The United States and Russia failed to settle their differences on U.S. plans to place a missile defence shield in Europe yesterday, and Washington rejected a request from Moscow to freeze the project.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, after talks in Moscow, also clashed publicly on how to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions.
There are some things I never seem to figure. What, for instance, the UK authorities are trying to prove or disprove, a decade after the death of Princess Diana and boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed? Or take the case of President Bush's election.
Three forces are converging to spur the privatization mantra forward: war, politics and profits.
This is best seen in the scenario unfolding in Iraq, where an overstretched "coalition of the willing" has been almost replaced by "coalition of the billing": private armed contactors who, using expensive PR agencies have eliminated the use of the word "mercenary".
