DFID’s new White Paper is a big step forward on conflict prevention – but not necessarily for a joint approach across government
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.
In memoriam Robert McNamara
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5JLf_bC4Ow[/youtube]
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t: Ban Ki-moon’s trip to Burma
Many development and humanitarian NGOs already regard their human rights brethren with a degree of exasperation for their no-compromise stance on Darfur and...
Rep Michele Bachmann on US climate bill: “we choose liberty, or we choose tyranny”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJmef3sWBdY[/youtube]
Sarah Palin’s bonkers resignation announcement
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1tnUvtjaaY[/youtube]
Italy’s G8: from bad to worse
Folk close to preparations for Italy's G8 next week have been rolling eyes, shruggling shoulders and wringing hands for some months now about the train wreck...
Sarah Palin quits as Alaska governor
KTUU - 'Alaska's news source' - has the [few] details: Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her...
We love Gordon
Yes, yes, it's not a phrase one hears very often these days, but credit where it's due: Gordon Brown's climate change speech a week ago was first rate. Don't...
2009 Failed States Index: Britain’s security apparatus worse than UAE’s, apparently
Here in the UK, there's much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about the fact that it's even conceivable that we might lose our triple-A credit rating....
Paul Krugman: climate sceptics in Congress are guilty of treason
Paul Krugman's NYT column on Monday didn't pull any punches as far as the 212 Congresspeople who voted 'no' on the Waxman-Markey climate bill were concerned:...
The Thriller video – in Lego
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MThEoxSWURA[/youtube]
Party time for the US ethanol industry
Bismarck once noted that "laws are like sausages: it's better not to see them being made". Were he around today, he might add that both laws and sausages are,...
Vote time for the US climate bill
The Waxman-Markey Bill will go to the floor of the House today or tomorrow, so Obama and Pelosi are on a determined bid to round up the few remaining...
Iran: looking ahead
In today's NY Times, Roger Cohen observes that "Iran's 1979 revolution took full year to gestate", and suggests that "the volatility ushered in by the June...
Nokia: connecting people
...with the basiji, it turns out: Nokia Siemens Network has confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local...
In case of fire
Via Amanda Ripley.
Tehran’s party scene
There's some interesting backstory to the Tehran protests in, of all places, this month's UK edition of GQ - which, as chance would have it, sent Ed Caesar...
The new protectionism
Leaders’ pledges not to go protectionist may be true as far as tariffs and quotas go – but take finance into account, and the rhetoric is harder to square with the reality
An expert speaks
Via Charlemagne at the Economist, this small gem: BBC News Online interviewed social networking expert Jonathan Zittrain at Harvard about the use of social...
New Secret Intelligence Service head part of secret UFO conspiracy
News has emerged over lunchtime that Sir John Sawyers, currently Britain's Ambassador to the UN, is to become the next head of the Secret Intelligence...
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