Film: Martin Rees speaks to TalkWorks on nuclear disarmament, threats confronting humanity in the 21st century and what must change as part of the 2013 Global Perspectives series.
How different is Greece? The beginning of wisdom about the current Greek crisis is to recognize that it is fundamentally political, and that it has been long in the making. Greece’s failure is the outcome of a long process during which populism prevailed over liberalism and became hegemonic in soc
While states attempt to assert their relevance in a global age through both multiculturalism and top-down nationalism, new models of identity and strategies of participation need to be developed to deal with the co-existing phenomena of national experience and cosmopolitanism.
Last year, Marine Le Pen came third in the French presidential elections, following a campaign seeking to de-demonise the party and make it more attractive to a broader electorate. While it is arguable whether her strategy was entirely successful, the changes made may well have long-term consequen
The simple truth unpalatable to Eurozone authorities is that small peripheral EU economies and even big economies like Spain and Italy, are victims, not designers of the liberalised financial architecture that was built way back in 1992, repeating earlier twentieth century failed experiments that
The justification for the ‘rescue’ plan for Cyprus appears reasonable: taxpayers should not have to pay for the costly mistakes of bankers and ‘tax havens’ should be eliminated. But the ‘bail-in’ plan does not achieve these objectives.
There are intense efforts to portray western policy in Afghanistan in a benign light. But evidence from the country itself, and the experiences of Iraq and Libya, suggest that hard questions should be asked about what is really happening.
In Greece, austerity has caused more than just tear gas usage to rise. Heart attacks have spiked in the republic, in line with the economic crisis in the Eurozone.
From PM Monti's technocracy to President Napolitano's ten 'wise men', Italy is turning to technical expertise to rescue it from political lethargy. But the rise (and fall) of Italy's technocrats only hides the chronic frictions between the country's political class and its educated – and forgotten
The echoes are unmistakable. So if history is repeating itself – is it worse than a waste of time? Or a lot smarter than the commentators suggest?
The harsh experience of Somalis driven to seek shelter in Mogadiushu 's unsafe camps should be an urgent priority for the country's new government and its foreign donors, say Jamie Vernaelde & Laetitia Bader.
