The World and I
Asti's musings on the (non)functioning world
Austria's "Representative" Democracy
I remember March of last year where I attended the
U8conference when Salil Shetty, the head of the Millenium
DevelopmentCampaign gave a speech. He started off by taking a show
of hands of those conference participants who were from developing
countries and those who were from developed countries. The third
survey he took was which of us believed our governments truly
represented what we wanted them too - at this point nobody raised
their hands. This proved a very good point, no matter where [...]
Ministries of Information
An aspect I found really interesting on CNN is that when
interviewing Zimbabwean government officials for their official
stance on the current situation in the country, they are always
either interviewing the Minister or someone from the Ministry of
Information. This reminds me of the time I read George Orwell's
novel 1984 about the totalitarian regime in the fictional country
of Oceania. In this world there is an All-Mighty Big Brother that
is watching over what everyone is doing and trying [...]
"Mugabe Claims 'Sweeping Victory'"
Well, what a surprise is all I can say.
The last week has resulted in a massive turnaround with
regards to world attitude towards Zimbabwe. It started with
Tsvangerai removing himself from the election, which was a
brilliant move to get the world media interested in Zimbabwe. There
were emergency meetings of the Security Council, condemnation of
Mugabe by various countries, who also threatened that if the
election were to proceed, they would not recognise the result;
however, most importantly, [...]
One Nation Divided By Colour
As mentioned in my previous posts I have just returned from a
trip to the US, and whilst I noted my surprise at the high poverty
rates another aspect fascinated me as well.
With the current presidential campaign there as been a lot of
talk about race and whether it will be the determining factor. In
particular there were questions about whether Americans are "ready"
yet to vote in an African American president as well as whether
Obama can secure the Hispanic vote. That being said, I was still
amazed [...]
Poverty does not only exist in LEDCs...(2)
In my previous post I outlined the problem of poverty in the
US, thus a logical second part is too look at the presidential
candidates response to the problem.
Obama's strategy is focused on jobs and work
and in particular with the fact [...]
Interestingly, if you look at both candidate's issue pages,
Barack Obama has poverty listed as an issue whereas John McCain's
is titled "Economic Plan" which outlines a pro-growth strategy
which would benefit Americans by lifting them out of poverty.
