The author of the international bestseller The Bookseller of Kabul is in trouble. Asne Seierstad's book tells the story of an Afghan family's life in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban. But one of the family members has successfully sued the author for breaching her privacy. The case has got people around the world talking about the limits of artistic license. So is this a slap in the face for freedom of expression?
Marcellin Gasana is a Rwandan who took World Have Your Say around the country when we visited last year to assess reconciliation efforts after the genocide there in 1994. He will be writing a blog post for us each month ahead of this year's elections. This is his first entry.
Although my name is Marcellin Gasana, my clan is the Abengitori. We are well-known for its love towards dogs and I'm actually one of them - and since I was a kid I have to make sure that we have a dog in our family.
And the reason? Well, this is the story my mother told me when I was growing up...
In ancient Rwanda, people used to belong to different tribes depending on history or where they come from.
Once upon a time, an ancient Rwandan king went out for a hunting exercise. He left his wife (queen) with a servant whose responsibility was to keep an eye on the king's property.
Fourteen months later, the king returned from his long journey and found a 6 month-old baby boy in the arms of its mother.
It's not the first time a celebrity has turned to politics. Arnold Schwarzenegger - best remembered in Hollywood for his roles as the Terminator - was elected as Republican governor of California in 2003 and actors Ronald Regan and Clint Eastwood and cricketer Imran Khan have all moved from the popular arena to the political one.
Wikileaks has been accused of having blood on it's hands after publishing 91,000 classified documents. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen said,
"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he think he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,"
For the last few days critics of Wikileaks have said Afghan lives could be in danger because they've been included in the documents the names of civilians who have cooperated with international forces.
Today the Taliban has said it's going to hunt out the wikileaks informers and behead them.
Pakistan has been accused of exporting terror by the British Prime Minister David Cameron. During a visit to India he said,
we cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world.
Chloe Tilley| 19:32 UK time, Wednesday, 28 July 2010
It's an old wives tale, that plenty of people told me when I was pregnant.......you should eat for two. Not so, says health experts in the UK who are telling women that they should diet before trying to concieve to avoid health risks for both mother and baby.
Chloe Tilley| 14:17 UK time, Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Catalonia today became the first mainland Spanish region to ban bullfighting
The bill went to parliament after 180,000 Catalans signed a petition circulated by an anti-bullfighting group which argues bullfights are cruel to animals. It will take effect in 2012.
But this is a Spanish tradition. To watch bullfighting is often very expensive and you have to actively seek it out, so is it right that it should be banned? What about the argument, if you don't like it don't watch it?
Silvia Barquero is an anti-bullfighting spokeswoman,
"We understand it's a tradition but now is the time to rethink such a bloody act. There are other traditions we can hang on to,"
In particular, it is the group's North African branch that the French will target. But how does a country's or a coalition's army go about defeating a loose organisation like al Qaeda?
As the current Nato operation in Afghanistan has shown, attempting to defeat the organisation is no easy task. This was particularly highlighted by Monday's release on Wikileaks of 91,000 documents relating to that conflict, which seemed to suggest the operation was struggling to succeed and had brought about far higher civilian casualties than was being reported.
Mark Sandell| 16:00 UK time, Tuesday, 27 July 2010
"There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would love my life back."
Well it IS over for beleagured BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward and he will have his life back because he'll be leaving his post in October. He'll be replaced by Bob Dudley, another BP executive who is also American.
Chelsea Clinton is getting married soon to Marc Mezvinsky. They want to keep the details of their wedding as secret as possible, but - nonetheless - the event has become the object of intense speculation. Everything from the likely venue, to the possible dress designers are being discussed.
The video had, it later transpired, been edited in a way that removed the context of her speech - and once that became evident, the White House had to say sorry.
Obama said that the man who fired her, Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, had "jumped the gun" because "we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles."
"It is in my experience highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into decisions of another sovereign state."
Those are the words of Jack Straw, former UK foreign secretary, as he considers whether to attend a US Senate hearing into the circumstances surrounding the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.
