I've managed to squeeze in a few hours of reading in the precious downtime of these last couple of weeks. But of course I can't steer too far away from the subject on everybody's mind.

I just finished reading a book published last year called Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey — and Even Iraq — are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport.

(That's a mouthful, and it's also the title of the American release. The British version, released two months earlier, is more simply titled Why England Lose: And other curious phenomena explained.)

Written by acclaimed sports columnist Simon Kuper of the Financial Times and "sports economist" Stefan Szymanski, it takes a hard statistical look at the validity of some of the received wisdom in global soccer. And as both titles suggest, the book may offer some solace — or at least an explanation — for England fans distraught at their team's 4-1 mauling by Germany this week.

The authors argue that England is not, in fact, an underachiever on the global stage. If anything, the team punches above its weight. Taking into account the country's population, international experience and national income, the authors conclude that England performs just about as well as it should be expected to.

Other factors play into England's middling results, as well. For example, the shrinking of England's traditional working class, from which much of the talent for the national side has historically been drawn, has duly limited the number of available recruits.

England's geographical isolation from continental Europe (in the years before the internet became ubiquitous, anyway) has also deprived the country access to the network of innovation that has enabled mainland countries to thrive.

As Mr Kuper wrote in a recent column for the FT: "England at this World Cup have often demonstrated their ancestral tendency to revert to blind kick-and-rush football. Many fans wish the national team would master the continental style."

England fans might not agree with all that's in this book. Indeed, much of it seems intended to stir as much debate as it settles.

Some of the more intriguing — and debatable — points include the notion that Norway is, in fact, the country that is the most in-love with the beautiful game and that, person-for-person and dollar-for-dollar, Honduras and Iraq may be the best national teams in the world.

I personally have already used the book to settle (in my mind) one of the great debates of the global game. As an American, I've always called and continue to call the game "soccer", a word grating to so many British and European ears. And yet, on page 158 of my copy of the book, straight from the mouth of an Englishman, I found this passage (emphasis mine):

"At this point, let's agree to call the global game 'soccer' and the American game 'football.' Many people, both in America and in Europe, imagine that soccer is an American term invented in the late twentieth century to distinguish the game from gridiron. Indeed, anti-American Europeans often frown on the use of the word. They consider it a mark of American imperialism. This is a silly position. 'Soccer' was the most common name for the game in Britain from the 1890s until the 1970s. As far as one can tell, when the North American Soccer League brought soccer to the Americans in the 1970s, and Americans quite reasonably adopted the English word, the British stopped using it and reverted to the word football."

I showed that to an England fan late one night in a pub after he started chiding me for using the S-word. He fell silent after that, unsure how to rebut. Then again, maybe it was England's dismal performance against Algeria that night that left him reticent.

Either way, Mr Kuper's and Mr Szymanski's book will challenge many of the conceptions soccer fans hold as gospel. It may even help you win a few barroom debates.

Chili's had the bright idea to show, on its TVs, NFL.com's online feed, which carried with it the full slate of commercials that always create almost as much buzz as the action on the field.

The ad receiving the most pre-game attention was a purportedly pro-life spot featuring college gridiron star Tim Tebow that was paid for by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.

There ended up being two Tebow ads — one shown before the game started and one during the first quarter, a surprise in itself.

But what was really shocking about these supposedly divisive ads was how non-controversial they were. They were, in fact, shockingly benign.

In them, we saw Mr Tebow's mother, Pam, telling viewers of her "miracle baby", Tim, who "almost didn't make it into this world". The ensuing 30 seconds show Mr Tebow and his mother expressing their love for each other — a celebration of family and life. Not exactly inflammatory stuff.

If not for the inordinate media attention given to this particular controversy, very few viewers would likely be aware of Mrs Tebow's back story, and its decidedly pro-life slant. The ads do direct viewers to go to Focus on the Family's website, which is a little more forceful in its message, to say the least.

It's hard to know if the early attention the ad received had any effect on the final product. USA Today reported that the language in the final script was toned down from what was originally planned.

The ad that ultimately aired during the game was not without its detractors, of course. It shows Mr Tebow, rather bizarrely, tackling his mother midway through her message, adding that puerile bit of slapstick seemingly required of Super Bowl ads these days.

The National Organisation of Women (Now), who had been especially vocal in calling for CBS to yank the ad before it even aired, said the final iteration of the Tebow ad glorified violence against women: "I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it," Now president Terry O'Neill told the Los Angeles Times.

