.
Magyarország
2015. XII. 6. Bakay (Forrás: YouTube): http://tinyurl.com/pvst5js
Moldova
2015. XII. 10. Széttépték a Nagy-Románia térképet (Forrás: ItthonMa): http://tinyurl.com/j7rsn3q
Norway
7 December 2015 Norway is paying asylum seekers to return home as the refugee crisis continues. Tens of thousands of kroner are being offered to each person who voluntarily leaves the country. They also have their flights paid for. More than 900 people have applied to take financial support to leave Norway so far. A couple with two children can receive upwards of 80,000 kroner (£6,200) in addition to having their flights paid for. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which processes the Voluntary Assisted Return Programme requests and offers advice and counselling, described it as “safe and dignified”. People whose asylum applications have been denied can also apply for economic assistance to return home. (Source: TheIndependent): http://tinyurl.com/zfb5kxx
Románia
2015. XII. 10. Hogy nézne ki Románia, ha Erdély egyszer sem szavazott volna? (Forrás: Főtér): http://tinyurl.com/py96keq
Russia
December 9, 2015 Russia could block access to Baltic Sea, US General says. Moscow’s recent wargames in its Kaliningrad exclave have included mock nuclear strikes. There is a “significant amount of capability” in Kaliningrad, including anti-ship weapons, air defenses, and electronic warfare equipment - Lt. Gen. Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe, said. NATO officials are not invited to Russian’s snap exercises held in Kaliningrad and nearby Belarus. Earlier this year, Russia warned Denmark that Danish ships could become nuclear targets if its government took part in a NATO missile defense project. Hodges called those threats an “irresponsible use of the ‘nuclear’ word.” Tucked between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad is a strategic outpost for the Russian navy. The Russian air force also has a presence there. By blocking access into the Baltic Sea, Russia could prevent NATO forces from reaching its Baltic allies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. (Source: DefenseOne): http://tinyurl.com/q3m5229
December 6, 2015 The Russian sailors donning shoulder-fired surface-air-missiles during Russia's warship transits on Dec. 4 was provocation. On Dec.4, media outlets took photos of a Russian warship called Caesar Kuniko through its transit by Istanbul via the Bosporus strait - an internationally significant waterway connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. The cameras captured a Russian soldier on it, holding a missile in the firing position through the ship's passing. The Bosporus offers the only passage to the world's oceans for the Russian Black Sea fleet. A World War One-era treaty obliges Turkey to allow all ships to pass during peacetime. (Source: Daily Sabah): http://tinyurl.com/zga56we
Syria
Dec 10, 2015 isis may have passport printing machine, Blank passports (Source: ABCNews): http://tinyurl.com/qzjm358
December 7, 2015 Since October 10, isis and its sympathizers around the world have killed at least 525 people in six attacks in six countries outside its so-called caliphate. Oct. 10: The bombing of peace demonstrations outside the main train station in Ankara, Turkey left 102 dead. Directed by isis. Oct. 31: The bombing of a Metrojet plane bound for Russia over Egypt killed 224 passengers and crew. An "announcement" attack by the isis in the Sinai peninsula. Nov. 10: Two suicide bombers detonating themselves in a marketplace in southern Beirut, Lebanon, killing 43 people. Directed by isis. Nov. 13: Attacks on multiple sites in Paris, including the Bataclan theater, left 130 dead — excluding attackers. Directed by isis Nov. 24: The bombing of a bus carrying members of the presidential guard in the Tunisian capital city of Tunis left at least 12 dead. An "announcement" attack by the isis affiliate in Tunisia. Dec. 2: The assault on a San Bernardino, California, office holiday party killed 14 people. Allegedly inspired by isis, but the extent of any contact between the shooters and isis or sympathizers is unknown. The official said there has also been at least one additional failed "announcement" attack. Three bombs exploded in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Oct. 24 during a giant procession commemorating the Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashura. The explosions killed only one person. (Source: NBCNews)
Turkey
