The economic recession in Russia has not produced the expected rise in organised crime. The answer to this conundrum lies in the politics of security reform, says Gavin Slade.
The traces of optimism that had surrounded Burma’s first notionally democratic experience for two decades vanish on closer inspection of the outcome, says David Scott Mathieson in Chiang Mai.
The Irish government’s request to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for a financial bailout to rescue its broken economy reflects a far deeper decay in the country’s political culture and institutions. This is the very moment to begin to transform them, says Fintan O’Toole.
The Ethiopian government’s political use of international humanitarian aid is a test of donors’ commitment to human-rights principles, says Tom Porteous.
The election of Dilma Rousseff is a landmark moment in Brazil’s political history. But the challenges ahead promise to make the task as hard as her victory proved to be, says Arthur Ituassu.
The international bailout of Ireland’s economy is another epic moment in the crisis of the eurozone. Angela Merkel’s government in Berlin is, as ever, at the heart of events. Katinka Barysch maps the political logic that guides Germany’s current strategy.
The mid-term election results in the United States carry implications for Israel’s military plans towards Iran.
The political transformation and social drama of the 1989 revolutions in east-central Europe promised a decisive rupture with the past. But the perspective of two decades and of a global frame offers a more complex picture of this historic moment, says George Lawson.
The signals of growing turbulence in a range of military environments - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and beyond - send a worrying message to Washington.
A number of initiatives around the world, for example in Bosnia and Guatemala, seeks to record the details of every victim of violent conflict. The new revelations of civilian deaths in Iraq could advance a project whose wider ambition is to change warfare itself.
The rescue of trapped Chilean miners after two months underground inspired both national unity and worldwide acclaim. But as the afterglow fades Chile’s government faces an equally monumental set of tasks, says the Chilean scholar Patricio Navia.
The triumphant rescue of Chile's entombed miners is also, for the country's political elite, a turning-point in its history. But the narrative of instant renewal evades some of Chile's darker and more complex realities, says Malcolm Coad in Santiago.
