that carries deep challenges, and often real threats to
Beijing. And, through the immense
importance of this region for the rest of the world, that is why this problem
is not just a local, but a global one. Taiwan going forward. 16 Jan. 2020: Final part of our study about Palestine /Israel,
the involvement of the KGB in the invention of Palestinians, the use of Jezus Christ as Palestinian, plus answers the question of
what are potential solutions to the current problems going forward. A critical history of Palestine P.2. 17 Jan. 2020: In a major move that rattled the White House
today European countries trigger a dispute mechanism in their nuclear deal
with Iran. Thus they are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure
against Iran. They also start a clock that the Europeans may not be able to
control. What to Watch for. 19 Jan. 2020: What is the matter with the Julian calendar? For
one 14 January, 2020 was/is January 1 in the Julian calendar. Used worldwide
for over 16 centuries, some like for example, the Christian Eastern Orthodox
Church. still use the Julian calendar to this day. Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia
and Iran among them, still have not officially adopted the Gregorian
calendar. India, Bangladesh, Israel, Myanmar, and a few other countries use
various calendars alongside the Gregorian system, and still, others use a
modified version of the Gregorian calendar, including Sri Lanka, Cambodia,
Thailand, Japan, North Korea, and China. So the second question is: What is the matter with the Gregorian calendar. 22 Jan. 2020: The history of the twentieth century, worldwide,
was marked by the two world wars. The Russian Revolutions of 1917 were a
consequence of the First World War, the Cold War of the Second. And as stated
recently was a product of security concerns, Stalin’s character and mishaps
in diplomacy. But one question still remains: Major Case Study: Was
the Cold War inevitable? 24 Jan. 2020: It is known that modern colonialism began when
Spain’s and Portugal’s profits in Asia and the Americas encouraged other European
states to support rival ventures of trade, private conquest, and
privateering, with the individual efforts culminating in the Dutch and
British East India Companies. Yet without the Mongols, the plague might not
have reached western Europe. Britain would then have had no new draperies and
perhaps even no Industrial Revolution either. The counterfactual view that
explains colonialism. 25 Jan. 2020: People wearing masks as they pray at Wong Tai Sin
temple on the first day of the Lunar New Year of the Rat in Hong Kong. 26 Jan. 2020: 30 Jan. 2020: While it might soon reach the capital cities of all
'regions' there are some 'places' in China where the coronavirus will not
reach... But having already spread to other parts of the world in the short
term, the virus will hit the world economy. We will also cover the "yellow peril"
backlash. Following what will happen with the virus in the
world going forward: 31 Jan. 2020:
Israel
postpones its move to annex parts of West Bank. In reality, the plan's
promises are nonstarters for the Palestinians as well as for some Israelis,
and they amount to the United States pushing both sides toward a one-state
solution by prolonging the current status quo. Grand Place in Brussels is lit up in union jack
colors to say goodbye to the UK: 1 Febr. 2020: As we have seen in part one, the huge sums of
money showered on fighting in Europe gave military leaders the flexibility to
buy new weapons and battleships and try out new tactics, fortifications, and
methods of supply. In the process, they learned from their mistakes and
improved their technologies. And because European countries were small and
geographically close, they could easily learn from their rivals’ errors and
copy their improvements. As for the ultimate cause behind the European
conquest of the world, it was not frequent war or physical geography: The
economics of colonialism part two. 2 Febr. 2020: Nguyên Phúc Vietnam 3 Febr. 2020: America and Iran, Iran and Israel, Saudis and
Houthis, Sunnis and Shiites, the ruler of Oman shuttled between them all.
