Photo, left: Just a week before Christmas, security forces arrested Reverend Kowa Shamaal and Reverend Hassan Abdelraheem from the Sudan Church of Christ denomination at their homes in Khartoum North and Omdurman, respectively.  No reason for the arrest has been given for the two church leaders who come from the Nuba Mountain region in South Kordofan State, according to news reports.  . . . In 2014, three churches in Khartoum states were demolished under Bashir’s zero-tolerance policy towards religious pluralism. See: Hour One, segment D, below.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD, & Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: State Department lists Islamic State’s ‘Khorasan Province’ as Foreign Terrorist Organization longwarjournal.org  [Note also: Pentagon report on Afghanistan excludes al Qaeda’s pledge to the Taliban]
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal and FDD, & Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: a Syrian-born, naturalized US citizen living in California; pled guilty to helping al Qaeda, Arar al Sham. [US citizen pleads guilty to supporting al Qaeda-allied group in Syria / longwarjournal.org] . . . Pakistan again puts Jaish-e-Mohammed leader under ‘protective custody’ – supported by Pakistan ISI, against India in Kashmir; led by Mahsoud ___ in a multiday assault against India. 
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com and Daily Beast, in re:  The Chinese economic miracle is taking a lunch break. Btw, why are they nationalizing the stock market? The Natl Bur of Statistics said that GDP growth was 6.9% (down from a starry-eyed 7-plus).  Electricity use is down, rail freight is down, lending is down – these three constitute the Li Kai-chung Index.  A mall outside Shanghai, which is actually larger than the Pentagon  - is empty.  Somebody's losing a lot of money – who's holding the mortgage. China has debt – it's something from 282% to 350% of GDP.  . . .  launch a missile into space and have it land on a US carrier or city.  Centrality to the proliferation problem: China, Pakistan, Iran.  geniuses who negotiate this July's nuke deal gave birth to the North Korea deal (14 July), State & Treasury both knew that Iran was in violation of SC 1929.  Mercantilist predatory trade practices.
China's Economy Grew about 1% in 2015  Beijing will issue inflated GDP statistics this week to show it met its 7% target
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/01/17/chinas-economy-grew-a...
by Gordon G. Chang
On Tuesday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics releases its first estimate of 2015 gross domestic product.  Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday said growth last year came in around 7% for 2015, which was his target, announced last March. Analysts polled by Reuters peg growth at 6.9%, which would be the lowest rate in 25 years.
Indicators for the year, however, point to a number in the low single digits, perhaps 1%.
In 2007, when Li was Communist Party secretary of Liaoning province, he told a visiting American diplomat that Beijing’s figures were “man-made,” politically directed and therefore unreliable. He said he looked at three factors when trying to understand what the economy was really doing: electricity consumption, rail freight volume, and bank lending. So what does the “Li Keqiang Index,” as these factors are now known, tell us? The usage of electricity remains the most reliable single indicator of Chinese economic activity. In the first 11 months of 2015, electricity consumption increased 0.7%. Rail freight volume fell 10.5% in 2015, according to Caixin, which cited the National Railway Administration. New renminbi loans last year, according to the People’s Bank of China, amounted to 11.72 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.81 trillion yuan from 2014. Foreign-currency loans in 2015 fell $50.2 billion. In 2014, such loans increased $58.2 billion.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/15/add-taiwan-to-the-list-of-china-s-big-problems.html   Heard on the Street: China’s Monetary Policy on Treadmill to Nowhere; By Aaron Back, The Wall Street Journal    China’s central bank has one foot on the gas, but another on the brake. Little wonder it isn’t getting much traction. Since November 2014, the People’s Bank of China has slashed interest rates six times, and cut the mandatory level of bank reserves five times. The benchmark lending rate has fallen by 1.65 percentage points. But the results so far have been unimpressive.
The latest sign was lending data released Friday. China’s banks extended just under 6 trillion yuan ($910 billion) of new loans in December. That was below expectations, and down from more than 7 trillion the previous month, even though December typically sees a seasonal uptick in lending. Total social financing, a broader measure of credit in the economy, is also sluggish. It rose 11.8% in 2015, the slowest pace in at least a decade. Some economists argue this is an underestimate, because it excludes a new local-government bond swap program put it in place this year. The issue is disputed. But even after including this program, growth in total credit still only came to 14.3%, a slight deceleration from 2014.
Why has PBOC loosening failed to unleash credit growth? In part, because the PBOC is also tightening at the same time.  It is doing so through its massive interventions to prop up the yuan, spending around $130 billion in December alone, according to Goldman Sachs. When the PBOC spends dollars from its currency reserves to buy up yuan, this shrinks the domestic money supply. It is the opposite of the process seen in China’s boom years, when it bought up dollar inflows with newly printed yuan, adding to its reserves and domestic liquidity.
