Cryptocurrencies continue to make waves in the vast ocean of the global economy. The concept has taken off massively in recent years and may be about to step out onto the biggest stage yet: becoming legal tender in the country of El Salvador. The venture is being touted as ‘a great leap forward for humanity’ […]
Currency speculating… Read More »
Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have a shared economic and cultural heritage built around the Nile River, which stretches from the source at Lake Tana to the floodplains of Alexandria. However, tensions are rising in all three nations as a battle for water supremacy threatens to plunge the region into a simmering conflict – and perhaps
Kind of Blue (Nile) Read More »
The ongoing revelations about the arrest of a security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin, suspected of supplying sensitive documents to Russia, brings into sharp relief not only the ‘Great Game’ of espionage, which never really went away, but the moves by which the game is played. So much focus these days is given
Smiley’s happy people Read More »
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Forget Covid, forget climate change, let the entire 21st century slip by. For Afghanistan, twenty years of progress and healing have been wiped out in a matter of weeks as the national government has collapsed, international forces are fleeing, and the Taliban are in complete control in
Afghanistan: intelligence failure or state failure? Read More »
Pegasus, the spyware product designed by the Israeli surveillance company NSO has dominated the headlines since its exposure in July 2021. This is the third ‘great leak’ of recent times, after the Paradise and Panama Papers, and comes from the collaborative work of more than eighty journalists, from seventeen media organisations, in ten different countries.
The Pegasus Project: Secrets, lies, and mobile spies Read More »
Ex South African President Jacob Zuma was pressured to resign amid allegations of rampant corruption which had plunged South Africa into ‘state capture’. Zuma resigned his position with immediate effect in February of 2018. During his presidency between 2009 – 2018, corruption proliferated throughout South Africa’s political and economic institutions and infrastructures to such an
On Shaky Ground: Zuma’s Defiance Read More »
During the 2018 World Cup, we took a light-hearted look at those individuals who had parlayed their lack of skill & talent into something approaching a football career. It’s now time to look a little deeper at some footballing frauds that were a great deal more serious for the clubs and the industry as a
Further Footballing Fakes Read More »
Since antiquity, the concept of the ‘body politic’ has been well-established: the conception of a polity manifested in a human body. The king is the head, the instruments of government the senses, the citizens the limbs, and so on. What practical purpose this served, other than to provide a metaphor for a society developing at
The body corporate Read More »
In Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, the titular villain bemoans that his chosen area of art has been overlooked. “Man has achieved miracles in every human endeavour… except crime!”. In order to rectify this, and prove himself an artist, he plans to rob Fort Knox (spoiler alert: it does not work). But in the film version, Goldfinger’s
No Mr Bond, I Expect You to Pay! Read More »
Unused to being in the headlines, recent events in Mozambique have thrust the country onto front pages around the world. Not since the vicious civil war of 1977-1992 has it seen worse violence than that of the past year. Against a backdrop of executions, terrorist raids and the destruction of infrastructure, the country is once
The Resource Mirage: Horizon Scanning In An Unpredictable Landscape Read More »