Worldcrunch
North Korea lends its full support to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and will supply ammunition to Moscow, which in return will help Kim Jong-un with his space ambitions. With the whiff of a Cold War alliance, it shows how two regimes that have become so isolated they multiply the risks for the rest of the world.
Is it a Russian conspiracy or anti-Paris bias? Or a sign that democracy has never really taken root in post-colonial realities?
Impatient to be rid of a 40-year dictatorship, many Iranians have sunk into despair at the failure of protests last year to topple the Islamic Republic. They must be patient and sober in their immediate expectations, before a longer, ongoing process of change turns Iran into a free nation with the rule of law.
Thai voters spoke in favor of Pita Limjaroenrat’s Move Forward party, bringing hopes of in-depth reform of the country’s institutions. But that doesn’t guarantee Thailand’s opposition forces will be able to form a government, or that the military will ultimately give way.
What should the world make of Kim Jong-un, his young daughter Ju Ae in tow, flexing North Korea’s military hardware? Nothing good, though the scenario that it is mostly just a flex is still the most likely.
To prevent France’s current institutional crisis from leading to a regime crisis, it is not a question of the much criticized pension reform — or even that Emmanuel Macron must resign. A change is needed in the very way French democracy functions.
Nicaraguan publication Divergentes takes a night tour of entertainment spots popular with locals in Managua, the country’s capital, to see how dictatorship and emigration have affected nightlife.
NGOs around the world are facing difficulties as governments criminalize them. The crackdown leaves states less accountable, while the biggest victims are the most vulnerable.
The fundamentally irrational decision to invade Ukraine was the final proof that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been living in a world of illusions. He may be best understood by retracing the steps of history’s other tyrants, and gauging how their stories ended.
Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed’s xenophobic claims that a conspiracy aims to replace Tunisians with sub-Saharan migrants has unleashed racist violence in the country. It’s a sign of the growing authoritarianism of the popular but powerless president.
Inside Iran, people are risking their lives to fight the oppressive Islamic Republic. Now, they need support from compatriots abroad and Western democracies to bring an end to this decades-long fight for democracy.
As the country gears up for a politically-charged run-off election, a team of archaeologists, historians and forensics experts are set to excavate the grounds and buildings of one of the worst torture centers in São Paulo, trying to recover the country’s painful history of torture during the military regime.
Brazilian politics has a long history tainted with violence. As President Jair Bolsonaro threatens to not accept the results if he loses his reelection bid Sunday, the country could explode in ways similar to, or even worse, than the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol after Donald Trump refused to accept his defeat.
Unlike the U.S.-Soviet showdown in 1962, Vladimir Putin’s allusions to his nuclear arsenal come with no sense of rules or limits, and with a more distant memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Iran’s brazen meddling in Iraqi politics has provoked a parliamentary impasse and clashes between rival militias. And while Tehran may be losing influence in Iraq, it won’t let go easily.
Now 64, the transgender poet and activist suffered police torture under the military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s. After a long legal fight, she became the first trans victim of the regime to be granted monetary reparations by the Argentine Justice Ministry for persecution inflicted because of her gender identity.
In the cradle of the Arab Spring, democracy is once again at stake.
Sisters Rante and Satu Vodich fled Russia because they could no longer bear to live under Putin — but their mother believes state propaganda about the war. Her daughters are building a new life for themselves in Georgia.
Russia’s President Putin may speak of denazifying Ukraine, but his words and actions — from the Mariupol maternity hospital to the atrocities of Bucha to Friday’s missile attack on the Kramatorsk railway station — show that he’s taken up the mantle of Europe’s line of fascist dictators. Take a look at those today who still lend him support.
The Cuban government has once again jailed dissenting artists or forced them to flee. But anger at the 60-year dictatorship has spread far beyond artistic circles and the regime no longer has the power to silence people.
-Essay- PARIS — Every aspiring strongman must fulfill a number of prerequisites. He should be skilled at demonizing his opponents and intimidating his allies, manipulating the media and restricting free speech — all the while mixing different doses of serial lying, fear-mongering and nationalism to rile up the masses. But, of course, the long-term success […]
Leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro don’t just bend the truth. By using lies as a consistent political tool, they try to destroy it — as did the fascist regimes of the last century.
Beyond the geopolitical ramifications, what’s happening in Sudan is our problem too. Between the violence from those in charge and the meaning of citizen movements, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
…and the beginning of Francisco Franco’s decades of military dictatorship.
BERLIN — On the bus I now take to university in Berlin every day, I reach compulsively for my phone to check Facebook for updates from Egypt. I see that someone else has been arrested, this time a PhD student like me, who was also doing his fieldwork in Egypt. I get flustered and feel […]
Countries like Colombia, traumatized by decades of violence, have yet to shake off the tyrant’s favored arm of fear. Now it also spreads on social networks.
-Analysis- There is no set recipe for democracy. Still, we can agree that the ingredients must include basic guarantees of free speech and free elections: If you don’t have the right to speak out against those in charge — and eventually vote them out of power — you are living under some form of rule […]
-OpEd- TURIN — Fifty years ago, in January 1968, the reformist leader Alexander Dubcek rose to power in Czechoslovakia. His ascent began a brief era known as the Prague Spring, which ended when peaceful protests against the presence of Soviet troops in the country were violently put down by Russian tanks as the West passively […]
Calling rulers like Venezuela’s Maduro or Nicaragua’s Ortega democratically elected leaders is to mock the real meaning of elections — and democracy.
Critica, May 30, 2017 “El Man Dies,” reads Tuesday’s front page of Panamanian daily Critica, reporting the death of former dictator Manuel Noriega in Panama City at age of 83, with one of his many monikers. Noriega, who died Monday night, was called MAN for the acronym for Manuel Antonio Noriega, although the New York […]
Massive protests Wednesday target recent actions by Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro for banning a referendum and evading parliament. Does he compare to Latin American strongmen of the past?
This African country produces more refugees per capita than any other. But there is method to the madness: Gambia’s dictator systematically banishes people and refuses to accept repatriation agreements. And he receives European funds for his services.
Latin American history in the 20th century is stained with autocrats and human rights violations. But with former victims now elected leaders, why don’t they speak up about political prisoners in Venezuela?
Though many voters believed they were electing a pro-human rights president, Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, has demonstrated no mercy in executions, even for drug trafficking.
Martial law has brought calm but not peace to Thailand. A report released this week by the International Crisis Group warns that the military regime’s stifling of dissent could ultimately lead to greater turmoil. The military claims that the coup d’etat last May was staged to maintain order after six months of street unrest by anti-government protests. They took TV channels and radio stations off the air, and only heavily censored versions have been allowed to return. Several hundred academics and activists have been detained. Many others have fled to the west where they are applying for asylum. From his […]
After Latin America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa want to bury their dictatorships. But it is an arduous and often twisted process of political revolution.
SAO PAULO — During my time in the early 1980s as a correspondent for Folha de S. Paulo in Buenos Aires, I covered more demonstrations of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” — and then of the “Grandmothers” — than I could count. Brave women, their faces furrowed by time and pain, their heads […]
A visit to North Korea reveals fears about the Internet’s pernicious influence on youth, but also a big push in computer science training. The market economy calls, but ‘social control’ is at risk.
A full 25 years after the fall of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the brutal commandant of a labor camp for political prisoners is finally being tried for alleged atrocities.