Posts Tagged ‘Houthis’

Letter From New York 05 11 15 Of glittering sun and charming princes…

May 11, 2015

Today dawned gloriously, bright shiny sunlight came barreling down from the east, casting a disc of yellow/white onto the creek, glinting up at me as I stood on the deck for a moment before heading for the city.

The Hudson looked peaceful as I rolled south on the train, giving no evidence that there had been a fire at Indian Point, the nuclear reactor forty miles north of midtown Manhattan or that oil from there had seeped into the river, causing environmental concerns. Governor Cuomo was there over the weekend, being briefed on the happenings. It makes him and many others nervous about a nuclear plant that close to the city.

Anything nuclear makes me nervous.

For those who have a fond spot for Britain, it may be time to be nervous. While last week’s election has saved the political career of David Cameron it might just herald the beginning of the end for “Great Britain.” The SNP [Scottish National Party] won 56 of 59 seats that Scotland has in Britain’s Parliament. They also are very much in favor of holding another vote about Scotland going its own way from the rest of the United Kingdom [England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland]. Just doesn’t seem right but it could happen.

What does seem right is the idea of a truce in Yemen that is supposed to start tomorrow to allow aid to reach the Yemenis. Fuel resources are almost exhausted and food is scarce. Days ago it was estimated that 80% of Yemenis were going hungry. It’s only become worse since then.

As the time for the truce draws near, the Saudis are deploying a strike force near the Yemen/Saudi border. Trucks carrying tanks have been traveling through the night to take positions. The Houthis say they will honor the truce as long as the Saudis do but if there are infractions they will immediately respond.

One UN official felt five days would not be enough time to get aid to the Yemenis but it is all they have, if they manage to hold the truce for that amount of time.

Secretary of State John Kerry is off to Sochi, Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss Syria, Ukraine and Iran. I wonder what that conversation is going to be like?

In more Washington news, writer Seymour Hersh has written a piece for the London Review of Books claiming that the story of Osama Bin Laden’s death was a lot of bunk and the truth is quite different. Seems he thinks that it was an American/Pakistani conspiracy and that OBL was actually a Pakistani prisoner at the time of the raid and the raid was a cover-up for Pakistan’s involvement.

Pretty far fetched and, like most conspiracy theories, pretty hard to prove.

From The Moscow Times, an English language newspaper in Russia not known for partisanship to Putin, claims that Russian soldiers have, in small numbers, quit the army after being forced to serve in Ukraine.

According to Vladimir Putin, no Russian soldiers are in Ukraine, only volunteers.

While the migrant focus has been on the thousands attempting to cross from Libya to Italy, another migrant drama has been playing out. Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladeshi immigrants have been rescued at sea attempting to reach Malaysia since Thailand has been cracking down on human trafficking. The Rohingya are not allowed citizenship in Myanmar and as Muslims are a minority in that mostly Buddhist country and have been singled out for ethnic violence. Because of the Thai crackdown, aid workers are concerned that many have been abandoned at sea by their smugglers.

George Zimmerman, he of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, is back in the news today, having been himself slightly wounded in a road rage incident.

And Tom Brady, Quarterback of the Patriots, has been suspended by the NFL for four games while the Patriots were fined a million dollars and two draft picks in coming years. Seems a slight slap on the wrist though it is almost assured that Brady will appeal his suspension. Ah, Deflategate!

Prince Harry, now fifth in line for the British throne after the birth of his niece, Charlotte, is in New Zealand, learning about the aftereffects of the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch. By all accounts he is charming the New Zealanders to no end.

And that brings me to the end of today’s Letter From New York. I am about to do a conference call and then see about some dinner. That sounds charming.

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Letter From New York 05 09 15 A day after the anniversary of the end of WWII

May 9, 2015

It is Saturday morning and I am preparing to drive from Baltimore with Lionel and Pierre to Frenchtown, New Jersey, where James Green, our mutual friend, is having his annual Cinco de Mayo party, which happens to be his birthday. Then we are going to drive to Claverack where L&P will spend the night before returning to Baltimore.

Yesterday was many things. It was a slightly off day for me. I slammed my finger in a door, which didn’t feel so good. And, in a combination of a bit of bad luck and a bit of bad planning, I missed my train from Baltimore to DC by three minutes.

