The Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee migration caused sudden changes in the area’s land use and freshwater resources, according to new satellite data.

California is now the capital of liberal America. Along with its neighbors Oregon and Washington, it will be a nation within the nation starting in January when the federal government goes dark.

In the autumn of 1983, at the height of Cold War tensions, the world was only saved from nuclear disaster by the gut feelings of two soldiers during different incidents.

Central American migrants – particularly unaccompanied minors – are again crossing the U.S.-Mexico boundary in large numbers.

When Narendra Modi was elected as head of India’s BJP government in May 2014, he was expected to usher in a period of stability and development.

The number of refugees in Central America has reached a scale not seen since armed conflicts tore the region apart in the 1980s, with more than 110,000 people fleeing their homes.

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki Moon, is set to open a new investigation into the death of former secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold, whose plane crashed during a peace mission in the Congo in September 1961.

A number of catastrophic events have afflicted the Arab world in recent years. Western news reporting and Hollywood cinema tend to present these crises through disaster footage or stories about Western protagonists in which local people are merely extras. Film from the Arab world is often more complex and nuanced.

In recent months, lone offender attacks – sometimes called “lone wolf” attacks – have regularly populated news headlines.

A new kind of warfare: how urban spaces are becoming the new battlefield, where the distinction between intelligence and military, and war and peace is becoming more and more problematic.

A bomb exploded in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday, injuring 29 people. Police discovered a second explosive device nearby.

Chatham House’s new report on elite perceptions of the US in Latin America and the post-Soviet states – which follows a previous survey of Asia and Europe – underlines the uniquely daunting task of expectation management task that awaits anyone in charge of America’s image in the world.

Tensions are again mounting between Russia and Ukraine.Dubiously claiming provocation, Russia has stationed 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of a full-scale invasion.

Few images have captured the peculiar horrors of the war in Syria more powerfully than the photograph and short video that emerged recently showing five-year-old Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance after being rescued from the aftermath of an airstrike in Aleppo.

A child between the ages of 12 and 14 was reportedly the culprit behind a suicide attack – blowing up the wedding of Besna and Nurettin Akdogan in Gaziantep, Turkey and killing 54 people on Aug. 20.

The death of 22-year-old Dean Carl Evans, the second British man to be killed fighting the Islamic State in Syria after Konstandinos Erik Scurfield was killed last year, should prompt us to wonder why he and others would choose to travel to the frontline and involve themselves in the bloody civil war of a country other than their own.

This September, as they start the school year, French children aged 14 years old and upwards are going to get lessons on how to deal with a terrorism attack on their school.

Contrary to the view that the South China Sea disputes are driven by a regional hunger for seabed energy resources, the real and immediate prizes at stake are the region’s fisheries and marine environments that support them.

Imagine you woke up to discover a massive cyber attack on your country. All government data has been destroyed, taking out healthcare records, birth certificates, social care records and so much more.

The scent of chaos hangs heavy in the air. Donald Trump evokes it in Cleveland. Islamic State sows it in Nice, Brussels, Paris, Orlando. Britain is immersed in it after Brexit, while the EU struggles to prevent its onset amid mounting crises of migration and political legitimacy.

Take America back from those who have stolen it. Protect America from those who want to destroy it. Restore the principles that these usurpers betrayed.

This has been a difficult year for humanitarian relief. Huge events have left indelible images. From a dead Syrian child washed up on a Turkish beach, to villagers trapped under rubble after earthquakes in Nepal and grieving families of Ebola victims in West Africa.

Opponents of the Iraq war often highlight the importance of oil when explaining why the invasion took place. While leaders at the time denied it was a motivation there is no doubt the country’s huge oilfields did offer possible post-conflict opportunities for the Iraqi industry and international corporations.