Archive for August, 2008
The first sign of Christmas
August 18th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
This morning, the post brought us our first Christmas catalogue – the price of ordering and sending charity Christmas cards each year. The organisation concerned is Amnesty International – an immensely worthy body, but one that I would rather waited a while before encouraging us to order things for the Christmas season. After all, it […]
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Why Team GB?
August 18th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I’m afraid that I have very little interest in sport, but even I could not fail to be impressed by the spectacular opening ceremony in Beijing and the outstanding success of the British athletes over the weekend. Buy why are our Olympic competitors called Team GB? Do we have no athletes from Northern Ireland? Are […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (7)
What does it mean to be Russian?
August 17th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
This week I have felt the pain of the people of Georgia even more than I would have done last week. This is because I have spent the past week in the Baltic States and two of them – Estonia and Latvia – have substantial Russian minority populations. Many of the local people with whom […]
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Back from the Baltics
August 16th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I’m just back from a six-day break with my sister Silvia. It was a short holiday in the Baltic States visiting Tallinn in Estonia, Riga in Latvia and Vilnius in Lithuania. This brings the total number of countries that I have visited to 52 – you can find the full list here. I’ll be writing […]
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The Night Hawk has flown
August 8th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
There’ll be no postings on this blog for a week or so, since I’m off now on a short holiday in the Baltic States visiting Tallinn in Estonia, Riga in Latvia and Vilnius in Lithuania. I’ll write up an account for my web site on my return. Meanwhile please look through earlier postings on this […]
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Barack’s books
August 8th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
For my 60th birthday, I received lots of books. I started by reading the two written by the Democratic candidate for the White House Barack Obama: “Dreams Of My Father” [my review here] and, the one I have just finished, “The Audacity Of Hope” [my review here]. I have been blogging about Barack Obama for […]
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Should there be a windfall tax on the energy companies?
August 7th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
The pressure group Compass is is campaigning for such a windfall tax and has set out its case here.
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10 years of al Qaeda
August 7th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Although the terrorist group al Qaeda was probably established in 1988, the organisation came to the world’s attention exactly 10 years ago today with the bombing of the American embassies in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The decade since then has been a bloody one, in terms […]
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Why are oil prices rising so fast? (5)
August 5th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
On 23 June, the BBC carried a report on its web site which stated: “Despite an emerging global consensus that oil prices are dangerously high, there seems little chance of the cost of oil falling significantly in the near future.” On the very same day, I carried a posting on this blog which stated: “If […]
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Labour troubles in South Korea
August 5th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
About ten days ago, the South Korean government issued arrest warrants for the leaders of the country’s trade union movement. Among those named were the President, Vice President and General Secretary of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), as well as leaders of affiliated unions. The KCTU Vice President was arrested by police and […]
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