Today, as every year on July 14, France celebrates Bastille Day also known as Fête Nationale -national holiday. This year the parade in Paris has set the spotlight on the units from overseas which came down the Champs-Elysées in front of some 7,000 soldiers. Read the rest of this entry »

Being so involved on both sides of the Atlantic with the economic woes, some of the many and violent political problems, some of which have been there for years and others surprising the world some months ago, seem almost to be ignored. And yet, they are still there, unresolved. Read the rest of this entry »

If many French were proud of having Christine Lagarde chosen as head of the IMF, today they are feeling specially happy and relieved after Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier, the two French television journalists held hostage in Afghanistan since December 2009, were freed unhurt. Read the rest of this entry »

Does anyone know what is going on in Libya? It seems as if all we are getting is disinformation from all sides. When one sees the confusion and the chaos not only in Libya but also among the reports of the coalition it is hard to believe anything. Finally at least it is become clear that nevertheless what we were told at the beginning of this fiasco, regime change is in order. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week after a short visit to Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Washington’s year-old surge strategy for the war was working and pulling U.S. troops of major combat by 2014 was a goal that could be met. Read the rest of this entry »

Does anybody know what really is going on in Afghanistan? If it was not for the tragedy of the loss of life -coalition troops and Afghans- it could makes us laugh. Weeks ago we were reading in the New York Times and other papers about the peace talks that supposedly were going on in Kabul between Hamid Karzai and a Taliban leader. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the agreements taken at the NATO summit in Lisbon was that after the coalition would start turning the security control to the Afghans this spring, the transition would be completed by the year 2014. Even if the NATO leaders approved this, Western experts have indicated that the majority of Afghanistan’s police are untrained and do not know the law. Read the rest of this entry »