Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
A short guide to the Chinese political system
December 24th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Over the past three months, I have lectured to no less than five visiting delegations from China, explaining the nature of the British political system. I have emphasised the uniqueness of the British model and compared it with other democratic systems, pointing out that I have guides to the political systems of 12 nations on […]
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Cuba comes in from the cold – at last
December 18th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
As a friend of and visitor to both the United States and Cuba, I am really pleased that, after 54 years, we have the news of a planned normalisation of relations between the two countries. When I had a holiday in Cuba almost seven years ago [my account of the trip here], Fidel Castro had […]
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What now for Russia? Three possible scenarios to resolve the current crisis. None of them is attractive, some are dangerous.
December 17th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Commenting on the sharp rise in interest rates in Russia, Anastasia Nesvetailova, Professor of International Political Economy at City University London, says: “In the middle of last night, the Russian Central Bank made a desperate attempt to shore up support for the rouble, a move that is unlikely to save the currency or the economy […]
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What do you know about the President of the Czech Republic?
November 30th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
You probably don’t even know his name. He is Milos Zeman and he is a controversial figure for many things which he is alleged to have done and he has most certainty said – as you can read here.
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Eight years ago, the hawks wanted to bomb Iran – and they still do
November 25th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
It’s very disappointing news that agreement has not been reached between Iran and the six Western partners on control of Iran’s nuclear programme, but the parties are still talking and there is a new timetable. As long as eight years ago, I did a blog posting pointing out that some observers saw the bombing of […]
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It’s World Toilet Day – and that’s no joke
November 19th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Did you know? 2.5 billion people – around one in three of the world’s population – don’t have a safe, clean, private toilet. Around 500,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation – that’s almost 1,400 children a day. Every year, around 60 million children are born into homes […]
Posted in Environment, Uncategorized, World current affairs | Comments (0)
Support Oxfam’s campaign to “Even it up!”
November 3rd, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Oxfam has launched a new report and a new campaign on the explosion in inequality around the globe. You can view a three-minute video here. You can see the excetive summary of the report here. The campaign has the following nine objectives. 1) Make governments work for citizens and tackle extreme inequality Public interest and tackling […]
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How well do people know the basic facts on immigration?
October 31st, 2014 by Roger Darlington
A new survey by Ipsos MORI has checked public understanding of the numbers behind some key news stories in 14 countries. Let’s just look at two issues in two countries. When asked: out of 100 people, how many do you think are immigrants in this country? In the UK, the average guess was 24%, but […]
Posted in American current affairs, British current affairs, Social policy, World current affairs | Comments (0)
As we turn the clocks back in the UK, around the world who does and who does not practice daylight saving time?
October 26th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
If you look at the world map on this web page, you’ll see that almost 80 nations – notably those of Europe and North America – practice daylight saving, but most of the rest of the world manages without this practice. The same web page provides some interesting facts on the practice: The USA has […]
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Today is Blog Action Day 2014 #BAD2014 and this year’s theme is inequality #Inequality
October 16th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Today is Blog Action Day when bloggers around the world post items on the same theme and this year the chosen subject is inequality. Conveniently this week Credit Suisse has published its annual Global Wealth Report. Among the mass of data, the report tells us that, taken together, the bottom half of the global population […]
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