The cumulative effect of recent moves by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party has been to throw India’s democratic character and future into a precarious state not… Read more »
Two countries became notably less despotic in 2019. In Sudan mass protests led to the ejection of Omar al-Bashir, one of the world’s vilest tyrants. However, the risk that thugs from… Read more »
Beijing’s response to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests demonstrates that far from enabling China’s peaceful reunification, the “one country, two systems” model is undermining it, argues Chin-Huat Wong, a professor of… Read more »
The United States ranks 15 in the Human Freedom Index 2019 released today by the Cato Institute, Canada’s Fraser Institute, and the Liberales Institut at Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom…. Read more »
….or will algorithms someday be used to optimize the ballot box, The Economist asks in a must-read long essay: @TheEconomist When it comes to eroding an existing democracy, rather than… Read more »
It is a mistake to conflate militarized forms of regime change with advancing democracy, observers suggest. The morality of a president’s foreign policy should be gauged on a rubric based… Read more »
Chinese authorities are knitting together old and state-of-the-art technologies — phone scanners, facial-recognition cameras, face and fingerprint databases and many others — into sweeping tools for authoritarian control, according to police and private… Read more »
The UN General Assembly will consider a draft resolution on protection of human rights in the occupied Crimea, according to a tweet by Ukraine’s Mission in the UN. “December 18, UNGA to consider a… Read more »
A Russian-linked operation aimed at dividing Western allies spread disinformation on social media for three years, according to a new analysis, Bloomberg reports: Hundreds of accounts on multiple internet platforms… Read more »
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Tuesday came out in support of Arsenal player Mesut Özil for his criticism of China’s treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims, saying Beijing can censor… Read more »
