#Afghanistan becoming a British protectorate

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.7 (after 1940)

1940 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp. 1943 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches. 1943 – Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the Axis Occupation. 1943 – The National Football League makes helmets mandatory. 1945 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato, one of the two largest ever constructed, is sunk by United States Navy aircraft during Operation Ten-Go. 1946 – The Soviet Union annexes East Prussia as the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. 1948 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations. 1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference. 1955 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing health. 1956 – Francoist Spain agrees to surrender its protectorate in Morocco. 1964 – IBM announces the System/360. 1965 – Representatives of the National Congress of American Indians testify before members of the US Senate in Washington, D.C. against the termination of the Colville tribe. 1968 – Two-time Formula One British World Champion Jim Clark dies in an accident during a Formula Two race in Hockenheim. 1969 – The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1. 1971 – Vietnam War: President Richard Nixon announces his decision to quicken the pace of Vietnamization. 1972 – Vietnam War: Communist forces overrun the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh. 1978 – Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter. 1980 – During the Iran hostage crisis, the United States severs relations with Iran. 1982 – Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh is arrested. 1983 – During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk. 1988 – Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov orders the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. 1989 – Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway, killing 42 sailors. 1990 – A fire breaks out on the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, killing 159 people. 1990 – John Poindexter is convicted for his role in the Iran–Contra affair. In 1991 the convictions are reversed on appeal. 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Massacres of Tutsis begin in Kigali, Rwanda, and soldiers kill the civilian Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana. 1994 – Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705 in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy. 1995 – First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya. 2001 – NASA launches the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. 2003 – Iraq War: U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime falls two days later. 2011 – The Israel Defense Forces use their Iron Dome missile system to successfully intercept a BM-21 Grad launched from Gaza, marking the first short-range missile intercept ever. 2017 – U.S. President Donald Trump orders the 2017 Shayrat missile strike against Syria in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack. 2018 – Former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is arrested for corruption by determination of Judge Sérgio Moro, from the "Car-Wash Operation". Lula stayed imprisoned for 580 days, after being released by the Brazilian Supreme Court. 2018 – Syria launches the Douma chemical attack during the Eastern Ghouta offensive of the Syrian Civil War. 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: China ends its lockdown in Wuhan. 2022 – Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice.

[totallynotagentphilcoulson]

So really, if you want the full historical context it’s more like

[educrat-ias-academy]

Taliban issue in Afghanistan

The Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan, as of 16th August 2021. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on 15th August, 2021. The Islamic fundamentalist political and military organisation has dominated the Afghan polity for quite a long time. They were removed from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001. However, Afghanistan has been plunged into chaos after the Taliban took over in the wake of the pull out of American forces from the country.

About Taliban

The Taliban are predominantly a Pashtun, Sunni fundamentalist organization that is involved in Afghan politics. The Taliban has remained in power for three quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001. They were known for their strict implementation of the Sharia law. This period can be marked as the period of widespread abuse of human rights where women were targeted especially. The Taliban officially refers to itself as the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”.

Origin of Taliban and how did they rise to power

The origin of Taliban is somewhere started with the great game. The Great Game was a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, over Afghanistan and neighboring territories in Central and South Asia. It also had direct consequences in Persia and British India. Britain feared that Russia planned to invade India and that this was the goal of Russia’s expansion in Central Asia, while Russia feared the expansion of British interests in Central Asia. As Britain did not want Russia to reach British India, it invaded Afghanistan thrice; in 1838, 1878, 1919. The principal objective to attack Afghanistan was to make it a buffer state.

In 1838, the British were defeated, but in 1878 the British won the battle. Now Afghanistan has become a protectorate of the British. In the third Anglo-Afghan war, 1919, the British were defeated. In 1921, Afghanistan emerged as an independent country. Between 1921-1936, Amanullah was the emirate of Afghanistan. Later he announced himself as the king of Afghanistan. In 1933, Zahir Shah became the new king. He ruled for 40 years and brought stability to the country.

In 1953, Mohammad Daud Khan who was the cousin of the king, became the Prime Minister of Afghanistan. He was a pro-communist in his ideology and introduced several reforms in Afghanistan.

In 1965, the Afghan Communist Party was formed by Babrak Kamal and Nur Mohammad Taraki. In 1973, Daoud Khan overthrew Zahir Shah and abolishes the monarchy by establishing The Republic of Afghanistan with close ties with the USSR. Daoud Khan’s government introduced many reforms for modernisation. He proposed for a new constitution that grants women rights and works to modernise large communist state. According to the experts, Daoud Khan’s government was the puppet of the USSR. India was the only country in South-Asia to recognise this government which was backed by USSR.

In 1978, Daoud Khan was killed in a communist coup. Reforms introduced by the Daoud Khan’s government was considered to be too radical by the traditional power structures and rural areas. Mohammad Taraki, who was also a believer of communism, took control of the country as the President. He proclaimed independence from Soviet influence and declared their policies to be based on Islamic Principles. This was the time when the conservative islam and ethnic leaders revolted to restore the social order.

In 1979, Taraki was killed by those who supported Hafizulla Amin. Now, at this time USSR intervened and deployed the Soviet Army. They orchestrated a coup killing the ruling President Hafizullah Amin.

Babrak Karmal was declared President. The USSR installed their ally as the President. The USA and other western nations saw this as an invasion by the Soviet Union. As it was the period of cold war, the USA supported the Mujahideen. When the towns were under Soviet control, the rural areas were still under the control of Mujahideen. Mujahideen were supported by the USA, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their fight against the USSR. In 1989, the USSR withdrew their troops at the cost of lakhs of Afghan lives. This was the time when the government of Afghanistan had to fight the Mujahideen alone as USSR withdrew their troops from the country.

However, there was a civil war between the Mujahideen also in 1992 as they were divided into factions. In 1994, a group of students seized control of the city of Kandahar and started a battle for power to control the entire country. They were called the Taliban. They were Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, many of them were trained in camps in Pakistan where they were refugees. In 1995, the Taliban captured the province of Herat and in 1996, Kabul. By 1998, almost the entire country was under the control of the Taliban. Some of the Mujahideen warlords fled to the north of the country and joined the Northern Alliance who were fighting the Taliban. The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, to remove the Taliban from power as they were hosting alQaeda terrorists, who were the main suspects of the September 11 attacks. This marked the start of the United States’s War on Terror. The War in Afghanistan (2001-present) is between Afghan Army troops, backed by additional United States troops, fighting against insurgents of the Taliban. NATO has also been involved in this war. In 2001 some 1300 NATO troops arrived in Afghanistan for the first time which grew to around 1 lakh by 2010. After US and NATO intervention, Hamid Karzai became the first ever democratically elected head of state in 2004 and the current President is Ashraf Ghani, since 29 September 2014. Since 2001, the US policy on Afghanistan relied on permanent presence in the country to ensure smooth transition of Afghanistan towards democratic governance; however US’ prolonged intervention in Afghanistan started gathering criticism for its failure to usher in political stability, for failing to check the resurgence of Taliban and for the innumerable loss of lives on the foreign soil.

India’s approach towards Afghanistan

India’s Afghanistan policy, especially after 1979, was based on the promise that an external friendly power would do the heavy lifting in Afghanistan’s security and political sector. India, meanwhile, would invest in soft sectors, such as infrastructure development, and would limit its involvement in the security domain. India was the only South Asian nation to recognize the Soviet backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. However, USSR’s withdrawal in 1989 reduced India’s presence in Afghanistan. India had no engagement with the Taliban directly and became one of the key supporters of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. India’s active involvement in Afghanistan has been discouraged to cater to Pakistani wishes. India was not invited to the Bonn conference 2001, where the post-Taliban order in Afghanistan was discussed. Pakistan emerged as an all-important country in USA’s war on terror due to its proximity to the Taliban heartland and its strong leverage over the militant group.

However, India’s relation with Afghanistan improved markedly under the Karzai presidency and New Delhi invested heavily in developmental and infrastructural projects in Afghanistan which built India’s soft power and led to recognition of India as a key partner in solving the Afghan problem. In 2011, Afghanistan signed its first Strategic Partnership Agreement with India, after Karzai had rejected a similar offer from Pakistan.

India’s contribution in Afghan development

Infrastructural development

Parliament building in Kabul

Zaranj Delaram Highway (Connecting western Afghanistan to Chabahar port in Iran)

Salma Dam Project (India-Afghan friendship dam)

India has also signed a trilateral preferential trade agreement with Afghanistan and Iran.

Defence and administrative support

Strengthening Afghan public institution and supporting them with technical advisers

Training for Afghan public servants, soldiers and policemen

Supplying military hardware (Mi-25 and Mi-35 choppers for the air force.)

Education, health and medical sector

India has provided multiple scholarships to Afghan students with thousands of Afghan nationals studying in India along with providing vocational training and skill development classes to Afghan women and youth.

India’s liberal visa policy has made it easier for Afghan patients to travel to India which has further enhanced people-to-people interaction between the two countries.

India has bestowed an amount of 5 million USD for the Afghan Red Society Programme to treat congenital heart disease in children.

Cultural efforts

Bollywood movies display the cultural links between India and Afghanistan and Indian cinema has a large market in Afghanistan.

India’s involvement and contribution to the development of cricket in Afghanistan has been one of its primary means of soft power influence in the nation.

India’s stand on Taliban

Although India has signaled a shift in its position on engaging with the Taliban by participating in the commencement ceremony of Intra-Afghan talks between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, it still does not recognise the Taliban. India believes any peace process must be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled.

Its implications are as follows:

To respect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and promote human rights and democracy.

To preserve the progress made in the establishment of a democratic Islamic Republic in Afghanistan.

India supports an “independent and sovereign” Afghanistan. These words indicate that Pakistan and ISI should not be a controller of Afghanistan. Indian interests include the Indian Embassy and Indian companies and workers in Afghanistan, should be protected. The interests of minorities, women and vulnerable sections of society must be preserved and the issue of violence across the country and its neighbourhood has to be effectively addressed.

[teamfreewill2pointo]

Dean and Jack’s arc

I’ve seen some people arguing that Dean telling Jack he’s going to be the one to kill him at the end of 13x2 is OOC. I don’t believe it is, so I’m going to address the other instances when Dean has reacted to loss with anger, I’m going to explain why he reacts to loss with anger, and I’ll make some predictions about how I think their relationship will move forward. Basically, I think the situation is more of a repeat of 2.03 than 4.04

Major spoilers for 13x2

First, there are many possible interpretations of this scene. Jack’s actions may not be suicidal, Dean may not have thought of them as suicidal, and “I’m going to be the one to do it” may have been more of a promise than a threat. I love all those interpretations, but for this particular argument, I’m assuming that Dean coded it as suicide and meant it as a threat. My argument is that, even with the most negative view of his actions in that scene, it is in his character to react that way.

As Sam notes in 13x2, Dean’s whole life is built around protecting other people. When he thought that he could no longer save Sam, but would have to kill him, he was suicidal.

5x14

FAMINE: Yes. I noticed that. Have you wondered why that is? How you could even walk in my presence?

DEAN: Well, I like to think it’s because of my strength of character.

FAMINE: I disagree. (Famine moves closer to Dean and touches him) Yes. I see. That’s one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. Can’t fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex.

DEAN: Oh, you’re so full of crap.

FAMINE: Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me! I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can’t win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just… keep going through the motions. You’re not hungry, Dean, because inside, you’re already…dead.

Now Dean has lost Castiel, Mary, and Crowley. He thinks Sam’s too close to Jack and is going to get himself killed. Dean, who has built his life around protecting his loved ones, has failed to protect 3 people he cares about (I wouldn’t call Crowley a loved one, but he did care for him) and is completely unable to protect Sam, his last rock.

