Category: corruption

Malawi’s corruption prompts democracy group pull-out

     

Malawi’s endemic corruption has prompted the National Democratic Institute to cease funding governance and civil society organizations after five years, reports suggest. “The government and other stake holders should come… Read more »

Engage Russia, but ‘grand bargain with Putin is a terrible idea’

     

Advocates of engaging Vladimir Putin’s Russia should avoid fueling unrealistic expectations of a breakthrough and instead seek incremental progress on specific topics based on a set of guiding principles, says… Read more »

Ukraine’s leaders ‘giving up on reuniting the country’?

     

Ukraine’s leaders may be giving up on reuniting the country, The Economist reports: Most Ukrainians say the war in Donbas, as the region is known, is the country’s most important… Read more »

Will Somalia election benefit Shabab?

     

Wednesday’s presidential vote is part of the rebuilding effort in Somalia, which was shattered by more than two decades of conflict and where clan loyalties still tend to trump policy… Read more »

Romania corruption protests: government surrender or strategic retreat?

     

Is there any other country in Europe where the No. 2 politician (head of the Senate) and the No 3 politician (head of the Chamber of Deputies), who have just… Read more »

Latin America: democracy under strain

     

“We are at an interesting moment in modern history,” according to Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States. “There appears to be a growing appetite for populist politics… Read more »

Canada’s new FM a critic of Russia’s ‘authoritarian kleptocracy’

     

  Canada has named Chrystia Freeland, a prominent critic of Russia who was banned by Moscow in 2014, as its new minister of foreign affairs, The Guardian reports: In 2014,… Read more »

Iran’s ‘mythical moderate’: Rafsanjani blended economic liberalism, political authoritarianism

     

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (above, left) , who has died aged 82, was one of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a shrewd politician who many Iranians saw as… Read more »