NightHawk

I confess that I never pay much attention to the Honours Lists, but I've just learned that one of my colleagues at Consumer Focus has been recognised in this year's New Year's Honours List.

The organisation's director of international policy advocacy, Jill Johnstone, has been awarded an OBE for services to consumers. Jill has devoted virtually her whole working life to consumer policy and has been very influential on a wide range of major issues both in the UK and internationally.

She is a first class colleague and I have great pleasure in congratulating her.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Early last year, my wife and I made a fascinating trip to Israel in the company of our close American friend Eric Lee who lived on a kibbutz in Israel for 18 years before moving to London. In the course of the journey, we had some interesting political discussions because, while I am a friend of Israel, I am more critical of the country than Eric. You can read my account of the visit here.

Roll forwards to today: New Year's Eve. Now, for eight years, we've had a traditional of seeing in the New Year with Eric. The trouble is that Israel has just launched its assault on Gaza, almost 400 people have been killed in the last four days, and Eric and I don't see this the same way at all. He has made his views very clear in a passionate piece published on the blog Harry's Place which has attracted lots of comments.

And my view? In brief:

I support Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself and I accept that there is a lot of double think on the Left as elsewhere about Israel, but the current action is massively disproportionate by any reasonable numerical, military or political measure and we are entitled to hold Israel to different standards than the likes of Saddam Hussein's Iraq because it is a friend of the West, it is supplied by the USA, and it is a functioning democracy.

Clearly Hamas provoked this action - and probably wanted it - by the repeated rocket attacks on the civilian population of Israel. But, equally clearly, the timing and nature of the massive over-reaction by Israel is conditioned by electoral calculations rather than a calm reflection on what would best promote security and peace for Israel beyond the coming election.

What is Israel is doing is not simply wrong, it is wholly counterproductive. It is undermining support among its friends around the world, it is giving Israel's many opponents a wonderful propaganda weapon, and it is actually strengthening the resolve of Hamas and aiding its recruitment efforts.

As for tonight, I think that Eric and I will have to agree not to talk about the war.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I confess that I'm not one for games of any kind - but I make an exception at Christmas when it's fun to play something with family members after a big meal. This year, it was Scrabble and afterwards I thought that I would check out the history of the game. It's an interesting story.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm really interested in naming practices and name popularity around the world because one can learn so much about a country's culture or a person's background just from names. That's why I've constructed a comprehensive look at naming practices around the globe with a special emphasis on the position in the UK - you can check it out here.

Given my interest, I could not help but notice how much of the British media today carries a feature on the most popular boys and girls names of 2008. The media really struggles for news at this time of year and we all love lists of things. Lists of names have a special interest because we all have names and many of us are parents and we all like to check out the relative popularity of different names.

But something's not right about the lists published today. How do I know? Well, take the name Mohammed - in its various spellings - which is a name given to a growing proportion of baby boys in Britain. According to the Office of National Statistics, in England & Wales in 2006, the 17th most popular boys' name was Mohammed and the 38th was Muhammad - see details here. Yet the name simply doesn't occur on any of the lists published in today's media stories.

So let's go to the prime source - always a good idea in critical thinking (see my advice here). It turns out that the source is a web site called Bounty.com. If one looks at the top 100 boys' names for 2008 as compiled by Bounty, there is no reference to any version of Mohammed.

So what's going on? Well, usually about this time of year the Office of National Statistics put out a media release on the most popular boys' and girls' names of the past year and this release understandably gets a lot of publicity. For some reason, so far the official statistics have not been issued. I'm guessing that Bounty.com saw an opportunity to beat the official body to the punch and get lots of free publicity for its commercial web site in the bargain.

I don't know what method of compilation Bounty.com uses - they don't explain on their site - but I'm assuming that it's a less comprehensive and authoritative method that that used by the ONS which is why Mohammed does not appear.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shortly before Christmas, a conversation with a friend turned to discussion of how people do or should make decisions. This got me thinking and, over Christmas, I've drafted a new section for my web site on "How To Make Decisions".

