In short, what is the nuclear deal with Iran?
May 9th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
“Iran and a six-nation negotiating group reached a landmark agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015. It ended 12 years of deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Struck in Vienna after nearly two years of intensive talks, the deal limited the Iranian programme to reassure the rest of the world that it would be unable to develop nuclear weapons, in return for sanctions relief.
At its core, the JCPOA is a straightforward bargain. Iran’s acceptance of strict limits on its nuclear programme in return for an escape from the sanctions that grew up around its economy over a decade prior to the accord. Under the deal, Iran unplugged two-thirds of its centrifuges, shipped out 98% of its enriched uranium and filled its plutonium production reactor with concrete.
Tehran also accepted extensive monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has verified 10 times since the agreement, and as recently as February, that Tehran has complied with its terms. In return, all nuclear-related sanctions were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting Iran to global markets.”
This is the opening of a short question & answer briefing on the deal in today’s “Guardian” newspaper.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
The continuing tragedy of Syria’s civil war
May 8th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I spent two hours this Bank Holiday weekend watching a double programme about the civil war in Syria. It was broadcast by the BBC and presented by its Canadian-born chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet. You can check it out here.
The seven-year Syrian civil war is a conflict which has now lasted longer than the Second World War. Around half a million have been killed, more than 7 million are internally displaced, and some 5 million have been forced to flee the country.
I have followed the war with special anguish because, just a couple of weeks before it began, I spent a week travelling all around Syria and I wrote up an account of the trip here.
Posted in My life & thoughts, World current affairs | Comments (0)
British political institutions (4): the judiciary
May 7th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I like to attend short courses at the City Literary Institute in central London and I’m now doing a six-week course on “British Political Institutions”. The fourth session of the course was delivered by Mark Geering and covered the judiciary, including an outline of the legal system and the role of the Supreme Court.
I have myself written a guide to the British political system and you can read the section on the judiciary here.
A few hours before the lecture and in preparation for it, I made my first visit to the Supreme Court. There is an informative exhibition and I picked up a couple of explanatory leaflets. However, the court was not actually sitting in London at the time because it was in Belfast to hear a case concerning the refusal of a Christian couple of cake makers who refused an order from a gay customer because they had a religious objection to the writing that he wanted on the cake.
A further illustration of how interesting and varied are court cases came in the lecture itself when we were told about a case which finished up in the Supreme Court when the tax authorities claimed that a Jaffa cake was not really a cake (and therefore not subject to tax) but actually a biscuit (and therefore subject to tax). Our lecturer ran through the factors considered by the court in this case which underlined that judges endeavour to make their judgements on the basis of the evidence.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “Tully”
May 6th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody first worked together on the justifiably acclaiimed “Juno”, featuring a teenage girl unexpectedly pregnant. A decade later, the two are paired again for another film with a single-word, woman’s name for the title and again we start with an unplanned pregnancy. This time, however, the pregnant woman is in her early 40s and already has two children, one of whom has special needs.
Marlo (wonderfully played by Charlize Theron) finds that the responsibility of three children (Cody herself is a mother of three), – especially when the baby needs breastfeeding at all times of the day and night and the father is semi-detached – is driving her crazy and reluctantly she accepts an offer from her brother of a night nurse, the eponymous Tully (a delightful Mackenzie Davis), who seems to be the answer to her dreams.
There are so few movies with women in the leading roles in real-life situations, like the challenges of motherhood, and this work really brings home how tough it can be and how little sleep is involved. At the time, some of the scenes and situations seem odd, even uncomfortable, but at the very end, it all makes sense.
Whether you see the finale as a manipulative conceit or an acceptable narrative device (I’m in the later camp) will determine how you rate the film, but this is a welcome attempt to show a side of the female experience that hardly features in mainstream cinema, reminding us that the mind is a beautiful thing.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
So what kind of man was Karl Marx?
May 5th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
All around the world – but in very different ways – people are marking today as the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx in Trier, Prussia. Although my politics have always been firmly Left of Centre, I’ve never been attracted to Marx’s ideas.
I acknowledge that he is a giant in philosophical and political thought but, as a man, he was a deeply flawed character as explained in my review of the biography by Francis Wheen.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
What’s on your to-do list and how best can you manage such a list?
May 5th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
In an effort to encourage consumers to check during this Bank Holiday weekend whether they ever had Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) , the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) commissioned research which found that the top items on people’s to-do list are the following:
- Sorting out banking / finances
- Planning and preparing evening meals
- Booking appointments: dentist / doctors etc
- Taking out the rubbish
- Changing the bed linen
- Filling in forms e.g. passport applications
- Renewing insurance
- Purchasing new clothing / uniform items
- Holiday planning (booking / organising)
- Cooking breakfast
- Hosting a Sunday lunch
- Doing the ironing
- Filling the car up with petrol
- Speaking to energy companies to get a better deal
- Loading the dishwasher
- Garden maintenance
- Calling repair / trades person
- Booking the car in for MOT / Service
- Organising days out with friends
- Planning family get togethers
The FCA media release offered this advice on how best to manage your to-do list:
- Plan – Write your to-do-list the night before. You’ll wake up knowing exactly what you need to do.
