Time for Change: Campaign for an Independent Green Thanet MP and Ramsgate Mayor

The latest Tom Cruise blockbuster American Made has opened to rave reviews: Cruise on top form, best movie he's done in years, film of the week, Cruise flying high and so on. Certainly questions must be being asked at Universal studios with such superlatives and the August Bank Holiday opening, why such weak to nonexistent publicity - and that with the film being in the can for over a year too. While with director Doug Liman attached to the package - giving Christopher Nolan of megamovie Dunkirk a run for his money as one of the world’s greatest living directors - of the Bourne movie franchise, and also working with Cruise on Edge of Tomorrow, a box office hit was almost guaranteed. The Paramount theme park in West Kent once again drifting sideways would be a huge asset for the UK entertainment industry and Bluewater retail park. Certainly Mission Impossible rides would be a novel experience. And if the Paramount drift understandably continues then a James Bond World would...

With both Mexico and Thailand as top 5 UK growth economies for trade and tourism the news of 90 London buses to Mexico is a great result for UK. Indeed London bendy buses also being donated to Sudan is another superb result with increased DFID UK aid and Kent's Royal Engineers and JCB support, to help that nation fend off famine and conflict. As well as making real the Cape to Cairo road and rail network - and cargo airstrips - from Nairobi in Kenya to Lake Nasser in Egypt. A link that is also vital in opening up the Eastern seaboard of Africa to India and ASEAN along with OBOR investment in ports from Djibouti to Dhakar. And Sudan long hampered with the problem of being the nation with the fewest roads. And surely the glut of Thai rice pledge cereals - and normal harvest surplus - should more quickly and profitably find its way to hungry mouths in Bangladesh and India and East Africa? Four famines in Central Africa is a monstrous failure of UNSDG30 and UNFAO and Commonwealt...

With the founding of ASEAN celebrated from the Bangkok Declaration last week of 8th August 1967 surely a more critical overview of ASEAN is needed - and reflections on the next 50 years? Former Secretary-General and Bangkok governor candidate Khun Surin Pitsuwan detailed many of the celebratory points in his Manila speech. Certainly the evolution of ASEAN from a Cold War anti-Communist alliance at the height of the American War in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos in 1967, between only Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore - in effect replacing SEATO and ASA - to a South East Asia-wide grouping of 10 nations is a success in itself. But is Mr Surin’s overview too positive - does the ASEAN giant have feet of clay? Celebratory bureaucratic beanfeasts, backslapping and bunfights and vague exhortations of unity are all well and good, and preferable to the blood-drenched paddy fields of the past. But is process leading content? And is that unity down to ASEAN as an or...