CIAO DATE: 07/2013
Volume: 69, Issue: 5
June 2013
Michael Williams
Some months ago while clearing my late mother’s house I came across a stamp album from my school days in the 1960s. There were stamps from ‘Croatia’, in reality produced by extremist groups in Argentina, but testifying to the existence of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia (NDH) in the 1940s. But to my surprise, I also found stamps from the ‘Alawite State of Syria’. An independent Croatia is now a reality and soon to become a member of the European Union. For that matter we also have states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo. And the former Soviet Union has broken up into its constituent republics. Who would have imagined this as late as 1990? But maybe the break up of states, whether Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, and possibly the United Kingdom if Scotland opts for independence in 2014, is a purely European phenomenon?
Turkey finds that trouble knows no bounds
Hugh Pope
Collapse in Syria and a Kurdish reawakening are posing challenges for Ankara
Sectarian pressures are tearing up the Sykes-Picot map
Martin Chulov
Lines in the sand are blown away
Q&A: A grass-roots view of the Syrian uprising
Alan Philps
Abdulkader al-Dhon, 27, was a student when the Syrian uprising started. For the past two years he has travelled the country to help reporters and human rights groups make sense of the crisis
Jane Kinninmont
Syria's civil war is exacerbating tension between Iraqi factions
Smart phones: it's now the age of the thumb
Per Ola Kristensson
How KALQ could soon be replacing QWERTY
Venezuela's bad loser syndrome
Julia Buxton
After a narrow defeat, the opposition is in danger of heading down a strategic cul de sac
How to help the poor in a rich man's world
Jon Lidén
Donors need to be smarter as nouveau riche states leave masses trapped by poverty gap
The Kremlin is not just a one-man band
Andrew Monaghan
Time for a closer look at the cast of players who rule Russia in the shadow of Putin
Inside the superstar economy of America's big thinkers
Daniel W. Drezner
Why the US still dominates the world of innovative ideas
Phillip Blond
Looking at structural problems that can blinker academic innovation
Joseph Nye, the inventor of the term 'soft power'
Alan Philps
He shares his thoughts on on America's role in an increasingly affluent world, Russia's decline and China's own goals
Dicing with death penalties in Indonesia
Dave McRae
The ramifications at home of protecting citizens abroad
International justice should prosecute beyond the bounds of Africa
Max du Plessis
The ICC has a blind spot which is crippling its credibility
Can culture heal the wounds of the Troubles?
Bruce Clark
As G8 leaders meet for the first time in Northern Ireland, Bruce Clark visits the divided city of Derry-Londonderry to find out if culture can effect reconciliation after decades of violence
Chasing the Nordic option after independence
Alyson J.K. Bailes
Scotland the brave new world
Michael Binyon
A mountain-top airport is about to change island life forever
Ronen Palan