Based on the groundbreaking book, "Blue Gold : World Water Wars" explores the conflicts over water today and in the future as governments and corporations vie for control of our most vital resource. The Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. What is the ‘bottom line’? [109], In early June 1940, the Italian Regia Aeronautica attacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. [413] Another aspect of military intelligence was the use of deception, which the Allies used to great effect, such as in operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard. [34], In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Peking after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China. [234], German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. [323][324], Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the Marshall Plan (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused. [310] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Imagine that you need to change your presentation to convince a group of your peers to support a fundraiser for clean water. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. [272] By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled. Although aeronautical warfare had relatively little success at the start of the war, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship in place of the battleship. [102], In November 1939, the United States was taking measures to assist China and the Western Allies and amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth. Notable examples were the Allied decryption of Japanese naval codes[412] and British Ultra, a pioneering method for decoding Enigma benefiting from information given to the United Kingdom by the Polish Cipher Bureau, which had been decoding early versions of Enigma before the war. A house burned down because the owners and the neighbors couldn’t afford to run the water. To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan invaded and occupied northern Indochina in September 1940. The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories, and the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. [35] The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior co-operation with Germany. [259] The national uprising in Slovakia was also quelled by the Germans. [230] Germany with the help of fascists responded by disarming Italian forces that were in many places without superior orders, seizing military control of Italian areas,[231] and creating a series of defensive lines. Explain the steps you will take to create your presentation. [110] Germany started preparation for an invasion of the Balkans to assist Italy, to prevent the British from gaining a foothold there, which would be a potential threat for Romanian oil fields, and to strike against the British dominance of the Mediterranean. From late summer to early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Soviet city of Kursk. [186] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. [307] The five permanent members remain so to the present, although there have been two seat changes, between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China in 1971, and between the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. [380] Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged extreme brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions. Start studying "Blue gold: water wars". Keywords. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and recaptured Manila in March. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. [215][216] The Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943. Space.com is where humanity’s journey to new and exciting worlds is transmitted back down to Earth. [334] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[335]. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. [131] The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made possible further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov). [72][73][74], The Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were in the Soviet "sphere of influence" under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact—to sign "mutual assistance pacts" that stipulated stationing Soviet troops in these countries. [167] On 7 December 1941 (8 December in Asian time zones), Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany, and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme, and introduced conscription. If you would like a reduced rate on a 2 week trial on the price moves of “Gold Turn Dates” click here. The Soviets were also demanding a second front. American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe river on 25 April, leaving several unoccupied pockets in southern Germany and around Berlin. Blue Gold covers several important water issues, from pollution and water scarcity to privatization, conservation and bottled water. The Polish counter offensive to the west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by the Wehrmacht. Frank Cass Publishers, Portland, OR. [350] At the same time about 10,000–15,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish Home Army and other Polish units, in reprisal attacks. [118], In the Middle East in May, Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria. [204] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made. Characteristics. In April, the Allies launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea. Water is one of the most common things on earth, but the supply of fresh water on this planet is limited, and as the world's population expands, the demands of industry increase and pollution contaminates more and more of our natural resources. Great story, ranks right up there with the Maltese Falcon only writ much much much larger. The bankers want to … The war began with the invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea. [278] What percentage of the Earths water is salty? [405] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World War I,[406] and advances continued throughout the war with increases in speed, armour and firepower. [60] The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a stormy meeting with the British ambassador Nevile Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected. [159] The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers. This, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France. Money 4. [32] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic. [54] Hitler accused the United Kingdom and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. [112] The offensives were highly successful; by early February 1941, Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. 'Wars of the future will be fought over water, as they are over oil today, as our Blue Gold, the source of human survival, enters the global marketplace and political arena as a commodity to be sought out, fought over, and conquered. Retrieved 4 August 2011. [49] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed Czechoslovakia's Zaolzie region. [19] The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year. Japan soon captured much of the Western Pacific, but its advances were halted in 1942 after losing the critical Battle of Midway; later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. [329] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[330] and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[331] it continued in relative economic decline for decades. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and had not equipped themselves to do so. [160], Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. World War I had radically altered the political European map, with the defeat of the Central Powers—including Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire—and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, which led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War. At 4 yen to 1 dollar, 777 billion yen = $194 billion USD in 1945, authors figures. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes. [351], In Asia and the Pacific, between 3 million and more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese (estimated at 7.5 million[352]), were killed by the Japanese occupation forces. From September to November, the Japanese attacked Taiyuan, engaged the Kuomintang Army around Xinkou,[36] and fought Communist forces in Pingxingguan. [412][414], Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel. [106], At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis powers. This need for water has the power to start wars. [191] The Americans planned a counter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.