To see the effect, look at reserve money, a liability on the PBOC’s balance sheet. This is effectively the monetary base, or the amount of money supplied to banks by the PBOC. This monetary base is shrinking. It fell from a year earlier in each of the last four months, including a 6% decline in December. These are the first such declines in at least 15 years, says Rhodium Group analyst Logan Wright. Back in 2011, when China was contending with massive inflows and buying up reserves, it was rising as fast as 33%.  So the PBOC is trying to juice liquidity with one hand, while taking money out of circulation with the other. Even more frustratingly, further PBOC loosening such as rate cuts might only add to outflow pressures, prompting more intervention. To break the cycle, currency outflows need to stop, perhaps due to a sudden turnaround in domestic growth, or the PBOC needs to stop intervening and let the currency fall. Neither seems likely any time soon.
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Pastor William Devlin, Infinity Bible Church,  & REDEEM!,  in re: now back in Khartoum (North Sudan) to rescue two more imprisoned Christian pastors (btw, they're originally from South Sudan):  Sudan Church of Christ, Pastors Kowa and Hassan.  Sudan Natl Intell Security Svcs ("NIF") arrested them at Christmas because a few weeks earlier they'd complained about a church having been bulldozed.  We have no idea where they are; we think the govt wants o more Western visitors, leading to world media coverage.  I did meet with  another pastor today whose church had been partially destroyed. Govt claims that there are land disputes over church property, then that give s the govt a chance to arrest the pastors. Wed ask please that people pray for the pastors.   July 2014, Miriam Yahyah Ibrahim, who gave birth to her infant while in prison, plus two other pastors, plus two girls about to be whipped and caned 50 times, and the two pastors from last year . If Northern Sudan wants to join the nations of the world, it has to stop imprisoning Christians.  Possibility of returning to an older constitution, under Sharia.   Pease call your Senator and Congressman: This is going on again; please help release Pastors Kowa and Hassan.   . . .  Yes I'm free to wear my clerical collar here because I'm a Westerner. 
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"Just a week before Christmas, security forces arrested Reverend Kowa Shamaal and Reverend Hassan Abdelraheem from the Sudan Church of Christ denomination at their homes in Khartoum North and Omdurman, respectively.  No reason for the arrest has been given for the two church leaders who come from the Nuba Mountain region in South Kordofan State, according to news reports."
 
Pastors Kowa and Hassan are being held prisoner in Sudan; please consider calling your Senators and Congessman to ask for help in freeing them
 
Hour Two
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: David Drucker, Washington Examiner, and John Fund, NRO, in re: Discord.  Bernie Sanders is a completely sincere, straightforward senior person. When he speaks of policy, he's straightforward. Mrs Clinton has both to embrace Sen Sanders's policies plus also to embrace $15 trillion. Mrs Clinton has to deal with the email scandal; and she's a liberal but never has been a leftist. More Iowan Dems call themselves socialists than Democrat.    G W Bush enraged the Dems; Pres Obama has whetted the appetite for [rightism]. The GOP has moved right and the Dems have moved left.  Division.  The country is looking for a candidate who's passionate – Mrs Clinton is passionate for – continuity??   It's possible Mrs C could lose the first two primaries, bit no one knows what Sanders might d thereafter. Panic time. Mrs Clinton's second opponent is: FBI.  There are 1q50 agents working on email and the Clinton Foundations.   The dangerous time for her are when she shows weakness both at he polls and in legal matters.  Dems are worried about her bruised, battered and vulnerable condition. Another Dem standard-bearer?  Unh – you gotta get on the ballot.  That late?  . . .  The Dems have their debates on weekends during sports playoffs.  T his is the Party that replaced Torricelli in NJ with an 85-year-old after the filing deadline. They're capable of anything. 
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: David Drucker, Washington Examiner, and John Fund, NRO; in re: The Senator from Texas used to visit the Businessman from New York at the Trump tower in New York. The Cruz PAC is going on radio in New York City to needle the businessman about is relationship with Mayor DeBlasio.  "Trump-level trolling" to get under his skin. What Cruz is doing is communicating to Iowa conservatives that Trump is a New York liberal you can't trust who'll say and do anything, Good campaigning.   Trump has endorsed DeBlasio, Cuomo, Clinton – even liberals he didn't have to pay off. Now he has to explain himself.  Trump make Giuliani look like a paragon of conservative values.  The candidate who goes negative first and most – loses.   Cruz benefits from Trump going nuclear on Cruz.  If Trump loses in Iowa, or even comes in second, he becomes a loser – and the Kryptonite word against Trump is "loser."
