In a rare solo press conference, George W. has finally taken full responsibility for the content of his State of the Union speech. (Click on the taking the blame over uranium link to watch it in RealPlayer on BBC). Interestingly, as Tim Dunlop muses, he can do this now the heat has gone out of the debate. Nice one Dubya!
An interesting read for all Keating fans is to be found at Margot Kingston's blog. In a speech entitled The New Global Mosaic delivered to the Local Government Unlimited Conference in Queenstown, New Zealand on Monday, PJK reflects on the three economic long waves of the 20th century, and how he expects the third wave (the one we're in now) to peter out in the next half dozen years unless there is some action in North Asia. He also comments on the current US administration's aggressive unilateralism, and that unless there is a return to a more liberal notion of internationalism, there will be a 'geo-strategic uncertainty of a kind that is debilitating and broadly unnecessary'.
Arriving in Singapore last week, I was immediately struck by the changes in the landscape since I was last here for an extended period in the mid-1990s. It's bigger and glitzier and more 'Western' than ever. This caused me to ponder just how much more development can take place on this tiny land mass.
The BBC news science and nature site gives some clue in a report on an article recently published in the journal Nature which states that in Singapore 'key habitats have shrunk by 95% since 1819' and that 'forest reserves comprising only 0.25% of Singapore's area now harbour over 50% of the residual native biodiversity' with more than 95% of the estimated 540 square kilometres of original vegetation having been entirely cleared. Using data collected from nearby peninsular Malaysia the overall loss of biodiversity in Singapore has been calculated to be at least 28% (881 of 3,196 recorded species). Not a great deal of room to manoeuvre me thinks ...
And so begins Chapter Three in my life. After a 15 year spell in the antipodes, the boy from Birmingham now finds himself in Singapore, at least for the foreseeable future.
It seems only appropriate, therefore, that I resume blogging (after the lull during my European sojourn) with a post from the Straits Times which reports on the latest garbage to emanate from the Burmese ruling junta. Apparently, Suu Kyi has been plotting a coup and this is why she isn't about to be released any time soon. Yeah right. The Straits Times report cites an AFP/AP source but uses the name Myanmar rather than Burma which gets up my nose a little. Not being in this part of the world for a while I'd forgotten about this particular practice. The political history of Burma is not my strong suit, but I do know that it was the military authorities in Burma that promoted the name change to Myanmar in the late 1980s, not a democratically elected government.