Commentary from the office desk: 2 cents worth of political events the past few days

In order to find more use for my space here, and I have been thinking about it for a while...I have decided to use this space as a column for commenting on political events and my own take on them...

Of course there will be nothing derogatory - just in my own words - a comment from the 'ant of the masses'...

Now of course, anyone would know that there are a few issues of note in Singapore and the rest of the world that one would have to take notice:

1 - The latest announcements here with regards to extending packages and retraining for the unemployed and elderly workers. This is obviously a massive boost for these groups of people (and I know it full well as I was in one of them for quite a while) and at a time where money counts more than anything else, hopefully these moves do instil confidence in the economy one way or another here.

2 - Whoever that says that gas is not important should literally bang themselves on the wall with news on the spat between Russia and Ukraine and the suffering EU in between. Now of course there are moves to resolve it quickly (and they better do), this is definitely a warning of what it can mean in the future. China and Japan squabbling over it now is another sign of it in case you still do not get the idea yet.

3 - Some things die hard - in the eyes of fundamentalists that is. Israel's latest offensive in Palestinian territory is with no thanks to their allegations of attacks by Islamic fundamentalists in Gaza. The question is not the extent of Israel's attacks, which sadly occupies the no. 2 on my own list - it rather is whether this attack is legal in the first place. Thinking back to the previous understandings of 'self defence' thanks to a module which I studied earlier, this notion as Israel's reason of officially attacking remains extremely questionable. It is not the first time Gaza's attacked, but hell, not a lot of people can do anything no thanks to Israel's backers - I seriously do get the feeling that somehow, power politics still pays in the world of IR... This is still highly regrettable - and serious questions have to be asked of the strength of international law - as most of it, until today, was crafted by the chief victor, that being of course the USA in 1949...

This is a preview of what should hopefully be a weekly instalment from me on my own 2 cents view of political issues...

But that of course has to be wrapped up by a 'sweetener' - for me I think...so the 'sweetener' this week has to be English football...

Contrary to what British football's most successful manager has to say about my favourrite football club as 'chokers' and 'imploding', I will maybe want him to consider that if this is the sort of mind games that he wants to play, than that is a off to a very lousy start. Seriously, I think that there is as equal as a chance of Liverpool taking the title as well as Man Utd and Chelsea. Perhaps Fergie better be concerned about how not to slip up against the Blues this Sunday....one that I would definitely watch.

=)

P.S. Comments are welcome