March 2016

Social liberalism has been co-opted by corporate financial power, and is now challenged by socialists backed by the young.
The persistent unpopularity of France’s socialist leaders is not a national exception attributable to poor employment figures or the renunciation of the left’s main ideas. The US and most other European countries have also witnessed the end of the ideological cycle of the “third way”, personified 20 years ago by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Felipe González, Dominique (...)

The poor, old and workless helped elect Poland’s rightwing government, hoping for better welfare — and respect.

The social and political divide in Israel is no longer between left and right, but between those who do and do not believe in democracy.

A government of national unity imposed on Libya by outside powers could worsen factional violence and disrupt the fragile peace.

Yemen faces a humanitarian crisis as the Saudi-led intervention persists and, with it, the struggle to overcome the Houthis, who still control the capital Sanaa.

Mercenaries, militias, and jihadist networks running criminal networks: the states of the Sahel are currently too weak to fight or control them.

Pakistan will have to change its national self-definition if it wants to improve its economic future — and make relations across all its borders less fraught.

Trailers are the cheapest available homes in the US, but their owner-tenants are always at risk.

Kosovo’s flag will fly at the Rio Olympics, even though Brazil doesn’t recognise it as a country.

Nationalised housing is being returned to its former owners, and its current occupants (tenants and owners) evicted. This is particularly hard on the Roma.

Britain’s suffragettes had their own protection force, the Bodyguard, trained in jujitsu.