East 55 – The new issue

The new issue of EAST Global Geopolitics at newsstands and bookshops from the first of September

Sins of omission and Foreign Affairs: Romano Prodi and his military attaché, Gen. Giuseppe Cucchi, provide a fresh insight into the Western blunders in the Middle East that have unleashed the new (and very bloody) Caliphate phenomenon.

A great future behind him? Barack Obama is having to come to terms with a drastic loss of popularity in the US, where in many polls his appeal has even dropped below that of George W. Bush. A European, Danilo Taino, and an American, Talbot Logan, offer different takes on the issue.

With Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu and Swine Fever we were only kidding. But now the Ebola infection could be the real thing…. The ‘legendary’ Subcommander Marcos claims he was a bit of a fraud and goes into retirement, much as the Corsican and Basque “disco” terrorists; the few left behind are all on Internet and want their own www.rebels.com dominion.

Which English do you speak? Globalization is recklessly relying on the English language, which is beginning to buckle under the weight of its own success.

Bullfighters, violinists, Cordon Bleu chefs, soldiers and ‘power babies’. The dossier looks at talent, that intangible and precious ability to do things better than others. Are we born talented or do we become so?

The quality of women in China is just too high.

All lifeguards and bakers? The Super Europe voted in with the recent European Parliamentary elections doesn’t seem to know what to do with its elite of super graduates being cranked out by its universities. Well-educated and highly trained, when not unemployed they’re under-employed, often in temporary and badly paid jobs, and their talents go wasted.

The megacities are sinking. They’re drowning of their own accord, even before the sea level can rise up and swamp them. If we owe the first signs of modernity to the insight of the fabulous Fuggers, its demise might be brought on by the Catastrophe Bonds, the new risk-linked securities that make you rich with disasters. In the meantime cigarette smuggling is changing with the times and doing very well.