Diplo Blog
How much water is there on earth?
19 June 2012
Seen from on high our planet is blue tinged – the reflection of the oceans. How much water is there, come to think of it? (Credit : Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.) The left globule is all the w...
Will 300 million Chinese leave China for Africa?
19 June 2012
In a two parts article Asia Times[1] argues that 300 million Chinese will soon migrate into Africa. This prediction is startling enough to warrant consideration. The argument relies on a mix of “push” and “pu...
The genius in all of us
18 June 2012
In 1994, at Inakadate, Japan, farmers seeking ways to attract tourists invented “rice paddy art”[1] – art that would put Chinese conceptual artist A Wei Wei to shame. Here is an example: Farmers use four kin...
Three limits of the Internet
17 June 2012
In this Internet era, we have less and less time and more and more interesting things to do. We simply cannot cope with the number of possibilities available to us. If we cannot choose what to do we often procrastinat...
Internet vocabulary broadens: New additions to the Oxford English Dictionary
14 June 2012
Some people look forward to the latest series of a long-running TV show. Others eagerly await the next next version of a specific software. Me? I look forward to the quarterly update of the Oxford English Dictionary. ...
E-diplomacy: between hype and reality
14 June 2012
E-diplomacy has attracted a lot of attention recently. Some new terms have been coined including Facebook diplomacy and Twitter diplomacy. The Arab Spring initiated a new wave of commentary on Internet-driven changes ...
No such thing as bad publicity?
13 June 2012
We’ve all heard the expression: ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’. In May, Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone laughed off the controversy over the ethics, and security risks, of holding the F1 race in ...
The European Union – waiting for the miracle
13 June 2012
The European Union is in trouble. And I’m not talking about the economy or euro now… The trouble goes deeper than that. The idealistic project sketched in the post WW2 years with great visions had slowly and littl...
