Bangladesh's modern experience of industrial disaster highlights the fragile conditions in which many of its urban workforce toil. But the country has an earlier history of large-scale developmental ambition, far from the metropolis, which equally defined the lives of those involved. The trajector
The imminence of severe climate disruption makes the work of those planning for the event more vital than ever.
The Arab awakening has eroded Israel's sense of regional security. Now Syria's civil war presents Israel with both urgent risks and impossible choices.
An understanding of the link between the shocking murder of a young soldier on a London street and "remote-control" attacks by western states is essential.
Abuja's response to Boko Haram's insurgency is flawed and self-defeating. Without a change of policy, Nigeria will move ever closer to becoming a centre of transational jihadist struggle.
The United States, Israel and other military powers continue to seek the perfect weapon - from "unmanned aerial vehicles" to "directed energy". They forget how the story ends.
The dispersal of the al-Qaida idea across many national territories takes some pressure off the "far enemy", the United States. But developments in Nigeria could represent a new danger for Washington and its allies.
All states involved in the Korean crisis are influenced by their historical experience, but the recent past weighs most heavily on Pyongyang.
There are intense efforts to portray western policy in Afghanistan in a benign light. But evidence from the country itself, and the experiences of Iraq and Libya, suggest that hard questions should be asked about what is really happening.
The United States-led "war on terror" has spread not quelled global conflict. The next decade will do the same, unless there is a radical change of direction.
The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is at the heart of Syria's destructive stalemate. This proxy conflict, with Baghdad providing crucial help to Tehran, highlights the scale of the blowback from the United States's war in Iraq.
The gap between the invaders' expectations and the reality that emerged in Iraq was immense. But even as the ground war opened on 20 March 2003, there were clear indications of the carnage to come.
