Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten World (203): Macedonia
February 10th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Following the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Macedonia was spared the inter-ethnic violence that scarred much of the Balkans and became independent in 1991, but a decade later it came close to civil war as a result of the challenge of the ethnic Albanians who make up a quarter of the population of […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten World (202): Brunei
February 9th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Brunei is a tiny country with a small population located in the north-west corner of the island of Borneo. In 1963, it was the only Malya state to choose to remain a British dependency rather than join the Malaysian Federation. It became independent in 1984 and, thanks to its large reserves of oil and gas, […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten World (201): Nunavut
February 8th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
It’s time once again for one of my regular weeks of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World – a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 200 entries here. Nunavut covers 1,932,255 sq km (746,048 sq mi) of land and 160,935 […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Happy Waitangi Day
February 6th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
On this date in 1840, some 40 Maori chiefs and British Governor William Hobson gathered in the village of Waitangi, in the Bay of Islands, to sign a treaty which gave Britain sovereignty over the land of New Zealand, while protecting the Maoris’ ownership of their lands and treasures. This was called the Treaty of […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
How much should the best paid be paid?
January 28th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
The chief executive of a company should be paid more than the average member of staff, right? But how much more? Twice? Five times? 10 times? 100 times? When I was Head of Research at the Communication Workers Union (CWU), one of my international colleagues was Philip Jennings, General Secretary of Union Network International (UNI) […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Tourists stranded in Machu Picchu
January 26th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
My attention was drawn to the news that landslides in the Cuzco area of Peru have cut off tourists in the ancient city of Machu Picchu. This was a reminder of our trip to Machu Pichu in 2001 when we used the railway that has now been made inoperable.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten World (200): Serbia
January 15th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Effectively Serbia – a country of 7.3 million – is what is left over from the collapse and break-up of the former Communist state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The six republics of the old Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, which was proclaimed in 1945, comprised Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia. Serbia became a […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (1)
Forgotten World (199): Martinique
January 14th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Martinique is a mountainous and densely-populated overseas department of France in the Caribbean with a population of 400,000. The French and Creole heritage is mirrored in its customs, food and languages. Tourism flourishes on the tropical island, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and is a stopping-off point for cruise ships. Despite […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Forgotten World (198): Seychelles
January 13th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
Seychelles is an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (932 miles) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar. The biggest island is about the size of Manhattan, the smallest the size of a coffee table. Independence from Britain came in 1976 and, after an ominous, post-independence […]
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Fact and fiction in kidnapping
January 12th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
There is a report today that three British people and a Colombian working for oil giant Shell have been seized in Nigeria’s Delta region. It was this sort of incident that inspired one of my short stories: “The Hostage”.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)