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. The OpenNet Initiative, an advocacy group, lists mo...Read More

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-state students and 24 for out-of-state students. The ...Read More

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 IISS uses its own definition of what counts ...Read More

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 Brown was, Mr Blair admits to being manipulative an...Read More

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 public opinion on the war has changed enormously duri...Read More

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 vanished on Thursday August 26th. Roadworks and boom...Read More

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, a consultancy, shows that Britons have the fewes...Read More

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, just published in Science, suggests things are not ge...Read More

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 bankruptcy laws were introduced at the end of 2005. Th...Read More

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 distance ahead of America. And beer drinking in China i...Read More