RE: GLOBAL DEVELOPING POWERS-2003!!!

South Africa.

Despite a big decline in the strength of the SA economy, other African countries have slid by a lot more. Relatively, SA has the biggest advantage over the rest of Africa that there has ever been.

Recent committment to the Saab Gripen enlarges the gap between SA and it’s neighbours. SA is truly the African superpower and this is a big continent, much overlooked.

RE: WORLDS MOST POWERFUL NATIONS – 2003!!!

Good hypothesising Squasher, but I’d say Russia suffers from the same police (well, mafyia) state syndrome as China and is also inward looking (Chechnya, North Ossetia) Their experience of being a past superpower, plus being led by one of the shrewdest leaders (Putin) cancel this out a bit, but they are no way so high in the power leagues. Also, the French are good in theory but they have absolutely no history of being determined in warfare. Unlike Germany of course.

RE: Again, please don’t spread misinformation

Hold on, aid is only a minor point really. Hardly worth arguing about!

There are bigger issues indeed. A lot of the problem in poor countries, especially African ones, revolve around poor governance. A program I would look at personally, is a “mentor” scheme whereby every rich country was teamed up with a poor country. They would help each other with cooperation, tarrif removal and others.

The rich country would second qualified people, who would take an active role in running the poor country. To a smaller extent, the secondments would be two-way.

There is not a huge amount of spending required for this, just good will and willingness to learn and to accept new methods.

Otherwise I fear, nothing will ever be done. The absolute farce of the Jhb summit is proof enough of that.

RE: What is The Fascination of Beckham as a Footballer?????

Come on, Snowman. You are defending Cantona against the allegation that he is a Gallic twit.

On what basis? What he said was no doubt confusing and non sensical and there is no evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) that he said it deliberately, to play a game with the media.

This being the case, I stand by the original conclusion, which is that he said something silly which didn’t make sense.

RE: What can´t you stand about your country?

The biggie in the UK is the total absence of a service culture.

I got a new car today, but I want to run both my new and old car together for a month or so. So I called the insurance company and basically, I was told to call another number. So I did, then they said….call another number. So I did, then they said…you can’t have 2 cars on your policy, you need to get a second policy. But we can’t sell you two policies. Go to see a broker.

I just uttered “fine” and hung up. Aaargh!!

RE: AF and low budget airlines

I read somewhere that Lufthansa pilots are paid a fortune – USD 350,000 for an A310 captain.

RE: Flight Sims

P2, yes, Typhoon is a silly bit of software. I got fed up and binned my copy!

Incidentally, what sort of hardware do you need to get smooth performance out of FS2002? I have an Athlon 1GHz with 256Mb RAM.

RE: What is The Fascination of Beckham as a Footballer?????

What’s the deal with dribbling Adonis? McManaman was the last English player to be a great dribbler. Trouble was he couldn’t do anything else.

Everyone tends to run down his personality because of his “thick” image. But I think he’s one of those characters that you tend to underrate, whereas Cantona and Best are overrated in the intellectual stakes. Seagulls following trawlers indeed.