Affairs
Page 269
Royal society
This month in our series on independent retail strips we shop for rare Nordic design, good coffee, well-loved books and violins on Thereses gate.
Back in your box
How do you make voting simpler, appealing and important? It’s a challenge Norway has tried to solve. The solution is a vote winner.
Art attack
Today most countries prefer to assert their international identity with artists not armies. We profile the cultural missions of four countries out to win friends with dancing dragons and alternative art.
Desert Dream
Once a provincial backwater, the Jordanian port town of Aqaba is in the midst of a vast regeneration programme that will reposition it as the ‘gateway to the Levant’.
Oblast resort
An isolated chip off the old Russian bloc surrounded by EU nations, Kaliningrad’s future is anyone’s guess. Military outpost or beach resort? With wise investment, its remoteness could work.
A closer look at Chengdu
Investment from Beijing and abroad has brought a boom to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. Monocle visits the city to gauge its progress.
Bigger than Björk
Magnus Scheving, creator of ‘LazyTown’, is a global phenomenon and reluctant Icelandic icon. Presidents take his calls and children in 128 countries listen, but he thinks he has outgrown his small nation.
Defence
We look at the new hi-tech armoured vehicles for US and UK troops in Afghanistan, a new mine-resistant jacket from Colombia and the increasing physical hardship of life in combat.