December 8, 2015 Turkey's time has come. Turkey holds the keys to the Dardanelles and Bosporus — the only way Russian merchant vessels and warships can reach the Mediterranean from Russia's warm water ports in the Black Sea. All of Putin's calculations in dealing with the United States are now turning on an uncomfortable reality that Moscow can no longer fully rely on Turkish neutrality in one of the most strategic spots on the map. When Hitler's troops had invaded the demilitarized Rhineland and Mussolini was openly declaring his desire to take over Anatolia, an anxious Turkey demanded a revision to the doctrine governing the straits, arguing that the straits needed to be remilitarized and placed under Turkey's exclusive control. The result was the Montreux Convention of 1936, which formalizes Turkey's role as custodian of the straits, ensures freedom of passage for merchant vessels in times of peace and imposes size, type and tonnage restrictions on non-Black Sea war vessels. Under the convention, war vessels from non-Black Sea states Turkey permits to enter the straits cannot stay in the Black Sea for longer than 21 days. In times of war, Turkey is expected to ban belligerents from the straits altogether to keep the Black Sea conflict free. But the Soviets were never completely satisfied with Turkey's neutrality, knowing that Ankara was likely to tilt West when things got rough. The Soviets told the Turks in 1946 that if they were sincere about being allies, then they should give the Soviets basing rights in the Dardanelles. The Soviets bandied a number of threats to convey its seriousness to Turkey, such as Soviet territorial claims to portions of eastern Turkey, stirring up Kurdish separatists and backing Syrian claims to Hatay province. A frazzled Turkey looked across the Atlantic for U.S. help. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Wilson explained to U.S. Secretary of State Byrnes that, "the real [Soviet] objective towards Turkey is not a revision of the regime of the Straits, but actual domination of Turkey. In the vast security belt of the Soviet Union, which extends from the Baltic to the Black Sea, Turkey constitutes a sole gap … the Soviet objective, therefore, is to break down this present independent Turkish government and to establish in its place a vassal or "friendly" regime in Turkey, which will complete the security belt of subservient countries on Russia's western and southern frontiers and put an end completely to Western influence in Turkey." The time had thus come for the United States to bring Turkey under its security umbrella. On April 6, 1946, the USS Missouri arrived in Istanbul on the pretext of delivering the ashes of a Turkish ambassador to the United States who had died on U.S. soil. A jubilant Turkey celebrated the arrival of the U.S. battleship with special postage stamps and gifts for U.S. naval officers. The ostentatious display of a U.S. security guarantee was the prelude to U.S. President Truman's February 1947 request to Congress to provide foreign aid to Turkey and Greece "to assist free people to deal with their destinies in their own way." This was the Truman Doctrine that locked in the Cold War, with Turkey sitting squarely on the U.S. side. The Turkish-Russian confrontation is now back. The first sign came in August 2008, when Russia's invasion of Georgia woke Turkey up to a Moscow ready and willing to apply military force to re-create buffers in the former Soviet sphere to counter Western encroachment. At that time, Russia was not happy at the sight of Turkey allowing U.S. warships into the Black Sea to deliver aid to Georgian ports; Moscow conveyed its displeasure by holding up thousands of Turkish trucks at the Russian border. But both sides went out of their way to avoid a bigger breach. The 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea was the next big Russian punch to the Turkish gut. Roughly 300,000 Turkic-speaking Tatars remain on the Crimean Peninsula as a remnant of Ottoman history. Turkey's quick defense of the Tatars in the wake of the Russian invasion stemmed from more than a concern for its ethnic kin: Turkey understood that the balance of power in the Black Sea was shifting. Russia's seizure of Crimea meant Moscow no longer has to deal with pesky lease arrangements with a mercurial government in Kiev. Russia now enjoys the freedom to beef up its Sevastopol-based Black Sea Fleet, a fleet largely designed to counter Turkey's naval strength. Russia's push into Syria in 2015 was the red line for Turkey. In this chapter of Turkish expansion, the Islamist Justice and Development Party is logically prioritizing its volatile Middle Eastern backyard. The Turkish focus is on northern Syria and northern Iraq, a belt of former Ottoman provinces that naturally extend eastward from Turkey's Hatay province. Russia's involvement in Syria in defense of the Alawite government runs directly against Turkey's objective of expanding its own military footprint in Aleppo, keeping a check on Kurdish separatist activity and eventually replacing Syrian President Assad with a Sunni government friendly to Turkish