World affairs correspondent I predict the unpredictable. That’s the lesson of 2011. In Syria, which moves closer to civil war, expect a “safe haven” straddling one, if not two borders, which will also be exploited by opposition forces. This confrontation will be resolved but there will be many months of violence.

Egypt’s presidential elections will ease but not stop tension between the military and Tahrir Square. Relations between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US will still lurch from crisis to crisis. Jaber Al Thani: The Qatari PM is emerging as a power broker across the Middle East and beyond, using oil wealth to play a key role in Libya, Egypt, Syria and even Afghanistan.

Gen Ashfaq Kayani: Watch how Pakistan’s army chief of staff handles relations with the US, weak civilian leaders at home, and militant groups that serve as proxies in regional rivalry.

Kim Jong-un: Where will North Korea’s new leader, and his powerful guardians, take his country? Most: Egypt’s landmark presidential elections – and the London Olympics, which I hope will inspire me to spend more time in the gym.

Least: Egyptians growing disappointed after the euphoria of their revolution.

And Libyans growing worried about tensions among militias who refuse to give up their guns. Mark Mardell

North America editor Revolution and economic crisis.Tectonic plates are shifting. Five hundred years ago, the West began its political, economic and scientific domination of the world. History since then has been about the impact of this imbalance – but the era is ending. TheUS presidential election is very important. If Obama wins, the country is likely to grind deeper into gridlock. If he doesn’t, his supporters’ frustration and disappointment will be huge. Bo Xilai: Chongqing’s communist party secretary hopes to become one of China’s handful of top leaders. Charismatic, politically flamboyant and populist, he is resurrecting some Maoist traditions and demanding the working class get a bigger slice of the cake. With Wang Yang posing as a champion of democracy and the middle classes also going for a seat on the politburo’s standing committee, it is a contest about China’s future direction. Most: Covering my first US presidential election – and in particular, watching Obama’s strategy unfold. I can’t yet decide if what he is doing is cunning, or if the master of 2008 is desperate for a narrative and has lost his touch.

Least: The story in Europe, my old patch, continuing to be bigger than the American one (at least in the UK). It is like watching someone else with your wife. I moodily read European Council minutes when my day job has ended. Paul Mason

Economics editor, Newsnight The biggest economic story will remain the euro crisis. Logic dictates it can only end one way, with the markets forcing the European Central Bank to act as lender of last resort, against its own rules and culture. The key actors don’t believe it can happen, but the markets are loaded in favour of it. The eurozone is, as Barack Obama put it, “scaring the world” – but I think the US will also go on scaring us with its inability to fix a long-term budget. Andrew Haldane: The UK’s financial troubleshooter may have some trouble to shoot.

Antonis Samaras: The likely victor of the Greek general election.

Marine Le Pen: The head of France’s National Front – can she make the run-off in the presidential election, as her father did 10 years ago? Most: The summit that solves the eurozone crisis – I’ve been to many that were supposed to but did not.

Least: Q1 – the after-Christmas lull has been markedly bad in Western economies in the down-years of this crisis. And the G20 summit at Los Cabos, Mexico – as each year passes, the G20 achieves less and less. Fingers crossed this one doesn’t end in acrimony like Cannes in November. James Robbins

Diplomatic correspondent A dangerously rudderless year with key leaders in the US, China, Russia and France distracted by elections or changes at the top. The decline and eventual fall of the Assad regimein Syria, through a combination of steadily building outside pressure, particularly from the Arab League, increasing economic failure and a growing sense of confidence among opponents. Francois Hollande: The Socialist candidate for the French presidency in the April/May elections. Mr Hollande will defeat Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round of voting. It could be an ugly campaign, with candidates over-promising recovery and disrupting efforts to rescue the eurozone. Ex-PMDominique de Villepin will take votes from both candidates, adding a sense of danger to the contest. Most: The Olympic and Paralympic Games – and an unprecedented festival atmosphere in London throughout the summer.

Least: The arrival in London of the International Olympic Committee and the disruption to traffic caused by their privileged treatment. Rory Cellan-Jones

Technology correspondent The most eye-popping story will be the long-awaited stockmarket flotation of Facebook, valuing the social network at something like $100bn. The most important story will be the spread of internet access to the next billion global users. The most read will probably be the launch of the iPhone 5 or the iPad 3. Tim Cook: Filling some very big shoes after the death of Steve Jobs as the head of Apple.

