Every year on August 13th, lefties around the world celebrate their minority dominant hand on International Left-Handers Day, an event inaugurated in 1976 to raise awareness about living in a right-handed world. Left-handers face physical challenges, to be sure - but what happens when we overlay culture? Pity the poor lefty. Southpaw science tells us they’re creative and smart (most geniuses are left-handed). But they are also live shorter lives (research says nine fewer years!) with a higher risk of psychosis, accidents, insomnia and alcoholism. Lefties are prone to dyslexia ...

Last week, in a fit of unbridled road rage, Suleiman al Assad – a young cousin of Syrian president Bashar al Assad – shot and killed an air force colonel over a traffic dispute . The murder of Hassan al Shaikh kicked off three days of demonstrations in the Syrian seaside city Latakia, and flung this – the hometown of the Assad clan and a regime stronghold throughout the five-year civil war – Alawi-hot spot on the map. Is this the start of a new Syrian splintering? The Britain-based Syrian ...