China: Struggle at the Top
If democracy has an advantage over authoritarianism, it is that the struggles of interest, power, and ego that are the unavoidable stuff of human life take place in the open,… Read more »
Category: Dictatorships
‘Hegemonic transition’? China stakes claim for globalism without liberalism
Hun Sen, Cambodia’s prime minister of 32 years’ standing, has experienced the benevolent embrace of both the west and China. But there is no doubt over Mr Hun Sen’s preferred… Read more »
Veteran Polish dissident braced for fresh battle
After years in jail as a dissident under communism, Adam Michnik took part in the groundbreaking 1989 Round Table talks that brought semi-free elections to Poland and helped bring down… Read more »
Blacklisting Muslim Brotherhood ‘may backfire’
Proposals to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood are raising questions about appropriate strategies to counter violent extremism, The Wall Street Journal reports: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in particular, is a strong supporter… Read more »
Low trust downgrades U.S. to ‘flawed democracy’ status, says EIU
The U.S. has been downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The group’s Democracy Index considers “60 indicators across five broad categories:… Read more »
Will Jangmadang lead to an opening of North Korea?
Since the mid-1990s, when an estimated one million people died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses during the famine that plagued North Korea, jangmadang (private markets) have emerged as a critical means of… Read more »
Amnesty demands urgent action for Cuban dissident ‘El Sexto’
Cuban graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado Machado (‘El Sexto’ – left) continues to be detained in a maximum-security prison, a month and a half after his arrest, Amnesty International reports. “El Sexto”,… Read more »
Cuba arrests prominent dissident
An outspoken critic of the Castro regime who was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom was arrested on Wednesday by Cuban authorities. Dr. Óscar Elias Biscet (far left) was… Read more »
Azerbaijan’s ‘Caviar Diplomacy’ exposed
Prominent Azerbaijani blogger Mehman Huseynov (left) whose efforts to expose high-level corruption have irked President Ilham Aliyev’s government has been detained and charged with disobeying the police, Radio Free Europe/Radio… Read more »
No Kerensky: Mário Soares a pivotal figure in Portugal’s democratic transition
Mário Soares, a pivotal figure in Portugal’s transition from dictatorship to democracy who as prime minister led his long-impoverished country into the European Union, died Saturday. He was 92 years old,… Read more »