- Prioritise – Tackle your trickiest task first and for the rest of the day you’ll feel like you’ve achieved something.
- Go digital – Hunting around for scraps of paper down the back of the sofa isn’t the way to stay on top of your to-do-list; keep it all in one place, such as on your phone.
- Don’t procrastinate – Set yourself a deadline and stick to it!
- Reward – Keeping on top of your to-do-list is a tricky business, so when you manage to tick things off make sure you take time to reward yourself for having been so organised!
Alternatively you could just enjoy what might be the hottest early May Bank Holiday on record.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
What are the chances of the Democrats winning the House and the Senate?
May 4th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
In the United States, this November sees what are called the mid-term elections when we are half way through the current presidential term of of office and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 of the seats in the Senate are up for election. The Democrats will do well, but can they take both chambers?
Recently the Cook Political Report, a widely quoted authority on congressional politics, rated just 156 of the 435 seats in the House as solid Republican seats, whereas it rated 179 as solid Democratic seats. In assessing the more competitive races in November’s election, the Report reckoned 45 are leaning Democratic or are toss-ups. If the Democratic Party won 40 of these seats, which seems perfectly possible, it would gain control of the House.
In the Senate, where the Republicans have a narrow majority of two, only eight Republican senators are up for reëlection, so the political map is more favourable to them. But the Cook Report now rates three of these Republican-held Senate races—in Arizona, Nevada, and Tennessee—as toss-ups.
So it is possible that the Democrats will take both chambers which would enable them to box in President Trump. The world is watching …
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new blockbuster movie “Avengers: Infinity War”
May 3rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
As blockbusters go, this buster promised to be the biggest block of them all and so it has proved to be. On its opening weekend, it took the record for the US box office from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and the record for the world box office from “The Fate Of The Furious”.
Everything about this movie – the 19th contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe over a 10 year period – is HUGE. It has two directors (brothers Anthony & Joe Russo who helmed the last two “Captain America” films), two writers (Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely who have crafted lots of witty one-liners), a record running time for the MCU (one minute short of two and a half hours), six infinity stones (which, when located in a a golden gauntlet, threaten the death of half of the population of the universe), and a phenomenal cast-list the like of which you’ve never seen before.
Almost every Marvel super-hero is here but they are teamed up in new configurations. So Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) is paired with Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) & Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) joins forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy headed by the Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), while Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) pick up Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) who seek refuge in Wakanda where they line up with Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and his cohort – and there are many others whom I’ve not mentioned (20 or so, in all).
Thor gets a new hammer and Captain America is given a new shield and we visit a variety of new worlds including the wonderfully-named Knowhere. But not all our heroes survive in the titanic struggle with the mega evil Thanos (Josh Brolin) and the members of his Black Order.
It’s amazing that so many characters and multiple story arcs can fit together, but it does in a roaring and rollicking adventure with a surprising ending that sets us up for the fourth (and last?) Avengers movie. Only MCU aficianados will catch all the allusions to the previous 18 films in the franchise because, even if you’ve seen them all (and I have), viewing has been over a period of a decade and memories fade, but this is simply an encouragement to see “Infinity War” again and perhaps revisit some of the earlier works.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
You’ve heard about Mount Rushmore – but what about Stone Mountain?
May 2nd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Most Americans will have heard of Stone Mountain, but most non-Americans will not. I confess that I’d never heard of the location until watching the ninth and final part of the impressive BBC2 series “Civilisations” when the presenter Simon Schama highlighted its controversial role in the American psyche.
Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome monadnock and the site of Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, the United States. It is well known for not only its geology, but also the enormous rock relief on its north face, the largest bas-relief in the world.
This carving depicts three Confederate figures: President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and ‘Stonewall’ Jackson. The Mountain was the site of the founding of the second Ku Klux Klan in 1915.
You can learn more about the memorial and the controversy around it here.
Posted in American current affairs, Cultural issues | Comments (0)
There’s little better in life than a good friend
April 30th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
“According to a recent study by the Red Cross in partnership with Co-op, more than nine million adults in the UK are often or always lonely.
We are facing a loneliness epidemic, with Theresa May taking the step earlier this year of appointing Tracey Crouch as what some have dubbed the “minister for loneliness” to try to tackle the issue.
Loneliness is something we all feel at times and to varying degrees, but it can also be something that we feel uneasy about admitting to.
Another study, published in the journal Personal Relationships, found that investing in close relationships was associated with better health, happiness and wellbeing in adulthood.
Still, making friends as an adult can be hard, and takes time – last week a study from the University of Kansas found that two people need to spend 90 hours together to become friends, or 200 hours to qualify as close friends.”
This is an extract from an article in today’s “Guardian” newspaper with some tips on how to make friends as an adult.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)