Affairs / Government
Monocolumn
Tuesday 6 March
Is the UK a failing state?
Here’s one to consider while you thump the treadmill, commute to work or speed along at 38,000 feet – when is a state no longer a state?
- 1231 results for state
Culture / Television
Presenting the nation
An explosion of state-funded English-language news channels are attempting to transmit not just the news but their country’s brand. From Moscow to Mumbai we report on the new broadcast empires and ask if this is just pro…
Affairs / Society
State of despair
Life expectancy in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is 34 for women and 37 for men. Inflation is out of control; food, water and fuel are in short supply and corruption is rife. Elections are planned for March, but no one thinks…
Affairs / Politics
Future states
The national identity of countries can shift radically and at a speed that leaves their inhabitants gasping: think of the former Soviet Union. Here leading thinkers consider what might, or should, change in the way nations…
Culture / Media
Puppet state
The foolery of Kenyan politics provides an irresistible subject for comedy, one that Gado, a newspaper cartoonist, has based his career on. And now for the second TV series of his new controversial project, ‘The XYZ Show’…
Affairs / Economics
Finn blue line
Åland, an archipelago in Scandinavia, is hailed as a model for how to create a harmonious “nation” – without giving it full independence – academics and politicians even studied it as a model for Kosovo. The prosperous…
Affairs / Emerging Markets
Bank of the Nile
Sudan’s government is accused of aiding a genocide in Darfur and so the West refuses to do business with the regime. So how does this failed state cope? Well, for Khartoum the answer is with ease. With the help of Arab cash…
Affairs / Society
Failing states
Europe is home to three nations that should be successes but instead are failing badly. Over the following pages, we look at their problems – from corruption to constitutional meltdown.
Affairs / Society
Young rebels
No one – not even its only ally, Russia – recognises Abkhazia as a legitimate state. But 13 years after declaring independence from former Soviet Georgia, the region’s de facto government is determined to put it on the map…
Affairs / Politics
Abkhazia: Breakaway state
Thirteen years after declaring independence from Soviet Georgia, Abkhazia is still not recognised as a legitimate state by other countries. Monocle correspondent Shaun Walker reports from this former tourist paradise, still…
Affairs / Politics
Zimbabwe: State of despair
Monocle's Africa correspondent Steve Bloomfield and photographer Frédéric Courbet risked imprisonment to go undercover in troubled Zimbabwe, where international journalists are banned. They found a nation on the brink of…
Business
Los Angeles
There's a kernel of truth to the reputation of Los Angeles as a one-industry town fuelled by plastic surgery, smarmy agents and intellectual vacuity. But look past that and you'll see an increasingly sophisticated centre…
Affairs / Government
Monocolumn
Thursday 13 January
What the collapse of Lebanon’s unity government means
As Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and President Barack Obama were smiling in front of the cameras at the White House, back in Beirut the fragile Lebanese unity government collapsed yesterday with the dramatic resign…
Design / Manufacturing
Delta force
While neighbouring towns in the Mississippi Delta have struggled for survival, Greenwood has been revived by a home-grown kitchen appliance manufacturer that is committed not only to the town’s economy, but also the health…
Affairs / Politics
Yes they can
Aside from helping to elect Barack Obama, voters in California passed historic legislation to approve the nation’s first high-speed rail network. If the US wants to get back to work, investing in all its transport is key…
Design / Interior design
Isolated state
On a trip to the northern Swedish archipelago, with just a few essentials, Monocle discovers an island bolthole perfect for recharging depleted batteries.
Culture / Society
Monocolumn
Saturday 18 September
Opposites attract for the Turkic states
It has been more than 1,000 years since Turkic tribes migrated west from the Asian steppe to establish most of the great empires of Central Asia and the Middle East.
Culture / Publishing
She's a believer
Author of four hit books, Vendela Vida, is alo the co-editor of US culture magazine 'The Believer'. Part of a celebrated literary couple (her husband is Dave Eggers) she tells Monocle how she works and what inspires her.
Culture / Radio
Friends eclectic
LA’s KCRW sounds like the future of radio. Small, perfectly formed and with an influence that travels far beyond its American HQ, the station breaks bands and sets the soundtrack for Hollywood’s films and its residents…
Affairs / Diplomacy
Divided we stand
Its role in Darfur is seen as a failure. It has almost no role in the Middle East. The UN has a colourful history of international diplomacy, but now, as its officials turn on the secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the confl…