That's a rather laughable complaint, considering the overtly misogynistic themes that permeated many of the other ads this year. Focus on the Family's Super Bowl message, by comparison, was positively upbeat.

And they milked millions of dollars worth of free advertising out of the alleged controversy to boot. Pretty clever marketing scheme, all things considered.

As for some of the other commercials seen when the New Orleans Saints upset the Indianapolis Colts in one of the top feel-good sports stories of the decade, here are a couple that I found particularly impressive:

The Google ad was simple yet moving, telling the story through Google search queries of a young man who moves to France to study, meets a girl and starts a family. An intellectual (and emotional) step above the rest. See the full ad here.

And the Coke ad featuring many of the secondary characters from The Simpsons was a joy to watch, and worthy of multiple viewings. It packed all the charm and irreverence of a typical day in Springfield into a minute of effective advertising. See the full ad here.

Read Luke Johnson's original blog about the Super Bowl ads.

With more than 100 million viewers in the US alone, the Super Bowl is consistently the most-watched television broadcast of the year, and advertisers are forced to cough up millions for access to all those eyeballs. A 30-second spot this year went for between US$2.5 million (S$3.55 million) and US$2.8 million.

All the spots were filled with a week to spare. The ads — which have become almost as import as the game itself — straddle the line between amusing and inane; there are busty women, talking babies and more than a couple superstars hawking everything from snacks and beverages to Internet start-ups.

Even the fans who tune in for the football will inevitably end up debating which ads were good and which were just stupid. But this year, the usual low-brow fare will air beside ads with content that is socially agitating.

It's debatable what role issues of social consequence have at the Super Bowl, or sport in general. But broadcaster CBS has brought that debate to the fore with the ads it's chosen to run and those on which it chose to pass.

One spot in particular has sparked a firestorm of debate about what is appropriate material for viewers on one of America's favorite secular holidays.

It reportedly features college gridiron standout Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, speaking out against abortion. In the ad, it is said, Mrs Tebow tells her story of a missionary trip she took to the Philippines while pregnant in 1987. After a tropical disease she contracted put the lives of both her and her fetus at risk, she says, local doctors urged her to have an abortion.

As a devout Christian, she refused, and the healthy baby boy she bore grew up to be Tim, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner (and himself a proselytising Christian).

CBS has been pilloried by women's groups, who say the grandest stage in American sports is not the place to tackle such a controversial issue. In a letter to CBS, the Women's Media Centre accused CBS of using "sports to divide rather than to unite".

Furthermore, critics say, the Tebow spot — sponsored by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family — would appear to violate CBS' stated policy of not allowing "advocacy" ads on its airwaves, a precedent set in 2004 when the same network rejected a Super Bowl ad by the United Church of Christ (UCC) that highlighted the church's welcoming stance towards homosexuals.

CBS called that ad too "controversial". (See the ad here.) The broadcaster has announced an easing of that policy, noting that the UCC ad would be allowed under the new guidelines. The announcement, though, came only after the uproar over the Tebow ad.

The choice to allow this particular ad is all the more curious when considering some of the ads CBS rejected this year.

Most notable is a spot by Mancrunch.com, a gay dating website based in Toronto. The ad shows two men watching the Super Bowl together. After their hands touch incidentally in a bowl of potato chips, the men start making out with each other. (See the ad here.)

In its rejection letter to Mancrunch, CBS states that the ad "is not within the Network's broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday". The humour in the ad may border on sophomoric, but its rejection does nothing to clear up exactly what "standards" CBS is referring to.

As Adweek's Tim Arnold points out: "It was CBS that approved and aired commercials in (the 2004) Super Bowl featuring a horny, talking monkey hitting on a (human) babe; Cedric the Entertainer getting a bikini wax; painted man tits; a farting Clydesdale; a kid watching a kilt-wearing dude cool his gonads; and a 12-year-old kid uttering a swear word in reaction to his dad's new car, not to mention an erectile dysfunction commercial."

Another ad — featuring an effeminate (and fictional) former gridiron player, "Lola", who strikes it rich after he starts an online lingerie company — was also disallowed this year on the grounds that it was potentially offensive to viewers. Godaddy.com, a company that sells domain names and has a reputation for racy Super Bowl ads, was stunned: "Of the five commercial concepts we submitted for approval this year, this NEVER would’ve been my pick for the one that would not be approved... We were absolutely blindsided!" GoDaddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons said. (See the rejected ad and others here.)

