After the verdict in the Breivik trial, Marte Christensen presents video-interviews from Norwegian observers, Cas Mudde sees the outcome as a vindication of democratic values while oD’s Editor-in-Chief Magnus Nome writes on the three key texts of the terror attack.

The persistence of even greater violence in the Middle East was a strong focus, with Carsten Wieland and Michael Degerald taking an in-depth look at the background to Syria’s crisis, and Bill Park assessing the impact of the conflict on Turkey’s relationship with the Kurds.

Paul Rogers sees the US’s arms-sales to and close links with Israel and Saudi Arabia as a key to the prospect of war with Iran, while Chelsea L. Daymon gauges the Egypt-Iran connection. Also in the region, Tim Parsons and Rhiannon Smith chart the fallout of revolution in Egypt and Libya. Ibu Sanjeeb Garg tracks the upsurge in ethnic violence in India’s eastern borderlands, and the failures of state are echoed in a critique of Italian policy towards immigrants.

This, however, was also a week of modest progress in Colombia and Somalia, the subject of careful overviews by Kristian Herbolzheimer and Lawrence Gitonga Mwongera. In east Asia, Kerry Brown asks what is really at issue in the latest “islands” spat between China and Japan, and Tsering Passang proposes a referendum to end the Tibet crisis.

The domestic problems of two former superpowers provide rich argument. Ruth Rosen’s analysis of “voter suppression” in the US is buttressed by Joseph Attwood on the spreading controversy. A portrait of Putin’s realm begins with Sergei Lukashevsky on the background to the “Pussy Riot” affair in Russia, and is amplified by Grigory Tumanov’s hard questions of Moscow’s anti-extremism agency, and Asmik Novikova and Natalya Taubina’s on its police reform.

OurKingdom and OurBeeb’s dissection of British politics and broadcasting focuses inter alia on the roots of riots, G4S security fiasco, rail scandals, and the future of the Left.

It was also a week of farewell: to the innovative Israeli-Palestinian e-zine Bitterlemons, marked by the founders Yossi Alpher and Ghassan Khatib, and tributes by Rosemary Hollis and Allison Good. Thanks to the net, their valuable decade’s work lives on.

Links not to miss:

Desmond Tutu says Tony Blair should face trial over Iraq war

Robert Borosage on Romney and Republican short memories

 Fox News shocks the world by introducing some fairness and balance – Sally Kohn’s critique of Paul Ryan’s convention speech. (They then do their best to bury it after it went viral.)

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