Michael Acton Smith: A UK web entrepreneur who could become much better known in 2012 if his online children’s game Moshi Monsters continues to attract a global audience. Most: TV and iNew technology at the London Olympics, like Super Hi-Vision, which promises a picture 16 times sharper than HD. Least: More patent battles as giants of the mobile phone world slug it out in court to prove they thought of everything first. The growth of “trolling” – abusive and often anonymous online comments. Will Gompertz

Arts correspondent If the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games is not the biggest British arts story of the year, then either a major unforeseen event has occurred or Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle has failed. A massive global audience will watch to see what visual magic the man behind Slumdog Millionaire conjures up to bring together a fractured world in a moment of shared emotion. I think he’ll pull it off. Big names will dominate: artists Damien Hirst, Lucien Freud, David Hockney, Tracey Emin and Pablo Picasso all feature in major monographic exhibitions, and Hilary Mantel, William Boyd and Salman Rushdie have new books out. Finally, young British soul singer Michael Kiwanuka is likely to give Lana Del Rey a run for her money in the Debut Album of the Year stakes. Most: Survivor, by choreographerHofesh Shechter, which has its premiere in London in January. Martin Creed’s Bells project for the opening morning of the Olympics, and Irvine Welsh’s new novel, Skagboys.

Least: Local theatres, libraries and arts centres struggling or closing due to lack of financial support and/or weak leadership. Mad Men. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - it’s just not my kinda thing. Owen Bennett-Jones

Presenter Greater freedom of expression in the Middle East coupled with US diplomatic weakness will leave Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu looking increasingly isolated. Protests against unaccountable, non-taxpaying political and business elites will grow. Demands that the 1% receive less pay and pay more tax will find ever greater resonance. President Bashar al Assad: Despite thousands more civilian deaths in Syria, President Assad will remain in charge of his country, shrugging off international condemnation.

Hamza Bin Laden: Osama Bin Laden’s most jihadi-minded son aka the Prince of Terror, will get a greater public profile. Most: More delicious scandals in which the hitherto secret wrongdoings of senior politicians, media moguls and business leaders are exposed.

Least: Watching senior politicians, media moguls and business leaders carry on as if nothing happened.
Filed under: events and communication ]]> http://defencedebates.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/predictions-for-2012/feed/ 1 defencedebates Lyse Doucet Mark Mardell Paul Mason James Robbins Rory Cellan-Jones Will Gompertz Owen Bennett-Jones http://defencedebates.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/cern-moment-of-truth/ http://defencedebates.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/cern-moment-of-truth/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:06:41 +0000 defencedebates http://defencedebates.wordpress.com/?p=5398 ]]>

The Higgs search is approaching its endgame at Cern

In recent months, news headlines have been dominated by one story from the world of particle physics – those befuddling faster-than-light neutrinos.

Such is the interest in those speedy sub-atomic particles that developments in the search for the elusive Higgs boson – usually covered at every twist and turn by journalists – have been all-but eclipsed.

Earlier this month, physicists announced results of a combined search for the Higgs by the Atlas and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Their analysis, presented at a meeting in Paris, shows that physicists have now covered a large chunk of the search area in detail, ruling out a broad part of the mass range where the boson could be lurking.

An even more important milestone in the Higgs hunt beckons in December.

The Higgs explains why other particles have mass, making it crucial to our understanding of the Universe. But it has never been observed by experiments.

Small window

Researchers have now excluded the possibility that the Higgs (in its conventional form) will be found between the masses of 141 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) and 476 GeV.

Continue reading the main story

Statistics of a ‘discovery’

• Particle physics has an accepted definition for a “discovery”: a five-sigma level of certainty
• The number of standard deviations, or sigmas, is a measure of how unlikely it is that an experimental result is simply down to chance rather than a real effect
• Similarly, tossing a coin and getting a number of heads in a row may just be chance, rather than a sign of a “loaded” coin
• The “three sigma” level represents about the same likelihood of tossing more than eight heads in a row
• Five sigma, on the other hand, would correspond to tossing more than 20 in a row
• Unlikely results can occur if several experiments are being carried out at once – equivalent to several people flipping coins at the same time
• With independent confirmation by other experiments, five-sigma findings become accepted discoveries

Finding the Higgs boson at a mass of 476 GeV or more is considered highly unlikely.

