Often these last months we had alerts from the Met Office warning about approaching bad weather. Stormy weather in winter is to be expected. What gets referenced as well is that storms are arising more frequently and strongly than "ever before". This is a result of the big changes happening in the global climate. Similar claims are being made in Spain and Portugal where bad weather seems to have become the rule.
It has become difficult to say whether really the bad weather is getting worse. There can be no dissent about the need to take all necessary precautions against the damage it could do. However in a general way, people could be given a clearer picture of what is going on, wihtout scientific complications that nobody understands. In the ongoing controversies about climate change, we cannot continue to swing between those who predict that a catastrophe is arriving from all over, and others who want one and all to stay cool and relaxed.
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ANIMAL CARE
Keeping animals ... pets... in one's home is a practice that has spread increasingly among many families, as a choice of lifestyle. Birds and cats, dogs, tortoises and goldfish feature among other preferred pets. In the past as well, animals used to be brought to live in homes, reared for their meat, for the pleasure of nurturing them and as company.
Less attention was given to the need to provide animals with adequate health care and there was greater acceptance about their getting sick and dying prematurely. Not today - animal care has become rightly a priority for many. They expect to find medical services for their pets at par with what is being provided for humans.
There has occurred an increase, again rightly, in the number of specialists qualified in animal health care. After much delay, the government has done well to reopen its vet clinic. Perhaps the time has come for the services of animal health care to be placed under modernised and updated regulations which also protect the interests of animals and their "owners".
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NO TWO STATE SOLUTION
The Israeli government is totally against the concept of a two state solution for the Palestinian "problem" that would lead to the creation of two states - Palestine alongside Israel. It wants to enshrine the presence of an Israel that stands by itself in the land of Palestine, alongside already constitued Arab states.
And what would happen to the Palestinians? If I understand correctly the Israeli perspective, Palestinians who are already Israeli citizens would stay that way; the others can leave to either become citizens of neighbouring Arab states, or of wherever they emigrate to. Those who do not budge will become "second class" citizens in their homeland.
Israelis - or their present government - do not seem to understand or care much about the consequences of this scenario, in which Israel would be running an apartheid regime. Such an unjust system could induce stability for many, many years. But with time, it would bring with it an ever growing threat to the stability of the Iasraeli state. The scope for "terrorist" acts would continue to widen and grow. Israel would continue to lose more and more support within the international community, even among those who still admire it. When the final and major crisis in this process rolls forward, the threat to the existence of the Israeli state would have become total.