I determined that I could either beat myself up or I could go with the flow as much as possible and I chose the later after a long conversation on Thursday evening with Lance McPherson, a friend, about the value of not beating oneself up.

I had good meetings in DC and found my way back to Baltimore and then on to a lovely dinner at Ouzo Bay, a restaurant in Harbor East.

Yesterday, if you missed it, was the 70th Anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Seventy years ago the Germans surrendered and the fighting ceased.

Russia did it up big, having the largest end of war anniversary celebration in history. Thousands of troops marched. Planes screamed through the skies overhead and new armor was displayed, demonstrating how much the Russians have built up their arsenal in the last few years.

Most European leaders attended festivities in their own countries and so avoided having to attend to Moscow’s celebration. There is that pesky matter of Ukraine. The biggest guest in Moscow was the Premier of China.

There were events at Gdansk, formerly Danzig, which is war the war actually started.

Yesterday, too, it became absolutely clear that David Cameron had won an unexpected win and a big win at that to return as Prime Minister of the UK with a majority in Parliament. He will not have to look to the Liberal Democrats for help, not that they could be much help as they were trounced and lost most of their seats, resulting in Nick Clegg, their leader, stepping down. Ed Miliband, who was leading the Labour Party, also resigned because of their defeat.

Pollsters had predicted a breathtakingly close race and it wasn’t. Their reputation is tarnished right now.

Not stepping down is Nicola Sturgeon, who leads the Scottish National Party, which won almost all the Scottish seats in Parliament.

UKIP, the far right British party, did not do very well either.

However, all of this leads Cameron into very stormy political weather. He has promised a referendum on Britain’s place in the European Union and Nicola Sturgeon is agitating for another vote on Scottish independence. It will be an interesting tightrope for Mr. Cameron.

Nepal is still shattered but foreign journalists and helpers are leaving. The death toll has climbed above 7,000. The UN called for $435 million dollars in aid for the country but so far only about $23 million has been forthcoming. Hundreds of bodies still lie beneath the ruins and aid is still slow in reaching the remotest parts of the country. In a few weeks the Monsoon season will arrive.

In discomforting news, North Korea claims it has successfully test fired a ballistic missile from a submarine thus increasing the range of their nuclear weapons. Another worry for the world.

Liberia, once one of the centers of the Ebola outbreak, has been declared Ebola free now that no new cases have been discovered for six weeks.

In poor Yemen, the Houthis are claiming that Saudis have launched over a hundred raids on the country in the last day. Supplies still float at sea and people are beginning to starve. There is some talk of a truce but no real movement.

At home in America, tornadoes have ravaged Oklahoma with more storms predicted. Golf ball sized hail fell in Norman, OK.

Republican Presidential hopefuls are gathering in South Carolina to line up support at a gathering there. But apparently Jeb Bush won’t be there nor will Chris Christie or Rand Paul.

I will not be in South Carolina. I am leaving now for Frenchtown and then home.

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Letter From New York 04 24 15 2015, a big year for anniversaries…

April 24, 2015

First of all, my apologies…

I thought the Bruce Jenner/Diane Sawyer interview was last night and it is tonight. I misread the paper yesterday. Sorry about that.

But it is tonight and the Kardashians are gathering to watch it together. He’s their stepfather. Bruce says that 2015 is going to be a wild ride. And I am sure that it already has been for him.

2015 is a big year for a lot of things.

Los Angeles has a large Armenian community and thousands of them marched today to remember the Armenian Genocide. The centenary of that gruesome event is happening today.

2015 is also the centenary, celebrated tomorrow, of Gallipoli. The Allies in World War I wanted to break the back of Turkish participation by capturing Istanbul. They landed at Gallipoli and remained there for months, unable to advance, starving, dying and suffering from dysentery. Something like 45,000 Allied troops died there as did 80 some thousand Turkish troops.

Charles, Prince of Wales, and his son, Prince Harry, are there to lead the British delegation to the remembrance. Australians and soldiers from New Zealand died in the thousands there too. It was the their military debut on the world stage and it is remembered every year there and on the centenary, the Prime Ministers of both countries have traveled to Gallipoli to be present for the ceremonies.

