NightHawk

It's time once again for one of my regular weeks 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 200 entries here.

Nunavut covers 1,932,255 sq km (746,048 sq mi) of land and 160,935 sq km (62,137 sq mi) of water in Northern Canada including part of the mainland, most of the Arctic Archipelago, and all of the islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay, and Ungava Bay which belonged to the Northwest Territories. This makes it the fifth largest sub-national entity (or administrative division) in the world. If Nunavut were a country, it would rank 15th in area.

Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories in 1999 though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993. The creation of Nunavut – meaning "our land" in Inuktitut – resulted in the first major change to Canada's map since the incorporation of the new province of Newfoundland in 1949. Despite its huge size, the territory has a population of a mere 32,000.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On this date in 1840, some 40 Maori chiefs and British Governor William Hobson gathered in the village of Waitangi, in the Bay of Islands, to sign a treaty which gave Britain sovereignty over the land of New Zealand, while protecting the Maoris' ownership of their lands and treasures.

This was called the Treaty of Waitangi. Over the coming years, the Maori were disappointed with persistent encroachment upon their territory, and battles ensued. A New Zealand government eventually apologized for violations of the treaty, promising compensation. Today, Waitangi Day is considered New Zealand's founding day and is a national holiday.

The term Maori means "original people" or "local people." It was used to signify the local inhabitants of New Zealand, as opposed to the "Pakeha," the "new arrivals." When the European settlers came to the area, the word came to mean the Maori people.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The chief executive of a company should be paid more than the average member of staff, right? But how much more? Twice? Five times? 10 times? 100 times?

When I was Head of Research at the Communication Workers Union (CWU), one of my international colleagues was Philip Jennings, General Secretary of Union Network International (UNI) to which the CWU is affiliated. This week, Philip was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The union leader said that, in the 1970s, US chief executives were paid 30 or 40 times the wage of the average worker, but by 2008 they took home 319 times more than the average American. He suggested that executive salaries should be capped at 20 times the pay of the average worker.

If applied to Britain – where the average wage is just over £25,000 a year – the 20 to 1 rule would mean no executive could earn more than £500,000 a year. The Prime Minister's current salary is £132,923 (ministerial entitlement), in addition to a salary of £64,766 as a Member of Parliament.

Further information on the speech and its coverage here.

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My attention was drawn to the news that landslides in the Cuzco area of Peru have cut off tourists in the ancient city of Machu Picchu. This was a reminder of our trip to Machu Pichu in 2001 when we used the railway that has now been made inoperable.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Effectively Serbia - a country of 7.3 million - is what is left over from the collapse and break-up of the former Communist state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The six republics of the old Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, which was proclaimed in 1945, comprised Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia. Serbia became a stand-alone sovereign republic in summer 2006 after Montenegro voted in a referendum for independence from the Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

Though the current Serbian government is pro-Western and sees eventual membership of the EU as being in the country's best interests, Serbia is traditionally an ally of Russia, which supported its opposition to Kosovo's independence. In 2008, Serbia-Russia ties were further strengthened by the signing of a major energy deal, and in October 2009 Russia granted Serbia a 1bn euro (£0.9bn) loan to help it cover its budget deficit after the economy was hit hard by the global downturn.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Martinique is a mountainous and densely-populated overseas department of France in the Caribbean with a population of 400,000. The French and Creole heritage is mirrored in its customs, food and languages. Tourism flourishes on the tropical island, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and is a stopping-off point for cruise ships.

Despite a reliance on aid from France, high unemployment and a large trade deficit, Martinique has one of the higher standards of living in the region. Nationalist sentiment has sometimes flared, but the prospect of losing economic aid from Paris has tempered public support for independence.

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Seychelles is an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (932 miles) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar. The biggest island is about the size of Manhattan, the smallest the size of a coffee table.

Independence from Britain came in 1976 and, after an ominous, post-independence start which saw them lurch from a coup, through an invasion by mercenaries to an abortive army mutiny and several coup attempts, the Seychelles have now attained stability and prosperity. Citizens enjoy a high per capita income, good health care and education.

As the islands of the Seychelles had no indigenous population, the current 84,000 Seychellois are composed of people who have immigrated to the island. The largest ethnic groups are those of French, African, Indian, and Chinese descent.

In October 2009, the president made all his ministers put on diving gear and held the first underwater cabinet meeting in history to make the point that, if the world does not effectively combat global warming, his country will drown.

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There is a report today that three British people and a Colombian working for oil giant Shell have been seized in Nigeria's Delta region.

It was this sort of incident that inspired one of my short stories: "The Hostage".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's time once again for one of my regular weeks 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 195 entries here.

Barbados is one of the more populous and prosperous Caribbean islands and political, economic and social stability have given it one of the highest standards of living in the developing world. It is a centre for financial services and has offshore reserves of oil and natural gas. Tourism has overtaken the export of sugar as the main revenue earner.

In recent years, a construction boom has taken hold, with new hotels and housing complexes springing up. The trend accelerated as the island prepared to host some of the key Cricket World Cup matches in 2007. However, a shortage of jobs has prompted many of the less than 300,000 Barbadians - more often known as Bajans - to find work abroad. The money that they send home is an important source of income.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are reports this weekend that the UK's worst winter in 30 years means that we will face rising food prices.

I'm just reading a book on the global financial crisis: "The Storm" by Vince Cable. He explains that it is estimated that, while 10 per cent of family income in spent on food in the USA, the figure rises to 30 per cent for China, 50 per cent for Kenya and sub-Saharan countries at a similar level of development, and 65 per cent in Bangladesh.

It puts things in context.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Iran has already had two revolutions in the last century: the constitutional revolution of 1905-1911 and the Islamic revolution of 1978-1979. To see these revolutions in the context of the wider history of Iran, read my book reviews here.

So does the continuation of the demonstrations, following the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, presage a further revolution? I would certainly like to think so and the bravery of the protesters is as moving as it is encouraging. But the regime is far from giving up its totalitarian grip.

"Guardian" columnist Simon Tisdall believes that in Iran a further revolution is "finally under way" as he explains in this report.

But, at the conclusion of this story, Iranian political analyst Hossein Bastani warns: "The shah's regime collapsed when many members of the army, who were just doing their military service and were really supporters of Khomeini, rebelled and went over to the other side. This regime has learned from that. They have invested too much in creating their own dedicated forces. They may be a tiny proportion of Iran's population, but they are absolutely committed to the Islamic republic, very violent and very efficient."

Meanwhile i have produced a fictional examination of the situation in my short story "The Man From Iran".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Captain William Mynors of the British East India Company vessel, the "Royal Mary", named the place Christmas Island when he arrived on Christmas Day, 25 December 1643. At Australia's request, the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty to Australia in 1957; today Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands together are called the Australian Indian Ocean Territories and since 1997 share a single Administrator resident on Christmas Island.

It has a population of 1,403 residents who live in a number of "settlement areas" on the northern tip of the island. The island’s geographic isolation and history of minimal human disturbance has led to a high level of uniqueness amongst its flora and fauna, which is of significant interest to scientists and naturalists.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The north African state of Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956. It then endured the rule of "president for life" Habib Bourguiba until 1987. Since then, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has continued to move the country away from Islamic extremism but the path to democracy remains painfully slow. Although Tunisia has introduced some press freedoms and has freed a number of political prisoners, human rights groups say the authorities tolerate no dissent, harrassing government critics and rights activists.

Tunisia - a country of over 10 million - is more prosperous than its neighbours and has strong trade links with Europe. Agriculture employs a large part of the workforce, and dates and olives are cultivated in the drier regions. Millions of European tourists flock to Tunisian resorts every year.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following the collapse of Communism in Poland in 1989, the country joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. Unlike the case before the Second World War, Poland has a very homogeneous population of 38 million, with 98% being ethnically Polish and religiously Roman Catholic.

Poland is considered to have one of the healthiest economies of the post-communist countries, and is currently the fastest growing country within the EU. Since the fall of the communist government, Poland has steadfastly pursued a policy of liberalising the economy and today stands out as a successful example of the transition from a centrally planned economy to a primarily capitalistic market economy.

However, there is still a huge farming sector, which is unwieldy and very inefficient, and poverty is particularly widespread in rural areas. There has been a massive movement of workers to Western Europe, especially the UK.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The tropical island of Guam, a US territory in the western Pacific, is a keystone of American military strategy in the region. It is an important staging post, allowing rapid access to potential flash points in the Koreas and in the Taiwan Strait. The US plans to move 8,000 Marines and 10,000 dependents from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa to Guam by 2014 as part of its global realignment of US forces.

Guam's diverse population of 180,000 includes Japanese, Chinese, and incomers from other Pacific islands. The indigenous Chamorro are a people of mixed Micronesian, Spanish and Filipino descent. Tourism (especially Japanese) and the growing military presence on the island are the bedrock of its economy.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's time once more for one of my regular weeks 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 190 entries here.

Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1992 and a three-year conflict followed which was finally settled by the Dayton peace accords of 1995. It is an odd nation with the population of almost 4 million comprising three ethnic groups - Bosniak, Croat and Serb - having equal constitutional status and the country being split into two, almost autonomous, parts, the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (mostly Bosniak and Croat) and Republika Srpska (mostly Bosnian Serbs), each with its own president, government, parliament, police and other bodies.

The Dayton agreement established the Office of the High Representative. The Office's representative is the state's ultimate authority, responsible for implementation of Dayton and with the power to ''compel the entity governments to comply with the terms of the peace agreement and the state constitution''. Recent efforts by the EU and US to break the stalemate on constitutional reform and prepare the country for eventual EU and NATO membership ended in failure when leaders of the three main ethnic groups rejected the proposals.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since India and Pakistan obtained independence from Britain in 1947, India has managed to remain a vibrant, if flawed, democracy, whereas Pakistan lost its eastern section (now Bangladesh) and is in real danger of becoming a failed state. No elected civilian government has ever survived a full term and the all-powerful military posses the nuclear bomb but cannot defeat its resident fundamentalists.

The British Council has recently published a report on the views of Pakistanis aged 18-29 and the findings are shocking. Only a third of those polled thinks democracy is the best system and a mere one in ten has confidence in the government. Three-quarters identify themselves as primarily Muslim rather than Pakistani and around a third favour Sharia law.

The "New York Times" covered the report in this article.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shirin Ebadi is the first Muslim women to be awarded a Nobel Prize, winning it for peace in 2003. She has been away from Iran since travelling to Spain for a conference the day before the disputed 12 June presidential election, but she still intends to return. Meanwhile her husband has been beaten and her Nobel Prize has been seized. More information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For 118 days, 12 hours, 54 minutes, Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari was detained, interrogated and beaten in Tehran's notorious Evin prisoner where he was accused of spying for the CIA, MI6, Mossad and "Newsweek". He is now in London with his wife and newborn daughter, but the Revolutionary Guards have threatened to track him down and kill him. This week's edition of "Newsweek" devotes 10 pages to his case - this is his story.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Only very occasionally does the media cover anything about the Western Sahara, the last unresolved colonial issue in Africa. I wrote about the situation in a very early entry in my long-running series called "Forgotten World" but the issue remains disputed since Morocco still lays claim to the mineral-rich territory and refuses to hold the referendum called for by the United Nations.

This week, a story reminded us that human rights activists are still fighting for the people of the Western Sahara to have their voice and their state recognised.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In June, the world was horrified by the killing of Neda Soltan, a peaceful protester in Tehran against the fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Now her boyfriend Caspian Makan has escaped the country and given this account of Neda's life and death.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Togo, a narrow strip of land on Africa's west coast located between Ghana and Benin, has for years been the target of criticism over its human rights record and political governance. Political reconciliation remains elusive.

Gnassingbe Eyadema died in early 2005 after 38 years in power. The military's immediate but short-lived installation of his son, Faure Gnassingbe, as president provoked widespread international condemnation. Mr Faure stood down and called elections which he won two months later, but the opposition said the vote was rigged.

About a third of the population of 6.6 million live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Alawite Shias and Druze, as well as the Arab Sunnis who make up a majority of the Muslim population. Modern Syria gained its independence from France in 1946 but has lived through periods of political instability driven by the conflicting interests of these various groups.

For a while, from 1958-61, it united with Nasser's Egypt, but an army coup restored independence before the Alawite-controlled pan-Arab Baath (Renaissance) party took control in 1963. It rules over the nation of 22 million to this day.

On the world stage, Damascus has been increasingly isolated in recent years, having come under fire for its alleged support for insurgents in Iraq, and over its role in Lebanon. That isolation appears to be easing after efforts by France to bring Syria back into the international fold.

Syria is one of Israel's staunchest enemies and supports a number of militant groups that carry out attacks against Israel. Their current relationship flounders on the continued occupation by Israel of the Golan Heights - Syrian land taken in the 1967 war.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anguilla - an island in the Caribbean with just 13,400 inhabitants- broke away from St Kitts and Nevis and became a British overseas territory in 1980.

Carefully-regulated tourism is the bedrock of the economy. A tropical climate, fine beaches, reefs and turquoise seas lure visitors, many of them from the USA.

Offshore banking is another money-earner. Anguilla, which does not levy personal or corporate income tax, was removed in 2002 from an international list of territories said to be uncooperative in the fight against money-laundering.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The archipelago is the northernmost part of Norway. Three islands are populated: Spitsbergen, Bear Island and Hopen. The Spitsbergen Treaty (1920) recognised Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard, and the 1925 Svalbard Act made Svalbard a full part of the Kingdom of Norway. The official language in Svalbard is Norwegian, though some areas do speak Russian.

The population of Svalbard is a mere 2,140. The Norwegian state-owned coal company employs nearly 60% of the island's Norwegian population, runs many of the local services, and provides most of the local infrastructure. Coal production has increased significantly over the past 10 years. Exploration for oil and natural gas is underway.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's time once more for one of my regular weeks 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 185 entries here.

The mineral-rich African state of Guinea declared independence from France in 1958. Post-independence history has been marked by military dictatorship, repression, poverty and the knock-on instability of a succession of wars fought along its borders in the 1990s and early 2000s in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. Though Guinea is the world's leading exporter of bauxite – used to make aluminium – and also has diamonds, gold and timber, average earnings were less than £60 a month in 2008. Guinea remains one of the world's poorest countries, with 40% living under the poverty line.

The present military leader Moussa Dadis Camara was welcomed by most of the 10 million population when he seized power hours after the death in December 2008 of President Lansana Conté, after 24 years of corrupt and authoritarian rule that left the economy in tatters. Camara promised to end the drugs trade and corruption and elevated military officers to government posts but, within months, tension rose as he began talking about reneging on his promise not to run for president in elections expected in 2010.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today the new Task Force on International Financial Transactions and Development will meet in Paris where it will be chaired by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner. It will consider an idea often known as the Tobin tax. Now there is growing support for such a tax - but what is it?

Put simply, it is a levy on foreign exchange transactions. The proposal is named after the economist James Tobin and the tax is intended to put a penalty on short-term speculation in currencies. The original tax rate he proposed was 1%, which was subsequently lowered to between 0.1% and 0.25%.

You can find a fuller explanation here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is well-known that South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world as evidenced by the statistics. The annual homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants is around 40 in South Africa compared to 6 in the USA or 2 in the UK.

