The World Today

June & July 2013: Assad, the neighbour from hell

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Is a new Alawite statelet a solution?

Articles

Some 1.5 million people have so far fled Syria since the beginning of the conflict, with 450,000 going to Turkey. Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

Collapse in Syria and a Kurdish reawakening are posing challenges for Ankara

Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki with the Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi. Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Lines in the sand are blown away

Rebel fighters watch government jet fighters fly over Aleppo. Photo: Edouard Elias/AFP/Getty Images

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

Sunni militia brandish their weapons in Ramadi, western Iraq. Photo: Azhar Shallal/AFP/Getty Images

Syria’s civil war is exacerbating tension between Iraqi factions

A protestor wearing a mask of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono demonstrates in Jakarta. Photo: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

The ramifications at home of protecting citizens abroad

Looking at structural problems that can blinker academic innovation

From the editor

The Syrian conflict is entering a more dangerous phase. What started as a peaceful protest has created a zone of instability from the Mediterranean to the Iranian frontier, enveloping Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

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Time for a closer look at the cast of players who rule Russia in the shadow of Putin

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The ICC has a blind spot which is crippling its credibility

The Mount Pleasant estate on the island from where Napoleon used to ride. Photo: Gordon Gahan/National Geographic/Getty Images

A mountain-top airport is about to change island life forever

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How KALQ could soon be replacing QWERTY

A Trident nuclear submarine prepares to put to sea from Faslane naval base. Photo: Jeff J.Mitchell/Getty Images

Scotland the brave new world

Richard Holbrook enjoyed a good working relationship with Hillary Clinton. Photo: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

Vali Nasr, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (Doubleday £19.00)

Ayatollahs playing with fire

Protesters against Iran's nuclear programme demonstrate outside the White House. Photo:Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Geoffrey Robertson Mullahs Without Mercy: Human Rights and Nuclear Weapons (Biteback, £20)Peter Oborne and David Morrison A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran (Elliott and Thompson, £8.99)

Jón Gnarr, a comedian voted Reykjavic mayor, sorted out the capital's energy company. Photo: Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images

Anarcho-surrealism thrives: a tweeter in exile is hopeful for Iceland

Nasser is carried through the streets of Port Said after the British evacuation. Photo: Popperfoto/Getty Images

June 18, 1953: Sixty years on, Egypt is still struggling to define itself

Simms attacks the mega-supermarket's cut-price consumerism. Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Kishore Mahbubani The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World (Public Affairs £17.99)Andrew Simms Cancel The Apocalypse (Little, Brown £13.99)

A sign of past troubles: a mural in Derry close to where the Bloody Sunday killings took place in 1972. Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

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