While that conflict has long been ended, the one in Yemen seems nowhere near ending. The Houthis have advanced and the Saudi led coalition has bombed back. 150,000 Yemenis have been displaced and the country is collapsing. Nearly everything they need has to be imported and right now almost nothing is coming in as cargo ships are detained in the waters off Yemen.

A number of Afghans and Pakistanis were arrested in Italy today, accused of planning to carry out Al Qaeda attacks, including one aimed at the Vatican.

In the United States there has been a huge buzz all day about the demise of the Time Warner Cable and Comcast merger. Called off today, it once looked like a sure thing. But since the deal was announced the media revolution that is occurring caused the spotlight to shift from cable homes reached to broadband houses served. If the deal had gone through, the combined companies would have owned, according to some estimates, as much as 57% of broadband service to US costumers.

That was too much for anyone.

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota was a lonely voice a year ago in disapproval of the deal. He is hardly alone now.

Feeling a bit isolated today is Ed Miliband, Labour’s candidate for Prime Minister of Britain. He set off a row by claiming in a speech that the migrant disaster in the Mediterranean could be traced back to a lack of planning after the fall of Gadhafi. The Tories declared he had reached a new low.

We’ll see. The elections are two weeks away. A new low could be just around the corner.

Not going to Poland are the Night Wolves, a Hell’s Angels sort of biking group in Russia that is very fond of Putin as Putin is fond of them. They planned to ride through Poland on their way to celebrate Soviet victories in World War II, 70 years ago this year. Nope, said the Poles. Russia is “indignant.”

Less indignant will be some parts of American society now that Abercrombie & Fitch is set to dial down the sexiness of their advertising. No more male shirtless models everywhere.

The NASDAQ had its highest intraday moment in history today, propelled by Google, Amazon and Microsoft, the tech triumvirate. They all soared on individual good news.

Good news here is that sun is out. I saw “Ex Machina” last night and it was good; not what I expected but good and disturbing at the end.

In about an hour I will head over to Penn Station to take the 5:47 train up to Hudson. Lionel and Pierre will be home this weekend to attend a birthday party and we’ll all go to the Dot tonight.

Should be a good weekend.

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Letter From New York 04 21 15 A city in sunshine instead of rain…

April 21, 2015

The very first thing I did today was look at the Weather Channel app on my phone. It told me that New York was going to have a rainy morning and cloudy afternoon. Well, all day the sun has been pouring down joyfully and relentlessly upon the city, to my great delight. I hope it stays that way.

Just now, it was announced that the Saudis are stopping their month long aerial attack on Yemen’s Houthis, called “Operation Decisive Storm” and replacing it with “Operation Restoring Hope.”

Yemen needs some hope. Its feeble infrastructure has been overwhelmed by the attacks and food and medical supplies are in short supply due to the Saudi sea blockade, holding up ships to make sure they weren’t carrying arms. Yemen is desperate for hope.

However, while the bombing is over the fight may not be. The Saudis are still determined to keep the Houthis from power.

In Egypt, former President Morsi has been ordered to spend twenty years in jail. He still faces several more trials on accusations against him from his year in power.

In 2005 a then 83-year-old German denounced Holocaust deniers and spoke of having seen the gas chambers and the ovens with his own eyes. Today, at 93, Oskar Groening, went on trial in Germany for his role as a bookkeeper for the Nazis at Auschwitz.

He has told the court he feels morally guilty even though he did not actually kill anyone personally. It is, he said, up to the court to find him legally guilty or not.

Italian courts will decide if the captain of the migrant smuggling vessel that capsized this week is guilty of human trafficking, reckless homicide and causing a shipwreck. He was one of the 28 survivors; as many as 950 may have perished.

In the last six days alone, almost 11,000 people have been pulled from the Mediterranean, attempting to reach the Italian coast.

The European Union will now play a bigger role rather than leaving it to Italy to shoulder this burden alone.

Almost all the human smuggling originates in Libya, which is in chaos and where IS has made some gains even as they have had to pull back in Iraq. There are conflicting reports today regarding Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled Caliph of the self-styled IS Caliphate. He either was or was not gravely wounded in a March air attack near Mosul.