What is less appreciated is that the police in South Africa are themselves responsible for a serious level of homicides as explained in this article. Last year, the police shot dead 556 people – including 32 bystanders - which was the highest annual total for a decade and close to levels experienced during apartheid.

In 2004, Vee and I had a holiday in South Africa. It started and finished in Johannesburg. Now the city was not officially on our tour of South Africa, but simply a starting point for it. Nevertheless we wanted to see something of the place and took the opportunity that afternoon to go on an optional three-hour city tour led by a local guide.

Of course, Johannesburg has a fearsome reputation for street and house crime, but our guide was keen to emphasize that things are not as bad as they are portrayed and that they are slowly improving as the police crack down.

However, this reassurance was somewhat undermined when we drew up to a vantage point overlooking the city and found a black man lying full stretch in the road, totally still except for the blood oozing from his head. We learned that he had been attempting to burglar a house and the police had shot him dead.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although the Dutch and the British were the European discoverers of the islands of Wallis and Futuna in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the French who were the first Europeans to settle in the territory, with the arrival of French missionaries in 1837, and it remains a French overseas collectivity to this day. Located in the South Pacific between Fiji and Samoa, the territory is made up of three main volcanic tropical islands and a number of tiny islets.

The total population of the territory at the 2008 census was 13,484 (68.4% on the island of Wallis, 31.6% on the island of Futuna). The vast majority of the population are of Polynesian ethnicity, with a small minority of Metropolitan French descent and/or native-born whites of French descent. More than 16,000 Wallisians and Futunians live as expatriates in New Caledonia, which is more than the total population of Wallis and Futuna.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sole remnant of France's once-extensive possessions in North America, the Atlantic islands of St Pierre and Miquelon lie off the Canadian island of Newfoundland and house a a mere 6,300 inhabitants. The islands became a French "territorial collectivity" in 1985. The status - something between a department and an overseas territory - allowed French subsidies to continue and calmed Canadian fears about European exploitation of its fishing grounds.

With little agriculture and a troubled fishing industry, the islands depend on France for subsidies and on their near neighbour for goods and transport links. Fish processing is the main economic activity, although tourism is increasingly important. The territory capitalises on its image as "France in North America".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Palmyra is an atoll of a mere 4.6 square miles located in the Northern Pacific Ocean. It is incorporated territory of the United States, meaning that it is subject to all provisions contained in the United States Constitution and is permanently under U.S. sovereignty. However, it is also an unorganized territory as there is no Congressional Act specifying how it should be governed.

In fact, the issue of Palmyra’s governance is somewhat academic, as there is no indigenous population remaining nor any reason to think that there will be one in the future. For the last few years, the atoll has been manned by a group of scientists, Nature Conservancy staff and volunteers, and Fish & Wildlife representatives totalling between four and 20.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Antigua and Barbuda (Spanish for "Ancient" and "Bearded") is one of the Caribbean's most prosperous nations, thanks to its tourism industry and offshore financial services. The country's strength lies in its tropical climate and good beaches, which have made it popular as a stop-off point for US cruise ships and have attracted large investments in infrastructure. The population is a mere 85,000.

For decades Antigua and Barbuda's politics was dominated by the Bird family, with Vere Bird being the country's prime minister from independence in 1981 until 1994, when he was succeeded by his son, Lester, who spent a decade in office. Underlying this stability was a succession of scandals, including allegations of corruption. The Bird family was also accused of abuse of authority.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One might think that the most serious economic crisis in the history of global capitalism would severely dent the fortunes of the most pro-capitalist political parties in free market nations, but recent elections do not offer any such solace for social democrats like me. This weekend, there were elections in Germany, Austria and Portugal and there was little good news for social democrats.

In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered its worst result for 60 years. It secured only 23.1% – a drop of more than 11% since the last election. Initial election results revealed that the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have secured 33.8% of the vote, with the Free Democrats (FDP) taking 14.5%, giving the parties 323 seats in the Bundestag.

Meanwhile, in Austria, support for the far-Right Freedom Party nearly doubled to 16% in a provincial election, while the centre-left won only 14% of the vote and suffered its worst result since the Second World War. In fact, since the Social Democrat Party scraped into power in a national election a year ago, it has lost every regional and labour council vote.

Only in Portugal was there good news. The centre-left Socialist Party hung on to power, despite 9% unemployment, the country's highest for 20 years. The Socialists won 36.5% of the vote, against 29% for the centre-right Social Democrats, the main opposition.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a while since I've done one of my regular weeks 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 - so let's return to the series. You can check the previous 180 entries here.

The Turks and Caicos islands lie 600 miles south-east of Florida in the Atlantic Ocean. The population is only 36,000 but the island, a popular playground for Hollywood stars and musicians, attracts 300,000 tourists a year.

In August 2009, the UK resumed day-to-day control of the islands amid ongoing allegations of widespread corruption in the British overseas territory. Local government in the islands have been suspended for up to two years while their affairs are put back in "good order". The move went ahead after a legal challenge by former premier Michael Misick failed in the court of appeal in London.

He resigned in March 2009 but, along with other senior officials, continues to deny accusations of corruption highlighted by a parliamentary committee and commission of enquiry in 2008. Misick has been accused of building a multimillion-dollar fortune financed from questionable dealings that gave property developers access to crown-owned land.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Germans go to the polls tomorrow in an important federal election. To help you make sense of it, you might like to read my "Short Guide To The German Political System".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So now an authoritative and independent report has spelled out at great length that both the Palestinians and the Israelis were guilty of war crimes last December and January. The 574-page report from esteemed judge Richard Goldstone is based on 188 interviews, more than 10,000 pages of documentation and 1,200 photographs and other material.

Both sides should be condemned for the relevant actions, both sides should bring those responsible to justice, and if they do not then matters should be referred to the International Criminal Court.

Further information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In this article - long but so informative and convincing - Paul Krugman, "New York Times" op-ed columnist and winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, argues:

"So here’s what I think economists have to do. First, they have to face up to the inconvenient reality that financial markets fall far short of perfection, that they are subject to extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds. Second, they have to admit — and this will be very hard for the people who giggled and whispered over Keynes — that Keynesian economics remains the best framework we have for making sense of recessions and depressions. Third, they’ll have to do their best to incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics.

Many economists will find these changes deeply disturbing. It will be a long time, if ever, before the new, more realistic approaches to finance and macroeconomics offer the same kind of clarity, completeness and sheer beauty that characterizes the full neoclassical approach. To some economists that will be a reason to cling to neoclassicism, despite its utter failure to make sense of the greatest economic crisis in three generations. This seems, however, like a good time to recall the words of H. L. Mencken: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”

When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

More than three years ago, the position of Western Sahara was one of the first places to feature in my long-running series called "Forgotten World" - see here.

Eighteen years ago today, the Polisario Front (the Western Saharan liberation movement) laid down their arms, ending a 16-year war with Morocco. As part of a UN-negotiated ceasefire a referendum on self-determination was promised but has yet to be carried out.

The need to resolve this dead-lock is highlighted in this letter.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following Sunday's stunning election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan, the traditionally dominant Liberal Democratic Party is in opposition for only the second time since the current political system was constructed after the Second World War (and that was only for 11 months).

Japanese politics is set to become much more interesting and I've now substantially revised my "Short Guide To The Japanese Political System".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"No one should want a nuclear-armed Iran and new sanctions should certainly be tried. But if we calculate correctly that the prospect of an Iranian bomb ultimately comes down to a question of Iranian willpower, then a mature debate needs to be had about how we manage that risk. Instead of threatening military action that will only increase Iran's desire for nuclear weapons while undermining opportunities for democratic change, western powers should focus on developing a robust deterrence framework that provides security guarantees to vulnerable countries and reminds Iran's leaders of what they stand to lose by abusing their nuclear potential. Proliferation is always a risk, but we can live with a nuclear Iran if we have to."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Cameroon, which obtained its independence in 1960 and today has a population of 19 million, has long been considered one of the more stable sub-Saharan African countries with one of the highest per capital GDPs. Recently, however, the situation has deteriorated with civil unrest and violence from youth groups protesting against corruption as well as food and fuel prices. President Paul Biya has been in power since 1982 and last year presidential term limits were scrapped.

In 1994 and 1996 Cameroon and Nigeria fought over the disputed, oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. Nigeria withdrew its troops from the area in 2006 in line with an international court ruling which awarded sovereignty to Cameroon. In November 2007, the Nigerian senate passed a motion declaring as illegal the Nigeria-Cameroon agreement for the Bakassi Peninsula to be handed over to Cameroon.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Irish Republic, officially known as Ireland, has emerged from the conflict that marked its birth as an independent nation to become one of Europe's economic powerhouses. Long under English or British rule, Ireland lost half its population in the decades following the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s, becoming a nation of emigrants. However, since the country joined the European Community in 1973, it has been transformed from a largely agricultural society into a modern, high-technology economy.

It has a population of just over 4 million - over a quarter in the capital Dublin - mostly Catholic, compared to the 1.5 million in Northern Ireland (about one-third Catholic) which is part of the United Kingdom. Ireland's economy began to grow rapidly in the 1990s, fuelled by foreign investment. This attracted a wave of incomers to a country where, traditionally, mass emigration had been the norm. But the boom that earned Ireland the nickname of "Celtic Tiger" faltered when the country fell into recession in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Lebanon was carved out of the Ottoman Empire and granted independence by the French in 1943. Clashes between Palestinian militia and Christian fighters broke out into war in 1975 and the conflict lasted until 1990. Sectarian tensions remain and the various militia are backed by countries around the region. The population of 4 million - almost half in the capital Beirut - lives in constant anxiety of another break out of major violence.

Lebanon is a parliamentary democracy which implements a special system known as confessionalism. This system is intended to ensure that sectarian conflict is kept at bay and attempts to fairly represent the demographic distribution of the 18 recognized religious groups in the governing body.

Despite perennial instability, Lebanon is somewhat buttressed from global economic crises. since it has little industry or export capacity and development is solidly financed by cash-rich Gulf companies. Large sums are also poured in by the vast Lebanese diaspora.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The two islands of Trinidad & Tobago have been run together since 1888 and became independent of Britain in 1962. They have a total population of around 1.3 million.

As the Caribbean's leading producer of oil and gas, Trinidad & Tobago is one of the region's most prosperous countries. But, as global oil and gas prices drop, so does export revenue.

The government and the police have been criticised for a failure to stem the smuggling of cocaine and heroin from Venezuela and Columbia whose drug gangs use the islands as a staging post for shipment to the United States and Europe. Violent gang crime, including kidnap and murder, is spreading from urban to rural communities.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 175 entries here.

At one time, Vietnam was in the world news almost daily. This was the consequence of three decades of bitter independence wars, which the communists fought first against the colonial power France, then against US-backed South Vietnam. North and South 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 struggled to find its feet after unification and it tried at first to organise the agriculture-based economy along strict collectivist lines. But, following the successful example of China, elements of market forces and private enterprise were introduced from the late 1980s and a stock exchange opened in 2000. Foreign investment has grown and the US is Vietnam's main trading partner. After 12 years of negotiations the country joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007.

But the disparity in wealth between the 86 million who make up urban and rural Vietnam is wide and some Communist Party leaders worry that too much economic liberalisation will weaken their power base and introduce "decadent" ideas into Vietnamese society.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wife and I are due to visit Iran on holiday in October. We've already booked the tour and paid the deposit. Now I'm following the political developments in Iran with more than usual attention and I guess the venom currently being directed by the authorities against Britain means that our trip is now somewhat problematic. But things might be different in a few months.

If you want an accessible summary of the crisis over the Iranian presidential election, you should look at a set of cartoon pictures. They based on the characters and style in the work "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi. I admired the film of this book [see my review here] and was pleased to see the new cartoon strip.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Four international trade union organisations (ITUC, ITF, IUF and EI) have declared today as the international day of solidarity with Iranian workers to support their struggle for their basic rights. Members of these confederations around the world will organize practical support towards workers in Iran today. Further details of the day of action here.

This initiative was decided long before the recent presidential election and the protests which followed but clearly it could hardly be more timely. There are, of course, massive media restriction in Iran, but it looks as if there have been at least 17 deaths in the course of the demonstrations. The BBC reviews the current impasse here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is Iran on the verge of another revolution? The complete rejection of the protesters' concerns by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggests that either the demonstrations will collapse or they will be put down forcibly or they will ignite a revolutionary movement.

Where does the reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi stand in all this? It is difficult for him now to speak publicly and freely. So it's especially interesting to have this view from Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an Iranian filmmaker and spokesman for the Mousavi campaign.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Around one billion people - a record - are now going hungry which represents almost one in six of the world population - further information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to my web site and blogs, I have contact with people all around the world - including Iran. In the last few days, it has been very difficult for me to contact my friend in Tehran who voted in the presidential election for the challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi. My contact (no identifying details for obvious reasons) has just managed to send me this brief message:

"Thanks for asking about me and my family. the demonstration is going well here in Tehran. we are continuing to reach out to our objectives. it is huge and widespread. Here every news websites are blocked, during the days when there is going to be demonstration, Mobiles are out of reach. the speed of internet is so low that I hardly can open my email. anyway, I write to you in more detail in the future. it seems that it is not safe to do it now."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Shah of Iran was a brutal dictator whose secret police were outrageously cruel. But the Islamic Republic is failing to deliver the economic prosperity and political freedoms which so many Iranians desire.

The presidential election was an extraordinary event with vigorous campaigning, huge rallies and a dramatic television debate between the two main candidates. Officially the result was as follows:

Mahmoud Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 62.6%
Mir Hossein Mousavi: 33.8%
Mohsen Rezai: 1.7%
Mehdi Karroubi 0.9%
Turnout: 85%

Source: Interior Ministry

However, it seems astonishing that the authorities could know the result only hours after the close of the polls and that Ahmadinejad could genuinely achieve such a decisive victory when the support for Mousavi was evidently so strong.

My next holiday - not till the Autumn - will be in Iran. Obviously I'm going there to view the superb Islamic architecture and archaeological sites, but I was hoping that I would find a new political environment - more open, more tolerant, more concerned with the economy, less hostile to the West.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"In the final analysis, al-Qaida is more of a security nuisance than a strategic threat. Al-Qaida has shown itself to be its own worst enemy and is in a process of self-decomposition."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What was then called Siam was the only south-east Asian country not to be occupied by a European power and in 1932 the nation became Thailand after a bloodless revolution created a constitutional monarchy. Since then, there have been 18 military coups, the last in 2006 which deposed the then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The country of 63 million is highly divided between the Thaksin-supporting poor and a wealthy Bangkok elite.

The capital Bangkok - known in Thai as Krung Thep Mahanakhon - expanded rapidly with the influx of workers during the boom years and it is one of Asia's most vibrant, and heavily-congested, cities with a population of 8 million. The large-scale sex industry which flourishes there contributed to the incidence of HIV infection - a major concern for the Thai government.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Samoa is a group of nine South Pacific islands - two large and seven very small - with one of the smallest national populations in the world (just 180,000). The islands became independent of New Zealand in 1982 and the Human Rights Protection Party has been in power ever since. Samoa has seen substantial economic, social and public sector reforms with the promotion of women's rights. The challenge, however, is to create sufficient employment for the young labour market.

