Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu at a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Nov. 20, 2019 (Sputnik photo by Dmitry Astakhov via AP Images).

Over the past year, Moldova has seen perhaps its most unexpected series of political developments since it first emerged as an independent state from the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. It has been a case study in how post-communist countries mired in kleptocratic corruption can break free from the grip of politically influential oligarchs and help reorient their countries on a path of transparent government and reform. First, over the summer, the most surprising governing coalition in the country’s history took root. After a months-long political stalemate following inconclusive parliamentary elections last February, the pro-Western ACUM […]

A member of the Mexican security forces stands guard near City Hall in Villa Union, an area previously patrolled by Mexican marines until President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador reassigned them to other duties, Dec. 3, 2019. (AP photo by Eduardo Verdugo).

MEXICO CITY—Mexico’s left-leaning president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, took office in December 2018 vowing to demilitarize his country’s war on drugs and tackle its wave of violent crime with a policy of “hugs, not bullets.” Yet his first full year in office saw 35,588 homicides committed nationwide, breaking the previous record for the third year in a row. In one of the more high-profile atrocities, nine members of a prominent Mexican-American Mormon family were massacred in November, including six children. The spiraling violence, along with AMLO’s failed promises to address it, has rekindled a long-running debate in Mexico over how […]