In this excerpt from the latest ECFR policy briefing on Syria, the authors argue that a rare moment of opportunity has emerged following the US-Russian agreement to launch peace initiative, Geneva II. Europe and the west should prioritise ratcheting down violence and the threat of regional spill over. 

Charismatic opposition leader Aleksey Navalny is on trial in the provincial capital of Kirov, 900km from Moscow. He is controversially accused of stealing timber worth 16 million roubles in 2009; if found guilty, he will spend his next few years behind bars. Local journalist Ekaterina Loushnikova met some of his supporters and opponents.

The fact is the perpetrators want this to be perceived as an act of terrorism. Doing so would put them in a league with the Al Qaeda aficionados they have idealised.

Jeffrey Stevenson Murer reflects on openSecurity's collection of articles, which have explored the creation of the other as 'enemy', externally and in ourselves.

Do the "consumers of radicalism" Jon Moses refers to in his recent essay actually exist? An exploration of beauty and rebellion, through the lens of our relationship to the aesthetic.

The recent elections to the City of London’s local authority were fiercely fought, after years where the majority of seats went uncontested. Lessons should be drawn for any future attempt to reform the financial services industry.

In 2011, at a time of financial crisis and in opposition to impending austerity measures, Greeks of all ages came together to occupy Athens' central square and inspire a resurgent form of political protest across the world. Two years on, where are the occupiers now?

In January 1968, young feminist antiwar activists in the U.S temporarily broke with a long tradition of protesting war as mothers. At an all-women’s protest against the Vietnam War, they symbolically buried “Traditional Womanhood” and claimed the right to protest as independent citizens.  Does it matter what language women use to protest war ?

Economic and political shifts in large part attributable to the successes of the post-war multilateral order are now amongst the factors grinding that system into gridlock.

An understanding of the link between the shocking murder of a young soldier on a London street and "remote-control" attacks by western states is essential.

Throughout the Balkans, LGBT advocates and their supporters face violence, cancelled Pride parades, and unresponsive or disrespectful police. What hope is there for sexual minorities in the region?

Vlad Filat, until recently the Liberal Democrat Prime Minister of Moldova, is locked in a power battle with Vladimir Plahotniuc, the country’s one and only oligarch. This war of attrition threatens the Eastern Partnership’s ‘success story’ narrative, and with it Moldova’s reform project. 

Backtracking on the EU's monetary union will be politically very costly, but in the absence of a genuine economic and political union this stands out as the most likely scenario. What are the alternatives? Are there any?

Former Home Secretary John Reid, the security industry's salesman in the House of Lords, exploits a brutal murder to revive the 'Snoopers' Charter'.

Rigid planning and development controls in Abuja, Nigeria's modern capital, have served to exclude population groups deemed 'unworldy' from the city-proper.

You might say Habeas Corpus literally means - you have a right to keep your body. 

The way Jordanians imagine their national collective identity must evolve from tolerance to acceptance and from diversity to true inclusion.

Minimising IMF financial support through access to Gulf State finance allows Morsi to craft new political narratives that reject views of Egypt as a US client state and redefines Egypt within a framework of Arab nationalism and centre-right political Islam.  

This deadlock blocks every attempt to implement the “responsibility to protect” peoples, a responsibility that “devolves on the international community in the framework of the UN” and that was put into force in Libya and the Ivory Coast.