PBS: Escaping Eritrea … [Read More...] about ካብ ውሽጢ ቤት ማእሰርታት ኤርትራ
UPFRONT
Putin’s Dragon
Joshua Yaffa | Report from Grozny | February 8 & 15 Issue | THE NEW YORKER Is the ruler of Chechnya out of control? The center of Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, is unrecognizable to anyone who saw it during the country’s two most recent wars against Russia. The First Chechen War, which began in 1994, was a war of nationalist … [Read more...] about Putin’s Dragon
Freedom by the Numbers
Ilya Lozovsky | 29 January 2016 | FOREIGN POLICY Freedom House’s index of freedom in the world is flawed — but the story it tells is indispensable. It’s January, which means we’ve just learned that freedom around the world is declining. This — for the tenth year in a row — is the conclusion of an annual report released earlier this week by Freedom House, the venerable … [Read more...] about Freedom by the Numbers
The Burundi Ultimatum: The African Union Tests Its Right to Intervene
Paul D. Williams | 28 January 2016 | FOREIGN POLICY After rebel forces in Burundi coordinated a round of attacks on military facilities in Bujumbura on December 11, the government began rounding up suspected militants the following day and killing them execution-style on the streets. Dozens died, many of them civilians. The African Union’s Peace and … [Read more...] about The Burundi Ultimatum: The African Union Tests Its Right to Intervene
Did Sisi Save Egypt?
Nathan Brown and Yasser El-Shimy | 25 January 2016 | FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Arab Spring at Five Five years ago, the leaders of Egypt’s protest movement shocked themselves by successfully bringing down President Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power since before many of them were born. In those days, it was not unusual to hear talk of a new dawn for Egyptian politics and … [Read more...] about Did Sisi Save Egypt?
A Revolution Devours Its Children
Lauren Bohn | 23 Jan 2016 | THE ATLANTIC Five years since an uprising brought down Egypt’s dictator, five families show the country’s struggle is as much personal as it is collective. CAIRO—It takes about 30 minutes to drive from the teeming Cairo neighborhood of Faisal to what locals call “El Sijn”—Arabic for “the prison.” There are many in Egypt, but everyone seems to … [Read more...] about A Revolution Devours Its Children
The Eastern Congo
Ida Sawyer, Mvembe Dizolele, Ambassador Princeton N. Lyman and Jason Stearns | COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS Over the past two decades the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have experienced fighting that has killed more than five million people. As the eastern Congo struggles to overcome years of regional war, its hard-won progress remains at … [Read more...] about The Eastern Congo
The Ugly Thugs Running Vietnam Aren’t Experimenting With Democracy
Thomas A. Bass | 22 January 2016 | FOREIGN POLICY It may look like a capitalist frontier, but it’s a police state at heart. Vietnam is a moiré pattern: Squint at the country one way and you get an aspirational society zooming into the future. Squint another way, and you get an old-fashioned jailer of anyone who refuses to toe the party line. The sunshine lobby … [Read more...] about The Ugly Thugs Running Vietnam Aren’t Experimenting With Democracy
Food and the Transformation of Africa
Kofi Annan and Sam Dryden | November/December 2015 Issue | FOREIGN AFFAIRS Getting Smallholders Connected African agriculture has long been a symbol of the continent’s poverty. Officials considered the hundreds of millions of African smallholder farmers too backward to thrive; the future would arrive not by investing in them but rather by bypassing them. But all that … [Read more...] about Food and the Transformation of Africa
America’s Foreign Policy Test: Managing Our Allies
Justin Constantine | 01/15/2016 | THE HUFFINGTON POST When it comes to foreign policy, politicians love to talk about our enemies. It makes sense. People are concerned about what groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are planning, and everyone agrees that we should do something about them. But the real test for America on the world stage is not our … [Read more...] about America’s Foreign Policy Test: Managing Our Allies
Egypt’s Roadmap to Nowhere
Jahd Khalil | 7 January 2016 | FOREIGN POLICY The new parliament in Cairo is just a fig leaf for President Sisi's authoritarian rule. This Sunday, Egypt’s new parliament will finally gather “under the dome,” as Egyptians call their country’s parliament building — but it doesn’t look like there will be much debating. In its first session, the new legislators are … [Read more...] about Egypt’s Roadmap to Nowhere