To understand Dean, I think the most important foundational aspect is to recognize that he never wanted to go into hunting.

1x11

DEAN: Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life.

SAM: Are you serious?

DEAN: You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I—anyway….I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy.

He can’t even bring himself to say it because it’s a wish he can’t have. As long as his dad needs him, he’s going to stay with him because Dean is, at his core, a protector. A fixer.

7x1

DEAN: Imma fix this car. Because that’s what I can do. I can work on her ‘til she’s mint. And when Sam wakes up, no matter what shape he’s in, we’ll glue him back together too. We owe him that.

If he can’t protect or fix his loved ones, he gets frustrated and, as Sam notes in 13x2, he turns frustration into anger.

7x2

DEAN (on phone): You cannot be in that crater back there. I can’t… If you’re gone, I swear, I am going to strap my Beautiful Mind brother into the car and I’m gonna drive us off the pier. You asked me how I was doing? Well, not good! Now you said you’d be here. Where are you?

Now I could see some saying that he wasn’t serious when he made this comment, but Dean has a history of directing violence towards people in his vicinity, including loved ones, when he’s upset over loss in the early seasons. In later seasons, he still becomes violent when upset, although it’s less likely to be directed at Sam.

In 1x01, he pushes Sam against a bridge after Sam says “Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom’s gone. And she isn’t coming back.“

In 2.22, he yells at and pushes Bobby for suggesting they put Sam to rest.

In 7x03, he punches Sam hard enough to knock him flat and leave a bruise after Sam leaves in a situation where Dean’s already very keyed up and upset over people being lost.

In 2x03, which is a great parallel to our current situation Dean’s upset over John’s death.

DEAN: Yeah. Yeah, you know. He was just one of those guys. Took some terrible beatings, just kept coming. So you’re always thinking to yourself, he’s indestructible. He’ll always be around, nothing can kill my dad. Then just like that (snaps) he’s gone. I can’t talk about this to Sammy. You know, I gotta keep my game face on. (clears throat) But, uh, the truth is I’m not handling it very well. Feel like I have this -

GORDON: Hole inside you? And it just gets bigger and bigger and darker and darker? Good. You can use it. Keeps you hungry. Trust me. There’s plenty out there needs killing, and this’ll help you do it. Dean, it’s not a crime to need your job.

Dean wants to kill a bunch of vampires that Sam begs him to spare because they haven’t killed people.

DEAN: What part of ‘vampires’ don’t you understand, Sam? If it’s supernatural, we kill it, end of story. That’s our job.

SAM: No, Dean, that is not our job. Our job is hunting evil. And if these things aren’t killing people, they’re not evil!

DEAN: Of course they’re killing people, that’s what they do. They’re all the same, Sam. They’re not human, okay? We have to exterminate every last one of them.

As the conversation continues, Dean insists Gordon has the right idea and Sam tells him Ellen warned him about Gordon. It continues:

SAM: You know, you slap on this big fake smile but I can see right through it. Because I know how you feel, Dean. Dad’s dead. And he left a hole, and it hurts so bad you can’t take it, but you can’t just fill up that hole with whoever you want to. It’s an insult to his memory.

DEAN: Okay.

He starts to turn away, then punches SAM, hard. SAM pauses, turning back slowly, but not rising to the bait.

SAM: You hit me all you want. It won’t change anything.

DEAN: I’m going to that nest. You don’t want to tell me where it is, fine. I’ll find it myself.

Sam recognizes that Dean isn’t angry at him. Dean’s upset over the loss of their father and taking it out on Sam. Despite being angry enough to punch his brother, Dean ends up helping Sam save the vampires instead of slaughtering them. Gordon tries to remind Dean of their parallels.

GORDON: You’re not like your brother. You’re a killer. Like me.

…

DEAN: You know, I might be like you, and I might not.

So Dean does have a history of being angry after a loss, but why is Dean’s anger so openly directed at Jack?

First, there’s the possibility that Sam’s wrong and Dean’s right. Interestingly enough, one of these times where Dean is right and Sam is wrong around someone’s ability to chose good over evil is another character named Jack. I don’t believe that is just a coincidence.

In 4.04, we encounter a man named Jack who is a rougarou, although he doesn’t know it yet. Dean argues he must be killed. Sam argues that he can be saved. In the end, Sam kills Jack to save them both when Jack goes dark side.

Sam’s obsession with redemption and forgiveness is also one of his flaws and Dean recognizes this. Dean generally has better instincts than Sam, although not always.

Many times, Dean has given his trust only be betrayed, most recently at the hands of the British Men of Letters. Dean’s always been more cautious than Sam when it comes to trust in Supernatural creatures.

Another explanation is that he’s upset Jack opened the rift, which led to deaths of Castiel and (presumably) Mary. While I do think part of it is Dean blaming Jack for their deaths, I think it’s more than just that.

There are huge parallels between Dean’s actions now and seasons 2-5 along with 7. In 2-5, Dean was also given a save or kill option (instruction really). Since it was Sam, Dean refused to even consider the kill option, even when Sam literally begged him to.

2x11

SAM: I need you to watch out for me.

DEAN: Yeah. I always do.

SAM: No! No, no, no. You have to watch out for me, all right? And if I ever … turn into something that I’m not … (beat) you have to kill me.

DEAN: (dismissive) Sam.

SAM: (shoving DEAN to face him) Dean! Dad told you to do it, you have to.

DEAN: Yeah, well, Dad’s an ass. (SAM frowns in confusion) He never should have said anything. I mean, you don’t do that, you don’t, you don’t lay that kind of crap on your kids.

SAM: No. He was right to say it! Who knows what I might become? Even now, everyone around me dies!

DEAN: Yeah, well, I’m not dying, okay? And neither are you. [ T_T ] Come on. Sam.

All of that changed in season 4. Dean experienced hell where he was physically and emotionally torn apart. Dean always had more black and white thinking when it came to monsters compared to Sam, but this is understandably turned up after his time in hell, where Dean’s experiences gave him PTSD.

On a personal level, my husband is a lot like Dean in that he used to be a combat medic because, to quote Harry Potter, he has a “saving people thing”. He went to Afghanistan and came back with much more anger than he ever had before, in part because of all the people he couldn’t save. One of the reasons I married him was because he never got angry before he left for combat. He’s out of the military now, and is doing much better now that we are in a civilian life. I’ve seen first hand how war and violence can corrupt a person who is inherently good.

In 4, Dean returned to a Sam that Dean could no longer trust not to go dark side. Personally, I’ve always wondered how much of this in due to Dean himself going dark side in hell. I suspect that some part of him thinks that anyone can be turned - it’s just a matter of time. And really, I think he’s right. They have to keep Jack safe from the angels and the demons. Jack is easily manipulated and led. Even if Sam and Dean do everything right, Jack could accidentally go big bad.

When Sam let Lucifer out of the cage, Dean fully lost his ability to believe in Sam.

5x1

DEAN: And I know how sorry you are. I do. But, man…you were the one that I depended on the most. And you let me down in ways that I can’t even…

DEAN pauses, struggling for words.

DEAN: I’m just—I’m having a hard time forgiving and forgetting here. You know?

SAM: What can I do?

DEAN: Honestly? Nothing.

SAM nods a little, looking down: this doesn’t surprise him.

DEAN: I just don’t…I don’t think that we can ever be what we were. You know?

SAM nods again: this isn’t a surprise either.

DEAN: I just don’t think I can trust you.

SAM looks up: this he wasn’t expecting. DEAN shakes his head and walks away, pausing at the trunk of the Impala to look back, then gets into the driver’s seat.

When Dean no longer believed in Sam, he no longer believed in the power of love to save Sam, which he used to believe in seasons 2 & 3, when he still thought he could save Sam. We can see this clearly in season 5, when Dean decides to go say yes to Michael and explains why to Sam.

SAM: Well, do you think maybe you could take a half a second and stop trying to sacrifice yourself for a change? Maybe we could actually stick together?

DEAN: I don’t think so.

SAM: Why not? Dean, seriously. Tell me. I—I want to know.

DEAN: I just…I—I don’t believe.

SAM: In what?

DEAN: In you. I mean, I don’t. I don’t know whether it’s gonna be demon blood or some other demon chick or what, but…I do know they’re gonna find a way to turn you.

SAM: So you’re saying I’m not strong enough.

DEAN: You’re angry, you’re self-righteous. Lucifer’s gonna wear you to the prom, man. It’s just a matter of time.

SAM: Don’t say that to me. Not you…of all people.

DEAN: I don’t want to. But it’s the truth. And when Satan takes you over, there’s got to be somebody there to fight him, and it ain’t gonna be that kid. So, it’s got to be me.

In the end, Dean was wrong. Sam didn’t need someone to fight him - he needed someone to love him. It was love that saved the world. And what will it be this time? Does Jack need someone to fight him? Is he evil?

I suspect that Dean’s right and Jack will go dark side. I think that it’s likely Jack will kill someone the Winchesters care about. I suspect that Sam’s right and that love will bring him back on a redemption because that’s the ultimate theme of Supernatural. (And they enjoy handing out redemption arcs like candy.)

It was Sam’s faith in and love for Dean that stopped Dean from saying yes to Michael.

It was Dean’s faith in and love for Sam that allowed Sam to take control of Lucifer.

It was Sam’s faith in and love for Castiel that brought him back from the dark side and put him on a redemption path.

It was Dean’s faith in and love for Castiel that overcame his brainwashing.

It was Sam’s faith in and love for Dean that stopped him from killing Sam under the influence of the Mark of Cain.

It was Sam’s faith in and love for his friends and family that gave him strength to say no to Lucifer a second time.

It was Chuck’s love that stopped Amara from destroying the world.

It was Dean’s faith in and love for his mom that brought her back from brainwashing.

So why isn’t Dean giving the Power of Love a greater chance? The obvious answer is partly what I mentioned above: Jack can be manipulated and they’ve been burned before. Sam trusted Ruby and started the apocalypse. Dean trusted Gadreel, which resulted in the death of Kevin. They trusted the BMoL and were nearly killed by them.

I think it’s about more than that though. Dean’s never believed in himself as worthy of being saved, of having the possibly of being saved, so it’s hard for him to believe that others can be saved.

See Dean in 4x1 versus Sam in 2x13 on the subject of angels:

4x1

DEAN: I mean what are you?

CASTIEL: I’m an Angel of the Lord.

DEAN: Get the hell out of here. There’s no such thing.

…

DEAN: Well, I’m not buying what you’re selling, so who are you really?

CASTIEL: (frowning) I told you.

DEAN: Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?

CASTIEL: Good things do happen, Dean.

DEAN: Not in my experience.

CASTIEL: What’s the matter? You don’t think you deserve to be saved?

2x13

SAM: I don’t know, Dean, I just, uh … (he sits on the bed) I wanted to believe … so badly, ah … It’s so damn hard to do this, what we do. You’re all alone, you know? And … there’s so much evil out there in the world, Dean, I feel like I could drown in it. And when I think about my destiny, when I think about how I could end up…

DEAN: (sitting on the bed beside him) Yeah, well, don’t worry about that. All right? I’m watching out for you.

SAM: Yeah, I know you are. But you’re just one person, Dean. And I needed to think that there was something else, watching too, you know? Some higher power. Some greater good. And that maybe …

DEAN: Maybe what?

SAM: (with tears in his eyes) Maybe I could be saved.

Just like Dean’s love for Sam allowed Sam to defeat the archangels and save the world, Dean was saved from his suicide mission by Sam’s belief in him.

In 5.18, Sam says that he could tell Dean wanted to say yes and asks why he didn’t.

DEAN: Honestly? The damnedest thing. I mean, the world’s ending. The walls are coming down on us, and I look over to you and all I can think about is, “this stupid son of a bitch brought me here.” I just didn’t want to let you down.

