A UN exhibit has been censored in Vienna after Chinese pressure to ban it.

The Gun Sculpture forming the centre piece of the exhibit was created by Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal. The Exhibit is called the Art of Peacemaking.

The 4.5-tonne sculpture, welded together from deactivated guns, landmines and ammunition, has been shown in many countries, including at UN headquarters in New York in 2001, and has never run into problems before.

The problem is that along with the sculpture is a series of panels with photographs of violence from numerous countries. But the ones that stood out for the Chinese was the photographs of two Tibetan nuns.

After the Chinese objected to exhibit organizers and other UN departments all the photographs were removed.

We were absolutely shocked, said Bromley. This was done without any consultation or permission.

The Chinese wanted the whole exhibit removed but the UN just removed the panels with the photographs but this obviously completely ruins the integrity and whole purpose the exhibit.

A moral panic around childhood sexualisation and the dangers of the internet is closing down important channels of debate and making the internet a more dangerous place for adults and young people alike.

That was the consensus view taken by Onscenity, an international network launched this week, which draws together experts to respond to the new visibility or onscenity of sex in commerce, culture and everyday life.

David Buckingham, Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, London University, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, complained about the current media panic over the sexualisation of childhood. While some issues went away with the last government, David Cameron also appears to believe this is a problem.

The real problem, though, is that no one knows what sexualisation is: it is a convenient label used to position the child as always the victim, and then to pile every problem imaginable on top, including paedophilia, body image, sex trafficking and self-esteem. Once that particular juggernaut gets rolling, it is almost impossible to have a sensible debate about what's really going on.

Too many so-called experts – most famously, Dr Linda Papadopoulos - were speaking well outside their field of expertise. Eating disorders get ascribed to sexualisation, despite the fact that most dietary experts would question that conclusion. Worse is the way in which this debate is almost always framed in moralising terms, and a key question must be what political motive lies behind such framing.

Equally of concern was the way in which healthy sexuality is so often equated to non-commercial – as though sex alone can be an activity free from all commercial influence.

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China's state news agency Xinhua has launched a 24-hour global news channel in English.

Officials said CNC World would present an international vision with a China perspective.

The launch is being seen as an attempt by China to develop its influence abroad and counter foreign media views.

Beijing keeps close control over media in the country - it often accuses Western media of bias and of reporting only negative news stories from China.

China Xinhua News Network Corporation said it would offer a better view of China to its international audiences and enable more voices to be heard by the rest of the world.

It will broadcast news reports in a timely way and objectively, and be a new source of information for global audiences, said Xinhua's President Li Congjun at a launch ceremony in Beijing.

He said the channel was initially broadcasting in Hong Kong but aims to reach 50 million viewers in Europe, North America and Africa within its first year.

Wu insisted that the coverage would remain objective, saying: We are a news channel, not a propaganda station.

The recently concluded session of the UN human rights council ended with the election of Thailand as the new president to the 47-member council.

The result of the election is quite a surprise, given that Thailand has recently gone through the worst political violence the country in decades.

Thailand's ministry of foreign affairs issued a public statement highlighting that the election result clearly reflects the confidence that countries around the world have in Thailand and its human rights policies and standards.

Can this election of the council's presidency be viewed as a realistic reflection of Thailand's human rights standards?

The council was set up in 2006 to replace the contentiously debated UN commission on human rights. The election of the presidency is done on a rotating basis from five regional groups: Latin America and Caribbean, eastern Europe, Africa, western Europe and other states, and Asia. Since 2006, representatives of all four regional groups have served as presidents to the council, with the exception of Asia.

Based on this, Thailand was not competing against countries with better recognised human rights records such as those governments of Switzerland or Norway. Instead, Thailand was competing against countries in Asia, namely Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan and Maldives – all of which are criticised by rights watchdogs as human rights violators.

Both Bangladesh and Kyrgyzstan, prior to the election, resigned from the contest after fierce campaigns by human rights groups claiming they were unsuitable contestants to head the council.

The election, therefore, only left Maldives and Thailand to compete.

Maldives, a relatively young democracy, has only just emerged from a history of military coups and held its first democratic election in 2008. The country was ruled by Maumoon Gayoom, who denied free and fair elections, for 20 years. Being a small country, the Maldives lacked the political leverage required to convince member states of their leadership.

This is how the council was left with Thailand.

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