Whether he is gravely wounded or not, the war with IS grinds on and there is fighting around Ramadi with residents torn between returning and staying away. They fled by the thousands as IS entered the city’s center. Now Iraqi forces seem to have retaken most of the town but there is still fighting going on.

At least six died in Mogadishu, Somalia as a result of a car bombing. Al Shabaab takes responsibility.

Certainly not dead or wounded is Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who turned 89 today though the country celebrates her birthday in June. There has been a royal tradition that if a monarch is born during the winter months, celebrations will be in the summer, when the weather is better.

There were numerous gun salutes today while Her Majesty celebrated quietly with her family at Windsor Castle, where she has been in residence the past month.

Crowds are already lining up outside the hospital where Kate, Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, is due to give birth to their second child. Some people have already been there for two weeks.

While the overall popularity of the British Royal Family is not in question, the popularity of the American President has not been so good of late. However, it is up right now, back in positive territory for the first time in months. As is the public’s view of Obamacare.

And in the world of entertainment, if you were a fan of “Full House” which ran on network television from 1987-1995, it will be returning for 13 episodes on Netflix, interestingly described in one news article as an “online network.”   Not all cast members are signed on; some are, some are still in negotiation. But with or with out the full cast, “Full House” will return to Netflix.

Since I never watched it on network television maybe I will have to see what the fuss is about when it reaches Netflix. But that will be awhile in the future. Tonight I am off to the theater to see Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in “It’s Only A Play.”

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Letter From New York 04 20 15 Thoughts from a Pain Quotidian…

April 20, 2015

It is a chillish, greyish, rainyish day in New York City. I am delighted I remembered to bring an umbrella into the city today when I left the cottage. It was drizzling as I left for the train and when I got off in New York, it was pelting down. Good thing I had only a short walk to my meeting from Penn Station.

Now I am at a Pain Quotidian having just spent some time with an old friend of mine, Fred Silverman. He’s in the process of selling his tech company and we talked about all things digital.

An old school journalist and filmmaker, he is troubled by the lack of fact checking in today’s digital sites, a thing which concerns me too. It also troubles him that many sites are paying low wages to their young workers, building very profitable businesses on the back of low wages.

It was an interesting talk; heightening the concerns I have about both journalism and the American work scene. All of it will work out, I’m sure, though probably not in my lifetime. There are probably some bumpy years ahead.

Fred is very attuned to the number of college students who are coming out of college saddled with heavy loans and without great job prospects. He has children in college and employs some shortly out of college.

It was, in fact, a subject that was covered in an interview with Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, who will probably challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He was on NPR this morning, talking about how students were coming out of college with loans that have interest rates of 7% when interest rates in general are at historic lows.

He gave careful, thoughtful answers to the questions asked him. I was impressed. I doubt he has a snowball’s chance in that warmer climate to get the nomination but I think it will be good his voice will be heard.

Jeb Bush is flying off to Europe right now in advance of his expected announcement about seeking the Republican nomination for President. He has a slight lead in polls but is no means in the position that Hillary has with the Democrats.

While Jeb jets, Hillary and Bill are facing the publication of a book called “Clinton Cash” on May 5 that tears them for their mixing of politics and philanthropy. The author is Peter Schweizer, a voluable conservative but the liberal press seems to think the book could be trouble.

The EU is scrambling to meet the needs of the immigrant crisis in the Mediterranean. Before this, it has been mostly left to Italy but the loss of 700 in the last week has stirred a regional response.

Another region that has heightened tensions is the area around Yemen. The US is sending warships there right now to intercept Iranian vessels potentially carrying arms to the Houthis. It could be a powder keg.

Ethiopia has declared three days of mourning for its citizens slaughtered by IS in Libya.

Six Minnesotans have been detained by authorities who believe they were attempting to join IS.

The US has started training the troops of Ukraine to bolster them in their fight against the rebels even while the ceasefire is marginally working.

Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the young and pudgy dictator of that country, claims to have climbed the nation’s tallest peak. Since the photographs of him at the top show him wearing pristine leather shoes and a slight overcoat, skepticism abounds over the validity of the claim.

