12 July 2015   “The Turks have passed by here; all is in ruins and mourning. “ So wrote France’s great writer, Victor Hugo,  of the horrors he had witnessed during the Balkan liberation wars of the 1880’s.  If Hugo were alive today, he might well have used the […]


April 11, 2015    The deal reached in Lausanne, Switzerland by Iran and five powers, led by the US, appears to be about nuclear capability.   In fact, the real issue was not nuclear weapons, which Iran does not now possess, but Iran’s potential geopolitical power.   Iran, a nation of 80.8 […]


10 January 2015 Have the long-feared lone wolf attacks, possibly threatened by al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, begun? The twin massacres in Paris suggest that the Mideast’s mayhem and mass killings are again spilling over into Europe. Paris remains in chaos. Its Peripherique ring highway is still closed, producing […]