James O'Connell, who has died at the age of 87, was through testing years head of Bradford University's department of peace studies. His successor pays tribute to a remarkable figure whose experiences in Ireland and Nigeria were crucial to his outlook.
The United States's military preparations, and Israel's growing involvement, reveal the momentum to a dangerous escalation in the middle east.
The momentum in the United States is shifting towards a larger-scale attack on the Assad regime. But even a limited one will transform the nature of the war, with region-wide consequences.
The probability that the United States will make a single military reponse to the chemical-weapons assault near Damascus is very high.
Al-Qaida has twice returned from presumed defeat. Now, the fate of the Arab awakening provides it with a third opportunity.
Syria's internal stalemate and the wider regional standoff make a political settlement ever more remote. But the military trends are going the jihadist paramilitaries' way.
The Yemen-related security alert that has led to a western diplomatic shutdown in the middle east and north Africa highlights an enduring feature of the United States's jihadist adversary.
The hope for progress in the core middle-east dispute arises at the very time when a new Iranian president tests Israel's unyielding stance on nuclear security.
Syria's war is producing humanitarian crisis, the growth of radical paramilitaries, violence in Iraq, and intra-state conflict. In the morass there is but one chance of progress.
A combination of extreme weather events and a coming temperature rise may be enough to induce the serious political shift needed over climate change.
The gap between Washington's strategic ambitions in Afghanistan-Iraq and the material results is becoming even larger.
How do Egypt's latest huge street protests relate to popular eruptions elsewhere in the world? A war involving Egypt and Syria in 1973 supplies part of the answer.