This is the 26th section of my web site concerned with various life skills and the 144th section overall. My web site is intended to be truly international and eclectic with something about almost every country and something on many different subjects. Happy reading ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vee and I have now returned from Felpham on the south coast where we spent Christmas at the home of Vee's twin sister Mari and her husband Derek. Also with us was their eldest son Martin with his wife Isobel plus their daughter Yasmin (three in a couple of days time) and Lucas (seven months). Christmas is always so much more fun with kids and Yasmin loved being showered with presents.

Princess Yasmin

Baby Lucas

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In early 1936, Britain’s King George V, who triumphantly celebrated his Silver Jubilee only months earlier, lay in his bed at Sandringham House on the verge of death, surrounded by his family. Concerned with keeping his royal patient’s spirits up, the King’s physician reportedly suggested, “Your Majesty will soon be well enough to visit Bognor.” The King replied “Bugger Bognor” - and promptly died.

And why do I mention this on my blog on this of all days? Well, I'm off now for a couple of days to celebrate Christmas at the home of my wife's twin sister. They live in Felpham, a pleasant village by the sea on the West Sussex coast that is literally next door to Bognor Regis. And, from some personal experience, I can confirm that the late King was a shrewd judge of place.

I hope that you have as good a Christmas as I hope to have.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now all generalisations are dangerous (even this one), but I have a theory that, generally speaking, the higher up the social scale, the slower people speak and the worse they write. The Christmas cards that I've received in the last couple of weeks provide strong evidence for the writing part of my thesis.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Some people are somewhat cynical about the idea of a Christmas letter, but I've sent out one each year since 1979 [see this year's letter here] since we have so many friends around the UK and throughout the world that we are in touch with much less often than we would like and they appear to appreciate hearing our news for the past 12 months.

In turn, I love receiving Christmas letters and, so far this year, we've had 13. Sometimes there is sad news to report, but mostly it's stories of people making the most of their lives. One letter this year comes from a woman in her late 70s, whom we met on a trip to Uzbekistan [my account here], who tells us that she's now writing a tourist guide to the Sichuan part of China.

We only have one life - so let's live it to the full and share that joy with others.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We live at a time when the media seems to describe almost everything as iconic - from an old red telephone box to the footballer David Beckham. But, as I explained in my previous posting I have just been to an exhibition on Byzantium and here there were many real icons.

The word icon comes from the Greek word eikon which simply means 'a likeness, image or picture'. In various religions at different times, the creation and display of icons has been in or out of favour. The practice of displaying icons is called iconography and an iconostatis is a screen bearing icons. Someone who favours icons is called an iconophile, while somebody who opposes icons is described as an iconoclast and the destruction of icons is called inconoclasm..

I thought that you'd like to know ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week, I managed to visit the Royal Academy in central London see the exhibition on Byzantium 330-1453 which opened on 25 October 2008 and runs until 22 March 2009.

This is a fabulous exhibition which spans a period of over 1,000 years from 330, when the Emperor Constantine consecrated his new capital, to 1453, when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks. The exhibition features some 340 objects from over 100 lending institutions, many never before seen in public, let alone in Britain.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've just started watching the television series "Guns, Germs And Steel". In fact, this series was first broadcast in 2005 and it is based on a book published in 1998. The presenter of the series and the author of the book is American academic Jared Diamond.

Jarrod seeks to explain the whole history of civilisation and how human inequality was created in a fascinating thesis summarised on this Wikipedia page.

Why did civilisation begin in the so-called fertile crescent of what we now call the Middle East? The Wikipedia page puts it this way:

"Diamond highlights two major environmental advantages of Eurasia over other areas in which farming apparently developed independently. The various Eurasian inventors of farming, and especially those in "South West Asia" (roughly Mesopotamia and Turkey) had by far the best natural endowment of crops and of domesticable animals in the size range from goats or dogs upwards - the superiority in domesticable animals was the more extreme, as other areas had at most two and often none. Eurasia's other big advantage is that its mainly East-West axis provides a huge area with similar latitudes and therefore climates."

