18 May, 2006

Independent goes Red

The Independent on Tuesday welcomed Bono, of U2, as its guest editor and dedicated its front page for his "Red" campaign fighting AIDS in African nations.

The front page syas "No News Today". And there is another message - "Just 6,500 Africans died today as a result of a preventable, treatable disease".

Half its revenue from the Red paper is to be used for the campaign.

I like the Independent's challenging attitude.

» The Independent
» BBC News | Independent goes Red as Bono edits

7 December, 2005

Nick Robinson's New Newslog

» BBC News | Nick Robinson's Newsblog | The beauty of blogging

Nick Robinson, political journalist, has returned to BBC from ITV News at the end of August. And now he starts blogging at the BBC News website. Thanks to an eye-catching announcement at the news front page, I could know and find his brand-new blog. (I've seen him many many times on the telly, but don't know much about his background and himself. All I know is that he's a political editor and always reports by the Thames or near the Big Ben. You, and me also, can learn more about him here!)

In the 5th of December's entry, he write about what a good weblog (newsblog) is ilke. It is very interesting.

Because "newsblog" gives us a chance to share our views, it is a very different type of media. He write; "I may also invite you to listen, watch or read something that's particularly interested me." He describes broadcasting as the media which you speak to a vast number of people, but you hardly have a conversation with them.

Therefore, he believes that "a good weblog can really change the relationship between author and reader." After this, he keeps writing, stretching this idea to the relationshop between politician and voter. Well, that's another story here.

As one of the today's bloggers, even though I'm not a serious "news" blogger. I bear in mind what is talked here, having seen my blog which haven't got many comments but have got many spam comments... I don't want poker advertising or Viagra. Piss off.

And what surprised me was the fact that he first started writing Newslog in December 2001. Blog? 4 years ago? He was keeping a daily live diary of things in and around Westminster.

Published on this website, it was a continuation of a column we had started during that year's General Election campaign, in a daily article called The Campaign Today.

I naturally stopped doing Newslog when I went to ITV News to be political editor - it was only polite, really - but ever since I returned to the BBC in September, I've been anxious to start blogging again.

This blog is going to be an entertaining and politically-educational blog. He also hopes that, having seen recent British political movements. Well, the next is about the new leader of the Conservative party?

10 September, 2005

New-look Guardian unveiled

The Guardian's new front page was unveiled yesterday ahead of the newspaper's relaunch on Monday. The newspaper has been drastically changed in many respects.

Size
The Guardian adopted a Berliner format, which is larger than a tabloid but smaller than a broadsheet. I thought the paper was going with a tabloid size when I heard the news.

Does this choice reflect a dilemma of the Guardian - the paper had to adopt a smaller format sooner or later, having seen its dropping sales and rivals' successful shifts to a tabloid size, namely, Independent and Times, but did not follow exactly what they had done. That's why the Guardian goes with the Berliner size?

In the wake of the Independent's and Times's experiments in dual-format publishing we played with our own version of a tabloid paper, but found it hard to achieve what we wanted. To cite only one - rather basic - consideration, a tabloid Guardian would have been well over 250 pages on some days of the week, making it impossibly bulky.

Colour
Every page will be printed with colour. The paper says it will be "the UK's most colourful national paper".

Font
A story about font always attracts designers' interest.

» Logo
The only thing that make me feel sad is that the Guardian logo will be replaced. I love it. The article describes the logo as "the titlepiece - a radical piece of eighties design genius with its then startling juxtaposition of italic Garamond and chunky Helvetica". And the new logo will be "a more contemporary one using a new font designed especially for the Guardian."

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, said: "The new titlepiece is the final element of our redesign and completes the new modern look of the paper."

» Headline font
Bold black sans serif headlines will have made way for a more restrained serif headline font.

» Body font
It is designed by Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz and appropriately named "Guardian Egyptian Text". The size will be 8pt on a leading of 9.5pt and has been designed to exploit the state-of-the-art press technology to be especially legible.

Over the years different generations of typographers have experimented with different fonts - from Century to Cheltenham, from Garamond to Perpetua, from Gould Old Style to Ludlow Black.

G2
G2 will be 36 pages, stapled and half the size of the main Berliner. It will turn to be the first stitched, full-colour news magazine produced to newspaper deadlines every Monday to Friday.

