Category: National Endowment for Democracy

Hong Kong – world’s only case of ‘freedom without democracy’

     

When Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule two decades ago, the city was seen as a model of what China might one day become: prosperous, modern, international, with the broad protections of the rule… Read more »

Iraqi Kurdistan: Civil Society at the Crossroads

     

In 2005, Iraq’s Constitution recognized an autonomous Kurdistan region in the north of the country, run by the Kurdistan Regional Government. Today, with a referendum on independence in speculation for… Read more »

China’s treatment of Liu Xiaobo condemned as ‘a moral and political outrage’

     

The Chinese authorities have refused permission for Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace laureate paroled from prison for cancer treatment, to go abroad for care, one of his lawyers said on Thursday,… Read more »

Sliding into civil war? Venezuela’s ‘drama threatens to turn from farce to tragedy’

     

  Venezuela’s government hunted on Wednesday for rogue policemen who attacked key installations by helicopter, but critics of President Nicolas Maduro suspected the raid may have been staged to justify… Read more »

Angola’s kleptocracy resisting greater scrutiny

     

Angola’s reconstruction and oil boom presented the politically connected — those with “relatives in the kitchen,” as Angolans say — with a golden opportunity for self-enrichment. In an economy driven… Read more »

Elves vs. Trolls: Europe energized against disinformation threat

     

Russia has not hidden its liking for information warfare. The chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, wrote in 2013 that “informational conflict” is a key part of war, The… Read more »

Syrian dissident’s treatment creates disincentive to dialogue

     

A prominent Syrian dissident has been told he cannot get political asylum in the United States because he organized a conference with Syrian opposition groups — even though the American… Read more »

Liu Xiaobo’s condition ‘a blow to China’s democracy movement’

     

China’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was granted his request to seek treatment for advanced liver cancer outside prison. Liu, who was sentenced to prison in 2009 for advocating… Read more »

Democracy in crisis: innovative strategies for turning the tide

     

After the hope engendered by the Third Wave, democracies around the world are beleaguered with threats from multiple sources, according to a new book, described as “a healthy and constructive… Read more »