The revival of Argentina’s dispute with Britain over the south Atlantic island territory owes much to the political character of Cristina Kirchner’s government. But it also reveals the distance travelled since the war of 1982, says Celia Szusterman.
Brazil’s presidential election of 2010 is the first since the return to democracy in 1985 in which Lula is not a candidate. The country’s emerging political alignment forms a big part of his legacy, says Arthur Ituassu.
The burgeoning international scandal involving the abuse of children by Catholic clergy is the biggest crisis for the church since the 16th-century reformation, says Michael Walsh.
Romania’s post-communist transition was captured by a political elite that consolidated its power, enriched itself and led the country into a European Union that preferred not to notice. Its people are the losers, says Tom Gallagher.
The doubters of global warming are emboldened by their new ability - as in the “climategate” affair - to put climate researchers on the defensive. But the experience of comparable assaults on the discipline of peace studies in the 1980s suggests that hostile scrutiny can have longer-term benefits
A shifting balance of calculation in the middle east makes Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement more confident in its strategy of “deterrence-by-terror” vis-à-vis Israel, says Robert G Rabil
The global effort to extinguish the nuclear peril needs to regain momentum. A bold act of leadership and imagination by one of the weapons-states could provide it.
The degrading realities of France’s survivalist economy put the country’s latest debate about Islamic apparel into perspective, says Patrice de Beer.
The United States’s long-term operations in Helmand and elsewhere in Afghanistan face acute military and political pressures.
The ground-level realities of western military involvement in Afghanistan - including a few dozen soldiers in an isolated base - reveal the intractability of the war.
Nepal’s path to development remains hostage to the lack of accountability over human-rights violations during the country’s civil war, says Meenakshi Ganguly.(This article was first published on 15 February 2010)