Its deeply conservative and devoutly Christian society centres around the extended family, which is headed by an elected chief who directs the family's social, economic and political affairs, and the church, which is a focus of recreational and social life

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greece is a mainly mountainous country with over 1400 islands (the largest Crete) that returned to democracy - after seven years of the colonels - in 1974 and entered the European Union in 1981. It remains locked in dispute with Turkey over the future of Cyprus and aspects of the Aegean. Greece also has been in dispute since the early 1990s with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the use of the name Macedonia.

Athens stepped into the global spotlight when the Olympic Games returned home in 2004. The games were hailed as a success, despite widely publicised fears that the infrastructure would not be complete in time. However, recent years have seen the Greek population of around 11 million experiencing high unemployment and rising inflation and government plans for pension and labour reforms have prompted industrial action.

A little-known fact is that the Greek national anthem is the longest in the world with 158 verses.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, El Salvador suffered a bitter civil war from 1980 until 1992. The war left around 70,000 people dead and caused damage worth $2 billion, but it also brought about important political reforms. After the civil war, presidential power remained in the hands of the Right until the former guerrillas the FMLN won elections in March 2009.

The population of almost 6 million suffers pervasive poverty, inequality of wealth, rampant corruption, and violent street gangs known as "maras". Remittances from migrants in the United States - some 17% of GDP - is expected to fall as a result of the crisis in the American economy. As if that was not enough, the country has a susceptibility to earthquakes and hurricanes.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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 170 entries here.

Located off the east coast of Africa between Madagascar and Mozambique, the Comoros are an archipelago of three semi-autonomous islands with a population of just 860,000. They only acquired their independence from France in 1975 and, since then , have seen more than 20 coups or attempted coups. Despite this, the nation is regarded as the only real electoral democracy in the Arab world.

The Comoros is one of the world's poorest countries with a young and rapidly growing population but few natural resources with the islands' chief exports - vanilla, cloves and perfume essence - being prone to price fluctuations. Consequently the nation is heavily dependent on foreign aid.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw my first face mask on the streets of London today. Is this where we're all going? Has this happened where you live?

The mask wearer was clearly a newcomer (he was pulling a suitcase on wheels) and from Asia (he looked Japanese to me).

It reminded me of when my wife and I visited Chobe National Park in Botswana. We had a good laugh when we saw an open vehicle full of Japanese tourists - in spite of the strong heat, they all wore coats and, because they did not like the dust, they all had face masks.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Of all the reams already written about the outbreak, for me the best piece has been this column by Mike Davis, the author of "The Monster At Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu". He points out graphically:

"In 1965, for instance, there were 53m US hogs on more than 1m farms; today, 65m hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates."

"This is a highly globalised industry with global political clout. Just as Bangkok-based chicken giant Charoen Pokphand was able to suppress enquiries into its role in the spread of bird flu in southeast Asia, so it is likely that the forensic epidemiology of the swine flu outbreak will pound its head against the corporate stonewall of the pork industry.

This is not to say that a smoking gun will never be found: there is already gossip in the Mexican press about an influenza epicentre around a huge Smithfield subsidiary in Veracruz state. But what matters more (especially given the continued threat of H5N1) is the larger configuration: the WHO's failed pandemic strategy, the further decline of world public health, the stranglehold of big pharma over lifeline medicines, and the planetary catastrophe of industrialised and ecologically unhinged livestock production."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Israeli health minister has decided that, for reasons of religious sensitivity, the outbreak should not be called swine flu but Mexican flu. That let's the pigs off but will probably upset the Mexicans.

More information here.

Incidentally why did God take against pigs? Didn't he create them? If he thought they were so offensive, why didn't he drown them in that flood?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who's responsible?

The bizarre conspiracy theories have started - see here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

India - the world's largest democracy - starts its 17th general election today as explained here. For some perspective on the event, you might like to read my essay on "A Short Guide To The Indian Political System".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Uruguay has a small population of just 3.4 million, mostly of European origin, half of whom live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. The country has traditionally been better off than many other countries in South America, and is known for its advanced education and social security systems and liberal laws governing social issues such as divorce. It was among the first nations in Latin America to establish a welfare state, maintained through relatively high taxes on industry. The system, which had increasingly strained state finances, was reformed in the 1990s.

Colonial towns, beach resorts and a year-round mild climate have contributed to a growing tourist industry. The economy has also benefited from offshore banking. But a dependence on livestock and related exports has left Uruguay vulnerable to ups and downs in world commodity prices. Recessions in Brazil and Argentina - its main export markets and sources of tourists - propelled the country into economic crisis in 2002.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The west African state of Senegal - a country of 13 million which surrounds The Gambia - has been held up as one of Africa's model democracies. It has an established multi-party system and a tradition of civilian rule and, although poverty is widespread and unemployment is high, one of the region's more stable economies.

The 40-year rule of Senegal's Socialist Party came to a peaceful end in elections in 2000, which were hailed as a rare democratic power transfer on a continent plagued by coups, conflict and election fraud. Abdoulaye Wade took office and won a second term in February 2007.

A long-running, low-level separatist war in the southern Casamance region has claimed hundreds of lives. The conflict broke out over claims by the region's people that they were being marginalised by the Wolof, Senegal's main ethnic group. However, the government and rebels signed a peace pact at the end of 2004, raising hopes for reconciliation.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Croatia, with a population of less than 5 million (mostly Catholics), is one of the new, small countries to emerge from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. It entered the new millennium recovering from a decade of authoritarian nationalism under President Franjo Tudjman and bitter war, but it has now joined the World Trade Organisation and pledged to open up its economy and it has achieved growth and controlled inflation. However, organised crime and mafia-linked violence remain a major concern.

By early 2003, Croatia had made enough progress to apply for European Union membership, becoming the second former Yugoslav republic after Slovenia to do so. Accession talks were postponed because of its failure to detain General Ante Gotovina, wanted by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, but the fugitive general was later arrested in Spain and the country now hopes to become a member of the EU by 2011.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Azerbaijan gained its independence in 1991 as a result of the break-up of the former Soviet Union. It is an oil-rich state and in 1994 signed an oil contract worth $7.4bn with a Western consortium. Since then Western companies have invested millions in the development of the country's oil and gas reserves. Caspian oil is now flowing through a pipeline running from Baku through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, providing western countries with ready access to a vast new source of supply. However, the economy as a whole has not benefited as much as it might have done and living standards among the 8 million Azerbaijanis are low.

As the Soviet Union collapsed, the predominantly Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region stated their intention to secede from Azerbaijan. War broke out. Backed by troops and resources from Armenia proper, the Armenians of Karabakh took control of the region and surrounding territory. In 1994 a ceasefire was signed. About one-seventh of Azerbaijan's territory remains occupied, while 800,000 refugees and internally displaced persons are scattered around the country.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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 165 entries here.

Bavaria - located in the south-east of Germany - is the largest of the 16 Lander that make up the German nation and its capital is Munich. On its own, the Land of Bavaria has a population of 10.5 million which makes it as big as many nation states in Europe. It has long had one of the largest and healthiest economies of any region in Germany or Europe for that matter and its GDP in 2007 exceeded 434 billion Euros (about $600 billion) making it one of the largest economies in Europe and the 18th largest in the world.

Politically Bavaria is very distinctive as well. The conservative Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) has dominated politics since 1957 and won every election since then. The federal conservative party the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) does not operate in Bavaria and the CSU acts as the CDU's sister party there and they form a single faction in the Federal parliament. The difference between the CDU and the CSU is mainly that the CSU is more conservative in domestic and social issues but more progressive in fiscal issues.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The name Pakistan means "Land of (the) Pure" in Urdu and Persian (Farsi). It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, who published it in his pamphlet "Now or Never". The name represented the "thirty million Muslims of PAKISTAN, who live in the five Northern Units of the British Raj — Punjab, Afghania (also known as North-West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan."

Now best-selling British novelist Jeffrey Archer is in trouble with his latest work "Paths of Glory". There are complaints about the book's final section, in which the murder of Lt Col Henry Morshead, a real figure, is blamed on his sister's "Pakistani lover" in 1931. As the press attache to the Pakistani High Commission in London has pointed out: "Pakistan was not created in 1931 so there is no possibility of a Pakistani at that time."

As we have seen, the term was first proposed in 1934 - but the country did not come into existence until 14 August 1947.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently took a cab in London driven by a Tamil exile from Sri Lanka and we discussed the decades long conflict on that island. He surprised me by suggesting that the war was the result of Britain granting independence to what was then Ceylon as a single nation state in 1948 (it was renamed Sri Lanka in 1972).

He said that Britain should have done what it did in India where it attempted to separate out most of the Muslims into Pakistan leaving India as predominantly Hindu. In his view, Ceylon should have been divided into two states - one mainly Sinhalese and the other Tamil.

Of course, as I blogged here, the partition of India involved an horrific price: communal riots resulting in the death of around half a million and the displacement about 14.5 million, followed later by the war between west and east Pakistan, and the failed state that Pakistan continues to represent. If Ceylon had been divided, would it have fared better than has been the experience of Sri Lanka when some 60,000 have died in the long-running war?

I have speculated about the nature of nationhood and the resolution of ethnic conflict in an essay on my web site here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This evening, Vee and I visited our dear young friends Rachael and James for dinner and discussion. Together we watched a DVD of a remarkable and inspiring documentary entitled "The Day After Peace".

Featuring Jude Law, Angelina Jolie, the Dalai Lama, Annie Lennox, Kofi Annan and Jonny Lee Miller, the documentary charts the astonishing 10-year journey of award-winning filmmaker Jeremy Gilley to establish an annual Peace Day on 21 September.

It shows the power of campaigning, even against formidable odds, when the campaigners refuse to give up and political, business and celebrity allies come on board.

Incidentally both Rachael and James are incredibly creative people, she as a ceramicist and he as a furniture designer. Rachael has just opened a web site here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Suriname is the smallest state in terms of area and population in South America. The country is the only Dutch-speaking region in the Western Hemisphere which is not a part of the Netherlands.

Since independence from the Netherlands in 1975, the former Dutch Guiana has endured coups and a civil war. Former military strongman Desi Bouterse dominated politics for much of the post-independence era, but the country is now under civilian rule. The country enjoys a relatively high standard of living but also faces serious political and economic challenges.

Suriname is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the Americas. Most of its less than half a million people are descended from African slaves and Indian and Indonesian indentured servants brought over by the Dutch to work as agricultural labourers. However, there is little assimilation between the different ethnic groups, who confine their contacts to the economic sphere. Similarly, most political parties are ethnically based which acts as a serious obstacle to consensus-building.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mauritius is a volcanic island of lagoons and palm-fringed beaches in the Indian Ocean which has a reputation for stability and racial harmony among its mixed population of one and a quarter million Asians, Europeans and Africans. Various cultures and traditions flourish in peace, although Mauritian Creoles, descendants of African slaves who make up a third of the population, live in poverty and complain of discrimination.

The island has maintained one of the developing world's most successful democracies and has enjoyed years of constitutional order. It has preserved its image as one of Africa's few social and economic success stories, being a sugar and clothing exporter and a centre for upmarket tourism, but Mauritian exports have been hit by strong competition from low-cost textile producers and the loss of sugar subsidies from Europe.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Central African Republic (CAR) has been unstable since its independence from France in 1960 and is one of the least-developed countries in the world. It has endured several coups and a notorious period under a self-declared emperor, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who headed a brutal regime which ended in 1979.

Today General François Bozizé, president and former coup leader, faces instability from mercenaries who helped him to power and from rebels. A pan-African military force (Minurca) has been in place since 2003 to restore order, but violence has spilled over from Sudan and Chad

Decades of instability have undermined the economy. The population of 4.4 million is among the poorest in the world and even the government struggles to pay wages to public sector workers.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've only just seen the 2005 documentary film "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room" [my review here].

There's special chill in seeing this work through the prism on the recent collapse in the global banking system. It makes you realise that, while the guys at the top of Enron may have been particularly creative/crooked, the financial framework that allowed them to get away with massive fraud for so long - a system of deregulation and self-denial - equally permitted the excessive exuberance that brought down the home loans market and then the financial institutions themselves all around the world.

Millions upon millions have lost jobs and homes and livelihoods because regulators and politicians were slaves to the free market. We need new transparent and accountable regulatory systems and they need to be kept in place throughout the inevitable economic cycle. We cannot afford to keep relearning history.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Bahamas is an archipelago of 700 islands and islets in the Caribbean. It only has a population of around 330,000 but it attracts millions of tourists each year to enjoy its mild climate, fine beaches and beautiful forests.

A former British colony and now a Commonwealth member, the country is a major centre for offshore finance and has one of the world's largest open-registry shipping fleets. It enjoys a high per capita income, but there are imbalances in the distribution of wealth, most of which is concentrated in the commercial and tourist centres.

As with other Caribbean countries, the Bahamas faces the challenge of tackling drugs trafficking and illegal immigration. It has taken steps to clean-up its offshore banking system.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 160 entries here.

After World War II, Albania became a Stalinist state under Enver Hoxha, and remained staunchly isolationist until its transition to democracy after 1990. The 1992 elections ended 47 years of communist rule, but the latter half of the decade saw a quick turnover of presidents and prime ministers. Many Albanians left the country in search of work and the money they send home remains an important source of revenue.

During the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, nearly 500,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo spilled over the border, adding to the population of just over 4 million and imposing a huge burden on Albania's already fragile economy. While there have been signs of economic progress with inflation under tighter control and some growth, the country remains one of the poorest in Europe.

It is less than 72 km (45 miles) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea, and it is a potential candidate for membership in the European Union

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Based on a recent Gallup poll of 143 countries (China is the most notable exception), there's some fascinating data and commentary from an American perspective here.

A few key points are:

• "A population's religiosity level is strongly related to its average standard of living. Gallup's World Poll, for example, indicates that 8 of the 11 countries in which almost all residents (at least 98%) say religion is important in their daily lives are poorer nations in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the 10 least religious countries studied include several with the world's highest living standards, including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hong Kong, and Japan."

• "Social scientists have noted that one thing that makes Americans distinctive is our high level of religiosity relative to other rich-world populations. Among 27 countries commonly seen as part of the developed world, the median proportion of those who say religion is important in their daily lives is just 38%. From this perspective, the fact two-thirds of Americans respond this way makes us look extremely devout."

• "... there is wide regional variation in religiosity across the 50 American states ... Lining up these percentages with those on our worldwide list allows us to match residents of the most religious states to the global populations with which they are similar in terms of religiosity ... Alabamians, for example, are about as likely as Iranians to say religion is an important part or their lives. Georgians in the United States are about as religious as Georgians in the Caucasus region."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Five years after the peak of the violence in the Darfur region of western Sudan, some 2.7 million people remain scattered in camps and dependent on an international community that has no clear idea what to do with them, no sure way of protecting them, and no practical plan for a solution.

