On Start the Week Bridget Kendall discusses the role and future of the Commonwealth. As its Secretary-General at the turn of the century, Sir Don McKinnon reveals its inner workings. But the journalist Frances Harrison is critical of the organisation for failing to challenge human rights abuses. The MP Kwasi Kwarteng questions whether the Commonwealth can ever shed the baggage of Empire, and Sir Ronald Sanders asks if it can survive the rise of China.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Kultur & Literatur
Start the Week Folgen
Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday
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Folge vom 25.02.2013The Commonwealth - Don McKinnon and Kwasi Kwarteng
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Folge vom 11.02.2013Mathematical modelling with Lisa JardineOn Start the Week Lisa Jardine discusses how complex maths has broken free of the laboratory and now influences every aspect of our lives. James Owen Weatherall applauds the take-over of the financial world by physicists, Marcus du Sautoy revels in the numbers and Kenneth Cukier explores how big data will change everything from disease control to bargain buys. But the cultural commentator Tiffany Jenkins sounds a note of caution about a world where everything is measurable.Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Folge vom 04.02.2013Al-Qaeda: Afghanistan to MaliBridget Kendall discusses the roots and reach of Islamist terrorism from Afghanistan to Africa. The historian William Dalrymple looks back to Britain's First Afghan War where many Afghanis rose in answer to the call for jihad. Nadeem Aslam's latest novel ranges across the Afghan-Pakistan border where the past and the present are locked together. Dr Christina Hellmich explores what has happened to al-Qaeda since Osama bin Laden's death. And as David Cameron calls the response to Islamist terrorism in North Africa a "generational struggle", the political analyst Imad Mesdoua looks at the parallels with Afghanistan.Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Folge vom 28.01.2013Political Writing: Joan Bakewell and Tim MontgomerieStart the Week Allan Little explores the legacy of George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. Joan Bakewell, Tim Montgomerie, Chris Mullin and Phil Collins discuss Orwell's warning that evasive language, euphemism and insincerity dominate political writing, and assess the impact of today's political diaries, blogging and tweeting.Producer: Katy Hickman.