Browsing local store shelves offers a simple way to gauge the ethnic mix of any London neighborhood. With its eclectic range of East European and Middle Eastern fare, Bestco is typical for catering to the various nationalities that have recently flocked here to forge new lives.

Unscientific as they are, such snapshots reflect a more detailed picture that emerged last month when the government published the results of its first census in a decade. It was a moment in which Britain looked at itself in the mirror — and barely recognized what it saw.

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Commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid, the independent judicial probe by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson had a multi-million dollar budget and an all-star cast with performances from the likes of Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller.

The investigation delivered its findings on Nov. 29. As with most modern movies, it was too long, featuring 378 separate testimonies. But it had a riveting plot with startling revelations about the pervasive influence of Britain's press, and witness performances that ranged from tear-jerking to hilarious.

Ultimately, just like the latest movie releases, it failed to deliver what it promised. Its inconclusive ending left audiences feeling dissatisfied and opened up the depressing possibility of a sequel.

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Ali G made a triumphant return to television at the British Comedy Awards two nights ago, where Ben Kingsley honored Cohen with an outstanding achievement award. Ali G, who hasn't been on TV for 10 years, said he's all "grown up now."

I ain't living in my nan's house anymore," said the wannabe rapper. "I am living in her garage."

Watch the full speech below:

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They have launched a concerted campaign against military bases and the international airport, within an arc of opposition strongholds that now encircle the capital.

After recent rebel attacks on military checkpoints and bases along the 15-mile highway between southwest Damascus and the international airport prompted the airport’s two-day closure, authorities last week insisted Syria’s only international commercial airline hub had reopened.

But a GlobalPost reporter trying to drive on the highway toward the airport was stopped by Syrian soldiers who said the road was closed because they could not guarantee safe passage.

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Morten Storm, a former biker who was hired by MI6 to infiltrate Al Qaeda, converted to Islam and dabbled with radical Islamism before turning into a spy for Western governments.

Storm, 36, says that after telling MI6 of al-Awlaki's whereabouts they refused to kill him, stating that they were an intelligence agency that does not involve itself with killings abroad, said the Daily Mail.

UPI reported that Storm was told that al-Awlaki did not threaten British lives and therefore Britain could not kill him.

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Cameron's tweet is reflective of a broader narrative in which this royal pregnancy is couched. "They will make wonderful parents," without mentioning ascension to the throne. It's a treatment now common in discourse about the royals: to talk of them like beloved characters in a soap opera and judge them simply as husbands, wives, newlyweds, brothers, lovers and parents. Let's talk about baby bumps, breast milk or bottles. Let's not mention that nagging anachronism -- we're not just talking about young, expectant parents -- we're  talking about royalty.

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Last month, Rushdie told an audience at the Cheltenham literature festival that he "really" admired Le Carré as a writer. "I wish we hadn't done it," he said of the 15-year-old feud which played out in the letters pages of the Guardian in 1997.

...Now Le Carré has also extended an olive branch. "I too regret the dispute," he told the Times.

According to the Times, the two began arguing "about the merits of freedom of speech versus the limits of religious tolerance," which began in 1997 when Rushdie penned a letter in the Guardian:

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Achebe’s history is rooted in the personal, a choice that begins to seem a moral rather than an aesthetic one as “There Was a Country” proceeds. History, he seems to be saying, is something that happens to human beings, to individuals, to families, to cultures. The fates of empires and great leaders are not insignificant, but the significance of empires and great leaders is rooted not in their power, glory or reach, but rather in the disruptions and occasional blessings they visit upon individuals, families and cultures.

So Achebe, fittingly, doesn’t begin with war. He begins with memoir and family history, in the spirit of the Igbo proverb that says that “a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body.”

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Although Duran Duran and Tears for Fears come from different musical backgrounds — Tears for Fears, which I founded with Roland Orzabal, were from the shoe-gazer school, and Duran Duran were from the celebration school — I can honestly say that these men are some of the nicest and most genuine people I've met, which is such a rarity in the cutthroat entertainment industry. Still, when I was asked to interview John about his memoir, "In the Pleasure Groove" (Dutton), I was admittedly a little skeptical, as I thought it may turn out to be a grandiose tome about how big Duran Duran were.

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Friday has been named James Bond Day to mark half a century to the day since Sean Connery first brandished his Walther PPK revolver onscreen, and movie theaters worldwide will screen “Skyfall,” 007’s latest big-screen outing, in coming weeks.

But while the rest of the world revels in hoary old Bond clichés, staff in the corridors of MI6 — the organization whose officers and agents are charged with safeguarding Britain from foreign threats — are likely to be too shaken and stirred by their own problems to join the fun.

Hit by a series of allegations that threatens to disrupt its clandestine operations, the British spy agency — officially known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) — is currently undergoing one of the most troubling periods of its hundred-year existence.

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"That is bad, I have ended my career on your show tonight," Cameron said.

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It’s not modernist enough, I’m afraid. The modernist aspects of it include the refusal to accept the arbitrary divisions of chapters and line breaks. I wrote it like that because life doesn’t resolve itself into chapters, nor is it punctuated by line breaks. Continuous present is all we have, and stream of consciousness – which in a novel is arguably just as artificial as the stilted dialogue that you get in most conventional novels. They’re all stratagems to try to get closer to the texture of lived life.

Because we don’t think in prose?

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In this survey of the Global Stewarts, Foreign Policy In Focus goes around the world to find the comics who would be Jon Stewart. It’s an interesting mix: a surgeon, a superhero, a mimic. In some cases, Stewart would welcome the comparison. But at least in one case, that of a French anti-Semite, Stewart would meet the anti-Stewart.

In all cases, however, these global Stewarts are challenging orthodoxy and making people uncomfortable. Gadflies have never been funnier.

Rick Mercer is the host of CBC Television's The Rick Mercer Report, a weekly half-hour comedy news show combining parody, sketch comedy, politics, and editorials in the style of The Daily Show and Canada’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Mercer has interviewed several prominent Canadians, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and the former Leader of the Opposition, the late Jack Layton. Considered by some to be left-leaning, Mercer notably urged young Canadians to vote in the 2011 Canadian election.

Among his several accolades, Mercer has received over 20 Gemini Awards for his television work, as well as several honorary university degrees.

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Not Running From the Law

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The 3,788-word, Spanish-language document says the WikiLeaks founder faces “political persecution” by Washington and includes the suggestion that the United States executes dissidents.

Although parts of the statement appear outlandish, it scores some real points, including the assertion that Assange could face the death penalty. While it remains common in much of the United States, few other democracies use capital punishment.

Regardless of whether US authorities really would attempt to put Assange on trial — or whether he has committed any sexual crimes as Sweden alleges — the notion that the WikiLeaks mastermind could be sent to the electric chair will make many Washington sympathizers recoil.

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Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted that the U.K. would not supply any weapons, but confirmed the funds would pay for items including satellite phones, power generators and medical kits. He said diplomats would also intensify contacts with the political wing of the Free Syrian Army as concern grows over the country's possible fate if President Bashar Assad's regime is deposed.

Assad's crackdown on popular uprising that began in March 2011 has evolved into a full-blown civil war in Syria. Human rights activists estimate at least 19,000 people have died in the conflict.

Britain, which had previously been cautious over direct talks with Syria's rebels, fears the country could become a haven for al-Qaida and other extremists if the international community fails to help them prepare for Assad's ouster, Hague said.

"This is not taking sides in a civil war," he wrote in an op-ed article for the Times of London published Friday. "The risk of total disorder and a power vacuum is so great that we must build relationships now with those who may govern Syria in the future."

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