This means that physicists are now focussing their hunt on the remaining “low mass” range – a small window between 114 GeV and 141 GeV.

Within that window, there is an intriguing “excess” in observations – a Higgs hint, perhaps – that stands out at 120 GeV.

But as fluctuations go, this one is relatively weak – at around the two-sigma level of certainty.

This roughly equates to a one in 22 chance that the observation is down to chance. A five sigma level is needed for a formal discovery.

There is also a broader “excess” above that mass. And it must be stressed that such hints may come and go.

But there is an even more intriguing possibility: that the boson may not exist at all, at least in its simplest form.

This is the version of the Higgs that conforms to the Standard Model, the framework drawn up to explain how the known particles – from the quarks to the W and Z bosons to the neutrinos – interact.

In this “zoo” of particles, the Higgs remains hidden in the long grass of its enclosure, invisible to the prying eyes of visitors.

Beginning of the end

The search by the LHC has already moved on from the data presented earlier this month.

Teams of scientists at the facility on the Franco-Swiss border have been busy analysing a whopping five inverse femtobarns of data collected by the LHC’s experiments up to October this year.

The Atlas and CMS collaborations will present independent analyses of this data set at a seminar in Geneva on 13 December. The respective teams have not had the time to combine their results, as they did for the Paris seminar.

They might see completely different things.

Or, more promisingly, they could both see a fluctuation at around the same mass – as they did when researchers presented findings at the Europhysics meeting in Grenoble, France, in July.

“If you look at the data, it’s about five times as much as was presented at the summer conferences,” said Dr James Gillies, director of communications at Cern (the Geneva-based organisation that operates the LHC).

“It’s possible to exclude much more of the available range for the Higgs.

“It’s possible – but I think extraordinarily unlikely – to exclude the Higgs definitively. It’s possible that there will be signs something is there.

Continue reading the main story

What is an inverse femtobarn?

• The “barn” is a unit of area used in particle collider physics
• It derives from the measure of a uranium atom’s nucleus – comparatively large among atoms, or as physicists joked, “as big as a barn”
• A femtobarn is a millionth of a billionth of a barn
• That’s just 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001 square centimetres
• The inverse femtobarn is a measure of how many particles have smashed into one another in an area equal to one femtobarn

“But what’s not possible is to give a definitive discovery announcement, on the status of the analysis, given the time they’ve had.”

Either way, scientists are waiting with bated breath for the December seminar, which will – at the very least – mark the beginning of the end for the Higgs race.

“We are pushing very hard to present preliminary results on the entire statistics,” said Dr Guido Tonelli, spokesperson for the CMS collaboration.

He told BBC News that with five inverse femtobarns of data, the researchers will have sufficient sensitivity that “if there is something, we should see first hints. If there is nothing we should see no excess”.

“It is the first yes or no. It will very likely not be conclusive – to be really sure at the highest confidence level, we might need to combine the data [from Atlas and CMS] again and collect additional data next year.

“But we are entering a phase where it will be very interesting – this I know.”

‘Uneasy rumour’

The rumour mill is already churning vigorously, and is likely to enter overdrive as the December seminar approaches.

The blogger known as Jester recently proffered a Soviet-inspired analogy: “An uneasy rumour is starting among the working class and the lower-ranked party officials.

“Is the first secretary dead? Or on life support? Or, if he’s all right, why he’s not showing in public?”

A definitive statement about the Higgs is likely to come next year.

The suggestion that particle physicists have been chasing a chimera for decades is one that some will not want to contemplate. But others regard as a more exciting possibility.

A no-show would open up a new era of activity in particle physics – one focussed on finding an alternative theory to patch up the hole in the Standard Model left by the excision of the Higgs.

Indeed, there is already a substantial body of work on alternatives to the Standard Model Higgs.

As Prof Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director-general of Cern, says, either scenario would represent “a tremendous discovery”.

And one particle physicist speaking at the Europhysics conference this year summed it up thus: “God forbid that all we find at the LHC is the Standard Model Higgs and no new physics.”

