Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Sego v Sarko
February 18th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
In the summer, both Britain and France will have a new political leadership, but currently it’s much easier to be sure who will be heading the UK than our Continental neighbour. The race for the French presidency – with ballots on 22 April and 6 May – is between the Right-wing Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy […]
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He’s off and running …
February 10th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Thanks to the Internet, I’ve just watched live the declaration of Barack Obama of his candidacy for President of the United States. You can see his eloquent and inspirational speech here. The senator of just two years declared: “I recognise that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I […]
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Forgotten world (65): United Nations
February 9th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Following the failure of the League of Nations formed in 1919, the United Nations was founded in 1945. It had its first meeting in London but its permanent headquarters is in New York. When the UN was founded in 1945, it had 51 members. Today that number has almost quadrupled to 192. The current Secretary-General […]
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Forgotten world (64): Singapore
February 8th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Singapore comprises the main island – linked by a causeway and a bridge to the southern tip of Malaysia – and around 50 smaller islands. Chinese make up more than 75% of the community of 4.4M; Malays and Indians make up much of the remainder; and there are many foreign workers. Once a colonial outpost […]
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Forgotten world (63): Liberia
February 7th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Liberia in west Africa was created in 1847 to settle freed American slaves. Today it is a a country of only 3.3M struggling to recover after a 14-year civil war from 1989-2003 which cost an estimated 200,000 lives and displaced half the country’s population. The UN currently has 15,000 peacekeepers deployed there. Liberia has the […]
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Forgotten World (62): Slovakia
February 6th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
After the disintegration of the Great Moravian Empire in the early 10th century, the Magyars gradually occupied the territory of the present-day Slovakia and, for the next millennium, it was a part of what eventually between the Hungarian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Between 1918-1993, the territory was the eastern third of Czechoslovakia. Following the split from […]
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Should we bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities?
February 5th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
A few weeks ago, I blogged about the fear that Israel was planning an attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran because of a belief that Iran is in the process of constructing nuclear weapons (which, of course, Israel already has). Opposition to the idea of such an attack is growing. Yesterday three former US […]
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Forgotten world (61): Czech Republic
February 5th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
On 12 occasions now, I’ve had a week-long feature on NightHawk devoted to parts of the world that tend to be under-reported or even forgotten. You can check out the previous 60 entries here. This week, I am going to run an 13th series of postings on this theme. From the 16th century onwards, what […]
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It’s Obamania
February 4th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
So far, every American President since George Washington founded the nation has been a white, male Christian. In November 2008, that might change. New Mexico’s Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, might become the first Hispanic President. More likely, Hillary Clinton could become the first woman to be President. Another possibility is that Republican Mitt Romney could […]
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Whatever happened to trade unions?
February 1st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
According to a new study released today by the New Unionism network, the public needs to reassess its belief that the union movement is in decline. The Network, an international group which was also launched today, claims that recent data from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) shows that more unions are growing than shrinking. Furthermore, […]
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