What exactly the Senate is investigating is itself up for debate - but clearly one of the key factors is whether lobbying from BP played any part in the release.
It might be an understatement to say that North Korea is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma... But the hermit kingdom is all over the news and the diplomatic heat is rising. Just today North Korea condemned the forthcoming US-South Korea naval excercises as a threat to global peace, a spokesman said
Such movements pose a great threat not only to the peace and security of the Korean peninsula but also to global peace and security
So what should the rest of the world make of North Korea?
An Israeli man has been found guilty of "rape by deception" after telling a woman he was Jewish - when in fact he was an Arab.
30-year-old Sabbar Kusher was sentenced to 18 months by an Israeli court - a verdict he has described as "racist."
The sex was entirely consensual - that is not disputed.
But the judge, Zvi Segal, wrote:
"If she had not thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious relationship, she would not have co-operated. The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price - the sanctity of their bodies and souls."
Nato troops could leave Afghanistan in 2014. The international community supports President Hamid Karzai's goal that Afghan forces should lead security operations across the country in four years time.
This article in the New York Times says one of the reasons why there is this new commitment is because countries who have troops there, acknowledged that neither the public in their own countries nor the Afghan people had much patience left.
The Western European democracies with the most troops in the country - Britain, France and Germany - are under great domestic pressure to reduce their presence, while the United States, which has by far the heaviest military presence, is hewing to a "conditions based" approach that allows its forces to slow any drawdowns in areas where the insurgency appears more tenacious or where Afghan troops and the police appear to have inadequate capabilities.
The $33 billion of US taxpayers' money about to be spent on extending unemployment benefits has sparked heateddebate online in the past few days.
President Obama has been arguing in favour ahead of today's vote in the Senate which looks like it'll finally approve the spending on 2.5 million jobless Americans; or as Obama put it:
... honest, decent, hardworking folks who've fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, and who have nowhere else to turn except unemployment benefits and who need emergency relief to help them weather this economic storm.
I once heard an old man say that if you can count your good friends on one hand, then you've had a good life. Friendship takes time, effort and commitment - that's if you go about it the old fashioned way.
You can now clock up those numbers by renting a friend online. A new website Rentafriend.com has come to the UK, having already been a hit in the US and Canada. The idea of renting a buddy is nothing to new to some parts of the world, including Japan where it's common culture.
The Spanish government provoked the ire of the national newspapers when it announced a plan to ban adverts offering sexual services from their classified section.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero said that "as long as these advertisements exist, they contribute to the idea of this activity as normal"
Bill Clinton says he's going to get tough on countries who pledged billions of dollars to Haiti but haven't delivered yet.
Americans on the Huffington Post (and other sites) say the Secretary of State and the former President have got to sort out their priorities.
G52:This is an outrage! How about some support for retraining American workers and shoring up unemployment? We could also use some of that for education! IN THIS COUNTRY!
Rchwel: The day of buying pseudo friends and setting up puppet governments has to end, to hell with Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, let's take care of Americans first !
I came across this tweet linking to the blog of radio futurologist James Cridland. Cridland lists creative ideas on how to make radio even better, it includes sharing bits of radio instantly with friends, subject-based browsing and allowing you to 'like' content via Facebook thumbs-up. What would make the experience better for you? What would you add?
The Pakistan government fear that the movie might trigger violence. The Dawn editorial calls the move 'pandering to supporters of the world's most wanted man.'
There's no shortage of disappointed Pakistani movie-goers - have a read of this blog.
I joined the WHYS team for the 2010 World Cup, to run the show's sister programme World Cup Have Your Say (you see what they did there.) It was fantastic work - particularly the banter with the fans from across the world - and even though although England's disastrous showing was somewhat deflating (even if so predictable even I could, er, predict it) at least I wasn't supporting France. Indeed, possibly my tournament highlight was when Patrick in Paris contacted the show to say he wanted to renounce his nationality and become English...