By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News Website

Nelson Mandela’s biography The Long Walk to Freedom became an international bestseller and is being made into a film. But the famous book may never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for the bravery and persistence of another Robben Island inmate.

“We were housed in individual cells, each cell had a window looking out into the corridor. Warders patrolled day and night, lights were on 24 hours a day.”

Mac Maharaj was one of four long-term prisoners on Robben Island secretly collaborating on the first draft of the autobiography of Nelson Mandela – along with other Africa National Congress activists Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu.

“Mandela had to write every night. He wrote on average 10-15 pages with very little reference material – he wr

rote by discussion and recollection,” says the 76-year-old.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Although it was not published while I was in prison, it [Maharaj's manuscript] forms the basis of this memoir ”

Nelson MandelaLong Walk to Freedom

“The next morning it would circulate to Kathrada and Sisulu for their comments, which would come back to me to transcribe. And the next night he would write another 10-15 pages.”

Both men would sometimes feign illness so they could stay in the grounds and spend their time working alone in the prison quadrangle. Writing was strictly a night time affair, but this was their opportunity to discuss the copy and the edits.

Their determination to write overcame the fear of being caught.

“We were living in a society where the history of our struggle was not covered anywhere – not even in academia. Everything in history was the history about the white man.

“So that in itself was an exciting exercise to put down on paper the life of one man who was so central [to the struggle], and whose autobiography was really a political autobiography.One had a sense that Mandela had already become a national and international figure and that it would be an inspiration to read our history.”

Mandela’s writings were transcribed by Mahararaj behind bars (National Archives of South Africa, courtesy NMF)

They used thin sheets of lined A4 paper from a stash of stationary available to prisoners, many of whom were studying for degrees – Mr Maharaj included.

“I had to transcribe it into a form that I could hide. We used both sides of [the paper], and we used tiny handwriting.”

Mr Maharaj’s painstakingly scribbled transcriptions were hidden amongst his study materials – 60 sheets of paper concealed in the covers of a handmade file that was used to carry statistical maps.

Continue reading the main story

‘Mac’ Maharaj

• Satyandranath Ragunanan Maharaj was born in 1935 to Hindu parents in Natal
• By 1962 he had a degree in psychology, studied law in England, and undertook military training in Germany
• He returned to South Africa in the early 1960s as an ANC member, active in its armed wing
• In 1965 he began a 12-year sentence at Robben Island, along with Nelson Mandela
• After his release from prison (above left) and escape from house arrest, Maharaj went into exile, returning to South Africa in the late 1980s
• In 1994 he became ANC minister for transport in a government led by Mandela

Meanwhile, Mr Mandela’s handwritten copy – the original draft of the book – was put into tin containers and buried in a vegetable patch.

One October afternoon Mac Maharaj was unexpectedly called to the prison offices and told he wouldn’t be returning to his cell. He would be moving on – leaving without his belongings.

After a moment of panic, he began arguing with the guards – demanding to return to pack up his books and study materials, which contained the all-important transcriptions.

Still apparently oblivious of his clandestine work with Mandela, the guards allowed him to leave with some books, which contained some of the writings. And thinking on his feet, he hatched another plan.

“I had the presence of mind to say, ‘My books are lent out, exchanged with people and there are books in my cell that don’t belong to me. So go to Kathrada, go to Sisulu. Ask them to help to pack my books.’”

Mr Maharaj was not allowed back to his cell, and was shipped off Robben Island, but his fellow inmates managed to get the rest of the transcripts out, still undiscovered in his books and his file. Out of prison but under house arrest, he was reunited with his boxes two months later in December 1976.

Soon after he left prison, the guards began to build a wall at the spot in the prison garden where Mandela’s own papers were hidden. The tins were found, and the handwriting on the manuscript was tested – implicating all four men, although only the three still incarcerated could be punished.

Continue reading the main story

The Robben Island biographers

• Nelson Mandela, the prison’s most famous inmate, was there from 1964-82, in total serving 27 years behind bars
• Walter Sisulu was a member of the ANC, imprisoned with Mandela (both pictured) and released 26 years later in 1989
• Mac Maharaj was a member of the South African Communist Party, jailed in 1964 for sabotage after the Little Rivonia Trial, but a free man in 1976 and later Minister for Transport
• Ahmed Kathrada served 27 years, 18 at Robben Island, and later became a member of parliament

After six months of house arrest, Mr Maharaj slipped out of the country and headed for the UK. The secret file had been sent on ahead, to be delivered into the safekeeping of a trusted friend, anti-apartheid activist Rusty Bernstein.

