Does fair mean beautiful?

India’s appetite for skin whitening creams is huge and growing. According to an article by Shantanu Guha Ray, sales are outstripping both Coca Cola and tea. Products with names like ‘Fair and Lovely’ and ‘White Perfect’ are selling by the million, and men are increasingly getting involved.

On air: Google v China: Who is the winner?

Google’s been talking about leaving China since January when it became the victim of a cyber attack and discovered human rights activists’ email accounts had been hacked. Now it’s done it. Google is redirecting Chinese users to its unrestricted Hong Kong site.

On air: Has the Pope’s apology gone far enough?

The Pope has apologised to victims of sex abuse in Ireland. He acknowledges ‘serious mistakes’ were made in how allegations were handled.  Thousands are commenting on the apology, and many are asking if it went far enough. Some feel that the ‘cover-up’ aspect hasn’t been fully owned up to.

Can politics exist without lobbying?

Former British ministers Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt were caught on tape boasting that they could secure preferential treatment for financial sponsors by undercover TV programme, Channel Four’s Dispatches.

At the same time, more than 20 politicians in the UK have been accused of breaching parliamentary protocol by accepting free overseas trips to foreign locations, notably Conservative David Amess, who admitted to not declaring two complimentary trips to the Maldives.

Moving home

Nuala’s at the controls today as I’m spending the day with the department who looks after the World Service’s website. After a couple of years with WordPress, we’re coming back within the BBC fold. This is our new blog. We’re still tinkering with it, but from tomorrow we’ll start posting here as well as on this blog. Then if all goes to plan, we’ll move over next Monday. We’re quite restricted by the BBC blog template, but do let us know if there are featrures you’d like us to add.

On air: Has President Obama done the right thing with healthcare?

When I tweeted this morning asking what people would like to talk about Megha in India immediately tweeted back “the health bill definitely is THE news”.

And, she is right the blogosphere is alive with debate other whether the landmark healthcare reform bill is a good or a bad thing for the US.

Pre-nups: unromantic or necessary?

Today German heiress Katrin Radmacher is seeking to escape paying £5.85million to her ex-husband as a result of a prenuptial contract they both signed four months before their wedding in 1998. Nicolas Granatino, 39, agreed he would not make any financial claim on his wife should their marriage collapse.

Is Israel’s lobby in the US too powerful?

Eyeball to eyeball?

Hi, Dan Damon here. I present World Update.

The longstanding friendship between Israel and the United States is under strain.  Last week, Israel’s ambassador to the US said relations were at a 35 year low.

Diary of Your Week: Living in Sydney.

This week we have a great comment from James McCarthy about living in Sydney. James was a contributor on our recent Olympics discussion.  It is a vivid and warm picture he paints of living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  Over to James:  If you live in Sydney and you love music and theatre, as I do, you can make a reasonable guess that you will end up inside the Sydney Opera House quite regularly. And you would be right.

Is this fish too expensive to save?

Yesterday the UN body charged with protecting the world’s endangered species, The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) strongly rejected an American call to ban the commercial fishing of the Blue Fin Tuna, which they claim is in serious decline, at a Doha Conference.  Most countries at the conference argued it should be managed by the fising nations involved in this trade and that stocks are sustainable with the right managment.