Martin McCauley writes:Karl Marx once famously remarked that hitherto philosophers had only interpreted the world. The real task was to change it. Communism was one of the most successful ideologies which tried to do just that. In doing so it changed the world forever. This may seem strange, given that communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The need to compete successfully with communism forced capitalist states to expand social welfare [...]

We present more breaking news items that would not be posted on twitter. Not one of them. Breaking News: U.S President, Barack Obama, denies that he organised the famous ‘beer summit’ just to get the two guys, the academic and the cop, pissed. Breaking News: Nation breathes a sigh of relief as Sarah Palin rejects the idea of writing her autobiography. Breaking News: Bill Clinton announces that he is going to really get his sex addiction under control when his [...]

Alex Nekrassov writes: The announcement that BMW will not be participating in next year’s Formula 1 season does not come as a surprise. The majority of analysts believe that world’s leading car company’s decision to withdraw from the sport is based solely on the economic climate and that the group is no longer in a position where it can afford to spend hundreds of millions a year on its racing team.But there’s more to it than that. There is no [...]

Martin McCauley writes: Nigeria is one of the richest countries of Africa. Its oil revenues may have reached $70 billion in 2008. Yet it is racked by civil strife and is taking on many of the characteristics of a failed state. Muslin militants in the north have launched attacks on police and government buildings and Niger Delta rebels have been destroying oil installations in the former capital of Lagos. Why is this happening? What is the solution to Nigeria’s problems? [...]

Martin McCauley writes: The eastward expansion of NATO over the last decade has sent alarm bells ringing in Beijing. China is opposed to the expansion of military blocs and the strengthening of military alliances. It fears they could lead to containment. It also opposes all ballistic missile defence systems.China has been careful not to go public on NATO expansion. Its opposition is contained indirectly in its White papers on National Defence. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence serve as the [...]

Thomas Mathew writes: So let me get this straight: a large number of the members of the House of Commons, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have been caught out abusing the parliamentary expenses and allowances system and yet, all of them insisted it was the system that was to blame and not them. Then, in an effort to demonstrate that they were serious in putting their house in order, the MPs forced the Speaker of the House, Michael Martin, to [...]

R.F.Wilson writes from London: You may not be aware of this but there are loads of people out there who think that breaking the law is cool. Yep, they actually believe that committing crimes and offences makes them look tough, original and even appealing to the opposite sex. And there are also people who don’t consider breaking the law to be a big deal as it gets them the results that they want. As in: ‘The end justifies the means.’ [...]

We present more breaking news items from the Stirring Trouble team. The Beatles of current affairs. Breaking News: President Barack Obama denies rumours that he has neutered his dog. He is as frisky as he was when we took him, he says. Just like Tim Geithner. Breaking News: Nation breathes a sigh of relief when it becomes known that President Obama and his family are going to holiday in the U.S. There were suspicions that they were heading for Cuba. [...]

Adam Lovejoy writes: The sick and twisted supporters of assisted suicide in Britain continue their disgraceful quest to get this type of murder officially legalised. A ‘martyr’ for the sickening cause has emerged, a certain Doctor Michael Irwin, who has announced that he had helped a terminally ill man to commit suicide two years ago. The man, Raymond Cutkelvin, travelled to Switzerland in 2007 where he was helped’ to die by those monsters from the Dignitas clinic who murder terminally [...]

Martin McCauley writes: The Chinese leadership regards India as a long term threat to its dominance of Asia. A third key player in Asia is Russia. Moscow regards itself as a great power and is seeking a strategic alliance with China. But Beijing will only grant Moscow a ‘partnership’ and distances itself from any tight military or economic alliances. This indicates that China believes it will dominate relations with Russia in the future. India is quite a different story. There [...]