In the summer of 1977, the men met in central London along with another close cohort, Yusef Dadoo. The file was hidden in the Communist Party offices where Rusty worked. After a cup of coffee in a tearoom on nearby Goodge Street, Mr Maharaj finally had the file in his hands.

“I ripped the covers and out came all these pages. Rusty and Dadoo – both their mouths were agape. It was mission accomplished. We had successfully smuggled it out. It had come out intact.”

This affirmed the wisdom of having two copies of the manuscript. The original script handwritten by Mr Mandela had been discovered in Robben Island and now forms part of the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s archives in Johannesburg. But Mr Maharaj’s transcript had survived.

It had to wait another 18 years before being read by millions around the world, because the ANC were firm in their belief that the precious transcript had to wait until after Mr Mandela’s release from jail, to see the light of day.

But it formed the framework for his hugely successful autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom published in 1995.

On page 572, Mr Mandela himself pays tribute to the importance of Mr Maharaj’s transcript in forming the template of his bestseller.

“Although it was not published while I was in prison, it forms the basis of this memoir.”

By Karen AllenBBC News, Johannesburg

Ralph M. Steinman, M.D.
Senior Physician
Henry G. Kunkel Professor
Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology


Dendritic cells, which were originally codiscovered by Dr. Steinman with Zanvil A. Cohn at Rockefeller, are pivotal to the adaptive and innate branches of the immune system. Dr. Steinman’s research focuses on the mechanisms employed by dendritic cells to regulate lymphocyte function in tolerance and immunity, as well as the use of dendritic cells to understand the development of immune-based diseases and the design of new therapies and vaccines.

The immune system contains a system of dendritic cells, which captures, processes and presents antigens and provides additional controls on the development of antigen-specific immunity and tolerance. Because of these functions, dendritic cells (DCs) are providing an important means to monitor and manipulate immune function in several disease states.

One set of DC functions involves the capture of protein antigens, which are then converted to peptides within either the endocytic system or the cytoplasm. The peptides bind to newly synthesized products of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) — a region of the genome important for immunity and autoimmunity — and then exit to the cell surface for presentation to T cells. DCs express a number of distinct receptors for antigen uptake and processing. One of these receptors is the multilectin DEC-205. Following DEC-205-mediated uptake, antigens are efficiently presented on both MHC class I and II molecules.

Also under study is a new family of C-type lectins, called SIGNs, that recognize clinically important infectious agents. For example, DC-SIGN has an endocytic function but also binds and transmits HIV-1 from DCs to T lymphocytes. DC-SIGN is proving to be a valuable marker for certain macrophages and for monocyte-derived DCs.

A second set of DC functions relates to their role in the control of tolerance and immunity. In the absence of infection, DCs efficiently capture and process harmless self- and environmental antigens and induce immune silencing or tolerance. But during infection, DCs undergo an intricate differentiation process termed maturation. DCs express additional receptors that allow them to respond to microbial components and other environmental cues to become adjuvants, or catalysts, for the initiation of immunity. Dr. Steinman’s lab is linking the maturation of DCS in situ with the uptake and processing of antigens, using new methods to selectively target the antigens to DCs. This work results in antigen presentation on both MHC class I and II products, leading to the formation of functioning CD8+ killer and CD4+ helper T lymphocytes. The group is currently targeting microbial, self- and tumor antigens to DCs in different maturational states in the context of different diseases, including HIV-1 and autoimmune diabetes.

While DCs provide important innate and adaptive resistance mechanisms to infections, they also present self-antigens and harmless proteins from the environment, thereby actively silencing or tolerizing the immune system and defining immunological “self.” Along with the Rockefeller laboratories of Michel C. Nussenzweig and Jeffrey V. Ravetch, Dr. Steinman’s group is currently investigating active antigen-specific suppressor or regulatory T cell mechanisms that allow DCs to induce tolerance.

