Episode 191

For two centuries, the clash of ideas, without violence, has been a hallmark of Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park London. The brilliant and the bonkers gather every Sunday and... proselytise! Christians, Muslims and Jews, Buddhists and Druids, leftists, rightists and centrists, the famous and the absolutely obscure take, literally, to their soap-boxes and talk… And somehow it never comes to blows. The concept has now moved into the 21st century with the creation of a virtual ‘Speakers’ Corner’ on the internet, spreading the fame of one small corner of a London park world-wide. The man behind it all is Bachir al Zaim, so we invited him into the Sputnik studio and asked him to get on his soap box to tell us more.

There is a dangerous rivalry between India and China, the two most populous countries on the earth, and both nuclear-armed. It has caused a perilous stand-off between the two nations which could turn into war at any moment. Big news, you’d think... but for most people, it’s not news of any size at all. The rivalry is not just about maps of course, it’s also about the growth of two behemoth economies and the different political paths they have taken. Dr. Kadira Pethiyagoda is former adviser to the government of Australia, a Fellow at the Brookings Institute, a visiting scholar at Oxford University, and diplomat – so who better to invite into the Sputnik studio to update us on this developing and precarious situation?

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