A high-level international report on how financial resources can be raised to help developing countries address climate change is a disappointing and politics-free compromise. Simon Maxwell proposes a way beyond it.
The economic recession in Russia has not produced the expected rise in organised crime. The answer to this conundrum lies in the politics of security reform, says Gavin Slade.
The traces of optimism that had surrounded Burma’s first notionally democratic experience for two decades vanish on closer inspection of the outcome, says David Scott Mathieson in Chiang Mai.
The Irish government’s request to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for a financial bailout to rescue its broken economy reflects a far deeper decay in the country’s political culture and institutions. This is the very moment to begin to transform them, says Fintan O’Toole.
The election of Dilma Rousseff is a landmark moment in Brazil’s political history. But the challenges ahead promise to make the task as hard as her victory proved to be, says Arthur Ituassu.
The international bailout of Ireland’s economy is another epic moment in the crisis of the eurozone. Angela Merkel’s government in Berlin is, as ever, at the heart of events. Katinka Barysch maps the political logic that guides Germany’s current strategy.
The political transformation and social drama of the 1989 revolutions in east-central Europe promised a decisive rupture with the past. But the perspective of two decades and of a global frame offers a more complex picture of this historic moment, says George Lawson.
A number of initiatives around the world, for example in Bosnia and Guatemala, seeks to record the details of every victim of violent conflict. The new revelations of civilian deaths in Iraq could advance a project whose wider ambition is to change warfare itself.
The rescue of trapped Chilean miners after two months underground inspired both national unity and worldwide acclaim. But as the afterglow fades Chile’s government faces an equally monumental set of tasks, says the Chilean scholar Patricio Navia.
Italy's prime minister is under severe domestic pressure after a fallout with his closest political ally. But a great political survivor still has room to manage his exit strategy, says Geoff Andrews.
The Belarusian opposition seeks to map a path beyond the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenko by establishing a claim to represent the true or real nation. But it needs to work on different ground - for this is a contest it can’t win, says Nelly Bekus.
The meticulous operation that rescued Chile's trapped miners after two months underground highlights the country's economic problems as well as its professional and human assets. This makes its longer-term impact on Chile less than certain, says Carlos Huneeus in Santiago.