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: M's very recent trip to Greece, Cyprus, and Middle East: looking at prospects in the Eastern Med – actually, from Lebanon to Morocco, Malta, Tunisia, who don't want to be dragged down by Europe.  End of Jan: Israel, Cyprus and Greece will hold a trilateral summit. May later incl Egypt. US bases in Crete.   Crime, religious fundamentalism, ethnic relationships – many internal issues with external implications.  In Cyrus, tremendous search & rescue base.  Libya is 300 miles from Crete – and ISIS is now dug in to Sirte. Military sees itself as a bastion for the West and Europe. Young people out late in cafes; great potential for a new alliance that could be beneficial and a bridge among many nations.  Looking at possible economic integration - no one wants to be saddled with Greece's economic problems, but it's a big market. Maybe airline landing rights along the Med, and eventually many others can be brought in. Israel's water reclamation technologies will be useful in Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco.  Cooperation is begun.    The very liberal senator Blumenthal calls for increased sanctions against Iran, esp after the vicious seizure of American sailors.  . . . We know there were side deals, no one knows what they are.  Order today fin Iran to produce 500K Bbl/day; at $25 Bbl will lead to a modest income but useful. Need to monitor how that'll be spent.  Iran still holding Mr Levinson, an American who worked for the FBI. White House had 14 Iranian fugitives removed from the Interpol red list – what were they accused of?  And Rafsanjani?? He ran the Argentine AMIA murders; the prosecutor was murdered over this; is Rafsanjani's named pulled from Interpol?
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  Pres Obama wants a US embassy in Teheran and wants to visit there for his Nixon/China moment.  Iranian election on 26 Feb, incl for the Assembly of Experts to elect the next Supreme Leader, as Khamenei is in poor health.   Recall that Churchill was proud of never having met Hitler – he pointed to many photos of Chamberlain and Hitler looking chummy.  After Pres Obama returned the bust of Churchill to Queen Elizabeth, maybe his trip to Iran might not look so good?  Whom does Iran want removed from the Interpol red list?  Velayti and Rafsanjani, and a dozen others. 
 
Hour Three
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 3, Block A: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; in re: last night's Democratic  debate. http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/pragmatism-vs-idealism-during-dem-debate-603730499561
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:  Lev Golinkin, author, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka; in re: growing up in Kharkov, where Soviet citizens, including small children, were mobilized to protect home from the fearful Americans, while little John Batchelor, in third grade in Pennsylvania, was learning to hide under his desk for when the Russians dropped a nuclear bomb on Philadelphia. Lev recommends that Americans revert to a temperament that he noticed with great admiration when he arrived a decade ago: tranquility, calm. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-golinkin-red-scare-radical-sc...
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:   Tunku Varadarajan, Hoover, in re:  Nikki Haley, governor of South Carolina  - the future of the GOP – vs Donald trump, the GOP as it never was around 1946.  Compare and contrast Bobby Jindal, past gov of Louisiana.   Haley's address completely overshadowed Obama's address: she was conciliatory, measured, humane, in refreshing contrast to Obama's strutting performance.  (1 of 2) http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/donald-trump-s-triumph-of-insolence ;  http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/reverse-swing-nikki-of-america/#sthash.oP0s4g1j.uxfs&st_refDomain=t.co&st_refQuery=/LAppwFT9ls
Reverse Swing: Nikki of America  Ms Haley is Indian-American, and Christian, and a political star.   On the night of the State of the Union address last week, when many in America were prepared to swoon over Barack Obama — only to be turned off by a speech that was self-aggrandising — a woman of Indian origin, her tone measured, her teeth as white as a Trump rally, stole the show from the Democratic president.
Nikki Haley, born Nimrata Kaur Randhawa, is the Republican governor of South Carolina, and to her fell the chore of delivering the response to the President, an American tradition in which a hapless opposition politician is picked by his party’s establishment to speak for a handful of minutes after the Big Cheese has finished. The task is cursed: the nation has had just about enough of politics after the presidential peacock-dance. So it treats what follows either as an opportunity to turn off the TV, or to titter at the short (and usually impotent) speech. The worst in recent memory was the response by Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, to Obama’s first State of the Union in 2009. With the nation on an Obama high, Jindal’s squeaky voice and pedantry made him an object of derision. His decline as a national politician began that very night.
Haley’s response, by contrast, was the finest I’ve heard, and the excited talk after she spoke was all about how she’d make a perfect Republican vice-presidential candidate. And yet her words didn’t please everyone: Ann Coulter, a conservative pundit who has made a handsome living by being the shrillest woman in America, tweeted that “Trump should deport Nikki Haley.” This was a response to Haley’s measured words on immigration, in which she’d invoked her own immigrant background while lauding America’s tradition of legal immigration. Haley was suitably tough on the subject of illegal entrants to America, but things have come to such a pass on the Republican right wing that support for immigration of any kind is seen as un-American.
The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal came to Haley’s defence, out of a shared belief in the economic and cultural value of immigration. There was . . .   http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/reverse-swing-nikki-of-...
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Tunku Varadarajan, Hoover (2 of 2)
Hour Four
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 4, Block A: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (1 of 8)
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 4, Block B: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (2 of 8)
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (3 of 8)
Monday 18 January 2016 / Hour 4, Block D: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (4 of 8)
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