The United Nations' Department of Public Information has released its second annual list of Ten Stories The World Needs To Know. These should be compulsory topics for media coverage and national debate... and asking the question What Are We Going To Do About Them?

The ten stories for 2005 are:

Dave Podmore: Think bigger, Schoey. Sue 12 counties
(Christopher Douglas and Andrew Nickolds/The Guardian, 30.4.05)

Dave Podmore on the successful unfair dismissal suit against Lancashire by former England two-Test wonder Chris Schofield.

I was prepared to give Channel 9 in Sydney the TV cockup of the year award for showing a pre-recording of Saturday's lotto draw in place of Monday's live lotto draw by mistake a few weeks ago, but I can't help thinking Channel 4 in the UK has gone one-up on them.

On Thursday night, Channel 4 showed a Green Party election broadcast. The subtitles, however, were of the election broadcast for the rather right-wing UK Independent Party.

Friday's Guardian picks up the story.

Nine live: cricket's TV blackouts face the axe
(Sydney Morning Herald, 29.4.05)

The SMH is reporting today that the antiquated home city Test TV blackout of the first two sessions of the day might be canned, if Cricket Australia signs up with Channel 9 for another seven years of covering Australian cricket.

The middle man and The reincarnation of Merv Hughes
(Lawrence Booth/The Guardian, 26.4.05)

There was a time when The Spin looked suspiciously like a running sheet of the previous week's new items on my website! But it's much better than that, and indeed one of the few decent cricket columns in the established media on the net that I enjoy reading these days.

First Word: Gutless display of cricket
(Ezra Stuart/Daily Nation Barbados, 25.4.05)

"Depressing, deplorable and a downright disappointing display of Test cricket. Sorry, toothless tiddly-thumbs stuff. It was a massive letdown for followers of Caribbean cricket." Don't hold back Ezra!

What's going on, guys?

I can cope with a draw against Sussex in the County Championship - at least Surrey came out of that game with more points than their opponents. And I can barely cope with the loss of a National League Division Two game on steroids against Yorkshire by the margin of 334 to 291. (Ali Brown 89 from 46 balls, you are still a legend.)

Indian selection system outdated: Wright
(IANS via Times of India, 24.4.05)

The outgoing Indian team coach suggests that the world's wealthiest cricket board should - gasp - pay its national selectors!

Lording it at the home of cricket
(Paul Doyle/The Guardian, 22.4.05)

A sports columnist who seems to have recently joined The Guardian from somewhere outside the UK, Paul Doyle went to his first game of cricket on Thursday - Middlesex v Notts at Lord's, to be precise. Which makes his naive observations of county cricket all the more amusing.

Cricket hotel hits rare thrasher for six
(BirdLife International, 22.4.05)

Blame the 2007 CWC. A hotel development in St Lucia, which will host Group 3 of the first stage of the 2007 tournament (New Zealand, England, Kenya and a qualifier) could, according to an Environmental Impact Assessment, wipe out a quarter of the world's population of the White-breasted thrasher.