Ultimately, executives at CBS are the ones calling the shots, and they can take (or reject) money from whomever they want.

But by picking and choosing what viewers get to see based on what appears to be some ideological platform, they have appointed themselves arbiters of appropriateness — and have justified charges of censorship.

The NFL has not shied away from important social issues this season. Many players wore pink boots early in the year to show support for breast cancer research, and broadcasters have enthusiastically promoted ways for viewers to donate to Haitian relief funds.

Abortion and homosexuality are considerably more controversial topics. But by offering its opinion — however implicitly — by maintaining a double standard on what it will broadcast, CBS has itself become part of the debate, and tarnished the innocence of the game.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Unfortunately for viewers in Singapore who want to see this year's batch of commercials when the Indianapolis Colts take on the New Orleans Saints early Monday morning (local time), Super Bowl ads are not carried on the simulcast that is seen in the 230 or so countries outside US borders. But they will inevitably show up online. Have a look at last year's ads here. And for a list of some of the most objectionable Super Bowl ads that have actually aired during the game over the years, look here.)

Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have seized the opportunity to try to regain some traction in the push to reform American health care, a cause close to Kennedy's heart.

Senator Chris Dodd, a longtime friend of Kennedy who has served as temporary chairman of the Senate health committee in the late senator's absence, was quoted by the Washington Post as saying he hopes Kennedy's death "will maybe cause people to take a breath, step back, and start talking with each other again, in more civil tones, about what needs to be done".

SOURCE: AP

Indeed, it is an opportune time to try to reform the debate about reform, and a note civility is desperately needed.

While Congress has been on its summer break this month, the debate about health care has degenerated into a farcical shouting match pitting mendacious ideologues against dumbfounded legislators.

Health-care reform is aimed at bettering the lives of millions of people and would seem worthy of serious debate. Instead, the effort has drawn conspiracy theorists and would-be militiamen - armed and ready for battle - into the daylight, as the debate has been dragged into a realm of baffling insanity, sometimes even by  members of the Senate.

The popular but ludicrous notion that the House Bill currently under discussion would create "death panels" - in essence, government bodies that decide whose life is worth saving and whose should be ended - has sparked a wave of unfounded fear that widespread euthanasia is imminent, and has led a disturbingly vocal sector of protesters to declare that Barack Obama is a Nazi, among other things.

This frenzy of racism and willful ignorance is troubling enough, but that's only the beginning. Proud gun-owners have been showing up to health-care protests sporting loaded handguns and even assault rifles, ostensibly to flaunt their second-amendment rights. Their actions are shockingly legal, despite their proximity to the president. But it makes you wonder which death panels pose the real threat.

Now is the time to do as Mr Dodd suggested - step back and take a breath. Bringing American health care in line with the rest of the developed world is urgently needed; Mr Obama has made it the cornerstone of his presidency.

But what's the big deal?

Forget for a moment that nearly 50 million Americans live without any kind of health coverage, or that the country spends some US$2 trillion on annual care. According to a June report in the American Journal of Medicine, US medical bills in 2007 were at the root of 62 per cent of personal bankruptcies.

The shocking part is that more than 75 per cent of those bankrupt families already had health insurance, but they were still buried by their medical bills.

Conservative critics of health-care reform claim that America's privatised system makes for the best health care in the world. That is only partly accurate, according to a recent study by the Urban Institute, a non-partisan public policy think-tank, which says the US ranks among the best in the world in areas such as treating cancer, but is nowhere near the best in areas such as deaths from treatable and preventable illnesses.

Democrats now refer to "health insurance reform", partly as a rhetorical concession, but also since it is the insurance system that really requires an overhaul. Health insurance companies are notorious for finding loopholes that disavow them of having to pay when their customers get sick.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote recently about a former health-insurance executive who would get handsomely rewarded whenever he could find a way out of paying a patient's bills, thus saving his firm potentially millions of dollars.

Writing in Newsweek last month, Kennedy said that providing adequate health care to all Americans was "the cause of my life". Many have said that his absence from the Senate is a big reason why the debate has gotten so out of control. Some hope to rally around the death of the lion and pass a reform Bill in his honour.

Such a storybook ending seems unlikely in the short term. The debate about health care has slipped off the rails and, powered by misinformation and scare-mongering, is quickly becoming a train wreck. The best health-care reformers can hope for immediately is to breathe some reason back into the debate.

