Saudi Gazette/ Opinion/ Editorial

Opinion

1 - 10 from 672 . In "Opinion / Editorial"

June 18, 2019

NGO’s are not above the law

NONGOVERNMENTAL Organizations, (NGOs) including United Nations humanitarian bodies seek to bring food, shelter and medical aid to the suffering.The camps they establish to support victims of war and natural disaster may quickly become unpleasantly overcrowded but at least they provide a place of safety where people can be housed, fed and given medical care.Almost invariably this aid is provided by NGOs who use funding from governments around the world as ...

June 13, 2019

Two fresh shipping outrages

Iranian media yesterday described the damage to two tankers in the Gulf of Oman as “an accident”. It is hard to believe this. The two vessels, the Kokuka Courageous loaded with methanol and the Front Altair carrying 75,000 tons of naphtha, were some 50 kilometers apart when disasters struck them. A fire broke out on board the Front Altair.The crews of both vessels abandoned ship. All 44 of them were ...

June 13, 2019

Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds

UNLESS Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan scraps his order for Russian S-400 ground-to-air missiles, next month Washington will suspend his country’s participation in the Lockheed F-35 stealth fighter program.The Russian missiles, which are designed to shoot down warplanes, including the F-35, were due to be delivered this month. But in May Ankara’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that there might be a delay. Even though Akar went on to insist ...

June 12, 2019

Nuclear Iran: Europe should get behind Trump

SOME apparently sensational multilateral agreements that at the time have been hailed to the rafters have turned out to be anything but epoch-making. Unfortunately the Middle East has been the subject of two of them. Where, more than a quarter of a century after the deal was signed, are the peace and justice promised the Palestinians in the Oslo Accord? Of no less pressing concern, where is the non-nuclear good ...

June 11, 2019

Rape and race hatred

RAPE is an appalling crime, made even more abhorrent when it is motivated by racial or religious hatred and contempt. Six Hindus have just been found guilty of the abduction, torture, rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-administered Kashmir. This savage attack disgusted many Indians, regardless of background, chiming as it did with the widespread movement against the sexual crimes against women throughout the country. The only people ...

May 31, 2019

Trying to put the brakes of high frequency trading

TECHNOLOGY cannot be “un-invented”. Once a discovery is made, it continues to exist for good or ill. Some of the Los Alamos scientists behind the development of the first atomic bomb were appalled at what they had created. A few decided the new weapon was so geopolitically destabilizing they passed its secrets to the Russians. By frustrating American military dominance, these scientists brought about nuclear power parity which has prevented ...

May 29, 2019

Venezuelan rivals to talk again in Oslo

The Norwegians are due to host a second round of talks between Venezuela’s bitter rivals. Two representatives each of beleaguered president Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido are expected to meet again next week in Oslo.Though some opposition leaders oppose the talks, arguing that they are merely a delaying tactic by Maduro, it would surely be wrong to dismiss them as a pointless exercise. It is easy to understand ...

May 28, 2019

Ebola rears its terrible head again

When the largest-ever outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease struck West Africa in 2013, there was worldwide panic. The medical response mirrored the earlier irruption of Avian Flu except that tackling Ebola involved far more intensive treatment of victims, by medical personal who all too often risked and sometimes lost their own lives in caring for them. And there was another important factor that almost certainly influenced the global reaction ...

May 27, 2019

Consensus politics hit in EU elections

The loudest message from Sunday’s European election results is that opinion in the continent is polarizing. It is going too far to say that the political center ground is being hollowed out, but voters in the 28 member states have punished long dominant centrist parties by supporting anti-establishment candidates. The 751-seat European parliament has long been dominated by three out of eight main groups. The center-right European People’s Party bloc ...

May 26, 2019

More is not merrier

While some national football associations as well as FIFA President Gianni Infantino will no doubt be disappointed at the news that plans to expand the 2022 World Cup to 48 teams, up from 32, have been abandoned, many others should welcome it. While it is set that the 2026 World Cup will be enlarged to 48 teams, Infantino had toyed with the notion of bringing forward the increase to the 2022 ...

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