The day after Spain (rightly) took the trophy following 120 minutes of a Final that, frankly, was more like watching someone else playing Tekken 6 and about as entertaining, I joined the regular WHYS team full-time.
SuperPower Nation was the first time I really met up with the WHYS team
I'd worked with some of the guys here before, not least during the BBC's SuperPower season, when I had run the editorial side of the SuperPower Nation message board - a massive experiment between the BBC and Google to let people talk to each other online in different languages, which would then automatically translate it into their own tongue. It was technology that we would go on to use successfully for both WHYS and WCHYS, and something I hope ultimately will be a regular part of the programme.
I love online innovation and, having worked for both the BBC World Service and BBC News website over the last eight years, I've been lucky enough to be involved in some really pioneering projects. Back in 2007, I ran the online side of the Bangladesh Boat Project, ultimately collecting the Sony Gold Award for Multiplatform Radio Production (coincidentally, on the same night that World Have Your Say also won Gold). It's mildly interesting to note that this was one of the first times the BBC used Twitter for broadcast news (although BBC Sport's legendary Tom Fordyce and Ben Dirs had used it for their journey through France for the Rugby World Cup earlier that year). Indeed, at one point in the Sundarbands jungle when virtually all our bits of kit were struggling to work, Twitter was the only way we had been able to broadcast at all...
...yes says the vatican. It has published new religious rules that set both sins at the same level of gravity and recommended the same punishment for guilty priests. The Vatican, together with the Catholic wing of the Church of England, believes that since Christ chose no women disciples, it is wrong for women to assume leadership in the Church. A view shared on this blog.
Facebook users in India are being offered a chance to make themselves appear whiter online as part of a marketing campaign by the skincare company Vaseline. The site is doing well but not everyone approves - Ember Rayne Hulett in Virginia posted :
"Black is Beautiful. You don't need a cream to be cool"
According to the latest polls, 51 per cent of Americans would like to see a Republican Congress elected in November - and just 13 per cent say the President's economic plan has helped them personally.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll found 6 in ten Americans lacked faith in Mr Obama's ability to make the right decisions for the country.
44 per cent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the war in Afghanistan.
And one other stat : 73 per cent disagree with his stance on banning deepwater oil drilling in reponse to the BP disaster.
A few months ago I read this interview with Philip Pullman and I immediately thought that it would be fascinating to have him come onto WHYS and talk with all of us. The headline read: 'I hope the wretched Catholic church will vanish entirely'.
With the help of Fiona (who's in charge at WS news of requesting interviews with well-known guests), and of course Philip Pullman himself, we've managed to set it up. On Thursday, he'll join us for both editions (1700GMT for the world bar Africa, 1800GMT for the Africa) to discuss his beliefs about religion and Catholicism.
Today is the first time I have seen a trending topic on Twitter which was in spanish, it was matrimoniogay#, this is because Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to legalise gay marriage. The vote was debated for 14 hours, and passed by 6 votes. This article says 200'000 people protested against the law outside the Senate.
edelcarril tweets in spanish: you make me feel sad Argentina.
GuillermolopezV tweets : Congratulations Argentina on Approving gay marriage! I'm so proud as a Latin American.
jadaoz: Congrats to Argentina for being the first Latin American country to legalize gay marriage and gay couples to adopt kids!
Since the start of this month three tapes allegedly containing Gibson using racist language towards his ex-girlfriend have been released on the internet. While Gibson has not responded, their authenticity has not been denied, and he has been dropped by his agency.
We asked you to post your ideas for today's show on our Facebook page and so many of responded that you want to talk further about the Uganda attacks, and in particular the role of Somalia.
A crucified Christ with an Order of Lenin medal in place of his head and Mickey Mouse's face on Jesus' body - these are just a couple of the images that make up the 'Forbidden Art' exhibition in Moscow.
The exhibition does what it says on the tin - it's forbidden - at least in Russia where the curators have just been convicted of inciting hatred and given hefty fines worth thousands of dollars.