"The book's title is a reference to the means by which European nations conquered populations of other areas and maintained their dominance, often despite being vastly out-numbered - superior weapons provided immediate military superiority (guns), European diseases weakened the local populations and thus made it easier to maintain control over them (germs), and centralized governmental systems promoted nationalism and powerful military organizations (steel). Hence the book attempts to explain, mainly by geographical factors, why Europeans had such superior military technology and why diseases to which Europeans were immune devastated conquered populations."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two of my very clever friends scored 25/30 but I confess that I only managed 19/30.

Try it yourself here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I did my first posting on our new roof, I said that I'd been told that it would take three-four weeks. Six weeks later, the scaffolding was finally removed this morning - just in time for Christmas.

The roofers that Derek (Vee's brother-in-law) appointed did a first class job and then went on to help replace all the gutters, fascias and soffits so the whole place is watertight. The property has a converted loft and so Vee and Derek undertook the insulation of the loft areas that remained, stuffing fibre glass into the sections of the loft that the roofers had not dealt with.

The whole thing has cost an absolute fortune, so no foreign holidays next year, no cinema visits for a month, and no mince pies this Christmas. Well, we'll see ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This week, I've seen the impressive German film "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" [my review here]. This week too has seen the release of a notorious member of the group called Christian Klar after 26 years in prison.

The Red Army Faction or RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion in German) - in its early stages commonly known as Baader-Meinhof Group - was postwar West Germany's most violent and prominent militant left-wing terrorist group. It operated from the late 1960s to 1998, committing numerous crimes, especially in the autumn of 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as "German Autumn". It was responsible for 34 deaths and many injuries in its almost 30 years of activity.

Following Christian Klar's release, the only remaining RAF terrorist still behind bars is Birgit Hogefeld, 52, who has been in prison since 1993 for her involvement in the murder of a US soldier in a 1985 bomb attack on the US air base in Frankfurt. In November 1996, she was given three life imprisonment sentences and is currently held in a Frankfurt detention centre.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We still don't know the actual composition of the United States Senate that will face President-elect Obama for the next two years. There's been a lot of publicity about the choices to be made to replace Barack Obama (Jesse Jackson Jr?) and Hillary Clinton (Caroline Kennedy?), with a stench of scandal surrounding the first and some amazement involved in the second.

At least we know who will replace Joe Biden. Delaware's Democratic governor, Ruth Ann Minner, has announced that she will appoint Biden's longtime senior adviser Ted Kaufman to succeed Biden in the Senate. The procedure for the relevant State Governor to choose a replacement for a Senate seat until the next biennial election cycle is one that non-Americans at least find opaque if not bizarre.

But it gets worse. In the state of Minnesota, they have still not concluded the election of one of their two senators a month and a half after the ballot because of recounts and disputes that remind one of the fiasco in Florida in 2000. You can see a summary of the Byzantine manoeuvring here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm fascinated by the English language - partly because it's the only one I speak and partly because so many other people around the world speak it. Two books that I've enjoyed reading are "English As A Global Language" [my review here] and "Mother Tongue" [my review here].

According to "The Secret Life Of Words" by Henry Hitchings, "English has existed for only 1,500 years" and "A thousand years ago, there were about 50,00 English words: today, according to whose estimate you accept, there are 700,000, 1 million or even double that number".

Now I've been reading "The Economist" publication "The World In 2009" and this has a leader which refers to the claim of an organisation called the Global Language Monitor that the number of words in English will pass the one million mark on 29 April 2009.

Whichever way you look at it, the English language has a huge vocabulary - probably the largest of any language - and, even after 60 years, I continue to learn new words all the trime.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I've just finished watching the excellent television series "World War Two: Behind Closed Doors". This series has explored the relationships between Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, using new information from Russian records and interviewees.

Stalin is confirmed as a brutal and manipulative mass killer. However, his paranoia was fuelled by his belief that the Americans and British betrayed him in not launching a Second Front in 1942 or again in 1943. As a result, the death toll suffered by the Soviet forces and people was horrific as spelled out in the book "No Simple Victory" by Norman Davies [see my review here].

Such a western assault would never have been successful in 1942, but one could make out a case for an invasion of France in 1943. In fact , the journalist John Grigg set out the arguments in his book "1943: The Victory That Never Was" [see my review here].

