The need for an ethical vision to hold society together saw China's former premier Wen Jiabao look to Adam Smith. What does this reveal about the elite's thinking, asks Kerry Brown.
Vladimir Putin's vision of Russia's destiny has parallels with George W Bush's of the United States in the aftermath of 9/11. This makes the existing crisis over Ukraine even more acute.
The retreat from Afghanistan is proving hard enough for the United States. But its military return to Iraq is much more serious.
The dangerous stand-off with Russia over Ukraine is also a display of the west's skewed perceptions and moral vanities.
A new political tone on climate change in Britain is matched by a breakthrough in understanding the retreat of tropical glaciers.
Two floods, two eras, two worlds. The contrast between 1953 and 2014 in southern England is a lesson both in class and climate change.
The belated trial of a suspected genocidaire in Paris highlights the complex political relationship between Rwanda and France. It also reflects problems in the hard road to international justice, says Andrew Wallis.
The hopes that inspired the "Arab spring", of jobs as well as freedom, have hit a rock. But the setbacks since 2011 are part of a wider reordering of the global as well as the Arab landscape. Three years on, Francesc Badia i Dalmases assesses a fluid period.
A shift of global power to the east exposes the west's domestic as well as international weaknesses, say Ernesto Gallo & Giovanni Biava.
A cycle of military repression and violent jihadi resistance in Egypt threatens to eclipse the democratic hopes of the Arab awakening.
The Geneva conference offers little hope of a breakthrough to halt Syria's nightmare. This makes a different approach all the more urgent.
If long-term climate disruption is a reality, so is the prospect of short-term benefit for states such as Canada and Russia. But their governments' denial of climate change looks back not forward.
