According to Andrew Breitbart, two of the bravest people in the world are Irshad Manji and M. Zuhdi Jasser, because they’re outspoken Muslims who are standing up to the standard pro-Islamist narrative adopted by much of the mainstream media. Breitbart
In 2005, the Department of Defense announced the Future Combat System program. (See “Army’s ‘Future Combat System’ calls for autonomous robot soldiers by 2014.”) The plan was that a network of intelligent battlefield robots, including aircraft, ground vehicles, and units
One of the most remarkable occurrences in modern warfare occurred just a few months after World War I had begun. On December 24, 1914, the German and British soldiers laid down their arms, crossed into the “No Man’s Land” separating
On Sunday, 10,000 red-shirted protesters from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) crowded into a major intersection in central Bangkok, according to Bangkok Post. Thailand’s red-shirt protests (Bangkok Post) They were commemorating the 91 protesters that were killed
South Korean and U.S. military forces are remaining on high alert after North Korea backed down from threats of retaliation for South Korea’s live fire artillery drills near Yeonpyong Island on Monday, according to Yonhap. North Korea had deployed multiple
Moscow police detained more than 1,000 people in Moscow and other Russian cities, after internet postings threatened new ethnic violence on Wednesday evening. Most of the detainees were ethnic Russian football (soccer) fans, although a few migrants from the Caucasus
The announcement of election results favoring the party of president Rene Preval has given the appearance of a stolen election in Haiti and triggered several days of violence, according to the Montreal Gazette. From 2004 – Poor neighborhood in Haiti
The Mideast peace process has collapsed after a stark admission of failure by the Obama administration, abandoning its strategy for reaching a Mideast peace agreement, according to VOA. Mahmoud Abbas The Obama administration will no longer try to persuade Israel
A couple of my BigPeace readers have asked for further details about the Generational Dynamics methodology for analyzing history, and relating historical events to today’s world. To illustrate the methodology, I selected the Mongol invasion of China in the 1200s.
Last week (see Ireland Bailout Fails to Calm Markets), we showed you graphs of bond yields (interest rates) for four of the PIIGS countries — Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Now, here are the graphs for Italy and Belgium: 10-year
Feuding European officials signed off on a bailout of Ireland’s banking system on Sunday night, but it failed to calm financial markets on Monday morning, according to EuroIntelligence. 10-year bond yields for Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece as of November
One of the properties of a fractal is that you can zoom into a tiny portion of it, and it still looks like the original fractal. Fractal From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, history is like a fractal.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that there will be a major food crisis in 2011, unless food production is increased substantially. The analysis appears in the organization’s biannual “Food Outlook Report.” FAO Food Price Index versus
European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials flew into Dublin on Wednesday to save the euro and the European Union. Irish Daily Star EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has warned that the euro and the European Union itself
It could be a comedy Broadway play if the consequences weren’t so serious, but it’s increasingly obvious that everybody involved in the so-called Mideast “peace process” — with the possible exception of the Obama administration — does not really want
The military junta in Burma (Myanmar) had hoped to regain some international credibility by holding the first supposedly free election in 20 years. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma independence war hero Aung San (VOA) Burma’s election
In recent months, we’ve seen China’s policies in the South China and the East China seas become increasingly confrontational and belligerent, as they’ve claimed that hundreds of islands, waters and sea lanes that have historically been part of other countries
A very dramatic scene is underway in the obscure republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, a province in southern Russia, part of the North Caucasus. On October 20, gun fighting broke out between rebel forces and police, in which people on both sides
On Saturday, Yemeni police arrested a college girl and her mother in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, a day after parcels containing bombs sparked a global security alert, according to Al-Jazeera. Printer plot bomb: Explosives were hidden in toner cartridge
From China’s point of view, ceasing exports of rare earth elements (REEs) makes a lot of sense outside of ideology. China needs these minerals for its own manufacturing as much as any other countries do, so the Chinese might well
Russians were shocked on Tuesday morning by the news of a successful large-scale terrorist attack on Chechnya’s very well protected Parliament building in Grozny. Chechnya (Discovery Corp) The attack began when vehicles containing rebel militants made their way into parliamentary
On October 4, a wall holding an enormous reservoir of toxic red sludge collapsed in Hungary. Within an hour, 3 villages were buried deep in in 200 million gallons of the sludge, the waste product from a plant producing alumnina,
An international row was triggered on Saturday by a leading German politician who said that Turkish and Arab immigrants were unable to integrate into German society and should no longer be accepted, according to the Guardian. Horst Seehofer, the premier
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas says that he will resign as PA president if Israel resumes building West Bank settlements, which would cause the collapse of the Mideast peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas shakes hands
On Monday, Goldman Sachs senior investment strategist Abby Joseph Cohen appeared on CNBC and lied about the S&P 500 price/earnings ratio index. She said that it was “dramatically below average,” when in fact any WSJ reader could check and see
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) has honored Generational Dynamics by selecting a paper on the commercialization of Generational Dynamics as one of the winners in its 2010 Leading Edge Forum Papers program. CSC President Mike Laphen (R) presents 2010 Leading Edge
Japan attempted to turn the tables on China on Monday, by demanding that China pay for repairs to two Coast Guard vessels that were damaged during the confrontation with a Chinese fishing boat on September 7, according to Bloomberg. The
A major computer virus attack has spread to the Windows computers at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, according to the Telegraph. However, the project manager at Bushehr said that the major systems at the plant have not been damaged. Iran’s
Some 6,000 people gathered in central Stockholm square on Monday evening at 6 pm to protest electoral success of the far-right political party, Swedish democrats, shouting “No to racism!” according to Swedish Wire. “It has been a big shock for
On Tuesday, a bomb blast damaged four police cars just outside Manama, the capital of Bahrain. There were no casualties, according to AFP, but the attack is thought to be part of an Iran-supported series of planned terrorist attacks, targeting
It was a dry bureaucratic announcement appearing in the official Granma web site (Translation). It signaled the end of Cuba’s Communist economy. Fidel Castro Here are some excerpts (sometimes paraphrased): “After 52 years, the Cuban Revolution is a living and
On Tuesday, Mozambique’s government announced that it will begin to subsidize bread prices, after bread prices had risen 22% in the previous month. The move was forced by massive food riots and looting that occurred in the last few days,
Obama administration officials are calling for an escalation of U.S. military operations in Yemen, the home of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). There are no plans to scale back operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported two
It’s about Mideast peace and a Palestinian state, but this summit is President Obama’s show. The President greeted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in Washington on Wednesday, in preparation for peace talks that began
An editorial in Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News chides Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad essentially for being a loudmouth. The editorial quotes Ynet reports of provocative statements by Ahmadinejad — Israel is “too weak” to handle an offensive in Iran, and he
The word “Islamophobia” has been in the news a lot this week, after TIME magazine ran a cover article wondering when America had become Islamophobic. So, is America Islamophobic? The question arises from the debate over the “Ground Zero” mosque
Saturday was the 63rd anniversary of Pakistan’s Independence Day, but the celebrations were muted by the unfolding and growing catastrophe facing the country. There are some 1600 deaths, and 20 million people are homeless because of the floods, according to
The Chinese are already discomfited by the spectre of U.S.-South Korean naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, but now their anxiety is increasing over the U.S. plans for drills in the South China Sea. The giant nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS
Torrential rains continued to pour down on Pakistan, worsening an already catastrophic situation, according to Dawn. The Indus river, which runs down the middle of Pakistan from top to bottom, almost for the entire length of the country, has been