SINCE the day of March 26, neither Obama nor the president of South Korea have been able to explain what really happened to the flagship of the South Korean Navy, the state-of-the-art submarine hunter Cheonan, which was taking part in a maneuver with the U.S. Navy to the west of the Korean Peninsula, close to the limits of the two Republics, which provoked 46 deaths and dozens of injured.

The embarrassing aspect for the empire is that its ally knows from reliable sources that the boat was sunk by the United States. There is no way of eluding that fact, which will accompany them like a shadow.

In another part of the world the circumstances are also being adjusted to events that are much more dangerous than those in East Asia and which are bound to happen, unless the super-powerful empire has some way of averting them.

Israel is not going to abstain from activating and using, with total independence, the considerable nuclear power created by the United States in that country. To think anything else is to ignore reality.

Another very serous matter is that neither does the United Nations have any way whatsoever of changing the course of events, and very soon, the arch-reactionaries who are governing Israel are going to come up against the unyielding resistance of Iran, a nation of more than 70 million inhabitants and known religious tradition which will not accept the insolent threats of any adversary whatsoever.

To put it simply: Iran will not bow down before Israel’s threats.

As is logical, the inhabitants of the world are increasingly able to enjoy great sporting events, those related to recreation and culture, and others that occupy their limited moments of leisure in the midst of duties that absorb a large part of their time dedicated to daily chores.

In the coming days, the world football championship that is taking place in South Africa will grab all of their free time. With growing emotion they will be following the vicissitudes of the most famous characters. They will observe every step taken by Maradona and will not forget for one instant the spectacular goal that decided Argentine’s victory in one of the classics. Once again, another Argentine is budding spectacularly, short in stature but fast, a player who appears like a bolt of lightning and shoots the ball with his legs or head with an unusual velocity. His surname: Messi, of Italian origin; he is already known and respected by all football fans.

The imagination of the fans rises to dizzying heights when footage arrives of the many stadiums where the games are taking place. The designers and architects have created works exceeding the public’s wildest dreams.

For governments, which live from meeting to meeting in order to meet the obligations that the new era has placed on their shoulders, there is never enough time to acquaint themselves with the mountain of news that television, radio and the written press are constantly divulging.

Almost everything depends exclusively on the information that reaches them from their advisors. Some of the most important heads of state, those who make fundamental decisions, are accustomed to using cell phones to communicate with each other several times a day. A growing number of millions of people in the world live attached to those little machines without anybody knowing what effect these are going to have on human health. That dilutes the envy that we might have felt on account of not having enjoyed those possibilities in our era which, in its turn, has rapidly receded in the space of a very few years and almost without us realizing it.

In the midst of the whirlwind, it was announced yesterday that the United Nations Security Council might possibly vote today on a pending resolution to decide whether to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

The irony of this situation is that if it was about Israel, the United States and its closest allies would immediately say that Israel did not sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and would veto the resolution.

On the other hand, although Iran is simply being accused of producing 20%- enriched uranium, economic sanctions to strangle it are immediately sought, but it is obvious that Israel will always act with fascist fanaticism, as it did with its soldiers of the elite troops, launched from helicopters in the early hours of the morning on those sailing aboard the solidarity flotilla transporting food for the besieged population of Gaza, who killed a number of persons and wounded dozens of others, who were then arrested together with the crews of the vessels.

It is obvious that they will try to destroy the installations in which Iran is enriching part of the uranium it produces. It is also obvious that Iran will not resign itself to that unequal treatment.

The consequences of the imperial complications of the United States could be disastrous and affect all the inhabitants of the planet far more than all the economic crises put together.