SAM: You didn’t. You almost did. But you didn’t.

DEAN: I owe you an apology.

SAM: No, man. No, you don’t.

DEAN: Just…let me say this. I don’t know if it’s being a big brother or what, but to me, you’ve always been this snot-nosed kid that I’ve had to keep on the straight and narrow. I think we both know that that’s not you anymore. I mean, hell, if you’re grown-up enough to find faith in me…the least I can do is return the favor.

It was Sam’s faith and love for Dean that pulled him back from that edge. In episodes 1 and 2 of season 13, Dean’s just a guy doing a job who’s lost almost everything and thinks he’s about to lose everything when Jack goes dark and kills Sam. Sam’s faith and love in Dean is no longer enough to pull Dean back from the edge because Dean thinks Sam’s faith and love is blinding him to reality of Jack (and I do think he’s right).

I predict that Castiel’s return will give Dean that space to have faith and hope again. From the very first moment that they met, Castiel recognized what Dean was lacking:

4x1

CASTIEL: This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.

It was Castiel’s betrayal and death in season 7 that sent Dean on a spiral dark enough to contemplate murdering Sam. With Castiel’s return mid season, Dean was able to have faith again.

Ultimately, although things may seem to go the way of 4.04, I’ll expect Dean’s journey with Jack will end up the same way he did in 2.03:

DEAN: I wish we never took this job. It’s jacked everything up.

SAM: What do you mean?

DEAN: Think about all the hunts we went on, Sammy, our whole lives.

SAM: Okay.

DEAN: What if we killed things that didn’t deserve killing? You know? I mean, the way Dad raised us…

SAM: Dean, after what happened to Mom, Dad did the best he could.

DEAN: I know he did. But the man wasn’t perfect. And the way he raised us, to hate those things; and man, I hate 'em. I do. When I killed that vampire at the mill I didn’t even think about it; hell, I even enjoyed it.

SAM: You didn’t kill Lenore.

DEAN: No, but every instinct told me to. I was gonna kill her. I was gonna kill 'em all.

SAM: Yeah, Dean, but you didn’t. And that’s what matters.

@chiisana-sukima

[ericfruits]

How oil transformed the Gulf

NATURE GAVE THE Gulf two bounties. Above, in the shallow waters of the sea, oyster beds have yielded pearls since antiquity. In the 19th century they were sold across the world through merchants in Mumbai. Below ground, in ripples of rock where the Arabian plate pushes under the Eurasian one, some of the world’s richest oil deposits were discovered in the early 20th century—in Iran in 1908, Iraq in 1927, Bahrain in 1932 and, above all, in Saudi Arabia in 1938.

Until then the Gulf had mostly been of marginal importance to surrounding empires. Notions of sovereignty were vague and applied to people more than land. Nomadic, tribal lifestyles meant that rulers had limited means to enforce their will, since dissenters could move elsewhere.

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The Al Khalifas who settled in Bahrain split from the Al Sabahs of Kuwait; both trace their origins to a migration from central Arabia in the 17th century. The Al Thanis of Qatar, in turn, rebelled against the Al Khalifas. The Al Maktoums of Dubai split away from the Al Nahyans of Abu Dhabi. Tribes straddle modern borders, and many of the Gulf’s ruling clans intermarried.

Starting in the 18th century, the Gulf emirs came under the protection of the British empire, which sought to keep rivals away from the approaches to India. The British imposed truces on the internecine fights of the emirs (hence the region’s name, “the trucial coast”).

In the Arabian interior, meanwhile, the Al Sauds in the Nejd struck a pact in the 18th century with a puritanical cleric, Muhammad ibn Abdel-Wahhab, and his followers. Together they conquered much of the peninsula and the alliance persisted through the ebb and flow of the Al Sauds’ rule.

The first Saudi state of 1744-1818 was crushed by the Ottomans. The weak second Saudi state of 1824-91 collapsed from internal turmoil. The third and current one was reconstituted by Abdel Aziz Al Saud and named Saudi Arabia in 1932. He received some help from Britain. It acquiesced when he defeated the Hashemites, Britain’s ally in the first world war, and took the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. But Britain prevented him from overwhelming, among other places, the trucial coast and Oman.

President Franklin Roosevelt met King Abdel Aziz in Egypt in 1945 after the Yalta summit, laying the foundation for an enduring, if troubled, alliance. The British withdrew from east of Suez in 1971 and were replaced by America as the region’s protector from 1979, after the Iranian revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Oil turned the poor and loosely organised tribes of the Arabian peninsula into some of the world’s wealthiest states. In contrast with most countries, which must tax citizens to raise the money needed to provide services and security, Gulf rulers collected rents from oil and distributed some of the bounty to citizens. These “rentier states” provided cradle-to-grave benefits in return for obedience. In Saudi Arabia, the rulers gave Wahhabi clerics leeway to impose social norms and in return received religious legitimacy for their rule.

Gulf citizens were propelled from poverty to a life of comfort. Standards of health and education improved quickly. The thinly populated Gulf states hired Western experts to help them build their countries and an army of Asians to do the menial labour. Foreigners make up about half the population of Gulf states, ranging from 90% in the UAE and Qatar to 30% in Saudi Arabia.

For all the benefits of oil, however, some lamented the passing of the hardy desert life. Bandar bin Surur, a 20th-century Saudi poet, wrote: “The chiefs of Nejd’s tribes who uprooted mighty armies/have become docile and content to feed, like chickens, on grain thrown to them on dirt.”

Because benefits for citizens are so generous, rentier states define citizenship narrowly, even cruelly, excluding hundreds of thousands of Arabs known as bidoon, who are not deemed to qualify. Foreign workers, too, are largely kept in a state of bondage through the kefala system, whereby local sponsors of expatriates must give consent for them to change jobs or leave the country. As with much else, citizenship in the Gulf is a gift from the ruler, not a right.

This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline "From pearls to black gold"

https://ift.tt/2tfanp1

[drjacquescoulardeau]

BRIAN S. FERENCE – PURGATORY OF THE WEREWOLF – 2017

 Note I received this book for free from the author – but with no strings attached, I sure wouldn’t like that – and I find it interesting enough to post a review, which is the continuation of my review of the first and previous volume, “The Wolf of Dorian Gray,” but be careful it may contain some spoilers.

 So Dorian Gray is a werewolf thanks to the mishandling of his portrait by the artist Sage Holdworth who used Romani magic, incantation and herbs that amounted to a curse. And the people he does not devour, he only scratches and licks become werewolves in their turn.

 But that would be too simple.

 Lady Helena, Rivera by her father and Wotton by her marriage, decides to solve the problem by sending Dorian to China to conquer the country with the French and thus re-open the harbors sending opium to Europe and the world. Ah! The beauty of colonialism and imperialism! We are at the end of the 19th century and you can imagine China divided by the French and the English in two zones under their respective influences. Beautiful nostalgia of the West.

 Dorian is made a plain sailor and Lord Crawley, his ex-associate in business he ruined and rejected, pretends to be his friend and protector on that mission and he is made an officer that has authority and power over Dorian. And we more or less understand that Lady Helena entrusted Lord Crawley to get rid of Dorian as soon as some opportunity may present itself.

But Dorian is a werewolf and he has strange powers. First he heals very fast when wounded as if he were eternal, unkillable. And second he is very strong. He thus saves his ship one dark moonless night when on duty in the crow’s nest of the ship by raising the alarm when he saw a dead whale ahead. He then jumps into the ocean to save some of the sailors, one officer among them, who had fallen into the water that was infested with sharks. He thus saves some lives too, after saving the ship

 Lord Crawley – I can’t help being reminded of the Lord of Hello in “Supernatural,” a certain Lord Crowley from Scotland – assigns Dorian to impossible missions in China hoping he will not survive, but he always succeeds, especially when on a full moon night when he turns into the werewolf he is deep under his skin.

 During that time Lady Helena has found some Romani help to ends the curse Sage had cast on Dorian via her portrait of him. So she orders Him and Lord Crawley back to England as soon as possible. They arrive at Lady Helena’s mansion and Dorian is proposed to be shackled down before the imminent full moon in order to be submitted to the exorcism. He hesitates because no shackles can hold the beast when it comes out. So Lord Crawley from behind shoots him through the head but at once he starts healing and they just have time to shackle him down in the cell they had prepared for him, and they start the exorcism and inside the emerging beast Dorian is trying to resist, rejects the beast but it does not work. The beast liberates itself. In fact, they had chosen this full moon because it was a Blood Moon, but it makes the beast a lot more powerful and Dorian cannot really succeed.

 And yet the surprise is to come in no time. The incantation of the Romani sorceress, fortune teller or seer, the one you prefer, manages to separate Dorian as a grey wolf, of course grey, isn’t it, from the real monster in the form of a black wolf, in fact a varcolac. Ah! the beauty of Romani folklore!

 A varcolac in Romanian folklore may refer to several different figures, a wolf demon that, like the Norse Fenris, can and may swallow the moon and the sun, thus causing eclipses. Some legends say it is a ghost or vampire (Strigoi) while others say it is a werewolf (in some versions, a werewolf that emerges from the corpses of babies. Varcolaci are said to be souls of unbaptized children or children of unmarried parents; beings cursed by God rising because one swept dust out of the house at sunset (understand if you can); or beings coming from the sun rising if women spin at night without a candle or if they cast spells as they spin.

Varcolaci are often described as dogs, always two in number; animals smaller than dogs; dragons; animals with multiple mouth, such as octopus; spirits. Varcolaci are said to fasten themselves to the thread of people spinning at midnight, then going up to eat the moon and cover it with blood, hence the reference to the blood moon in this story. Their power is said to last as long as the thread that here ties them up to Dorian in the picture, hence the real Dorian, is not broken. If the thread gets broken, they go to another part of the sky. 

 Varcolaci are recognized by their pale faces, as well as the deep sleep they fall into when sending their spirits out through their mouths to eat the sun or the moon. If they are moved during their sleep they die as their returning spirit won't be able to find the mouth where they came from.

 This breaking of the thread is brought here by the Romani sorceress and Dorian’s will to separate himself from that monster but surprise of surprise Dorian is a good grey werewolf who will go on turning into a wolf on full moon nights, but a good werewolf like Anne Rice’s and he will only devour bad people or dead people, which he does on the spot at the end of the battle. The black varcolac is rejected and second surprise a certain Doctor or Professor Van Helsen who is here not Dutch but Romani intervenes in the battle and starts chasing the black varcolac and they both disappear in some tunnel. Good riddance.

 But the purgatory has to lead to some salvation and in the end we are told that the very vicious Dorian now becoming a good boy has nevertheless licked the poor Lady Helena who is going to be immortal and on full moon nights she will be able to have all kinds of good adventures with Dorian. I am already longing for the next episode, some Arabian Full Moon Night story somewhere in the world, chasing criminals and hunting bad guys.

 But the funniest element of this story is the role of China, in fact Asia in that 19th century world: it is the land of all colonial adventures and the provider of the common drug of those days, i.e. opium.

 Today nothing has changed.

Apart from heroin and cocaine more or less coming from Latin America, opium, in the form of opioids, has become the most common, rampant and dangerous addiction in America and since they are medical drugs, you just need a prescription and money – or a health insurance – to pay for them. The perfect drug for the middle class. And where does it come from? Not China anymore but mostly Afghanistan the first producer of opium in the world. But maybe they have synthesized these opioids to make them more legal, more medical, and of course a lot more expensive since they are covered then by some pharmaceutical patents. Can you see the pharmaceutical varcolac rising behind?

