Graeme Mackay

According to figures supplied by the Montreal-based Airports Council International, in 2011 London Heathrow Airport advanced one peg in the world passenger rankings to No 3 - beating Chicago O'Hare International - with a total throughput of over 69.4 million, an increase over the previous year of 5.4 per cent. Plane movements averaged 1,305 per day, affecting, if some critics of Britain's only true hub airport's expansion plans are to be believed, some two million people!

As the years quickly pass by, most of the perpetrators of Cambodia's "Killing Fields" (1975-1979) escape their just deserts by dying before the rather slow UN-backed Cambodia Tribunal pass judgement or, in the case of Ieng Thirith, being declared unfit to plead because, in her case, she is suffering from severe Alzheimer's Disease.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, in government since the Conservatives failed to win an outright majority on their own in 2010, was always a marriage of inconvenience. Too many of each party were too far apart in their concepts as to what should be done to make Britain prosperous and content whilst dealing with a country in virtual bankruptcy and in an ever more competitive global environment. What threw the cat amongst the pigeons to make a bad situation worse and rubbish the Trea...

A book review by Jason Beerman in Saturday, 01 September 2012's Toronto Star, reminds me that Communism in theory and practice can be miles apart. The Zenith now translated into English, is a book describing a fictionalized account of the life of Ho Chi Minh by celebrated Vietnamese authoress Duong Thu Huong. Celebrated that is outside Vietnam where, for the most part, Thu Huong and her works do not meet the Government's approval and she now lives in exile in Paris.

On 20 August 2012, standing in the dock of a courtroom in Hefei, former distinguished lawyer and businesswoman Gu Kailai, wife of dismissed one-time Politburo member Bo Xilai, listened as the judgement was given against her for the murder of British businessman, Neil Heywood.

Whilst holidaying earlier this month in Argyll, my wife and I stopped for lunch at a hotel in the picturesque 18th Century model village of Inverary which lies on the western shore of Scotland's longest sea loch, Loch Fyne. In the hotel's beer garden - the weather being glorious - we all too quickly settled on our choices and ordered, only to see the table opposite being served with a large plate of crustaceans. "Nephrops!" I remarked to my wife, "I thought they were nearly all ...

Twenty-eight pence spent in every pound on Britain's National Lottery goes directly to "good causes" as determined and administered by the Government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The share given to Sport is currently 18 per cent of that "good cause" figure and so just over five pence in every pound is allotted directly to this sector. During the past fortnight at the London's 2012 Olympics, sportsmen, women and commentators have not failed to emphasize the imp...

On 25 July 2012 Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS) issued its official estimate for the country's second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A contraction was expected by all and the range amongst economists was between -0.2 per cent and -0.4 per cent. The Telegraph's Angela Monaghan credited Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics with coming nearest and predicting the worst, at -0.5 per cent and so the ONS's -0.7 per cent came as a shock to everybody.

Did the swastika overlay the wrong image seen during performances by Madonna on her current world tour? Surely it wasn't meant that the face of Marine Le Pen, President of France's Front National Party, be portrayed with this vile symbol but that of Russian, Yevgeny Nikitin who has done the "decent thing" and withdrawn from this year's Bayreuth Opera Festival. Mr Nikitin was to play the Dutchman in The Flying Dutchman, the music and libretto of which was composed by Richard Wagn...

It's all somewhat worrying when financial items in much of the world's media refer to "ESM bailout funds" as if the European Stability Mechanism were already well established and operating in Luxembourg. Initially hoped to be up and running by July 2012 after a final draft was agreed by Eurozone leaders in Brussels on 02 February 2012, the ratification process, progressing fairly well up to the Netherland's Queen Beatrix granting Royal Assent on 05 July with formal endorsement on...

In an effort to raise over €7 billion, French President François Hollande and his Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced in their Budget on Thursday 05 July 2012, measures that included an increase in the tax rate from 50 per cent to 75 per cent for all income over €1 million - about £790,000 at the current exchange rate. The act of a Communist state by American and British standards but not the crucifixion scale that was demanded by the country's hard-Left. The Left Front and the New A...

With an agreement being reached in the early hours of Friday, 29 June 2012 at the European Summit in Brussels over the Euro Crisis, my Mystic Meg clairvoyant award was cancelled. Don't care, I wasn't alone in getting the outcome - little or no change with platitudes - so very wrong. Typical of reporters was Ian Chua for Reuters in Sydney filing a report at just past midnight on Friday morning:

On Wednesday 27 June 2012, French President François Hollande met German Chancellor Angela Merkel for preliminary talks prior to Thursday's, yet another "crucial", European Union meeting to try to further resolve the crisis in the Eurozone. The political leaders of France and Germany, so recently partners in agreement on the best way forward for the single currency are, effectively, now poles apart in their approach to the crisis and its solution.

Friday, 08 June 2012, marked the 40th anniversary of an event captured by Associated Press (AP) photographer, Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut in his native Vietnam. Seen running from the village of Trang Bang, some 25 miles west of Saigon, and towards the camera, a small group of crying and screaming children accompanied by South Vietnamese soldiers of the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam).

