Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
The human cost of the Euro crisis
December 19th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Like us, a number of our friends enclose newsletters with their Christmas cards. We enjoy catching up on events in the lives of friends whom we may not have seen for some time – but some of the news can be sad. The most tragic news this year has been from an old friend from […]
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Remembering Vaclav Havel
December 18th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
As reported here, the playwright, dissident and statesman Vaclav Havel has died aged 75. He was a remarkable man who went from prisoner to president in a matter of months when then Czechoslovakia overthrew communism in the ‘Velvet Revolution’. My wife Vee met him in 200o during his term as President of Czechoslovakia. In a […]
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Just how bad are things economically?
December 12th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
“A year ago, it was assumed 2011 would see life return to normal. Europe would sort out its little local difficulties, China and India would power along, and Barack Obama would use a resurgent US economy as the springboard for his re-election campaign. … Instead, 2011 ends with the euro fighting for its life, Britain […]
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And now we have the CHUKS
December 10th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
In an earlier posting, I explained which nations made up the BRICs, the PIGS, and the CIVETS. From this week, we have a new acronym for a group of countries. It is CHUKS which means: Czech Republic, Hungary, United Kingdom and Sweden. And what do they have in common? They are the four members of […]
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Who is waging a “war on religion”?
December 9th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
According to Rick Perry – who wants to be the Republican presidential candidate – this is a war being perpetrated by President Barack Obama who is, of course, a committed Christian, even if so many Americans still think he is a Muslim. This is the level of politics in the democracy that is the United […]
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Gap between rich and poor becoming even wider
December 6th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
A recurrent theme of this blog is that inequalities in income, wealth and power are damaging to social cohesion and individual life chances. Therefore an up-dated transnational study of income inequality in developed countries – including the UK and the USA – provides compelling messages. The gap between rich and poor in OECD countries has […]
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A new look at the world’s financial crisis
December 6th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
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The evil that was the Khmer Rouge
December 5th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
“Pol Pot’s deputy has told a court the Khmer Rouge were not “bad people”, blaming deaths of Cambodians under the Maoist regime on neighbouring Vietnam. Nuon Chea made the comments at his genocide trial at a UN-backed court in Phnom Penh.” This is the opening of a news report from the BBC’s web site on the […]
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The link between social mobility and income inequality
November 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
“The idea that anyone can, by their own merits and hard work, improve their social and economic position is one of the dominant political themes of our times. Encouraging social mobility, both within a person’s lifetime (intra- generational social mobility) and from one generation to the next (inter- generational social mobility), has become a key […]
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Smarter economics: investing in girls
November 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I had occasion today to visit the Department For International Development (DFID). Currently the atrium is adorned with a huge banner carrying an illustration called “The Girl Knight” by Kenyan graphic artist Eric Muthoga. You can see a version of the picture here. The banner depicts a young black girl armed with a ‘shield’ in […]
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