"We have created an open-ended, ongoing $3bn peacekeeping and humanitarian process that chiefly serves to maintain the miserable status quo, this stasis of misery. There is no end in sight. Under the status quo now prevailing, there is a certain level of violence that has become normal, large parts of the countryside remain depopulated, pro-government and rebel groups work as bandits, for and against each other, Unamid [the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur] is ineffective, carjacking and robbery has become a regional industry, and millions are stuck in the camps. People say it can't go on indefinitely like this. But unless something radical changes, it will."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier this week, I joined the audience for a recorded television debate headlined "What is to become of Gaza?". The programme was shot as part of the Forum series for PressTV, an Iranian news network with a studio in Chiswick in London.

The event was chaired by Labour Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn. The panel members were Manuel Hassassian, billed as Palestinian 'ambassador' to the UK, Ismail Patel, Chair of Friends Al Aqsa, Barry Marston, a British Foreign Office spokesman, and Eric Lee, billed as journalist and author.

Two years ago I travelled to Israel with Eric [see my account here] but, on the subject of Israel's assault on Gaza, we have agreed to differ.

If you live in the UK and you have digital television, you can watch the debate on Sky channel 515 at 8.05 pm on Tuesday 20 January. The alternative is to watch the programme on the PressTV web site here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The central African nation of Malawi was a British colony until 1964 and previously known as Nyasaland.

For three decades, Malawi's destiny was tied to the whims of its totalitarian president-for-life, Kamuzu Banda, who enjoyed being surrounded by dancing women and who encouraged people to betray relatives who criticised his rule. In the mid-1990s, he buckled under popular pressure to hold elections, and lost - finally giving the 14 million Malawians a taste for multi-party democracy.

His successor, Bakili Muluzi, removed many of the repressions of the Banda years, but the leadership was accused of corruption. Social problems persist, including poverty and the high rate of HIV-Aids infection. Most Malawians rely on subsistence farming, but the food supply situation is precarious and the country is prone to natural disasters of both extremes - from drought to heavy rainfalls - putting it in constant need of thousands of tonnes of food aid every year.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The only English-speaking country in South America,the former British colony of Guyana became independent in 1966.

Around half of the population of around 850,000 are the descendants of indentured Indian agricultural workers brought in by the British after slavery was abolished. A third is descended from African slaves, imported by the Dutch to work on sugar plantations. Persistent tension between these two groups has fuelled political instability and is reflected in hostility between the two main parties, which are ethnically-based.

Guyana boasts a remarkably rich ecology, but also has one of South America's poorest economies. Tropical rain forests are a big draw for eco-tourists, but political troubles, ethnic tension and economic mismanagement have left the former British colony with serious economic problems.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Papua New Guinea (PNG) occupies the eastern part of the world's second largest island (the western part of the island called New Guinea is part of Indonesia) and it is prey to volcanic activity, earthquakes and tidal waves. A very small proportion of the land can sustain cash crops, including coffee and cocoa, but abundant rain forests provide the raw material for a logging industry.

Some 80% of PNG's population of 6.3 million live in rural areas with few or no facilities. Linguistically, it is the world's most diverse country, with more than 700 native tongues. Many tribes in the isolated mountainous interior have little contact with each other, let alone with the outside world, and live within a non-monetarised economy, dependent on subsistence agriculture.

PNG had to deal with separatist forces on the island of Bougainville in the 1990s. Up to 20,000 people were killed in the nine-year conflict which ended in 1997.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once the heart of one of the largest and longest-lasting empires in Europe (the Austro-Hungarian Empire), along with Switzerland, Austria now forms Europe's neutral core. After annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and then Allied occupation, Austria's 1955 State Treaty declared the country "permanently neutral". The capital, Vienna, is home to key international organisations, including the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

There were some questions surrounding Austria's neutrality when two thirds of voters in a country of over 8 million citizens supported European Union (EU) membership in a referendum in 1994 and entry followed in 1995. The arrival into Austria's coalition government of the far-right Freedom Party in February 2000 sent shock waves across Europe and, for a time, Austria's relations with the EU were severely strained after some states imposed sanctions in protest. Two Right-wing political parties remain quite strong.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 155 entries here.

Dominated by the Al-Thani family for almost 150 years, the mainly barren country of Qatar was a British protectorate until 1971, when it declared its independence after following suit with Bahrain and refusing to join the United Arab Emirates. This former pearl-fishing centre, once one of the poorest Gulf states, is now one of the richest countries in the region, thanks to the exploitation of large oil and gas fields since the 1940s.

In 1952, the year that the Sheikh was born, Qatar had fewer than 40,000 people, most of them barefoot nomads and fisherman, and not a single school. According to IMF figures, the country now has 950,000 residents and they have just surpassed those of Luxembourg to become the richest, while the nation hosts Education City, a complex of branch campuses from some of the world's most prestigious colleges.

Diplomatically Qatar follows a subtle course: it hosts and helps to fund the satellite channel al-Jazeera but it invited the Americans to set up an important airbase near the capital Doha.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The blogosphere and new media are another war zone and we have to be relevant there."

This is a quote from an article in the "Times" on how both sides in the conflict are making unprecedented efforts to put their case on the Net. Certainly I've received impassioned e-mails and links to on-line articles from supporters of both sides.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over the next week, we're going to see a lot of media pieces marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro. The dictator Batista fled the island on 1 January 1959 and Castro entered Havana on 8 January 1959.

A year ago, I spent many weeks reading the 700+ pages of "My Life", a transcript of over 100 hours of interviews with Fidel Castro recorded with Ignacio Ramonet [my review here]. Then my wife and I spent a fascinating week visiting various locations in Cuba [my account here].

There's an insightful joke about the Cuban revolution: “What are the three achievements of the Revolution? Health, education and sports. What are the three failures? Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Certainly the present political and economic situation in the country is neither desirable nor sustainable and there's a wonderful opportunity to break the deadlock with the arrival in the White House of President Barack Obama.

He has already promised to close the prison camp at Guantanamo on the island. He should immediately arrange for easier access to the Cuban Five [for an explanation, see here] and then order a full review of the case. He should immediately ease the American embargo on Cuba and progressively eliminate it. The whole of the United Nations opposes the embargo except the USA itself and Israel, the Marshall islands and Nauru.

For its part, the Communist leadership in Cuba should response quickly and positively to initiatives from Barack Obama, releasing political prisoners and easing travel restrictions. The reforms instigated by Raul Castro need to be broadened and accelerated, especially in the area of land and agricultural reform.

The people of Cuba are desperate for economic and political reforms and for improvements in their living standards, but they don't want their country to become an outpost of the United States or a plaything for American capitalism.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 of Israel, I am more critical of the country than Eric. You can read my account of the visit here.

Roll forwards to today: New Year's Eve. Now, for eight years, we've had a traditional of seeing in the New Year with Eric. The trouble is that Israel has just launched its assault on Gaza, almost 400 people have been killed in the last four days, and Eric and I don't see this the same way at all. He has made his views very clear in a passionate piece published on the blog Harry's Place which has attracted lots of comments.

And my view? In brief:

I support Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself and I accept that there is a lot of double think on the Left as elsewhere about Israel, but the current action is massively disproportionate by any reasonable numerical, military or political measure and we are entitled to hold Israel to different standards than the likes of Saddam Hussein's Iraq because it is a friend of the West, it is supplied by the USA, and it is a functioning democracy.

Clearly Hamas provoked this action - and probably wanted it - by the repeated rocket attacks on the civilian population of Israel. But, equally clearly, the timing and nature of the massive over-reaction by Israel is conditioned by electoral calculations rather than a calm reflection on what would best promote security and peace for Israel beyond the coming election.

What is Israel is doing is not simply wrong, it is wholly counterproductive. It is undermining support among its friends around the world, it is giving Israel's many opponents a wonderful propaganda weapon, and it is actually strengthening the resolve of Hamas and aiding its recruitment efforts.

As for tonight, I think that Eric and I will have to agree not to talk about the war.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Spare a thought though for those all around the world who are literally starving. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), although food prices have more than halved from their historic peaks a few months ago, the cost of basic staples is still high 28% higher on average than two years ago which has led to an increase in the number of people unable to afford to eat enough calories to lead a normal, active life.

The FAO's hunger report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008", found that there are now estimated to be 963 million people, 14% of the world's population, going hungry, up by 40 million from last year. The majority of the hungry live in the developing world, 65% of them in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.

More information on the FAO report here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:32 AM | Permalink

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 neo-con right-wing measures. He's in a minority government situation and the opposition suddenly developed a spine and have decided to move non-confidence...bring him down and have signed a pact to create a centre-left coalition government drawn from the Liberal and New Democratic parties but with the tacit support of the Bloc Quebecois.

The non-confidence motion was supposed to be introduced on Monday, but Harper went to the Governor-General and got her to "prorogue" Parliament till the end of January. So in effect, the MP's are "locked out" of Parliament till the new year. The "GG's" decision flies in the face of Parliamentary history here. Last time something like this happened (1926) the GG called in the opposition parties to form a government...rather than force another election (what the governing party at that time had asked for).

I think this is only just starting to get covered outside of Canada the last couple of days...saw something on the BBC website yesterday. Canadian politics has suddenly become not so boring! I've posted a couple of things on my blog here."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 - to return.

Niue operates in free association with New Zealand, its main source of aid and its biggest trading partner. New Zealand is obliged under the island's constitution to provide "necessary economic and administrative assistance". All Niueans are New Zealand citizens and can take up residency there.

Technology-savvy Niue has embraced the internet. It earns money from the sale of its suffix and in 2003 it became the first territory to offer a free wireless internet service to all residents.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 of some 86 million - is a one-party communist state which has one of world's fastest-growing economies, joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007, and has set its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2020. Deep poverty, defined as a percent of the population living under $1 per day, has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines.

I have travelled most of the length of Vietnam - see here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 fledgling tourist industry, Dominica - a country of only 73,000 - is attempting to reduce its reliance on bananas, traditionally its main export earner. The trade has faced stiffer competition since the European Union was forced by the World Trade Organisation to phase out preferential treatment for producers from former colonies. Although it is among the poorest countries in the region, its differences in wealth distribution are not as marked as in the larger Caribbean islands.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 has been spared the internal strife that has blighted many African states.

Unlike other African countries, whose potential wealth contrasts with their actual poverty, Tanzania has few exportable minerals. In recent years, the economy has grown, though at the price of painful fiscal reforms. Tourism is an important revenue earner; Tanzania's attractions include Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, and wildlife-rich national parks such as the Serengeti.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:58 AM | Permalink

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 right. It covers 2,166,086 sq km (836,109 sq mi) but some 80% is covered by ice and it only has a population of about 58,000. Greenland has been ruled by Denmark but, in 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland. In November 2008, a referendum among the Greenlanders voted for more increased autonomy which might lead to full independence.

Under the referendum's plan the annual Danish subsidy of about 3.5 billion kroner (about £395 million), equal to around two-thirds of the island's economy, would be replaced. The new arrangement would give Greenland the first 75 million kroner of annual oil revenue, with any income beyond that split equally between Greenland and Denmark. Extensive exploration has already been undertaken and other countries are also making claims to areas likely to be exposed by global warming as the Arctic ice cap melts.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:57 AM | Permalink

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 - see here.

Another such case has been this week's terrible atrocities in the Indian city of Mumbai. An early examination of how information on the attacks made available on the Net was much quicker - but not always more accurate - than that of the conventional media can be found here. There is already a detailed page on Wikipedia - see here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 02:52 PM | Permalink

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 that ousted the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawathra
• wants to remove the current Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat
• has prevented the cabinet meeting
• has forced the cancellation of a session of the parliament
• has brought about the closure of the main international airport

Further information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the eve of Barack Obama assuming the United States' presidency, we have the publication of the four yearly assessment of global trends prepared by the National Intelligence Council: "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World".

On the position of the USA, the report's executive summary states:

"By 2025 the US will find itself as one of a number of important actors on the world stage, albeit still the most powerful one. Even in the military realm, where the US will continue to possess considerable advantages in 2025, advances by others in science and technology, expanded adoption of irregular warfare tactics by both state and nonstate actors, proliferation of long-range precision weapons, and growing use of cyber warfare attacks increasingly will constrict US freedom of action. A more constrained US role has implications for others and the likelihood of new agenda issues being tackled effectively.

Despite the recent rise in anti-Americanism, the US probably will continue to be seen as a much-needed regional balancer in the Middle East and Asia. The US will continue to be expected to play a significant role in using its military power tocounter global terrorism. On newer security issues like climate change, US leadership will be widely perceived as critical to leveraging competing and divisive views to find solutions. At the same time, the multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships. Developments in the rest of the world, including internal developments in a number of key states—particularly China and Russia—are also likely to be crucial determinants of US policy."

You can read the full 99-page report here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I take a cab, I always sit in the front and I always talk to the driver. Every driver has a story and, here in London, usually it is a story which begins in a foreign land.

This morning, I took a cab, engaged the driver in conversation, and asked him where he came from. His answer was "Kurdistan". Now there is no such country, so I asked him which part of Kurdistan and he told me "Iraq".

He then lambasted me with criticism of the US role in Iraq and the case for the Kurdish part of Iraq to be granted independence. He told me that the Kurds had been promised independence at the end of the First World War - which is true - and that the best thing for Iraq would be Kurdish independence - which is not true.

In fact, some two and a half years ago, I wrote about Kurdistan [see here] as one of the first entries (actually number 11) in my long-running series called Forgotten World (now with 150 entries).

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

He insists that he is not the German Barack Obama. But, in 1994, he became the first ethnic Turk to be elected to the German parliament. In 2004, he won a seat in the European Parliament. And this week he was elected co-leader of the German Green Party. He is Cem Özdemir.

More information here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A year and a half ago, I had a week's holiday in Israel [see my account here] which including a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. I wrote then:

"Now, in its own way, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is as bizarre as the Western Wall. Un-Christian as this may seem, control of the church and access to various parts of it are vigorously – and sometimes violently – contested by no less than six Christian denominations. Since 1767, the primary custodians have been the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Apostolic and the Roman Catholic churches and then, in the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox churches acquired lesser responsibilities."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:12 PM | Permalink

Last night, I stayed up watching CNN until 3 am London time before I had to crash out. By then, I was sure that Barack Obama had won the American presidential election even though the network had still not called it for the Democratic candidate. This evening, together with my American friend Eric Lee, I was down at the central London restaurant Texas Embassy for a joyous celebration event organised by the Democrats Abroad UK.

Last night was not actually as thrilling as I expected because, unlike a British general election night, we did not have a lot of actual results with increasingly accurate forecasts of the final tally; instead we had various exit polls and very partial state results based on small portions of the total vote and the networks were so cautious that they didn't want to estimate the final outcome until I was fast asleep. Even now, I don't know the full result - we're still waiting for North Carolina (15 votes) and Missouri (11 votes).

But let me offer my first thoughts.

We have reached the end of the longest, the most expensive, the most exciting, and quite simply the most surprising US presidential race of my six decades. For a generation, we will compare future races to this one and describe them as'the most whatever' since the Obama victory.

In both the Democratic primaries and the general election, Barack Obama ran a near flawless campaign - always on message, positive and hopeful, immensely fluent, and utterly dignified. He had a brilliant organisation on the ground backed by thousands and thousands of enthusiastic volunteers, made very sophisticated use of the Net, and secured jaw-dropping amounts of money.