Dr. Steinman’s codiscovery of dendritic cells, with his collaborator Zanvil A. Cohn, and his subsequent work on this new class of immune cells have led to the characterization of DCs as important and unique accessories in the onset of several immune responses, including graft rejection, resistance to tumors, autoimmune disease and infections. His work has led to a new understanding of the control of tolerance and immunity and was the genesis for a new field of study within immunology: the role of DCs in immune regulation, their potential for discovering new vaccines and treatments of autoimmune disorders.

CAREER

Dr. Steinman received his undergraduate degree from McGill University in 1963 and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1968. After an internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined Rockefeller in 1970 as a postdoc in the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology. He was appointed assistant professor in 1972, associate professor in 1976 and professor in 1988. In 1995 he was named the Henry G. Kunkel Professor, and in 1998 he was appointed director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases.

Dr. Steinman was the recipient of the A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine in 2010, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research in 2009 and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 2007. He received the Debrecen Prize in Molecular Medicine in 2006, the New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology in 2004, the Novartis Prize in Immunology in 2004 and the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2003. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/faculty/labheads/RalphSteinman/

Opposition groups in Syria have announced the formation of a united front against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian National Council (SNC) comprises groups from across Syria’s fractured opposition landscape. Chairman Burhan Ghalioun has said the SNC unites the “forces of opposition and the peaceful revolution”.

What is the SNC?

The SNC is a coalition of seven Syrian opposition factions aimed at offering a credible alternative to Mr Assad’s regime. Its formation recalls that of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), which earned international recognition through its opposition to the rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and is now leading the country’s affairs.

Ghalioun has said the body is “an independent group personifying the sovereignty of the Syrian people in their struggle for liberty” and is “open to all Syrians”.

The SNC plans to elect a chairman and stage a general assembly of 190 members next month.

Which parties are involved?

Among the seven groups included are:

• The Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change grouping – a movement born during the so-called “Damascus Spring” of 2005 which called for broad democratic reform, and was suppressed by the Assad regime.

• The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood – A banned Islamic political party, membership of which can be punishable by death under Syrian law.

• Local Coordination Committees – Grass-roots movements that have led demonstrations across the country.

• Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) – a coalition of 40 opposition blocs.

• Kurdish factions, tribal leaders and independent figures make up the rest of the council.

How was it formed?

Since May, there have been several attempts to unite the various anti-government movements in Syria.

An early incarnation of the council was established in August during the opposition conference in Istanbul, but failed to unify the ethnically, religiously and politically fragmented factions of the opposition. There were a number of disputed issues and the Local Coordination Committees declared that the council did not represent them.

Opposition leaders such as Ghalioun insisted on the importance of achieving unity within the council and ensuring that all the factions were adequately representation.

The formation of the SNC was formally announced in Istanbul on Sunday, following a two day meeting on structure and aims.

What are its aims?

The main declared aim of the SNC is to provide “the necessary support for the revolution to progress and realise the aspirations of our people for the overthrow of the regime, its symbols and its head”. It has officially rejected foreign military intervention, but has urged the international community to “protect the Syrian people”.

The SNC National Consensus Charter lists human rights, judicial independence, press freedom, democracy and political pluralism among its guiding principles.

A former Muslim Brotherhood leader has said the party supports “the establishment of a modern, civil, democratic state.”

Who is Burhan Ghalioun?

An academic based in France, Ghalioun is a prominent opposition figure who has regularly called for democratic reform across the Arab world.

He was born in Homs in 1945 and studied philosophy at Damascus University. He also holds a PhD in humanities and philosophy from the Sorbonne.

What was the response in Syria?

Al-Jazeera has reported that protesters in Al-Bayyadah and Al-Hawlah in the province of Homs took to the streets in support of the SNC while chanting for international support.

In contrast, Syrian MP Anas al-Shami has said the SNC has no legitimacy and is implementing an agenda set by Israel, the US and other “conspirators targeting Syria”.

Will they succeed?

Achieving the support of protesters is a plus for the SNC, but there are doubts as to whether it will succeed in consolidating its position should it achieve its stated aim of toppling the regime.

Syria’s opposition is notoriously fragmentary and questions have been asked as to how a coherent political framework can be established amid apparently contrasting political and religious ideologies.

The SNC National Consensus Charter has affirmed that a consensus exists across “all spectrums of the opposition” and pledged to build a “proud and dignified nation that accommodates its entire people”.

bbc.co.uk