It takes time for societies and policymakers to understand that a major shift in global affairs is afoot. But we are now witnessing the emergence of a new constellation of powers, an authoritarian axis comprising China, Russia, Iran, North …

A bill requiring all foreign-funded civil society groups to register as “foreign agents” was today submitted to the State Duma by the pro-Putin United Russia party. The proposal is the latest sign of a crackdown on the country’s political …

The virtue of the Magnitsky Act, approved by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations this week, is that “it rejects the fiction that Russia is a normalizing country,” says a prominent analyst.

Named in honor of Sergei Magnitsky, a …

Al Qaeda-linked fighters today seized several towns in northern Mali in a marked escalation of the Islamist insurgency.

The Obama administration’s senior official for Africa today dismissed calls for the United States to take the lead in an international …

The “post-Communist oligarchies” are presenting an “unprecedented” threat to liberal democracy, says a prominent Western intellectual.

Russia and China provide a critical challenge to the democratic West because both countries “are attempting to demonstrate a novel proposition: that economic freedoms …

The final revision of Zimbabwe’s controversial draft constitution has been completed and will be officially launched next week, a highly placed source told SW Radio Africa.

The new charter is supposed to enshrine reform and transparency, but representatives of Robert …

An Ethiopian court’s conviction of prominent journalist Eskinder Nega (left), along with several other dissidents and activists, on terrorism charges will have a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression, says the Obama administration.

“We condemn the convictions of Eskinder Nega …

With a new poll indicating that only 15% of Russians fully support Vladimir Putin’s views, it is evident that “cracks are forming in Russian society, threatening the status quo,” says a leading analyst.

But the Kremlin’s strategy of …

Are Asia’s leading Communist-led states squaring up for armed conflict?

China today started “combat ready” patrols in disputed waters in the South China Sea, as a leading Vietnamese dissident called for nationwide protests on Sunday 1st July to press Hanoi’s …

Yemen’s government is struggling to assert its authority, as humanitarian crises and burgeoning insurgencies threaten the country’s tentative transition, a leading UN official warned today.  

His comments coincided with a warning from a leading UK intelligence official that Yemen …