The BBC World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, has interviewed a Chinese government minister on the subject of Tibet . At the start of the interview the minister, Zhu Weixin, welcomed the statement from the UK government recognising the...

Miriam Makeba , South African singer and campaigner, has died. I see that there is a film called Sarafina that includes her music and shows the struggle against apartheid in the days before the release of Nelson Mandela. It is a film...

Murder in the Snow told of the shooting by Chinese border guards of a group of Tibetans trying to escape across the mountains to India. The stories of some of those who managed to reach sanctuary in Dharamsala in India were combined...

As a vegetarian I am keen on soya beans. Source of tofu, soy sauce, soya milk, and containing high-quality protein, where would I be without them? If many in the world are short of food then we should go further down the food chain and...

I was not surprised that Barack Obama won the election in the USA but was excited to hear the phrase "President-elect Obama" almost as soon as I turned on the radio this morning. John McCain said that he stood for change but as Barack...

If you have elections then you live in a democracy, right? Not necessarily. The other night I watched the film Recount on television. It is based on true events in the presidential election of 2000 in the United States and especially...

Amnesty says that more resources are needed for the UN peacekeepers in Congo. The war in eastern Congo seems to be related to the Rwandan genocide – that conflict will just not go away. Huge numbers of people are moving to try to...