On air: Shoot first, ask questions later…

Many of you have been talking about South African president Jacob Zuma’s move to let police shoot even if criminals haven’t fired first. We’ll be discussing this on tonight’s programme.

50 people a day are murdered in South Africa. Zuma told station commanders :

“We have an abnormal criminal problem, for that we have to explore extraordinary means”

Wall to wall history..

A bit of the Berlin Wall has popped up outside the Imperial War Museum here in London.

Cold War relic, war museum – makes sense, I guess. (writes Patrick Jackson from the World Today ). There is a cartoon on it, a big face shouting “Change your life”. 

‘rape-rape’ ?

A lot of you have been commenting on this post about the use of the word ‘rape’ on Monday’s programme. And today Whoopi Goldberg said “I know it wasn’t rape-rape”, defending Roman Polanski on a chat show.

The team in cupcakes

I know it’s not exactly a world-stopping issue, but it’s my last day working on the team full time, and to mark it I baked some mud chocolate cupcakes with the team’s names on them. Just wanted to share because I was quite proud. (Ros’ has a candle in it because it was his birthday yesterday)

On air: Is the Indian caste system a human rights abuse?

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is about to recognize caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation. An estimated 260 million people globally are victims of such discrimination, which has been likened to the former apartheid system in South Africa.

Is it time for new sanctions against Iran?

The Iranian defence minister Ahmad Vahidi has warned that if Israel were to attack his country it would prompt the destruction of Israel. He said:
“If this [an Israeli attack] happens, which, of course, we do not foresee, its ultimate result would be to expedite the last breath of the Zionist regime”

His comments came after the Islamic Republic has test-fired their most advanced long-range missiles.  France has called the tests “provocative”.

What’s happening to women’s happiness?

Well, according to Marcus Buckingham, women are just getting more and more miserable. His new book suggests that women have been on a downward trend since the 1970s. Men on the other hand are getting happier. The book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, lays out the argument that that women just can’t handle choice. Have a read of  Ruth Sutherland’s take on this, he doesn’t seem to have won many fans. Here’s Bonnie Fuller.  Are women too afraid to admit that life was simpler when they didn’t have as much choice?

On the use of the word ‘rape’

We’ve just come off air and I want to address an issue that has obviously upset some of you… the use of the word rape.

On air: The arrest of Roman Polanski

This story has you debating any number of issues. In no particular order, these seem to be the main ones:

On air: Does the G20 have the answers and the actions?

In London they gave the IMF more money, now in Pittsburgh they’re giving more countries an influence over what it does. Add to that the confirmation that the G20 will replace the G8 as the lead body co-ordinating the world economy and that power shift we talked about on Wednesday seems to underway.