Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten world (43): Kazakhstan
November 8th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film “Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan” may not give a totally accurate representation of the country, so what is the situation in Kazakhstan? Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is not a totalitarian dictator; he is only moderately repressive: banning and intimidating opposition parties and jailing […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Forgotten world (42): Nicaragua
November 7th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
Nicaragua was ruled by the Somoza family with US backing between 1937 and the Sandinista revolution in 1979. By 1990, the Sandinistas were defeated in elections held as part of a peace agreement with the US-sponsored counter-revolutionaries known as the Contras. Today Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America. The average annual income […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Forgotten world (41): The Maldives
November 6th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
On eight 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 40 entries here. This week, I am going to run an ninth series of postings on this theme. The Maldives – located in the […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Sense on Iraq
October 30th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
“The issue now is not being for or against the United States, for or against the invasion, or whether or not anyone lied about weapons of mass destruction. The only thing that matters now is supporting Iraq’s democratic development and helping the Iraqi government to develop a strong and professional police and military. Then we […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The rise and rise of Barack Obama
October 29th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
“Perhaps no other politician in America is generating as much buzz as the Democrat senator from Illinois. News articles and magazines are full of speculation that Obama will run for the White House in 2008.” and “Cutting through the hype, the insider wisdom says it is still too soon for Obama. His national career is […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Iraq: should we have invaded?
October 29th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
In a recent posting, I promised to address some of the many difficult questions posed by the situation in Iraq – and I was encouraged to do so by comments from Paul Hullock and Richard Leyton. So let me start with the most fundamental question of all: should we have invaded? The strongest objection to […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
The question of Iraq
October 26th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
I’ve hardly blogged on Iraq since the US/UK invasion three years ago. This is partly because I feel let down by Blair and Bush over my initial (reluctant) support for the occupation and it is partly because the current situation in Iraq seems so intractable. However, I spent a couple of hours at the House […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (2)
Now there are 300M Americans
October 17th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
As explained in this article, according to census projections, the American population today passed the 300 million mark. One American is born every 7 seconds; one American dies every 13 seconds; one migrant arrives in the USA every 31 seconds. It has taken the USA 39 years to add the last 100M population and it […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten world (40): Corsica
October 13th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
The Mediterranean island of Corsica – 100 miles south of France – has had an active nationalist movement since Genoa governed it in the 14th century. It was ceded to France in 1768, the year before Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio. Today the island – half the size of Wales and with a population […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
UN wrong on rights
October 12th, 2006 by Roger Darlington
The United Nations Human Rights Council, which was established in June 2006, has just had its second session and the outcome is a real disappointment. As explained here, Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director of Human Rights Watch accuses that: “In the face of atrocities in the Sudan, attacks on civilians in Sri Lanka, and impunity […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)