The people of Libya were invariably forced to express their support for Muammar Qaddafi for over 40 years in order to ensure their personal safety. The intolerant and authoritarian nature of Qaddafi's regime constrained Libyan's political, civil, and religious rights by curtailing their freedom of expression and thought, freedom of association, and free access to information.

Read on

Lately I've found myself thinking back to those horrible American soap operas (the "Bold and the Beautiful," etc.) that my late grandmother used to watch. She managed to find interest in what seemed to me like a sickeningly repetitive story (love, betrayal, and borderline incestuous relationships). Each season introduced new protagonists and guest stars who frolicked alongside the core cast. This ensured, for lack of a new storyline, some diversity of faces and names to keep the audience entertained (or at least mildly interested).

Read on

Venezuela's economy is in an endless state of disarray. Inflation is soaring, and basic staples are increasingly harder to find. Electricity blackouts are frequent, and crime presents an enormous problem for citizens and companies crazy enough to do business there.

Read on

This morning, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the city of Zawiya, about 40 km west of the capital, to denounce the takeover of government ministries by armed groups in Tripoli. The demonstration moved on to both Algeria and Martyrs Square, with numbers growing by the hour. The protesters, who have remained there, are calling for the disbanding of all armed militias in Tripoli and the end of the siege.

Read on

April 26 marks 50 years since King Idris as-Senussi of Libya declared the end of federalism.  Libya's prime minister during the time, Mohieddin Fikini, introduced a constitutional amendment passed by the country's three states (Cyrenaica, and Fezzan, and Tripolitania) to unify the country which would now be made up of ten governorates. (Tripolitania was divided into five governorates, Cyrenaica into three governorates and Fezzan into two.)

Read on

After last Sunday's disputed electoral victory by Chávez heir Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela, it seemed, was a country on the brink. Many commentators assumed that further anarchy was unavoidable, positing mass unrest along the lines of the Arab Spring (in which the demonstrators triumphed) or post-election Iran in 2009 (where they didn't). Both scenarios, it should be noted, assumed an uptick in violence. As assumptions go, this was logical enough. In Venezuela, society is divided almost equally between pro-regime and anti-regime groups, and the confrontation between the irresistible force of passionate opposition and the immovable object of government intransigence seemed likely to result in the violent destruction of one or both.

Read on

Events in Venezuela are rapidly coming to a head. Following a flurry of recriminations, a showdown is looming between President Nicolás Maduro, the erratic heir to Hugo Chávez, and Henrique Capriles, the leader of the united opposition and a man facing some very difficult decisions. 

Read on

Venezuela's vice president, Nicolás Maduro, has just barely managed to ride a wave of emotion triggered by the death of the late ex-president Hugo Chávez to claim victory as his successor. On Sunday, Maduro beat opposition leader Henrique Capriles by a little over one percentage point (roughly 200,000 votes), according to the official tally. Maduro now faces two problems: First, his margin of victory was much smaller than what recent polls were suggesting, and second, Capriles is not accepting the results.

Read on

On Sunday, March 31, armed gunmen stormed Libya's Ministry of Justice. The gunmen (reportedly militia members under the Supreme Security Committee) threw Justice Minister Salah Marghani and his staff out of the building in protest over recent televised remarks the minister made during an interview with Libya AhrarTV. 

Read on

A happy Easter to all those celebrating this week!

In the latest for our new Putinology column, Anna Nemtsova reveals the unruly forces that are troubling the Kremlin's security services. 

Juan Nagel bemoans the absurdity of Nicolás Maduro's presidential campaign in Venezuela.

Mohamed Eljarh assesses a weak point in Libya's media reform that is essential to the country's democratic transition.

Jonathan Morduch and Timothy Ogden advocate using microfinance to meet the real financial needs of the world's poor.

Min Zin argues that Burma's political elite have failed their country in preventing a recurring pattern of ethnic violence.

Mohamed El Dahshan makes an emotional appeal not to ignore the struggling revolution in Bahrain. He also criticizes the latest foreign relations decisions of the Egyptian government.

Greg Rushford argues that it's not just the world's advanced economies driving trade inequality.

And now for this week's recommended reads:

Reporting for The New York Times, Alissa J. Rubin shares the economic hardships forcing an Afghani father to give away his daughter, and the government that won't support him.

In a new paper for the New America Foundation, Philip Napoli and Jonathan Obar examine the global phenomenon where new internet users are gaining access by using cell phones instead of computers.

International Crisis Group assesses the growing discontent in Eritrea and the potential for a violent power struggle.

In a recent Issue Perspective for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Stephen Engelken argues that India and Pakistan need to expand their trade ties in order to maintain peace in South Asia.

Kishore Mahbubani responds to Francis Fukuyama's essay "What is governance?" by arguing that good governance is possible without democracy.

Following Russia's latest crackdown on non-profits and activists, Russian journalist Masha Gessen writes for the International Herald Tribune, comparing the tactics to the Soviet Union.

Zainab al-Khawaja, on hunger strike since March 17, escalated her protest last weekend and now refuses liquids as well, risking her internal organs shutting down, according to an urgent appeal by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Read on

Mubarak's Egypt was one of the CIA's favorite destinations under their "extraordinary rendition"  program: A human rights-free zone where torture at the CIA's hands, hampered by delicate legislation, was supervised by the chief of intelligence and Mubarak-era strongman Omar Suleiman himself.

Read on

Earlier this month, Kenya held what analysts have described as perhaps the single most significant sub-Saharan electoral contest in 2013. It was the country's first general election since the widespread post-electoral violence of 2007-2008, which claimed more than 1,200 lives, displaced 350,000 people, and obliterated more than half of the country's GDP in the blink of an eye.

Read on

Graph by Seema Shah

The Supreme Court of Kenya has a lot on its plate. Just one week after the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as president-elect, the court is preparing to read and rule on two cases, both of which challenge the integrity of the electoral process. It has 14 days to make its decision. 

Read on