Elections with strong Cold War overtones produced radically different results this weekend in two Central American states “where democracy has been dramatically weakened by violence and political abuse.”

If Venezuelan-funded populism has helped give Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega a landslide …

Turkey has been held up as a potential model for political transition in the Middle East, but civil society groups and intellectuals fear that this week’s round-up of hundreds of alleged Kurdish sympathizers is exposing the fragility of hard-won democratic …

Zimbabwe has been pushed off the media map by the convulsions of the Arab Spring, but forthcoming elections may see a resurgence of the brutal state violence that marred the 2008 poll, say leading activists.

“This is the calm before …

The case of Floribert Chebeya, the Congolese democracy advocate, is the subject of a new must-see documentary (above).  

L’Affaire Chebeya – un crime d’Etat? is directed by Thierry Michel, who has previously produced several celebrated documentaries, including “…

The Arab Spring is serving as a trigger, rather than a driver, for democratic reforms in sub-Saharan Africa, a new analysis contends. Despite recent positive momentum, progress toward a more inclusive distribution of power is facing a “pushback from vested …

The political turmoil in the Middle East represents ”the foreign policy challenge of our time,” says Tamara Cofman Wittes (right, with Tawakkol Karman). The salient role of youth and women in driving the region’s indigenous reform movements are strategically …

Salafist militants recently attacked the home of a Tunisian TV executive after his station broadcast Persepolis, an animated film depicting the life of a young girl growing up in Iran’s Islamic Republic.

They probably won’t like Zahra’s Paradise either.…

Human rights advocates are calling on moviegoers to boycott a forthcoming release because it relies on collaboration with Chinese officials linked to the house arrest of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng (right).

Senior US lawmakers called for Chen’s release after a …

Media rights groups are expressing concern at the prosecution and imprisonment of a leading Azerbaijani journalist, while a civil society forum in Baku (above) heard local activists complained of international indifference – with a couple of notable exceptions – to …

By highlighting cultural reform at the end of its annual plenum last week, China’s ruling Communist Party both drew attention to the country’s moral crisis and demonstrated its own ideological bankruptcy. Citizens were shocked and shamed by the recent incident …