USA

I hope nobody has any last minute research assignments they need to complete because if you go to the english version of Wikipedia today you'll find it's offline. In its place you'll find a blacked-out page and the heading "Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge."

Google is also taking part in the protest 
against proposed anti-piracy legislation.

The Guardian's leader today raises the intriguing possibility that this week's G20 summit in Seoul marks the demise of the so called 'Washington Consensus', or US neo-liberalism writ large, if you prefer.

Question: What do you think of Americans and the American Culture?

Answer: *Blank Stare*.....

-Anica Colbert

The Today Programme's Jim Naughtie has been on the road in the USA with his Edirol (or perhaps a Marantz or a Sony) and a producer. His mission is to examine the culture war between God-fearing,  Sarah Palin adoring fans of the conservative insurgency known as the Tea Party movement, and Liberal supporters of President Barack Obama. His features depicting and exploring the antipathy  that now divides Americans between two incompatible visons of their own national dream make fantastic radio. In the first piece he talked to Tea Party activists in Kentucky and found them spitting blood, fire and brimstone about the grim obscenity of 'big government' and the imminent threat of SOCIALISM...In the second Jim reported from cosmopolitan, multicultural New York and met Obama supporting trade union activists preparing for their Labour Day parade..Of course you have already heard and discussed these pieces, because every student and future student in the Centre for Journalism knows that listening to Today is an absolute duty as well as a joy, but just on the off chance that anyone was in the shower at 07.30 on Monday and Tuesday morning... 

I found this in the Guardian today. It's a commentary on Gordon Brown's speech to Congress yesterday by Oliver Burkeman, who writes about US politics for the paper quite extensively. Just thought I'd post it up as it's a good read and pretty funny to boot.

George W Bush has announced on behalf of the US government a $250bn (£143bn) plan to purchase stakes in numerous US banks.

After yesterday's (Monday) injection of £37bn of taxpayers money into British banks by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, President Bush has followed suit, declaring: "This is an essential short term measure to ensure the viability of America's banking system."