Reforming health care (and health insurance) is an infinitely complex undertaking and requires serious thought. The Bill currently taking shape is hardly perfect, but in order for reform to be successful - and it must be successful - honest and legitimate concerns must be addressed and thoughtful compromise needs to take place.

Kennedy commanded respect even from his fiercest critics, which is how he was able to accomplish so much in his storied career. If members of Congress truly want to honour his legacy when they return from recess next month, they will take a deep breath and restart the debate with genuine civility because, as Mr Dodd said, "that's what Teddy would do".

SOURCE: AP

Mr Obama's words — that a white cop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" when he arrested a famous black scholar for disorderly conduct in his own home — have been repeated and dissected ad nauseam by now.

If cooler heads had prevailed, as the president suggested later, the incident would have been a non-issue. But the subject of racial profiling and stereotyping rarely lends itself to the cooling of heads.

At this point in the push towards post-racialism, any progressively-minded person reflexively recoils when faced with the theoretical situation of racial profiling. To racially profile someone, we tell ourselves, is to commit a grievous act invalidating decades of social struggle.

There's no question that harbouring stereotypes can evolve into twisted ideologies. And a general uneasiness about racial profiling is by no means unhealthy. But there's a disconcerting grey area in which a quick bit of racial profiling could prove useful, even life-saving.

I ventured into that grey area late one night last autumn. I was at the train station in Hartford, Connecticut, a city no one would mistake for paradise, or even Cambridge. I was meeting my father in the next town over at a hotel, which promised to send a shuttle to pick me up.

The shuttle never ended up coming, but I spent an hour and a half waiting outside the station before I realised it would not be arriving.

During that time, a scruffy-looking Hispanic man sidled up to me. He tried to strike up a conversation, and though I really just wanted to read my newspaper, I politely responded to his attempts at small talk. We were occupying the same space, after all, and I didn't want to be rude.

He had just been released from prison that day, he said, and was trying to collect train fare to see his sister in Massachusetts. I gave him the excess change I had in my pocket. He seemed satisfied enough.

Not long afterwards, two young black men appeared. They were wearing bulky jackets and baggy jeans. "Telltale thugs!" the stereotype screams, a message effectively drowned out by my years of nurturing an earnest sensitivity towards exactly that kind of rash judgement.

In retrospect, I probably could have just slipped inside where there was an armed security guard, but the shuttle was due to be there any minute. Besides, I told myself, what do I have to be afraid of? Aren't we all just people waiting for a ride?

My fears were further allayed when one of the newcomers started talking to me. He seemed friendly and we talked about basketball and the weather in Philadelphia, where I had been earlier in the day.

Finally, my cell phone rang. It was my dad, telling me the hotel would not be sending the shuttle and I should take a cab. I hung up and prepared to leave when one of the black guys asked if he could borrow my phone to make a quick call.

I agreed. Not the wisest choice, I realise now, but I figured if I could help this fellow citizen in a time of need then, well, maybe we really do live in a post-racial society.

He made his call, or pretended to, flipped the phone down and began walking away with his friend.

When I protested, he demanded $10 before he'd give it back. OK, I handed him the $10. But he didn't give me the phone.

I continued my protest, and as they were luring me away from my bags and into the shadows, promising to give the phone back, I noticed the Hispanic man grab my laptop bag and run off. This was getting serious.

I chased him down and grabbed the bag and a brief tug-of-war ensued. The next sequence happened very fast: the black guys came over, and as I yanked on my bag strap one of them shoved something shiny and metallic into my stomach. It was a gun.

Just then, a police car rolled by and I tried to wave it down.

"Don't do anything stupid or you'll get shot," I was told plainly. Then they scattered, and my phone and $10 vanished with them up the street and into the night.

But I was alive, physically uninjured and somehow still holding my computer bag. A small price to pay.

Would racial profiling have saved me from being mugged? Probably.

But it's a slippery slope. The fact is that other factors beyond the race of my perpetrators should have tipped me off — a train station in Hartford is not a good place to be at any time, especially in the dead of night.

We don't know what role stereotyping played in the case in Cambridge.

It's easy to assume, as Mr Obama did, that the arresting officer, Sergeant James Crowley, made an unfair judgement about Mr Henry Louis Gates, the man he arrested, based on the colour of Mr Gates's skin.

But it's more likely that the stereotype of an ignorant white cop, particularly flawed in this case, caused Mr Gates to react abusively, setting in motion the ensuing controversy.

We condemn racial profiling because it is unfair and unproductive to make blanket assumptions about individuals based on the actions of others; it feels right to assume the goodness in people. But there's a fine line between being trusting and being naive.

