Collapsing Europe is in crisis and the U.S. bailout option, for once, is not available

Collapsing Europe is in crisis and the U.S. bailout option, for once, is not available

Sol W. Sanders   [See Archive] Despite the fact that Europe is in the Northern Hemisphere, the downward swirl of the euro this month took a reverse direction and started going left — counterclockwise. Maybe it is the first part of the Mayan prediction that gravity will fail later this year and we will all […]

German firm sold surveillance equipment to Syria

German firm sold surveillance equipment to Syria

Special to WorldTribune.com LONDON — Germany has overseen the transfer of advanced network surveillance technology to the regime of President Bashar Assad. The Assad regime was said to have acquired technology from Germany’s Siemens that could be used to spy on the Sunni opposition. German state television reported that Siemens has been providing advanced surveillance […]

‘Arab Spring’ bad for pro-democracy cause: UAE evicts NGOs

‘Arab Spring’ bad for pro-democracy cause: UAE evicts NGOs

Special to WorldTribune.com ABU DHABI — The United Arab Emirates has become the latest Middle East state wary of Western non-governmental organizations. The UAE, despite appeals, has forced at least two leading Western think tanks to leave the emirates. They were identified as the American-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation, both […]

S. Korea’s Daewoo wins submarine contract for Indonesia over Turkish-German bid

S. Korea’s Daewoo wins submarine contract for Indonesia over Turkish-German bid

Special to WorldTribune.com ANKARA — Turkey, despite massive lobbying, has lost a tender to sell advanced Western submarines to Indonesia. Officials said a German-Turkish bid for Indonesia’s electric-diesel submarine project was rejected. Instead, Indonesia selected South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering to build and supply three submarines for Jakarta for $1.1 billion. “This was […]

World waits for someone to do something, and then waits some more

World waits for someone to do something, and then waits some more

Sol W. Sanders Looking around the world, the striking characteristic is waiting out a number of crises. Their outcome seems almost artificially suspended, and their interaction on one another and their ultimate effect on the world is at issue. We start with the Euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s supplications in Beijing were perhaps laudable but a […]

Loud and clear signals from Egypt: Rules of its game with West have changed

Loud and clear signals from Egypt: Rules of its game with West have changed

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — When the government of erstwhile U.S. ally Egypt shut down seventeen Western pro-democracy groups, trashed their Cairo offices, and slapped travel bans on some of their staff, political relations between Washington and Cairo hit a new and unexpected low. Just a year after a tumultuous political uprising topped the […]

Eight strategic factors bearing on 2012, the year of ‘Great Power Impotence’

Eight strategic factors bearing on 2012, the year of ‘Great Power Impotence’

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory Copley and Yossef Bodansky, Global Information System Rarely in the past six decades has global context counted for as much in strategic forecasting trend analysis as it does at the dawn of 2012. Reliance on stove-piped analysis of strategic sectors such as economic and financial issues, security issues, politics, geopolitics, […]

Proud, for once, to be a German

Proud, for once, to be a German

Special to WorldTribune.com By Uwe Siemon-Netto, FreePressers.com It’s been more than two years since my last visit to Germany, my native land. This time I traveled home at the height of the Eurozone crisis. I returned to California just before Christmas filled with pride in my compatriots. Don’t get me wrong. I am not particularly […]

Drastic fixes for critical crises or dodgy compromises for bumps in the road?

Drastic fixes for critical crises or dodgy compromises for bumps in the road?

Sol W. Sanders “Moderation in all things”, said a pre-Christian North African Roman dramatist, Terence [Publius Terentius Afer]. But like so many artists, he latched on to a beautiful artifact but got the logic wrong. He’s echoed these days in the oft repeated mantra from talking heads calling for compromise. It usually follows a description […]

N.Y. Times: ‘Modest’ global tax is cool with almost everyone except U.S. taxpayers

N.Y. Times: ‘Modest’ global tax is cool with almost everyone except U.S. taxpayers

Special to WorldTribune.com Based on an article by Cliff Kincaid for Accuracy in Media A New York Times story about a “modest” global tax mentions some of those supporting the idea but forgets an important one — the United Nations. At a Nov. 30 U.N.-sponsored conference in Washington, D.C., officials of the U.N. Development Program […]