 As for adventure, if we follow Trump the descent onto Beijing starts in North Korea in less than a week, hence before the end of August 2017. Or it might start too in Venezuela and go on in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and who knows where in the world. In the imperialistic West nothing changes ever. They need their slaves and their wars all the time. The werewolves are only the spice of the soup or the story. As for the latest example of that western curse, recently in Lincolnshire, England (they voted for Brexit there) a gang of slave owners have been sent to prison:

 “A BRITISH family kept 18 homeless people, some with learning disabilities, as slaves for up to 26 years and spent the money they earned on luxury holidays and cosmetic surgery.

The Rooney clan trafficked its victims, aged between 18 and 63, and forced them to live in cramped caravans without water or heating while they enjoyed a life of luxury.”

 Really what kind of varcolac has seized power in this world? You will like the story of this Dorian Gray. But Oscar Wilde must be stirring in his tomb: “What have they done with my story of sexual and social vice?”

 Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[queernuck]

Machines of Militarization

The question about what is construed by the reversal of the “military ban” imposed on police stations using DoD surplus is one that requires a great deal of thinking specifically because of how it raises questions about the aesthetics of the means by which police act as internal agents of colonialism, how the police see themselves as an occupying force, and the tools through which these structures of power flow are often not powerful in themselves, in particularities, but in fact as part of a larger structure of arbitration whereby the tools function as machines of desire within a structural war machine rather than as firearms or armored vehicles might in a previous, military sense.

The response was, most immediately, to the widely publicized show of colonizing violence by police in Ferguson following the murder of Mike Brown by Darren Wilson, and how the effective instituting of martial law was matched with officers who wore gear which evoked a military reality: the expansion of the DoD and the continual stoking of an arms and larger military equipment industry creates an excess flow of goods, such that these objects can be readily issued to police departments as part of not only creating an ideological continuity between the larger American war machine and the war machines of local police departments. The escalation seen in Ferguson is a dramatic intensification of the ongoing issues with militarization of police departments: the rise of SWAT teams that work in an interdeparmental fashion, nomadic between townships and serving no particular body of law enforcement except for themselves, as well as the more contained SWAT teams of police forces like the NYPD and the LAPD mirroring the coloniality of the American war machine, is part of a constantly shifting topology whereby the prison becomes a penal colony, every prisoner becomes a terrorist, every police officer becomes part of an unbreakable blue line of flight that striates a civilian population. 

Largely, it has been in creating the figure of the civilian militia, of the paramilitary civilian, that an industry manufacturing endless empty variants on the AR-15 has been founded, such that there is a ready apparatus for arming police even before the government hands them weapons that are much the same. These manufacturers are readily appropriated by the war machines of other nations: it was an American company that manufactured the rifle adopted by British army forces to serve as a sharpshooter and marksman’s rifle for the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan. The creation of military variants upon civilian rifles is not particularly new, but the degree to which it has been developed and moreover is tied to the structuring of law enforcement is part of the development of the commodity as an identifying object, as a prosthetic part of the virtual figuration of the body as Oath Keeper, Militia member, SWAT officer. There is a coherent ideology that talks about these weapons in the hands of “bad guys” in a language that seems suited to children, a language that often leads into the heavily racialized language of “thugs” and “gangsters” that the police must arm themselves against. Survivalist magazines talk about arming oneself against rioters, rather than the openly militaristic police; the violation of property and thus of the self is realized through petty acts of theft rather than the larger apparatuses of control, largely because these structures will be protecting these settlers, will neatly cohere with the ideology of white identity. The frontier has become the suburb, and the degree to which this has been realized is profound, it has been realized as the final space of white domination and in order to allow for the development of schizophrenic processes of identity it must be purged of the unrecognizable, racialized Other as well as their role in exposing the Occidentalist ideology of the colonial gaze, the separation necessary to speak and thus identify the creation of “Western” civilization.

The practical effects of the ban are relatively limited: they cut down on specific programs but used rather specific language to do so, and indeed were doing such largely as part of Obama’s attempts to protect a structure of white supremacist ideology rather than as a meaningful reform of police violence. The hegemony of police violence does not lie in the isolated moments where one finds Ferguson, a display of power which overcoded the notions of police as protectors found in white ideological reckonings, the fascism too openly expressed for most at that particular moment. Resistance in the face of fascism was too readily noted, the fascist realization had to be less open. Images of similar police action taken in Boston following the Boston Marathon bombings were used to show the seriousness of the existential threat terror posed, and that it could be directed against a wholly distant other was important. That Ferguson was too suburban, too widely reported, too outwardly violent at that given moment was important specifically because it was calling into question the protection that could be afforded to spaces of whiteness. The slow restructuring of police presence that followed was intentionally less outwardly violent, such that it could be used to justify the continued presence of police repression. For black populations, meanwhile, there was already a fear of police power in place, a police officer was already known to be liable to kill and officers continued to do as much.

Jason Stockley was carrying a civilian-legal AK-47, in violation of what is expected of officers, which he then used to murder Anthony Smith, before very clearly planting a weapon at the scene. And yet, he will likely get off with a cursory, almost ceremonial sentence if he is convicted at all. Police are already given license to act as they see fit, and this has been common knowledge for black Americans for decades. However, the increasing openness with which this is expressed by police in their aesthetic choices is itself part of a fascist turn. Largely, camouflage in an urban environment does not serve the same purpose it does in wooded ones. Rather, it shows who “your guys” are, it allows for easy identification of forces. Police wearing blue or black are understood as extensions of regular police power, even if they are acting in extraordinary contexts. The shift by many police toward wearing camouflage in regular police work is part of signifying themselves as acting knowingly within a war machine, in adopting a mindset that specifically sparks a faster turn toward a mindset of warlike tactics, tools, weapons. Even in not firing an AR-15, carrying it signifies a certain readiness to effectively go to war, a consciousness that is not so much a complete restructuring of police ideology but instead a certain shift within it. 

Effectively, Trump’s reversal of the ban will have relative little consequence for police, just as Obama’s institution of it did. Neither reverses the violence that has come in the development of so many nomadic war machines within the townships of White America, and both will continue to affect the same structures of antiblack violence. What, then, is the purpose? It is a largely empty appeal to reactionary supporters of these war machines, to an image of Trump as presiding over “law and order” and to match the aesthetics of police to the realization that American fascism is developing more and more, and that the realization of that development must be pushed further and further, must be continually stoked by the engines of fascist desire, lest it turn back upon itself as bourgeoisie consciousness did before the partial stand-down in Ferguson. The ready turn to fascism seen here is a development of a particular viability of fascist ideology that is being seized by neoliberal power rather than reigned in as an excessive expression of present, but latent, structures.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.1

Pre-Julian Roman calendar

153 BC – For the first time, Roman consuls begin their year in office on January 1. Early Julian calendar (before Augustus' leap year correction) 45 BC – The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Empire, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year. 42 BC – The Roman Senate posthumously deifies Julius Caesar.

Julian calendar

193 – The Senate chooses Pertinax against his will to succeed Commodus as Roman emperor. 404 – Saint Telemachus tries to stop a gladiatorial fight in a Roman amphitheatre, and is stoned to death by the crowd. This act impresses the Christian Emperor Honorius, who issues a historic ban on gladiatorial fights. 417 – Emperor Honorius forces Galla Placidia into marriage to Constantius, his famous general (magister militum) (probable). 1001 – Grand Prince Stephen I of Hungary is named the first King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II (probable). 1068 – Romanos IV Diogenes marries Eudokia Makrembolitissa and is crowned Byzantine Emperor. 1259 – Michael VIII Palaiologos is proclaimed co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea with his ward John IV Laskaris. 1438 – Albert II of Habsburg is crowned King of Hungary. 1502 – The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is first explored by the Portuguese. 1515 – Twenty-year-old Francis, Duke of Brittany, succeeds to the French throne following the death of his father-in-law, Louis XII. 1527 – Croatian nobles elect Ferdinand I of Austria as King of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin. 1600 – Scotland recognises January 1 as the start of the year, instead of March 25. 1651 – Charles II is crowned King of Scotland. 1700 – Russia begins using the Anno Domini era instead of the Anno Mundi era of the Byzantine Empire.