The result was an outstanding success. A week ago, I blogged "I reckon that Obama could win the national vote by around 5-7% and win the Electoral College by 60-70 votes". We don't know the final result yet, but it looks as if Obama took about 6% more of the national vote than John McCain so that I was spot on here. However, the oddities of the Electoral College and the brilliance of the Obama campaign mean that my guess on the College margin of victory was a serious underestimate. Obama won not just the large battleground states of Florida (27 votes), Pennsylvania (21) and Ohio (20), but garnered traditional Republican states too.

So the 44th President of the United States will be the first African-American in the Oval Office. The importance of this for Americans and the world can hardly be overstated. To every American who voted for Obama - yes you did and the world thanks you.

Now we have to have realistic expectations. As Obama put it in his amusing speech to the New York charity event, he was not born in a manger. The challenges he faces - at home and abroad - are huge and, talented and charismatic as he is, he can only achieve so much. But he has a landslide victory, solid majorities in both the House and the Senate, some outstanding advisers, and the goodwill of the world.

I'll be watching and I'll be blogging.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thank you, America.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"The usage of the two campaign Web sites (www.johnmccain.com and www.barackobama.com) can be tracked like any other large Web site via services like Hitwise, Alexa, Compete and Google Trends, to name a few. Overall, traffic to the campaign Web sites shows very clear trends regardless of data source. Hitwise shows a consistent 2-to-1 advantage in unique site visitors for Obama's official campaign site in a head-to-head comparison, from August through early October -- with the exception of a significant narrowing of that gap around the week of the Republican National Convention."

"Using DomainTools to query for domains, we saw 2,357 domains for Obama and 1,431 domains for McCain. When we stemmed the query to domains just having either "Obama" or "McCain" included in them, we saw 5,378 for McCain and 11,089 for Obama."

So, however, you measure it Net traffic favours Obama. Now let's see if the voters do. Less than one hour before the first polls close ...

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I first blogged about Barack Obama on 12 April 2004 [see that posting here]. I blogged 11 times on the Illinois Senate race won by Obama on 4 November 2004. In my last posting on the election, I wrote:

"I was delighted to see Barack Obama become the junior senator for Illinois and the only black member of the new Senate. This blog has been tracking his progress for many months. He is an able and inspiring politician who is destined to go far and maybe even as far as the White House one day."

"In an article in today's "Observer" newspaper, reference is made to Maureen Dowd, a "New York Times" columnist, who has dubbed the possible battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as 'Hillzilla vs Obambi', implying that the newcomer will be crushed by Clinton's experience and money. Don't you believe it. There is a desperate desire in the USA for an exciting new face and right now Obama does not need money to win publicity."

So I guess you could say that I'm fan of Barack Obama. Tomorrow I expect him to be elected the President of the United States and, starting on 20 January 2009, I expect him to become one of the finest presidents in American history - a man who sees the world differently and a man who is seen differently by the world, a figure of truly global and historic importance, both inspirational and transformational. He will make mistakes, he will disappoint us, but his heart is true and his mind is sharp and he will be in the White House for the next eight years and in the history books for ever.

The world is watching.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Barack Obama (playing himself) pals around with Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) to discuss
"The West Wing" and how to spread the wealth

For me, the best entertainment television ever produced was "The West Wing". I watched every episode of every one of the seven series as they were first broadcast; then I rewatched every episode of every one of the first five series on DVD; and the DVDs of series six & seven are on my Christmas list.

So, like many other "West Wing" fans I could not fail to notice the similarities between the real life Barack Obama and the fictional Matt Santos - except that we now know that the Santos character was modelled on Obama in a case of art imitating life before seemingly life imitates art.

As it looks ever likely that Obama will win the presidency, more and more commentators are picking up on the Obama/Santos comparison including stories this week on both sides of the Atlantic - such as this piece in the "Guardian" and this item in the "New York Times".

Of course, the pre-election comparison is between Obama and the Santos character, but post-election the better comparison might well be between Obama and the Jed Bartlet character (played by Martin Sheen). After all, both are very well-educated, both are academics, both are liberal, both are immensely fluent, both are calm and considered - just what you want in a US President.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A week tomorrow, Americans go to the polls for a Presidential election - plus all the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate (including Joe Biden's seat!) - in what seems to have been the longest and has certainly been the most exciting race that I can remember. Between now and 4 November, every opinion poll will be seized upon and analysed. It is likely that the national polls will show some fluctuation and overall some narrowing of Obama's lead over McCain, but we shouldn't pay too much attention to these polls. Why?

First, because these polls relate to how those who say they are likely to vote say how they are likely to vote - which is not the same as actually going to the polls and and actually voting for the candidate in question. More than in previous elections, there has been a record number of new registrations (especially by Democrats) and there is likely to be a record turnout (especially by young and black voters). Obama - the former community organiser - has a formidable organisation on the ground and this should make a crucial difference that might even mean his position is understated in the national polls.

Second, because the President is not chosen by a national vote of the people but by an Electoral College of the states. Each state is represented on the basis of a combination of the number of members in the Senate (two for each state regardless of size) and the number of members in the House of Representatives (roughly proportional to population). The states with the largest number of votes are California (55), Texas (34) and New York (31). The states with the smallest number of votes - there are six of them - have only three votes. The District of Columbia, which has no voting representation in Congress, has three electoral votes. In effect, therefore, the Presidential election is not one election but 51.

The total Electoral College vote is 538. This means that, to become President, a candidate has to win at least 270 electoral votes. The voting system awards the Electoral College votes from each state to delegates committed to vote for a certain candidate in a "winner take all" system, with the exception of Nebraska and Maine (which award their Electoral College votes according to Congressional Districts rather than for the state as a whole).

In practice, most states are firmly Democrat - for instance, California and New York - or firmly Republican - for instance, Texas and Tennessee. Therefore, candidates concentrate their appearances and resources on the so-called "battleground states", those that might go to either party. The three largest battleground or swing states are Florida (27 votes), Pennsylvannia (21) and Ohio (20).

Now Obama is doing very well in all the battleground states and even encroaching into states that usually are reliable Republican causes. Check out this allocation of states to the candidates by CNN based on all the polls and other political intelligence. Now, if CNN is right, McCain could win all the states said to be safe for him, all the states said to be leaning to him and all the states said to be a toss-up and he would still lose the election.

So I might be influenced by my long-term enthusiasm for Obama and I might look silly after the election, but I reckon that Obama could win the national vote by around 5-7% and win the Electoral College by 60-70 votes.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It isn't over yet- and every vote will count. Even mine?

Footnote: The video was sent to me by a friend - from Sweden!

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The current United States Presidential election campaign has understandably created great interest all around the world but American politics is not always easy to understand. Even how the Americans actually choose their President is so different from anything in any other country.

Therefore, in recent weeks, I've had a lot of visits to my web page on the American political system. I've recently revised the essay and added some more information on the method of election of the President so, with the actual election fast approaching (4 November), you might want to check it out here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The tiny northern Pacific nation of Palau - which only became independent of United States administration in 1994 - consists of more than 200 volcanic and coral islands, many of them surrounded by a single barrier reef, and its tropical waters are home to an abundance of marine life, making the pace a paradise for divers.

The population of just 20,000 relies on financial aid from the USA, provided under a Compact of Free Association which gives the US responsibility for Palau's defence and the right to maintain military bases there. Direct aid is set to end in 2009.

Tourism is low key, though growing in economic importance. Many visitors come from Taiwan, with which Palau has diplomatic ties. Taiwanese aid boosts the economy.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a small country with few natural resources, but it has played a pivotal role in the struggle for power in the Middle East. Jordan's significance results partly from its strategic location at the crossroads of what most Christians, Jews and Muslims call the Holy Land. It is one of two Arab nations to have made peace with Israel and is a key ally of the United States.

The desert kingdom emerged out of the post-World War I division of the Middle East by Britain and France. The population at that time was made up largely of bedouin tribesmen, who were followers of King Hussein's grandfather, Abdullah - himself originally from Arabia. Today, these families - known as East Bank Jordanians - are outnumbered by the descendants of Palestinian refugees from Israel and the West Bank. The total population now is 6 million.

Unlike many of the states in the region, Jordan has no oil of its own. Its resources are limited to phosphates and agricultural produce. The economy depends largely on services, tourism and foreign aid, for which the US is the main provider. Jordan prides itself on its health service, one of the best in the region.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last year, I visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In my account of the holiday, I wrote:

"There has been a great deal of reconstruction and investment is slowly coming in from abroad, but there is still unemployment of around one-third and the divisions are greater than ever: this small country with half the population of London has no less than three presidents (Bosniak, Croat and Serb); there is much, much less integration of communities than before the war; children are being taught three different histories in their respective schools; and there are even three different mobile systems used by the three ethnic communities. As one very knowledgeable observer of the political scene put it to us on our visit: 'The bottom line is that the situation is a mess - and it's getting worse'".

"Almost exactly 13 years ago, American leadership brought an end to Bosnia's three-and-a-half-year war through the Dayton peace agreement. Today the country is in real danger of collapse. As in 1995, resolve and transatlantic unity are needed if we are not to sleepwalk into another crisis."

"Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, should initiate an independent study tasked to produce a new transatlantic policy, backed by Washington's full engagement and strong EU conditionality, which can lead to deeper and broader international involvement in Bosnia. A collapse of the Dayton peace agreement would be an unnecessary and unwanted additional problem for the new White House administration."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend of mine in the United States - a supporter of Barack Obama - has drawn my attention to this video clip of a frank discussion of the race issue in the presidential election from trade union leader Richard Trumka :

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Vatican was created by the Lateran Treaty of 1929. It is the smallest independent state in the world - a mere 0.44 sq km (0.17 sq mile) - and the residence of the spiritual leadership of the Roman Catholic church. Its territory is completely surrounded by the Italian capital Rome, while priests and nuns of many nationalities make up much of the resident population of around 900. The official language of the tiny state is Latin.

The Vatican has been headed by the German Pope Benedict XVI since Pope John Paul II died in 2005, after a 26-year pontificate.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Zambia is landlocked and sparsely populated by more than 70 ethnic groups, many of them Bantu-speaking, with a total population of 12 million. When it gained its independence from Britain in 1964, the country switched from colonial government into an era of one-party rule lasting 27 years. A multi-party system emerged in the early 1990s. The late president Levy Mwanawasa, who served from 2001-2008, won respect for his anti-corruption drive and sound economic management. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Western donors have rewarded this by cutting Zambia's foreign debt.

In the late 1960s, Zambia was the third largest copper miner, after the USA and the Soviet Union. World copper prices collapsed in 1975 with devastating effects on the economy. However, more recently, improved copper prices and investment in mining have improved prospects for export earnings. The World Bank has urged Zambia to develop other sources of revenue including tourism and agriculture. The country has some spectacular scenery, including the Victoria Falls which it shares with neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Please watch this clip of Michele Bachmann, a member of the US Congress from Minnesota, being interviewed on "Hardball", a leading American talk show:

Then read this article by Michael Tomasky, editor of "Guardian America".

McCarthy may be dead - but clearly McCarthyism is alive and kicking. When a black man is elected President of the United States in two weeks, I hope that McCarthy spins in his grave and that Bachmann has lost her seat in the Congress.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's been almost two months since I've run a 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 145 entries here.

Honduras is one of the least developed and least secure countries in Central America. Military rule, corruption, a huge wealth gap, crime and natural disasters have devastated the nation of 7.5 million.

Endemic poverty, chronic unemployment and the prospects offered by drug trafficking have contributed to a virulent crime wave conducted mainly by youth gangs known as "maras". The "maras" are said to have tens of thousands of members and use threats and violence to control poorer districts in towns and cities. Meanwhile, police officers have been implicated in high-profile crimes, and the police are thought to have been involved in the murders by death squads of youths and street children.

Until the mid-1980s Honduras was dominated by the military, which enthusiastically supported US efforts to stem revolutionary movements in the region. Since then, civilian leaders have sought to curb the power of the military - with varying degrees of success. Some army officers have been charged with human rights abuses, but many have still to be prosecuted for violations committed in the 1980s.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"Obama's performance in the South could mark a new phase in American politics. The South has been the modern Republican party's spiritual home. The social conservative revolution was born here. It is the land of the Bible Belt and social values. Yet the Republican party is facing a serious challenge here for the first time since Bill Clinton.

And Obama is no southern white conservative governor like Clinton. He is a liberal black senator from Chicago. If he wins even three of the traditionally Republican southern states, it might be heralded as the start of something almost revolutionary."

If this article is correct, the United States may be on the verge of something like a second revolution. One hardly dares to hope ...

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In the mid 1970s, I served as a Special Adviser in the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson and Jim Callahgan. I remember that in 1975 inflation in the UK reached an annual rate of 25%. It was suggested by the media at the time that no modern nation state could survive such a rate of inflation for very long and it was rapidly reduced by a tough incomes policy.

Yet what has been happening in Zimbabwe in recent years defies comprehension. A friend of mine was on holiday in Zambia this summer and bought this Zimbabwean 100 billion dollar note.

At the time (end of July 2008), it was worth around 40 pence.

The latest news suggested that inflation in Zimbabwe has now risen to 231 million %. Meanwhile the power-sharing agreement concluded in September between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai has still not been implemented.

I have no idea how any economy can function with such an inflation rate or how the people of Zimbabwe are surviving. This story tries to give a sense of what life is like in such appalling circumstances

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In the (unlikely) event that Barack Obama does not become President of the United States, he could become a comedian:

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There are lots of candidates for blame over the crisis facing the world's financial markets: the bankers, the speculators, the regulators, the politicians, or all of us for racking up debt and being so greedy.

But there's another possible culprit: computer software. Apparently calculating whether to buy or sell shares - and especially derivatives - is too complicated and time-sensitive that humans cannot do it and software based on complicated algorithms has been doing it for us. So it's the machines that provoked the crisis.

You can read a discussion of this theory here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This evening, I spent one and a half hours watching a recording of the third and last debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. This was the liveliest debate of the three because it was up close and personal. McCain kept referring to some character called Joe the Plumber but Obama was once again the more assured and convincing. I'm not the only one who thought Obama won - in the first poll, 58% made him the winner compared to 31% for McCain.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a fun page with all sorts of little delights for you to discover as you move and click your cursor.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"Thanks particularly to the month-long financial crisis, Republicans are in extremely poor shape with the election three weeks away. This means the worst case scenario is now a distinct possibility: a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic Senate with a filibuster-proof majority, and a Democratic House with a bolstered majority."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've now managed to watch the whole of the second of the Presidential election campaign debates between Barack Obama and John McCain. This time the format was different - what the Americans call a town hall meeting with a small audience and the contestants walking around

McCain was better than last time and opened strong with a new initiative on the economic crisis, but overall again Obama was the more fluent and persuasive and altogether more credible. Given that McCain is behind, the debate was a clear victory for the Democratic cause.

The moderator struggled to get the candidates to stick to the time limits and the format that the candidates had previously agreed. Maybe it would have been better if the debate had no rules which would have echoed that wonderful episode in the last series of "The West Wing".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

At a meeting of the Board of Consumer Focus this week, I made a contribution which mentioned the black swan theory popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book "The Black Swan".

