Archive for the ‘World current affairs’ Category
Forgotten World (102): Madagascar
September 25th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Madagascar is the world’s fourth biggest island after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo and it is located off the south-east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The 17 million Malagasy are thought to be descendants of Africans and Indonesians who settled on the island more than 2,000 years ago. Madagascar gained independence in 1960. […]
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Forgotten World (101): Jamaica
September 24th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Jamaica is one of the few places in the world that is really dangerous and yet has a thriving tourist industry. Last year, more than 1,300 people were murdered in an island of just 2.7 million. This is one of the world’s highest murder rates alongside South Africa and Colombia. Around a quarter of the […]
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Another “Cry In The Dark”? (2)
September 15th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
A week ago, I blogged here about how the increasingly feverish speculation over the alleged involvement of missing Madeleine McCann’s parents in her supposed death reminded me of the Australian case of Lindy Chamberlain. Today it is reported that the Australian mother herself, now 59 year old Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, has spoken out in support of […]
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Who built Lord Ram’s bridge?
September 14th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Lord Ram’s bridge links India with Sr Lanka and the name would suggest that it was built by Lord Ram, the Hindu God. Indeed this video clip shows the construction by the God and his monkey friends. The trouble is that, in support of a project to develop a shipping canal in the area, Indian […]
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What a crazy – but improving – world
September 12th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The richest 225 people in the world earn the same as the poorest 2.7 billion or some 40% of humanity. The annual takings of criminal gangs around the world are roughly equal to Britain’s GDP or twice the world’s combined defence budgets. Up to 27 million people are held in slavery which is more than […]
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Happy new millennium
September 12th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
What do you mean, the millennium was almost seven years ago? Not in Ethiopia, it wasn’t. How come? Well, in around AD525, the Roman church amended its calendar, placing the birth of Jesus eight years earlier than had previously been accepted and the Gregorian calendar, as it eventually became known, is the basis for the […]
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Another “Cry In The Dark”? (1)
September 8th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I was in Leicester all day yesterday visiting my sister who lives in the city. As we wandered around the city centre, the headlines on newspaper hoardings – declaring the mother of missing Madeleine McCann to be a formal suspect – seemed particularly poignant, since the family lives in the village of Rothley near Leicester. […]
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Global cities in a changing world
September 2nd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I managed to miss the recent exhibition on “Global Cities” in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern Museum in London, but there’s a lot of material on the museum’s web site here. The exhibition looked at growth and development in 10 major cities around the world. I live in one of these cities – […]
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The Italian political system
September 1st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Over the last few months, I’ve been adding to my web site a series of short guides to the political systems of different countries around the world. I started with Britain and the USA, then moved on to France and Germany, before taking on India and Japan. This week, I have added “A Short Guide […]
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Forgotten World (100): Norway
August 31st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
In at least one respect, Norway is an unusual European country: it is not a member of the European Union and has currently no wish to become a member. Referenda in 1972 and 1994 failed to secure a majority in favour of EU membership. Norway is happy to stand alone in large part thanks to […]
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