William Underhill

The cast lacks superstar names, the plot is wafer-thin, and the show proved only a modest hit in New York. Yet even before its West End opening last week, Legally Blonde, The Musical, a stage version of the 2001 movie about a sorority queen turned Harvard law student, was handily repaying the investors who brought the show to London.

Labour hasn't bridged the wealth gap.

These are hard times for the captains of London's once proud financial-services industry. Just two years ago they were loudly boasting that their city hosted 35 percent of the world's foreign-exchange deals and an even larger share of over-the-counter derivatives.

Whatever happened to David Cameron? Just a few weeks ago the Conservative leader looked set to lead his party to an overwhelming victory in the British elections due next year.

British financiers are threatening to flee London after a new tax on their bonuses takes effect. Don't bet on it.

As the United Nations kicks off its ­climate-change conference in Copenhagen this week, much ire is focused on a new and surprising international bad boy: Canada.

Can business save the planet? Champions of an environmental New Deal have often cast the corporation as the enemy in the struggle against global warming. But the more than 800 corporate leaders who've signed the -Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change argue the opposite line: the business community wants—and needs—an ambitious global agreement that will spur the creation of a low-carbon economy.

City of London bankers are troubled by the nomination of a Frenchman, Michel Barnier, as the European Union's next internal-market commissioner. The worry: if Barnier is approved for the post, he will have little sympathy for London's famed light-touch approach to market discipline.

The most popular modern building in Beijing these days is not the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium built for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Nor is it the futuristic new titanium-and-glass opera house—known as "The Egg"—or the much-vaunted new terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport.

Cameron's chances have never looked better. So why are the Tories so glum?

The Murdoch scion running News Corp.'s European operations wants to shut down the BBC. He may have a point.

For the middle-aged pilgrim, the trail is well marked. Stroll west from Liverpool's Central railway station and you're soon in the "Beatles Quarter." There's the site of the Cavern Club, the sweaty dive where the Fab Four wowed their first British fans.

For village tailor Henry Adjei-Mensah, earning a living had become a struggle. By his mid-30s, his deteriorating eyesight made it hard to thread a needle, and a dearth of optometrists in Ghana meant treatment was out of the question.

It's been a rough international debut for the Scots. In the 10 years since the country won the right to limited self-rule, Scotland has barely figured on the world stage; foreign affairs remain firmly in London's hands.

The Scots don't appreciate being lectured by Americans over their release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Britain promised university for the masses. Turns out that's a pledgeno country could afford.

As Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair made plenty of enemies in Europe. Back in 2003, he broke ranks by siding with America over the Iraq War. And despite his avowed enthusiasm for the EU, he showed little practical commitment to closer integration.

Plenty of countries still strive to earn UNESCO's World Heritage site status and reap the benefits of the tourism boom that normally follows, but some are beginning to question the honor's long-term value. 

Analyzing the forecasts of an emerging 'Eurabia,' hostile to America and western values.

Aedes Aegypti is a tricky enemy with a dangerous weakness for travel. Unlike other mosquitoes, it can survive the cold and thrives on city life. The increase of international trade and the accelerating pace of urbanization have broadened its horizon with grim consequences.

These should be dark days for David Cameron, Britain's Conservative Party leader. A spending scandal has revealed some spectacularly shameful details about expenses claimed by his legislators.

America may yet win the war in Iraq, but France, which bitterly opposed the war, looks set to win the contracts. Foreign investment in Iraq rose 1,500 percent as stability returned last year, but U.S. firms are "negligible players," says a report from Dunia Frontier Consultants of Dubai.

At the beginning of "In the Loop"—British director Armando Ianucci's first feature film, set in a thinly disguised, not-so-distant past—hardliners in London and Washington are pressing for war.

Labour may be struggling. But its Blairite model is surprisingly resilient.

As the fortunes of Wall Street and the City of London de cline, moneymen are look ing east for new bases. And so far the biggest benefici ary seems to be Singapore.

What makes Americans so fat? Don't blame the doughnuts. That extra heft could be symptomatic of a malaise prevalent in all the world's least equal societies.

The Labour search for a new identity has settled, for now, on the unlikely character of Harriet Harman.

The music service has caught on so quickly in Britain that some analysts are hailing it as a possible rival to Apple's iTunes.

Will the financial crisis challenge public faith in democracy and the free market? For the shaky governments of Eastern Europe, it's a pressing question. Some of the angriest of Europe's street protests over the past month have erupted in the region's capitals, as the recession undermines fragile national economies.

For the longest faces in the global recession, try Britain. According to polling network WIN, pessimism over short-term prospects is higher in the U.K. than any other country but Japan.