This is from the article, Immorality of bushfires, by Gregory Clark in Japan Times.
Societies have several ways to hold themselves together and make people behave. One is strict Taliban-style punishments, with fear as the binding agent. Another is more ideological, cerebral even, with religion (Islam), post-revolutionary legitimacy (China, Vietnam), nationalism or good, intelligent government (Singapore, Scandinavia) as the binding agents.Find Singapore here.
This is from the article, Christmas Riding Around The World, in the blog Cycling tips, hints and tricks.
In Singapore a good friend of mine tells me that it’s 30C and raining there so there’s no Christmas Eve group ride. Bunch of softies.Find Singapore here.
This is from the article, The End of the End of History, in The New Republic by Robert Kagan.
a "V-shaped belt" of pro-American democratic powers "stretching from Northeast to Central Asia." When the navies of India, the United States, Japan, Australia, and Singapore exercised in the Bay of Bengal last year, Chinese and other observers referred to it as the "axis of democracy." Japan's prime minister spoke of an "Asian arc of freedom and prosperity" stretching from Japan to Indonesia to India.Find Singapore here.
This is from the article, When ‘they’ think ‘Nigeria’, what do they think? in "Nigeria's most influential and respected daily business newspaper" (as claimed in their website) by Tolu Ogunlesi. It is asking the big question, "Can the government of Nigeria succeed in selling Nigeria without the consent and support of Nigerians?"
Imagine for a second that you were not Nigerian. That instead, you came from Australia, or Singapore, or Luxembourg, and that you had never left your country before.Find Singapore here.
But you had access to CNN, and to the internet, and to magazines like Time, Newsweek and the Economist. [...]
It's very likely that you'd assume the following about Nigeria : Nigeria is a country/tribe/ethnic group/township in Africa , so there's probably a war or wars going on there (A lot of Hotel Rwandas and Blood Diamonds).
Like all African countries, it must have loads of poor folks - fly-swathed, [... bunch of poor stuffs].
HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Ebola, Poor them. [... some stuffs on language and oil]
Relatives of their dead politicians (who always seem to be dying either in car accidents or violent coup plots) love to send emails chock-full of multimillion-dollar business proposals and with titles like "Urgent Urgent" and "Please Reply ASAP". [...]
There's a long queue of them in the Sahara, stretching from their border, headed Europe-wards...
The truth, sadly, is that there is (some) truth to most, if not all, of the above. But the truth again is that there is yet another truth, which is this: there is more to Africa, and Nigeria, than money-laundering politicians, gun-running warlords and "please reply urgent" emails.