Gregorian calendar

1707 – John V is proclaimed King of Portugal and the Algarves in Lisbon. 1739 – Bouvet Island, the world's remotest island, is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier. 1772 – The first traveler's cheques, which could be used in 90 European cities, are issued by the London Credit Exchange Company. 1773 – The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", then titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17", is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Norfolk, Virginia is burned by combined Royal Navy and Continental Army action. 1776 – General George Washington hoists the first United States flag, the Grand Union Flag, at Prospect Hill. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: One thousand five hundred soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne's command rebel against the Continental Army's winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey in the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1781. 1788 – First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published. 1801 – The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is proclaimed. 1801 – Ceres, the largest and first known object in the Asteroid belt, is discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi. 1803 – Emperor Gia Long orders all bronze wares of the Tây Sơn dynasty to be collected and melted into nine cannons for the Royal Citadel in Huế, Vietnam. 1804 – French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black-majority republic and second independent country in North America after the United States. 1806 – The French Republican Calendar is abolished. 1808 – The United States bans the importation of slaves. 1810 – Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales. 1822 – The Greek Constitution of 1822 is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus. 1834 – Most of Germany forms the Zollverein customs union, the first such union between sovereign states. 1847 – The world's first "Mercy" Hospital is founded in Pittsburgh, United States, by a group of Sisters of Mercy from Ireland; the name will go on to grace over 30 major hospitals throughout the world. 1860 – The first Polish stamp is issued, replacing the Russian stamps previously in use. 1861 – Liberal forces supporting Benito Juárez enter Mexico City. 1863 – American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory. 1877 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Empress of India. 1885 – Twenty-five nations adopt Sandford Fleming's proposal for standard time (and also, time zones). 1890 – Eritrea is consolidated into a colony by the Italian government. 1892 – Ellis Island begins processing immigrants into the United States. 1898 – New York, New York annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, are joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs. 1899 – Spanish rule ends in Cuba. 1901 – The Southern Nigeria Protectorate is established within the British Empire. 1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister. 1902 – The first American college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California. 1910 – Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members) since Horatio Nelson. 1912 – The Republic of China is established. 1914 – The SPT Airboat Line becomes the world's first scheduled airline to use a winged aircraft. 1923 – Britain's Railways are grouped into the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, and LMS. 1927 – New Mexican oil legislation goes into effect, leading to the formal outbreak of the Cristero War. 1928 – Boris Bazhanov defects through Iran. He is the only assistant of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to have defected from the Eastern Bloc. 1929 – The former municipalities of Point Grey, British Columbia and South Vancouver, British Columbia are amalgamated into Vancouver. 1932 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. 1934 – Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay becomes a United States federal prison. 1934 – A "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" comes into effect in Nazi Germany. 1942 – The Declaration by United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations. 1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops kill 60 German POWs at Chenogne. 1945 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed, attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow. 1947 – Cold War: The American and British occupation zones in Allied-occupied Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, which later (with the French zone) became part of West Germany. 1947 – The Canadian Citizenship Act 1946 comes into effect, converting British subjects into Canadian citizens. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen. 1948 – The British railway network is nationalized to form British Railways. 1949 – United Nations cease-fire takes effect in Kashmir from one minute before midnight. War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly. 1956 – Sudan achieves independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom. 1957 – George Town, Penang, is made a city by a royal charter of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 1957 – Lèse majesté in Thailand is strengthened to include "insult" and changed to a crime against national security, after the Thai criminal code of 1956 went into effect.:6,18 1958 – The European Economic Community is established. 1959 – Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces. 1960 – Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom. 1962 – Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa. 1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia. 1965 – The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is founded in Kabul, Afghanistan. 1970 – The defined beginning of Unix time, at 00:00:00. 1971 – Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television. 1973 – Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom are admitted into the European Economic Community. 1976 – A bomb explodes on board Middle East Airlines Flight 438 over Qaisumah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 81 people on board. 1978 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747, crashes into the Arabian Sea off the coast of Bombay, India, due to instrument failure, spatial disorientation, and pilot error, killing all 213 people on board. 1979 – Normal diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic of China and the United States. 1981 – Greece is admitted into the European Community. 1982 – Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar becomes the first Latin American to hold the title of Secretary-General of the United Nations. 1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet. 1984 – The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is divested of its 22 Bell System companies as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T. 1984 – Brunei becomes independent of the United Kingdom. 1985 – The first British mobile phone call is made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, chairman of Vodafone. 1987 – The Isleta Pueblo tribe elect Verna Williamson to be their first female governor. 1988 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America comes into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. 1989 – The Montreal Protocol comes into force, stopping the use of chemicals contributing to ozone depletion. 1990 – David Dinkins is sworn in as New York City's first black mayor. 1993 – Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia is divided into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. 1994 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas. 1994 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. 1995 – The World Trade Organization comes into being. 1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves. 1995 – Austria, Finland and Sweden join the EU. 1998 – Following a currency reform, Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence. 1999 – Euro currency is introduced in 11 member nations of the European Union (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden; Greece adopts the euro two years later). 2004 – In a vote of confidence, General Pervez Musharraf wins 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, is "deemed to be elected" to the office of President until October 2007. 2007 – Bulgaria and Romania join the EU. 2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes near the Makassar Strait, Indonesia, killing all 102 people on board. 2009 – Sixty-six people die in a nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand. 2010 – A suicide car bomber detonates at a volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, killing 105 and injuring 100 more. 2011 – A bomb explodes as Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, leave a new year service, killing 23 people. 2011 – Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the 17th Eurozone country. 2013 – At least 60 people are killed and 200 injured in a stampede after celebrations at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. 2015 – The Eurasian Economic Union comes into effect, creating a political and economic union between Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. 2017 – An attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, during New Year's celebrations, kills at least 39 people and injures more than 60 others.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Ricardo Vaz: You are preparing a new documentary film about a big island, Borneo, which is shared by three Asian countries. Which was the triggering factor for making this film now? Andre Vltchek: The triggering factor was a simple shock. I’m not what you’d call an environmentalist. Of course, I care about our planet, about our wonderful creatures, plants, oceans, rivers and deserts. I don’t want them to suffer, to disappear. I wrote an entire book about the plight of South Pacific island nations, called Oceania, but that was all – I never made one single film about the environmental destruction. Mount Kimabalu in Borneo, Malaysia But after visiting Borneo earlier this year (2017), something changed inside me. The island used to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, covered by impenetrable tropical forests, high mountains, and mighty rivers. Its many kingdoms and cultures were self-sufficient and thoroughly unique. Thousands of animal species were coexisting in harmony, sharing the living space with other creatures like birds, butterflies and rare plants, trees and flowers. It was a magic, gentle and pure world… And it was all not so long ago. Many things are even documented by stunning old photographs… Then, Western colonialism changed, basically ruined everything; as it had ruined everything almost everything, all over the world. Soon nothing left of Indonesia Dutch and British invaders, showing no respect and no interest in local people and their habitat, began doing here what they have been doing everywhere for centuries: plundering, stealing, cutting down trees, extracting riches from under the earth, enslaving the locals. Single-handedly ruining the mountain Later on, after semi-independence, the West corrupted local elites and introduced savage capitalism onto basically the entire island of Borneo. In Indonesia, the situation has been the most brutal, since 1965, when the pro-Western treasonous military overthrew the progressive anti-imperialist President Sukarno, putting on the throne a beast, a nitwit and a shameless collaborator, General Suharto. His barefaced money-hungry clique, together with Saudi-type religious bigots, has been running the country until this very moment. Everything that can be extracted is taken away Result: there is almost nothing left of the native forest. Indonesia has the fastest rate of tropical deforestation of any other nation on Earth. Rivers are polluted, often toxic. Hundreds of species are gone forever. Unbridled coal mining is scarring the land. Horrid palm oil plantations are replacing everything. As more and more riches are being found underground, the greater is the destruction. Indonesia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, partially because of the shameful culture of collaboration of its ‘elites’ with the West, and with extreme capitalism. Logging what is left of Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo What I saw in Borneo simply shocked me. From now on I’ll refuse to shut up. If Indonesians themselves are too scared or too programmed to address the situation, I’ll try to do it myself. RV: It seems that amnesia about the massive suffering of enslaved people, provoked by foreign imperialist administrations, is not the main concern of the traditional colonial powers like France, Britain or the US. For 75 years Borneo was a British ‘protectorate’. After its political independence, did UK put into practice a neo-colonial approach, aiming at keeping control of the island’s resources? If yes, what means have been used? AV: Yes, of course. Brits and Dutch, as well as others did it. There were many well-established neo-colonial strategies implemented in Borneo. First of all, the elites in all three countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei) are almost totally under control of the West. What is often called ‘corruption’ here is, in fact, nothing else other than ‘collaboration’ with the foreign powers. Colonialism never died here – in fact, it is alive and well in Borneo, and almost everywhere in Southeast Asia. The local ‘elites’ are serving the interests of both European and North American powers. They are willing to rob, to impoverish their own people, so they can maintain their own profits and privileges, and fill their own coffers, as well as those of the neo-colonialists. New landscape of Kalimantan Education and ‘culture’ are also playing their terrible roles. Education in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia is almost fully controlled by the Western demagogues, and it is ‘sprinkled’ generously with the extreme and intolerant religious currents, predominantly imported from the Gulf and from the West. Those few writers, filmmakers and film producers who could still be found here, are producing mainly absolute rubbish, and not addressing anything rebellious, socialist or revolutionary here. Almost all of them are well remunerated from the West and expected to shut up. I described it in great details in my latest novel Aurora. The situation in education is even worse: professors are chasing diplomas and PhD’s instead of fighting for their island. They are ‘pacified’, bought by the privileges and by pathetic ‘feel good’ rewards, like those fully paid trips to Europe or the United States. They are paid to travel to the lands of their former colonial masters like UK or Holland, and ‘learn’, instead of spitting into the faces of those who have been robbing them for long and horrendous centuries. After getting indoctrinated at home and abroad, teachers and professors return home and continue their destructive work, brainwashing and indoctrinating both children and youth. The young generation is taught how to get well-paid professions, how to make money and how to serve Western imperialism and savage capitalism, instead of fighting for, or defending their country or their almost destroyed islands, like Borneo. It is thoroughly shameful! The people who are ruling Southeast Asia would be executed for treason in places like Cuba, China or Russia! RV: Back in 2012, Barack Obama announced a “pivot to Asia”. Is Southeast Asia already turning into the next Middle East because of the US imperialist ambitions? AV: Good question, but it came a little bit too late. Southeast Asia and the Middle East are not all that different, anymore. Look, in both parts of the world, the West used the most extreme religious streams, in order to enslave, brainwash and ‘pacify’ the local population. And it is not only Islam that has been used and abused by Washington, London and Paris. Every imaginable and unimaginable fundamentalist religious torrent was injected into this part of the world. Result: this enormous part of the world does not have one single great scientist, philosopher, writer or a film director! Not one, just imagine! The more destroyed, damaged and brainwashed this part of the world becomes, the more it is hailed by the Western mass media as ‘successful’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘democratic’. It is all just one highway robbery, a terrible, cynical joke, but it is being accepted ‘at home and abroad’, as most of the lies that are being spread by the Western indoctrinators are tolerated and embraced, as they are always well paid for. RV: How are you planning to produce your documentary film? Are you being funded by some organization? AV: I have no idea… I’m not funded by anyone. This is how I always work: I recycle what I make from my books and films into my new work, into my revolutionary struggle for survival of our planet. I often run myself into the ground; periodically I collapse. But then I collect myself, get up somehow, and try to continue my struggle, my journey. This time I actually asked my readers for support. Borneo is a tremendous story and it may need two films: one short and one feature one. I used the fundraising system: GoGetFunding. I asked for US$20,000, which would hardly cover a half of basic expenses. So far I collected US$60. That would not pay even for a couple of memory cards. But I never give up. As the great Chilean President Salvador Allende used to say: “Adelante Camaradas, venceremos nuevamente!” As an internationalist, I feel that it is simply my duty to fight for Borneo, as it is my duty to fight for Afghanistan or for Venezuela. If someone is ready to support my work and my struggle, I’ll be grateful. If no one will, I’ll do it on my own, somehow! Attempts to destroy our planet do not wait. Why should I? • All photos by Andre Vltchek • Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are the revolutionary novel Aurora and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: Exposing Lies Of The Empire and Fighting Against Western Imperialism. View his other books here. Watch his Rwanda Gambit, a documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. He continues to work around the world and can be reached through his website and Twitter. Read other articles by Andre. http://clubof.info/

[newstfionline]

US Generals Want to Extend Our Longest War

By Eric Margolis, August 5, 2017

Media reports claim President Donald Trump let loose on his generals behind closed doors, blasting them royally for their startling failures in Afghanistan, America’s longest war.

The president has many faults and is a lousy judge of character. But he was absolutely right to read the riot act to the military brass for daring to ask for a very large troop and budget increase for the stalemated Afghan War that has cost $1 trillion to date.

Of course, the unfortunate generals are not really to blame. They have been forced by the last three presidents to fight a pointless war at the top of the world that lacks any strategy, reason or purpose--and with limited forces. But they can’t admit defeat by lightly-armed Muslim tribesmen.

The truth is, simply, that America blundered into the Afghan War under President George W. Bush who needed a target for revenge after the humiliating 9/11 attacks. Instead of blaming Saudi Arabia, a US protectorate which was clearly involved in the attacks, Bush went after remote but strategic Afghanistan and cooked up the Osama bin Laden bogeyman story.

Sixteen years later, the US is still chasing shadows in the Hindu Kush Mountains, rightly known to history as ‘Graveyard of Empires.’

The US invasion of Afghanistan was based on the unproven claim that anti-communist fighter Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. We have yet to see conclusive proof. What we have seen are phony documents and faked videos put out by bin Laden’s foes, the Afghan communists and their Northern Alliance drug-dealing allies.

As I’ve written in my books on South Asia, the so-called ‘terrorist training camps’ in Afghanistan were mostly bases for training anti-Indian Kashmiri liberation groups run by Pakistani intelligence. Claims by the right-wing US media that Afghanistan would become a jihadist base if the 9,800 US troops there now withdrew are nonsense. The 9/11 attacks were planned and mounted from Germany, Spain and Florida, not Afghanistan. They could have come from anywhere.

After sixteen years, the US military and its Afghan mercenaries troops have failed to defeat the Afghan Pashtun tribal resistance forces, Taliban. In fact, the Taliban alliance now controls at least half of Afghanistan and keeps US and government forces pinned down. The US installed ‘president,’ Ashraf Ghani, barely clings to power.

What keeps the US in control of parts of Afghanistan is the US Air Force and naval air power. US warplanes from Afghanistan, Qatar, and aircraft carriers keep a 24/7 combat air patrol over distant Afghanistan and can reply in minutes to attacks on US or Afghan ground units. No other nation could do this--or afford the immense cost.

Gasoline trucked into Afghanistan over the Khyber Pass from Karachi costs $400 per gallon delivered. The authoritative ‘Aviation Week’ magazine reports that keeping US warplanes on station over Iraq and Syria costs an astounding $600,000 per mission. It’s even more over Afghanistan.

But without 24/7 US airpower, US forces in Afghanistan would be soon isolated, then driven out. This is just what happened to the British and Soviets, dooming their efforts to crush the Pashtun, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group.

