The growth of the Boko Haram armed movement in Nigeria illustrates the capacity of modern Islamist groups to diversify and make an effective impact - aided by the local state's response.
Europe’s crisis is a crisis of democracy. The ‘democracy of the experts’ cannot deliver: representative democracy is incapable of channelling demands in the political system. More participatory and deliberative democracy is needed, as argued in Europe’s public spaces by the movements of ‘ indignad
The authorities’ destruction of a building and precious archive of human-rights workers in Baku is an act of mindless cruelty that damages Azerbaijan itself, says Thomas de Waal.
Yes, European leaders could all agree when it came to imposing austerity on Athens, Dublin, Lisbon and Rome, ‘reassuring’ financial markets, saving creditor banks, increasing countries’ financial burdens and putting public enterprises on the market at sale prices. But such policies make exiting th
As Turkey flies air strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and fails to play an important role in the Syrian crisis, its ambitions to become a regional power need to be questioned. Report highlights links between Islamist insurgents in northern Nigeria and al-Qaeda. In West Africa, piracy
The trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has rallied the opposition behind her. Her supporters believe the outcome is already decided and her only hope of justice lies in the European Court of Human Rights. Yet beyond a call for her own personal liberty, does anybody know what
Manmohan Singh's government faces its biggest challenge as it prepares to quell the rising protest against the most corrupt government India has ever witnessed. The demand for a new anti-draft bill by activist Anna Hazare and his team is creating a revolution.
What might we hope for from life? Watching the London riots from afar John Berger finds a small passport that lets him visualise what is missing from a looter's expectations
Kurdish lawyer, author and human rights activist Muharrem Erbey was imprisoned by Turkish authorities at the end of 2009 for fighting against human rights violations against his people. He wrote this letter from prison.
The Libyan legend was written by civilian Libyans with high expectations of a future free Libya, who have risen up from every corner and carried arms to end one of the world’s totalitarian regimes.
The battle for ideas, for allegiance, for identity has gone on in Africa as it has everywhere. Breaking up existing state territories in Africa would be at least as arbitrary as when imperial powers did so at the Berlin conference in 1888.
In the case of the seventeenth century Dutch Republic, there was no single, dominant religion. There was also no absolute majority religion. Instead, each province and each town had its own religious cultural groups.
