It is interesting that the author uses a tour of the abundant history of the region just to explain the "darkness" of today's. Or, without necessity and astonishingly, he is giving a huge treatment only to the idea of the - in essence illusory and never existing - "Great Albania", adapting history for his own needs. He even smoothly, in only few lines, gives "the definite historical truths" about the Illyrians and their descendents, a subject on which historians composed large tomes and which they investigated all their lives and about which they still have dilemmas. Finally, where does Dr. Vaknin think that the West lost the East? Is it on its way from Babylon towards some new "promised lands"? Or, is it maybe - After the Rain - in a Biblical flood? Although both in the West as well as in the East, it is precisely the Jewish version of the Bible out of the thirteen existing ones that is the dominant (a version which is rather a copy of the prehistoric Bible text of the Sumerians from Mesopotamia) - nevertheless God promised himself: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, however evil his inclinations may be from his youth upwards" and God said: "This is the sign of the covenant which I establish between myself and you and every living creature with you, to endless generations: My bow I set in the cloud, Sign of the covenant Between myself and earth. When I cloud the sky over the earth, The bow shall be seen in the cloud. Then will I remember the covenant which I have made between myself and you and living things of every kind. Never again shall the waters become a flood to destroy all living creatures. The bow shall be in the cloud; when I see it, it will remind me of the everlasting covenant between God and living things on earth of every kind." In the Balkans, all things aside, this blessing of God - the bow - can be often felt and enjoyed. Or as one of our proverbs says - After the Rain always cometh the Sun! Emilija Geleva Skopje, February 2000 Return T H E A U T H O R SHMUEL (SAM) VAKNIN Curriculum Vitae Born in 1961 in Qiryat-Yam, Israel. Education Graduated a few semesters in the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. Ph.D. in Philosophy (major: Philosophy of Physics) - Pacific Western University, California, USA. Graduate of numerous courses in Finance Theory and International Trading. Certified E-Commerce Concepts Analyst. Certified in Psychological Counselling Techniques. Full proficiency in Hebrew and in English. Business Experience 1980 to 1983 Founder and co-owner of a chain of computerised information kiosks in Tel-Aviv, Israel. 1982 to 1985 Senior positions with the Nessim D. Gaon Group of Companies in Geneva, Paris and New-York (NOGA and APROFIM SA): - Chief Analyst of Edible Commodities in the Group's Headquarters in Switzerland - Manager of the Research and Analysis Division - Manager of the Data Processing Division