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Gareth Barry will be getting a whole lotta 'love' at Anfield on Saturday. AP

Barry needs ear muffs, and shine
Gareth Barry has his own Facebook page. Actually, it's an ''official'' fan page for the Manchester City central midfielder set up by the Professional Footballers' Association. There's not much going on there, really. Just four postings in four months or so. After all, the 28-year-old, who joined City this summer in a £12 million ($27.5 million) deal, has only 6,684 fans (as of Friday). By contrast, Liverpool duo Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have 387,040 and 752,977 Facebook fans, re

Much better home-made
Hariss (front) shone in the heart of midfield against Thailand in midweek. AFP
In a news bulletin on CCTV on Thursday evening, China's state broadcasters reported that their women's team had beaten Malaysia in the final of the Asian Table Tennis Championships. Finally, the Chinese got something wrong in table tennis. The world No 1...

Analysis
Bridging the Taiwan Strait
by Jonathan Adams The New York Times
ONCE China and Taiwan had agreed on the substance of the financial cooperation deal they signed this week, they still had a few details to decide: Where should they sign the pact, what names should they use to sign it, and which Chinese script should they write in? Despite the warming trend in cross-relations, neither government officially recognises the...

With all due respect, sir
by Brian Whitaker The Guardian
AFTER respectfully bowing to the Emperor of Japan last week, President Barack Obama travelled on to China where both countries agreed that ''the fundamental principle of respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity'' was at the core of China-United States relations. Mr Obama is big on respect. Speaking to the Muslim world in his Cairo...

Is Iran playing its cards right?
by Meir Javedanfar
As Ayatollah Khamenei sidles up to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he could learn from Turkey's leader about balancing his alliances. The famous Chinese strategist, Sun Tzu, wrote in his book, The Art of War: ''If an enemy has alliances, the problem is grave and the enemy's position strong; if he has no alliances, the problem is minor and the enemy's position weak.''...

Is Doomsday Coming?
by Dennis Overbye
THE National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) said last week that the world was not ending - at least any time soon. Last year, the European Centre for Nuclear Research said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us...

Analysis
Obama's hurdles in climate reform
by The New York Times
UNITED States President Barack Obama came into office pledging to end eight years of American inaction on climate change under former President George W Bush, and all year he has promised that the US would lead the way toward a global agreement in Copenhagen next month to address the warming planet. But this weekend in Singapore, Mr Obama was forced to...

China the next big risk
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
FAR from taking over as the engine of growth from an exhausted West, China is making matters worse. Its policies continue to play havoc with global trade and risk tipping the world into a second leg of the Great Recession. ''The inherent problems of the international economic system have not been fully addressed,'' said Chinese President Hu Jintao. Indeed...

The embrace of equals
by John Gittings
United States President Barack Obama, who arrived in China for the first time as President yesterday, will be carrying the baggage of a relationship between the communist nation and capitalist America that dates back more than 60 years. ''There is no such thing as America not intervening in China,'' former Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong told a US...

Restoring faith in US justice
So much has changed after Sept 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks on the United States had such profound global consequences that they have lodged in the world's collective imagination as a pivotal moment in history. That makes it hard sometimes to see them, in the plainest of terms, as a crime. But the need to see 9/11 in precisely those terms is implied by...

SPH bid wastefully expensive?
IN THEIR eagerness to become major property players, did media group Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) overpay for a mall now being developed by the Housing and Development Board at Clementi Town Centre? According to several analysts, they certainly did, and as a result, have downgraded the stock. A joint venture...

Not just a football match
by Leonard Thomas
The Lions will be playing for more than just three points, a win over Thailand will restore faith in Singapore football. AFP
They will sit in the bowels of the coliseum at Kallang moments before going into battle, some will nervously fidget in their blood-red armour, others will bow their heads in silent prayer, a few will be bristling, eager for action. The cocky ones in the side...

It's not too late for Henry
He's a deadly striker at Arsenal and Barcelona, but Henry had yet to prove himself on the international stage. AFP
We remember him as a frighteningly fast striker blessed with hypnotic dribbling skills. He had a feather's touch for ball control - defenders used to shudder at the prospect of facing Thierry Henry. It remains one of football's biggest mysteries that a striker...

Analysis
A QUESTION OF LEVERAGE
by Helene Cooper The New York Times
WHEN United States President Barack Obama delivered a rare and public call last week for President Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption in Afghanistan, there was one glaring omission from his remarks - an ''or else''. Mr Obama's exclusion of the obvious threat - that he will pull American troops out of Afghanistan if Mr Karzai does not comply - reflects...

Help! My boss is on Twitter ...
by Mercedes Bunz The Guardian
YES, my boss follows me on Twitter. And it's no use denying that this makes a difference to what I tweet. For example, I always feel bad about not tweeting, because I report on digital media and a tacit part of my job description is to maintain an online presence. However, I don't tweet if I am in a bad mood or am simply too busy. On the other hand, we...

Analysis
Saudi Arabia frets waning power
by MICHAEL SLACKMAN
With Israel having rebuffed American calls to freeze settlement-building, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are increasingly viewed in the region as diminished actors. They have been challenged by Iran, opposed by much smaller Arab neighbours, mocked by Syria, and defied by influential nonstate groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran's and Syria's continued support for...
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