Because of its earlier history as an Indian Ocean empire, Oman has an
unusually diverse population, including large numbers of Baluchis,
South Asians, and Swahili-speaking East Africans, as well as Arabs. With
Sultan Qaboos being replaced by its new ruler Haitham bin Tariq Al Said new
challenges appear with the Saudis and the Emiratis not to mention President
Trump we analyze what is at stake. Major Case Study: Charting
the future of Oman. 4 Febr. 2020: Sri Lanka's 72nd Independence Day celebrations in
Colombo: Update 5 Febr. 2020: Ultimately, the breadth of the impact depends on how far the virus
spreads beyond its current location: 6 Febr. 2020: 10th annual Sharjah light festival: 7 Febr. 2020: A subject covered
by me before, both UK and EU have now given an appreciative nod to the
ICOE's recommendations in reference to faulting Myanmar. 8 Febr. 2020: The third day of celebrations in honor of the
patron saint of Catania, Italy: Update 8 Febr. 2020: Today, Saturday a march by a white nationalist
group Patriot Front took place in Washington D.C. The group shouted “Reclaim
America” and other slogans in line with my earlier article
about the great replacement conspiracy theory. 9 Febr. 2020: Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84
percent of the globe, establishing colonies and spreading their influence
across every inhabited continent. This was not inevitable. In fact, for
decades, historians, social scientists, and biologists had wondered: Why and
how did Europe rise to the top, even when societies in Asia and the Middle
East were far more advanced? This sai one should
also ad that for example Portugal was simply never convinced that the Safavid
empire or Ming China or the Indian kingdoms were primitive societies - and
that shaped its outlook as Europe entered its years of Enlightenment,
revolution and industrialization. The economics of colonialism
part three. Map shows the remaining parts of the British
Empire as of 2020: Bushfires (as seen in Australia) can create their
own clouds and storms today: 10 Febr. 2020: The current situation confirms our earlier assessment here. It is clear that it is on
the way to be a pandemic. A vaccine is one to one and a half year away. 12 Febr. 2020: Buddhist monks chanting during a religious
memorial service held to commemorate the victims of a mass shooting at a
shopping mall: 13 Febr. 2020: As an addition to what we recently covered
here, it is worth to remind ourselves
of Svalbard, a remote Arctic archipelago that has been back in the news of
late, and not only because of the islands is the subject of a nine-day, ‘slow
TV’ documentary featured this month by the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.
Norway, which administers Svalbard under the terms of the
Spitsbergen/Svalbard Treaty, (a document which observed its hundredth
anniversary on 9 February this year), is feeling a diplomatic chill from
Russia over the regulation of the islands. This comes at a time when
relations between Moscow and Oslo have become more difficult as both
governments are seeking to improve their security situation in the Arctic.
But is it Spitsbergen or Svalbard? The Answer Includes both Politics and
History. The Svalbard/Spitsbergen Saga. 14 Febr. 2020: People standing along the Elbe River across from the
historic Dresden city center link hands to create a human chain in
commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of Dresden.
This while German president throws cold water on nationalist myth (referring
to the Alternative for Germany party AfD) by
stating it was important to recall who had started the devastating conflict. Manila, Philippines Brides, and grooms attend a
mass wedding ceremony in celebration of Valentine’s Day: Update 14 Febr. 2020: While China reports 5,000 new coronavirus cases,
Hun Sen yesterday looking like the man of the hour after letting rejected
cruise ship dock in Cambodia. 15 Febr. 2020: Residents in Reykjavík (Iceland) have been asked
to remain indoors. With storm Dennis now moving into the UK where experts warn
to prepare for worst floods of the year, 70mph winds and 140mm of rain
forecast in some areas Chaos expected for trains, roads, and airports: Update 15 Febr. 2020: With Freemasonry quite well known and contrary to
the US still growing in England, following an earlier £2million donation in
the UK fire brigade trucks and emergency vehicles now show freemasons'
symbol: 16 Febr. 2020: Following as a first-ever in English history of
Russian Freemasonry showing among others how in eighteenth-century Russia,
Freemasonry was inseparably intertwined with a crash course of
Westernization. Major Case
Study: The History of Russian Freemasonry Unveiled. 17 Febr. 2020: Russia, Participants in a religious procession to
the Kazan Cathedral on International Orthodox Youth Day: 18 Febr. 2020: With some important centennials coming up in 2020
like (already in the course of 2019 used in the rhetoric by Prime Minister
Viktor Orban) the Treaty of Trianon on 4 June 2020
(which among others provided for an autonomous Kurdistan) the Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 2020 new complex patterns and
alliances were formed (many of them in the Middle
East) who found themselves at each other’s throats as they struggled with
competing claims and expectations. Not to mention that President Erdoğan seeks revisions in the Treaty of Lausanne by 2023
due to what he claims to be secret articles signed by Turkish and British
diplomats at a Swiss lakefront resort almost a century ago. Major Case Study: Beyond the Treaty
of Versailles. French map from the early 1900s shows the
population by ethnicity inside the Austrian Hungarian Empire: 21 Febr. 2020: Vienna opera ball Febr.
2020 seen from above: 22 Febr. 2020: São Paulo, Brazil, float during a carnival
parade: 23 Febr. 2020: On 8 to 10 January the Theater for the New City
presented a major play depicting four students at the University of Hawai‘i
at Manoa embarking on a research project that takes them into the repository
of 19th-century Hawaiian archival materials. Delving into the archives, they
are shown to interrogate repressed histories of the Hawaiian archipelago. Honolulu (including
Waikiki) is loved by people all over as one of the most multicultural in the
world. Following having seen the play, and doing in retrospect our own
research evidence shows that the Kingdom of Hawaii was the first non-Western
state to achieve full recognition as a co-equal of Western powers.
