Forgotten Threat

Late last week you could have been forgiven for thinking that the Star Wars era had begun. Space-age computer graphics dominated the news: Satellites orbited the globe, target sites throbbed on interactive maps of Europe and the Middle East. The talk was of Russia and Iran and of whether high-tech missile defense equipment might endanger human health. The pictures, in the wake of the Group of Eight summit, were of statesmen: George Bush‘s helicopter landing at a Polish beach resort, Vladimir Putin giving interviews (” I am a true democrat“). At any rate, that was the news and the talk, and those were the pictures, if you happened to be living in Central Europe.