China steps up web surfer checks
All visitors to internet cafés in Beijing will now have to be photographed. This forms part of new measures by the Chinese authorities to crack down on the public use of cyberspace.

Internet cafes have been given until mid December to install cameras to record the identity of their web surfers. All photographs and scanned identity cards will be entered into a city-wide database run by the Cultural Law Enforcement Taskforce. Hopes that the Olympic Games would usher in a relaxed approach to the internet have been dashed. There are more than 250 million internet users in China, approximately 10 times more than there were in 2000.

 

Huge income gap grows
The gap between high and low wage earners has increased sharply in most countries, according to a new United Nations report. It says the huge differences in pay were counter-productive and damaging for most economies. The current global financial crisis will widen the gap even further. The UN said top executives were earning excessively more than average employees, with the chief executive officers of the 15 largest companies in the United States, for example, earning 520 times more than the average worker in 2007. The huge income inequalities could be associated with higher crime rates, lower life-expectancy, and in the case of poor countries malnutrition and an increased likelihood of children being taken out of school to work.

Columbia militia probe sabotaged
The Colombian government has been accused of blocking investigations into alleged links between paramilitaries and politicians. In a new report the non-profit group Human Rights Watch says President Alvaro Uribe's government has sabotaged the probe run by the Supreme Court. The group claims the government has made what it called baseless accusations against members of the Supreme Court to frustrate the investigations. The government has dismissed the report as ridiculous and full of lies. Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries have been accused of extensive abuses during the long-running civil conflict. Thousands of demobilised fighters have given evidence implicating more than 60 of President Uribe's supporters, including his cousin Mario.

Bashir: more evidence needed
The International Criminal Court has delayed issuing an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Judges at the ICC want more evidence before deciding whether to issue the warrant. Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has been given a month to provide the additional evidence. He had asked the court to issue the warrant for the Sudanese leader over war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. President Bashir denies the charges and the African Union and Arab League are opposed to the arrest warrant. Mr Bashir launched a new initiative to bring peace to Darfur yesterday but the rebels and opposition parties were absent.

Marx back in vogue in Germany
Communism's founding father Karl Marx is back in the spotlight in Germany. His 1867 critical analysis of capitalism, "Das Kapital," has tripled its sales in the east of the country for academic publisher Karl-Dietz-Verlag. Over 1,500 copies have been sold so far this year, three times the number sold in all of 2007. A recent survey found 52 percent of Germans living in the formerly communist east believe the free market economy is unsuitable and 43 per cent said they wanted socialism rather than capitalism.

Anti-poverty day marked
The United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is today expected to be marked by marches, rallies and concerts around the world. Events to mark the day include a march through the Chilean capital, Santiago, and a concert in Singapore. Last year, 43 million people participated in the anti-poverty day in support of the UN Millennium Development Goals. This year's day falls in the middle of a global financial crisis and the poor are being hit the hardest. Leaders of Brazil and India have warned that poor people should not be punished for the mismanagement of the rich.