A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of US$916,537 held at the state-owned Bank of Ceylon and its return to Taiwan’s Far Eastern International Bank, the bank from which
This exciting week, the man who would be king of everything made his first pronouncements. Greenland should be purchased by the United States. Canada should sell itself to the US. The Gulf of Mexico should
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The late Jimmy Carter was an exemplary man. His honesty, modesty and good works set the mark for what American presidents should be like. He was the quintessential Christian gentlemen and a fine naval
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Why did President Joe Biden visit the African nation of Angola in the dwindling hours of his presidency? No other US president has visited this resource-rich southern African nation. Biden was just
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What is clearly a joint US-Israeli plan to remake the Mideast map is now well underway. Changes will be seismic. The Biden administration, by now almost totally controlled by pro-Israel neocons, is making its final
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Syria is the mother of all mysteries. Even the Romans couldn’t figure out all the intrigues, plots, factions, coups and assassinations that were common there. Nor could they understand or deal with its hotbed of
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Pakistan is the world’s most important Muslim nation. It has 251 million people, nuclear weapons, the world’s sixth largest armed forces, intelligent, capable people, vast lands and major sources of water. Yet
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In 54 BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus, a rich, ambitious Roman businessman, got himself named governor of the wealthy province of Syria. Crassus had been sharing power in Rome with Pompey and Julius Caesar.
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This week we observe the end of the `War to End All Wars,’ also known as World War I. The memorial week will be filled with the usual platitudes and patriotic guff designed to
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I was visiting Japan’s defense HQ about a decade ago. The official I was to interview was very late and left me cooling my heels in his office. I kept walking about
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New York – I was with the Israeli army in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon and battled a new resistance militia, Hezbollah. Ten years later, I was in Afghanistan with a new Muslim
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Few people know that Lebanon was once part of Syria. It was separated from Syria by Imperial France and transformed into a nominally Maronite Christian nation. Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Druze
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A furore has erupted in North America over reports that Russia plans to expand its armed forces by an additional 180,000 men, bringing the total to 1.32 million. This increase brings Russia
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Republicans in the US Senate have been urging the White House to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles that can strike deep into Russia. Such is the madness of pro-war sentiment. America’s lackluster
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Twenty-three years ago this month the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon shook the United States and horrified the world. Almost three thousand Americans died. The US launched attacks
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In 1982, I was with Israel’s army when it invaded southern Lebanon. We moved from menacing village to village ready for an attack by Hezbollah fighters. Israel’s objective was to seize the
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