Life's A Picnic

Navigating the new global archipelago

The Georgia crisis reveals new rules of international diplomacy. Obama had better learn them fast

• Nader Mousavizadeh

McCain isn't Bush and voters know it

The Democrats' strategy is to make the election look like a rerun of 2000 and 2004

• Gerard Baker

Regulating quack medicine makes me feel sick

If alternative remedies are either untested or ineffective, why are we promoting them?

• David Colquhoun

Columnists 

Religion's history of self-inflicted pain

A Muslim is convicted of child cruelty over a religious ritual. Should a secular state interfere?

• A.C. Grayling

A purely academic interest . . .

Imagine what a naked actress would do for the physics syllabus

• Natalie Haynes

Titan prisons will only brutalise their inmates

I do not often agree with the Prison Reform Trust, but on the proposed construction of giant prisons I do wholeheartedly

• Theodore Dalrymple

Leading articles

A Plague on Houses

The Government should not deceive itself or homebuyers that there is an easy remedy for plunging prices - but it can avoid making things worse

Iraq's Sticky Future

Here Be Dragons

Internet maps make travelling a more efficient, but duller, experience

Join the Debate 

Rainy Manchester: second happiest place in Britain

Maligned city beaten only by scenic corner of Wales

Register every voter to prevent fraud, says watchdog

Electoral system requires urgent overhaul to beat postal vote deception

Russia to recognise breakaway states

Both houses of parliament support independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia; now the vote is up to President Medvedev

• US Navy arrives in Georgia to deliver aid

• Russia's 'peacekeepers' dig in to defy anger

Faith 

In an uneasy peace fear haunts Tibetan monks

Monasteries and towns across the restive west of China are on edge, waiting for the Olympic respite from violence to end

Christians stage bible protest at airport

Americans who staged a sit-in at a Chinese airport over 315 confiscated Bibles admitted defeat after almost 30 hours

Age of shroud disputed again

A leading expert on the shroud of Turin demands new tests on the controversial relic, which was dismissed two decades ago as a fake

Is Yoga evil?

According to a leading exorcist, yoga for relaxation may be a path to evil spirits

Obituaries 

Professor John Barron

Classical scholar and Master of St Peter’s College, Oxford, who encouraged an increase in the number of female students

Professor Philip Saffman

Innovative scientist whose research in fluid mechanics bore practical fruit in petroleum extraction and aviation industries

Bertrand Castelli

Producer of the 1967 musical Hair whose life mirrored the essence of a show that became a musical theatre mainstay

John Malcolm

Actor who co-founded the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and was a powerful creative force in its early days