Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
The threat to democracy from the rise of populist parties
September 21st, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Almost one-third of Europeans now vote for populist, far-right or far-left parties, research shows, with wide support for anti-establishment politics surging across the continent in an increasingly problematic challenge to the mainstream. Analysis by more than 100 political scientists across 31 countries found that in national elections last year a record 32% of European voters […]
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A review of a new book: “The Russo-Ukraiinan War” by Serhi Plokhy (2023)
August 26th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
On 22 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine, intending to occupy the country and install a puppet regime in a matter of weeks if not days. This book was written between March 2022 and February 2023, so it covers the holding of Kyiv by the Ukrainians, the recovery of the territory originally […]
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Do you have a National Flag Day and, if not, would you want one?
August 24th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
My last holiday was to the three countries of the Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. I was struck by the observation that each of these three countries has a national flag day. Wondering how common or how rare this practice is, I checked it out on Wikipedia and learned that over 50 countries – around […]
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The case for a wealth tax becomes stronger every day
June 20th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
“Tax extreme wealth to pay for the climate-related damage to the poorest, a group of more than 100 leading economists have urged. A wealth tax on the fortunes of the world’s richest people would raise trillions of dollars that could be spent on helping poorer countries shift their economies to a low-carbon footing, and on […]
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Which countries have the freest media and which nations have the most controlled media in the world?
May 3rd, 2023 by Roger Darlington
You can find the answers, according to the organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF), here. Out of 180 countries, top is Norway and bottom is North Korea. The UK is 26 (on a par with South Africa) and the USA is 45 (on a par with Tonga). Media freedom is in dire health in a record […]
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What is time and who controls it?
March 27th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
I once went on a one-day course on time held at London’s City Literary Institute. The morning speaker was a physicist who explained that time was everything that had happened since the ‘big bang’ 13.8 billion years ago until now. The afternoon speaker was a philosopher who declared that there was no such thing as […]
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Sadly Ukraine is not the only war …
December 28th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
“A war is raging that has cost more than an estimated 600,000 lives. Its victims have borne witness to shocking human rights abuses and, tragically, civilians have been deliberately targeted. Tens of thousands of women have been raped. It has lasted two years and is happening today, yet the chances are you don’t even know […]
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The explosion in the global population
November 15th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
A sobering thought: in my lifetime, the world population has more than trebled. In 1948, it was about 2.5 billion. Today it is estimated to have reached 8 billion. Some further information, a graph and a short video here.
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A review of the book “Border Wars” by Klaus Dodds
November 9th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, we have seen an increasing dominance of the notion of the nation state in geo-politics. If you look at a globe or an atlas, every patch of land on the planet is claimed by (at least) one nation with neat black lines defining who owns what. The […]
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World poverty reduction has come to a stop
October 14th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
The UN has identified 54 developing economies with severe debt problems. While accounting for little more than 3% of the global economy, they represent 18% of the world’s population, and more than 50% of people living in extreme poverty. Some countries are spending more on debt interest payments than on health, education and social protection combined, and […]
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