19 year old Colton Harris-Moore aka the 'barefoot bandit' has been taken into custody in the Bahamas after two years on the run and a string of crimes to his name. Colton has been compared to Leo DiCaprio's character in the film Catch Me If You Can and has inspired a following of over 80,000 on his Facebook page.
The hunt for the UK gunman, Raoul Moat, ended on Friday night when he shot himself after a six hour standoff with police in Rothbury in the north of England, but not before he had captured the attention of thousands of people by evading the police for so long.
According to an article published last week in the New York magazine, All Joy and no Fun the answer is NO!
And the more children you have, the unhappier you are likely to be.
The author, Jennifer Senior, has plenty of research to support her argument. Parents surveyed say they experience a distinct drop in happiness after they have kids.
They think it's all over? It isn't yet ... Here's a bit more World Cup chat, if you missed it!
In a TV edition of the show a bit earlier on the BBC World News channel, Ros was joined by former World Cup referee Graham Poll, Kenyan footballer Doreen Nabwire Omondi, Rich Mkhondo from South Africa's Organising Committee and fans from Spain, the Netherlands and Brazil to talk about that feisty final, amongst other things.
Watch Part 1 here ...
... and click below to see Parts 2 & 3 in the rest of this post ...
At least 74 people have been killed and easily as many injured after two bomb blasts rocked the capital, Kampala - aimed at people crowded into a club and restaurant to watch the World Cup Final.
REACT TO THE GAME AS IT HAPPENS ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE. So here we go. We're 63 games down and the only one left is the one that matters the most. I'm going to be on air for the duration of the game on BBC World News, and you can tweet me throughout.
Meanwhile Tom from the WHYS will be online here and on our facebook page from 1800GMT. You can also follow the match on BBC Sport's brilliant (I'm not biased, it is) Live page.
Give us your reaction to the team news, and then the action, and I'll get as much of it as I can onto the BBC World News coverage.
My prediction? 1-1 at full-time, 2-1 Spain in extra-time.
That one remaining match is of course the small matter of the World Cup final.
What do you think of this analysis of the tournament by one football writer today?
Not enough good games and not enough goals (despite a ridiculous ball). Only an outstanding final can put gloss on a tournament whose lasting legacy will be goalline technology.
Mark Sandell| 11:00 UK time, Saturday, 10 July 2010
Update: It's nearly time for the World Cup Have Your Say awards to be announced - but there's still time for you to put your nominations in.
The original entry, explaining the idea and published in June, is below.
---
Cheer up Raymond, you might still win something - even if it's just one of the World Cup Have Your Say Awards.
I would say Mr Domenech could be a shoo-in for "The Least Gracious Loser" award after his refusal to shake the hand of Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira - but that's in your hands.
So the final is on Sunday but what have you really thought of South Africa's World Cup?
From the sound of vuvuzelas to those questionable referee decisions, the propehtic powers of Paul the Octopus to the odd inglorious win, tonight World Have Your Say is hosting World Cup Team Talk and we want to hear from you.
Iranian mother of two Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani could be stoned to death at any moment unless an international campaign forces the authorities in Iran to change their mind.
Sakineh was convicted of adultery in 2006 - a conviction her lawyer calls bogus - and has already received 99 lashes. However, the case was reopened after a court suspected her of murdering her husband. She was acquitted but the adultery charge was reviewed and the death penalty handed down.
Lawmakers in Arizona wanted to give police the power to stop those who look like illegal immigrants on the street. At the time we asked you: is the law racist? Now they've been stopped by the US government. Australian politicians have a number of solutions to deal with refugees including turning back the boats or setting up new detention centres.
One thing's for certain. Everyone's afraid. Illegal immigrants of being found out. Asylum seekers of being sent back. Governments of jeopardising security.
Binyamin Netanyahu's on his way to the U.S for more talks with President Obama today. The Israeli PM arrives with questions , according to this article, "that rarely get asked in Washington"
: is Israel ‑ or, at the very least, its current government ‑ endangering US security and American troops?
