Libya’s UN-brokered unity agreement is fragile at best and could fracture in the event of a stepped-up Western intervention against Islamic State forces, says expert Mary Fitzgerald.

The pope’s encyclical on the environment carries a profoundly religious message about care for the earth, wedded to a new call for activism, say religious scholars Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim.

Post-Qaddafi Libya is riven along regional, economic, and religious lines, and may descend into civil war despite a recent flurry of international diplomacy, says journalist Mary Fitzgerald.

While the UN climate summit will not deliver binding commitments to cut carbon emissions, real action on climate policy is occurring on the domestic front, says CFR’s Michael Levi.

Despite the failure of a supercommittee deficit deal, budget expert Peter Orszag says there will still be opportunity for policies, such as more economic stimulus and cutting healthcare costs, to ave…