I was naive in Hartford, but I don't regret being trustful of my neighbours. Next time I'll just wait inside.

On trial for crimes against humanity is Duch. He was the commander of Tuol Sleng, the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison-cum-torture centre, also known as S-21.

Of the 15,000 prisoners to enter Tuol Sleng, fewer than 10 are said to have survived. Over the past couple of weeks of the months-long trial, some of the survivors have recounted their experiences to the court. Among them:

* Mr Van Nath, 63, tearfully described the horrid conditions and minuscule food rations at S-21, saying he would be shackled together with 20 or 30 other prisoners, eating his twice-daily teaspoons of gruel next to dead bodies. The prisoners were so hungry, he said, they ate insects that fell to them from the ceiling. "I even thought eating human flesh would be a good meal," he told the court.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8123541.stm

* Mr Chum Mey, 79, spoke of 12 straight days of "interrogation", during which time his toenails were twisted and ripped off his toes with pliers. He said he couldn't walk normally for a month. He said guards would place live wires on his earlobes, and shock him into unconsciousness.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009070126839/National-news/Tuol-Sleng-victim-recalls-abuse.html

* Mr Phork Khan, 57, told the court of how he was taken from Tuol Sleng to be bludgeoned to death in the "killing fields" (most executions were done with a club in order to save bullets). He was beaten unconscious and left for dead. But he awoke hours later, bloody and covered by reeking corpses. The stench was so bad, he said, he almost passed out again. But he managed to crawl out and was found later by liberating Vietnamese forces, floating down a river on a plank.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hod9D1rTQHqKfg0YcfbqJIqLCF0g

These tales of brutality strike a particular chord with me, as I recently returned from the scene of these horrific crimes.

The term "genocide tourism" is tossed around somewhat derisively for people like me who travel to foreign lands, allegedly exploiting past atrocities for personal macabre thrills. 

I find this attitude ignorant and close-minded. There is a common argument that we must remember and memorialise awful events so that they will happen "never again". That's valid, but also, I think, too simplistic -- a museum in Cambodia is unlikely to stop murder in Darfur.

To me, immersing oneself in unfathomable realities like genocide is an important way of confronting head-on the dark depths to which humanity can plunge. If we don't force ourselves to deal directly with our most base capabilities, no matter how uncomfortable, we betray our responsibility to understand what it means to be human.

Toul Sleng, which is now a museum, lies right in the heart of Phnom Penh. From outside the gate it still looks just like what it once was: a high school. 

The first set of classrooms-turned-torture-chambers are hauntingly minimalist. A single black-and-white photograph hangs on the wall depicting the room as it was when the Khmer Rouge fled, with a ghostly corpse, most likely tortured to death, splayed out on slats on a metal bed. 

That same rusty bed frame now sits in the middle of the room, with shackles at its foot and a corroded bedpan below. The black-and-yellow checkered floors are still speckled with blood stains.

Much of the rest of the museum consists of rows of photographs of the condemned. I tried to peer into each pair of eyes of the men, women and emaciated children, searching for even a fleeting glimpse of the unspeakable things they'd seen.

Most of them are filled with terror and infinite pain. But some still glimmer with inextinguishable vitality, even grinning in what seems like a poignant act of defiance.

Prisoners who survived interrogations were trucked outside the city to Choeung Ek, the best known of the countless killing fields scattered across the country. Excavated mass graves there are now grassy pits, like cavernous scars on the earth. 

Behind the Buddhist stupa, a monument containing some 5,000 skulls of the deceased, is the Killing Tree. Soldiers would bash the heads of children against its trunk and discard the bodies in a nearby pit. Tatters of tiny clothing still cling to its base.

My cousin, who has lived in Phnom Penh for a year and a half and who I was visiting there, remarked at Tuol Sleng that she was glad to see so many Cambodians there. It's not just the tourists who feel the need to retread the dark corners of man's past.

During his trial, Duch -- a born-again Christian whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav -- has begged his victims' forgiveness and wept for his sins. Sympathy might be hard to come by, and justice could prove even more elusive.

But by reliving the atrocity through voices of the victims and relics of pain and suffering, we can all hope to understand something about ourselves.

The President, keeping in mind the damage done to global public opinion after pictures from Abu Ghraib emerged in 2004, defended himself by saying releasing the photos would endanger troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those on the left were disappointed that Mr Obama seemed to be falling into the familiar patterns of his predecessor, hiding from the American public evidence of misdeeds done in its name.