Bereft of new ideas, the US keeps repeating its mistakes in Afghanistan: colluding with the worst, most corrupt elements of Afghan society; condoning torture and murder; relying on the big, drug dealing tribal chiefs.

The UN reports that opium (the base for heroin) exports doubled last year. The sputtering Afghan economy runs on opium and hashish.

The United States is now the proud owner of the world’s leading producer of opium and morphine base. If the drug trade is ever cut off, the government in Kabul and its warlords will collapse. Ironically, when Taliban ruled Afghanistan before 9/11, the drug trade was almost wiped out. But you will never read this in the tame US media.

Now America’s imperial generals are asking Trump for 4,000 more troops. A basic law of military science is concentration of force. Penny packets of troops are a fool’s strategy. The main function of US troops in Afghanistan is to protect the strategic Bagram and Kandahar air bases and US installations in Kabul.

Now, hard right Republicans are pushing a daft proposal to contract the Afghan War to a US-paid mercenary army led by an imperial viceroy in Kabul. Shades of Queen Victoria. Break out the pith helmets.

Trump has proposed pressuring Pakistan, India and China to end the war. What an absurd idea. For Pakistan, Afghanistan is its blood brother and strategic hinterland. China plans to turn mineral-rich Afghanistan into a Tibet-style protectorate. India wants to outflank Pakistan by taking over Afghanistan. India and China are in a growing military confrontation in the Himalayas.

Trump had better come up with a better idea. My solution to the 17-year war: emulate the example of the courageous Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. He pronounced his Afghan War unwinnable, told his angry generals to shut up, and ordered the Red Army out of the war in Afghanistan.

[96thdayofrage]

Dumb Donald Thinks He’s Pulled the Plug on ISIS and Al-Qaida (and the CIA?)

Donald Trump appears to think he’s convinced the Saudis “to reject jihadist terror and to punish Qatar for its support of ISIS and al-Qaida.” Trump is not very bright. The Gulf kings and emirs back jihadist terror for self-preservation, and the U.S. supports al-Qaida because it has no other options in the region. “If the jihadists are defeated in Syria, they will vent their most intense fury on their former sugar daddies in the Gulf.”

“Without the jihadists, the U.S. would have to resort to massive deployment of its own troops to the region -- a mission that the American people will not accept.”

The international Islamic jihadist network, created nearly four decades ago in Afghanistan by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, is unraveling in full view of a planetary audience. Donald Trump thinks it’s all his doing -- but he’s wrong, of course.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has rallied most of the Gulf Cooperative Council to isolate -- and possibly overthrow -- the emir of neighboring Qatar, the world’s third largest natural gas producer. The dispute between Qatar and the House of Saud -- the two main funders of al Qaida and its spawn, the Islamic State -- is rooted in rivalries beyond the mental grasp of the idiot in the White House, but Trump nevertheless takes full credit. “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” Trump tweeted. “Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”

Trump appears to actually believe that the Saudis -- the godfathers, along with U.S., of international jihadism –- have renounced their bankrolling of Islamist holy wars.

“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off,” tweeted Trump. “They said they would take a hard line on funding. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”

“The dispute between Qatar and the House of Saud is rooted in rivalries beyond the mental grasp of the idiot in the White House.”

The Saudis are blaming their fellow Wahhabist, the Emir of Qatar, for “adopting various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region including the Muslim Brotherhood Group, Daesh (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, promoting the ethics and plans of these groups through its media...supporting the activities of Iranian-backed terrorist groups in the governorate of Qatif of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom of Bahrain, financing, adopting and sheltering extremists who seek to undermine the stability and unity of the homeland at home and abroad, and using the media that seek to fuel the strife internally....”

In addition to shutting off trade, travel and diplomatic relations with Qatar, a tiny peninsula jutting out from the Persian Gulf side of Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud has excommunicated Qatar’s emir from the Wahhabist fold -- a heavy sanction among hereditary rulers whose legitimacy is bound up in their relationship to The Faith. However, the key point of the Saudi indictment involves Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Saudi royal family opposes all forms of political Islam as a threat to its own legitimacy as Protector of the Two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina. Since its final conquest of most of the Arabian peninsula in the early 20th century, and in subsequent alliance with British imperialism, the House of Saud has ruled with the assent of the Wahhabi clerical class. It is a delicate arrangement, in which the hereditary royals are allowed control of the state and national resources in return for the Saudi state’s support of the clerics’ ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology, which sanctions the killing of Muslims deemed heretics and “idolators,” mainly Shia. The House of Saud views the Muslim Brotherhood, the godfather of modern political Islam, as a challenge to the legitimacy absolute royal rule.The Brotherhood has influenced the widest range of Islamist political tendencies, from bourgeois electoral party politics to advocacy of a unified, Muslim-wide caliphate. But Saudi Arabia does not tolerate political pluralism, and royal rule is ultimately antithetical to a caliphate. And therein lies the political-theological contradiction.

“The hereditary royals are allowed control of the state and national resources in return for the Saudi state’s support of the clerics’ ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology.”

The House of Saud has trod a perilous path to maintain its family’s monopoly on the riches beneath its soil. (Actually, most of the oil lies in land populated by the Kingdom’s Shia minority.) The deal requires the Saudi state to provide massive support for the export of the clerical class’s Wahhabist ideology to the far reaches of the Muslim world, yet it holds temporal power firmly in the hands of the princes, not the clerics.

The other pillar of royal rule is western imperialism. The Brits, and then the Americans, partnered with the House of Saud as a bulwark against secular nationalism in the Arab and Muslim world. It was only logical that the Saudis would ally with the American CIA to create the world’s first international jihadist network to overthrow a secular leftist government in Afghanistan in the late 1970s, thus bringing forth al Qaida and its many offspring.

The royal family of Qatar, with a citizen population of only 200,000 (the rest of the 2 million inhabitants are non-citizens, mostly low-wage workers, a plurality from India), is also nominally Wahhabist. But they chose a different path to political legitimacy -- while also becoming exporters of jihadist terror. The tiny state’s emirs tried to establish a pan-Arab and pan-Muslim political presence commensurate with their wealth -- the highest per capita in the world -- through an aggressive strategy including generous support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar gave billions to the short-lived government of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, before he was overthrown by the military in 2013. (The Saudis then funneled billions to his jailer, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who, predictably, has joined in the isolation of Qatar.)

“They wishfully believe that by exporting terror, they insulate themselves from jihadist wrath.”

The emirs garnered considerable global prestige through their news and analysis outlet, but Al-Jazeera was often a source of irritation to the Saudi, Kuwaiti and Emirati royals, as well as western imperialists. Al-Jazeera was accused of blatantly favoring the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, and kicked out of the country. The next year, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states severed relations with Qatar for eight months, as punishment.

Despite their differences, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are all partners with the U.S. in the proxy, terror war against Syria. It’s a matter of self-preservation. As hereditary regimes, they reject democracy of any flavor. As clients of western imperialism, they oppose Arab nationalism and are ultimately subservient to Washington. They are allied with the most reactionary elements of the clergy, who demand support for Islamist war. And, they wishfully believe that by exporting terror, they insulate themselves from jihadist wrath. But, the weight of contradictions spell doom for all of these autocrats -- and looming defeat for the United States.

Donald Trump seems honestly giddy, apparently believing he has forced the Saudis to reject jihadist terror and to punish Qatar for its support of ISIS and al-Qaida. Perhaps he truly does not know that the main actor in the proxy war is not Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, or Qatar –- it is the CIA, the other, and most important, godfather of Islamist jihad. (The CIA is not a friend of Trump, so maybe they are not talking to each other.) The United States has become dependent on al-Qaida and its cousins as foot soldiers of imperialism in southwest Asia. If the fighters are decommissioned, through the denial of arms, money and protection, then the war against Syria is lost, and the U.S. military offensive begun by President Obama in 2011, with the unprovoked attack on Libya, will have ended in defeat. Without the jihadists, the U.S. would have to resort to massive deployment of its own troops to the region -- a mission that the American people will not accept.

“The main actor in the proxy war is not Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, or Qatar –- it is the CIA, the other, and most important, godfather of Islamist jihad.”

The Saudi regime, in particular, may not survive an end to the Syria war. During the course of the conflict, the Islamic State faction of al-Qaida crossed a political Rubicon, declaring war on Saudi Arabia in 2014 and proclaiming itself a caliphate. The only ideological difference between the Islamic State and al-Qaida in Syria is that al-Qaida is willing to postpone the establishment of a caliphate, while ISIS is not. Otherwise, the two factions are identical in their political theology. If the jihadists are defeated in Syria -- and, especially, if they feel they have been betrayed -- they will vent their most intense fury on their co-religionists and former sugar daddies in the Gulf. Al-Qaida will become an ISIS, with no mercy on its former patrons.

So, don’t believe for a second that the Saudis are abandoning ISIS and al-Qaida, or are attempting to force Qatar to do the same. Neither is the CIA, which simply rebrands its jihadists when their names become too notorious.

Does Donald Trump know that the Saudis are blowing smoke in his face? Does he realize that his own CIA and military have no intention of giving up their jihadists, whom they cannot do without? Who knows? Does it really matter? The criminal U.S. war against Syria will unravel from the weight of its own contradictions. In the end, Washington’s Gulf “partners” necks will be on the chopping block.

[mettenette]

Countries in Bakom

[n] = noun [vs] = stative verb

pay — [n] country, state

paykom — [n] republic

paykompop — [n] people’s republic; democratic republic

paykomsem — [n] federal republic

paypop — [n] nation

payciw — [n] city-state

paysem — [n] 1. federation 2. commonwealth nation

paymek — [n] 1. kingdom 2. principality 3. sultanate 4. emirate

suy — [n] 1. region, zone, territory, province 2. overseas department

suyway — [n] department, overseas territory, overseas department

ciw — [n] city

payciw — [n] citystate

yusel — [vs] independent; free

kapol — [n] municipality

hakpol — [n] sovereignty i hakpol — [vs] sovereign ni hakpol — [vs] nonsovereign Most countries are named using compounding bases (Bakom: rabako josem) and a modifying root. For instance, the modifying root for “India” is barat, and the compounding base is pay “country”, so the name for India is paybarat. Different compounding bases may be used depending on the exact nature of the polity in question. Pay is used for countries, suy “zone/region” for territories, ciw “city” for city-states, and in general no prefix is used for countries named with di “land (of)”, although there are a few exceptions.

Prefixes may be abbreviated and written separately from the modifying root. So, in Roman, Cyrillic, and Arabic: pay becomes P / П / پ suy becomes S / С / س ciw becomes C / Ч / چ Thus, paybarat becomes P barat, and suybamut (Bermuda) becomes S bamut. When the word is part of the name and not a prefix, it may not be abbreviated, as in paysemamik “the United States of America” or paymeksem birit me diirin “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”.

Demonyms (the name for a person from a particular country) are formed with the word in “person”. Paysumal “Somalia” becomes inpaysumal “Somalian (person)”.

Adjectives meaning “of X country” are formed with the stative verb e “of”. Payduc “Germany” becomes e payduc “German”.

Some countries’ names are calques (literal translations) rather than based on the sound of the country’s name. For these countries, I’ve written translations below the name.