The Observer
In early 2006 its sister paper, the Observer, will also shift to the Berliner format. It says that the new Observer will reflect feedbacks on this new Guardian.

» Media Guardian | New-look Guardian unveiled
9 September 2005

» The Guardian | From Monday: a new, smaller Guardian, the UK's most colourful national paper

9 August, 2005

Robin Cook dies aged 59

Shocking news arrived last weekend.

Former Cabinet minister Robin Cook died at the age of 59. He collapsed while he was walking in the Scottish Highlands and was airlifted to hospital in Invernesson on Saturday.

When it comes to Robin Cook, I remember the moment of his resignation. He resigned from the Cabinet in protest over Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq.

From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as Leader of the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to war.

It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.

Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support.

I intend to join those tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government.

» BBC News | Former minister Robin Cook dies
» rhydd's diary | A sudden lost to British politics
» Londonist | Not bad for a chemist's son...

» The Observer | Robin Cook dies after collapse on mountain
This article is particularly emotional.

He was hugely funny. I remember we had a Christmas night out - it ended up being in about February. He took us all to a jazz club in Camden; he loved jazz.

28 July, 2005

Discomfort of strangers

» BBC Magazine | The discomfort of strangers
26 July 2005
By Sean Coughlan

Interesting article from BBC Magazine. It's about recent trends of Tube travellers, created by the bomb attacks on London.

Marcus, who says his family are Greek-Cypriot, has devised a strategy to avoid "odd looks" on the Tube (which he attributes to his Mediterranean appearance).

To make himself seem non-threatening, he now wears a Make Poverty History wristband and makes a point of reading the Economist.

Being on the receiving end of such a hostile atmosphere has persuaded Leila, a white convert to Islam, to stop travelling by Tube altogether.

"I sensed people's fear of me because of my Muslim dress. Sometimes people even preferred to stand rather than sit by me, leaving an empty seat next to me."

Mr Fitzgibbon [psychologist from the north London-based consultancy, Fitzgibbon Associates] says fear is a natural response to a threat - but the prolonged media coverage, and the way that people continue to talk about the bombings, can generate a response that is greater than the actual threat that exists.

21 July, 2005

London alert again

Just after I left London, explosions took place in 4 different places over London. On the last day of my trip, I was in London to meet my friend and took a bus and an underground. It was two days ago. Disgusting, isn't it?

7 July, 2005

LONDON UNDER ATTACK

Two people are killed and many more injured in terror attacks on London's transport network.

The Metropolitan Police advise people to stay where they are and not to call the emergency services except in life-threatening situations.

» BBC News

15 June, 2005

Guardian resize

The Guardian has announced it is to introduce its new, smaller format in this autumn, about a year earlier than planned.

Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of Guardian Newspapers, said today;

Just over a year ago we made one of the most important decisions in the 184-year history of the Guardian, and the 213-year history of the Observer.

The shift to a smaller format is getting widespread in the British newspaper industry, following renewals of the Independent and Times, which have pushed the companys' sales.

The Guardian's shift tells us this tabloid size trend is not just a fad any more. So who's next? Telegraph or FT? (In fact, Telegraph has already announced it's planning to resize the format. Wait, has it done yet? To be honest, I haven't followed the Telegraph shift news.)

» MediaGuardian.co.uk | Guardian resizes ahead of schedule
14 June 2005
By Julia Day

7 June, 2005

Clone cities - from Londonist

From Londonist. Interesting article on clone cities in Britain, which is related to the entry I wrote before.

» Londonist | Attack Of The Clones

29 May, 2005

Natasha, Jade and Jemma

When I was in Cardiff, I noticed this. Sunday afternoon, on the Queens Streen in Cardiff, I found lots of teenage girls who have kids. They seemed too young to have kids. In addition, some of the girls smoked a cigarette beside a buggy.

» BBC News | Sisters give birth at 12, 14, 16
And I came across an article which made what I saw fairly certain. I wasn't wrong.

Three schoolgirl sisters, Natasha, Jade and Jemma, have given birth aged 12, 14 and 16 and receive £600 a week in benefits. Oh my god.

