Global turmoil & analysis

 A young man (age 23) sits on the floor in the corner of his cell. It is January 1545, and the man has been sentenced to death for heresy (he has been in the cell for 5 months). There is no furnace in the jail, and the man is fed poorly. The man often thinks back to the day he was detained. His parents were shocked to see him being led away (never thinking him to be a criminal). When the man was sentenced to death, his parents felt ashamed of him. Ever since he was sentenced, he had been confined (alone) in the cell. On January 7, 1545, the man stood up as a guard came into the cell. The man stood still as the guard bound his wrists. Less than 5 minutes later the man was led outside. It was a cold, snowy morning, and the man looked at his parents as he reached the pyre. Once there, the guard secured the man to the pyre.  The guard set the wood around the pyre on fire. The man looked at his parents as he smelled the smoke coming up. Seconds later, the man stood calmly as his le...

 More nationwide protests are expected to take place in France on October 24th. Thousands of troops are being deployed to help the police secure the protests. In addition to the troops, 70,000 police are expected across the country including armored vehicles. Many stores in Paris are boarding up their windows, and construction crews are being told to clear their sites of possible projectiles as large riots are expected.  

 On October 21st, a Houthi missile attack occurred at King Fahid International Airport (in Dammam Saudi Arabia). The attack killed 2 people and injured 8 others.  On October 22, the United States State Department ordered non-emergency staff (and their families) to leave Saudi Arabia. The exact reason for the order is currently unknown. The developments in the first 2 paragraphs come as (on October 22nd) the price of Brent Crude Oil, reached a price of $113 per barrel.

 On October 20th, it came out that Iran, and Iraq, have signed an agreement in which Iraq will expel the Kurds from northern Iraq (which borders Iran). This is a concerning development.  The Kurds are (or at least were) allies of the United States. The Kurds do not like the Iranian regime. For reasons that should be obvious, Iran does not want the Kurds anywhere near their borders. The fact that only a month after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq, a deal like this would be agreed to, implies that the relationship between Iraq and Iran has not changed.

 Recently a version of what is happening in Ukraine has been talked about a lot, the problem is... it is not true. In this post I am going to list the factors that actually led to the war, list a few key events throughout the war, and finish with an analysis of where we are today. In the early 20th century, the land that makes up Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union. During the existence of the Soviet Union (which ended in 1991) the territory of Ukraine contained most of what Russia relied on (most Russians who fought in WW2 came from Ukraine). Ukraine became an independent country on August 24th, 1991. Fast forward 20+ years, and Russia invades, and annexes Crimea (and kept a low intensity conflict going in eastern Ukraine). In 2022 Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the goal of absorbing Ukraine back into Russia. The United States (along with other countries) has provided weapons, ammunition, and intelligence to Ukraine, to help the outmatched countr...

 The protests that I said (in the last post) were expected to take place in France happened, and they were awful. Over a thousand of people were arrested, and 150 officers were injured. Intense Clashes and rioting enveloped many parts of the country. I am not going to highlight specific occurrences in this post, but to give an idea of how bad it was, I watched a stream of the mayhem live pretty much the beginning of the clashes, to when they ended roughly 9 hours later. For a solid 5 hours I heard at least one piece of crowd control ordinance go off every 30 seconds.