In the British election, currently coming down to the wire, Nicola Sturgeon, Head of the SNP [Scotland’s National Party] has been indicating that if they are part of the coalition that governs with the Labour Party, they’ll be the ones calling the shots at Westminster. Ed Miliband, of Labour, disagrees.

Today stocks are higher on the news that China is stimulating its economy while the Euro is under pressure because of, what else, worries about Greek debt.

The Hubble Telescope is 25 years old and has provided us with some glorious pictures of the universe.

The rain seems to have departed and now it is time for me to depart from Pain Quotidian; the dinner crowd is arriving.

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Letter From New York 04 19 15 At the end of a weather glorious weekend…

April 19, 2015

The weekend is winding down in Claverack and it’s been good. Dinner at the Red Dot with my friend Paul, his daughter, Karen, and her fiancé, Andrew on Friday, followed by yesterday’s lovely lunch with Jack Myers, which itself was followed by an evening of glorious violin and piano music. Yevgeny Kutik was on the violin; Dina Vainshtein on the piano. It was two hours of music by luminaries such as Prokofiev as well as lesser lights such as Cesar Franck. Everyone in the audience was appreciative of the music coaxed from their instruments.

In the afterglow of the concert I went for a cocktail at Ca’Mea where I ran into a couple of people I knew as well as a lady who had, too, just been to the concert. We both liked the Prokofiev the best.

Then I wandered home and curled up with a few more episodes of “The Unbeatable Kimmy Schmidt” on Netflix, binge watching until later than I should have.

Morning brought church with a good sermon by Mother Eileen and a quick bite to eat before getting paint samples for the living room. It’s looking stale and so it’s time for a change.

Walking around the circle, I listened to the news on my iPhone, off my Newsbeat app, and soaked in part of what has been a weather glorious weekend.

While it is perhaps antediluvian of me, I still have an AOL email account. I have had one since something like 1992. Can’t read any messages for the last two days. Every time I try to open an email, I get a technical error message. And their help desk is pretty thin unless you pay the monthly charges, which I quit doing years ago. So I’m a little frustrated.

Frustrated, too, is the gentleman who flew a gyrocopter onto the Capital lawn, resulting in a full security review. Doug Hughes wanted to raise awareness about the need for campaign finance reform. He brought with him 535 letters, one for each member of Congress. Instead of focusing on the message he was carrying, news media have been focusing on his security breach.   He is unhappy his campaign reform message has been lost in the din.

In another Mediterranean tragedy, another boat capsized north of Libya with perhaps as many as 950 on board, with hundreds said to have been locked in the hold and unable to escape. So far only 28 survivors and 24 bodies have been recovered. If the numbers hold, this will have been the worst single tragedy for refugees seeking a better life in Europe. 3,500 died last year attempting to make it from Africa to Italy or Malta.

Many of these refugees, including the ones on the capsized boat, are setting out from the Libyan coast. On that very coast, a new video has been released purportedly showing IS members beheading 16 Ethiopian Christians while footage later in the video captures IS shooting 12 more Ethiopian Christians in the back of the head out in the desert.

The ugliness of absolutism beats on.

It is also raising concerns about IS finding a good foothold in Libya, not all that far from the Italian coast.

Back in India, Rahul Gandhi, heir apparent to the Congress Party, has returned from a two month “sabbatical” and is locked with current Prime Minister Modi in a battle of words to proclaim how “pro-poor” each one is.

In Yemen, the Houthis mock suggestions they will surrender under the air barrage led by Saudi Arabia. In Iraq, the Kurds have pushed IS out of an oil refinery and have broadened the buffer zone around Kirkuk, an oil rich city. Iran is seemingly determined to make it as difficult as possible to get a deal done by June 30, a deal being made even more difficult by Putin selling missiles to Iran. With western sanctions, Russia needs the cash.

Needing to perhaps hit a restart button is the Director of the FBI, James Comey, who published a piece in the Washington Post that suggested that Poland and Hungary helped the Nazis during WWII, quietly complicit in what was going on. Poland was not amused. The US Ambassador was summoned this afternoon for an apology.

Unapologetically, the sun is beginning to set and the day is fading to grey. I have a few tasks to do around the house and then I am going to curl up with a good book or may be a few more episodes of “The Unbeatable Kimmy Schmidt.”

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