13 May, 2005

Memo (1)

» BBC News | Costly victory for chastened Blair
By John Simpson
9 May 2005

7 May, 2005

And the LD brings sweet memories of Cardiff

The election showed us not only the reelected Labour and the Conservatives' third successive defeat, but also the leap of the Liberal Democrats, which benefited from anti-war protest votes. Charles Kennedy, the leader of the party, has right to be delighted with that.

Kennedy, who became the party leader six years ago, has brought the party's largest number of MPs since the 1920s - the best performance ever.

Well, I don't know much about the Liberal Democrats, to be honest, but there is a reason why I'm still writing about the party. That's because I found the Liberal Democrats gained Cardiff Central, achieving a huge 13 per cent swing. Cardiff is where I spent two years to study journalism.

And there is more to it. Cardiff Central's new MP is Jenny Willott, a young lady politician. She was featured in a magazine, TRACK, which I and my classmates produced during the course last year at Cardiff University.

This is from an interview, "How to be an MP", with her.

Q. Where do you see yourself five years from now?

A. Five years ago I would have never imagined of what I am doing today. I am a strong believer of the fact that the joys of life lie in taking the opportunities as they come. But I am sure to be working for Cardiff, hopefully as a MP.

Her dream came true.

By the way, I didn't get involved in this feature, because I was busy at designing the magazine website. The interview was done by our chief editor, Piyush Roy.

You can read the rest of the interview with Jenny Willott.
» TRACK | How to be an MP - Campaign Chat with Jenny Willott

7 May, 2005

Tories defeat

The Tories failed to win the election. Although the Conservatives regained nearly 200 seats, they ended up with their third successive defeat. Having lost the election, Michael Howard, the fourth leader in eight years, announced that he would stand down "sooner rather than later so that the party can choose someone who can", despite calls for him to stay on during a crucial time for the party.

Howard considers the result as a "significant step towards our recovery", but BBC says that it was the party's worst series of results since World War II. In addition, according to BBC, the Conservatives "will still have fewer seats in the House of Commons than the Labour Party did at its lowest point back in 1983, and their share of the vote increased by only one percentage point".

This article, which analyses the Conservative's defeat, is quite easy-to-follow and suitable for someone who knows little like me.
» BBC News | Howard's parting favour
By Nick Assinder
6 May 2005

Most Conservatives probably believed the best they could hope for from this general election was an honourable second place, and Mr Howard has delivered that.

So it was always highly likely the party would then start another process of re-evaluation.

And the question remains: where do they go from here - do they continue building or return to their old destructive ways?

Mr Howard can comfort himself with the thought that he probably achieved enough to head off any suggestions that he is personally to blame for the election failure.

Indeed, when he became the surprise successor to Iain Duncan Smith in 2004 at the age of 62, most believed his only task was to stop the Tory party destroying itself.

» BBC News | Analysis: Where now for Tories?
By Barnaby Mason
6 May 2005

It is clear that, whoever the leader, the Conservatives would not have done even as well as they have without the special factor of the Iraq war and the loss of trust in Tony Blair.

So the question is whether the Tory leadership will draw the conclusion that the party still needs fundamental reform - or that it simply has to wait until next time to get back into government.

7 May, 2005

Blair victory

Tony Blair won historic third term, but with a reduced majority and with a question - How long will he last at No 10? There is a controversial issue, namely, Iraq, which has affected his way to get re-elected.

As a clear sign of an "Iraq effect", the Labour showed much worse performance in the capital than other regions, losing Enfield Southgate, Putney, Hammersmith, Ilford North and Wimbledon to the Conservatives.

When Blair regained his Sedgefield seat, he said, "I know Iraq has been a divisive issue in this country, but I hope now we can unite again and look to the future."

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, also admitted that the party had suffered a protest vote, saying, "I promise that we will listen and learn so that we can serve our country and our community even better in the years to come."

While British media report Blair's historic victory, they also talk about the next successor who can be Gordon Brown. Independent says;

Although Mr Blair set to enter the history books, the sharp drop in his majority will raise a question-mark over whether he can remain in Downing Street for anything like the "full term" he wishes to serve before standing down. He will face calls from within the party for an early handover of power to Mr Brown, whose allies believe Labour would have suffered bigger losses if the Chancellor had not played a pivotal role in the campaign.

