British political theorist David Held about dangers of military intervention in Syria and the necessity to speak to bad guys.

 David Held, 62, specializes in the field of international relations, cosmopolitan democracy and global governance. The British political theorist taught at the “London School Of Economics”, but resigned in 2010, when the university admitted it had accepted funding from the Gaddafi Foundation. Held had informally advised Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of dictator Muammar, while he was writing his Phd at the LSE till 2008. Today Held is master of University College Durham. His latest book was published in July by Polity Books: “Gridlock. Why global Cooperation is Failing When We Need It Most”. 

The Israeli author Shani Boianjiu describes corruption and violence in the Israeli army in her book “The people of forever are not afraid” 

Shani Boianjiu is just 26 years old and her first novel “The people of forever are not afraid”, which was published in English in 2012, will soon be  published in 23 languages. Although she grew up in the North of Israel and comes from a family with Iraqi and Rumanian roots, she wanted to write in English because she spent the last years studying at Harvard University. Her style is raw and wise as it often happens with young adults, who have to negotiate two opposing sentiments: Their urge to find the sense of life and the intense feeling of boredom in the world they live in. But Boianjiu’s book became a bestseller not only for her powerful literature. She writes about the highly sensitive issue of the Israeli army. The author herself finished her own service in the Israeli Defense Forces not long ago.

Middle East specialist Michael Kerr about the British No vote on a military strike against Syria and why the US will go for it alone.

Michael Kerr is Director of the Middle East & Mediterranean Studies programme and the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies at King’s College and expert for Third Party Interventions. His latest book was published in 2012: “Lebanon: After the Cedar Revolution”.

Bestseller author and psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz about his relationship to the founder of his profession and to his patients.
The house of Sigmund Freud in London’s elegant and leafy Hampstead pulls people in till today. The founder of psychoanalysis lived here one more year after the Nazis had kicked him out of Berggasse in Vienna’s ninth district in 1938. Not only tourists and fans come to the house museum. His successors still like to live nearby. Many North London psychoanalysts are - like Freud - immigrants. Stephen Grosz, too. He came in the Seventies from the university in Berkely to study in Oxford, stayed in England ever since and works a few streets away from Freud’s house.

Twitter-Joke in Beirut: Sheikh Nasrallah says: Tell Obama, in case he is scared, we can start first!

The "No" vote in the House of Commons against a strike on Syria is a triumph of parliamentary democracy.

LONDON. “I am ashamed to be British today”, my friend said this morning. “How can we vote against helping to stop chemical weapon attacks on Syrian children?” She was not the only one in London who woke up on Friday and could not believe that the House of Commons voted down a government motion to join the US in attacking the Syrian regime in response to its apparent use of chemical weapons against its citizens on August 21^st.

 Maha Azzam is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, an independent think tank on international affairs in London. Azzam specializes in Political Islam with particular reference to Egypt.

Profil: Is Egypt slipping into Civil war?

Azzam: We certainly see an escalation of violence, but not necessarily a civil war. The military is using violence against protesters. The full force of the army is spent in order to quell the protests. We will see growing resistance to the tactics of the army and the level of the violence might go up. And there is another level: The sectarian violence between Muslims and Copts is getting stronger as always in a situation like this. We saw this under Mubarak and Sadat. But all this is not a civil war. It is mainly one group – the army – cracking down on protesters.

Mona al Qazzaz is the spokeswoman of the Muslim Brotherhood in Great Britain.

She is a Phd student in Cambridge. Her brother Khaled al Qazzaz was an advisor to deposed president Mohammed Morsi and was detained with him on July 3^rd.

Daughter Emma and niece Carla pose among Pawel Althamers "Venetians" in the Arsenale

A summer blog: The 55th Venice Art Biennale for kids.

VENICE - A limbless, giant, pink, pregnant woman perched on the lagoon greets us on our way into town. My children are not sure if they find Marc Quinn’s 11-metre-high statue - a variation of his 'Alison Lapper Pregnant' - fascinating or frightening. (They are not the only ones: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jun/02/55th-venice-biennale-review.)

Austrian impresario Paulus Manker celebrates Wagner's bicentenary by asking in “Wagner’s Twilight”: is a genius allowed to be a scoundrel ?

VIENNA - Paulus Manker, enfant terrible of the Austrian theatre scene, stands outside the old central post and telegraph building in Vienna’s inner city and welcomes the guests as only he knows how. Before I even get my tickets, he has coarsely insulted my family. Should I boycott him or treat his behaviour as part of the performance? I choose the latter. And now for the “Wagnerdämmerung” – “Wagner’s Twilight” - as Manker calls his spectacle in memory of the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth.

Vienna's museums still hold paintings by Jewish artist Jehudo Epstein which were looted by the Nazis. Epstein's great-niece came to Vienna to find them.

The trip to Vienna started her smoking again: "I was a good girl for four months", Anne Starkey says and inhales, "but here in Vienna people smoke freely in coffee shops and restaurants and I could not resist it." Maybe it was more than nicotine cravings which prompted her to take up the habit again. The 63-year-old might need something to counteract stress. After all, she arrived in Vienna to look for paintings by her great-uncle which had been looted by the Nazis and might be hanging in various Viennese museums today.