Israel reverts to its wartime playbook as it manufactures consent for all-out war on Lebanon. In the past couple of weeks, the low-intensity war that Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting across the Lebanon-Israel border for a year has metastasised. Thousands of Lebanese have been forced from their homes as Israeli bombardment has intensified. More than 600 have been killed. Alongside air raids and preparations for a land...

Kolkata, India: Tapas Pal has been making clay idols of various gods and goddesses for the past two decades at Kumartuli, a traditional potters’ hub in Kolkata in eastern India’s state of West Bengal. The 42-year-old, who makes six-metre (20ft) high idols from unfired clay, told Al Jazeera that he would not normally have any spare time in the two months leading up to Durga Puja, the biggest...