What the world is reading

Tim Collard says the row over the official UK Foreign Office document on the Popes visit has focussed too heavily on its officialness. Make jokes in the office,people are saying,but dont commit them to paper. But Ive seen no definite suggestions that it was committed to paper: it sounds like an email which had been distributed rather too widely, says Collard. What seems to have happened in the present case is either someone accidentally pressed a button giving the message a far wider distribution than had ever been intended or someone thought it would be a clever idea to leak it. While Foreign Office spokespersons have called this an act of utter stupidity on part of the official who drew the document up,Collard says it was an act of utter stupidity on part of whoever passed the document outside the inner circle.

TIMES,UK

Asian men and bodybuilding

Asian men in Britain appear to be in the grip of a bodybuilding craze,writes Sathnam Sanghera. The weightlifting sections of gyms in British towns and cities with large immigrant populations have recorded a steep rise in the count of Asian men. While proposing various theoriesbodybuilding allows these blokes to combine physical activity with the Asian predilections for food and conversation or that a good physique is more of a status symbolSanghera admits that not one of these is entirely convincing. Every explanation I have conjured up is overshadowed by one huge factor: Bollywood, says the writer,while quoting Slumdog Millionaires British director Danny Boyle,who,on his visit to India,had said: Bodybuilding is such a big thing for young men getting into the industry there. They have got to look like they can rip their shirts off and get under the waterfall in the Swiss Alps or wherever they are filming.

THE GUARDIAN

Volcanic ash: Air industry was warned

It now emerges that Eyjafjallajokull wasnt such a nasty surprise after all. The body coordinating the international response to the spread of volcanic ash had been aware for at least three years of the need for new guidelines setting out the conditions under which aircraft can keep flying after an eruption,write Jamie Doward and Cal Flyn. It has now emerged that the International Airways Volcano Watch Operations Group,a division of the International Civil Aviation Organisation,discussed three years ago the establishment of what might constitute safe levels of ash for aircraft to fly in. But the aircraft manufacturers were reluctant to talk about the issue.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Why should they believe us?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada,the host of this Junes Group of 8 summit meeting,said last week that if the G-8 is to remain credible,accountability is absolutely necessary. An editorial says he is right. Leaders of the worlds wealthiest nations can start bolstering their credibility by explaining how they plan to fill the 20 billion gap between the foreign aid they promised to send to developing countries and what they are actually giving. Rich industrial nations have promised more aid to developing countries to try to persuade them to curb carbon emissionsstop chopping down their forests and switch from dirty coal to cleaner fuels. Given the G-8s track record,poorer nations are right in being sceptical. The current offer to help poor countries deal with climate change is 10 billion a year until 2012 and 100 billion a year after that. Right now we doubt anybody will believe that.