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Just published A world in revolt, Paul Rogers Inequity leads to protectionism, Jeffrey A Frieden The liberty of the networked (pt 2), Tony Curzon Price Obama's Bush-like foreign policy, George Friedman Russia’s ambitious new Patriarch, Geraldine Fagan Musawah: there cannot be justice without equality, Cassandra Balchin Home truths in the Muslim family, Cassandra Balchin Civilian loss in offensive against LRA is "catastrophic" , Lottie Hamer

A world in revolt, Paul Rogers India's Subhiksha chain of discount stores has been one of the most spectacular successes of the country's retail sector, expanding tenfold to over 1,650 stores in just two years. More recently it has run into major financial difficulties and faced trouble raising new bank loans. The consequences include a failure to pay the security companies that provided guards for Subhiksha's stores and warehouses. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University,... more » Inequity leads to protectionism, Jeffrey A Frieden If the crisis turns into a new Great Depression, it will most likely be due to a breakdown of cooperation among the major economies. But sustaining international cooperation requires domestic support; ignoring the demands of poor and middle-class citizens for relief will inflame more extreme anti-globalisation views, making international cooperation much more difficult. If the current crisis turns into a disaster on the order of the Great Depression, it will most likely be due to... more » The liberty of the networked (pt 2), Tony Curzon Price ** Preamble1 In part 1 of this essay I used Benjamin Constant's characterisation of the modern, individualised liberties as being dependent on the republican liberty of collective self-determination to characterise the ways in which technology can be seen to be simultaneously freedom enhancing while also dauntingly threatening. The progressive tech-topians, recognisable today as they were at the start of the industrial revolution, do not see either how hyper-individualism might lead... more » Obama's Bush-like foreign policy, George Friedman While the Munich Security Conference brought together senior leaders from most major countries and many minor ones last weekend, none was more significant than US Vice President Joe Biden. This is because Biden provided the first glimpse of US foreign policy under President Barack Obama. Most conference attendees were looking forward to a dramatic shift in US foreign policy under the Obama administration. What was interesting about Biden's speech was how little change there has been in the... more » Russia’s ambitious new Patriarch, Geraldine Fagan St Fidel, Equal-to-the-Apostles might be Castro's title in the Russian Orthodox Church. The communist crusader's signature is one of two gracing a gold-embossed deed buried deep beneath the foundations of Cuba's first ever Russian Orthodox church. The other belongs to the new Russian Orthodox patriarch, Kirill. Mindful of militant atheist sensibilities when meeting an ailing Castro in 2004, then Metropolitan Kirill was astonished to hear him give his personal pledge to be... more » Musawah: there cannot be justice without equality, Cassandra Balchin A call for equality and justice "in the Muslim family" is being launched by a group of Muslim scholars and activists who insist that in the 21st century "there cannot be justice without equality" between men and women. Musawah (which means ‘equality' in Arabic) insists that change is possible by combining arguments from Islamic teachings, universal human rights principles, fundamental rights and constitutional guarantees, and grounding these arguments in the... more » Home truths in the Muslim family, Cassandra Balchin Muslim women's demands for equality and justice in the family seem to be reaching a critical mass, coinciding with what some are heralding as a ‘paradigm shift' in Muslim theological and jurisprudential scholarship. There is clearly a disconnect between the realities of Muslim society on the one hand and the family laws that govern Muslims on the other. This gap lies at the centre of some of the most heated theological and juristic debates in the Muslim world today. It has the... more » Civilian loss in offensive against LRA is "catastrophic" , Lottie Hamer An offensive launched in December and backed by the UN as a bid to rid the Democratic Republic of Congo of LRA rebels has taken a disastrously heavy toll on civilians. Over 900 people have been killed in the recent offensive on Ugandan rebel group the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in the DRC. John Holmes, UN humanitarian chief, has visited Doruma in the north east of the country on the border with Sudan as part of a four day trip to DRC. Doruma was badly hit by LRA attacks and civilian reports... more »