A food apocalypse is coming

In the dystopian drama The Last of Us, a fungal virus has spread through foodstuffs turning infected humans into zombies. The survivors live in ghettos, among the ruins, armed to avoid a gruesome living death. They grow their own food …

Syria has spooked MBS

The flight of Bashar al-Assad and his family to Russia, where they have been granted asylum, indicates that however ruthless his style of governing by murder, torture and repression, he is not an ideologist. Instead of remaining defiantly in Syria …

What next for Syria?

It was the clock tower that settled it. The images of rebels driving around the central square of Homs, its famous clocktower visible, confirmed they had taken the city. This meant they could now sever Damascus from the coastal regions, …

Hezbollah has weakened Iran

It’s finally over. After 14 months of fighting, including the worst the country has seen in decades, the guns of Lebanon have fallen still. Nothing, of course, is certain: the Israel-Hezbollah agreement may yet flounder, and both sides have already …