

Tuesday 24 November '09
A nakedly political Queen's Speech marks the start of the election campaign....Monday 23 November '09
America’s president shows an alarming lack of self-confidence. So does China’s....Monday
23 November '09The anti-graft pressure mounts on Hamid Karzai....Friday
20 November '09The connection between an 18th-century savant called Joseph-Louis Lagrange and the problem of landing safely at Hong Kong...Friday
20 November '09Britain, and especially England, is occasionally compared to North Korea (only half-jokingly) as one of the most heavily centralised states in the world.Friday
20 November '09Hugo Chávez’s belligerent rhetoric trades at a substantial discount. So when on November 8th he announced during his...Thursday
19 November '09Rarely have the prospects for a decent deal between Israelis and Palestinians looked so bleak. Despite his grudging acceptance...Thursday
19 November '09At China’s 60th anniversary bash last month, Zhang Yuanyuan, a China-born, permanent resident of Singapore, was caught on camera professing her love for her native country.Thursday
19 November '09It was, veterans of economic summitry noted, the kind of idea a French minister would once have floated simply to annoy Gordon Brown.Thursday
19 November '09It is no small feat to compact any people’s history into a single volume. The task is even more difficult with the Arabs, an ancient nation...Wednesday
18 November '09Yukio Hato-yama, Japan’s prime minister, likens his role to that of a conductor trying to achieve “harmony”—one of his favourite words—from a pickup orchestra (for which read, novice cabinet).Wednesday
18 November '09When Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, identified Dilma Rousseff, his chief-of-staff, as his preferred successor in the top job...Wednesday
18 November '09The new American ambassador to Germany, Philip Murphy, introduced himself to Berliners recently in an Obama-style town-hall meeting at Humboldt University.Tuesday
17 November '09America will not pass a cap-and-trade law in time for the global climate-change summit in Copenhagen next month.Tuesday
17 November '09Bearded fighters gleefully picked through the ruins of an abandoned American base in Kamdesh, in the mountains of Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan.Tuesday
17 November '09You open a window on your computer’s screen. You type in the name of a cheesy song from the 1980s. A list of results appears.Tuesday
17 November '09Middle Easterners have had a habit of making war but they suffer a stronger addiction to hummus, the chickpea dip that is a staple of Levantine cuisine.Monday
16 November '09After five hapless years as the Palestinians’ president, Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) suddenly declared on November...Monday
16 November '09On November 8th, a cold and rainy Sunday night, the First Baptist Church of Killeen held a prayer service to commemorate the victims...Monday
16 November '09Since last year, Cambodian and Thai troops have intermittently clashed over a disputed border temple.Monday
16 November '09Ludwig Van Beethoven, in his late period, produced some of the most sublime chamber music ever written. Woody Allen abandoned Russian...Friday
13 November '09If the forthcoming United Nations meeting in Copenhagen truly is a precious chance to save the planet from rising seas and...Friday
13 November '09Environmentalism is a hard corner to fight in Louisiana, a state where oil, gas and chemical companies are big in the economy and politics.Friday
13 November '09Not even six months has elapsed since the protracted war with Tamil Tiger rebels ended in a bloody climax, leading to the Sri Lankan government’s triumph.Friday
13 November '09Murder, dynastic intrigues, espionage and war: 16th-century France and England were not for the fainthearted. Underlying the mayhem...