By Luisa Frey
♦ "Are the states of the Near East coming apart – especially along faultlines between Sunni and Shia Muslims that run from Beirut to Bagdad?" asks the FT's David Gardner. The battle between the two groups is destroying the borders drawn up by European imperialists and creating boundaries based on ethnicity and religion. ♦ Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had no choice but to recognise the nation's desperation for an end to isolation and is now keeping his options open with the nuclear deal, writes the FT's Roula Khalaf. ♦ The New Yorker has a profile of British blogger Eliot Higgins, know as Brown Moses, who has never been to Syria, but has become "perhaps the foremost expert on the munitions used in the war". ♦ In Brazil, one more corruption scandal has become public. Investigators claim that a group of tax inspectors allowed construction companies to evade more than $200m in taxes in exchange for bribes, writes the New York Times. ♦ In periods of uncertainty , Switzerland turns to national superhero William Tell. Like Tell, who refused to bow to an Austrian lord’s hat, the country feels put upon by foreign powers that have pressured it to change its ways in the wake of the financial crisis, writes the Wall Street Journal. Read more | 