interests. To supply its forces in Syria, the Russian navy has been relying on the so-called Syrian Express, a naval supply route from Sevastopol on the Black Sea to its Eastern Mediterranean naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartus. As gatekeeper of the straits, Turkey could theoretically complicate this supply route. In peacetime, Turkey could still claim it is abiding by the Montreux Convention and allowing Russia free access while increasing inspections on passing Russian ships. While it would prove an annoyance to Russia, Moscow's main worry is Article 20 of the Montreux Convention, which says that in wartime Turkey as a belligerent has full discretion when allowing or preventing the passage of warships through the strait, potentially cutting Russia off from the Mediterranean. Turkey is the second-largest buyer of Russian natural gas, a significant importer of Russian oil and metals, and the largest buyer of Russian wheat and sunflower oil. A contentious relationship with Russia will bring enormous economic pain to the Turks. Turkey has no quick and reliable alternative for natural gas, an important energy source for industry and households. Russia supplies around 55 percent (or about 27 billion cubic meters of its 50 bcm annual needs) of Turkish natural gas consumption. That supply is split between two pipelines that each can hold 16 bcm of natural gas; Blue Stream, which runs directly from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea; and the Gas-West pipeline, which transits Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria before reaching Turkey. Turkey is not close to closing the straits to Russia nor is Russia close to cutting off natural gas to Turkey. But even so, Turkey must start taking its energy security much more seriously now that it is in an open confrontation with Russia. Turkey has only two liquefied natural gas import terminals, at Marmara Ereglisi (8.2 bcm annual capacity) and Aliaga (5 bcm annual capacity). With limited LNG import and storage capacity (3 bcm), Turkey has much work to do — and investment to raise — to build out this infrastructure over the course of several years. The Iran-Turkey energy relationship would still carry big risks for Turkey. Iran is just as much a geopolitical challenger to Turkey as Russia is, and the more assertive Turkey becomes in the Middle East, the more its competition with Iran will grow in Syria and Iraq. Iranian-Turkish competition only further complicates Turkey's ambitions for Iraqi Kurdistan, where Erdogan has developed close business ties to Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Barzani. Turkey has already helped Barzani develop an independent oil export route at the expense of Iran's allies in Baghdad and is now gearing up to do the same for natural gas to feed the Turkish market. But the collapse of Turkey's peace process with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (whose fighters rely on Iraqi Kurdistan for refuge) and a power vacuum in northern Syria exploited by Kurdish separatists will drive Turkey's military to become more aggressive beyond its borders in both Syria and Iraq. Turkey is incrementally enlarging its military footprint in Kurdish territory. This creates an easy opportunity for Iran and Russia to exploit Kurdish divisions and militancy to push back against Turkey. As the debate continues over the many proposals for pipelines and LNG export terminals, Turkey will have added urgency to prod along reunification talks in Cyprus to remove one of the key blocks to Turkey's energy integration with its estranged eastern Mediterranean neighbors. The most geopolitically compatible energy source for Turkey is Azerbaijan, which is preparing to send 6 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Turkey starting from 2019 through the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (and another 10 bcm that will be sent onward to Europe through the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline). This will help Turkey shave down its energy dependence on Russia by about 12 percent, but Turkey will still need to look elsewhere to truly loosen Russia's grip. The Caucasus, like the Middle East, will redevelop into another big arena for Turkish-Russian competition. Russia is already hard at work trying to pull Baku closer to the Kremlin through diplomatic maneuvering over Nagorno-Karabakh and will do what it can to obstruct plans by Turkey and Azerbaijan to create an energy link across the Caspian with Turkmenistan. Turkey has shot down a fighter jet belonging to its main energy supplier and is preparing for a military push into its Mideast rim. And Putin now has to figure out how to manage a Turkey that is much more willing to work with the United States and its Central and Eastern European peers to balance Moscow's aggressions. Ankara has been suppressed for some time, but there is no denying it now: Turkey's time has come. (Source: Stratfor): http://tinyurl.com/jzjxub4