You can find a brief explanation of the black swan theory here and you can find an article on the concept in the context of financial markets here.

The article concludes:

"Currently, there are clear global risk factors: rising interest rates, the renewed threat of inflation, the slowing US economy, geopolitical instability. And yet global stock markets glide serenely higher. Clearly, investors believe that markets will ride out any short-term problems and believe they have factored in all the risks. But Black Swan thinking tells us to expect the unexpected."

This article was published on 10 May 2007.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You've probably never heard of them and neither have most Americans, but in Latin America - and especially Cuba, their case is infamous.

They are five Cubans who were arrested in 1998 and tried in 2001 in Miami. René González, Geraldo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino and Fernando González, were convicted and sentenced to terms varying from 15 years (René González) to double life plus 15 years (Hernández).

The US authorities accused them of terrorism; they claim that they infiltrated extremist groups in the States who were themselves planning terrorist acts in Cuba.

With the help of a legal team headed by the veteran American civil rights lawyer Leonard Weinglass, they appealed and in 2005 won the right to a retrial outside Florida. But the prosecution appealed, the retrial was stalled, and the case is now due to go to the US Supreme Court in December.

I first came across the Five when I was on holiday in Cuba this Spring - everywhere there are billboards highlighting the case as you can see from my account of the trip. This month, the wives of two of the men - neither of whom has been able to see her husband since his imprisonment - are in Britain to publicise the case which has led to this this article.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Trade unions in more than 100 countries, from Fiji across the globe to Alaska, are mobilising today to demand change in the world economy, as the financial crisis threatens the livelihoods of millions upon millions of people worldwide. The campaign is called Work Day For Decent Work.

“Working people have had enough of policies which have delivered vast wealth to a tiny few who have profited from lax or non-existent regulation of financial markets, while those who actually produce the goods and services of the real economy have seen their wages stagnate or fall. The ITUC’s Founding Congress in 2006 launched the call for this world day of action, to demand a fundamental transformation of globalisation, ending the policies of free market neo-liberalism which have brought us to the very edge of a catastrophic global recession. The time for that change is now”, said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Something you should know about John McCain here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Something you should know about Sarah Palin here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"A 30-year experiment has come to an end. The world of go-getting investment banks has gone forever. The danger is that we go from feast to famine; debt remains a vital element in any economy, and if we too suddenly try to live without it we will crush ourselves economically.

What we are witnessing is a system failure that requires a systemic response – the creation of a new system that sponsors a fairer, more productive capitalism in its place, while maintaining high flows of credit and debt.

This is a terrifying moment; but it is also our generation's once- in-a-lifetime chance to change British capitalism. Brown has an awesome responsibility to his party and his country. I hope he rises to the challenge."

These are the final words in a thoughtful article by Will Hutton in a special 12-page "Observer" newspaper supplement on "The 2008 Crash".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Should Americans vote?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The second of the four debates between the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates - the only one between the No 2s on the slate - was held at 2 am British time, so we recorded it from CNN and watched it over breakfast this morning. I found it even more riveting than the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, mainly because it was a livelier affair with both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin giving really spirited responses.

Palin exceeded expectations and did really well. She avoided answering questions she didn't like and kept returning to her comfort zone of energy policy, but she had memorised her talking points very effectively and spoke fluently. Biden was the more assured and confident and altogether more authoritative. I reckon that on points he won.

Either way, no candidate made a gaff or gave a truly memorable quote so, as the Americans put it, this debate was no game changer. Since Obama is currently in the lead in the polls, that really means that the contest was a success for him.

Over the next few weeks, Palin (and Biden) will have many less scripted moments when they may yet damage their causes but, for now, it's on to the second debate between Obama and McCain.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Can Americans trust John McCain with their economy?

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I know that there's a ton of media coverage about the US Presidential election and that that I've written constantly about it on NightHawk but, if you only read one article about the contest, make sure it's this one.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

A large part of China's remarkable economic development has been achieved at the expense of the basic rights of millions of former state-owned enterprise workers, states a new report released by the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin and Canada's International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, commonly known as Rights & Democracy.

"No Way Out: Worker Activism in China's State-Owned Enterprise Reforms" is based on five years of research. It draws extensively on China Labour Bulletin's litigation in defence of worker's rights.

The publication studies the many ways the restructuring and privatisation of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the last 20 years have violated the human rights of the workers laid-off in the process. Violations documented include the systematic exclusion of former SOE workers from official channels of redress, criminalisation of labour protests, and the denial of workers' rights to social security, to an adequate standard of living, to freedom of association and to freedom from arbitrary detention.

You can access the report here.

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The first of the four debates between the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates was held at 2 am British time, so we recorded it from CNN and watched it over breakfast this morning.

Here in the UK, we have nothing like these gladiatorial televised contests but, if we did, the moderator would have been sharper and more interventionist than the PBS guy.

I thought that Barack Obama was the more assured, confident and fluent, but John McCain scored the cruelest blow with his joke about the US and Iranian presidents sitting down to discuss Israel. I felt that Obama was a lot stronger in the early discussion of the financial crisis, but that McCain was a bit more heavyweight in the foreign affairs section later on.

Both candidates did well and the debate was high quality but, although I may be biased, I believe that Obama was the winner. This is the outcome suggested by the earliest poll. The time spent preparing for these debates, however, is exceeded only by the time spent spinning them as explained in this article.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"The West Wing" was my all-time favourite television programme and the election battle between a minority Democratic candidate Matt Santos and a maverick Republican candidate Arnie Vinick beautifully anticipated the real-life contest between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Jeb Bartlet was the best President the US never had and hopefully Barack Obama will be one of the best Presidents America ever had. Suppose the two were to meet now? What would Jeb say to Barack? Speculate no more - it's all here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I've always said that, if the world could vote in the US Presidential election, it would choose Barack Obama. Now "The Economist" magazine is running a world-wide on-line poll.

Votes are cast on a country-wide level. Each country is assigned a number of votes according to the size of its population ( "electoral-college votes" on the model of America's actual electoral-college system). Then all the countries' votes are tallied, to determine each candidate's worldwide total. You can see at a glance which countries are pro-Obama or pro-McCain, along with their respective vote percentages. The candidate with the most electoral-college votes will win the worldwide election.

So far, Obama is running away with it as you'll see here.

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At the end of the most tumultuous week on capital markets since the Wall Street Crash of 1929, there is a sense of utter bewilderment - and powerless - from ordinary citizens. Is it possible to give a short and layperson's explanation of why all this has happened?

It all started about a decade ago with the development of many of the credit derivatives that were intended to remove risk from the balance sheets of banks and mortgage companies making loans to those least likely to be able to pay them (the so-called sub-prime market). The idea was to separate the default risk on loans from the loans themselves. The risk would be moved into an off-balance sheet device.

The banks argued that, by trading such credit derivatives, they had spread their risk elsewhere and therefore needed lower reserves to protect against loan defaults. Regulators in the US and the UK allowed this and the banks loaned ever more. It was a huge success and the market for credit derivatives grew rapidly. However, one of the fall-outs from the current crisis is the call that banks should carry their own risk.

It's like I wrote in my earlier posting: it's all down to derivatives and deregulation.

So, who's to blame? At the end of this feature in today's "Guardian", no less than 14 villains are named. They include the Bush administration and the Brown government who may have steadied the markets by this weekend but who got us into this mess in the first place.

Both the sense that a financial crisis is not the time to change leader and some uncharacteristic decisiveness by Brown this week suggest that he'll get through the Labour Party Conference without serious challenge - but I still feel that his resignation is simply a matter of time.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

An American friend of mine is a full-time worker in the Barack Obama election campaign. He's just drawn my attention to this video from the campaign manager David Plouffe which shows why Obama's position is stronger than the overall polls are suggesting:

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"The collapse of Lehman Brothers, the swallowing up of Merrill Lynch, the threat to the world's biggest insurance company, AIG, and the nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, together with Northern Rock, herald the end of the free-wheeling deregulatory era of finance capitalism that lasted from the early 1980s to 200."

"The way things stand, it is now a question of whether there is a complete meltdown of the financial system, with institutions crashing like ninepins, or whether a severe rationing of credit over a prolonged period leads to falling house prices, weaker consumer spending, lower investment and rising unemployment. This is without doubt the most serious financial shock since 1929, and while talk of a 1930s-style depression is still conjecture, so are the predictions that failing banks and a bankrupt financial system will have minimal impact on the 'real economy'".

So why have the markets gone mad? It's obviously an over-simplification but two key factors are the two Ds:

1. Derivatives - the bundling and onward sale of financial risks which investor Warren Buffett has called "financial weapons of mass destruction"
2. Deregulation - the belief that the markets can be trusted to be responsible and self-regulating

• liabilities to be balanced by adequate assets
• risks to be balanced by effective regulation
• separation of retail banks and investment banks
• curbing of irrational exuberance and excessive greed

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In an earlier posting I commented that:" if the world citizenry was voting in this election, Obama would win by a landslide".

My judgement was confirmed by the news today that a BBC World Service poll found that Obama was favoured by a four-to-one margin across the 22,500 people polled in 22 countries.

I agree with the column by Jonathan Freedland in the "Guardian" today:

"Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama."

"For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality, that does indeed suggest a nation in, to quote Weisberg, "historical decline". Let's not forget, McCain's campaign manager boasts that this election is "not about the issues.""

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

As if the election campaign in the United States was not enough excitement for North Americans, we now have the news - expected for several weeks - that we are going to be into an election campaign in Canada as well. It's "official" as of today and the date is 14 October.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party has been in a minority government situation for the past two years He's had to rely on support from one of the other parties to get legislation through or else rely on the Liberal Party refusing to vote.

Current standings (total 308) are:
Conservative Party 127
Liberal Party 95
Bloc Quebecois 48
New Democratic Party 30
Green Party 1
Independent 3
Vacant 4

Canadians still use the British first past the post electoral system.

My man in Canada advises me as follows:

"What I expect will happen (not by any means what I want to happen!) is that the Conservative Party will win a slim majority at the expense of the Liberals and the Bloc Quebcois. Quebec nationalism is on the decline right now. The NDP (the main party of the left) will likely gain 2-3 seats.

The single Green seat is the result of a Liberal being tossed from the party after an election expense scandal and then "defecting" to the Greens. "Party-switchers" generally don't get re-elected in the general election. At best, the Green Party leader has a shot at getting elected to her seat in Nova Scotia...where she's running against the Foreign Affairs Minister."

Let's see if this assessment proves correct.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As someone who is intensely interested in politics generally, and British and American politics most especially, I'm fascinated by some of the differences between the political scenes on the two sides of the Atlantic. Inevitably, I'm oversimplifying somewhat, but the following differences strike me as instructive:

1. In the USA, blue signifies the Democratic Party, the more left-wing; in the UK, blue identifies the Conservative Party, the more right-wing.
2. In the USA, red signifies the Republican Party, the more right-wing; in the UK, red identifies the Labour Party, the more left-wing.
3. In America, the term 'conservative' means really right-wing, especially on social issues; in Britain the name 'Conservative' means mainstream right-wing, especially on economic issues.
4. In America, the term 'liberal' generally means quite left-wing; in Britain, the name 'Liberal' means broadly centrist.
5. In the States, it is considered necessary for a politician to emphasize their patriotism; in Britain, it is assumed that anyone who wants to run for national office cares for his or her country.
6. In the States, virtually every political speech seems to mention God, especially in the final call "God bless America"; in Britain, no politician mentions God and none would think of inviting Him to show a special preference for his or her nation state.
7. In the US, politicians frequently refer to their position on social issues like abortion and homosexuality; a British politician would think it unnecessary and inappropriate to talk about such issues unless asked.
8. In the US, politicians constantly talk about the problems and the aspirations of the middle class; in the UK, politicians tend to talk more on the needs of the working class.
9. So many political speeches in the US include the phrase "my fellow Americans"; in British political terminology, there is simply no equivalent phrase.
10. Few American political speeches make much use of facts and figures; many British political speeches use figures to highlight problems and make comparisons with the policies or the performance of one's opponents.
11. The American general election effectively lasts almost two years, starting with the declaration of candidates for the primaries; the British general election lasts around four weeks.
12. American elections depend on vast sums to purchase broadcasting time; parties and candidates in British elections cannot buy broadcasting time.
13. In the States, there are some outstanding political speakers, led by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; in Britain, there is no politician who can be so inspirational, although Tony Blair at his best came close (but he's gone).
14. In the States, almost 40 million television viewers watched the Convention speeches of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin; no party conference speech in Britain would attract more than a few million.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend has drawn my attention to this way of comparing the content of the Convention speeches by Barack Obama and John McCain - a visual representation of the frequency with which key words were used by the respective speakers. Check out 'economy'.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Three months ago, I did my first posting on the dramatic rise in oil prices and challenged the conventional view that prices had risen so far and so fast because of an increase in demand.

In my second posting on the subject, I suggested that the markets were wrong and that oil prices would fall back. Now, in early July, the price of oil peaked at $147 a barrel, but yesterday it hit $106 - a fall of almost 30% in two months.

I wouldn't want the price of oil to be determined by a Soviet-style politburo; neither do I want it settled by a cartel such as OPEC; but the market too can - and has - got it very wrong. The market has betrayed billions of consumers and knocked off course national economies. There should be a better way.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, I've now seen the speech by John McCain to the Republican National Convention. It was just like one of his town hall meetings rather than an oratorical call to arms. It's not just that the delivery was lack-lustre - we've come to expect that. It's that it was so light on policy, especially on the crucial issue of the economy.

The faithful in the hall seemed to applaud every sentence even though his messages were aimed much more at independents than at them. Nobody can deny the outstanding personal courage that McCain showed in that Hanoi jail and his speech made much of that, but his compelling personal narrative is not a political programme and it is little wonder that his team insists that this election is not about the issues.

You can see, hear and read his speech here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was the 17th century when the Dutch colonised the present five far-flung Caribbean islands that make up the Netherlands Antilles, alongside Aruba. The territory, once called the Dutch West Indies, became self-governing in 1954. Aruba then pulled out of the federation in 1986 to become an autonomous Dutch territory.

The other five, with a total population of only 200,000, are currently a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but are set to go it alone as individual territories. Under a new political structure, agreed between the islands' leaders and the Dutch government in late 2005, the federation will be dissolved in December 2008. Curacao and Sint Maarten will become autonomous territories of the Netherlands. The less-populated islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba will be given city status within the Netherlands.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The selection of Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, as John McCain's Republican running mate has certainly enlivened what was already a very exciting - and seemingly very close - presidential race. Her address to the Republican National Convention in St Paul has energised the traditional Republican base, but I'm not sure that its hard-line message is going to appeal much to independents and most especially not to disillusioned Hillary Clinton supporters. She spoke very fluently and her timing is excellent, but she was snide and divisive and small-minded.

You and see, hear and read her speech here.

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Lesotho - an African country with a population of less than 2 million - cannot be seen apart from South Africa. First, it is totally surrounded by the territory of the much larger state. Second, over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities to find work at South African mines. Third, South Africa has on several occasions intervened in Lesotho's politics, including in 1998 when it sent its troops to help quell unrest.

Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands where many of the villages can be reached only on horseback, by foot or light aircraft. Major construction work has been under way in recent years to create the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to supply South Africa with fresh water.

Since the former British protectorate gained its independence in 1966, it has had a turbulent, if not particularly bloody, period of independence with several parties, army factions and the royal family competing for power in coups and mutinies. The position of king has been reduced to a symbolic and unifying role.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kashmir is the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" referred only to the valley lying between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal range. Since then, however, it has been used for a larger area that today includes the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir consisting of the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh (population 7 million); the Pakistani-administered provinces of the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir (population 3.5 million); and the Chinese-administered region of Aksai Chin. Two-thirds of the population of Jammu (2M out of 3M) is Hindu, while the other parts of Kashmir are largely Muslim.

Though these regions are in practice administered by their respective claimants, neither India nor Pakistan has formally recognised the accession of the areas claimed by each other. India claims those areas, including the area "ceded" to China by Pakistan in the Trans-Karakoram Tract in 1963, are a part of its territory, while Pakistan claims the entire region, excluding Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract. Indian and Pakistan have fought several declared wars over the territory, notably in 1947 and 1965. There have been renewed clashes and deaths as recently as this summer.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Denmark - nation of 5.5 million - is one of the very few European countries of significant size that I have not visited. It is noted for its frequent post-war social democratic governments and high standards of living, but latterly it has had some centre-right coalitions and it is a skeptical member of the European Union, originally rejecting the Maastricht Treaty and staying outside the Euro zone.

These days Denmark is a highly free market, capitalist economy, ranking 11th of 162 countries in the Index of Economic Freedom 2008. From 2006 to 2008, surveys ranked Denmark as "the happiest place in the world," based on standards of health, welfare, and education. In the 2008 survey, the Global Peace Index ranks Denmark as the second most peaceful country in the world, after Iceland.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's been two months since I've run a 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 140 entries here.

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily). The island - with a population of 1.7 million - is a constitutional part of Italy, with a special statute of regional autonomy under the Italian Constitution.

Sardinia is one of two Italian regions whose inhabitants have been recognized as a "popolo" (i.e. a distinct people) by a local Statute (which is adopted with a Constitutional Law). The other region is Veneto (but this was not through a Constitutional Law). The most spoken language in Sardinia is, undoubtedly, Italian, but Sardinian - a Romance language of Latin origin - is widely spoken too in the inner areas.

The Sardinian economy is today focused on tourism, mining, commerce, services and information technology.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Barack Obama has only one bigger fan here in London and that's Karin Robinson who leads the Obama in London campaign. You can read her latest comments on the candidate here.

The big difference between Karin and me is that as an American she actually has a vote. Of course, if the world citizenry was voting in this election, Obama would win by a landslide. This underlines two points:

1) This is an election with global consequences - the outcome will affect all nations and all citizens
2) One of the reasons why Obama is not walking the election is because most Americans do not have a world view of politics.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The current presidential race in the United States is the most exciting of my lifetime which is why, with still two months to go, I've already blogged on it almost 60 times. The last 24 hours have been particularly exciting.

First, the Democratic National Convention in Denver ended its fourth and last day with an inspirational address from Barack Obama that apparently was watched by some 38 million Americans.

Then, on the day he became 72, Republican presumptive nominee John McCain stunned everyone by choosing as his running mate and the person who might be a heart beat away from the presidency Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska.

One has to assume that this is a calculated attempt to win disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters to the Republican cause in the actual ballot, but Palin opposes a woman's right to choose abortion and her foreign policy inexperience totally undermines the charges that McCain has made of Obama's unreadiness for the White House.

So now we know that, whatever happens in the actual election, history will be made with either the first black President or the first woman Vice-President.

You can see, hear and read Obama's speech here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I know that I'm viewing (on CNN) the Democratic National Convention almost a day after the actual proceedings but I'm really enjoying seeing and hearing the key speeches in full. Day Three was wonderful stuff:

- the roll call of the state delegations with Hillary Clinton halting the process once it was clear that Barack Obama had the majority of the votes resulting in his selection by acclamation

- Bill Clinton who made a marvellous speech giving even stronger endorsement of Obama than his wife the evening before

- Joe Biden making a really effective attack on John McCain in a reworking and improvement of his Springfield address

- Barack Obama himself making a surprise last-minute appearance prior to his own speech on the Convention's last day

You can see and hear Biden's speech here and read it here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've now caught up with Day Two of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The day's highlight was, of course, the speech of Senator Hillary Clinton which was preceded by a video and attended by her husband and daughter.

It was a powerful and eloquent address that gave as much support to Barack Obama as one could reasonably expect. I think that she was sincere, but she needs an incentive. If I was Barack Obama, I would promise that - if she and Bill are really seen to deliver for him in the general election - when he enters the White House she will be put in charge of health care reform to complete the task she started during her husband's presidency.

Meanwhile you can see and hear her speech here and read it here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm watching as much of the Democratic National Convention as I can on CNN. There were two massive highlights in Monday's session.

First, Caroline Kennedy - daughter of JFK - introduced Senator Edward Kennedy, there was a video on the Senator, and then - in spite of his brain cancer - he made an emotional appearance and contributed an impassioned speech in support of Barack Obama.

Second, there was a video on Michelle Obama narrated by her mother before her older, even taller, brother introduced her. I thought that Michelle speech's was outstanding - she really connected with people, made an utterly convincing case for her husband and spoke with immense confidence and fluency. But I know that many Americans will need more convincing that me.

You can see and hear her speech here and read it here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We all know that the host nation China won the largest number of gold medals (51) which, in the official ranking, puts them top. But, if you count all the medals, then the USA leads with 110.

But, suppose you didn't count all the medals equally. Say you gave three points for a gold, two for a silver, and one for a bronze. Sounds reasonable. And, suppose you took into account population size. Seems fair.

On this calculation, China - the official winner - only comes 65th. Great Britain - officially fourth - comes 22nd. Sorry, guys.

Which country do you think would be top then? You'll never guess - but you can check it out here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"The Democrats are starting to struggle in a presidential race which they should be dominating. America is beset by economic troubles, mired in an unpopular foreign war and facing an unpopular Republican party. A stunning 80 per cent of Americans think that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Yet Obama and McCain are virtually tied in the polls. The possible explanations are multiple. The Democratic campaign is being daily assaulted by withering Republican attack ads. At the same time, there are still deep scars in the party left by the ferocious battle between Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. And then there is the issue of race."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So Barack Obama has chosen his Vice-Presidential running mate just days before the Democratic National Convention opens in Denver.

The choice - Senator Joe Biden - is seen as balancing the ticket, mainly in terms of bringing strong knowledge of foreign affairs, although his older age and Roman Catholic affiliation are also viewed as complementary to Obama's attributes.

The news was too late for the British morning newspapers, but the "New York Times" covered it in this way.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Things have been quieter in the race while Barack Obama was in Hawaii - and I was in the Baltic States (!). Now we await announcements on the Vice-Presidential running mates and the respective party conventions. In the meanwhile, polls suggest a tightening of the race to a current neck and neck position.

Obama ought to be doing better and I would certainly like him to have a clearer lead. The debates between the candidates may open things up.

However, polls only tell us how people would vote if they are eligible to vote and actually do so. Obama has an impression organisation on the ground in all 50 states that could mean his actual support in the ballot boxes could be stronger than the polls are suggesting. Let's hope so.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:32 AM | Permalink

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 we spoke were anxious and despondent about what the events in Georgia could mean for them.

If Russia is going to take the view that it can act militarily to defend the interests of people who define themselves as Russian, then the independence of many former Soviet Republics is gravely threatened. This is brought out clearly in an article by Rafael Behr in this week's week "Observer" newspaper.

On her father's side, my wife's family is Czech. We remember 1938 when the Nazis took over vast swathes of then Czechoslovakia on the grounds that they were defending the Sudeten Germans. We remember 1968 when Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia on the grounds that Dubceck's 'Communism with a human face' was counter-revolutionary.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

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 more than four years - see this posting. When he ran for the Senate, I did 11 postings; in his race to be President, I've already done 53 postings.

Truly I think this man is remarkable and his books only confirm my faith in him. In his second book, he captures what people feel about him when he writes:

"And sometimes someone will grab my hand and tell me that they have great hopes for me, but that they are worried that Washington is going to change me and I will end up just like all the rest of the people in power. Please stay who you are, they will say to me. Please don't disappoint us."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:47 AM | Permalink

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 of al-Qaeda itself never more so that the Twin Towers attacks of 11 September 2001. Meanwhile, of course, the organisation's leader Osama bin Laden remains at large.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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."

"If the cause is not rising demand but more probably panic and speculation, then we can expect that sometime in the future prices will fall back, although probably not to the level before the current crisis took hold."

"Oil prices touched three-month lows of $118 a barrel on Tuesday amid signs of rising supplies and slowing demand."

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:10 PM | Permalink

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 she is now being held at the Youngdeungpo Police Station. The others are still at large. Police have encircled the union headquarters in Seoul.

The “crime” these trade union leaders are accused of committing is this: in early July, they called for a general strike. The South Korean government, in defiance of universally recognized human rights standards (including ILO conventions), has decided that this strike was illegal.

The KCTU has asked us all to take a moment and send off a strong message of protest to the South Korean government. The web site LabourStart has launched a major new online campaign to do precisely that. Please go here now to send off your message.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The presumptive Democratic candidate in the US Presidential race Barack Obama is 47 today. Hopefully, he will celebrate his next eight birthdays in the White House.

His Republican opponent John McCain will be 72 on 29 August. Hopefully, he will celebrate many more birthdays in the Senate.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some weeks ago, I did a posting about Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, the President and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). They were arrested on 8 May for speaking out about the state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe - or as Robert Mugabe's government put it "spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the State".

Lovemore and Wellington were due to appear in court today to defend themselves against these charges. In fact, they attended court, only to be told that their trial would be postponed again until 27 August 2008.

I contributed to the the mosaic below which is made up from the pictures of over 2,000 trade unionists from around the world who have come together to make this public demonstration of support for the ZCTU leaders and all unionists in Zimbabwe.

You can see the mosaic in close-up and learn more about the campaign here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:20 PM | Permalink

The rise and rise of Barack Obama continues ... Many comparisons have been made with John F Kennedy and certainly such a reference is not lost on Obama's chief strategic David Axelrod who was inspired by JFK at the early age of five as explained in this profile.

Personally I think that Obama has the potential to become an even greater figure than JFK. Kennedy came from an incredibly wealthy and powerful political dynasty, whereas Obama has come from a genuinely humble economic background; becoming the first Catholic in the White House was special, but not as ground-breaking as being the first black in the West Wing; JFK never wrote books as thoughtful as "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity Of Hope".

Kennedy was brilliantly cool and decisive in the Cuba missile crisis of 1962, but much of the mythology of his greatness is coloured by his premature death from an assassin's bullets. All decent-minded people around the world hope earnestly that Obama's security is as thorough as humanly possible, because this man truly has the mark of greatness about him in a way I have never seen in my lifetime.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You can read the full text of Barack Obama's speech to an estimated quarter of a million Berliners today here.

I just hope that the manifest support for Obama of so many non-Americans does not lead to an adverse reaction in the USA. America and the world need him in the White House.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This article from "Time" magazine to mark Mandela's 90th birthday makes for an interesting read.

I have produced my own advice on "How To Be A Good Leader".

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:44 AM | Permalink

I am delighted by the news that at long last Bosnian Serb war crimes perpetrator Radovan Karadzic has been arrested in Serbia after 12 years on the run. This could - and should - have happened many years ago.

I was recently in Sarajevo [my account here] and heard at first hand some of the devastation that Karadzic's forces brought to the city in the siege that killed some 12,000. Now we need to catch Karadzic's wartime military leader, Ratko Mladic.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's difficult for the conventional media to report what is happened in Zimbabwe, but bloggers in the country are helping us to understand the true horrors and political manoeuvring. Check out the blog called This is Zimbabwe.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The is the 50th time that I've blogged on the US Presidential race - one posting for each state. They have been serious comments - so this time let's have a little levity.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many people around the world - especially those in developing countries - think that the USA is a country in which everyone enjoys a good standard of living and has a long and healthy life. Of course, compared to most other countries on the globe, most Americans are exceptionally privileged, but the wealth and health of the United States is very unevenly distributed and many Americans genuinely struggle.

Consider these facts:

• While the United States has the second-highest income per head in the world, it ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.
• Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on health care, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country.
• The Japanese can expect to outlive Americans, on average, by more than four years.
• Citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.
• One in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to health care.
• The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.
• 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.

How do we know all this?

We know it because of a new report called "The Measure of America" funded by Oxfam America, the Conrad Hilton Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. This is the first-ever human development report for a wealthy, developed nation.

It introduces the American Human Development Index, which provides a single measure of well-being for all Americans, disaggregated by state and congressional district, as well as by gender, race, and ethnicity. The Index rankings of the 50 states and 436 congressional districts reveal huge disparities in the health, education, and living standards of different groups.

All the facts on this blog posting are taken from that report and you can ready a fuller analysis here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the fourth time that I've blogged on this subject in just seven weeks. In my second posting, I wrote:

"If the cause is rising demand, then prices will continue to rise because demand will continue to rise but supply will probably only increase marginally (in the short term anyway). If the cause is not rising demand but more probably panic and speculation, then we can expect that sometime in the future prices will fall back, although probably not to the level before the current crisis took hold."

Yesterday oil prices fell fell by the biggest amount in three and half years. Last week in London, the price of oil was $147 a barrel; yesterday it was $136. So what's going on? Somebody is ripping us off.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, Channel Four screened a two-hour programme on the Islamic holy book the Qur'an. This was television at its best: a thoughtful, informed and balanced examination of an important and controversial subject with global implications.

The programme showed how the Shi'ite version of Islam as practised in Iran and the Whabbism version of the Sunni stream of Islam as practised in Saudi Arabia are unrepresentative of mainstream Islam. Also it demonstrated how the most controversial beliefs associated with Islam - such as suicide killings and female genital mutilation - are either based on a misreading of the Qur'an (the former) or have no justification from the Qur'an (the latter).

Of course, it is not surprising that the Qur'an is subject to so much interpretation and misunderstanding. It is claimed to be the direct word of God but the prophet Mohammad was illiterate and so the origins of the book derive from oral traditions. Also the book was written in several languages and these languages are not used today so the precise meaning of particular words and phrases is not clear.

Furthermore the Qur'an was conceived in a particular time and place and inevitably reflects the cultural norms of that time and place, notably in relation to the subordinate role of women.

All this is true of other holy books such as the Torah and the Bible but, as the Channel Four programme put it, the Qur'an is "the most ideologically influential text in the world".

The West will never defeat Islamic fundamentalism. Mainstream Muslims need to reclaim their religion from those who have distorted it beyond any reasonable interpretation of its founders and understand the Qur'an as a general guide that should be applied in the context of modern norms of sexual equality and human rights.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've always told my American friends that, if Britain really was the 51st state in the USA, we would be voting for Obama big time rather than John McCain. Now we have the evidence that it would be by an astonishing five to one. We're fired up and ready to go!

