Losing faith in the democratic ideal?
What accounts for the troubled condition of liberal democracy today? Marc F. Plattner asks in the latest issue of The Journal of Democracy: Standard explanations cite factors such as slowing… Read more »
Venezuela opposition wins Sakharov human rights prize
Bonds issued by Venezuela and state oil firm PDVSA dropped sharply on Thursday amid concerns cash-flow problems and regulatory hurdles may leave PDVSA unable to make more than $2 billion… Read more »
North Korea’s ‘Parallel Gulag’ exposed
The brutality of North Korea’s government is exposed in a ground-breaking new report on the regime’s political prisons and prison camps. The Parallel Gulag: North Korea’s “An-jeon-bu” Prison Camps… Read more »
Chinese exceptionalism? Ideology rules in CCP’s new top team
A number of major western news groups whose coverage has irked Beijing were excluded from Xi Jinping’s unveiling of China’s new ruling council on Wednesday – in some cases for the… Read more »
Kenya poll highlights East Africa’s fragile democracies
Kenyans vote Thursday in a repeat presidential election that has East Africa’s economic power on edge once more, AP reports: The Supreme Court shocked Africa last month by nullifying… Read more »
‘Active measures’ in CEE aim to split society, pollute political discourse
Russian hackers conducted “very active” cyber attacks against institutions in the Czech Republic last year, according to the European Union member’s counter-espionage agency, Bloomberg reports: APT28 is a Russian… Read more »
How to defend against Russia’s disinformation war
Facebook has been told to hand over evidence of Russian meddling in British politics to MPs, The Daily Telegraph reports: The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee has demanded… Read more »
As APEC Summit looms, Vietnam escalates crackdown on rights campaigners
Vietnam should drop all charges and immediately release student blogger Phan Kim Khanh, Human Rights Watch said today. Vietnam’s donors and regional leaders should make it clear that they will… Read more »
Political Islam After the Arab Spring: Between Jihad and Democracy?
Around 1,000 Indonesians, led by hardline Islamist groups, protested outside parliament on Tuesday as lawmakers approved a presidential decree banning civil organizations deemed to go against the country’s secular… Read more »
Does Xi – China’s most powerful leader since Mao – plan to ‘do a Putin’?
China’s ruling party moved on Tuesday to confirm Xi Jinping’s status as the country’s most powerful leader in decades by adding his name and ideology to its constitution. Xi’s concept… Read more »