Indonesia is the least understood of the world’s large nation.
Ejducate yerself.
It’s quite moderate for a Muslim majority country.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Want more?
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: Islam
Trump declares MARTIAL LAW. “Postpones” Elections.
An international crisis. Trump uses the excuse to declare martial law in the USA.
He suspends civilian legal processes. Commander in Chief Trump and the U.S. Military are in charge.
It could happen.
The martial law concept in the United States is closely tied with the right of habeas corpus, which is in essence the right to a hearing on lawful imprisonment, or more broadly, the supervision of law enforcement by the judiciary.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday lent some support to calls to suspend habeas corpus as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown after aide Stephen Miller said the White House was considering the idea.
The Hill – May 14, 2025
We know Trump wants to be a Royal like murdering dictator-for-life MBS in Saudi Arabia.
Trump’s first international visit?
To the nation of bin Laden. 15 of the 19 terrorists in 911 were from Saudi Arabia.
Is this really America First? It looks like Trump First.
You know Elon Musk would be 100% supportive of declaring martial law. He’s already openly emulating Hitler who did exactly this in Germany ➙ February 28, 1933, effectively suspended many constitutional rights, creating a state of emergency and giving the Nazis significant control.
Here’s the best discussion on this issue, I’ve seen. Timothy Snyder is an American historian who’s an expert in Tyranny.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson
If you liked the TV series Homeland — you’d likely enjoy this novel.
A CIA asset may or may not have been turned by al-Qaeda.
The Faithful Spy (2006) is a novel by The New York Times reporter Alex Berenson. …
… tells the story of a CIA agent who has infiltrated Al Qaeda and, years after 9-11, struggles to stop a terrorist attack in the United States. …
Al Qaeda detonates two truck bombs in LA, killing hundreds of people. John Wells is returned to the USA on a mission from Al Qaeda where he reconnects with the CIA. However, due to the length of his absence he is accused of being “un-faithful” because he did not warn the US about Al Qaeda attacks. …
2024’s Top Geopolitical Risks
January 2024.
Even if Trump loses the election, the USA will be further divided and destabilized through the election cycle, exactly what Xi, Putin, and the rest of American enemies want.
I’ve been trying to avoid coverage of Gaza — as it’s so depressing.
In fact, I gave up on that issue decades ago concluding that successive Israeli governments were horrible — and successive Palestinian governments even worse. My friend Mike taught school in Libya and Egypt for many years, coming away very sympathetic for innocent Palestinians.
NOW I find myself brought up to speed by listening to an excellent podcast interview with Ian Bremmer.
Search “Conversation with Ian Bremmer — 2024’s Top Geopolitical Risks”
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Not as good — but similar — is his recent TED talk.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (43min)
As a happy Canadian, I didn’t suffer in any way from the G.W. Bush recession of 2008 nor Trump’s incompetent 4 years — and I MIGHT survive another 4 years of the emotional toddler as President.
But I’m worried about 2024.
As Bremmer points out, once Trump gets the GOP nomination, all Republicans will have to fall in line with that idiot — or vote for Biden. Or NOT VOTE.
As for Russia, as Economist said at the very beginning, there’s no scenario where Russia wins their invasion of Ukraine. Even if they eventually control all of that nation, the population will be uncooperative with Putin for decades to come. The rest of the world will be leery of Putin-land for decades. Russian assets will stay frozen. And at least a million Russians who fled the nation will mostly not return.
NATO is much strengthened, as well.
The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh
I’ve never been to Pakistan. But am keen to go as there is terrific hiking in the Himalaya.
I read this excellent book as research.
Sadly, in terms of progress, India has done far better since Partition .
The invasion in 1979 by the Soviet Union was a huge setback, of course.
Declan Walsh is an Irish author and journalist who is the Chief Africa Correspondent for The New York Times.
Walsh was expelled from Pakistan in May 2013—an experience he wrote about in his 2020 book The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State—but continued covering the country from London.
In fact, Walsh was ejected just prior to the 2013 Pakistani general election when Nawaz Sharif was just barely elected.
The subtitle of the book is Dispatches from a Divided Nation and the author criss-crosses those political, religious, ethnic and generational fault lines, assembling a portrait of the vast country of 220 million people through his travels and the lives of the nine compelling protagonists.
