Reading Naipaul's Bend in the River about Salim, a Hindu shopkeeper in Stanleyville, I reflected that after the Indian middle class was expelled from East Africa, no native middle class took its place. Fifty years after, natives are not filling their economical niches. The same in Zimbabwe, after the foreign race middle class left, there are no signs of the development of a capable Black replacement. May be it is too early, could be.
Long-term forecasts are uncertain. But in the long run, the "demographic transition" algorithm shows that global demographic development naturally seeks a stable equilibrium as the population gradually adapts to its ecological niche's limits.
Nonsense. Populations have suffered tremendous changes in the last thousand years. No equilibrium.
Replacement activities would be tied to concentration thresholds differently. Though the Action Level (AL) would remain at 15 ppb, the proposal introduces a new Trigger Level of 10 ppb. The primary goal of the Trigger Level is to provide utilities with an opportunity to identify treatment issues before a monitoring violation occurs.
I have not read the 350 pages but seems to me that there are no meaningful nor significant changes.
A remarkable Iraqi Jew I met in Tel Aviv in the mid-seventies had been the accountant of the Arabian American Oil company at Bahrain. When Israel achieved its independence, the Arabs rioted and the community moved to safety in Bombay, India. Bahrain is an island situated at two days navigation from Basra, Iraq, the port serving the Gulf. Basra had a community of merchant Jews, and they traded in the booming Gulf seaside villages aka Trucial States. Jews could not participate in the caravan trade of the mainland, due to Wahhabi fundamentalists. This respectable Iraki Jew told that Bahrain houses had flat roofs, and the community moved on the roofs when they escaped for their lives. He spoke a painfully correct Hebrew, like my Father spoke Spanish, having learnt the language as an adult.
The climate is horrible: August-September average 40 C and the northern wind brings humidity, creating a day-and-night suffocating climate. Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf Arab settlements are now very wealthy and westernized, and they tolerate Christians and Jews. Most of the population is transient, Arabs from the Levant and Pakistani, Malaysian, etc. The future is unknown: the climate change may turn the place uninhabitable by 2100, and the oil may become worthless. The current cities are built on abandoned ruins of undiscovered civilizations, nothing lasts forever. Pic: the Kedourie Family. of Bahrain.
The Revenue hit me with a large amount for 2019 and this month I am paying more tax than my income. Depressing.
The University is open and my absence has gone totally unnoticed. Twenty years driving to Ariel and now I am a stranger.
I am searching for a purpose but nothing interests me. I am going to bed to read Naipaul's Stanleyville story. Pic.: There were no roads and all the traffic moved with the weekly steamer. It took a week on the Congo River to reach the capital (2000 km). The verbosity of Naipaul is tiring. He over-analyses his feelings in every situation. The description of the Indian trading settlement in Zanzibar and East Africa is interesting. Till Idi Amin expelled them.