United States Egyesült Államok
December 10, 2015 An establishment unhinged. Calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” Trump this week ignited a firestorm of historic proportions. As all the old hate words – xenophobe, racist, bigot – have lost their electric charge from overuse, Trump was being called a fascist demagogue and compared to Hitler and Mussolini. The Constitution protects freedom of religion for U.S. citizens. But citizens of foreign lands have no constitutional right to migrate. And federal law gives a president broad powers in deciding who comes and who does not, especially in wartime. In 1924, Congress restricted immigration from Asia, reduced the numbers coming from southern and Central Europe, and produced a 40-year moratorium on most immigration into the United States. According to Harvard’s late Huntington, a “clash of civilizations” is coming between the West and the Islamic world. Other scholars somberly concur. But if such a conflict is in the cards, how many more millions of devout Muslims do we want inside the gates? Set aside al-Qaida, isis and their sympathizers. Among the 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide are untold millions of followers of the Prophet who pray for the coming of a day when Shariah is universal and the infidels, i.e., everyone else, are either converted or subjugated. In nations where Muslims are already huge majorities, where are the Jews? Where have all the Christians gone? With ethnic and sectarian wars raging in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria and Somalia, why would we bring into our own country people from all sides of these murderous conflicts? Many European nations – Germans, French, Swedes, Brits – appear to regret having thrown open their doors to immigrants and refugees from the Islamic world, who have now formed unassimilated clusters and enclaves inside their countries. Japan has no immigration from the Muslim world, nor does Israel, which declares itself a Jewish state. Are they also fascistic? (Source: WND): http://tinyurl.com/owter9u
2015. XII. 8. Wass Erdélyről, Trianonról és az emigráció küldetéséről – hangelvétel 1967-ből (Forrás: Mandiner): http://tinyurl.com/jgmlgdq
December 7, 2015 Trump called for the United States to bar all Muslims from entering the country until the nation’s leaders can “figure out what is going on” after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif. A prohibition of Muslims – an unprecedented proposal by a leading American presidential candidate, and an idea more typically associated with hate groups – reflects a progression of mistrust that is rooted in ideology as much as politics.Mr. Trump, who in September declared “I love the Muslims,” turned sharply against them after the Paris terrorist attacks, calling for a database to track Muslims in America and repeating discredited rumors that thousands of Muslims celebrated in New Jersey on 9/11. His poll numbers rose largely as a result. “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Mr. Trump said. Organizations representing Jews, Christians and those of other faiths quickly joined Muslims in denouncing Mr. Trump’s proposal. Mr. Trump made his remarks a day after President Obama delivered a national address from the Oval Office urging Americans not to turn against Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Mr. Trump has a track record of making surprising and even extreme comments whenever he is overtaken in opinion polls by other Republican candidates – as happened just hours before he issued his statement about Muslims. A new Monmouth University survey of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers found that Mr. Trump had slipped from his recent top spot in the state, which holds the first presidential nomination contest on Feb. 1. According to the poll, Senator Cruz of Texas earned 24 percent of support, while Mr. Trump had 19 percent. “I think Trump’s idea may be too strong, but I think something jarring is very helpful in leading to a national debate in how big this problem is, and how dangerous it is,” said Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House who ran for president in 2012. “Nine percent of Pakistanis agree with isis, according to one poll. That’s a huge number. Tens of thousands of Muslims enter and stay in the United States each year as tourists or through the immigration system, experts say, with an estimated 100,000 Muslims becoming United States permanent residents in 2012. The United States issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from Muslim-majority countries in the five-year