A pattern of violence against the Ahmadiyah religious community, in which the perpetrators enjoy near-impunity and official indulgence, is disfiguring Indonesia. It also presents a wider challenge to the country’s vital search for a model of religious tolerance in public life, says Charles Reading
The disputed region of Abkhazia holds its presidential elections tomorrow. Earlier in the election campaign, Oliver Carroll travelled to Sukhum to speak to the two leading candidates, Alyksandr Ankvab and Sergei Shamba.
The writer visits a friend he hasn’t seen for a while. A piece about longing, dreaming about a white horse, freedom and steak for dinner
A picture poem on Gaddafi's fall
The growth of the Boko Haram armed movement in Nigeria illustrates the capacity of modern Islamist groups to diversify and make an effective impact - aided by the local state's response.
Europe’s crisis is a crisis of democracy. The ‘democracy of the experts’ cannot deliver: representative democracy is incapable of channelling demands in the political system. More participatory and deliberative democracy is needed, as argued in Europe’s public spaces by the movements of ‘ indignad
The authorities’ destruction of a building and precious archive of human-rights workers in Baku is an act of mindless cruelty that damages Azerbaijan itself, says Thomas de Waal.
What do the mountains of debt of a west that used to be rich have in common? Were errors made in the construction and constitution of the European Union? If so, how do we mend them?
Yes, European leaders could all agree when it came to imposing austerity on Athens, Dublin, Lisbon and Rome, ‘reassuring’ financial markets, saving creditor banks, increasing countries’ financial burdens and putting public enterprises on the market at sale prices. But such policies make exiting th
The West has got it wrong about on Tymoshenko. More than a simple struggle for power and influence, her trial marks a fundamental confrontation between the modern (Yanukovych) and postmodern (Tymoshenko). In a head-to-head battle, postmodernism is always likely to triumph, writes Dmitry Vydrin.
A divisive period in Georgian politics has pitted a range of forces - the opposition, the Orthodox church, the media, and civil society - against Mikheil Saakashvili’s government. The disputes carry important messages for the future of democracy in the country, says Ghia Nodia.
The ending of the legal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves France’s socialists still looking for a strategy - and a candidate - able to defeat Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012. They have a tough legacy to overcome, says Patrice de Beer.
