Beijing's desperate efforts to cool the country's enormous property bubble may have come too little, too late; a worrying sign for the global economy. By Joe Galvin.

Imagine, if you will, a country where a tenth of GDP comes directly from real estate investments. A country where approximately 60% of GDP is funded by real estate and construction related activities and house prices have become so inflated that purchasing even a modest dwelling is beyond the reach of most of the middle and working classes. A country where the property bubble has been inflated beyond the administration’s control, and dramatic new measures to cool the property sector may have come too late.

(Pictured: Cranes dominating the Shanghai skyline)

Instead of undoing the Thatcher legacy, New Labour built on it and deepened inequality in Britain, by Vincent Browne.

If ever a government deserved to be removed from office, the New Labour government in Britain does, that is of course aside from our own Government, which, in the league of governments that must be removed asap, is top of the premiership. Instead of undoing the Thatcherite legacy New Labour compounded it.

Early yesterday morning US troops opened fire on a bus full of civilians passing through the Kandahar province, killing four and injuring four, the Washington Post has reported. By Philip Pilkington.

The shootings quickly sparked off protests in the outskirts of Kandahar City outside the bus station. Locals claim that US troops should have been more careful.

The newly established interim government of Kyrgyzstan called for the former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to turn himself over and face trial for the deaths of at least 82 people during the uprising in Bishkek last Wednesday. By Philip Pilkington.

The government said that if the former President refused to do so they would launch a special operation in order to capture him. The new administration said that Bakiyev may face detention but if he were to turn himself over they may be able to broker a deal that will allow him to leave the country.

A leaked document shows that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has built a media strategy to garner popular support among Europeans for continuing the war in Afghanistan. The strategy was prescribed to soften public opposition to the war ahead of a projected increase in civilian and NATO casualties in Afghanistan this spring and summer.

The document outlines a plan to alter public opinion by dramatising the consequences for France and Germany of a NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. It deliberately seeks to place a positive spin on concerns previously expressed by the French and German public about the war. It also seeks to co-opt President Barack Obama's approval among Europeans in matters international.

Women of Concern, a photographic exhibition chronicling the lives of women and children in some of the poorest nations of the developing world is currently showing in the Temple Bar Gallery of Photography. It features the work of three of Ireland's top female photo-journalists, Brenda Fitzsimons, Kim Haughton and Marie McCallan and documents the work of Concern and their partner, the Women's Support Association, in Haiti, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

(Picture: From the exhibition "Women of Concern" © Kim Haughton 2010)

The photographs, taken in early 2010, offer an insight into the lives of people whose existence and stories are usually lost amongst the masses. Each photograph attempts to convey the humanity of the person featured and helps to express the realities of their lives. Many of the stories that accompany the images are harrowing, but as each woman is involved in the Women's Support Association, the stories are punctuated by a positive outcome.  

Leading Israeli, Palestinian and Jewish academics yesterday called for a new approach to solving the decades old Israel-Palestine conflict. The proposed ‘one state’ solution would see Israeli and Palestinian territories organised under a central government, reminiscent of post-apartheid South Africa.

The speakers were attending a talk on the subject organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement in Dublin's Gresham hotel.

The passing of eight months since the fraudulent presidential election in Iran on 12 June 2009, and the coincident thirty-first anniversary of the Islamic revolution of 11 February 1979, is an appropriate time to assess the current political situation in Iran; and especially the record of the “green movement” that acquired an incipient identity during the election campaign and emerged as a force in the series of protests that followed it.

(Picture: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a rally commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution last week)

The official commemoration in Tehran of the 1979 events, and the absence of substantial mobilisation by the opposition, is significant only in relation to the false expectation that this moment would in some way signal the end of the Islamic Republic. Indeed, some observers have compared the current protests to the revolutionary wave that resulted in the relatively speedy downfall of Mohammad Reza Shah's government. However, a realistic appraisal of events in Iran suggests few similarities between the two experiences. The true import of the green movement’s challenge lies elsewhere.