The territorial dispute between regional powers has the potential to escalate. All the more reason for the Chinese elite to lead rather than follow public opinion, says Kerry Brown.
The brutal response of Syria's authorities to an eruption of protest in early 2011 propelled the country into conflict. It was the latest and most catastrophic of a series of misjudgments by Bashar al-Assad's regime over the decade of his rule, says Carsten Wieland.
The process and result in the trial of Anders Breivik are a vindication of Norway’s liberal democracy and a lesson for the world, says Cas Mudde.
An innovative Israeli-Palestinian collaboration offering regular analysis of middle-east affairs is ending regular publication after eleven years. Its co-editors, Yossi Alpher and Ghassan Khatib, explain why.
The shooting dead of striking miners by armed police at Marikana exposes hard truths about post-apartheid South Africa that the country's new elites have preferred to ignore, says Roger Southall.
The downfall of party boss Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai is more than a tale of scandalous intrigue. Their fate reveals the prison of suspicion and mistrust that envelops China’s system of power, says Kerry Brown.
Haiti, an already very poor country, was shattered by the earthquake of January 2010 centred on the capital, Port-au-Prince. In the aftermath, a rigorous economic programme was imposed by rich-world agencies and governments that took no account of Haitians' true needs. A forensic investigation of
The perpetrator of the latest mass shooting in the United States has been compared to Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik. But a closer understanding of his motives and actions is needed before making this connection, says Cas Mudde.
The American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 launched a grand strategy to reorder the middle east. A decade on, growing tensions over Iran and the conflict in Syria suggest that it created the seeds of even greater instability.
Nationalism, chauvinism and greed have overtaken the Olympic games to an absurd degree, says Patrice de Beer.
Iranians are enduring great hardship as a result of economic sanctions. The absence of progress in nuclear negotiations makes their situation even tougher. The link between these two issues is the key to Iranians' future, says Arshin Adib-Moghaddam.
The interpretation of Libya's elections of July 2012 as a victory for secularism is misleading. A more nuanced reading of the vote must accommodate the reality and potential of Islamism, says Alison Pargeter.
