On the fight brewing between the US and Europe over IMF board seats that I wrote about last week, David Bosco at Foreign Policy has been talking to Ted...
Alex Evans
Alex Evans is a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University, and the author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren't Enough? (Penguin, 2017), a book about the power of deep stories to unlock transformational change. He lives in North Yorkshire and is currently working on political polarisation and learning dry stone walling. Full biog here.
Is MI6 running a smear operation on Gareth Williams?
If you missed it, Channel 4 News ran an exclusive last night that seems to put Metropolitan Police accounts of the circumstances of Gareth Williams's death at...
Yay for humanitarian workers
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95lQ-IzEhOc[/youtube]
The FT goes red top
From the FT this morning, the following newsflash: It is unfortunate for private equity boss Lyndon Lea that colourful details of his summer party leaked just...
Musical chairs at the IMF
Sounds like the US is playing hardball at the IMF. The Economist's Free Exchange blog takes up the tale: When the IMF was formed, it was agreed that its...
Iranians shoot down Thunderbird 2!
Over the weekend, Richard blogged about the Iranians' scary new bomber drones, and their uncanny resemblance to Thunderbird 2. Alas for the Iranians, the...
A complete history of the Soviet Union, arranged to the melody of Tetris
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8[/youtube]
The two kinds of agriculture
Over at the Archdruid Report, John Michael Greer - one of the best thinkers out there on what happens after oil production peaks (see also the excellent...
How to do TV weather
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3SuooQ-1T0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
A “break from the past” at the CIA? Really?
Back when Barack Obama was running for President, he promised "a break with the past" on how America's intelligence machinery was managed: no more renditions,...
Scarcity event in Washington DC (and on the web), 2nd September
If you're in DC on 2nd September, the environmental change and security program at the Woodrow Wilson Center is organising an event on resource scarcity and...
A “silent withdrawal from ringfencing the aid budget”? Hmm.
Lots of agitation on the internets this weekend with news of cancellation of various DFID funding priorities. It all seems to stem from this leaked submission...
‘Restrepo’ – trailer
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvUdruvbdmI[/youtube]
“Journalists hadn’t earned the right to broadcast our whingeing”
What soldiers actually think about media reporting of inadequate provision of vehicles to troops in Afghanistan: I didn't doubt that someone somewhere, tired...
The Peckham Terminator (nsfw)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2waIvp265CM&has_verified=1[/youtube]
UK National Security Adviser resigning – 2 months in?
That's what the Mail has this morning, at least: Sir Peter Ricketts, who was givent the newly created role just after Cameron took office, has made the...
How to win at Monopoly
The perennially popular board game Monopoly is a reasonable simulacrum of capitalism. At the beginning of the game, players move around a commons and try to...
“The future I most fear for America is Latin American”
“I have this gnawing feeling about the future of America. When people lose the sense of optimism, things tend to get more volatile. The future I most fear...
RUSI’s Michael Clarke on the Afghan leaks
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIRBqXkEy88[/youtube]
Draft World Bank land grabs report leaked
Someone at the World Bank just leaked the FT's Javier Blas a draft copy of a report on 'landgrabs' that was due to come out in August (the leaker apparently...
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