Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Israel and The Gaza (1)
December 31st, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Early last year, my wife and I made a fascinating trip to Israel in the company of our close American friend Eric Lee who lived on a kibbutz in Israel for 18 years before moving to London. In the course of the journey, we had some interesting political discussions because, while I am a friend […]
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Nearly a billion starving
December 10th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
The fact that you’re reading this blog posting means that you have access to the Internet and probably own a computer which by definition puts you in a favourable economic category in world terms, even if your standard of living and perhaps your employment and housing prospects are threatened by the current global financial crisis. […]
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What’s happening in Canada?
December 6th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Canadian politics inevitably gets overshadowed by those of its bigger neighbour the United States, but my man in Canada (Bob Chandler) sends me this message: “We’re in the midst of a “political crisis” in Canada…fallout from the economic crisis. Conservative Party Prime Minister Steven Harper introduced an “economic statement” that included a whole bunch of […]
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Forgotten World (155): Niue
December 5th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Countries do not get much smaller than Niue. The residents of the Pacific island of Niue are far outnumbered by their compatriots who have migrated to New Zealand. Home to fewer than 2,000 islanders, the self-governing coral atoll is trying to encourage some of the 20,000 overseas Niueans – many of them New Zealand-born – […]
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Forgotten World (154): Vietnam
December 4th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Vietnam suffered three decades of bitter independence wars, which the communists fought first against the colonial power France and then against US-backed South Vietnam. It became a unified country in 1976 after the armed forces of the communist north had seized the south of the country in the previous year. Vietnam today – a country […]
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Forgotten World (153): Dominica
December 3rd, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Dominica – not to be confused with the Dominican Republic – is an island in the Caribbean ‘discovered’ by Columbus in 1493 and it acquired its name from the day of the week (Sunday) of its discovery. For centuries, it was a French and then a British colony. Today, with few natural resources and a […]
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Forgotten World (152): Tanzania
December 2nd, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Tanzania assumed its present form in 1964 after a merger between the mainland Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar which had become independent the previous year. Although it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with many of its people living below the World Bank poverty line, the country of around 40 million […]
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Forgotten World (151): Greenland
December 1st, 2008 by Roger Darlington
It’s time to have another week 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 150 entries here. Greenland is, by area, the world’s largest island that is not a continent in its own […]
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Mumbai attacks and the Net
November 28th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
We all know that the Internet has utterly transformed how news is now reported to the world. This is brought home to us especially when there is a big event that attracts the interest of people around the globe and developments are fast-moving. A classic example was the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in south-east Asia […]
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What’s happening in Thailand?
November 26th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
A six-month campaign of protests against the Thai government has been led by a movement called PAD which stands for People’s Alliance for Democracy. So how democratic is PAD? The movement: is a loose grouping of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class has called for parliament to be largely appointed supported the military coup […]
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