Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten World (137): Gabon
July 1st, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Now that Fidel Castro has stepped down as president of Cuba, Gabon holds the dubious distinction of having the world’s longest-serving leader that is not a monarch: Albert-Bernard Bongo has been president for more than 40 years. He has ruled largely unchallenged and mostly without force, despite squandering much of the country’s natural wealth (especially […]
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Forgotten World (136): South Korea
June 30th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
It’s time for 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 135 entries here. The Republic of Korea – otherwise known as South Korea – was proclaimed in August 1948 and […]
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Why are oil prices rising so fast? (3)
June 29th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
It’s all about demand, right? “A major factor behind the steady price rise, virtually everyone agrees, is that energy consumption is surging in high-growth countries, and oil supplies are not growing fast enough to keep up. But what confounds many experts is that the price of oil seems to be changing much faster than the […]
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Al-Qaeda’s use of the Net
June 26th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
“It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a speech in November. “As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, ‘How has one man in a cave managed to outcommunicate the world’s greatest communication society?’ “ […]
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The American presidential election (46)
June 25th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
This “Newsweek” article makes some good points about Barack Obama and Europe: Overwhelmingly Europeans want to see Obama returned to the White House. Europeans don’t have a vote in this election and any attempt to interfere will be unhelpful to Obama. Obama as President could well present some challenges to Europe – he will advance […]
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Why are oil prices rising so fast? (2)
June 23rd, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Brown’s analysis of the causes of record oil costs was at odds with the Opec president, Chakib Khelil, who reiterated his view opposing increased production, saying “the price is disconnected from fundamentals” of supply and demand. “We believe that the market is in equilibrium. The price is disconnected from fundamentals. It is not a problem […]
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The American presidential election (45)
June 21st, 2008 by Roger Darlington
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The American presidential election (44)
June 20th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
For a political junkie like me who has been blogging about Barack Obama for over four years (which is before he entered the US Senate) [my first posting here], last night I was close to overdosing. Thanks to my good American friend Eric Lee, i was able to attend the first meeting of the Obama […]
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Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo
June 18th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I’d like you to send the Trades Union Congress (TUC) a photo of yourself. It is wanted because two leaders of the Zimbabwean unions – Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo, President and General Secretary respectively of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) – were arrested for talking about the political situation in Zimbabwe on […]
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The American presidential election (43)
June 15th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
‘Mr. Obama is hardly alone in making use of the Web (remember Howard Dean in 2004). What sets him apart is his openness to contributions from those working outside the campaign organization. As he described it to a Time magazine reporter last week, “We just had some incredibly creative young people who got involved and […]
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