Conservative commentators weren't sure whether to praise Obama for protecting national security or lambaste him for "flip-flopping".

It's easy to accuse Mr Obama of political kowtowing, and there's no doubt his objection to releasing the photos will win him plaudits from the right — it already has.

But, as The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan suggests, Mr Obama's decision might have more to do with politics in Afghanistan than at home.

General Stanley McChrystal, Mr Obama's new appointee to command US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, was in charge of soldiers who were accused of abusing detainees in US custody.

If released, the 44 photos in question could potentially cast a dark shadow over Gen McChrystal's upcoming confirmation hearing, which could endanger Mr Obama's hopes of starting fresh in Afghanistan — not to mention the troops that will soon be under Gen McChrystal's command.

The original photos from Abu Ghraib were revolting. As I revisited some of those images — men smeared with faeces, smiling soldiers posing with thumbs raised over piles of entangled flesh — it's not hard to see why they caused so much outrage.

Would releasing a new batch — which Obama said are "not particularly sensational" compared to the originals — actually embolden US enemies?

Maybe, but as liberal blog Daily Kos argues, "It's just as arguable that Al-Qaeda and any other terrorist organization will be able to recruit if President Obama doesn't make a clean break with and repudiation of Bush/Cheney policies as it is that these photos will do further damage."

Mr Obama has had a hard time looking towards the future while reconciling the past. He would just as soon move past one of the ugliest episodes in America's recent history than to tear open old wounds.

That's understandable, but it also flies in the face of what Obama himself said in a statement praising the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) shortly after he took office:

"The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears," his statement said.

Honouring FOIA is deeply important. But the full disclosure of damning offences from years ago could indeed complicate matters in the Middle East.

It seems more important for the US to get a handle on Afghanistan and pull out of Iraq as cleanly and as simply as possible.

If the sacrifice is not seeing a few photos depicting things we already know happened, I don't think the public's "right to know" has been terribly violated.

The new daily will compete directly with China Daily, an official English voice of the Chinese government since 1981.

And since competition tends to breed innovation, the thinking goes, maybe the Global Times will push the limits of what is acceptable in China and help lead the country closer to the press freedoms most of the rest of the world enjoys.

Alas, this will not be so. In the year I spent working at China Daily, I got a pretty good sense of how state media operates — it is unchanging, unquestioning, and fiercely loyal to the Communist Party line.

There is a general belief in the West that the Chinese government towers over newspapers such as China Daily wielding a giant "CENSORED" stick and stamping out any rumblings of dissent or opinions it deems inharmonious to official ideals.

But this is not really the case. Most of the censorship at state-run papers like China Daily is self-inflicted.

In my experience, staff writers and editors are fully on board with the opinion that the main function of China's English-language media is to project a positive image of China to the world.

"There are so many negative stories in Western media," I have been told on multiple occasions, "it is our job to give China's side."

Fair enough, I say. There is a tendency in the West to make broad assumptions about China based largely on popular media constructions. Some have merit, others are too simplistic and off-base.

Constant cries of "Western bias" can grow tiresome, but it is not unreasonable to want to present a more positive image of one's country — which is exactly what the Global Times has set out to do.

As an English-language offshoot of the People's Daily, a newspaper known for its feisty nationalism, the Global Times aims to "(Afford) international readers the opportunity to discover and understand China" by "presenting news from a Chinese perspective", as it said in an inaugural editorial on Monday.

In other words, it will be unabashedly pro-China, pro-Party, and virtually indistinguishable from the papers that came before it.

The only question is: Why? Newspapers today are not exactly a growth industry.

The Global Times is supposedly another tool in the government's "soft power" drive to improve its reputation abroad, but that's only if they can get people to read it. It's well known that China Daily's readership is largely confined to expats in China and locals who are trying to learn English.

With plenty of far more credible, non-state news sources reporting from China, readers abroad have no compelling reason to look at Global Times other than to check if it's any different from what's available on Xinhua or China Daily. Once readers realise it's more of the same, they'll just roll their eyes and move on to a less compromised news source.

But it's unfair to judge Chinese newspapers by the standards of Western media. Chinese papers serve a very specific purpose that bears little resemblance to media elsewhere.

If China's government would realise that their steadfast restriction of the press is partly to blame for the alleged biases from abroad, then perhaps they wouldn't need multiple media mouthpieces to defend themselves.