World View: Israel Warplanes Strike Target in Syria

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• North Koreans fight starvation by turning to cannibalism
• Israel’s warplanes strike target in Syria
• Syria’s refugee crisis overwhelms Jordan
• Egypt’s Port Said’s curfew is reduced as anger increases
• Port Said residents increasingly contemptuous of Cairo and Morsi

North Koreans fight starvation by turning to cannibalism

Reports are surfacing that North Koreans are turning to cannibalismfor survival. In one horrendous story, a father was put to death byfiring squad after it was discovered that the had killed and eaten twoof his children last year. (This story reminds me that decades ago Iread a book on the three-year Nazi siege of Leningrad, with numerousdeaths by cannibalism.) Global Post and Daily Mail (London)

Israel’s warplanes strike target in Syria

Israel’s warplanes crossed Lebanon’s air space and struck targets inSyria on Wednesday. However, there is a dispute over what the targetswere. Unnamed U.S. intelligence officials say that Israel wastargeting a convoy of trucks carrying advanced Russian-made SA-17anti-aircraft to Lebanon, where Hizbollah would use them to targetIsraeli planes. However, Syria’s media disputed this account, sayingthat the Israeli warplanes had struck a “military research center”building near Damascus. It’s possible that both were targeted, and ifa military research center was targeted, it may be that it was storingor producing chemical weapons. Bloomberg and BBC

Syria’s refugee crisis overwhelms Jordan

Since January 1 of this year, between 40,000 to 50,000 Syrians havefled into Jordan, in the fastest influx since the beginning of theSyrian conflict. At this rate, there will be over one million Syrianrefugees in Jordan alone, and several million more in other countries.Iraq has closed its borders to refugees, but Syria has kept itsborders open, with the result that the flow of refugees isoverwhelming Jordan. The winter has been particularly cold, andpeople are living in makeshift tents with little clothing, rarelygetting more than one meal a day. The United Nations High Commissionon Refugees (UNHCR) is calling for $1.5 billion in donations fromother countries to provide aid to the refugees. Al-Jazeera and Reuters

Egypt’s Port Said’s curfew is reduced as anger increases

The Governor of Port Said, on the Suez Canal in Egypt, has reduced the9-hour per night curfew imposed by president Mohamed Morsi to 4 hours,from 1-5 am each night. A similar curfew reduction also went intoeffect for the other two Suez Canal cities. It’s just as well thatthe curfews were reduced, since citizens of the three cities wereignoring them anyway. Al-Ahram (Cairo)

Port Said residents increasingly contemptuous of Cairo and Morsi

President Mohamed Morsi’s highly selective “state of emergency”curfews for cities along the Suez Canal not only did not restoreorder, but it highlighted how out of the control the situation isbecoming. Port Said residents have been particularly contemptuous ofthe fact that Morsi did not impose a curfew on Cairo, where the riotsand demonstrations have been much bigger than in the canal cities.Furthermore, the canal cities make a lot of money for Cairo, but itall goes into the pockets of the wealthy élite in Cairo, with littlereturning to Port Said. There is increasingly the feeling in PortSaid that the Cairo is losing control of the country, and that they’reon their own. According to one Port Said protester, “[Theauthorities] are sitting in their houses, waiting to cash theirsalaries at the end of the month, without taking any action toward thedisintegration of the town, leaving people to the chaos.” Foreign Policy

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