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Turkey and the EU: Sleeping with the Enemy
May 11, 2016 5 min. read

Ankara has manifested a habit of eagerly seeking concessions and funding from the EU, but being notably less keen on keeping its own side of the bargains.

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Pakistan or “the country in question”?
February 11, 2014 3 min. read

On Monday, February 10, the Associated Press broke a story that the Obama administration is mulling over potentially conducting a drone strike on a U.S. citizen in an unidentified country who is allegedly plotting terrorist attacks. The AP notes that it withheld the name of the country “because officials said publishing it could interrupt ongoing […]

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China Escalates War on International Media
February 3, 2014 4 min. read

China has escalated its war on international news media with stepped-up harassment of foreign journalists and blocking of foreign news websites. This has sparked renewed discord between the United States and China on issues of press freedom and media access but no concrete action as yet from the United States. China’s record on press freedom […]

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Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
March 11, 2013 7 min. read

Turkey’s poor press freedom record contradicts its main strategic goal to establish the country as a regional power and the leader of the Muslim world. The state of press freedom in Turkey has recently been in the spotlight, particularly after Reporters Without Borders declared the country as “the world’s biggest prison for journalists” last December. […]

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A Break in Eritrea’s Controlled Calm
January 22, 2013 3 min. read

Understandably, most of the U.S. was preoccupied with Barack Obama’s second inauguration yesterday. However in the midst of the celebrations of yet another peaceful transfer of power in the U.S., word began to trickle out of an attempted coup in Eritrea. It appears that the attempt, led by a group of military mutineers at the […]

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Uncertainty Reigns as Malawi Loses a President
April 6, 2012 7 min. read

For the past year, far from the front pages of Western newspapers, the southern African country of Malawi has faced increasing political and economic turmoil, mainly at the increasingly oppressive hand of President Bingu wa Mutharika. So when news hit Twitter yesterday that the septuagenarian president had collapsed from a massive heart attack, it was […]

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China’s Olympic Promise on Press Freedom
February 14, 2012 4 min. read

The Chinese government has sentenced writer Li Tie to 10 years imprisonment for his online articles, in which he urged respect for ordinary citizens, called for democracy and political reform, and urged basic human rights. Journalists around the world have noted with sorrow — but not surprise — this incredibly harsh and hypocritical decision. That […]

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Rwanda, Press Freedom & Twitter
May 18, 2011 3 min. read

Reactions to the so-called twitterspat between Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo and British journalist Ian Birrell that I posted on Monday is still in full swing online. The reactions I posted then pretty much summed up general opinion about the incident with most people siding with Birrell. And while I am […]

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The cost of telling the story
April 21, 2011 5 min. read

Today has been a difficult day. In the world of human rights, we often talk of the need to bear witness. This is why organizations like the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others send investigators and analysts to distant lands to record and document possible abuses that may be occurring there. However many […]

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Tunisia Undone: Protests, Blackouts & Twitter
January 12, 2011 5 min. read

Today in Tunisia, amid government blackouts and Western apathy among the press and government bureaucracy, social media and second generation journalism through blogs is emerging as one of the only methods for demonstrators to tell their tale for those willing to listen.

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Out of the Block, Hungary Comes Up Lame
January 7, 2011 2 min. read

Well that was quick. Less than a week into its EU presidency, Hungary has been blasted from most corners of Western Europe — including the EC president’s office — for two bizarrely reactionary measures it passed within its own borders that took effect Saturday. The first, a 1.05 percent “crisis tax” imposed on revenue of […]

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