A key appointment at the World Bank shows the importance of Beijing to the institutions it will soon come to dwarf

In June Justin Lin Yifu, a Beijing professor, will take up the post of chief economist at the World Bank. Nothing could be a clearer sign of the times. This is the number two job in one of the two major international economic institutions, the other being the International Monetary Fund. Earlier incumbents have included the Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, the former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers and the UK’s Nicholas Stern. Previously the top jobs in these two outfits have always been shared between Americans and Europeans. Lin’s appointment thus marks a major break with political tradition. Hitherto there have been hardly any appointments of Chinese to senior positions in the major international organisations. China’s burgeoning importance, however, is set to change this state of affairs, with Lin’s appointment likely to set the tone for the future.

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What the election of Silvio Berlusconi represents is the conquest and occupation of the state by private interests

The emergence of Silvio Berlusconi as the dominant political figure in Italy is the single most depressing event in Europe over the last decade. His role as political leader and the country’s most powerful media tycoon have brought into question to what extent Italy can be described as a democracy. True, Berlusconi has been elected via the ballot box, but when he controls all the major private TV channels and has reshaped the state’s channels in his own image, while also owning several newspapers, then the dice are hugely loaded in his favour.

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Ian Wright’s departure from the BBC’s football punditry team casts shame on the corporation: it is guilty of cultural apartheid

So Ian Wright has decided to quit the BBC as a football pundit because he was made to look like a “comedy jester”. Too right. That is exactly how he was treated by the other pundits, Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen, and Alan Shearer. Wright was always made to look and feel as if he was the odd one out, never taken too seriously, his judgments discounted, his views made fun of, his relationship with his step-son Shaun Wright-Phillips the object of regular hilarity. It was demeaning; you could see Wright squirming, unsure of how to deal with it. As a viewer I found it embarrassing and distasteful. It was a grown man’s version of picking on someone in the school playground.

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Tata’s purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover signals that India and China are turning the old hierarchy of global trade on its head

The cost to Tata of purchasing Land Rover and Jaguar may have been small, but its wider symbolic significance is enormous. Western societies are slowly becoming used to the idea that India and China are set to emerge as major economic powers, but there remains an underlying assumption that the process starts in the economic and technological foothills and only much later reaches the summit.

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Events in Tibet expose China’s achilles heel: its inability to recognise and respect ethnic difference

The Beijing Olympics are a huge occasion for China. Ever since the opium wars, the country has experienced what it describes as a “century of humiliation”. Extraordinarily, the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 was its first major foreign policy success since the early 19th century.

Western countries are thoroughly accustomed to being the centre of global attention, which they have come to regard as their natural birthright. Not so China. It was thwarted in its attempt to hold the 2000 Olympics, which, as a result of American-led pressure, was awarded to Sydney. For China, therefore, the 2008 Olympics assume a huge importance as its first opportunity to command the global stage. The fact that the games also coincide with China’s emergence as a global power only serves to enhance their significance. These Olympics, not surprisingly, have been long in the planning, with nothing left to chance.

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This is no blip. The global economic crisis will burst the bubble of free-market doctrine and force states to take a more active role

The world is holding its breath, still trying to grasp the potential enormity of what is unfolding. Economic downturns and stock market crashes are hardly unfamiliar, of course, even if a decade or so seems a long time ago for western consumers habituated to rising house prices and non-stop shopping. But this crisis threatens to be rather different, a Big One. Already it has forced the government to engage in what has been a heresy for almost three decades: nationalisation. Major crises such as the Northern Rock debacle are not matters of punctuation or pauses for reflection, but defining historical moments, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. The 1970s was a classic case, as huge oil price hikes fed an inflationary spiral that brought both the long boom and the postwar welfare consensus to an end, and led to the rise of neoliberalism and deregulation.

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He lost at the last but Lewis Hamilton rocked all expectations – and not just in formula one

A black formula one world champion seemed, even last year, unthinkable, yet Lewis Hamilton so nearly made it. This is a sport that has long suffered from an almost total white-out. Apart from the Japanese, virtually every face in the paddock, let alone on the starting grid, was, until recently, white. This is hardly surprising. The more expensive and/or exclusive a sport, the whiter it tends to be: the fact almost has the force of a law. That is the main reason why the Rugby World Cup, the Pacific islands excepted, was so desperately white, the Springboks included.

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Around a decade ago, Bernie Ecclestone, the guy who runs Formula One, began to make ominous noises about the prospects for F1 in Europe, suggesting that the sport’s future instead lay in the East. Now Bernie is no mug – you don’t become as rich as he is without being very smart. Not least, he is perceptive at spotting new trends. He recognised the potential of TV broadcasting and its associated rights before virtually anyone else in Europe. And he was right about the growing importance of East Asia (though hardly the first to notice it).

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The source of the current tension between Moscow and the west is US and Nato military provocation

Those who feel a certain sense of deja vu about the deteriorating relationship between Russia and the west can be forgiven. But this is no simple return to the cold war. Russia is far weaker than even the atrophied superpower of the late 80s. Its population has been more than halved, its gross domestic product halved, and living standards diminished. It simply does not have the capacity to be what it once was.

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The celebrity premier’s successor can become a leader of substance if only he has the political courage to get serious

The imminent passing of Tony Blair will be a welcome relief. It is not a matter of overstaying his time as prime minister, for it was clear well before he became prime minister what he would be like in office; those who failed to see it coming were prey to wishful thinking – not unreasonable after 18 years in the Conservative wilderness – or simply misreading the tea leaves, neatly arranged as they were. Of course, there have been good works: the minimum wage, increased expenditure on public services and the rest of it. But that is small beer compared with what might have been – and whatever good has been done has been drowned out by the catastrophic occupation of Iraq. The question that should occupy us now is: will Gordon Brown be any better?

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