Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Iranian repression (1): Shirin Ebadi
November 27th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Shirin Ebadi is the first Muslim women to be awarded a Nobel Prize, winning it for peace in 2003. She has been away from Iran since travelling to Spain for a conference the day before the disputed 12 June presidential election, but she still intends to return. Meanwhile her husband has been beaten and her […]
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Iranian repression (2): Maziar Bahari
November 27th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
For 118 days, 12 hours, 54 minutes, Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari was detained, interrogated and beaten in Tehran’s notorious Evin prisoner where he was accused of spying for the CIA, MI6, Mossad and “Newsweek”. He is now in London with his wife and newborn daughter, but the Revolutionary Guards have threatened to track him down […]
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Remembering the Western Sahara
November 19th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Only very occasionally does the media cover anything about the Western Sahara, the last unresolved colonial issue in Africa. I wrote about the situation in a very early entry in my long-running series called “Forgotten World” but the issue remains disputed since Morocco still lays claim to the mineral-rich territory and refuses to hold the […]
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Remembering Neda Soltan
November 15th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
In June, the world was horrified by the killing of Neda Soltan, a peaceful protester in Tehran against the fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now her boyfriend Caspian Makan has escaped the country and given this account of Neda’s life and death.
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Forgotten World (190): Togo
October 30th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Togo, a narrow strip of land on Africa’s west coast located between Ghana and Benin, has for years been the target of criticism over its human rights record and political governance. Political reconciliation remains elusive. Gnassingbe Eyadema died in early 2005 after 38 years in power. The military’s immediate but short-lived installation of his son, […]
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Forgotten World (189): Syria
October 29th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Alawite Shias and Druze, as well as the Arab Sunnis who make up a majority of the Muslim population. Modern Syria gained its independence from France in 1946 but has lived through periods of political instability driven by the conflicting interests of […]
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Forgotten World (188): Anguilla
October 28th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Anguilla – an island in the Caribbean with just 13,400 inhabitants- broke away from St Kitts and Nevis and became a British overseas territory in 1980. Carefully-regulated tourism is the bedrock of the economy. A tropical climate, fine beaches, reefs and turquoise seas lure visitors, many of them from the USA. Offshore banking is another […]
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Forgotten World (187): Svalbard
October 27th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The archipelago is the northernmost part of Norway. Three islands are populated: Spitsbergen, Bear Island and Hopen. The Spitsbergen Treaty (1920) recognised Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard, and the 1925 Svalbard Act made Svalbard a […]
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Forgotten World (186): Guinea
October 26th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
It’s time once more 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 185 entries here. The mineral-rich African state of Guinea declared independence from France in 1958. […]
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Time for the Tobin tax?
October 23rd, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Today the new Task Force on International Financial Transactions and Development will meet in Paris where it will be chaired by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner. It will consider an idea often known as the Tobin tax. Now there is growing support for such a tax – but what is it? Put simply, it is […]
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