Blair won the election, largely because voters were not able to be willing to choose either Michael Howard or Charles Kennedy - even though there was an "Iraq effect". So the public who voted for Blair were not necessarily willing to do. Simply, they had no choice.

Boris Johnson, the Tory candidate in Henley, west London, said: "What we are now seeing I think is the slow, sad political extinction of Tony Blair."

» Independent | Blair secures his third term - but how long will he last at No 10?

6 May, 2005

Election day

4 May, 2005

UK kids in fat crisis

Having eaten unhealthy food like fish and chips, Mars bars and BK's Whopper, British kids are getting fatter. And the epidemic of childhood obesity is getting serious indeed.

According to the Department of Health, the prevalence of obesity among children under the age of eleven rose from 9.9% to 13.7% between 1995 and 2003.

Especially, an age group between eight to ten showed the biggest increase - from 11.2% to 16.5% over the eight-year period.

Dr Ian Campbell of the National Obesity Forum said; "These statistics are very worrying indeed."

"It's the fact that calories have become cheaper and exercise expensive."

In my opinion, unhealthy diet and eating disorder among kids are mainly caused by two factors; one is domination of for-profit, mass-produced, unhealthy food such as chocolate bars and hamburgers; and the other can be Britain's food culture that is interpreted as this question - Do parents cook by themselves for kids?

As we saw Jamie Oliver's Feed Me Better, British kids' diet is in crisis.

» BBC News | England's children getting fatter

3 May, 2005

IDS

Golden Week is going on in Japan. I found the former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, in the UK election.
» BBC News | I'm still standing, says Duncan Smith

15 April, 2005

Manifesto designs

An interesting article on manifesto designs of three parties for the election.
» BBC News | Manifesto designs under the microscope
14 April 2005
By Brian Wheeler

Moreover, a blog about the Conservative's campaign poster from the BBC Election 2005 page.
» BBC News | Off-message to on
14 April 2005
By Alan Connor

6 April, 2005

050505: UK election

» BBC News | Blair sets 5 May as election date
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has formally announced that the general election will be held on 5 May.

Blair is going to serve his third term? Polls show a dead heat for the first time since 1992 - the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are close to being in balance this time. Behind this fact, there is an unsettled question about Iraq war. Blair is in a disadvantaged position. Here are some of the related articles.

» Guardian Unlimited | MI6, Jack Straw, defence staff: Blair ignored them all

» BBC News | Iraq war haunts UK prime minister

For those who keep eye on this election, I recommend BBC's special page. This is fantastic.

» BBC News | Election 2005

5 April, 2005

Feed me better

I'm going to recap last week's news I missed. Because I had the busiest week ever since this year began, I couldn't possibly catch up with anything like news. Here is a selection of recent news. I begin with this.

---

» BBC News | TV chef welcomes £280m meals plan

Recent event of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Following his campaign, Feed Me Better, the UK government is to allocate an extra £280m over three years to improve school lunches.

His achievement should be praised, but should it have been done by him? The lack of nutritionally balanced school meals is responsible for school kitchens, which prioritise school budgets, and the government, which forces the schools to do so with small budgets. And to take care of nutritional balance of kids is parents' job.

In BBC's article, Liberal Democrat spokesman Phil Willis said;

The extra funds are welcome, but it's sad that it's taken a celebrity chef to get the government to act when they've had eight years to improve the sorry state of school dinners.

Willis also added;

It is breathtakingly cynical for Tony Blair suddenly to claim that he is passionate about the quality of school meals just because a celebrity chef has made a TV programme about it.

» BBC News | Have Your Say | How can school meals be made healthier?
I agree with him.

It's a bit disingenuous to complain that the government's announcement of more funds was prompted by Jamie's programme, or that it is just a cynical election ploy. From what I've read, considerable research and planning must have gone into the detail that was announced.
Tim Douglas, London, UK

17 March, 2005

No logo - from BBC Magazine

I found a perfect article, in BBC Magazine, which represents what I've thinking of for a long time. It's collision between cultural identity of each city and corporate strategy. In another words, every city is full of chain stores and consequently looks alike, resulting in losing its identity.

The article itself is about the situation in Britain, but I think it's applied to Japan. And Japanese situation is much worse, I believe.

