The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson suggests a tweaking of what is defined as "news."

I don't think it's so much the redefining of news that's at issue. Instead, there needs to be a recommitment to good journalism.

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir:

If everybody in this polarized country could be convinced to sit down tonight and watch the documentaries "No End in Sight" and "The Devil Came on Horseback," we might pull our troops out of Iraq next week and send them to Darfur the week after that.

From the July 25 BBC story:

Support for suicide bombings against civilians has fallen sharply across the Muslim world since 2002, a major survey has suggested.

However, 70% of Palestinians interviewed said they believed such attacks were sometimes justifiable.

The Global Opinion Trends survey, by the US-based Pew Research Centre, polled 45,000 people in 47 countries.

It also found widespread optimism in poor countries that the next generation will enjoy better lives.

And it suggested that people viewed the US as the most friendly country in the world and the most feared. 

The International Herald Tribune had a July 24 story on Africa:

Despite a thicket of troubles, from deadly illnesses like AIDS and malaria to corrupt politicians and deep-seated poverty, a plurality of Africans say they are better off today than they were five years ago and are optimistic about their future and that of the next generation, according to a poll conducted in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by The New York Times and the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

The poll results offer an unusual and complex portrait of a continent in flux, a snapshot of 10 key modern African states as they struggle to build accountable governments, manage violent conflict and turn their natural resources into wealth for the population.

It found that in the main, Africans are satisfied with their national governments and a majority of respondents in seven of the 10 countries said their economic situation was at least somewhat good. But many said that they face a wide array of difficult and sometimes life-threatening problems, from illegal drug trafficking to political corruption, from the lack of clean water to inadequate schools for their children, from ethnic and political violence to deadly disease.

Here's the Pew Global Attitudes Project's news release.

Alistair Burnett, editor of the BBC's The World Tonight, thinks it might be a good idea to not refer to the current chill in British-Russian relations as a "crisis."