Click readmore for names of specific countries~~~~~

Pronunciation:

It should be noted that stress always falls on the last vowel of a word, and a glottal stop (like the sound in uh-oh) is optionally pronounced whenever a vowel is not preceded by a consonant, such as before atu in wanuatu.

as (Asia)

tong diawtimo — East Timor, Timor-Leste (“east of the island of Timor”)

payafgan — Afghanistan

payarapsawdi — Saudi Arabia

payirak — Iraq

payiran — Iran

payisrail — Israel

payudun — Jordan

payusbek — Uzbekistan

payuman — Oman

paykata — Qatar

paykasak — Kazakhstan

paykampuci — Cambodia

paykirigis — Kyrgyzstan

paykuwet — Kuwayt

paytajik — Tajikistan

paytay — Thailand

paytaywan — Taiwan

pay tu aw — Bahrain (“country of two waters”)

paytuki — Turkey

paytukmen — Turkmenistan

paygatbaw — Bhutan (“country of dragon”)

paybang — Bangladesh

paybayjan — Azerbaijan

paybarat — India

paybaratgirin — Pakistan (“green India”, so called because the color green represents Islam, hearkening to the country’s full name “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”)

payburunsalom — Brunei (second element, salom “peace”, from the full name in Malay, Negara Brunei Darussalam, meaning “country of Brunei, abode of peace”)

pay diaw muy da — Indonesia (“country of many islands”)

paydifehi — Maldives

payhan sul — South Korea

payhan nal — North Korea

payhay — Armenia

paysilang — Sri Lanka

paysuri — Syria

paymama — Burma/Myanmar

paymalay — Malaysia

paymek sem arap — the United Arab Emirates (“Arab united kingdom/s”)

paymiw — China (“middle country”)

paymong — Mongolia

paykommiw — Taiwan (“the Republic of China”)

paynipon — Japan

paylaw — Laos

payliban — Lebanon

payyam — Yemen

paywitsul — Vietnam (second element sul “south” from Vietnamese nam “south” in Vietnam)

payrus — Russia

payruswit — Belarus

ciwmawli — Singapore (“city of lion”)

dipilip — the Philippines

afik (Africa)

payawro — Eritrea (“country of the Red Sea”)

payityop — Ethiopia

paykam — the Gambia

paykamrun — Cameroon

paykom miwafik — the Central African Republic (“republic of the middle of Africa”)

paykomori — Comoros

paykomkong — the Republic of the Congo

paykompopkong — the Democratic Republic of the Congo

paykenya — Kenya

paykim — Egypt

paytogo — Togo

paytunis — Tunisia

paycat — Chad

paygabon — Gabon

paygan — Ghana

payganda — Uganda

paygin — Guinea

paygincomiw — Equatorial Guinea (“country of Guinea of the equator”)

payginbisaw — Guinea Bissau

paygol — Angola

diaw sak tome me diaw fimek — São Tomé and Príncipe (“country of the island of Saint Tomé and the island of the prince”)

paydisut (nal) — (North) Sudan (“country of black land”)

paydisut sul — South Sudan (“southern Sudan”)

paybenin — Benin

payburun — Burundi

payjasay — Algeria

payjibut — Djibouti

paysatin — Swaziland

paysambi — Zambia

paysesel — Seychelle

paysenegal — Senegal

paysimbabe — Zimbabwe

paysutu — Lesotho

paysumal — Somalia

paysulafik — South Africa (“country of south of Africa”)

paysuwan — Botswana

paymalaw — Malawi

paymali — Mali

paymalgas — Madagascar

paymusambik — Mozambique

paymuritan — Mauritania

paymuris — Mauritius

paynamip — Namibia

payniji — Niger

paynijiri — Nigeria

paylibi — Libya

pay lingunong mawli /… lin-gu-nóng …/ — Sierra Leone (“country of mountain range of lions”)

payruwan — Rwanda

pay ranaw dingac /… ran-áw din-gác/ — Ivory Coast, Côte d’Ivoire (“country of ivory coast”)

pay dikep girin — Cape Verde, Cabo Verde (“country of green cape”)

dican cin — Burkina Faso (“true fatherland”)

diyusel — Liberia (“free land”)

diwes — Morocco (“western land”)

amik (the Americas)

pay antiw me babut — Antigua and Barbuda

payayti — Haiti

payoham — El Salvador (“country of the savior/protector”)

payuruway — Uruguay

paykatom — Guatemala (“country of the place of plants”)

paykanat — Canada

paykomdeyunsap — the Dominican Republic (“republic of Sunday”)

paykolum — Colombia

paykup — Cuba

paypanama — Panama

payparaway — Paraguay

paypiru — Peru

paycil — Chile

paycomiw — Ecuador (“country of the equator”)

paygiyan — Guyana

paygiyansu — Suriname (“country of lower Guyana”)

paybabaw — Barbados

paybaham — the Bahamas

paybasiw — Brazil

paybensel — Venezuela

paybilis — Belize

paybuliw — Bolivia

payjamek — Jamaica

paysemamik — the United States of America

paysemdeyunsap — Dominica (“commonwealth nation of Sunday”)

payfon — Honduras (“country of the depths”)

paymehik — Mexico

paymellu — Argentina (“country of silver”)

paynikaraw — Nicaragua

pay ranaw bo — Costa Rica (“country of good coast”)

diawdomsam me diawtomdaw — Trinidad and Tobago (“trinity island and medicinal plant island”)

diaw sak kiristof me diawcayjel — Saint Kitts and Nevis (diawcayjel translates as “island of snow”)

diaw sak finsen me diawsal — Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

diaw sak lusi — Saint Lucia

diawsal — Grenada (“the island of spice”)

awsalom (the Pacific)

paykilbat — Kiribati

paytonga /tong-á/ — Tonga

paytuwalu — Tuvalu

paypalaw — Palau

payginaw /gin-áw/ — Papua New Guinea

paydisul — Australia

pay banhawaw wit da — New Zealand (“big white cloud”)

paysamoa — Samoa

paysem diaw nin — the Federated States of Micronesia

payfiji — Fiji

paynauru — Nauru

payniwe — Niue

paywanuatu — Vanuatu

diawkuk — the Cook Islands

diawmasel — the Marshall Islands

diawmek — the Solomon Islands (“island of king”)

urop (Europe)

payando — Andorra

payesti — Estonia

payel — Greece

payital — Italy

payirin — Ireland

payukrain — Ukraine

paykaimmeknin — Luxembourg (“little castle”)

paykip — Cyprus

paykatwel — Georgia

paykuruwat — Croatia

paypetlum — Liechtenstein (“light stone”)

paypol — Poland

paypuyaw — Portugual

paycek — Czech Republic

paycip — Albania

paygunongsut — Montenegro (“black mountain”)

payden — Denmark

payduc — Germany

paybel — Belgium

paybol — Bulgaria

paybowin — Bosnia and Herzegovina

payhay — Armenia

pay sak marin — San Marino

paysapan — Spain

paysarap — Serbia

paysen — Sweden

paysis — Switzerland

paysom — Finland

paysuluwin nat — Slovakia

paysuluwin su — Slovenia

payfan — France

paymak — Macedonia

paymaja — Hungary

paymal — Malta

paymeksem (birit me diirin) — the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland) payeng — England payirin nal — Northern Ireland paysakot — Scotland paykem — Wales

paymoldo — Moldova

paymunak — Monaco

paylat — Latvia

paylit — Lithuania

paywenal — Norway (“north way”)

payrumin — Romania

ciwbat — Vatican City

ditong — Austria (“east land”)

dijel — Iceland (“ice land”)

disu — the Netherlands (“low land”)

De facto, unrecognized, or non-sovereign states

kapolbone — Bonaire

kapolsap — Saba

kahakpol — Plazas de soberanía (“place of sovereignty”)

payatsak — Nagorno-Karabakh, Atsakh

payapsu — Abkhazia

payarup — Aruba

paykalal — Greenland

paykiptuki — Northern Cyprus (“country of Turkish Cyprus”)

paykinwal — South Ossetia, Tskhinvali

paykosaw — Curaçao (the country)

paykoso — Kosovo

payfilas — Palestine (the country)

paymoldo ta ronaw — Transnistria (“Moldova by the river”)

ciwsiw — Ceuta

ciwmalil — Melilla

diaw aw kul — the Pelagie Islands

diaw awrabipet — the Coral Sea Islands

diawtomkispik me diawkako — Turks and Caicos Islands (diawtomkispik means “cactus island”, and diawkako is a phono-semantic matching to English Caicos, meaning “home/base island”)

diaw gathon — the Cayman Islands (“region of the island of crocodile”)

diawgirin — Montserrat (“green island”)

diaw joc sul me daw sanwic sul — South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

diawjosem — Reunion, Reunion Islands

diawo — Åland, Åland islands

diawbek — the Baker Islands

diaw lim e birit — the British Virgin Islands (“British pure island”)

diaw lim e paysemamik — the United States Virgin Islands (“American pure island”)

diawhon — the Canary Islands (“island of dog”)

diaw sak iwstas — Sint Eustatius

diaw sak matin fan — Saint Martin (“French island of Saint Martin”)

diaw sak matin paymekdisu — Sint Maarten (“Dutch island of Saint Martin”)

diawsimfo — Clipperton Island (“island of passion”)

diawfaro — the Faroe Islands

diawman — the Isle of Man

diawmariyan nal — the Northern Mariana Islands

diawnofok — Norfolk Island

diawrap da — Easter Island (rap from Rapa Nui Rapa, da “big” a translation of Rapa Nui nui)

diwanalaw — Saint Barthélemy

suyiktaw — Anguilla (“region of eel”)

suy kapot bo — Puerto Rico (“region of good port”)

suy pet nin — New Caledonia (“region of the pebble”)

suygatlup — Guadeloupe

suygahan — Guam

suygensi — Guernsey

suy giyanfan — French Guiana

suy diawmalwin — the Falkland Islands

suybamut — Bermuda

suyjabal — Gibraltar

suyjesi — Jersey

suyhawayi — Hawai’i

suy sak pie me miklon — Saint Pierre and Miquelon

suysamoa e paysemamik — American Samoa

suysalba — Svalbard

suymatinik — Martinique

suymaday — Madeira

suymahore — Mayotte

muydadiaw e payfan — French Polynesia (muydadiaw literally means “multitude of islands”, a translation of the word Polynesia)

lindiaw huwan fenandes — the Juan Fernández Islands

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.30

1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen. 1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom. 1607 – An estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in England are destroyed by massive flooding, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths. 1648 – Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück is signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain. 1649 – Charles I of England is executed in Whitehall, London. 1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed. 1703 – The Forty-seven rōnin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master, by killing Kira Yoshinaka. 1789 – Tây Sơn forces emerge victorious against Qing armies and liberate the capital Thăng Long. 1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened. 1820 – Edward Bransfield sights the Trinity Peninsula and claims the discovery of Antarctica. 1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, is opened. 1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself. 1847 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco, California. 1858 – The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra. 1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched. 1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in the Mayerling. 1902 – The first Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London. 1908 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month. 1911 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy ten miles from Havana, Cuba. 1925 – The Government of Turkey expels Patriarch Constantine VI from Istanbul. 1930 – The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union orders that a million prosperous peasant families be driven off their farms. 1933 – Adolf Hitler's rise to power: Hitler takes office as the Chancellor of Germany. 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. Some 300 captured Allied troops are killed after the surrender. One-quarter of the remaining POWs remain alive at the end of the war. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cisterna, part of Operation Shingle, begins in central Italy. 1945 – World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 9,500 people. 1945 – World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: One hundred twenty-six American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese-controlled Cabanatuan POW camp. 1948 – British South American Airways' Tudor IV Star Tiger disappears over the Bermuda Triangle. 1956 – African-American civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery bus boycott. 1959 – The forces of the Sultanate of Muscat occupy the last strongholds of the Imamate of Oman, Saiq and Shuraijah, marking the end of Jebel Akhdar War in Oman. 1959 – MS Hans Hedtoft, specifically designed to operate in icebound seas, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard. 1960 – The African National Party is founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties. 1964 – In a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrows General Dương Văn Minh's military junta in South Vietnam. 1968 – Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. 1969 – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police. 1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers open fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people; another person later dies of injuries sustained. 1972 – Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth of Nations in protest of its recognition of breakaway Bangladesh. 1975 – The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary. 1979 – A Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo. 1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner". 1989 – The American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan is closed. 1995 – Hydroxycarbamide becomes the first approved preventive treatment for sickle cell disease. 2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ivory Coast, killing 169. 2013 – Naro-1 becomes the first carrier rocket launched by South Korea.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.30

