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NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 1ST DECEMBER 2010
The Good news …..and the Bad
Coming to the end of another year - our ninth as NewNations, inevitably a summary - and a summation look to be in order. That is reflected both in the Overview and in the country reports from some of the more inaccessible nations on earth, in which we specialise.
We include most of the geopolitical hotspots:- Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria ( includes Lebanon), Libya, Ukraine; Pakistan; the nations of the Balkans; the Caucasian countries and FSU republics of Central Asia; the giants: Russia, India, Turkey. Our guiding theme is to tell each national story as it unfolds, to illustrate by reporting the realities how near or how far off democracy is. We do this in tandem with our ‘WorldConcern’ twin, www.worldaudit.org which annual report is published next in January and uses numerical data to monitor and organise a four- division world democracy league table. But apart from these monthly national stories of NewNations, as a regular geopolitical publication with a wide international readership, we also comment on the more important hot geopolitical topics via our monthly Overview, also in our blog www.geopolemics.com
‘The Good news and the Bad’ in this last issue of 2010, considers the prospects for war on a world or regional scale, a situation we watch closely - look again at the nations we are covering- how could it be otherwise. We also check out the state of the world’s economic crisis and ask penetrating questions about the so-far quite inadequate response, because it is apparent to us that just as the world’s financial sector was out of control – the single largest factor in recent disasters, this could all happen again just as soon as the passage of time blunts the collective memory. How little we have so far heard of the role of financial fraud as a factor in this whole mess - we have an important offering on that.
Then there are many timely country reports here just days old: the quarrelsome bunch: North Korea; Iran; Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan. Taiwan, (the democracy failure of the year); notably in this issue - India’s hosting of Obama; Turkey economically succeeding yet cold-shouldered by the EU nations; Syria: with potentially big changes afoot; Saudi Arabia: the remarkable octogenarian monarch leading a liberalisation in attitudes, and showing leadership in the Arab-Israeli impasse; Ukraine settling back to being a Russian dependency …..and many more.
Our Newnations 'Easy Finder ' page lists all those nations we have reported on monthly, several no longer by having passed a ‘democracy test’ (such as being accepted into the EU- yet in the case of Romania and Bulgaria, this is not enough) They have given way to rogues, wild dogs, bullies, and both historic nations and new arrivals that so far have fallen somewhat short on democracy, for which we give our definition in “World Audit”. There are other nations we would have liked to cover but they are either too dangerous for our writers (see Vietnam), or we are insufficiently funded to take on (China).
This issue features updated country reports on:
Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Syria, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
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