The country has become a battleground for larger powers competing for its oil and attempting to dominate the Arab world, writes Bernard Haykel

Israel’s founders advocated a universalism of ‘complete equality’, whereas its current leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has a narrow agenda, says Mark Leonard.

Earlier this week President Vladimir Putin announced plans to amend Russia's constitution so he will, when he is obliged to stand down as president in 2024, retain power. Moscow's parliament was informed though not consulted on measures that mean Putin's two decades of autocracy will not end when he resigns.

I would like to make a few points about the article “Russia is not Putin but ‘is embodied by its 146 million citizens’” by Lyubov Sobol (Irish Examiner, December 26, 2019).

The Russian president is terrified of free and fair elections as his recent crackdown demonstrates, writes Lyubov Sobol

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have met for the first time in a bid to end five years of war.

Macron wants to lead the EU into the 21st century. But he will succeed only if he does not go too far.

As the Brexit bandwagon continues to trundle along towards October 31 and as the Minister for Finance prepares to deliver in just over a month, what is most likely to be the final budget before the ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement comes to a welcome end, it was never more important for Ireland to keep a very close eye on international developments.

In an increasingly polarised world, the battlelines are all too obvious — and hardening. The rise of Trump, Orban, Putin, Ergodan and the Brexiteers’ coup bewilders those who cling to the belief that post-WWII liberal values still have transformative, positive possibilities.

It is nearly always the case that when a society, or even a section of society, take to the streets to oppose autocracy, the usual cheering from a distant, safe sideline is quickly tempered by prudent apprehension. There are too many examples of human aspiration crushed by brook-no-argument force.

The former Soviet state recently held free-and-fair elections, but unless it can eradicate corruption it will not gain EU entry and may slip into Russia’s clutches, says John Bruton.

In his article of July 27 Daniel McConnell questions the decision of the Irish Government to force the backstop issue so vehemently in the Brexit negotiations.

His acts of self-mutilation and vandalism have landed him in jail in Russia and France. Fernanda Eberstadt on the dangerous art of Pyotr Pavlensky

Alexander Temerko, a friend of Boris Johnson with connections to the highest level of the Kremlin, has donated over £1m to the Conservative Party, writes

Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law

When Russia’s fourth-term dictator President Vladimir Putin poured his particularly chilling scorn on the idea of liberalism last week his demeanour, his stone-cold certainty suggested he is not a man to tolerate opposition.

World leaders attending the G20 summit in Japan are clashing over the values that have served for decades as the foundation of their cooperation.

They called it the ‘Irish Football Stakeholder Forum’ but really last Friday’s gathering at the Mansion House was a cry for help.

Donald Trump’s own landing on the Normandy beaches to commemorate D-Day will be launched from the links in Doonbeg, Co Clare.

After years of turmoil for Fifa, Gianni Infantino is this week getting a fresh four-year presidential term to lead world football in relative calm.

Trump has exposed rifts within America’s alliances when it comes to the North Korean nuclear issue. By contrast, Kim Jong-un is building ties with China and Russia, writes Kent Harrington.

Experts in the black arts of marketing know that success depends not so much on the tangible quality of goods and services but on the extent to which potential customers have been spellbound by overstated claims.

Donald Trump's Walk of Fame star has been painted over with the words 'Putin's b***h'.

The Kremlin’s military aggression in 2014 finally failed because of Ukraine’s strengthened links with the West, says Carl Bildt

Trump shows his political skills against the Democrats

There is a huge difference between the aggressive nativism shown by Trump, Putin, Orban, and Brextremism and an expression of a calm, non-confrontational pride in your country. One can, and often does, lead to aggression.

Just one more night and everything will all go back to normal. Introverts, humbugs and knackered livers can exhale, for the seasonal hullabaloo is drawing to a close. But what is normal in 2019? What can we expect? It appears Brexit will be the least of it. Should we get bunker building?

Here's your lunchtime bulletin.

Here's your morning bulletin.

Alienating traditional US partners while wooing Putin and the Saudis, Donald Trump is facing another difficult G20 summit this weekend, writes David A Andelman

The world presumed the US president was a pawn in his Russian counterpart’s game. It could prove to be the other way around, writes Nina L Khrushcheva.

Withdrawal from 1987 pact with Russia would see a new generation of lethal weapons developed and deployed in Europe, says

By referring to Saudi Arabia as an innocent party, the US president has made clear that he is prioritising the nation’s economy, not its morality, says Zeke Miller.

From Washington to Pyongyang, Paul Manafort may change how the US and its tweeting president are viewed, writes David Eckles Wade.

"Burson merged the faces of Trump and Putin into a still image and video which morphs between the shifting appearances of the two world leaders"

The US president isn’t a Russian agent. He just can’t countenance any suggestion that he needed the help of Putin’s hackers to beat the Democrats, whom he considers sore losers, says Ramesh Ponnuru

The fashionable attack on Trump-ology as fascism has enough basis to be credible, and sufficient foundation to inculcate fear, writes Gerard Howlin. 

Trump has created another Charlottesville moment with how he apportions blame — and this time it was on a world stage, writes Eli Lake.

Vladimir Lenin’s “useful idiots” were the Western intellectuals invited to the Soviet Union to witness and tell the world about the wonders of the worker’s utopia.

Your lunchtime headlines:

Your morning headlines

It is a triumph to either the human spirit or man’s capacity for self-delusion that the tournament continues to be the repository of dreams...tune in, tun on and drop out, writes Michael Clifford

On Thursday, soccer’s 21st World Cup opens when, in a chillingly symbolic way, two dictatorships, Russia and Saudi Arabia, meet in the Moscow curtainraiser.