Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten World (219): Guadeloupe
September 2nd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
The French territory of Guadeloupe with a population of 400,000 is a centre of Caribbean Creole culture. French, African and Caribbean influences infuse its music, dance, food and widely-spoken patois.
Guadeloupe’s economy is kept afloat by public salaries and credits from Paris. Unemployment has been a long-running malaise, although its effects are tempered by [...]
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Forgotten World (218): Bermuda
September 1st, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Bermuda, a densely-populated British overseas territory in the western Atlantic Ocean, is an archipelago of seven main islands which is one of the world’s most prosperous economies. This wealth is largely down to the islands’ offshore finance industry; more than 13,000 international companies have made the self-governing territory their nominal base.
The [...]
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Forgotten World (217): Pakistan
August 31st, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Pakistan is in the news for terrorism (regularly) and floods (currently), but there is much more to this nation of 180 million, the sixth most populous on the planet. Created in 1947 when it was carved out of India as a new Muslim state, it remains a nuclear-armoured rival to its huge neighbour with Pakistan [...]
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Ever heard of the Russian memorial to 9/11?
August 30th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
No, I hadn’t either until it was drawn to my attention by a friend who is a former communist in the context of his argument that in the West we should cease to see Russia in old Cold War terms. You can check out the memorial here. It is an impressive piece of work and [...]
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Forgotten World (216): India
August 30th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
It’s been some time since I had one of my regular weeks of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World – a look at parts of the world that too rarely feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 215 entries here.
Since almost one [...]
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What’s the best country in the world?
August 28th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
No – it’s not North Korea. According to a study published in this week’s “Newsweek” magazine, it’s Finland. After Finland comes Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, and Luxembourg respectively. The USA is ranked 11th and the UK 14th. Only 100 nations are ranked and Burkina Faso comes bottom of the list.
Full details here.
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This week’s national election (2)
August 22nd, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I’ve already done a posting about one national election this week. This was in Rwanda where the result could not have been clearer.
The other national election this week was in Australia where the result is so close that we still do not know the final outcome and might not for some days or even weeks. [...]
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This week’s national election (1)
August 21st, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Earlier this week, a country went to the polls to elect a president. The turnout was a staggering 97.5% and the man who won secured an amazing 93% of the vote. You probably hear nothing about it and yet this was a country that recently suffered one of the worst genocides in recent history.
The country [...]
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Still battling over “The Spirit Level”
August 17th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
This is the 10th time that I’ve blogged about the book “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett [see my review of the work here], but I make no apology for this because it is one of the most important books that I’ve ever read. The core message is that, on a whole [...]
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China: world’s second largest economy
August 17th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Since 1968, Japan has been the second biggest economy on the globe when it overtook West Germany.
No more – China has now overtaken Japan to be second only to the United States which it will probably overtake around 2030. The detailed figures are here.
This Easter, I returned to China for a third visit – this [...]
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