Chittagong Hill Tracts shaken by riots and arson. India and Pakistan take steps to rebuild their relationship. Niger leaders rule themselves out of elections. Darfur rebels contradict president’s claim that the war is over. All this and more in today’s briefing.
The literature of human fall and frailty illuminates the political fate of Britain’s prime minister.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Chekhov’s birth, his English biographer Rosamund Bartlett celebrates the writer’s last days in Yalta, and leads the campaign to restore his house
Freedom is the goal rather than the ground of human rights. But freedom is also essentially dependent on others and other cultures. Achieving the conditions for freedom - human rights - is humanity's overriding moral obligation.
As French President Nicolas Sarkozy attempts to drive through a ban on the niqab and burqa, Laurie Penny describes how the Islamic veil has become yet another item of women’s clothing for men to fight over for their own ends
A spell-binding history of cannibalism in the middle ages: its use as a propaganda tool, and place in Christendom's self-image; the cannibal as a philosophical hypothetical, and a justification for colonialism; and Richard the Lionheart's fondness for "Saracen's head's all hot"
Throughout Russian and Soviet history, the intellectual has played a central and hugely influential role in society. Today, that has changed. A recent internet vote on the country’s most influential intellectual saw instead postmodern ambiguity emerge victorious, writes Lyubov Borusyak
What's depressing is the film's theory of value
The bedrock of our assumptions about human preeminence is shifting as scientists and philosophers explore the social complexity and intelligence of other species
Before Kenya can succeed in stemming the radicalisation of its Muslim minority, the US will have to change its Somali policy
Ever since Ricardo, the defense of international trade has been about productive efficiency. But much more important is that civilisation is a process of cultural exchange, and hybridity is a source of the truly human in the form of new meanings
