Kyrgyzstan models itself as Central Asia’s only parliamentary democracy, but multiple challenges threaten its stability, says a new report from the International Crisis Group: Divided ethnically between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks… Read more »
When the battered body of a Cambridge PhD student was found outside Cairo, Egyptian police claimed he had been hit by a car, notes Alexander Stille. Then they said he… Read more »
Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president of 13 years, is often described as a “strongman” who enjoys near absolute power over the oil-rich nation on the Caspian Sea, The Financial Times reports:… Read more »
There have been concerns that democratization is not happening fast enough in Africa, but Julia Leininger, an expert on African Politics from the German Development Institute (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik)… Read more »
There is a reason why the world’s illiberal and authoritarian forces are rooting for a more isolationist U.S. foreign policy, says Josef Joffe (above), editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg… Read more »
A year before a Communist Party conclave that could decide who will eventually replace him as China’s next leader, President Xi Jinping is maneuvering to reduce the power of a… Read more »
On Wednesday evening, Anton Belikov, an artist and lecturer at Moscow’s Surikov Academy of Arts, walked through an exhibition of photographs documenting the war in eastern Ukraine, and threw paint… Read more »
Hun Sen (left), Cambodia’s longtime strongman, faces local elections next year and a national contest in 2018. On his recent provincial swing he pressed flesh, announced local infrastructure projects as… Read more »
The independent Center for Legal Information Cubalex warned Thursday that the attack launched by the regime against it last Friday is not over and that its members could be subject… Read more »
After being expelled from court while trying to defend a client who said he had been tortured, Chinese lawyer Li Jinxing wrote: “Is this what being a lawyer is like…?… Read more »