alternative news & media sources for foreign policy, politics and current events in the news today.

The internet has become too important for governments to ignore

GOVERNMENTS are increasingly finding ways to enforce their laws in the digital realm. The most prominent is China’s “great firewall”. But China is by no means the only country erecting borders in cyberspace. T

Galloping inflation in American college fees

FOR decades, college fees have risen faster than Americans’ ability to pay them. Median household income has grown by a factor of 6.5 in the past 40 years, but the cost of attending a state college has increased by a factor of 15 for in-sta

China now has more warships than America, according to the IISS

THE International Institute for Strategic Studies (better known as the IISS), reckons China now has more warships than America, which long possessed the biggest fleet. As it can be hard to distinguish a warship from other boats

The best-selling political memoirs in Britain

TONY BLAIR, Britain's former prime minister, published his memoirs on Wednesday September 1st. The few people who have already read them cover to cover report that, in addition to the familiar stuff about how awful his relationship with Gordon B

How America's opinion of the Iraq war has changed

OVER seven years after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, America's direct military involvement is now coming to an end. President Barack Obama will set out his new policy in a speech from the Oval Office on Monday August 31st. American pub

China's traffic jam was inevitable

CHINA tends to do everything a bit bigger than the rest of the world, including traffic jams. One snarl up this month along a highway leading into Beijing was at one point over 100km long and left traffic gridlocked for eleven days until it mysteriously va

Who has most freedom to travel?

THE ability to visit a foreign country without the cost and hassle of obtaining a visa is a welcome bonus for any traveller. It is also a barometer of a country's international alliances and relations. A report released on August 25th by Henley & Partners

Where has all the plastic gone?

THE amount of plastic thrown away by Americans increased fourfold between 1980 and 2008. It is a reasonable assumption that as more plastic is produced and discarded, this will affect oceanic pollution. But a study of the north Atlantic and the Caribbean, jus

Bankruptcies rise in America

BANKRUPTCY filings rose 20% in the year to June 30th compared with the previous 12-month period, according to statistics released on August 17th by the Administrative Office of the US Courts. This takes quarterly filings to their highest point since tougher bank

Asia overtakes Europe, in beer terms

CHINA;S remarkable growth is as apparent in beer consumption as it is in more formal economic indicators. In the space of a couple of decades the country has gone from barely touching a drop to become the world;s biggest beer market, a considerable dista

China's economy overtakes Japan's in real terms

CHINA has become the world's second biggest economy according to data released on Monday August 16th. Japan's economy fell behind China's at market exchange rates in the second quarter (it has been number three in PPP terms for some time). The

The jobless recovery, long prophesied, is here

FEARS that the recovery of America's economy after the financial crisis would fail to spur an increase in employment are being realised. In July, 52,000 fewer people were employed on non-farm payrolls than in July 2009, the month in which it is

Shadow economies have grown since the financial crisis began

A NEW estimate of the size of shadow economies around the world sheds light on a worrying trend. Friedrich Schneider, of Linz University in Austria, reckons that, for the first time in a decade, transactions taking place outside t

The world's biggest broadband providers

THE ten largest broadband service providers in the world gained over 23m subscribers in the year to the end of March. Together they have 191m subscribers, or almost 40% of the world’s 492m broadband customers, according to TeleGeography, a resea

In which European countries are people least likely to attend religious services?

THE proportion of people who regularly attend religious services has declined steadily throughout Europe in recent years. But habits vary widely across countries. According to the latest European Social Survey

How long can corporate America’s profit rebound continue?

THE quarterly results season that is drawing to a close has revealed that corporate profits are back within a whisker of the all-time highs achieved before the downturn in late 2008. American profits are already back to 11% of

Who produces most diamonds?

AMID much media interest, Naomi Campbell, a model, gave evidence on Thursday August 5th at the special court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. Charles Taylor, the former dictator of Liberia, who is on trial for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone, is accused of

The cost of breakfast rises

SEVERE drought and wildfires in Russia, the world’s fourth largest wheat producer, have destroyed a fifth of the country’s crop and sent prices soaring. Since the end of June wheat prices have more than doubled. On Wednesday August 4th, the UN’s

Stolen cars which are most costly to insurers

AMERICA'S car thieves show clear preferences in the vehicles they steal. Size, speed and luxury are all important factors when it comes to selecting a target. But the country's car thieves are, at least, patriotic. If America's carmaking giants