World View: Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, an incompetent and corrupt government is unable to improve life for most citizens

On TV, informed commentators are too often ignored in favour of 'experts' with their own political agendas

World View: We must understand the strange alliances in Mali to unravel its complex, conflicting loyalties

Attack had the hallmarks of al-Qa'ida in Mesopotamia and is aimed at fuelling tensions

The West has portrayed Gulf leaders as natural allies in promoting democratic revolutions

The small Islamist groups would find it near impossible to take the whole of Mali

World View: Sunni attacks on their Muslim neighbours have left the West with strange bedfellows

In his World View column, our correspondent find links between the conflict in Syria today and the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. And below: the ghosts of Abu Ghraib

The guerrilla war between the Turkish state and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) dates back to 1984. The government has often believed itself close to military victory only to see the PKK survive. Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has been in a Turkish prison since 1999, but the PKK remains the dominant political force among the Turkish Kurds, who number an estimated 14 million – or 18 per cent of Turkey’s population.

Payout to 71 former prisoners is first of its kind from a defence contractor active in Iraq