The world has experienced a decade of decline in democracy, and the downward trajectory is accelerating, Freedom House reports: Nativist sentiments in the United States and Europe are weakening support… Read more »
Is Ethiopia about to crack? The New York Times asks: For the last decade, it has been one of Africa’s most stable nations, a solid Western ally with a fast-growing… Read more »
China’s Communist authorities fretting about potentially “subversive” civil society groups — such as rights lawyers and labor activists — have a new red flag: the upcoming birthday of former president… Read more »
The abortive coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev twenty-five years ago this week and its aftermath have echoes today, argues Stephen Sestanovich, a Columbia University professor and senior fellow at… Read more »
Generations of Chinese have been taught that the Tibetan people are grateful to China for having liberated them from “feudalism and serfdom,” and yet Tibetan protests, including self-immolations, continue to… Read more »
Nepal’s Parliament recently elected Pushpa Kamal Dahal as prime minister, in the country’s 25th change in leadership in 26 years, The New York Times notes: Political instability is harming Nepal’s… Read more »
Three student leaders in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, who led mass rallies and sit-ins in 2014, have been sentenced, the BBC reports: Joshua Wong, who became the teenage face… Read more »
Several leading figures in Bahrain’s civil society who have briefed the State Department on the country’s repression are among those now prevented from leaving the kingdom, says Brian Dooley, Director… Read more »
Resisting the Tyranny of the Possible. This was moral revolution, a revolution of conscience rooted in cultural reclamation, and it resonated through the region because it was entirely congruent with… Read more »
The Formosa scandal in Vietnam has recently made international headlines and offered the international community a rare glimpse into the fringe, but steadily growing, culture of protest and activism in… Read more »