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February 27, 2009
President Obama's day now begins with a new daily dose of news from CIA Director Leon Panetta: The Economic Intelligence Brief. The new briefing details what intelligence officials are calling the number one threat to U.S. security — the instability resulting from economic turmoil around the globe.
Thomas Mucha, managing editor and commerce columnist at GlobalPost noted on The Moyers Blog that taking an international perspective is no longer optional but mandatory:
In today's interconnected world the economic pain sweeping though China, Japan, India, Russia, Germany, Ghana and just about every other place can't be good for any American. While this economic crisis has its roots in the U.S., that fact is now irrelevant. What matters now is that, for better or worse, we are all connected.
Below you'll find online resources that will help you keep on top of the world of news from a variety of perspectives.
GlobalPost's "Special Report: A World of Trouble" is a good starting place, providing on-the-spot reports on the economic crisis from around the globe.
Additional Ways to Track World Events 
The Internet makes it easy to go local with media and get perspective on how the U.S., and its role in the global economy, are being reported worldwide.
Clearly, much of the world's news is broadcast in languages other than English — although more and more Web sites are offering limited English-language versions of their news coverage. The BBC provides a useful service in their free Media Report — a daily English-language look at what is in the international news. These reports, which contain direct quotations from foreign media and BBC analysis, are compiled by the BBC World Monitoring Service. The Service monitors press coverage worldwide and offers full translations to subscribers. In addition to the Media Reports, the World Monitoring Service also posts a selection of original articles from around the world on its Web site each day in English.
For a daily visual perspective, check out The Newseum's collection of international front pages.
Do-It-Yourself Press Monitoring
If you want to get perspective from international news sources yourself there are literally tens of thousands of international news sites on the Web. There are newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, press agencies and national news agencies.
Use one of the collections of media links below, all of which arrange links by location and type of news source:
BBC World Profiles
If you need more guidance we suggest a visit to the BBC. The BBC's own international news site, the BBC World Service, provide online streaming and text news in 43 languages. But the BBC also helps interested surfers gather world news from thousands of other news sources.
The BBC News Country Profiles database provides a valuable primer on every nation in the world. (The CIA World Factbook provides government and statistical information and maps for further reference.) The profiles are accompanied by a list of links to many of each country's major media outlets: newspapers, radio, television and state press agencies. Media profiles also often note ownership, publication frequency and political allegiance of outlets. Country profiles also often list an estimated number of Internet users.
Published February 27, 2009.
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Simon Johnson
James Galbraith
George Soros
