“Four Saudi activists are under investigation after forming a human rights group on April 3, 2013, and could face prosecution for ‘establishing an illegal organization,’ Human Rights Watch said today:
Saudi authorities should immediately cease harassing the four founding …
“Bolivian President Evo Morales has said he will expel the US Agency for International Development (USAID)” the BBC reports:
Mr Morales (above right) accused the agency of seeking to “conspire against” the Bolivian people and his government. USAID has …
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro today “put the country’s electricity supplies on an emergency footing after Caracas and outlying areas plunged into darkness amid repeated blackouts,” UPI reports: Power cuts were a recurring problem for late President Hugo …
Despite efforts on the part of the Jordanian government to favorably portray its commitment to reform, a perception gap regarding the process and pace of transition to a constitutional monarchy persists, writes Curtis Ryan, in a new report from the …
Writing on Open Democracy Russia yesterday, Almut Rochowonski argued that Kremlin’s repression of NGOs could work in their favour by encouraging domestic giving. Her mistake was assuming Russian NGOs are able and free to replicate Western membership-based fundraising models, which …
“This is historically unheard of,” says one analyst. “We’ve never before seen a political process where a term is indefinitely extended.”
“Two months have passed since Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez climbed the stairs of the presidential jet, blew kisses to …
President Mohamed Morsi has ordered Egypt’s army to assume police powers, including the right to arrest civilians. The move comes on the eve of mass rival demonstrations on the controversial draft constitution.
It orders the military to fully cooperate with …
A U.S.-led initiative to restructure and unify Syria’s opposition has drawn an angry response from an exiled umbrella group.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. no longer considered the Syrian National Council to be the opposition’s …
Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the transitional president of Yemen (left), is doing everything he can to bring various factions to a national dialogue planned for the middle of November 2012, writes Sanaa-based analyst Nasser Arrabyee.
If successful, the dialogue …
At a time of democratic regression, even in supposedly consolidated democracies, an important new book on the ‘Sovietization’ of eastern Europe explains the allure of the ‘totalitarian temptation’ and describes the techniques with which authoritarian rule is imposed, not …