Walsh is a wonderful writer, with a gift for sketching an impression of a place, time and ambience with a few brief lines. …
What also shines through is the relish with which Walsh throws himself into the far corners of Pakistan, into crowds, celebrations and rites, with a drive born of fascination with the land and its people. …
Guardian Review
“Above all, Pakistanis are survivors. Yet a country, like a person, may only have nine lives. Rather than fate to overtake them, some of the people I met in the Insha’Allah nation took matters into their own hands…”
Book Review: The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh
Never by Ken Follett
As a teenager I loved Follett’s World War II thriller, “Eye of the Needle” (1974).
Follett got even more famous writing historical fiction: Kingsbridge Series ➙ Century Trilogy.
In 2021 he published a geopolitical thriller — Never. Quite a departure.
Never is set in today’s world.
The sprawling saga is a fictionalized story of our world stumbling towards a nuclear war that nobody wants.
It begins in the Sahara Desert. Islamic terrorists, drugs and human trafficking.
The American President Pauline Green is a 4′ 11″ Republican. A former gymnast. Of course she’s challenged on the right by a Trumpy populist. Top of the American agenda is a revolt in North Korea. Rebel military have seized the nuclear weapons.
A high-ranking Chinese Intelligence official offers insight into the mindset of that superpower.
This book is terrifying as you can see how a nuclear war could start. In fact, I’m affected enough to no longer want to travel to Taiwan or Korea for hiking. They are both too close to nuclear attack.
As always, Follett writes great love stories. It’s the human stories that separate his work from other authors.
Click PLAY or watch an interview on YouTube.
Another book with a similar plot is 2034: A Novel of the Next World War (2021).
Tehran (TV series)
One nation I’ve always wanted to visit is Iran. Westerners love it there.
A new TV series on Apple TV+ gives a glimpse of Tehran. I’m sure the religious leadership there has condemned it.
It’s very well acted. But slow in places.
Tehran is an Israeli espionage thriller television series …
… about the Israeli–Iranian conflict …
Protagonist Tamar Rabinyan, a young Jewish woman born in Iran but raised in Israel, is a Mossad agent and computer hacker, sent on a mission to the Iranian capital, assigned to disabling an Iranian nuclear reactor. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Harari
Having dealt with the distant past in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011) and with the distant future in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), Harari turns in 21 Lessons his attention to the present.
I really enjoyed this book. Harari is a BIG PICTURE guy who quickly puts things into perspective.
His chapter on God is excellent, for example.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018)by Yuval Noah Harari … attempts to untangle the technological, political, social, and existential quandaries that humankind faces. …
In The New York Times, Bill Gates calls the book “fascinating” and his author “such a stimulating writer that even when I disagreed, I wanted to keep reading and thinking.” For Gates, Harari “has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century.”
related 2020 interview:
Yuval Harari: This is the worst epidemic in ‘at least 100 years’
I Am Malala with Christina Lamb
If you want to know more about life in Pakistan I recommend this autobiography of a teenager.
If you want to know more about the plight of girls and women in extremist Muslim nations, this is the book. Malala is a symbol. She was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
I hadn’t recalled that the Taliban assassin shot Malala and hit both girls sitting either side of her as well. All three survived.
Christina Lamb is an excellent writer, expert in this region. She too was nearly killed by the Taliban, on Benazir Bhutto’s bus when it was blown up in October 2007.
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban (2013) is an autobiographical book by Malala Yousafzai, co-written with Christina Lamb …
The book details the early life of Yousafzai, her father’s ownership of schools and activism, the rise and fall of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in Swat Valley and the assassination attempt made against Yousafzai, when she was aged 15, following her activism for female education.
It has received a positive critical reception and won awards, though it has been banned in many schools in Pakistan. …
Swat Valley has been an important tourist destination in the past. And may be again in future. Malala is a Pashtun, the majority of whom follow Sunni Islam.
The leader of the Swat Taliban in Malala’s day was Maulana Fazlullah. He was killed by American drone strike in 2018.
Today Malala is a student at Oxford studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
She and her father run the Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to every girl’s right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education. That’s an important cause for me too.
I’m proud to say Malala has honorary Canadian citizenship.
Peace on Earth – One Love
Hundreds of Christians, Jews and Muslims came together at the Tower of David in Jerusalem to sing Bob Marley’s “One Love” in Hebrew, English and Arabic.
1,000 Strangers – Christians, Jews, And Muslims – Sing ‘One Love’ By Bob Marley
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (2018)
Rick McCharles 