1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen. 1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom. 1607 – An estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in England are destroyed by massive flooding, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths. 1648 – Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück is signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain. 1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed. 1703 – The Forty-seven rōnin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master, by killing Kira Yoshinaka. 1789 – Tây Sơn forces emerge victorious against Qing armies and liberate the capital Thăng Long. 1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened. 1820 – Edward Bransfield sights the Trinity Peninsula and claims the discovery of Antarctica. 1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, is opened. 1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself. 1847 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco, California. 1858 – The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra. 1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched. 1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in the Mayerling. 1902 – The first Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London. 1908 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month. 1911 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy ten miles from Havana, Cuba. 1925 – The Government of Turkey expels Patriarch Constantine VI from Istanbul. 1930 – The Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the extermination of the Kulaks. 1933 – Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. 1942 – World War II: Battle of Ambon. Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. Some 300 captured Allied troops are massacred at Laha airfield. Three-fourths of remaining POWs will not have survived by the end of the war, including 250 men who will be shipped to Hainan Island in South China Sea and never returned. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cisterna, part of Operation Shingle, begins in central Italy. 1945 – World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 9,500 people. 1945 – World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: One hundred twenty-six American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese-controlled Cabanatuan POW camp. 1948 – British South American Airways' Tudor IV Star Tiger disappears over the Bermuda Triangle. 1956 – African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 1959 – The forces of the Sultanate of Muscat occupy the last strongholds of the Imamate of Oman, Saiq and Shuraijah, marking the end of Jebel Akhdar War in Oman. 1959 – MS Hans Hedtoft, said to be the safest ship afloat and "unsinkable" like the RMS Titanic, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard. 1960 – The African National Party is founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties. 1964 – In a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrows General Dương Văn Minh's military junta in South Vietnam. 1968 – Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. 1969 – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police. 1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers open fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people; another person later dies of injuries sustained. 1972 – Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth of Nations in protest of its recognition of breakaway Bangladesh. 1975 – The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary. 1979 – A Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo. 1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner". 1989 – Closure of the American embassy in Kabul, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. 1995 – Workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease. 2000 – Off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169. 2013 – Naro-1 becomes the first carrier rocket launched by South Korea.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.1

Pre-Julian Roman calendar

153 BC – For the first time, Roman consuls begin their year in office on January 1. Early Julian calendar (before Augustus' leap year correction) 45 BC – The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Empire, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year. 42 BC – The Roman Senate posthumously deifies Julius Caesar.

Julian calendar

193 – The Senate chooses Pertinax against his will to succeed Commodus as Roman emperor. 404 – Saint Telemachus tries to stop a gladiatorial fight in a Roman amphitheatre, and is stoned to death by the crowd. This act impresses the Christian Emperor Honorius, who issues a historic ban on gladiatorial fights. 417 – Emperor Honorius forces Galla Placidia into marriage to Constantius, his famous general (magister militum) (probable). 1001 – Grand Prince Stephen I of Hungary is named the first King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II (probable). 1068 – Romanos IV Diog1259 – Michael VIII Palaiologos is proclaimed co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea with his ward John IV Laskaris. 1438 – Albert II of Habsburg is crowned King of Hungary. 1502 – The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is first explored by the Portuguese. 1515 – Twenty-year-old Francis, Duke of Brittany, succeeds to the French throne following the death of his father-in-law, Louis XII. 1527 – Croatian nobles elect Ferdinand I of Austria as King of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin. 1583 to 1700 – see January 11 1600 – Scotland recognises January 1 as the start of the year, instead of March 25. 1651 – Charles II is crowned King of Scotland. 1700 – Russia begins using the Anno Domini era instead of the Anno Mundi era of the Byzantine Empire. 1701 to 1800 – see January 12 1801 to 1900 – see January 13 1901 to 2100 – see January 14

Gregorian calendar

1707 – John V is proclaimed King of Portugal and the Algarves in Lisbon. 1739 – Bouvet Island, the world's remotest island is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier. 1772 – The first traveler's cheques, which could be used in 90 European cities, were issued by the London Credit Exchange Company. 1773 – The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", then titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17" is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Norfolk, Virginia is burned by combined Royal Navy and Continental Army action. 1776 – General George Washington hoists the first United States flag; the Grand Union Flag at Prospect Hill. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: One thousand five hundred soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne's command rebel against the Continental Army's winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey in the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1781. 1788 – First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published. 1801 – The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is proclaimed. 1801 – Ceres, the largest and first known object in the Asteroid belt, is discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi. 1803 – Emperor Gia Long orders all bronze wares of the Tây Sơn dynasty to be collected and melted into nine cannons for the Royal Citadel in Huế, Vietnam. 1804 – French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black-majority republic and second independent country in North America after the United States. 1806 – The French Republican Calendar is abolished. 1808 – The United States bans the importation of slaves. 1810 – Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales. 1822 – The Greek Constitution of 1822 is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus. 1847 – The world's first "Mercy" Hospital is founded in Pittsburgh, United States, by a group of Sisters of Mercy from Ireland;[31] the name will go on to grace over 30 major hospitals throughout the world. 1860 – The first Polish stamp is issued, replacing the Russian stamps previously in use. 1861 – Liberal forces supporting Benito Juárez enter Mexico City. 1863 – American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory. 1877 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Empress of India. 1885 – Twenty-five nations adopt Sandford Fleming's proposal for standard time (and also, time zones) 1890 – Eritrea is consolidated into a colony by the Italian government. 1892 – Ellis Island begins processing immigrants into the United States. 1898 – New York, New York annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, are joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs. 1899 – Spanish rule ends in Cuba. 1901 – Nigeria becomes a British protectorate. 1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister. 1902 – The first American college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California. 1910 – Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members) since Horatio Nelson. 1912 – The Republic of China is established. 1914 – The SPT Airboat Line becomes the world's first scheduled airline to use a winged aircraft. 1923 – Britain's Railways are grouped into the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, and LMS. 1927 – New Mexican oil legislation goes into effect, leading to the formal outbreak of the Cristero War. 1928 – Boris Bazhanov defects through Iran. He is the only assistant of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to have defected from the Eastern Bloc. 1929 – The former municipalities of Point Grey, British Columbia and South Vancouver, British Columbia are amalgamated into Vancouver. 1932 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. 1934 – Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay becomes a United States federal prison. 1934 – A "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" comes into effect in Nazi Germany. 1942 – The Declaration by United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations. 1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops kill 60 German POWs at Chenogne. 1945 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow. 1947 – Cold War: The American and British occupation zones in Allied-occupied Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, which later (with the French zone) became part of West Germany. 1947 – The Canadian Citizenship Act 1946 comes into effect, converting British subjects into Canadian citizens. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen. 1948 – The British railway network is nationalized to form British Railways. 1949 – United Nations cease-fire takes effect in Kashmir from one minute before midnight. War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly. 1956 – Sudan achieves independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom. 1957 – George Town, Penang, is made a city by a royal charter of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 1958 – European Economic Community is established. 1959 – Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces. 1960 – Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom. 1962 – Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa. 1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia. 1965 – The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is founded in Kabul, Afghanistan. 1970 – The defined beginning of Unix time, at 00:00:00. 1971 – Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television. 1973 – Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom are admitted into the European Economic Community. 1976 – A bomb explodes on board Middle East Airlines Flight 438 over Qaisumah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 81 people on board. 1978 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747, crashes into the Arabian Sea, due to instrument failure, spatial disorientation, and pilot error, off the coast of Bombay, India, killing all 213 people on board. 1979 – Normal diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic of China and the United States. 1981 – Greece is admitted into the European Community. 1982 – Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar becomes the first Latin American to hold the title of Secretary-General of the United Nations. 1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet. 1984 – The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is divested of its 22 Bell System companies as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T. 1984 – Brunei becomes independent of the United Kingdom. 1985 – The first British mobile phone call is made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, chairman of Vodafone. 1987 – The Isleta Pueblo tribe elect Verna Williamson to be their first female governor. 1988 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America comes into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. 1989 – The Montreal Protocol comes into force, stopping the use of chemicals contributing to ozone depletion. 1990 – David Dinkins is sworn in as New York City's first black mayor. 1993 – Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia is divided into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. 1994 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas. 1994 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. 1995 – The World Trade Organization comes into being. 1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves. 1995 – Austria, Finland and Sweden join the EU. 1998 – Following a currency reform, Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence. 1999 – Euro currency is introduced in 11 member nations of the European Union (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden; Greece later adopts the euro). 2004 – In a vote of confidence, General Pervez Musharraf wins 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, is "deemed to be elected" to the office of President until October 2007. 2007 – Bulgaria and Romania join the EU. 2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes near the Makassar Strait, Indonesia killing all 102 people on board. 2009 – Sixty-six people die in a nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand. 2010 – A suicide car bomber detonates at a volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, killing 105 and injuring 100 more. 2011 – A bomb explodes as Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, leave a new year service, killing 23 people. 2011 – Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the 17th Eurozone country. 2013 – At least 60 people are killed and 200 injured in a stampede after celebrations at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. 2015 – The Eurasian Economic Union comes into effect, creating a political and economic union between Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. 2017 – An attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, during New Year's celebrations, kills at least 39 people and injures more than 60 others.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.30

1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen.[1] 1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom.[2] 1607 – An estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in England are destroyed by massive flooding, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths.[3] 1648 – Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück is signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain.[4] 1649 – King Charles I of England is beheaded. 1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed. 1703 – The Forty-seven rōnin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master. 1789 – Tây Sơn forces emerge victorious against Qing armies and liberate the capital Thăng Long. 1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened. 1820 – Edward Bransfield sights the Trinity Peninsula and claims the discovery of Antarctica. 1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, is opened. 1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself. 1847 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco, California. 1858 – The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra. 1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched. 1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in the Mayerling. 1902 – The first Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London. 1908 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month. 1911 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy ten miles from Havana, Cuba. 1925 – The Government of Turkey expels Patriarch Constantine VI from Istanbul. 1930 – The Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the extermination of the Kulaks. 1933 – Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. 1942 – World War II: Battle of Ambon. Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. Some 300 captured Allied troops are massacred at Laha airfield. Three-fourths of remaining POWs did not survive at the end of the war, including 250 men who were shipped to Hainan Island in South China Sea and never returned. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cisterna, part of Operation Shingle, begins in central Italy. 1945 – World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 9,500 people. 1945 – World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: One hundred twenty-six American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese-controlled Cabanatuan POW camp. 1948 – Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist. 1948 – British South American Airways' Tudor IV Star Tiger disappears over the Bermuda Triangle. 1956 – African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 1959 – MS Hans Hedtoft, said to be the safest ship afloat and "unsinkable" like the RMS Titanic, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard. 1960 – The African National Party is founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties. 1964 – In a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrows General Dương Văn Minh's military junta in South Vietnam. 1968 – Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. 1969 – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police. 1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers open fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people; another person later dies of injuries sustained. 1972 – Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth of Nations in protest of its recognition of breakaway Bangladesh. 1975 – The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary. 1979 – A Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo. 1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner". 1989 – Closure of the American embassy in Kabul, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. 1995 – Workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease. 2000 – Off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169. 2013 – Naro-1 becomes the first carrier rocket launched by South Korea.