Austerity means something real to many people around the world at this time of holidays.

Recession, high debt and cutbacks in government welfare projects have led to fears that the number of people forced to give up their homes and live in temporary accommodation or even on the streets will rise.

This blogger point to the British CEO's arrogance and out of touch attitude.

And President Obama, who has himself been criticised for his slow reaction to the disaster, said in a recent NBC interview, that he would have fired Tony Hayward over his response to the 50-day-old spill.

It's all too much for some journalists in the UK, who have started condemning the attacks as anglophobic. The weekly Spectator magazine writes this week that British institutions are being demonised by a hypocritical American President and calls for BP to fight back.

So, what do you think? Will the BP oil tragedy tarnish the image of Britain in the US, and could it damage the special relationship? We will be debating the issue on World Update this week.

The festival is considered one of the best British cultural events of the year.

It welcomes "big ideas from people who think differently to ourselves and champion the need to open minds".

The festival is known for its relaxed atmosphere and stimulating conversations. Festival-goers may enjoy chats with authors or get stuck-in with debates about the future of books.

Dan will be speaking to one of the lawyers responsible for representing the families of those who died at Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972. He'll also have an interview with British columnist, Peter Hitchens on Christianity - and more.

So join us if you can tomorrow on World Update to hear some of the many interesting speakers from the Hay on Wye book festival.

Apple stores will be open one hour earlier than usual in order to meet the exceptional demand - and give the queuing public a break. Pre-orders have soared and analysts predict sales might hit a million units in under a month.

If you're American, you've heard this all before. The iPad has been been available in the US since early April - and one high profile citizen is not impressed.

"You are coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter," he said,

"And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and Play Stations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."

His comments have provoked an online backlash.

Kevin Gamble at High Touch said,

"Telling the next generation to turn off their information appliances and to disengage from their knowledge flows is doing them a disservice. Learning to live in the flow is the new imperative. This is the edge where value is being created. We can only hope those young people at Hampton University were busy reading their feeds on their smart phones, and that they filtered-out the President's bad advice."

But does the President have a point? Author, iPad owner and self confessed techie, Dan Lyons, thinks he does. In an article he wrote for Newsweek, he argues the US is becoming a nation of internet-powered imbeciles.

We'll be looking at the issue Friday on World Update. In the meantime, we'd like to know what you think. Is all this technology making us stupid?

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Last month the state of Arizona passed America's toughest law on illegal immigration.

Police now have the right to detain people on "reasonable suspicion" of being illegal immigrants.
According to a recent ABC News Poll 59 percent of Americans approve of the law.

The issue has generated a lot of discussion over the past couple of weeks, including here on the WHYS blog. Now, it's back in spotlight as the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon visits Washington.

As the US primary season gets underway, the issue has people talking once again about immigration reform in the US. Nevada Senator, Harry Reid has called for Republicans and Democrats to join forces to pass a new federal law.

And under pressure from critics on the right, Arizona Senator, John McCain has softened his past support for reform, and has adopted a much tougher line on securing the borders.
For his part, President Obama has strongly criticised the Arizona law, saying it undermines the basic notions of fairness. He has warned Congress that the absence of federal action will only encourage "misguided efforts" such as those in Arizona.

Some now believe that immigration reform will be the next big challenge for his presidency.

So what do you think? Does the US need to reform its immigration laws? What should that reform look like? And is an overhaul of the existing laws realistic before the midterm elections in November?

We'll be exploring the issue of US immigration reform in a special World Update this Thursday. Join us on Facebook and Twitter

Hi, Ian here from the World Update programme.

One of the phrases we've heard a lot throughout the financial crisis is moral hazard.

This is the idea that people protected from risk behave differently than they would if they were fully exposed to the risk.

The term has come up again following Europe's trillion dollar support package for ailing Eurozone economies.

Peter Boone and Simon Johnson wrote on the influential economics blog, The baseline scenario,

"This is a whole new level of global moral hazard - the result of an alliance of convenience between troubled governments in the south of Europe and the north European banks who enabled their debt habit."

"The flirtation with moral hazard expands to rewarding fiscal free-spenders with financial bailouts. The process is taking the community further down the road of moral hazard, rewarding transgressors by retroactively rewriting the rules."

Today the Pope is in Portugal, one of the most indebted countries in Europe. He is expected to tell people they should uphold Christian values and seek solace in their faith as the financial squeeze carries on.

But, do you think their European leaders have been setting a good example? Do you agree that those who have acted recklessly have been rewarded for their actions? Or were policy makers right to restore confidence, even if it meant they didn't necessarily take the moral high-ground?

Also - does religious teaching have a role in restoring morality to finances, as the Pope says is should?

We'll be exploring the issue today on World Update.

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A couple of months ago, our World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, produced a harrowing report about the number of birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Watch it here:

He describes children suffering from paralysis or brain damage - and a photograph of one baby who was born with three heads.

In 2004, a US offensive against Fallujah became one of the fiercest battles of the Iraq war. Hundreds died. The US has admitted using white phosphorus, which is similar to napalm, in the fighting. There are also suggestions that depleted uranium munitions may have been used.

Some people believe that the high number of deformities in Falllujah's children is linked to the types of weapons used by American forces. That hasn't been proven. The World Health Organisation said it would investigate the trend in birth defects in Fallujah and compare it to other parts of Iraq.

