Dazed and confused by the media bull
Over the years of travelling around the globe and speaking at all sort of forums, Swedish public health expert, the late Dr Hans Rosling, would conduct an informal experiment, asking …
Read MoreTag: international
Eight trends to watch in 2021
Twenty-twenty, the year of the “cool number” previously associated with the positive (perfect vision), had been anything but cool and positive itself. A lot had gone wrong; most related to the …
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Peace on Earth
One of the few bright spots of genuine good news this year – if not the only one – has been the sudden outbreak of peace between Israel and several …
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America’s mythical allies – and the real ones
Sam Vinograd, an Obama administration nat sec alumnus – and now, needless to say, a CNN nat sec analyst – is hearing sounds: It's like I can almost hear our …
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Once, twice, three times a nominee
Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has been nominated twice for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize: the first time, by a Norwegian “far right” politician, for his role in bringing …
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Good News From 2020
Twenty-twenty. What a year. As someone has recently remarked on Twitter, I can’t believe we stayed until midnight and cheered for it when it arrived. In the past, 2020 has had …
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Tie me a kangaroo down
Firstly, a solution in search of a non-existent problem; not surprisingly a brain fart of the most immaterial Prime Ministership of Malcolm Turnbull: The Brand Advisory Council, set up two …
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America is bad for democracy, say allies
Dalia Research, the Alliance for Democracies and Rasmussen International have released the results of the Democracy Perception Index, the largest study of its kind, based on interviews with 124,000 people in …
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Losing My Region – Australians and the world cool on China
Welcome to the political chaos theory – or, should we say, fact: a bat flapping its wings in China produces a hurricane… pretty much everywhere around the world. It seems …
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Fact Check: “Disease ambassadors”?
The worldwide Coronavirus pandemic is predictably generating hundreds of conspiracy theories, rumours, claims and counter-claims about every aspect of the crisis, from the virus’s origin to the actions, or inactions, …
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COVID killed the radio star: the winners and the losers of the viralmageddon
Joel Kotkin, a sensible urbanist (rare, I know), has been sounding an alarm about the hollowing out of our economy and our society for a while now. His news book, The …
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The world after Corona
As the current pandemic crisis continues to unfold across the globe, more and more important people are heard making pronouncements that our world and our lives will not be the …
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We need a globalisation insurance
What has the virus wrought? In some ways it is a perfect weapon: it doesn’t kill that many people in a greater scheme of things but it terrorises whole societies …
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The Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020
Around the world, the shop shelves are emptying fast. In Australia: Australian supermarkets are being completely stripped of essential items from people seemingly stockpiling products as fears surrounding the coronavirus outbreak …
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Don’t mention the pandemic
The Woke Health Organisation – sorry, the World Health Organisation – continues to provide non-stop entertainment since the start of the Coronavirus outbreak. I don’t know if laughter is the …
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Good News from the Atmosphere
It is somewhat ironic – though in some ways unsurprising – that at the time when the climate change activism (or, rather, according to the new guidelines, climate crisis or …
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Hate the rich or love the poor?
Interesting musings from the economist Maarten Boudry on the topic of inequality, in a post titled “Is extreme wealth a greater evil than extreme poverty?”: Imagine you could wave a …
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Those That Trust Trump, or Who Hearts America?
A fascinating update, courtesy of Pew Research Center, on attitudes towards the United States around the world, best summarised in this table: It’s personally interesting to note that Poland is the …
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Russia and China after your internet
Nothing good ever comes of when these two take interest in something: The United Nations on Friday approved a Russian-led bid that aims to create a new convention on cybercrime, …
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