The Guardian Weekly is a weekly British-based (London) English languagenewspaper published by the Guardian Media Group and is one of the world's oldest international newspapers. It has readers in 173 countries.[citation needed] It was founded with the aim of spreading progressive British ideas into the United States after the First World War. Its first edition was printed a week after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and included the following as a mission statement: "We aim at presenting what is best and most interesting in the Guardian, what is most distinctive and independent of time, in a compact weekly form".[1]
Printed in three locations: United Kingdom, United States and Australia, the paper has a readership of almost 200,000.[citation needed], and a circulation of 122,828 - the second-highest of any UK-based global weekly,[2] behind The Economist (circulation 1.4 million). [3]
The paper's readers include many world statesmen, including the late Nelson Mandela, who subscribed during his time in prison and described the paper as his "window on the wider world".[4]George W. Bush was reportedly the first President of the United States since Jimmy Carter not to subscribe to The Guardian Weekly.[5] In September 2006 an edition was banned in Egypt for publishing articles allegedly insulting both Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.[6]
