Abdul Turay

Survival of the fittest By Abdul Turay Published Postimees 23 November 2011 Never, ever start a story with a statistic a colleague once told me when I just started out in journalism. Just to be contrary, here's one you are probably familiar with. In Estonia, life expectancy for men is 65.9 years, for women 76.8 years. In the U.K. life expectancy for men is 77.2 years for women life expectancy is 81.6. In Sweden life expectancy for men is 78.7 years and 83 years for woman. Lies, lies and statistics. These statistics aren't actually lies but they don't tell the whole story. I have travelled a bit, so the newspaper asked me tell that story and interpret these statistics. Let's start with what you probably know. Health care and sickness prevention in Estonia, and indeed in the Central and Eastern Europe in general, is better than in the developing world but still not up to the standards of Old Europe. So much so that even though women outlive men everywhere, British and S...

London isn't crying about the Euro By Abdul Turay Published Postimees 21 October 2011 It's not going to work, not now, not ever. The European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), the plan to save the Euro, is doomed. The Euro - at least in it's present form- will fail, that is the view from London. It is a view held across the board, by left-wingers and right-wingers by Eurosceptics and Europhiles, by economist, politicians and traders and it is really only in the last month or so that this view has crystallised and become a majority view. The only question is not “if” the Euro will fail but “ how” it will fail. Can Europe's political elite work something out so that the Euro will continue on in another form may be even come back stronger at a later date or will the whole thing disintegrate into a unholy mess that will destroy Europe and the rest of the World. Some traders who know the region are painting a very black picture for Estonia indeed. “One day Estonia will be in ...

White Riots By Abdul Turay Published 23 August 2011 Some in the media are doing “The Italian job” on England's black population. For those of you who are not British, I'll explain. “The Italian Job” is a famous 60s movie starring Michael Cain. It's something of a national institution here, every Briton has seen it. Non-Brits may have heard of the more recent American remake staring Mark Wahlberg. It's a very clever, quirky, patriotic movie about an elaborate gold bullion heist in Italy by London's criminal underworld. There are couple of scenes in the movie that have always bugged me and I suspect every other Black Briton. At the end of the movie, after a celebrated car chase through Rome's Byzantine streets, the gang load the gold onto a bus, ditch the cars, get on the bus themselves, and drive off. The driver has the easiest job in the whole gang, in fact the easiest job in the World. He has to drive a bus along a perfectly maintained mountain pass, with no ot...

New feature (Off Topic) This Blog is about Estonia but occasionally I may publish a feature or opinion piece that is off topic. Here's one about the England riots. White Riots

City under siege By Abdul Turay Published Postimees 11 August 2011 Croydon High Street this morning looked like a war zone. I could see smoke pouring from buildings on the main street. Places I know well were burning to the ground. Police had sectioned of the main street. The helicopters, the one s with the cameras on, whirred overhead. Debris strewed the streets, people walked around dazed and shocked, not quite sure what to do. Then is started up again. By noon Croydon was starting to look dangerous. Crowds of youths were beginning to gather. So I went home, only to find the high street near to where I live was shut down. There are reports of crowds beginning to gather there too. I can hear the wail of police sirens as I am typing this. There is no simple explanation as to why this is happening. The truth is nobody knows why it is happening. Some commentators have pegged the rioting on the usual suspects of inner city social deprivation and government cuts. This...

The End of Newspapers By Abdul Turay Published Postimees 12 July 2011 Until last Sunday The News of the World was the most successful and biggest selling English language newspaper in the World. It sold 2.6 million copies more than the entire population of Estonia. Then on 7 July 2011, Rebekah Brooks, the flame-haired chief executive of News International, the media empire that owns The News of the World , marched into their main office in Wapping unannounced and told the staff to their utter amazement that Sunday's editions would be the last and the paper, which has been in existence since 1843, would be closing. In Britain, where I am at the moment, everybody is stunned; not just media types. Taxi drivers, hairdressers, waiters, fitness instructors, even people who don't even read newspapers, how much more The News of the World , are talking about nothing else. Britain's newspaper industry is in deep trouble and the rest of the World is about to fol...

China Rising By Abdul Turay Published Postimees 6 June 2011 Here is a random list of things that came into my head: Wong Fei-Hung, Tsui Hark, Gong Li, Shao Lin, Leon Lai Ming, Stephen Chow Sing Chi, Wang Fei, Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai Shek (also known as Jiang Zhong Zheng), Fa jia, Si ren bang, Han Fei, Shen, Dao, Fu Jian, Bo Yang, Guo Min Dang, Aaron Kwok Fu Shing, Nan Jing, Cui Jian, Tang Chao, Andy Lau De Hua. To most people here, the above is just a list of sounds. If I were to put together a list of the Western counterparts you would know precisely whom or what I was talking about. Wong Fei Hung is the Cantonese equivalent of Robin Hood. Nan Jing is a big city, a former capital. Somebody asked me once knowing that I had once lived in China what the Chinese and Estonian share common. The answer is the Chinese and Estonians share... ignorance,they have a limited knowledge of each others culture. In April the IMF published figures that predict that China will replace the United States...