Now, Iraqi families are taking legal action, not against the US - that was made impossible by US federal immunity laws - but against Britain, which was involved in the fighting and, the families allege, was complicit in the use of the weapons.

The British Ministry of Defence says,

"The MoD treats issues such as this very seriously, but allegations must not be taken as fact."

On Thursday, on World Update, we'll hear from the lawyer leading the legal challenge, Phil Shiner.

But we want to know what you think. Do we know enough about what happened in Fallujah? Should the US give a full disclosure about what weapons were used, and how?

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In an interview with ABC, Mr Orsini said the sites encourage behaviour that is harmful to middle school students, who are between 10 and 14 years old.

"It has become meaner and meaner and they don't understand the impact," he said, "they aren't socially and emotionally ready to understand."

He went on to tell the Associated Press,

"If one or two kids says something online about what you look like, or makes fun of the way that you dress....for an eleven or twelve year old...that's devastating."

Not everyone things the ban is a good idea.

The Techdirt website says:

"We see this sort of overreaction to new things all of the time. In the past, school administrators have needlessly freaked out about such things as comic books, dungeons and dragons, walkmen and mp3 players. If the principal, Anthony Orsini, had just sent out a note saying "talk to your kids and pay attention to what they're doing online," it would have been fine.

And, the New York based Gothamist site says, 

"The fastest way to revolution is to take back a privilege that has already been entrenched in the culture."

So, what do you think? Should young students be banned from using Facebook and other social networking sites? We'll be hearing from Mr Orsini and one of his critics on Monday on World Update.

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Yale University made headlines this week when a strict policy banning faculty members from having romantic relationships with undergraduate students came to light.The policy has been incorporated into an updated faculty handbook after more than a quarter century of debate at Yale.
What's interesting about this is just how far Yale is going. Other universities have banned teachers from sleeping with their students. But Yale is saying all teacher-student sex is off limits - even if they never share a classroom.

Deputy Provost, Charles Long, who has been trying to enforce the ban for 27 years, says,

"I think we have a responsibility to protect students from behaviour that is damaging to them and to the objectives for their being here."

"...forbidding relationships between students and faculty members who don't even have a significant academic relationship with one another? That seems awfully paternalistic. We are talking about legal adults, remember. I fail to see how it's any of the university's business unless the relationship -- "damaging" or not -- has a direct impact on a student's academic life."

But other bloggers and commentators think the ban is a good idea.

Lizzie Skurnick, of Politics Daily, says,

"There is a very good reason universities should ban student-teacher relationships. It's to prevent their faculty from being unbearably tacky..."

So what do you think? Should adult undergraduate students be able to choose who they have a relationship with, or do you agree that universities should be stepping in to prevent students and faculty from hooking up? Does it matter if they share a classroom or not? We'll be debating the issue on World Update on Monday.
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Hi, Ian here from World Update.

There has been a fair bit of chatter lately about whether or not General David Petraeus might be eyeing a run for president in 2012. His recent visit to Saint Anselm College - a venue for past presidential debates in the key primary state of New Hampshire - started people talking.

The Daily Telegraph's US editor, Toby Harnden, made the case for a Petraeus bid here

Still, he's a registered Republican, and right leaning websites like the Drudge Report are carrying Harnden's pitch.

In New Hampshire, General Petraeus made it quite clear that he wasn't planning a run,

"I thought I've said 'no' as many ways as I could," he said. "I will not ever run for political office, I can assure you of that."

But the right leaning blog, Hot Air, says he may yet be persuaded,

"the question with Petraeus is not whether he wants to do it, or is running to do it - but whether he would be willing to do it if prevailed upon by enough respected women and men on both sides of the aisle."

The chatter over a Petraeus run may remind some people of the pressure put on General Colin Powell to run for president in the mid-nineties. He declined any run, but went on to become Secretary of State in George W Bush's first administration.

American history has plenty of examples of military men who moved into politics. George Washington led the revolution before becoming the first president. Dwight Eisenhower was Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during the Second World War before he was elected.

In the rest of the world, Israel has a tradition of military men going on to lead the country, and in Africa, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni was a military leader before becoming president, as was Rwandan president, Paul Kagame.

So, what do you think? Do military commanders make the best leaders? We'll be looking at the issue this week on World Update.

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Hi, Ian here from the World Update programme.
One of the most senior Roman Catholic clerics in England and Wales has said he can see why arguments for using contraception to tackle poverty in developing nations are attractive.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, said:

Is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster's openness to the idea of contraception to protect women in developing countries a sign of a changing agenda in the Church?

Reformers in the Catholic church are being heard more often now, as the abuse scandal spreads from country to country. The recent Papal letter to the Irish church failed to satisfy many there.

One woman told the Tablet that her church in Dublin that used to see a regular attendance of 2000 at Mass are now getting around 600. The number of young men offering to serve as priests is falling in Ireland too.

So is the Roman Catholic Church now willing to consider revising some of its rules, many of which are based on decisions made a long time ago when cultures were very different?

Would the reform agenda, including not just contraception but an end to priestly celibacy and the introduction of women priests - who reformers say were common in the first years after Christ - now be a matter for serious discussion?