Remember the Artic Sea? The vessel with a full cargo of timber that disappeared en route from Finland to Algeria at the end of July was finally recovered off west Africa on August 17 and eight alleged hijackers were arrested. From the beginning there were all sort of rumors (see article “A ship is missing: pirates, terrorists? from August 13) while Russia denied the vessel was carrying a secret cargo claiming it was hijacked by criminals for a ransom. Read the rest of this entry »

Ten days after the inconclusive elections, Israel’s President Shimon Peres chose this Friday Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government, giving him six weeks to put together a ruling coalition. Read the rest of this entry »

With the global economical turmoil the annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland to last from the 28 January until the 1 February has become less glamorous and more intense. There have been probably not winners but some losers among the poorest nations in the world as those who have still more than enough are nevertheless feeling a little the pinch and contributing less. Read the rest of this entry »

The silence of President-elect Barack Obama on the subject of Israel’s war against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip is only partly out of deference to Bush who still is the country’s president for two more weeks. Whenever Obama does not want to respond to something the mantra of his advisers is always “the fact is that there is only one president …” and yet on December 26, 2008. Obama did not hesitate to state his opinions about the attacks in Mumbai. Read the rest of this entry »

With one week to go, I am probably going to give myself a break and short of something extraordinary happening avoid writing anything else about the U.S. elections until we know who is going to be the next president. By now anything I can write all of you would have probably read in the printed media or seen on TV. In the meantime I hope the Bush administration is not trying to go out with a bang. Read the rest of this entry »

When last April President Carter traveled to the Middle East, his trip was criticized not only by the Bush administration and many in the US, but by Israel and other countries, especially Read the rest of this entry »

With so much misery happening in the world at the moment, maybe it is time to get things in perspective and put aside at least for a day writing yet another article about the US elections. The greatest tragedy at the moment seems to be the devastation the cyclone that hit Read the rest of this entry »