Digital photography is unquestionably faster and cheaper than film. But if you take a really good look at yourself in your latest party pictures shot on your 10-megapixel digi, you might not be quite so keen to ditch the 35mm. We at Monocle believe it’s time for another shot at analogue.

The Russia-Finland border was once the focus of Cold War hostility. Now the Finns and Russians are working together to stop people and drug traffickers opening up new smuggling routes. Monocle goes on patrol with the Finnish border guards.

Why Norway is going Dutch, vodka and the Russian elections, plus the French mayor who could teach Sarkozy a lesson

The Paraguay priest running for president, and a Style Leaders special on the Republican party's presidential candidates.

Japanese mobile phone "sommeliers", plus the ghost tower of Bangkok.

Despite healthy economic growth, two thirds of Pakistanis earn under $2 a day, 60 per cent of adults are illiterate, and the country is in the grip of a food and fuel crisis. No wonder the frivolity of Islamabad’s wedding season feels a little forced this year.

West Africa wants its money back from France, the UAE's "Poetry Idol" and Japan's aid to Africa.

Boeing flies into Australia, plus re-imagining Syndey.

Chinese firms, from copper mining giants to small private businesses, have been flocking to Africa, investing €4.3bn last year. But a quieter phenomenon is the steady stream of African businessmen moving into China, 10,000 of them now live in Guangzhou.

When it comes to protecting the world's travel hubs, police are increasingly relying on some unlikely weapons; Matthew the plane-spotter and Graham the farmer. Monocle reports from Gatwick on the very local response to te global terror threat.

It’s been a bad start to the year for Afghanistan. As reports claim it is heading for failed-state status, the Taliban continues to defy US and Nato-led troops. President Karzai is increasingly frustrated with US and British military actions, meanwhile western leaders worry he’s not the man for the job. One person finds himself in the middle of all this, trying to balance the conflicting expectations: Said Jawal, the Afghan ambassador to Washington.

Malta, the Mediterranean island with a population of 400,000, is booming thanks to EU membership and its adoption of the euro. It’s also perfectly poised to exploit renewed trade with Gaddafi’s Libya.

Eau de Credit Suisse, this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and why Lada lives on.

In 1948, Francesco Armandola opened the doors to his eponymous delicatessen in Milan. Located in via della Spiga, it catered to a clientele eager to forget the lean war years. Since 2005, his son Giorgio has been in charge, and while he’s introduced a website where customers can order online, he adheres to the same philosophy when it comes to selecting the food sold in his shop: provenance and family-run firms first.

China’s booming economy has triggered a luxury-mall boom. Packed with the best brands, they lack just one thing: shoppers with money. While some companies have found success, many more could soon be packing up and heading home.

Although the European nut market was worth over €8bn in 2007, consumption there is peanuts compared to the Middle East. But Al Rifai, the Lebanese ‘Rolls-Royce of nut companies’, is expanding into Europe’s underdeveloped market from a new Swedish HQ.

It’s used by Chinese businessmen to toast every new deal but until now the bai jiu market has been a home concern – perhaps because it smells like a mix of unwashed toes, petrol and goats’ cheese and has a flavour to match. However LVMH and Diageo are now developing a taste for it.

Plans for a Terminal 5 at Heathrow were unveiled in 1993. Fifteen years and €5.6bn later, the largest single-span structure in the UK is ready. In Singapore, meanwhile, the new T3 at Changi has also opened its departure gates. Monocle bench tests both.

The global camera market has switched from film to digital with lightning speed. In Japan, 94m digital cameras were produced last year, compared to 800,000 film cameras. However, an army of die-hard fans is keeping the film format alive.

Four enthusiastic Swedes believe that the future of music doesn’t have to end in …Pod. Their Pacemaker – a palm-sized DJ system that promises fresh new pastures of musical discovery, pitch-perfect audio quality and instant party epiphany – aims to change the way people listen to and love their music.

The magazine store in San Francisco that's bucking the mainstream, a satirical Parisian paper and healthcare, manga-style.

Music: Vampire Weekend and Chris Bathgate. Film: 3:10 to Yuma and Battle of Haditha. Art: A New York art cpp[ and exhibition picks. Books: JG Ballard's autobiography, Granta and Madam President.

The second correspondent in our series looking at foreign coverage of the US presidential election is Li Xuejiang, Washington bureau chief for China’s ‘People’s Daily’, the state controlled newspaper with a circulation of three million.

As editor of ‘The Zimbabwe Independent’, Trevor Ncube became all too familiar with the consequences of criticising the government. Now based in South Africa, where around 35 per cent of people live in poverty, he has plans to build a pan-African media empire that will help in the continent’s struggle for democracy.

The people at Bontoni shoes like to take things slowly, producing just eight pairs of shoes a day. Their dedication is helping Montegranaro, Italy’s shoe town, take changes to the global footwear market in its stride.

Our report from this year's Köln furniture fair, a Danish art gallery and Finnish design grandee Yrjö Kukkapuro.

Monocle enjoys São Paulo fashion week Tomorrowland collaborates with Belgian designer Jean-Paul Knott, plus Prada platforms, Incotex trunks and Banana Republic comes to London.

Its hardwearing woollen sweaters were once regulation wear for Danish schoolchildren and fishermen, but now the perennial anti-fashion brand SNS Herning is enjoying an international revival, with top-line designers fuelling a rather unlikely renaissance

In a city with 21,500 karaoke bars, exclusive members club Amour is in a different league. Founded by Parisian club impresario and graffiti artist André and with interiors by Marc Newson, it is luring a well-heeled international crowd on to its gold vinyl banquettes.

It may not grab the headlines like the catwalk shows but Florence’s Pitti Uomo fair is where big deals are made and clothes we might actually wear are previewed. This year the event saw new interest from eastern Europe and, for the first time, showcased womenswear.

Coloured pencils and shochu from Japan, perfume by La Labo, Labour and Wait's enamelware and a Norwegian post box.

One year on and we’ve raided enough hotel minibars to sink a Stena Liner. We think it’s time for the hospitality industry to take stock on the stock take.

Nestled in a chilly valley between wooded volcanoes is the guitar-making capital of Mexico. While many in Paracho battle to survive against a flood of cheap Chinese imports, a few are drawing on generations of knowledge to produce concert-quality instruments worthy of the world’s greatest classical virtuosos.

Innsbruck is certainly well-equipped and prepared to co-host Euro 2008, having twice held the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976. But beyond being the ideal event city, Innsbruck’s year-round vibrancy makes it perfect for second, or even first home status. Prices may be high, but then so is the quality of life.

When Tokyo-based design guru Kenya Hara is asked to create graphics, he usually ends up advising a company on its entire aesthetic direction. This is how he became design adviser to no-label Muji. As well as generating graphics and products, and collaborating with an international network of designers, he heads his own design institute and recently wrote ‘Designing Design’, his critique of contemporary design (see Monocle issue 10, page 80). Here, he describes his last meal.

Journalists ask the craziest questions At a recent media-centric conference in Munich a series of reporters from various print, online and TV outlets asked me to reflect on this magazine’s first year and why we decided to do something in print rather than an exclusively digital venture.

Beijing’s citizens are living under more than the legendary smog clouds. The world will be focused on China’s capital city this August, and, if all goes to the Communist Party’s plan, we will be overawed by the glittering lights and maximalist constructions of a building boom whose bill runs into the tens of billions of yuan. Monocle visits the Olympic Park to find out if this is nation-branding folly on a gargantuan scale, or the starting pistol of the Chinese century.