The huge numbers of people on the move around the world – be they seeking refuge from war or oppression, or looking for a better life – will be top of the...
Alistair Burnett
Alistair Burnett is Director of News for Sightsavers, the NGO that works around the world to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equality for people with visual impairments and other disabilities.
Before that he spent 26 years with BBC News where he was the Editor of 'The World Tonight' on Radio 4 for ten years and before that Editor of 'Newshour' on BBC World Service.
Alistair has a particular interest in international relations and the shifting power relations in the world challenging the traditional US and European dominance of global affairs.
International aid – a way to show post-Brexit Britain hasn’t turned its back on the world
On his last day in Downing Street, David Cameron said one of his proudest achievements was to honour the commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on...
Is US-led campaign against IS making much progress?
The recent defeat of Islamic State (IS) forces in the Syrian border town of Kobane has been greeted by the US-led coalition fighting the group as a...
Has securitising Ebola paid off?
UN officials are expressing cautious optimism that the tide has been turned in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa which has now claimed more than 8,600 lives....
Wishful Thinking and Great Power Politics
Today, President Petro Poroshenko signed the EU Association Agreement and Russia has warned of grave consequences. Of course, it was the refusal of...
Brazil fluffing its lines?
The World Cup in Brazil is less than a month away and the bad publicity is mounting with the news that the coach of the national team is being charged with...
Ukraine: the corrosive effect of hypocrisy?
Much western commentary about the Ukraine crisis has asserted that Russian intervention in Crimea has undermined the post-Cold War order based on the...
China – not yet a global power
China has been taking flak for its relatively small contribution to the international aid effort in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan. It's pledged...
The right recipe for democracy
“There’s more to democracy than free and fair elections”. This is a refrain we’ve heard more than once since the anti-government protests broke out in major...
Is Hollande discovering it IS easier to get in than out?
France’s beleaguered President Francois Hollande has had some good news. He may have fallen out of the public’s affection faster than any previous French...
Brazil – can she be everybody’s friend?
Brazil’s diplomats must be quietly pleased with their week’s work. Last weekend, the country’s President, Dilma Rousseff, fresh from being named the world’s...
Are India & China really destined to rivalry?
China and India are the two giants of what are called the emerging powers – they are the ’I’ and ‘C’ in the BRICS – but despite their membership of that...
Nuclear war called off in Korea – time to relax?
Something quite significant happened this week– though you may have missed it. It seems the US military doesn’t think there will be nuclear war with North...
A Balkan success for EU soft power?
Serbian leaders will make another attempt this week to convince Serbs in northern Kosovo to accept last month’s deal between Belgrade and Pristina to...
Brazil & the US – never on the same page?
Relations between the two giant democracies of the Americas, Brazil and the US, should be easy, but they never seem to be - as the recent spat over...
Is the Eurozone crisis a threat to democracy?
Here's a piece I've done for Yale Global magazine on democracy under strain in Europe. Politicians in power since the 2008 financial collapse, regardless of...
Is the US focus on Asia a first step away from being a global power?
This is my first post for a while as I've been off 'fighting ' cancer though for a lot of the time 'enduring ' would have been a more appropriate way of...
Libya strains NATO
I've done a piece for YaleGlobal about the implications for NATO of its operation in Libya With Operation Unified Protector in Libya, NATO enters war for the...
The right mix for humanitarian intervention
I've posted a piece on the BBC Editors' Blog about Libya, Ivory Coast and humanitarian intervention. Since the foreign military intervention began in Libya in...
Foreign Policy ironies
Prime Minister, David Cameron’s tour of the Gulf on a trade promotion mission as the Arab world is rocked by mass protests against long-lasting authoritarian...
More from Global Dashboard
Let’s make climate a culture war!
If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...
Big Elephants and Small Islands: getting beyond the New Aid Orthodoxy
Official development assistance (ODA) – or aid – is a small but conspicuous pillar of the international order, and its frailties are being exposed by COVID as surely as those of the other foundations of this order. The assumptions underpinning aid and its management...
Uncertainty and Humanitarian Action: What Donald Rumsfeld can teach us
Since its onset, one striking feature of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has been the narrative power of its novelty. This global narrative depicts COVID-19 pushing humanity towards a ‘historical divide’ of BC and AC (before and after COVID-19), where unknown,...