When Abdulrazak Gurnah was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, I was suddenly back at university, with my PhD supervisor suggesting I read Professor Gurnah. …

It was Disraeli who supposedly said of the English heart of the industrial revolution that “What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow.” At the time, Manchester truly was leading the world in building new sorts of machines and transport networks.

Today, it is Hungary that’s blazing…

On 11 October, the Arab world’s first female prime minister was sworn into office in Tunisia. Najla Bouden’s rise to high office from political obscurity made headlines around the world, even though president Kais Saied had already curtailed the prime minister’s powers and arrogated unlimited authority to himself. …

Everyone’s talking about supply chains and the perceptible effects of the fact that they’re loose and unmoored — empty shelves, a backlog of Christmas orders, a shortage of almost everything. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t hear a lot of cheering from the anti-globalisation brigade. For decades, globalisation…

You don’t need a sign by a major road in Milwaukee to tell you the labour shortage is acute. You probably feel it already. Domino’s, the world’s biggest seller of pizza and pizza-like foods, says it can’t find the delivery people it needs in America. …

Having recently been in Virginia, where the gubernatorial election campaign is in full swing, I read Peter Spiegel, the FT’s US managing editor’s comment on the contest with interest.

Mr Spiegel began by noting that “in another election cycle, in another era, Glenn Youngkin would be a Republican candidate out…

Rumours of the death of Columbus Day may be greatly exaggerated, but it sure is under stress.

Less than a hundred years since Columbus Day became a federal holiday, ostensibly to commemorate the “discovery” by Christopher Columbus of the Americas in 1492, it’s in the throes of a great renaming…

In Wisconsin, we heard about the thriving tradition of CSA or Community Supported Agriculture by means of which families buy local food directly from farmers, thereby eating healthily and providing stability to local growers.

The CSA process is amazingly simple.

Anyone who wants to purchase a “share”, becomes a farm “member”. The identified farm of which you’re a member regularly delivers a box of vegetables and/or other farm products to the designated pick-up location. Members must sign up with their chosen farm in advance of the growing season in order for the farmer to plan ahead.

Brexit Britain would probably benefit from a robust CSA scheme considering farmers in the UK are facing increasing uncertainty about the profitability of their trade.

Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com on October 9, 2021.