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As discussed in this article, Barack Obama and John McCain are now thinking hard about the appointment of a Vice-Presidential running mate and there's a lot of interest in one or both candidates choosing a woman.

This is more likely to happen on the Democratic side and the article mentions three possibilities: Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas, Claire McCaskill, a senator from Missouri, and of course Hillary Clinton.

I don't think that Obama will - or should - select Clinton. This would be too divisive a choice and it would create too much trouble for the campaign and the presidency. However, I've been impressed by McCaskill's performances on CNN.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The American presidential election is all about the electoral college and the winning or losing of each state - rather than about the overall popular vote (as Al Gore demonstrated four years ago).

There's still four months to go in the election, but a state by state analysis suggests that, as of now, it's looking good for Obama - see this site where you can create your own map and the situation as calculated on the CNN site.

Of course, a lot could happen in the next few months and the election could still be very close, but then again Obama could win very decisively (which is what I am expecting and hoping).

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This news is horrifying.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Belize - located south-east of Mexico - has more in common with the Caribbean island-states than with its Central American neighbours. This is reflected in its major languages, English and Creole, and in its mainly Anglo-Caribbean architecture and its relatively peaceful political culture. However, Belize has a problem with violent crime, much of it drug-related, and the trafficking of narcotics to the USA.

Belize, formerly known as British Honduras, was the UK's last colony on the American mainland. Its independence was delayed until 1981 by long-running tension with neighbouring Guatemala, which still claims a large portion of its territory. Guatemala recognised Belize's independence in 1991, but the neighbours have yet to settle their border dispute, which is rooted in colonial times.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:20 AM | Permalink

Just ten miles long and six miles wide, St Helena sits in the middle of the South Atlantic as one of the most isolated, inhabited islands in the world: 700 miles to Ascension Island, 1500 miles to Tristan da Cunha and 1650 miles to Cape Town. Traditionally served by the Britain's last working Royal Mail ship, which visits the island twice a year, the island is about to obtain an airport in 2012.

The 4,000 islanders call themselves Saints and the island only has one town (Jamestown). The local economy is funded almost entirely by he British Government with just a little tourism.

Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, it later came under the control of the British East India Company before the British Crown took control in 1834. Its main claim to historic fame is that Napoleon was exiled here after the Battle of Waterloo and died on the island.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:20 AM | Permalink

The 800-plus volcanic and coral islands that make up the Pacific nation of Fiji enjoy a tropical climate and are a prime destination for tourists. However, since 1987 racial and political tensions have been an intermittent source of instability and international isolation and there have in fact been four coups in the last 20 years.

Fiji's population of almost a million, which resides mostly on the two main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, is divided almost equally between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, the descendants of indentured labourers brought from India. Mixing between the two groups is minimal, and informal segregation runs deep at almost every level of society.

Although the former British colony relies heavily on the sugar and tourism industries for its foreign exchange, its economy is diverse. Nonetheless, Fiji has been hampered by persistent trade and budget deficits, making it one of the world's largest per capita recipients of aid.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:28 AM | Permalink

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 oil) and creating a most uncertain economic future.

Although technically Gabon became a multi-party state in 1993, the opposition has literally been bought off and cronyism and corruption are rife with most of Bongo's wealth hidden overseas. On paper, Gabon has one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa, but half the population of 1.3 million remains poor. Nearly 50 years after independence from France, the country has fewer miles of paved road than of oil pipelines.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:27 AM | Permalink

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 received UN-backed support from the US after it was invaded by the North two years later. The Korean War ended in 1953 without a peace agreement leaving South Korea technically at war for more than fifty years. The following four decades were marked by authoritarian rule, while government-sponsored schemes encouraged the growth of family-owned industrial conglomerates, known as "chaebol", which helped to create one of the world's major economies. A multi-party political system was restored in 1987.

Today South Korea is a nation of 49 million with the 13th largest economy in the world and still among the world's fastest growing developed countries. It has a very advanced and modern infrastructure and is a world leader in information technology such as electronics, semiconductors, LCD displays, computers and mobile phones. It is defined as a High Income Nation by the World Bank and an Advanced Economy by the IMF and CIA. A major non-NATO ally, it has the world's sixth largest armed forces and one of the ten largest defence budgets in the world.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:18 AM | Permalink

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 world is changing. For example, it took five years, from 2002 to 2007, for oil to go up by $60 a barrel. In just the last year, it galloped another $60 higher. For the first time since oil drilling began in the 1850s, the price has climbed for seven consecutive years."

In my first blog posting on this subject, I argued that fear and speculation must be playing a major role in driving up prices so much faster than the market fundamentals would require or suggest. Others agree that speculation is at work:

"there is broad disagreement about the role of speculators in oil markets — particularly a new breed of financial investors, including pension funds and hedge funds, who view oil and other commodities as just another way to make money, like stocks, bonds and real estate.The evidence of their impact is mixed, but consumers and lawmakers nevertheless are furious, saying these new financial traders are driving up prices. "

"Some experts who see today’s oil market as a bubble point to the record-setting stake that institutional investors have taken in the commodity markets in the last several years, variously estimated at $140 billion to $250 billion. A growing portion of that stake reflects rising commodity prices, not new money flowing in."

Extracts from an article in the "New York Times".

This is a bubble which will burst - but let's hope that it's soon.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"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?' "

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This "Newsweek" article makes some good points about Barack Obama and Europe:

1. Overwhelmingly Europeans want to see Obama returned to the White House.
2. Europeans don't have a vote in this election and any attempt to interfere will be unhelpful to Obama.
3. Obama as President could well present some challenges to Europe - he will advance American interests which are not always European interests.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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 of supply." The Indian finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, agreed, saying producers and consumers should "wrest control" of trading by agreeing to restrict prices."Surely demand and supply cannot explain what has happened over the last 12 months," he said. "Oil prices were $70 a barrel in August 2007 and how is it that they've doubled when there has been no dramatic change in demand?"

I have to say that - as will be clear from my posting of two weeks ago - I'm with OPEC rather than Brown on this one. Markets are not always rational.

If the cause is rising demand, then prices will continue to rise because demand will continue to rise but supply will probably only increase marginally (in the short term anyway). If the cause is not rising demand but more probably panic and speculation, then we can expect that sometime in the future prices will fall back, although probably not to the level before the current crisis took hold.

Let's see what happens. Meanwhile consumers around the world are suffering.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by Roger Darlington at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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 London Group as part of the general election. It was held at the "Duke of York" pub in central London.

It was convened by Karin Robinson, a long-time Obama supporter who runs a very informative blog here.

A campaign briefing was given by Bill Rubin, now an Obama for America staffer. He announced Obama's decision not to take public funding for his presidential campaign, the first candidate to adopt this position since such funds became available. Instead Obama will depend on the 1.5m donors to his campaign.

Stephanie Stewart, Vice-Chair of Democrats Abroad, ran through a quick voter registration training exercise. Since the situation on voter registration is different in the 50 states, it takes a 466 page guide to explain the situation across the country.

Finally Democrats Abroad Chair Bill Barnard gave us a quick overview on the shape of the general election. As a professional historian, he put Obama's achievement as the first black presidential candidate of a major party in an historic context, pointing out that Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention on 28 August will be made on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. He called the forthcoming ballot "genuinely a realignment election".

My wife and I were not the only British attendees at this meeting because Obama's candidature has caught the imagination of British politicos in way that I've never seen before. There was a young woman in her 20s who'd already spent time over in the States working for Obama in the primaries and she was planning to return to help out in the general election.

What was very clear from this meeting was that Obama has excited and inspired people in a way that is drawing thousands into an immense grassroots campaign supported by a massive number who have donated funds. In addition, the professionalism of the campaign organisation - based overwhelmingly on volunteers - is stunning and enabling a genuine 50-state effort to be mounted.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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 May Day and are going to be tried for 'spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state' this coming Monday.

The idea is to shut them up over the course of the re-run elections. They are out on bail, but are prevented from appearing in public or making public statements, in contravention of their human rights, and they're being very brave in going voluntarily into court next week even though they are no strangers to being really badly beaten up in police custody.

There are demos being called now in a number of countries (including the UK) on Monday, and to help get some more attention to their case, the TUC is trying to make a giant photo mosaic portrait of them, made up of supporters' photos from all around the world. At least 1,700 photos are needed.

Your photo would end up 1 inch square on a big mosaic at the London demo, and the TUC w'll be using the image for as much media and publicity as they can get with it. I've submitted my photo; will you please send yours?

Send the photo of yourself to zim@tuc.org.uk or MMS it to 07546 229055. Many thanks for helping!

More information here.

Footnote (26/7/08): The mosaic was completed - see here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 04:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

'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 what I think we did well was give them a lot of latitude to experiment and try new things and to put some serious resources into it.”'

Posted by Roger Darlington at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Five outrageous and untrue smears about Barack Obama are demolished on this new web site.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The BBC web site has a short piece which manages to suggest no less than seven reasons:

1. Rising demand from China, the Middle East and Latin America - but we've known this for months and even years
2. Doubts about future demand - which seems to contradict the first reason
3. Israeli threats to strike on Iran over its nuclear programme - but that's not new either
4. A report by Morgan Stanley analyst Ole Slorer
5. Investors hedging oil against the weak dollar
6. Fears that workers at Chevron Corporation in Nigeria may go on strike
7. A cut in subsidies by the Indian and Malaysian governments

1. Panic
2. Speculation

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So, now that at last we are sure who the Democratic and Republican candidates are, who will Barack Obama and John McCain choose for their running mates?

A review of eight possibilities for the Democrats is here and a look at five possibilities for the Republicans is here.

All I know for sure is that Obama must not choose Clinton.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's taken five months hard campaigning and voting in all 50 states - not to mention 40 postings on this blog - but finally the longest and closest and most expensive primary campaign in US history has resulted in the adoption of the first ever African-American as the candidate of a major party.

It is an outstanding achievement by Barack Obama that very few thought possible when he first announced his intention to run for the White House. But Hillary Clinton has been a formidable and tenacious opponent and, by running so hard and so long, she's done damage to Obama's chances in the general election as he has limped rather than stormed across the finishing post.

What now? Well, Michael Tomasky has suggested five things that Obama needs to do. I agree with Tomasky that one of these is to get the Clintons on board but that Hillary will not be the Obama's running mate.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On the day that sees the opening in Rome of a special summit organised by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), some compelling facts on food.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:49 AM | Permalink

This is the title of a forthcoming book and a web site to promote discussion on its themes. The book is by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson and the gods are globalisation, communication, liberalisation, privatisation, competition, financialisation, speculation, recklessness, greed, arrogance, oligarchy and excess.

The central argument of the book is that the world's bankers have delivered chaos, debt and uncertainty - and then blamed the feeble governments that surrendered control of the global economy to them. At a time of credit crunch, falling house prices, soaring oil prices, rising food prices and economic instability, this sounds like a topical work.

A first extract from the book here.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An American contact has drawn my attention this article which was recently in the "Washington Post" and elsewhere.

The piece makes comparisons between the presidential candidacy of Jimmy Carter in 1976 and that of Barack Obama in 2008. It makes the point that both were complete outsiders when they started their presidential bids and wonders whether Obama - if he wins the Democratic candidacy and then the presidency - will suffer the same fate as Carter in the White House who had to battle against the party establishment with very little support in the Congress.

The parallels are interesting, but I believe that an Obama presidency - if the right aides were appointed in the West Wing - would fare much better with Congress, partly because Obama has at least been a one-term senator (whereas Carter had no Washington experience) and partly because Obama has some heavyweight support on The Hill (not least the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi).

However, my contact makes another comparison - that between the economic situations in 1977 and 2009 - and points out: "I began to imagine a parallel between the present time and that of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. That event was the prelude to a severe recession, followed by double-digit inflation. It seemed that Obama might have misfortunes similar to those of President Carter, who presided over a worsening economic situation, caused by the financial decisions of his predecessors, Johnson and Nixon, and without much support from the Congressional representatives of his own party."

Whoever wins the presidency is going to face a really tough economic situation.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa with a size of only 4,361 sq miles and a population of a mere 1.7 million. Unlike many of its West African neighbours, it has enjoyed long spells of stability since independence from Britain in 1965. President Yahya Jammeh seized power in a bloodless coup in 1994 as a young army lieutenant and has ruled the country with an iron fist ever since, winning three widely criticised multi-party elections.

However, stability has not translated into prosperity. Despite the presence of the Gambia river, which runs through the middle of the country, only one-sixth of the land is arable and poor soil quality has led to the predominance of one crop - peanuts. This has made The Gambia heavily dependent on peanut exports and a hostage to fluctuations in the production and world prices of the crop. Consequently, the country relies on foreign aid to fill gaps in its balance of payments.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Texas is the second largest state in the US (after Alaska) at 268,601 square miles and the second most populous (after California) with 24 million residents.The name Texas comes from the Hasinai Indian word tejas meaning friends or allies. It is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation

Texas's strong economic growth can be attributed to the availability of jobs, the low cost of housing, the lack of a personal state income tax, high quality of education, low taxation and limited regulation of business, a central geographic location, a limited government, favorable weather, and abundant natural resources. As a result, Texas has a gross state product of around $1.1 trillion, making it the 15th largest economy in the world based on GDP figures.

Texas is perhaps best known as an oil state. The known petroleum deposits of Texas are about 8 billion barrels which makes up approximately one-third of the known U. S. supply. Perhaps not surprisingly, Texans consume the most energy in the nation both in per capita and as a whole.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Five years ago, Vee and I spent a few days in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, at the conclusion of a holiday in the Indian sub-continent [my account here]. At the time of our visit, for six years there had been an insurgency by Maoist rebels which had already claimed almost 8,000 lives, most of the deaths in the previous year. The day after our arrival in Kathmandu, the chief of police, his bodyguard and his wife were killed while on an early morning walk on the outskirts of the capital. Then, three days later, the Maoists declared a ceasefire.

This was not the end of the insurgency or of violence on the streets, but in 2006 a peace deal was signed and in elections last month the Maoists won a majority of seats in the new parliament. Today the parliament voted overwhelmingly to abolish the monarchy as reported here. The new republic faces huge economic and social problems, but the abolition of the monarchy is a symbol of a move to modernity and it is so good to see this wonderful country emerging from a decade of darkness.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Italy is the fourth largest European economy and has one of the highest per capita incomes in Europe, but its politics are chaotic and corruption remains endemic. There have been close to 60 governments since the country formed a democratic republic in 1946 following World War II. It has been at the forefront of European economic and political unification, but persistent problems include illegal immigration, organized crime, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north.

Silvio Berlusconi began his third term as prime minister of Italy in May 2008, heading a centre-right coalition including his own Forza Italia party. He is one of Italy's wealthiest men, and owns three of the country's seven television channels and several leading newspapers. Mr Berlusconi has been put on trial at least six times over financial matters. Although found guilty on three occasions, he was later acquitted or benefited from the expiry of the statute of limitations.

There is concern over Italy's birth rate - the lowest in Europe - and the economic implications of an ageing population with the population forecast to fall by nearly a third over the next 50 years.

Posted by Roger Darlington at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)