Technologically at the cutting edge of modernity but at the same time
grounded in tradition and identity, the Hawaiian kingdom’s nineteenth-century
vision of a Polynesian confederation furthermore was a political project to
create a Hawaiian-led entity encompassing Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, and Tonga,
that could both defend the kingdoms of Polynesia from imperial control and be
recognized as a Polynesian power, much like the Hawaiian kingdom had already
achieved for itself. Rediscovering Hawaii's place in the pacific. 26 Febr. 2020: Confirming my 30
Jan. assessment that the coronavirus (Covid-19) would become a pandemic,
the question now is: How governments can best deal with the pandemic. 27 Febr. 2020: 29 Febr. 2020: Coal Mining in Lijiang China: 1 March 2020: Russian Maslenitsa Folk Festival greets the
spring by symbolically burning a bridge: 2 March 2020: Last week in New Delhi people walked past charred
vehicles in a riot-affected area following clashes between people
demonstrating for and against a new citizenship law. The question now is if
the communal violence that killed at least 45 people, mostly Muslims, in
India’s capital last week could spread to the rest of the country. What
is really happening in India? 4 March 2020: The Rwandan genocide is widely acknowledged to
have been one of the biggest modern genocides, as many sources pointed to the
sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to
eliminate the victims. Yet are also those who spread disinformation and
denial. An early example of this was the 2004 popular movie "Hotel
Rwanda" which was based on myth and outright lies.Yet
this kind of problem is alive and well in 2020.Not to mention the actuality
that the French Court is soon to rule on Habyarimana assassination by the
upcoming 4 July 2020. Major
Case Study: Rwanda revisited today. |
Update 4 March 2020: Mona Lisa’s smile restored: Around midday today the
Louvre reopens after virus fears. 5 March 2020: India:
A Muslim girl practices 'Vovinam' for the upcoming Women's Day in
Hyderabad 6 March 2020: As we detailed in our own initial 2003-4 case
study about the Rwanda Genocide is that France faced charges that it
supported the Hutu leadership before and even during the massacres. Today's
consequence of excessive government secrecy is the opportunity it afforded
the génocidaires. An information vacuum gave them
free rein to spread lies and disinformation with a view to denying their
crime. They deceived the Western press, promoting lies faster than the facts
could debunk them. Major Case
Study: Rwanda revisited part two. 9 March 2020: Holi is observed in India at the end of the winter
season on the last full moon of the lunar month. 10 March 2020: A visitor on open-deck observatory giving
360-degree views of New York’s skyline: 11 March 2020: The flame for the Tokyo Olympics has been lit at
the birthplace of the ancient games in a pared-down ceremony because of the
coronavirus: 12 March 2020: US President cancels all flights from the EU
except the UK even the president of Canada has to go into quarantine because
his wife came back from the UK flight likely affected with the virus, in
fact, Covid-19 is spreading rapidly in America while the country does not
look ready at all. Thus Wall Street suffers worst rout since Black Monday as
virus response eludes Washington, Belgium not only closes schools but also
bars, and restaurants. Why Covid-19 is killing globalization as we know it. 14 March 2020: A man walks across the deserted Hradčanské Square in front of the closed Prague Castle. 16 March 2020: When Steve Green paid millions of dollars from
his family fortune for 16 fragments of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, it
seemed the perfect addition to their new Museum of the Bible in Washington
DC. Then this weekend, at a conference in Washington, scrambled by the
coronavirus pandemic, experts released a 200-page report revealing how the
forgeries fooled scholars and buyers on the antiquities market. Hence it also
is good to retrace who and what Jesus Christ really was. Major Case Study: Jesus
Christ and the Dead Sea Scrolls. 17 March 2020: Graph on the left indicates that young people
spread Coronavirus (COVID-19) most, whereas the graph on the right indicates
that given the US lags 11 days behind Italy, therefore Italy could possibly
be used as a window into what could next happen in the USA: 18 March 2020: A traffic jam on the Causeway as Malaysians rush to
enter Singapore hours before a travel ban enforcement began: Why
Planet earth is shutting down. 19 March 2020: India's PM Narendra Modi's govt again advises Ayurveda
homeopathy for COVID-19 Trick or treatment: The political and religious
trajectory of Ayurveda. 20 March 2020: Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand
were all invited, allowing the United States to influence developments by
proxy. Second, the United States is not the only entity that seeks to harness
ASEAN's efforts for its own designs. The country that has been most
successful at this is China , which has now engaged ASEAN on everything from
security talks to free trade negotiations. Major Case Study: From
hot to Cold War: Asia's WWII. 21 March 2020: |