If the Second World War has ended in late 1943 or early 1944 instead of mid 1945, there would have been all sorts of consequences besides (probably) a lower overall death toll in Europe. The Soviet Union would have occupied less of Eastern Europe and the post-war balance of power on the continent might have been very different. Also the Soviet Union would have been able to allocate substantial forces to the war against Japan which would presumably have ended the war in the Pacific much sooner.

In turn, this would probably have meant that the atomic bomb would never have been used against the Japanese, both because it was not ready and it was not needed. If the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had never happened, what would have been the consequences for the subsequent Cold War between the USA and the USSR? Since we would not have known for sure the impact of the atomic bomb on civilian populations, would the power brokers in the Cold War era have been less reluctant to use the bomb than they were? We'll never know ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the last few weeks, the Internet Watch Foundation - which I chaired for the six years 2000-2005 - has been in the centre of a storm over its decision to put on a blacklist a page on Wikipedia which contained an image which it judged to be potentially illegal. The most thoughtful piece that I have read on the subject is here.

I support the blacklist approach and the blocking by Internet Service Providers of access to child abuse images on that list - a process introduced during my time at IWF. Knowing what I do of the IWF's procedures, I can understand why it took the decision it did to place that particular image on the blacklist. However, in all the circumstances, I think that, given the long-standing accessibility of the image, its lowest level on the scale of potential illegality and the reputable nature of the web site in question, the IWF Board was right to remove the page from the list.

These are though very difficult judgment calls and it doesn't help when the word 'censorship' is casually thrown around. The more public and policymakers understand the processes of the IWF and the more transparency that we can exhibit around the conduct of the IWF and ISPs in this area the better. But this will never be an easy or uncontroversial matter.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During my two and a half years on the Postwatch Council, I did no less than 66 media interviews. I'm now on the Board of Consumer Focus - which took over Postwatch at the beginning of October - and this morning I did my first media interview for them.

It was a live interview at 7.20 am with BBC Radio London and it was about Royal Mail's quality of service at Christmas time. Generally the quality is good considering the huge increases in volumes, but first class quality of service falls so much that - unless your item is really urgent (which is not the case for Christmas cards) - you might as well use second class.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vee and I have spent a lot of today writing Christmas cards to our many friends around the world. As always, we included the latest edition of the famous Darlington Christmas newsletter which you can read here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't watch the television series "The X Factor", but I know from the news that this year's competition was won by Alexandra Burke with a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

Now this is a song I love. Although first recorded in 1984, I first came across it only when it was used in an episode of my favourite television series "The West Wing". This version by Jeff Buckley occurs in the final episode of series three. Later I really enjoyed the version by K.D. Lang on her CD "Hymns Of The 49th Parallel".

For all my admiration of "Hallelujah", I'm not at all sure that I fully understand the lyrics. Clearly it is a tale of lost love but this piece calls it "a perfect secular hymn".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's some fascinating data here - including the information that 24% of Americans believe that they were once someone else.

I guess that I would find it hard to be an American - of the 17 beliefs tested, I only hold one (a belief in evolution) and apparently that is a minority view in the US.

So why do people believe weird things? - see one explanation here.

And why don't I believe so many things that so many other people hold so dear? - see my reasoning here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You might want to check out the moon tonight - because this evening's full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons this year.

How come? Well, the moon's orbit is not circular but elliptical which means that the distance between the moon and the Earth is not constant but varies. The moon is usually about 385,000km from Earth, but tonight it will be closer at around 363,000km.

Further information here.

Incidentally, do you know how many men have walked on the moon? This was a question in a quiz I ran earlier this week and nobody knew the correct answer.

The correct answer is: 12.

All these men visited the moon between 1969-1972. Since then, nobody has been there.

Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan was the last person to leave the moon's surface in December 1972.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm a big coffee drinker - especially cappuccino - and I spend a lot of time in central London, so I'm used to paying a lot for my coffee. But today was something else.

