You are not signed in
Sign in | Become a Member | Contact Us
You are not signed in
Sign in | Become a Member | Contact Us
Week 49
If you’re reading this, the chances are that you keep yourself pretty well informed about the way the world is going. Maybe you still have a favourite daily newspaper, morning news show and evening news source. I do, and one of the cognitive weirdnesses about going off-grid, off-line, out-of-touch is the few days it takes to catch up with the world again. Now imagine that feeling amplified – not after a week unplugged, but after a few years. It would be a mixture of being overwhelmed, confused, over-excited and over-fed. This is the state that Wikileaks has put us all into. First, the dispatches themselves. They are clear, well-written, sometimes humorous. Journalists should worry about the competition that any scaling back of this army of excellent writers would create. But there is so much to read, so much to catch up on. Then there is the content: what is so engrossing is not any sensational revelations, but just the subtle added coloring that every one of these dispatches brings. So our edition this week is quite Wikileaks heavy – who has done well or badly? who approves or disapproves? and a few additions to our background briefing on Wikileaks, with special attention to whether it represents anarchic nihilism or a thoughtful, principled world view that will attract more than just angry hackers.
Buy a premium membership to read the whole magazine Register for a free account to read the free sections
Our royal family is the most expensive in Europe, the most cosseted, and the one with the strongest vestigial political role. Would we benefit from a cheaper, modernised, Scandinavian-style ‘Bicycling Monarchy’, or is the pomp, ceremony and constitutional fudge a national asset?
The debates that matter: Should we put volunteers in charge of social work? Does Mervyn King need to step down from the Bank of England? Are student protesters violent extremists or children with a just cause? And are we right to let politicians run the police?
Hereditary peers, party appointees and unelected bishops still decide the laws we live by. Should career politicians replace them? Watch Polly Toynbee, Lord Adonis, Shami Chakrabarti and Simon Jenkins debate whether ‘An elected House of Lords will be bad for British democracy’.
The student protests have continued. Some have occupied campuses, others, including young school children were on the street protesting. Is there any good to this movement beyond soixante-huitard nostalgia? And what of the fundamental issue?
After their revelations about US diplomats ended with Wikileaks forced off the web, does Julian Assange have a constructive philosophy, or is he only “dark Puck”, a force of chaos and destruction? Should he, as Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee have demanded, be brought to justice?
Is Julian Assange a digital Robin Hood, stealing data from the information-rich to share it with the information-poor? Or will his general amnesty of secrets unleash all sorts of unpleasant consequences? We look at the varied views of what Wikileaks will do for the world.
The acerbic diplomats’ missives we can read in the latest batch of Wikileaks revelations provide a fascinating glimpse into the people at the heart of global power structures. But who is incompetent, who’s mentally unstable, and who’s actually doing an OK job?
Michela Wrong, author of 'It’s Our Turn To Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower', takes us to the heart of African corruption, and shows how journalist John Githongo took it upon himself to expose the blackmail, coercion, and extortion rife within Mwai Kibaki’s government.
“Get to Tripoli and head south until you hit water.” Anthony Sattin tells of how the exuberant travellers of the Age of Enlightenment – men like Mungo Park – set each other outrageous assignments in their determination to reach the elusive land of unbounded fortune, Timbuktu.
An ailing Christopher Hitchens took on Tony Blair in a Munk debate in Toronto. Hitchens said that faith is essentially fanaticism, that we don’t require divine permission to know right from wrong, and that religion appeals to our fear, guilt and shame. How did the ex PM respond?
In 2007, Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling argued that “We’d be better off without religion”. Here, watch an impassioned Hitchens on how faith disputes have caused great harm throughout the last century, everywhere from Belfast, Baghdad and Beirut to Bosnia and Bombay.
Google’s rankings have the power to make or break sites on the web. Now the European Commission is investigating whether it has abused that power to protect its revenue-streams. Watch advertising expert Randal Picker at this US debate, “Google violates its ‘don’t be evil’ motto”.
“What hope for the economy?”, featuring Anatole Kaletsky and Gideon Rachman, chaired by Evan Davis, 7th Feb 2012
Buy tickets
"The best chance for peace between Israel and Palestine is for Uncle Sam to butt out”, featuring William Sieghart, 27th Feb 2012
Buy tickets
Rising star historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala on the origins of sex and how the permissive society arrived in Western Europe, 15th Feb
Buy tickets
IQ² GLOBAL
USA
Asia
Australia
Ukraine
Greece
Copyright 2011 Intelligence 2 Ltd | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | User Guidelines | Goodies | FAQs