The same brands dominate: Starbucks, McDonald's, WHSmith, Carphone Warehouse, HMV, Currys, Marks and Spencer, Waterstones, River Island... such names are fixtures the length and breadth of the country.

Tesco, which recently accelerated its opening of small stores in High Streets, says it is prepared to be flexible.

"We have a corporate image and a corporate look and we need to retain some consistency around that," says Tesco's Richard Anderson. "We are also willing to speak to local people and authorities to adapt that."

Brockenhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire, was a case in point, he says. The signage was "deemed a bit too much" by locals so Tesco is changing the white face to off-white, with less window stickers.

NEF policy director Andrew Simms says the signs are part of a deeper problem.

"The aesthetic impact really does matter to people if you live in an identikit environment, because people draw their own identity from their environment and it's rather depressing to travel from town to town and find they're all the same."

» BBC News | Magazine | Signs of the times
16 March 2005
By Tom Geoghegan

16 March, 2005

Something about Independent

Since I wrote an article about British newspapers' sales competition during the course in Cardiff, I've been interested in Independent. For improving its sales, the newspaper changed its size from broadsheet to tabloid. As a result, the sales successfully grew up, although many conservative people didn't like the change. It created a boom, which involved other rival newspapers including the Times that followed the Independent way and adopted a tabloid size. The tabloid Independent is, in fact, easy to handle not like cumbersome broadsheet. Moreover, it's got own style of design and layout that can appear much better in its smaller pages, as well as own style of articles. That's why I like it. Since I came back to Japan, I haven't read and even touched it. As to the Independent, I found a related article from Media Guardian.

The Independent and the Independent on Sunday lost around £10m last year as the cost of improving the papers' editorial offering and marketing spend ate into revenues.

The loss - which does not include the cost of turning the Independent tabloid between September 2003 and May last year - was in line with results the year before.

But with circulation rising at the Independent and advertising revenues up 20% so far in 2005, the titles will narrow their losses this year and reach breakeven at some point in 2006, according to the group's chief executive, Ivan Fallon.

"We would hope that during the course of 2006 we will reach the breakeven point, though that doesn't mean we will show breakeven for the whole of 2006, I'd be surprised if we did. But we hope to get to that point in 2006."

Mr Fallon was toasting the success of the Independent's transformation from broadsheet into a tabloid, a change that has given its circulation a major boost.

Circulation increased 23% over the course of 2004, though advertising revenues were hit by a dispute with advertising agencies over rates for the new size.

Mr Fallon said the two papers recorded an increase in advertising revenues of 2% over the whole of 2004, with the second half of the year better than the first.

"The key factor was to get the Independent's circulation up, then get advertising up, and then have a big drive in 2005," he said.

"So far advertising's up 20%, and our target for the year is more than 20%. So we're absolutely on target - and no other newspaper in Britain is recording 20% increases in advertising."

He said the dispute with advertisers had been resolved as "an honourable draw", with advertisers "responding very well" to the Independent's improved market share.

While the focus is on driving advertising growth, circulation growth is not expected to be of the same order.

"In the two and a half months of this year revenues are 2% ahead of last year, and we're not looking for huge circulation growth in 2005," Mr Fallon said. "But we hope to maintain what we did last year."

Although pleased that the paper was narrowing the gap on the Guardian, he said the target was "to get the Independent into profit".

The Independent was planning fresh developments and innovations, he said, as the paper evolved its style and content.

And the Independent on Sunday would probably one day turn tabloid too, he said, though he added that there was no rush to change.

"It's been in our plans for some time, but we have no immediate plan to do it," he said. "It's doing very well and while it's doing well we have no plan to disturb it."

"But at some stage we will do it - it looks a bit of a fish out of water compared with the six-day-a-week Independent."

Mr Fallon was speaking as the papers' parent company, Dublin-based Independent News & Media, announced full-year results that showed turnover up 14.2% to 1.56bn euros - £1.08bn - while profits before tax were up 55% to 189.1m euros - £131.5m.

The total revenues of the UK operations, which also includes earnings from the profitable Belfast Telegraph, were up 8.7% in 2004 to 201.9m euros or £140.4m, INM said.

The chief executive, Tony O'Reilly, acclaimed "record results" at the company, which trades in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and owns more than 200 newspapers worldwide.

