Jim Dean

Before today’s election, Hong Kong had dropped out of the frontpage news while the city took a deep breath without any tear gas in the air, and both sides seem to have worked together to have smooth elections. Even Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s CEO, when asked what she thought about the election prospects said that she “hoped elections could continue…

Benny Gantz turned in his mandate to President Reuven Rivlin four hours early to get the press interviews over and go to bed early Wednesday night, but little did he know what the morning would bring. As expected, both Bibi and Benny blamed each other’s inflexibility for the failure to form a new government. The only way we will know for sure…

After drifting for weeks in dead end attempts to form a new government, the Israeli political drama sunk to an even lower partisan level. Past decorum could not even be maintained at the solemn service of the murdered Prime Minister Rabin, where even the Rabin family jumped into the fray, not to be denied their moment at the microphone…

When I wrote my China’s long march to total food security NEO article last month, I had intended to dovetail it with Russia’s accomplishment of being more self-dependent on feeding its people. What they both shared was having to deal with US sanctions before they reached their goal. While China’s sanctions came compliments of Mr. Trump, Russia…

‘With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half’…Otto von Bismark, Prussian statesman Nord Stream 2 got the green flag from the Danish government to connect with the landing station at Lubmin, Germany. The decision was melodramatic from the Danes, with a route just outside its territorial waters…

“Any man in combat who lacks comrades who will die for him, or for whom he is willing to die, is not a man at all. He is truly damned.” – William Manchester, in Goobye Darkness The game has changed in Okinawa. The usual apologies for the latest gruesome crime, with promises to see that such things never happen again, has been thrown…

Earlier this year, China announced adding 5 million more hectares to its 42 million already connected farmland and shooting for 60 million hectares by 2022. This is part of China expanding, modernizing and restructuring its agriculture industry from top to bottom for maximum production and efficiency. With my growing up in a small New England town, the term…

Trump is… ‘Unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical’ ~ John Brennan Well the gloves have certainly come off now. No former top security government official has even made such damning statements about a sitting president as ex-CIA head John Brennan did last week. And this was not a Trump-style off-the-cuff…

“Just societies cannot be run by big money or armed forces with their too narrow agendas. Limitless desire for wealth and blind ambition must be watched and contained as potential public dangers.” – Plato Israel’s election is not really over until a new government is formed. Without a new government, it will be faced with the possibility of a third…

“With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half. ~ Otto von Bismark, Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. American Unipolarism may seem like a Trump-inspired creation, but it has deeper roots. As a concept, Unipolarism was created long before…

While heads of state enjoyed their few minutes of limelight at the UN podium last week, the Persian Gulf continued to sizzle. Fortunately, we had verbal cruise missiles and drones flying that don’t cause as much damage or kill people. There was endless chanting of “we think Iran…

The dust from the Israeli election is beginning to settle after the preliminary count, showing Benny Gantz with 32 seats and Netanyahu with 31. The close race was expected, but the big surprise was that the United Arab Party received 13 seats, two more than expected, and became the third largest party in the Knesset. You can…