[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v48l5s8qryk] John McCain's first visit to the Letterman Show since The Cancellation. See also Part 2 (in which he's...
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.
“No evidence of human-induced financial crisis”
Bernard Keane and David Howarth in Crikey: It’s disappointing that Crikey, like others in the liberal media, have fallen for the nonsensical line that the...
World Food Day
Yesterday was World Food Day, on which subject BBC Radio 4's World Tonight programme did a piece asking whether the current steep falls in commodity prices...
And a warm welcome to all our friends overseas
As regular readers will be aware, I've long admired the courageous approach to public diplomacy taken by the US Department of Homeland Security, particularly...
Now that we own the banks
My erstwhile DFID colleague Owen Barder knows a thing or two about finance and financial services (he has, after all, been a private secretary to the...
Gordon leaves Number 10
Benedict Brogan notes this from George Pascoe-Watson in today's Sun: The PM has decided to set up an open plan “war room” operation and is moving the heart of...
Gordon Brown in spontaneous joke shock
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nRl3uRra_w8] As Gideon Rachman put it yesterday, The current financial crisis seems to have actually cheered Mr Brown...
The world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44tsI4IzGcg] ...just one of five global 'superthreats' that sit at the core of Superstruct, billed by its creators at...
“That could never happen. Impossible.”
Nils Gilman at Small Precautions: Six months ago (specifically: March 8, before even Bear Stearns had collapsed) I undertook a scenario planning exercise with...
Is international trade next to seize up?
Letters of Credit (LOCs) are the crucial lubricant without which the wheels of international trade cannot turn. Here's how John Mauldin explains them: If you...
How wrong can you be?
It's official: I relinquish any and all claims to knowing anything whatsoever about US politics. This - I blush - is me, back in January: It may be pushing...
Palin brushes up foreign policy credentials
According to the Onion: ORLANDO, FL—Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin sought to silence those who have criticized her lack of foreign affairs...
What the credit crunch means for development
Although there's no consensus on whether we're heading for a 2-3 year recession or a much longer period of deflation a la Japan in the 1990s (c.f. Nouriel...
The diminishing returns on bailout attempts
Nouriel Roubini summarises how successively larger and larger bailouts seem to be having less and less effect: - When Bear Stearns' creditors were bailed out...
Oh dear
Krugman: The coordinated rate cut was the right thing to do. But I don’t expect much from it — because the relationship between Fed funds rates and the rates...
A crisis of trust
Two excellent columns in the FT last week explored the extent to which the credit crunch is a crisis of trust - and not just in the obvious sense of whether...
Back to food prices
I'm speaking tonight at a Global Development Forum event on food prices; Peter Melchett from the Soil Association, Steve Wiggins from ODI and Andrew Coker...
Meltdown update: go long on gold, canned food, guns
Oh, so you thought that the torrent of criticism directed at US Congressmen for voting 'no' on the bail-out meant that Senators would be more likely to vote...
Letterman declares war on McCain
David Letterman not happy about McCain cancelling an appearance on the Late Show. Blimey. Watch the whole thing, or fast forward to 6:35 for the killer......
Suspended animation
Steve Benen made me laugh with his take on McCain's decision to 'suspend' his campaign and seek a postponement of Friday's debate: I've never even heard of a...
More from Global Dashboard
A little less conversation a little more action: How to tackle inequality, for real.
Sometimes, the best way to avoid doing something is to pretend that you agree. Let's say that you are a political leader, or a corporate leader, who rather likes things as they are. You see that there is huge public concern about rising inequality, and that demands...
Commemorating Ireland’s Easter Rising 100 years on, and the promise of equality
[Transcript of Ben Phillips's address at the Irish Embassy in Kenya's commemoration of the Easter Rising on 24th April 2016] I’ve been asked to share reflections as a relative of the Rising from the 100th anniversary commemorations that took place in Dublin this year,...
Action/2015 –the official verdict or why coalitions are totally worth it
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f1FpJxLGFg[/youtube] On April 22nd, about 160 countries are expected to officially sign the Paris Climate Agreement which was negotiated last year. It was one of the two international deals agreed by Heads of State in 2015...