This morning, I met a colleague for a working discussion over coffee and, at the Hilton Hotel by Paddington station, my cup of cappuccino cost £5.20. Now the meeting was at her request, she chose the venue, and she paid the bill - but it made me wonder: is this the most expensive cup of coffee in the world?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

From a viral e-mail that is making the rounds:

To: The World
From: The USA
Subject: Technical Notice

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage.

The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located, and the parts responsible for it were replaced Tuesday night, November 4. Early tests of the newly-installed equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional by mid-January.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage, and we look forward to resuming full service --- and hopefully even to improving it in years to come.

Thank you for your patience and understanding,

-- USA

I pinched this message from the Obama London blog.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The fact that you're reading this blog posting means that you have access to the Internet and probably own a computer which by definition puts you in a favourable economic category in world terms, even if your standard of living and perhaps your employment and housing prospects are threatened by the current global financial crisis.

Spare a thought though for those all around the world who are literally starving. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), although food prices have more than halved from their historic peaks a few months ago, the cost of basic staples is still high 28% higher on average than two years ago which has led to an increase in the number of people unable to afford to eat enough calories to lead a normal, active life.

The FAO's hunger report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008", found that there are now estimated to be 963 million people, 14% of the world's population, going hungry, up by 40 million from last year. The majority of the hungry live in the developing world, 65% of them in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.

More information on the FAO report here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:32 AM | Permalink

As it’s the festive season, I thought I’d tell you about BT's letter-to-Santa initiative. As part of the company's partnership with ChildLine, for a suggested donation of £5.00 to the charity you can order a personalised letter from Santa to be sent to the child or children of your choice. We've arranged for two young relatives to receive such letters.

BT is aiming to raise at least £10,000 for ChildLine through this scheme and they're up to £7,000 to date. So if you want to make a child happy and help BT raise more, simply fill in the application form which can be found at here. Please note letters can be sent to the UK, Channel Islands, Republic of Ireland and BFPO addresses only and all orders must be received by 16 December.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's sometime since I've run a quiz but I volunteered to run one this week for an away day in Birmingham organised for the Boards of Consumer Focus, Consumer Focus Scotland, Consumer Focus Wales and Consumer Focus Northern Ireland Post.

We had fun but, since economic times are hard, I decided that the prize for the winners would not be material but virtual - appearance on this blog. So many congratulations to John Sawkins, Nicola Munro, Judith Toland and Katherine Hathaway.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you will see here and here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Canadian politics inevitably gets overshadowed by those of its bigger neighbour the United States, but my man in Canada (Bob Chandler) sends me this message:

"We're in the midst of a "political crisis" in Canada...fallout from the economic crisis.

Conservative Party Prime Minister Steven Harper introduced an "economic statement" that included a whole bunch of neo-con right-wing measures. He's in a minority government situation and the opposition suddenly developed a spine and have decided to move non-confidence...bring him down and have signed a pact to create a centre-left coalition government drawn from the Liberal and New Democratic parties but with the tacit support of the Bloc Quebecois.

The non-confidence motion was supposed to be introduced on Monday, but Harper went to the Governor-General and got her to "prorogue" Parliament till the end of January. So in effect, the MP's are "locked out" of Parliament till the new year. The "GG's" decision flies in the face of Parliamentary history here. Last time something like this happened (1926) the GG called in the opposition parties to form a government...rather than force another election (what the governing party at that time had asked for).

I think this is only just starting to get covered outside of Canada the last couple of days...saw something on the BBC website yesterday. Canadian politics has suddenly become not so boring! I've posted a couple of things on my blog here."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was a university student, I took a year off my studies to serve full-time as the sabbatical President of the Students' Union of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) which has now merged with the University of Manchester. The academic year of my office was 1969-70.

This was a turbulent year in student and political circles. A third of universities experienced sit-ins and I addressed the one held at the University of Manchester. Jack Straw - the current Cabinet Minister - was President of the National Union of Students and I was one of his nominees for a second term.

One of my fellow student union presidents that year was a great guy called Mike Terry (he was at the University of Birmingham). He was one of those student activists - like Jack Straw and me (I hope) - who carried his radicalism into post-university life. Mike became Executive Secretary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK, a post he held from 1975 to 1994. He was an utterly tireless worker for the cause in a mild-mannered, understated way.

