Burmese insurgent armies, Iraq reinforcements and extremism in the Philippines.

This month’s military news round-up, looking at conscription in Austria, budget cuts in the US and smaller-scale deployments in Guatemala.

Mauricio Funes has given up his career as a TV journalist in a bid to become president of El Salvador. Ahead in the polls, he’s the new face of the FMLN, the former left-wing guerrilla group. Would victory see him join the…

Our new series, national icons, is about people who rise above politics to become symbols of a country’s strengths. First we meet May Arida who has kept Lebanon’s Baalbek festival alive despite wars and threats. She also…

The Paraguay priest running for president, and a Style Leaders special on the Republican party's presidential candidates.

Vietnam orders $1,8bn worth of submarines to keep up with the neighbours, Peru gets kitted out to deal with a guerilla resurgence and Russian upgrades its stealth bombers.

A country of 7,000 islands and almost as many contradictions, the Philippines is living out its past and embracing its future through the trials of one powerful dynasty: the incomparable Marcos family.

Decades of warfare against drug cartels and armed guerillas have provided Colombia with a valuable asset. Countries across Latin America are sending their troops and police to learn the techniques of its elite Jungla unit…

How do you persuade a Somali pirate to release his hostages or rebel kidnappers to let their abductees go? We meet the negotiators out to fix the world in 2011.

The sheer breadth of countries covered by the defence-themed analyses in this issue illustrates the dizzying scale of modern-day conflicts. Some are in full flow, others are receding and many are threatened; all require our…

The mayor of Colombia’s second city is forging ahead with plans to fight inequality and cut the murder rate. His success may hinge on the creation of new jobs and an influx of foreign business.

From the presidents of Turkey and Colombia to the leader of the Israeli Labor party, Monocle interviews five political leaders from some of the world’s most volatile regions.

On the island of O’ahu in Hawaii, members of a local independence movement have succeeded in winning back land claimed by the US in 1893. Now many are calling for nothing less than Hawaii’s complete secession from US rule…

Two years after the war with Israel, another battle was raging in Lebanon among its own people. But as the bullets flew, there was still time for mojitos – the Lebanese are used to surviving crises. Our correspondent…