PBS: Escaping Eritrea … [Read More...] about ካብ ውሽጢ ቤት ማእሰርታት ኤርትራ
UPFRONT
Putin’s Patriarch
George Soroka | February 11, 2016 | FOREIGN AFFAIRS Does the Kremlin Control the Church? In The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington memorably bemoaned that, whereas in the West there has historically existed a divide between the secular and sacred realms, elsewhere in the world they are inseparably tangled. “In Islam,” he wrote, “God is Caesar; in China and Japan, … [Read more...] about Putin’s Patriarch
The Death of the Most Generous Nation on Earth
James Traub | 10 February 2016 | FOREIGN POLICY Little Sweden has taken in far more refugees per capita than any country in Europe. But in doing so, it’s tearing itself apart. The Swedish Migration Agency in Malmo, the southern port city on the border with Denmark, occupies a square brick building at the far edge of town. On the day that I was there, Nov. 19, 2015, hundreds … [Read more...] about The Death of the Most Generous Nation on Earth
World hunger: What are the most undernourished countries?
Ashley Kirk |10 Feb 2016 | THE TELEGRAPH The world is still blighted by hunger, with some countries having almost half their population unable to get enough food on a daily basis There are around 795 million people who are undernourished around the world, the majority of which are in Africa and Asia. This number has fallen by 167 million over the last decade, with … [Read more...] about World hunger: What are the most undernourished countries?
Moscow Just Razed Its Small Businesses and Became Even Blander
Masha Gessen | February 10, 2016 | THE NEW YORKER While most of Moscow slept Monday night, the city government razed ninety-seven small commercial buildings that housed stores and cafés. Seven more are slated for destruction later in the month. The businesses in these buildings employed up to several dozen people each, so upward of a thousand Muscovites woke up unemployed. … [Read more...] about Moscow Just Razed Its Small Businesses and Became Even Blander
Eritrea: Court Rules in Favour of Dutch Human Rights Advocate
Reinhardt Jacobsen | 10 February 2016 | IDN AMSTERDAM (IDN) - A Court in Amsterdam struck down Meseret Bahlbi lawsuit against Mirjam van Reisen, Dutch professor and human rights advocate. The judge found that she was not guilty of libel and slander and that the youth party of the Eritrean regime can be seen as a means of collecting intelligence abroad. The decision comes … [Read more...] about Eritrea: Court Rules in Favour of Dutch Human Rights Advocate
Chechen special forces are on the ground in Syria and ‘have infiltrated Isis cells’, says Ramzan Kadyrov
Nadia Beard Moscow | Monday 8 February 2016 | THE INDEPENDENT The report and its rebuttal by the Kremlin show cracks in the official narrative about Russia’s presence in Syria and suggest Mr Kadyrov has spun out of Moscow’s control Chechen special forces loyal to Vladimir Putin are on the ground in Syria, embedded inside Isis-controlled territory … [Read more...] about Chechen special forces are on the ground in Syria and ‘have infiltrated Isis cells’, says Ramzan Kadyrov
Changing Tides
Robbie Gramer | February 8, 2016 | FOREIGN AFFAIRS Russia's Growing Stronghold in the Black Sea Just two years ago, when Russia annexed Crimea, NATO saw its tenuous, 25-year-long attempt to forge a partnership with the Eastern power dissolve overnight. Since then, to respond to Europe’s dangerous new security climate, NATO has looked to the Baltic states, where … [Read more...] about Changing Tides
The Dictators Who Love America
Stuart A. Reid | Feb 8, 2016 | THE ATLANTIC Authoritarian leaders like the Gambia's Yahya Jammeh seem to relish the West's wealth. Why doesn’t the United States use that against them? For those of us lucky enough to live in democracies, it is comforting to imagine foreign dictators as wholly foreign. The world seems less complicated when an autocrat fits the … [Read more...] about The Dictators Who Love America
When Bob calls the kettle black
Ra'eesa Pather | 05 Feb 2016 | MAIL & GUARDIAN The trouble is Mugabe probably knows that, according to international laws, he’s not much better than those he is criticising. Some of the most powerful leaders in the world sat around him, chortling as he candidly dissed the West and bursting into applause when he told them Africa would no longer accept a position of … [Read more...] about When Bob calls the kettle black
‘Let’s Go Take Back Our Country’
Stuart A. Reid | March 2016 Issue | THE ATLANTIC What happened when 11 exiles armed themselves for a violent night in the Gambia In the dark hours of the morning on December 30, 2014, eight men gathered in a graveyard a mile down the road from the official residence of Yahya Jammeh, the president of the Gambia. The State House overlooks the Atlantic Ocean from the capital … [Read more...] about ‘Let’s Go Take Back Our Country’