The exchange of compliments was unexpected. Last December, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin indicated a preference for Donald Trump, one of the leading candidates in the US Republican Party presidential primaries, calling him “really brilliant and talented” and “the absolute leader in the presidential race”. Trump, far from rejecting this homage, responded in kind, though it could harm him in a party whose many neoconservative members can’t decide whether they loathe Russia or Iran more. He said (...)

Tutsi-Hutu relations in Burundi are far less volatile than in Rwanda, but the country, already struggling to feed its population, is descending into low-level civil war.

Despite worries over the end of the Chinese economic miracle and harder times because of the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis, global rebalancing is happening and quickly.