A pattern of attacks in the United States and Europe by individual jihadists is deeply connected to both the effects and the perceptions of a decade's war across the greater middle east.
A narrow confidence vote in Italy’s chamber of deputies extends the turbulent career of Italy’s scandal-ridden prime minister. But the corrosion of Italian democracy under “Berlusconismo” goes wider than one man, says Geoff Andrews.
The hacked United States diplomatic missives reveal both the vast ambition and the new vulnerabilites of the world’s superpower.
The contest between rival “Soviet” and “European” discourses fuels a dead-end debate about Belarus’s elusive national identity. It is time instead - whoever wins the presidential election on 19 December 2010 - to change the question, and find what Belarusians have in common. A shared archetype is
A powerful Chinese political elite fears those citizens who raise their voice against it. The case of a political prisoner in Inner Mongolia, as much as that of the Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, reveals the distance it has to go to temper strength with justice, say Kerry Brown & Natalia Lisenko
The loss of momentum in climate diplomacy reflects deep flaws in the way campaigners understand and frame climate change in relation to people’s lives and interests. There is both challenge and opportunity here, says Andrew Pendleton.
Ireland’s acceptance of international financial aid to its stricken finance sector is widely seen in the country as a shameful loss of sovereignty and the prelude to years of austerity. But there is too much hyperbole amid the gloom: Ireland is down, but most definitely not out, says John O’Brenna
Iran is again at the centre of international politics. Its diplomats are discussing their nuclear plans. Its nuclear specialists are being targeted in Tehran. Its Saudi neighbours are pleading with the Americans to bomb it. But most serious of all, the momentum behind an Israeli military assault o
The iron rule of Hosni Mubarak has dominated Egypt for three decades. The regime he heads is preparing for the succession and seeking to channel Egyptians’ hunger for change into a tool of retrenchment. The secular opposition is absorbed by the effort of staying in the political game; the Muslim B
A high-level international report on how financial resources can be raised to help developing countries address climate change is a disappointing and politics-free compromise. Simon Maxwell proposes a way beyond it.
The politicians and diplomats lead the summits and rule the airwaves. But a close look at the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict reveals that the United States military take the decisions.
