Carving Up Syria

 Epoch magazine says that Turkiye and Israel are holding conversations in Azerbaijan over their respective areas of influence in Syria. Just now, I am rereading the book about the Sykes-Picot line that marked the mandates of France and Britain after WWI.  In the last hundred years, Turkey has rebuilt itself as a regional hegemon, and the insubstantial Zionist movement has grown into a strong state in the Middle East. The old imperialist powers, Britain and France, have enough Arabs and little interest in acquiring more.

Unimaginable Futures

 
Claude: Based on trends, we can estimate when the birth numbers might equalize:

If Poland continues its approximately 11% annual decline in births (from ~272,000 in 2023), and Israel maintains relatively stable birth numbers around 180,000 (with slight variations), the crossover point would be reached in approximately 4-5 years (around 2029-2030).

By that time:

• Poland's births would be around: 272,000 × (0.89)^5 ≈ 160,000
• Israel's births would likely remain around 180,000 or grow slightly

For this old Eastern European Jew, it is unimaginable that Israel will have more births than Poland. A few years ago, a German said that, according to the trend current then, Guatemala would soon be more populous than Germany, which was impossible and unimaginable for him. As things are now, that is still far away. 

Surprise

 לקח זמן לגורמים בישראל להגיב על הודעת הנשיא טראמפ, לפיה החות'ים נכנעו ולא רוצים להילחם יותר - והנשיא גם
סומך על מילתם והורה להפסיק מתקפות נגדם. כשבירושלים התאוששו מהאירוע מספיק כדי להגיב, התגובה שניתנה למי שפנה ושאל, הייתה לא רשמית, בעילום שם והסתכמה בהודאה הכנה: "לא ידענו. טראמפ הפתיע אותנו".

"It took time for officials in Israel to respond to President Trump's announcement that the Houthis had surrendered and no longer want to fight - and the President also trusts their word and ordered them to stop attacks against them. When Jerusalem recovered from the event enough to respond, the response given to those who approached and asked was unofficial, anonymous, and amounted to an honest admission: 'We didn't know. Trump surprised us."

Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti explicitly denied that they would halt their terrorist activities altogether, stating: "We stress that we will not commit to stopping our military operations in the Red Sea".

Cryptozoologycal Adventure

 About the book of Lukas Meisel:   Almost every culture in Asia knows the creature by name - as Yeren in China, Chemo in Tibet or as Orang Pendek in Sumatra. For centuries, it has had a firm place in myths and imaginations. Only science does not want to know anything about the "missing link" between humans and animals.

Robert Akeret is determined to change that. At the behest of a cryptozoological society, he sets off on an expedition into the interior of Papua New Guinea. At his side: a man from the Bugis ethnic group; at the helm of the boat is someone who calls himself Jonah. And then there is Blum, his Swiss assistant, a man in his mid-twenties with weak nerves but a keen sense of correct manners. Together they embark on a journey into the well-measured unknown. With a hand-welded cage on the bow ...

Lukas Maisel is possibly the "missing link" between Claude Lévi-Strauss and Karl May. His debut novel, "Book of the Dreamed Islands", is a literary adventure, light-handed and intelligent, a captivating combination of cultural history, ethnography and narrative imagination.

BTW, Robert Akeret was a real person. Robert U. Akeret of New York City and Essex, N.Y., passed on peacefully on Nov. 12, 2016. Bob is survived by his four daughters, Kim and husband Tony, Julie and husband John, Liza, and Teal; and his four grandchildren, Molly, Nick, Will, and Sam. He was a successful psychoanalyst and author. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1928, Bob immigrated to the United States with his mother, Emmi Akeret, when he was six years old. Bob received his doctorate from Columbia University and his certificate in psychoanalysis from the William Alanson White Institute, where he trained with Rollo May and Erich Fromm. He wrote five books: "Not by Words Alone" (1972), "Photoanalysis" (1975), "Family Tales, Family Wisdom" (1991), "Tales from a Traveling Couch" (1996)

Virtual Romance

Female orgasm wasn’t necessary for conception, but he had read somewhere that orgasmic contractions were supposed to help.

‘It’s just a story, I know. But . . . what would we tell our children?’ he said, and instantly regretted it.

‘Do you sometimes imagine having children with me?’

He nodded.

She smiled.

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth, either. Whenever he slept with a woman, he couldn’t help but imagine accidentally getting her pregnant and having to stay with her. Not because he had this great longing for children – it was the opposite. For the same reason, when he was rock-climbing, he sometimes imagined falling. It made him value his current situation all the more, and take proper safety measures.

‘Do you give them names?’

‘I just know what names I wouldn’t give them. Kevin. Marcel. Thomas. Rita. Sabrina.’

‘You’re right, those are awful. Luckily, I only know one Marcel and one Sabrina. They’re both terrible human beings.’

‘A person can’t help being called Sabrina, though.’

‘Why don’t you want to tell my parents how we really met?’

‘If they’re anything like mine, they’ll think people who use that app are just looking for sex. I don’t want them to think I was only after their daughter’s body.’

By Lukas Maisel, born in Zurich in 1987. His debut novel, Buch der geträumten Inseln, received  the Terra Nova Prize. From GRANTA magazine. 

Permitting real estate in Israel

The police destroyed a luxury "villa" (pic) and an unfinished department building in the Arab neighborhood of Ramla. They were built on public lands and had no building permits. 

How were they connected to the municipal infrastructure - water, sewage, streets?  What were the owners of these buildings thinking - maybe they believed they always could pay off the major? 

These actions are very good for the permitting business.

The Indus River Conflict

 The 1960 treaty between India and Pakistan states that aside from certain specific cases, no storage and irrigation systems can be built by India on the western rivers. India is allowed to store 3.60 million-acre feet (MAF) of water from the western rivers, 2.85 MAF for conservation storage and an additional 0.75 MAF for “flood storage.”

India is building the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric power plants in Jammu and Kashmir. The 60 y/o/ Treaty needs adjustments, but the riparian powers are at war. Both possess nuclear weapons. No joke.