Former Australian PM, previously a staunch opponent, has announced his support for gay marriage. Some critics suggest he is merely on manoeuvres (again); in a lengthly post on his website he claims it is a genuine conversion.
Former Peruvian President Fujimori apparently has worsening health problems, coincidentally the only grounds on which he can receive a presidential pardon.
Former Haitian PM René Préval recounts a conversation he said he had with the former head of the UN mission in Haiti after the controversial 2010 elections. He claims the UN tried to remove him.
The Serb Radical Party (SRS) has filed criminal charges against current and ex-officials for violation of the Constitution during negotiations with Priština.
Despite a finding of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis on the modern Olympics, Hungary’s former president Pal Schmitt wants to stay with the IOC.
Not every former president gets to invest their saved up political capital for future gain; some have to spend all theirs just to keep what they already have.
Two years ago, I read a fascinating article in The Atlantic about the US Army’s Military History Detachments. The MHDs go into combat and record oral histories with everyone in the Army, to ensure the appropriate lessons are learned from combat.
I thought ‘if only I could get hold of some of those recordings, they could make a fascinating programme.’ And tomorrow night, with a lot of help from the US Army’s Center of Military History in Washington, DC and the US Army’s Chief Historian, Dr. Richard Stewart, that programme will be on air.
Chris Parry, the excellent presenter, uses this extraordinary and unique archive to tell the story of the invasion of Iraq from the inside.
Chris, a former Royal Navy Rear Admiral, wrote the lessons learned for the British armed forces, and brought all the necessary knowledge and critical skills to the task of interrogating the history of this complicated period.
Listening to hour after hour of sometimes quite poor quality interviews was challenging at times, but the moment when I realised that one of the main characters in the programme is now head of doctrine and training for the US Army more than made up for it. He - General David Perkins - reveals what the US Army has learned from more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I found this one of the most educational talks I’ve been involved with. Anwar Akhtar has a very interesting perspective on Pakistan’s history - and its meaning. He describes how for many centuries it has had a dual meaning - Muslim and multicultural - which since independence has caused something approaching an identity crisis (he draws parallels with Israel).
Anwar gives a passionate defence of the multicultural strand in Pakistan’s complicated history, and argues that the British Pakistani community has a huge amount to contribute to ensure that Pakistan’s future is a positive one.
Serial adventurer Sally Kettle argues that spending our time hoping is too often a way of avoiding action, in many cases action that would accomplish precisely the thing we are ‘hoping’ to achieve.
It was a discovery she stumbled across whilst adrift on the first of several record-breaking crossings of the Atlantic Ocean.
The word ‘code’ was ubiquitous in 2012: breaking out of the technical press, and even becoming part of the battle over education reform. But what does it mean?
In this wonderful talk, Tom Armitage explores the real meaning of code, concluding that being able to code is really about being able to think in a modern way.
