This morning's key headlines from
GenerationalDynamics.com
- Hugo Chavez likely to win fourth term as president of Venezuela
- Israel shoots down unmanned drone arriving from Mediterranean
- Turkey and Syria continue to exchange fire across their border
- World food prices go inexorably higher
Hugo Chavez likely to win fourth term as president of Venezuela
Hugo Chavez campaiging on Friday (AFP)
The vitriolicly anti-American Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez
appears to poised to win reelection on Sunday, against his principal
opponent, "moderate leftist" Henrique Capriles. Chávez has won hearts
and minds by using Venezuela's oil wealth for social programs for the
poor. Capriles has said that he would halt subsidized oil shipments
to Cuba, Belarus, Nicaragua and Syria. Venezuela has overtaken Saudi
Arabia to become number one in the world for proven oil reserves.
Chávez has announced plans to increase production and double crude
exports to Asia. His goal is to reduce world dependence on American
oil, but apparently he also wants to reduce world oil prices for
America and everyone else. In recent years Venezuelan oil production
has fallen due to poor maintenance, low investment and the loss of key
workers. Plans to open new fields have been repeatedly delayed.
The Hindu and Guardian (London)
Israel shoots down unmanned drone arriving from Mediterranean
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that crossed into Israel's air space
and flew over settlements and military bases was shot down by Israel's
air force on Saturday morning. At the time that the UAV was
identified, it was unknown whether it carried an explosive weapon, but
examination of the fragments indicated that it was apparently on a
reconnaissance mission rather than an attack mission. It is unknown
where the UAV took off from, or who was responsible, although
Hizbollah is suspected.
Jerusalem Post
Turkey and Syria continue to exchange fire across their border
Tensions between Turkey and Syria, once strong allies, continued to be
at dangerous levels on Saturday, after mortar shells from Syria landed
in rural areas of Turkey, and the Turkish army returned fire in a
retaliatory attack. The shells from Syria did not cause any Turkish
casualties, although villagers rushed out of their homes to gather at
a safer point in the village. Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan has told Syria not to test Turkey's "limits and determination"
and that his country "was not bluffing" with its warnings. Saturday
is the fourth day that Syrian shells have landed in Turkey. On
Wednesday, five people were killed.
Zaman (Istanbul)
World food prices go inexorably higher
FAO Food Price Index
Global food prices increased by 1.4% in the month from July to August,
according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Even
though oil prices are low and rice harvests are plentiful, food prices
show no signs of leveling off and falling, since they began their
average 9% per year average rise, starting in 2002. Food prices are
already at the 2008 peak that resulted in world wide food riots, and
are close to returning to their 2011 peaks that triggered the "Arab
Spring" in the Mideast. At 9% increases per year, food prices will be
at new historic highs by next summer. From the point of view of
Generational Dynamics, the people who survived the enormous famines of
World War II devoted their lives to making sure that it would never
happen again, and they launched the Green Revolution that produced
sharp increases in crop yields in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the
younger generations of Boomers and Gen-Xers with no personal
experience of famine allowed the Green Revolution to peter out in the
1990s. In the meantime, the Law of Diminishing Returns is reducing
the effectiveness of fertilizers and insecticides, the tools developed
for the Green Revolution, at the same time that other resources,
including groundwater and forests, are being used up. FAO and Bloomberg
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