Fast growth countries and established ones have a similar challenge with infrastructure. Infrastructure improvements require investment; anything that enables it to be built cheaper, faster and with less disruption is a major benefit. The old adage time is money is particularly apt in the infras
Read Full StoryFirstly, the apologies for being so quiet for a few months. I decided I had other things to focus on, but now that summer is drawing toward an end it is time to recommence the observations and analysis. Regular readers will know that we are skeptics about the talking points on the immigration de
Read Full StoryThere’s always more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. One of the challenges that the coalition troops face in Afghanistan and Iraq is how to marry traditional cultural views on females and effectively police the villages. For example, there is case cited by Dexter Filkins in ‘The
Read Full StoryIt is hard to know whether to laugh or cry when you read the rhetoric about immigration in the US media. It is of course natural for a country to exhibit some symptoms of xenophobia at a time of economic stress; that's the normal blame game. The populist mantra of ‘they are taking our jobs and
Read Full StoryThe forces of globalization and international commerce are unstoppable. Whether you are a fan or a naysayer matters little; the genie of globalization is out of the bottle and won’t be put back in. What is amusing is that some great powers thing they can control who gets to benefit from this t
Read Full StoryIran announced it is sending an aid flotilla to the Gaza, and our media spins as to how this is s direct challenge to the West and a threat to Israel. While that might be a side product, the West has an inflated opinion of how much its actions shape Iran’s agendas. Iran is indeed sending a
Read Full StoryThe headline’s a cheap shot (no pun intended) but as a naturalized Australian I think I can get away with it. Australians have something of a reputation as a hard-drinking crowd, but now it seems the wildlife are getting in the act. Darwin's red-collared lorikeets are literally falling out of
Read Full StoryThere is no way that you can read about the latest edict of French President Sarkozy and not have the phrase Napoleonic Complex spring to mind. If you need context, in 1908 psychologist Alfred Adler cited Napoleon to describe an inferiority complex in which short people adopt an over-aggressive
Read Full StoryA while back we wrote a piece about how the Lebanese economy was rebounding based in part on the fact that Lebanese entrepreneurs and workers send home to Lebanon a staggering $7.5 billion a year from overseas. Now it seems that Syria’s less centralized economy, integration of women into busin
Read Full StoryRefugees deserve our best efforts as humans. Great events well beyond them control make them flotsam within their home nation. Extreme stresses of poverty, disease, war and oppression see fellow humans undertake epic journeys in a search for peace and prosperity. They arrive sometimes on our sho
Read Full StoryAs a long-time critic of Israeli foreign policy, I always wondered how far Israel would have to go before it brought down the wrath of the moderate international community. It seems the flotilla debacle was one blockade too far. The Lebanon Wars weren’t apparently enough to anger Israel’s alli
Read Full StoryIt fascinates me that some cling to securing the borders as a panacea to return the US to peace and prosperity. It is actually an inversion of the reality. The US becomes richer due to internationalization, and globalization is not a trend that can be reversed by a state or Federal legislature.
Read Full Story
Fast growth countries and established ones have a similar challenge with infrastructure. Infrastructure improvements require investment; anything that enables it to be built cheaper, faster and with less disruption is a major benefit. The old adage time is money is particularly apt in the infras
09.2.2010 | Asia, China | Stuart Ford
Firstly, the apologies for being so quiet for a few months. I decided I had other things to focus on, but now that summer is drawing toward an end it is time to recommence the observations and analysis. Regular readers will know that we are skeptics about the talking points on the immigration de
There’s always more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. One of the challenges that the coalition troops face in Afghanistan and Iraq is how to marry traditional cultural views on females and effectively police the villages. For example, there is case cited by Dexter Filkins in ‘The
It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry when you read the rhetoric about immigration in the US media. It is of course natural for a country to exhibit some symptoms of xenophobia at a time of economic stress; that's the normal blame game. The populist mantra of ‘they are taking our jobs and
The forces of globalization and international commerce are unstoppable. Whether you are a fan or a naysayer matters little; the genie of globalization is out of the bottle and won’t be put back in. What is amusing is that some great powers thing they can control who gets to benefit from this t
Iran announced it is sending an aid flotilla to the Gaza, and our media spins as to how this is s direct challenge to the West and a threat to Israel. While that might be a side product, the West has an inflated opinion of how much its actions shape Iran’s agendas. Iran is indeed sending a
The headline’s a cheap shot (no pun intended) but as a naturalized Australian I think I can get away with it. Australians have something of a reputation as a hard-drinking crowd, but now it seems the wildlife are getting in the act. Darwin's red-collared lorikeets are literally falling out of
There is no way that you can read about the latest edict of French President Sarkozy and not have the phrase Napoleonic Complex spring to mind. If you need context, in 1908 psychologist Alfred Adler cited Napoleon to describe an inferiority complex in which short people adopt an over-aggressive
A while back we wrote a piece about how the Lebanese economy was rebounding based in part on the fact that Lebanese entrepreneurs and workers send home to Lebanon a staggering $7.5 billion a year from overseas. Now it seems that Syria’s less centralized economy, integration of women into busin
Refugees deserve our best efforts as humans. Great events well beyond them control make them flotsam within their home nation. Extreme stresses of poverty, disease, war and oppression see fellow humans undertake epic journeys in a search for peace and prosperity. They arrive sometimes on our sho
06.9.2010 | Africa, Europe | Stuart Ford
As a long-time critic of Israeli foreign policy, I always wondered how far Israel would have to go before it brought down the wrath of the moderate international community. It seems the flotilla debacle was one blockade too far. The Lebanon Wars weren’t apparently enough to anger Israel’s alli
It fascinates me that some cling to securing the borders as a panacea to return the US to peace and prosperity. It is actually an inversion of the reality. The US becomes richer due to internationalization, and globalization is not a trend that can be reversed by a state or Federal legislature.
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