Can Oslo’s car ban help drive the future?
Oslo’s proposal to ban most cars from its centre is likely to be studied by cities worldwide, suggests Vivill Vinsrygg, a Norwegian transport institute official.
Carney warns on financial risks of climate change
Bank of England governor Mark Carney tells leading insurers that climate change could become a major cause of financial instability.
Erdogan’s triumph and Turkey’s future
Erdogan has proved to be the unquestioned master of Turkish politics. The spotlight is on him now to start healing the country’s toxic divisions and sow the seeds of reform and reconciliation.
Congo’s uncertain election
Kabila is fast approaching the end of his legitimate time as president and his options for altering that inconvenient fact through legal means appear non-existent. But the dysfunctions of the state that Kabila has shaped for nearly 15 years are his best bet of staying at the helm.
China and the coming crisis
Look to China, if you want to locate the downfall of capitalism. As several mainstream institutions have predicted, a major crisis of the Chinese economy could plunge the global capitalist economy into a crisis that will prove to be more destructive than the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008-2009.
On the origins of human rights
Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Harvard University explains that the language of human rights is old, even if its popularity is new. The values it incorporated, even during the Enlightenment, were very different from those invoked in recent decades.
AKP strongholds are still strong
Travelling between Kayseri and Konya in Central Anatolia, two so-called Anatolian Tigers and AKP strongholds, the great majority of citizens still backs the ruling party. The most often stated reasons are for stability and security.
Mapping Europe’s external borders
‘Europe’ is a vague and ill-defined construction, invented by geographers and historians in Antiquity to divide up the known world. Michael Wintle, Professor of Modern European History at Amsterdam University looks at the changing nature of Europe.
Brazil: back to the future
An array of problems – economic, social, moral and environmental – is testing the political limits of Brazil’s state-society relationship. The approval ratings of the President and the prospect of an impeachment put Brazilian democracy in one of the most difficult moments since the end of the military regime.
The siege of Damascus
Peter Oborne, the former chief political commentator of the Telegraph, spent two weeks in Damascus and gives a compelling account of people’s struggles and steadfastness in government-held territory.