period from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2013. At his campaign rallies, he has drawn strong applause from thousands of voters for his calls on the government to monitor mosques, and he has refused to rule out his earlier proposal to enter names of Muslims in America into a database. He has also made a series of ominous comments about President Obama’s leadership in fighting terrorism, suggesting that there was “something going on” with Mr. Obama that Americans were not aware of. In his statement, Mr. Trump quoted a poll by the Center for Security Policy, whose president and founder, Gaffney, has claimed that President Obama is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist political movement born in Egypt, and that agents of the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the U.S. government, the Republican Party and conservative political organizations. (Source: TheNewYorkTimes): http://tinyurl.com/gp5xqq3
Globalization
Dec 10, 2015 Autonomous weaponized robots: not just science fiction In 2014, a South African company started selling drones that could shoot 80 pepper balls per second, and police in North Dakota have been cleared to use a type of drone that is armed with tear gas and Tasers. Police use of Tasers—they’re designed to be nonlethal but can trigger cardiac arrest—killed 540 Americans from 2001 to 2013, according to Amnesty International. Right now, this technology requires an operator to remotely control the robots and the weapons. But autonomous weaponized robots are already being used by the Israeli military to patrol that nation’s borders, and a Texas company has created a drone to hover over private property and, without human instruction, fire a Taser dart to keep a potential intruder under shock until the authorities arrive. Imagine a convergence in technology that also gives these robots facial-recognition capability. Connected to the cloud in order to work in tandem with other robots, they would be the perfect tools to ID and track large numbers of people from afar and from the air. The threat of future attacks would make these robots hard to put away again. And don’t forget the problems with all computerized devices: They can be hacked and used against the authorities or innocent victims. They can be spoofed about their location and crash into buildings. And they have already been used to commit crimes like theft, snooping and drug smuggling. We need a bill of human technological rights to ensure our individual freedoms. Otherwise, I am predicting a gradual erosion of human rights such as freedom of movement, privacy and even life. (Source: TheWallStreetJournal): http://tinyurl.com/gq8xmys
December 10, 2015 Turning points 2016 Annual selection of Turning Points, cataloging the ideas, trends or inventions that will shift our trajectory and make 2016 different from 2015. (Source: TheNewYorkTimes): http://tinyurl.com/z4sddm3
7 December 2015 OPEC bid to kill off US shale sends oil price down to 2009 low. Oil falls by $2 a barrel with energy shares as OPEC refusal to stop flooding the market with cheap oil and likely US rate hike sends Brent crude tumbling was leading to speculation that energy costs could continue tumbling over the coming weeks. Prices of other commodities also weakened following disappointment among traders that OPEC had decided late last week to keep flooding the global market with cheap oil. Iron ore continued its steady fall and finished the latest session at $38.90 per tonne, squeezing profit margins to the bone. A barrel of benchmark Brent crude was changing hands for less than $41 a barrel in New York after OPEC – heavily influenced by Saudi Arabia – did nothing about a market already seen as saturated. US light crude, which tends to trade at slightly lower levels than Brent, recorded similar falls, dropping from just over $40 a barrel to less than $38 a barrel. Both Brent and US light crude were at levels not seen since early 2009, when the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered the most severe recession since the 1930s. As recently as August 2014, Brent stood at $115 a barrel. OPEC’s refusal to cut production despite the financial pain it is causing its members’ economies will lead to a still greater glut of crude. Venezuela, in particular, is thought to be suffering badly. The fall, if sustained, will lead to lower inflation in oil-consuming nations through the knock-on effects on petrol, diesel, domestic energy prices and the cost of running businesses. Saudi Arabia needs oil prices of $100 a barrel to balance its budget, but as the world’s biggest exporter of crude it is gambling that the low price will knock out the threat posed by so-called unconventional supplies, such as shale. (Source: TheGuardian): http://tinyurl.com/pssqkfn
.