» Media Guardian | Independent eyes breakeven in 2006
16 March, 2005
By Chris Tryhorn

10 March, 2005

GCS... what?

Like Japan, the UK also has problems with education. Here are two related articles.

---

» BBC News | Education | Black boys separate classes plan

Last year, half of pupils in England got five or more C-grades at GCSE, while one-third of Black Caribbean pupils did. Therefore, those "black boys may have to be separated from classmates to help improve school performance," according to BBC.

Trevor Phillips, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality, says "a lack of self-esteem and positive role models for black boys also compounded the problem, as well as an attitude that being clever is not cool."

However, Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, warns; "Clearly there is scope for schools to help all children who are doing badly." But "to single out black children for special treatment could be counter-productive and even illegal," she adds.

Simon Woolley, co-ordinator of Operation Black Vote, says; "I would prefer to focus on these things (poor housing and fractured family life) first before we start blaming the victims - and demonise them for their failure."

---

» The Guardian | Education | 1.2m pupils 'unable to read properly'
2 March 2005 | By Rebecca Smithers

Moreover, from the Guardian;

More than a million children have been failed by Labour's national literacy strategy, which has left them unable to meet basic standards of English, according to a new report out today which warns that the number unable to read properly could be even higher.

6 February, 2005

More about G7

The world's seven richest nations, have agreed to write off up to 100% of the debts of the world's poorest countries.

Gordon Brown described the London meeting as "the 100% debt relief" G7. So, well done Mr Brown "for the moment".

» BBC News | G7 backs Africa debt relief plan

5 February, 2005

With or without you - G7 meeting in London

UK continues its debt relief plan, but the US opposes it

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown is trying to persuade the G7 group to support his plan to alleviate debt in the third world. But the US is the nation that oppose this proposal and wants to change money from loans to grants instead.

» BBC News | Debt aid and dollar on G7 agenda

» The Guardian | US opposes UK's debt relief plan

We might have got used to this usual situation, that is, the US is the only country to disagrees and insists on something different from what the rest have agreed.

Poverty has been a major issue for ages. To combat poverty, the rich nations should have made efforts, but many of them were superficial, bringing little to the poor countries. Economists have kept saying the rich should open their markets to the poor so that they can get a chance for better economy, and ministers of the rich countries say "we consider the poor". But has anything happened to bring a drastic change to the third world? If we take a look at the WTO issues, for example, the WTO's decision in August last year on the EU sugar regime may possibly be a "big" change. But it hasn't been solved yet.

Yes, this discussion is nothing new. However, there is the fact that the situation in Africa hasn't become better yet. This is also nothing new, unfortunately.

This may be a stupid simple question, but "why can't we achieve?"

BBC offers "Have Your Say" on this matter as usual. Take a look at it. You will know why the world cannot achieve.

» BBC News | What can the G7 meeting achieve?

I do not expect the G7 to achieve much because the poor nations mostly in Africa they want to help are the enemies of themselves. If corruption is not curbed there will be no progress.

Benedict Ageloisa, Benin City, Nigeria

It strikes me as odd that it has not occurred to anybody that in order for the rich to stay rich the poor must stay poor. Do any of the wealthy countries really want to give up some of their comforts so that another country can reach middle class status? Summits give the appearance of effort and concern not real solutions. Get with the politics of life people! Just as beauty queens protest in pageants that they want world peace, I do too, but I am not giving up my daily Starbucks and my three family cars for world peace. Sorry!

ED, Houston, TX

To Ed, Houston: You are jolly lucky you can afford Starbucks and three cars, when so many of the world's population is starving. It's all about the collective conscience and how those who have a comfortable life can help others rise from poverty. To use the reasoning that the poor have to stay that way in order for the rich to be so is utterly ludicrous and completely shallow. The G7 is always the same - a huge photo-op for the suits, feeding their egos and accomplishing exactly nothing.

D Stewart, North Carolina, USA

As you see, ED's comment seems to have heated up the discussion there.

At last, Nelson Mandela addressed a speech. Here is its excerpt from BBC.

As you know, I recently formally announced my retirement from public life and should really not be here.

However, as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.

Through your will and passion, you assisted in consigning that evil system forever to history. But in this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved, and in chains.

They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free.

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.

» BBC News | In full: Mandela's poverty speech