Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten World (77): Andorra
May 8th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
For more than 700 years, Andorra has been ruled jointly by the leader of France and the Spanish Bishop of Urgel. The first Andorran Constitution was passed in 1993, establishing a parliamentary co-principality based on a 28-member parliament.. The co-princes remain Andorra’s heads of state but the roles are largely honorary. Almost hidden on the […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten World (76): Costa Rica
May 7th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
A dominant theme of NightHawk is that we live in a wide and varied world and we should know more about other countries and other cultures and learn to respect them. Therefore, on 15 occasions now, I’ve had a week-long feature devoted to parts of the world that tend to be under-reported or even forgotten. […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
How democratic is Iran?
April 30th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
At first , this might seem a strange, even silly, question. After all, hasn’t no less a figure than President George W Bush told the world that Iran is a member of the “axis of evil”? Isn’t this a country building nuclear weapons in defiance of UN sanctions? Isn’t this the nation that only recently […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Stories from Israel (1)
April 26th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I love travelling to different countries and meeting people from different cultures. So I was delighted to have the opportunity this Easter to spend a week visiting Israel with a good Jewish friend who once spent 18 years living there. As well as seeing many places, I was able to meet some of his friends […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Should the UN have a Parliamentary Assembly?
April 25th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Sounds like a good idea to me. This week several hundred political leaders, among them 378 MPs from 70 countries, have joined to call for the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations (UNPA). The joint appeal states that, in an age of globalization, citizens need to be vested with a stronger voice […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Do walls help or hinder?
April 24th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Walls have played a special role in history – but they seem to be making a comeback. The Great Wall of China was a mammoth enterprise – but, in the end, it provided no real defence since opposing forces simply went round it. I have visited this wall as I describe here. Much more recently, […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Where is Alan Johnston?
April 23rd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The BBC’s corrrespondent Alan Johnston was abducted in Gaza on 12 March and is still missing. BBC poster in London called for the release of Alan Johnston The consensus amongst journalists is that he is being held by the Durmoush family in Zeitoun, a criminal gang who use kidnappings as a source of substantial revenue. […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
What are the lessons of the Iraq invasion?
April 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
My attention has been drawn to a very long but very interesting and thoughtful piece on Iraq posted on the Huffington Post blog just before I went off to Israel. The author is American journalist Tish Durkin and she concludes wisely: “It’s easy to rewrite a very complex story as a dark fairy tale that […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (3)
Freedom of speech (1)
April 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Freedom of speech is a complex and controversial issue that needs to be debated rationally. Should it be legal to argue that the Holocaust did not take place, even though this position is contrary to all credible evidence and deeply hurtful and offensive to many Jews and others? I think it should and therefore I […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Freedom of speech (2)
April 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Freedom of speech is a complex and controversial issue that needs to be debated rationally. Should it be legal for Arabs in Israel to argue against the Jewish nature of the constitution and advocate a bilingual and multicultural state in which citizenship would no longer be granted automatically to any Jew and in which Arabs […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)