The simple blood test would be able to give a result up to ten years before any symptoms begin to show. About 35 million people across the world suffer from Alzheimer's - a form of dementia with symptoms which include severe memory loss. There is currently no cure for the disease.
Groups of people set up mini leagues, and selected the players they thought would win most points throughout a season by scoring the most goals, keeping clean sheets and so on. Many newspapers still run similar competitions.
Scientists fighting the Aids epidemic are calling on Africans to stop having sex for a month. They say it could cut new infections by almost half. According to their research a person with HIV is most likely to pass the on virus to somebody else during the 1st month after they've been infected.
One of the scientists, Alan Whiteside, thinks a month-long pledge to use a condom could also be effective.
"The main thing is to agree on a bounded period in which the entire population would live by the same rule".
But as we get to the business end of the tournament, out of the four that made the quarter-finals, only one team from that part of the world are left - Uruguay - and that only thanks to the controversial hand of Suarez. Had Asamoah Gyan only managed to convert his penalty, they would have joined Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay on an (admittedly rather large) plane back over the southern Atlantic.
There are so many talking points in the aftermath of Ghana's 4-2 defeat to Uruguay on penalties that it is tempting to suggest it hard to know where to begin - except that, like a thumb that is not only sore but has repeatedly been hit by an Acme mallet, one thing sticks out above all else.
That is the issue of the drama in the very last minute of extra time.
Meanwhile, at least four people have been killed by suicide bombers attacking the office of a US development organisation in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz.
Both cases again highlight the difficulties in stopping an attack carried out by someone who's prepared to die.
As our newsroom reports, 'police in Pakistan had earlier been congratulating themselves that last month was the first for two years without any suicide bombings in the country'. So clearly some progress had been made, but not enough.
"Some of the parents don't want children to play musical instruments and they don't have music in their homes. For goodwill I allow that parent to withdraw their child from all music but I am in fact denying the child the opportunity that the other children in the class have"
.
Is what Eileen Ross the headteacher of the Herbert Morrison Primary School in south London told the BBC .
Many of you have been reacting to this story: On twitter timfoxon says
Many Muslim children are being deprived of school music lessons by their parents.
This topic was discussed on World Cup Have Your Say on 2 July 2010. Listen to the programme.
Eight teams are left standing in the World Cup, which means the hopes of 24 sets of fans have been dashed by their country's elimination.
The reaction to defeat has ranged from resignation to the inevitable to national soul-searching, self-flagellation and the sort of government intervention we've been debating in the last day in Nigeria and elsewhere.
Fifa has a strict rule that national football associations must be independent of their country's government. So it's no surprise that Fifa's not impressed with these developments in Nigeria. The Super Eagles have been withdrawn from international competition until 2012 and the Football Association has been dissolved.
Finland has become the first country to make access to broadband a legal right for every citizen.
The Finnish deal means that from 1 July all telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide all residents with broadband lines that can run at a minimum speed of 1 megabit per second. The government has promised to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.
If you're white, you're hired. If you live in China, that is. Chinese companies are recruiting foreigners, regardless of experience, to pretend to be senior employees... and the only qualification they need is to be Caucasian.
WHYS is a global conversation hosted by BBC News. For updates on the stories and issues being covered on our broadcasts, pls visit our facebook page. This is when we're on air:
1100 & 1700GMT Monday to Friday BBC World Service radio
1500 & 1930GMT on Fridays BBC World News television
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| 21:20 UK time, Friday, 30 July 2010
It's an old wives tale, that plenty of people told me when I was pregnant.......you should eat for two. Not so, says health experts in the UK who are 
Catalonia today became the first mainland Spanish region to 
France has 
"There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would love my life back." 
An Israeli man has been found guilty of "rape by deception" after 
Many of you who follow us on 
Facebook users in India are being 
Iranian mother of two Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani could be 
"Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot. #Lebanon"
Lawmakers in Arizona wanted to give police the power to stop those who look like illegal immigrants on the street. At the time we asked you: 
The Taliban are in 
