The doubters of global warming are emboldened by their new ability - as in the “climategate” affair - to put climate researchers on the defensive. But the experience of comparable assaults on the discipline of peace studies in the 1980s suggests that hostile scrutiny can have longer-term benefits for the target.

One of the really insistent questions raised throughout the Convention of Modern Liberty one year ago was the one Anthony Barnett signalled in his opening invitation to participate: " What is the problem to which the database state and the surveillance society is... the solution?"

Lyric Thompson, in her last report from New York, writes that as we close the 54th UN Commission on the Status of Women, there’s no mystery as to what it takes to close the tremendous gap between policy and practice: money. Best-laid plans are moot if not resourced. Invest in women. As the UN motto reminds us, it's our world.

If the actions recommended by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action on Equality, Development and Peace were honoured, Roberta Clarke argues that the Millennium Development Goals could be met.

How is it that the President of Britain's new Supreme Court has been quoting the Book of Deuteronomy in reaching an important judgement?

Olga Kudeshkina made headlines in 2004 as the first Russian judge to flag up political interference in the judicial system. Dismissed for her resistance, she took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and won. Kudeshkina outlines the continued political pressure felt by the judiciary and the barriers in the way of President Medvedev’s intentions to reform.

The Madrid train-bombings on 11 March 2004 provoked a dignified outpouring of collective grief. But the moment was soon reclaimed by Spain’s enduring political warfare over the national past, says Guy Hedgecoe.

An epic military, political, and security scandal continues to absorb Turkey. The affair's latest bizarre sub-plots make the tensions between the country's “deep state” and its constitutional order even more acute, says Bill Park.

Tomas Mowlam reports on a six-year court battle surrounding Britain's flawed stop and search legislation

Remember Second Life? There was a time when everyone was moving in. But where did those worlds go? Social games – indeed, much of the social web that is not a "game", like Facebook itself – have taken on core characteristics of Virtual Worlds without needing some of their more head-turning characteristics. Raph Koster, a designer of virtual worlds, explains that Virtual Worlds only appear to have disappeared because they are now everywhere.

Efforts to revive middle east peace talks overshadowed by Israeli settlement construction in east Jerusalem. Tibet marks anniversary of 1959 uprising. Ahmadinejad in Afghanistan for talks. Governor of Plateau State blames Nigerian army for killings. Aung San Suu Kyi barred from polls. Aid workers killed in Pakistan. All this and more in today’s security briefing.

Although plagued by internal armed conflict, massive displacement, and human rights abuses, the situation in CAR seems almost forgotten by the international community. Anna Husarska argues that more attention to the area is crucial now as the region works toward restoring peace and security

Labour's disgraceful new attack on the Conservatives' opposition to their DNA database

Downtown Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, is ablaze with lights and full of chic shops now. But the paralysing fear remains. Human Rights Watch’s Tanya Lokshina and her Memorial colleagues tell a rare visitor from the West about the kidnappings, about the relatives too fearful to complain...

Power2010's campaign to bring change to UK politics is stepping up a gear.

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A shifting balance of calculation in the middle east makes Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement more confident in its strategy of “deterrence-by-terror” vis-à-vis Israel, says Robert G Rabil

A video of Jonathan Zittrain's lecture at Duke on who owns the archive and the politics of making sure that the Web's memory will persist, with an extended comment by Tony Curzon Price

Burmese military junta unveil laws for elections later this year. French navy captures 35 Somali pirate suspects. Bali bombing mastermind thought dead after shoot-out with Indonesian police. Iran calls for China to withstand sanctions pressure. All this and much more, in today's security briefing.

In the second review of the book on the rule of law by Lord Bingham, the former lord chief justice, Keith Ewing argues that far from being crusaders for the rule of law, our judges regularly fail to protect human rights