Israels dangerous ignorance of its own history on July 22, 2014If the people of Israel want to go back to their memories of their war against the Arab nations after they had been attacked following the handover by the British in 1948, if they want to go back to the Holocaust, if they want to go back to the anti-Jewish violence — the first so-called […]
Does Ukraine have a future? on July 15, 2014When one sets out to answer the riddle about the future of Ukraine, the answers that come depend to some extent on how far back one goes, but even if history casts a long shadow, it is the events of the last half year, shaped by young demonstrators, mobs and militias, that dominate the narrative. […]
Pity the children on July 8, 2014Three Israeli teenagers murdered on Palestinian soil. One Palestinian boy burnt to death, whilst alive, in an apparent retaliation. Over the years of conflict, thousands of children have been killed although many more on the Palestinian side than the Israeli. According to the Old Testament’s Book of Numbers, Moses, when leading the trek to the […]
China is not going to be a miracle on July 1, 2014The Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Fogel believes that China will grow at an average rate of eight percent until 2040, by which time it will be twice as rich as Europe in per capita terms. His model is based partly on so-called geometric growth. An example: if my ancestors had invested a penny in 1800 […]
Worse world or better world? on June 24, 2014War is all over the place, it seems, not just in Syria and Iraq but now inside Pakistan. Not to mention Somalia and Sudan yet, paradoxically, there has never been less war.Sweden’s Uppsala University Conflict Data Programme is about to publish its results for 2013. It reports that the number of conflicts in the world […]
The Islamic militants advance into Iraq on June 17, 2014Is it “you reap what you sow”? The US electorate that voted twice for President George W Bush should ask itself the question. The growing strength of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra represents a grave threat to the future of the Middle East and the US has no one to blame but itself. ISIS (The Islamic […]
Do Russia and China threaten the west? on June 10, 2014In recent months the scaremongers have been at it again — Russia’s foray into Ukraine and China’s behaviour in the South China Sea have set their alarm bells ringing. But why? Big power politics is not back. Indeed in the round it is rather subdued. Take the Russia-EU-US fracas over Ukraine at the moment. Does […]
Keeping Africa going up on June 3, 2014Black Africa long went deeply down. Now it is rushing headlong up. But ‘up’ brings problems of its own. A country’s policy makers have to work as hard in successful, speedy times as they did when they moved painfully from the first rung of the ladder to the second and third. Take today’s news. According […]
A word in the US presidents ear on May 27, 2014Who makes foreign policy in the US government? Ultimately, the president. That goes without saying. But who has his ear? Sometimes, the eminence grise becomes well known — a star like Henry Kissinger who crafted policies that put the flesh and blood on Richard Nixon’s foreign policy. Others become an intimate but out-of-the-limelight counsellor, like […]
Vietnam and the US vs China over oil in the sea on May 20, 2014Who makes the law of the sea as China and Vietnam clash over China moving an oil rig close to an island only 25 miles from the mainland of Vietnam? One would hope that China, which has ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty, which has, among its other virtues, an arbitrating court for such […]