China :: World

America has raised its debt ceiling 140 times since the war without controversy. Now compromise has become a dirty word Barack Obama has not slept in the last week, worried about the impending debt crisis deadline, according to a White House aide. He will not be getting much sleep over the next 48 hours either, as the standoff between the Republicans and Democrats the biggest ideological collision between the parties for decades enters its final phase. With only two days left to the deadline that could result in the US defaulting on its borrowing for the first time, there is still no sign of a deal. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a stopgap bill by 218-210 on Friday evening. Two hours later, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted to kill it by 59-41. The Senate, keen to have a deal in place before the markets open on Monday, with the potential for huge falls in share prices, is proposing a bill of its own scheduled to go to a vote on Sunday. The Democratic l...

Tens of thousands flee drought-hit southern Somalia as UN begins food deliveries to war-torn capital Hit by the worst drought in 60 years, tens of thousands of people are leaving the rural areas of central and southern Somalia for the war-ravaged capital, Mogadishu, where last week the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) started an airlift operation to deliver to 20 feeding centres. Despite continuing fighting, with troops of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and African Union-led forces battling the Islamic militants of al-Shabaab, more and more people are coming into the city, hoping to find relief from a drought that is affecting 11 million in Somalia alone. The WFP said it has been able to provide 85,000 meals a day in Mogadishu but with mortar shells frequently hitting civilian areas the TFG military offensive that started last week is likely to hamper the delivery of food. The UN declared a famine in two southern regions of Somalia on 20 July, but Abdirahman Omar Osman, t...

Coalition's policy chief on reforms believes excellence would be achieved through fear of losing jobs and real discipline Oliver Letwin, the coalition's policy minister, has revealed the government's determination to instil "fear" among those working in the public sector, who he claimed had failed for the past 20 years to improve their productivity. Letwin, architect of the coalition's plans to reform public services, told a meeting at the offices of a leading consultancy firm that the public sector had atrophied over the past two decades. In controversial comments angering teachers, nurses and doctors, he warned that it was only through "some real discipline and some fear" of job losses that excellence would be achieved in the public sector. Letwin added that some of those running schools and hospitals would not survive the process and that it was an "inevitable and intended" consequence of government policy. "You can't have room ...

Thinktank Demos warns poorly planned volunteering stints in developing nations can do more harm than good The multi-million pound gap-year industry is in danger of damaging Britain's reputation abroad and raising fears that the west is engaged in a new form of colonialism, according to a leading thinktank. Young people planning a gap year should focus on what they can offer their hosts in order to discourage the view that volunteering is merely a new way of exercising power, says a new report by Demos. Those who carefully select the projects in which they take part are likely to make the most of their time, while doing the most to dispel the belief that their trips are merely self-interested, says the report. Nine out of 10 young people surveyed by YouGov for Demos said they had improved their self-confidence, self-reliance and sense of motivation following a stint of volunteering in a developing country. However, the gap-year industry is a 6bn business for western companies, cost...

Launch of Google+ sees the online giants in a fight for the highly lucrative hearts and minds of internet users It is one month since the launch of Google+, a belated attempt at a social networking tool that invites users to follow friends' activities in their news feed and share favourite content by marking it "+1". If this sounds familiar, it shows the extent to which Google is playing catchup with Facebook, which is brewing a public offering next year that could value the firm at $100bn and, critically, has positioned itself as the gateway to the web for many of its 750 million users. Much of this pressure is down to the abrasive ambition of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Even Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has conceded that Google has been late to the social networking space, with identity and personalisation now critical to the social experience for consumers, and the lucrative commercial opportunities that advertisers expect. But with Google's...