October 2011

The dictator has gone, so is the Tunisian revolution over? There are more than a hundred, mostly unknown, parties seeking a place in the Constituent Assembly, and anything is possible. The assembly to be elected on 23 October will have impeccable democratic credentials: proportional representation, gender parity (even if 95% of the leading candidates are men), strict regulation of campaign finances, opinion polls and political advertising. The assembly will be representative, and also (...)

The US and Europe won’t pay. Other Arab countries won’t pay. So Tunisia and Egypt hope to improve their national futures through public-private finance deals, which are hard to set up and even harder to run

A senior Sunni army officer explains how Bashar al-Assad uses the Alawite minority in Syria to control his authoritarian regime. He has few hopes that the demonstrations will succeed in bringing change

Despite pressure from the US, backed by Europe, Mahmoud Abbas presented his application for the recognition of a Palestinian state to the UN on 23 September. Will it lead to any real change in the balance of power?

The US only reversed its position on the establishment of the state of Israel when it realised that Israel could help guarantee America’s hold on Middle Eastern oil supplies

There is a way out of the current rush to the precipice. It wouldn’t be agreeable, and it may not be agreed upon

The US president was elected to deliver change, but may not have intended to supply it. He was elected to fight, but prefers to negotiate. His staff despise the left and liberals who elected him. Where do we go from here?

The Greens are likely to be a major part of the next German government; few seem to have noticed that they’ve already been a substantial part of its regional governments for 59 years

European groups who took part in violence in the 1970s and 80s did not gain the wide popular support they had hoped for. Interest in terrorism has grown since 9/11, but the motivations for it are not well understood: the transition from radicalisation to violence is neither systematic nor inevitable

Twelve percent of the Philippines’ GDP comes as remittances from nationals abroad. Many of those are maids, sent all over the world into domestic service to support their children back home. The Philippines government is even training them in servitude

The megalopolis of eastern India was built for 300,000 people, and the infrastructure was enough for a smallish European provincial city. Now 13.2 million cram into its greater urban zone and more arrive every day

What has really mattered in Russia in the past 20 years has been the rise of a new elite who control the government and the money, and do not care about democracy

Twitter has taken a different approach from the other social media. It seems to be turning into a public news agency, faster and more collective than traditional media