Mike lived to see Nelson Mandela released from imprisonment and the African National Congress form a post-apartheid government, but sadly he has just died from a heart attack, aged only 61. I offer deep condolences to his family and friends.

More information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Countries do not get much smaller than Niue. The residents of the Pacific island of Niue are far outnumbered by their compatriots who have migrated to New Zealand. Home to fewer than 2,000 islanders, the self-governing coral atoll is trying to encourage some of the 20,000 overseas Niueans - many of them New Zealand-born - to return.

Niue operates in free association with New Zealand, its main source of aid and its biggest trading partner. New Zealand is obliged under the island's constitution to provide "necessary economic and administrative assistance". All Niueans are New Zealand citizens and can take up residency there.

Technology-savvy Niue has embraced the internet. It earns money from the sale of its suffix and in 2003 it became the first territory to offer a free wireless internet service to all residents.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vietnam suffered three decades of bitter independence wars, which the communists fought first against the colonial power France and then against US-backed South Vietnam. It became a unified country in 1976 after the armed forces of the communist north had seized the south of the country in the previous year.

Vietnam today - a country of some 86 million - is a one-party communist state which has one of world's fastest-growing economies, joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007, and has set its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2020. Deep poverty, defined as a percent of the population living under $1 per day, has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines.

I have travelled most of the length of Vietnam - see here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dominica - not to be confused with the Dominican Republic - is an island in the Caribbean 'discovered' by Columbus in 1493 and it acquired its name from the day of the week (Sunday) of its discovery. For centuries, it was a French and then a British colony.

Today, with few natural resources and a fledgling tourist industry, Dominica - a country of only 73,000 - is attempting to reduce its reliance on bananas, traditionally its main export earner. The trade has faced stiffer competition since the European Union was forced by the World Trade Organisation to phase out preferential treatment for producers from former colonies. Although it is among the poorest countries in the region, its differences in wealth distribution are not as marked as in the larger Caribbean islands.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After weeks of speculation, President-elect Barack Obama has now confirmed that his Secretary of State will be his arch-rival for the Democratic nomination Hillary Clinton. Now three months ago, when Clinton gave her endorsement speech at the Democratic National Convention, I did a posting which argued:

"If I was Barack Obama, I would promise that - if she and Bill are really seen to deliver for him in the general election - when he enters the White House she will be put in charge of health care reform to complete the task she started during her husband's presidency."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tanzania assumed its present form in 1964 after a merger between the mainland Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar which had become independent the previous year. Although it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with many of its people living below the World Bank poverty line, the country of around 40 million has been spared the internal strife that has blighted many African states.

Unlike other African countries, whose potential wealth contrasts with their actual poverty, Tanzania has few exportable minerals. In recent years, the economy has grown, though at the price of painful fiscal reforms. Tourism is an important revenue earner; Tanzania's attractions include Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, and wildlife-rich national parks such as the Serengeti.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:58 AM | Permalink

Any doubts that our local communities are fracturing under the multiple pressures of modern life are dispelled by new research commissioned by the BBC. This shows that community life in Britain has weakened substantially over the past 30 years. Analysis of census data reveals how neighbourhoods in every part of the UK have become more socially fragmented and that even the weakest communities in 1971 were stronger than any community now.

More information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:36 PM | Permalink

It's time to have another week of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World - a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 150 entries here.

Greenland is, by area, the world's largest island that is not a continent in its own right. It covers 2,166,086 sq km (836,109 sq mi) but some 80% is covered by ice and it only has a population of about 58,000. Greenland has been ruled by Denmark but, in 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland. In November 2008, a referendum among the Greenlanders voted for more increased autonomy which might lead to full independence.

Under the referendum's plan the annual Danish subsidy of about 3.5 billion kroner (about £395 million), equal to around two-thirds of the island's economy, would be replaced. The new arrangement would give Greenland the first 75 million kroner of annual oil revenue, with any income beyond that split equally between Greenland and Denmark. Extensive exploration has already been undertaken and other countries are also making claims to areas likely to be exposed by global warming as the Arctic ice cap melts.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:57 AM | Permalink