On 31 May 2012 Ireland held a referendum - the only country to do so - as to whether or not its Government should ratify the Stability Treaty signed by 25 of the 27 European Union (EU) Member States in December 2011 and due to come into effect on 01 January 2013. This is the Treaty which Prime Minister David Cameron representing the UK famously refused to sign, along with the Czech Republic.

Brian Parkin writing for Bloomberg on 24 May 2012, highlighted how Germany's sharp fall in jobless figures over the past few years is not only saving the nation a fortune but enhancing Chancellor Angela Merkel's reputation as a very safe pair of hands. He could have added "and defender of Germany's interests in an increasingly hostile European Union."

At the heart of the European Union is a pact that was first formed by two European leaders who were determined to lay to rest for good, the past enmity between their two countries. Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963, made his first visit to General de Gaulle, the French President and founder of the Fifth Republic, at his home in Colombey-les-Deux Églises in 1958.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the owners of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant devastated by the March 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, reported a net-loss of $9.7 billion for the full year ending 31 March 2012. Reporting its annual figures on 14 May, these figures reflected an improvement of some 35 per cent over 2011's figures but insufficient to avoid 09 May's effective nationalisation of the company.

Friday, 04 May 2012, marked the 30th anniversary of HMS Sheffield being hit by an Exocet missile launched from a Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard attack aircraft of Argentina's 2nd Naval Air Fighter Squadron. This went unmentioned in the British media except for a couple of clips in the City of Sheffield's local newspaper The Star.

On Monday 23 April 2012 a Guardian newspaper headline read: "Conservatives turn three-point opinion poll lead into eight-point deficit" in a story which illustrated the travails of being in government and not getting the PR quite right - on this occasion over Chancellor George Osborne's Budget. The poll covering Westminster voting intentions, was conducted for the newspaper by ICM and showed that the Conservatives had slumped to 33 per cent, a fall of six per cent which accounted for n...

A little over two years ago, Tata Corus closed down their Teeside Cast Products plant in Redcar with the loss of 1,600 jobs by late February 2010. With the parent company in India expressing a willingness to sell the steel mill, Geoff Waterfield, Chairman of the Multi-unions at Redcar, expressed the hope in mid-2010 that a buyer would be found and that steel would again be produced at the site by Christmas that year, but this proved to be far too ambitious.

On 22 April 2012, France will go to the polls to elect their President. If no contender gains over 50 per cent of the vote to win outright in the first round of voting, then a run-off will take place between the two strongest candidates on 06 May. There are 10 candidates aspiring to be the country's Head of State including the present incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy who is seeking a second five-year term in office. Mr Sarkozy's only serious rival for the Presidency is the Socialist candidate...

Japan is going through a period of very hard choices which the current Prime Minister of its coalition government Yoshihiko Noda, is pressing the Diet, Japan's Parliament, to address. On 30 March 2012, Prime Minister Noda submitted laws to double the present sales tax of five per cent, proposing a rise to eight per cent in April 2014 and then to 10 per cent in April 2015. His determination, if necessary, to stake his Government's survival on these laws being passed by the Diet was made pl...

For some time past, articles in the national press and media programmes dealing with current affairs, have indicated that the current younger generation is unlikely to match the living standards of their parents. The Chancellor, George Osborne's latest Budget did almost nothing to change that situation though ultimately we all depend, to a greater or lesser extent, on the drive and wealth creation of those up-and-coming.

On Monday 19 March 2012, Seattle News Media informed its readers that the city's Mayor, Mike McGinn will fly to Chongqing this week but: "...hizzoner...will have trouble matching up with his opposite number while there (because) party boss Bo Xilai was fired and disgraced last week, relieved of his duties as Chongqing's Communist Party Secretary in China's biggest political scandal in two decades..."

On 18 March 2011, I bought a copy of the Daily Star newspaper. A photo in the bottom right-hand corner caught my eye at first and then the paper's headline. The photo showed two small children sitting on a railway line, warmly dressed against the cold with the little girl at least holding a school satchel on her back.

On Monday 27 February 2012, the Al Jazeera English channel broadcasted a programme "Lockerbie: Case Closed", in which it claimed to "reveal the secret contents" of a report.

Last year, Bahrain's Grand Prix race was called off, even after it had been re-scheduled from February to June and other later dates. This was due to the civil unrest in the country which had by then claimed more than 40 lives and over 3,200 injured. However, on 24 November 2011, Bernie Ecclestone, boss of Formula 1, told the BBC that the Grand Prix would go ahead in 2012, despite lingering protests continuing, saying: "It's on the calendar. We'll be there, unless something terribl...

On 11 February 2011, the West's "man in Cairo", Hosni Mubarak, was toppled from power, the result of continuing and increasingly violent anti-government demonstrations. After 18 days of civil unrest during which all the Government's concessions had been spurned and with no tangible support from his allies abroad, Mr Mubarak, the President of Egypt for almost 30 years, finally stood down.