Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten world (70): World Bank
March 2nd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The World Bank – located in Washington DC – is a group of five international organisations responsible for providing finance and advice to countries for the purposes of economic development and eliminating poverty. The Bank came into formal existence on 27 December 1945 following international ratification of the Bretton Woods agreements. Today it has 185 […]
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Forgotten world (69): Chile
March 1st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Chile – a Latin American country of 16.5M – has an unusual, ribbon-like shape – 4,300 km long and on average 175 km wide – which gives it a hugely varied climate. This ranges from the world’s driest desert – the Atacama – in the north, through a Mediterranean climate in the centre, to a […]
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Forgotten world (68): Siberia
February 28th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Of course, Russia is always in the news, but usually we hear only of events in the most western part of this huge country. Siberia – about which we hear nothing – actually makes up about 56% of Russia’s territory making it similar in size to Canada or the United States or China. Siberia’s population […]
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Forgotten world (67): Bulgaria
February 27th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
One of the last two entrants to the European Union, Bulgaria had a GDP per head in 2005 of only $3,480 compared to $9,240 for the eight post-Communist entrants in 2004 and an EU average of $29,330. It has a population of just 8M. Bulgarian is a Slavic language like Russian or Polish. However, some […]
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It’s Fairtrade Fortnight
February 26th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Here in the UK, 26 February – 11 March 2007 has been designated Fairtrade Fortnight. Fairtrade sales increase by around 40% every year in the UK, giving hundreds of thousands of producers in developing countries the chance to build a better future and to compete in cut-throat global markets. But Fairtrade Foundation Executive Director Harriet […]
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Forgotten world (66): Romania
February 26th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
If NightHawk has a dominant theme, it 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 13 occasions now, I’ve had a week-long feature devoted to parts of the world that tend to be under-reported or […]
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A world first for e-voting
February 24th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The Baltic state of Estonia plans to become the world’s first country to allow voting in a national parliamentary election via the Internet. More information here. I recently covered Estonia in my on-going blog series entitled “Forgotten World” – see here.
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Blogging can be dangerous
February 22nd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
An Egyptian court has today sentenced local blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman to prison. During the five-minute court session, the judge said Soliman was guilty and would serve three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and one year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak. There ought to be worldwide outrage at this news. You can view […]
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What’s it really like to live in Baghdad?
February 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
It’s easy to beome weary with the daily media reports of violence and suicide bombings in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. Nobody knows just how many have been killed since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and there are varied estimates. Dr Saad Eskander, the Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive – a […]
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What happened on 9/11?
February 18th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
There was a good programme on BBC2 television this evening examining and debunking some of the conspiracy theories around the 9/11 attacks. Future programmes will examine the Oklahoma bomb and the deaths of Princess Diana and Dr David Kelly. Of course, every country has those who believe conspiracy theories, but it seems to me that […]
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