Domestic Politics Archive

Reva Bhalla, a strategic intelligence analyst with Stratfor, discusses Egypt’s suspension of its constitutional assembly and the growing standoff between Islamists and the military. World News Videos by NewsLook

Last week, the Indian Express, a leading national newspaper, reported that a routine military drill in January meant to test Indian army units’ mobility in fog conditions instead exposed the depth of distrust between India’s military and civilian leaders. According to the article, two Indian army units advanced on the Indian capital, New Delhi, as part of the drill. But because the military had not notified the Defense Ministry of the troop movements, as protocol requires, civilian authorities reacted by raising an alert before ordering the military to return the troops to their bases. “It is really good that all […]

Since sovereignty over Hong Kong was returned from Britain to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on July 1, 1997, the island has maintained the rule of law and civil liberties. Nevertheless, politically and economically, Hong Kong has also experienced some degree of “mainland-ization” under the “one country, two systems” system that frames relations between the Special Administrative Region and Beijing. At the same time, economic integration with the island has resulted in a process of “Hong Kong-ization” of the mainland, if less dramatically. The impact of both phenomena has implications not only for relations between the two, but also […]

On April 6, China’s Ministry of Public Security published a list of six Uighurs wanted for “terrorism” and described as “core members of an extremist group” that had recruited and trained members to carry out terror attacks. The move came on the heels of the latest evidence of Uighur unrest in China’s Xinjiang province and of the local authorities’ nervous reactions to it: The accidental explosion last month of a homemade bomb led police to raid a farm near the city of Korla, killing four Uighurs who, the Chinese authorities themselves later admitted, had nothing to do with the explosion. […]

The economic reforms that began in China in the early 1980s triggered one of the largest population movements in human history. Since they began, in each decade, tens of millions of rural people have left the land to seek higher incomes by working or trading in urban areas. The census in 2000 found that there were more than 120 million migrant workers in Chinese cities. More-recent estimates go as high as 200 million. This massive internal migration has appeared especially dramatic from a Chinese perspective because mobility was severely restricted in Maoist times, making it almost impossible for rural people […]

As clashes between rival Libyan militias continue, with a particularly violent battle erupting earlier this week, the fighting that has left hundreds dead or displaced threatens to divide the country. The violence also poses a problem for reconstruction efforts, in part because of its potential to undermine the country’s upcoming elections, currently scheduled for June 20. “These clashes have complicated things in a number of ways. The biggest is that international workers and programs and organizations will have to assess what’s going on in Libya in terms of safety and operability before they send people out, and, for a country […]

The Indian Space Research Organization’s latest budget allocated $25 million to a plan to send an orbiter to Mars to study its atmosphere. In an email interview, Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College who writes in a personal capacity, discussed India’s space program. WPR: What is the current scope of India’s space program, and what are its priority programs, both short-term and long-term? Joan Johnson-Freese: The scope of India’s space program has recently expanded significantly. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, considered the father of India’s space program, unambiguously stated its original purpose as being focused […]

Greek protesters threw molotov cocktails at riot police late in Athens on Wednesday, after gathering for a demonstration following a retiree’s public suicide. World News Videos by NewsLook

With just six weeks left until Egyptians go to the polls, the race for the presidency has entered a new level of acrimony, intrigue and speculation. The biggest shock came Sunday, when the country’s most powerful political organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, blatantly broke its promise not to seek the presidency. Its newly announced candidate, Khairat el-Shater, automatically took the lead in the campaign for the top job. El-Shater, the Brotherhood’s main financier, top strategist and deputy supreme leader, announced he was giving up his position in order to start campaigning for president. With that, he became the front-runner in a […]

Bo Xilai, the dismissed Communist Party chief of the western municipality of Chongqing, began his long fall from grace in February, when his police chief, Wang Lijun, sought refuge in the United States Consulate in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. Wang’s short-lived “defection” lifted the lid off a corruption scandal that is likely to complicate the once-in-a-decade transfer of power to new party leaders in the fall, drawing international attention to internal politics that party officials prefer to keep far from public view. The charges currently being brought against Bo, which include disturbing details about his […]

Pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has won a seat in Myanmar’s parliament in Sunday’s landmark byelection. World News Videos by NewsLook

Kadima, the main opposition party in Israel, elected former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as its chairman in primary elections last week. Tzipi Livni, the incumbent, lost by a wide margin, stepping down at the end of what was widely regarded as an ineffective term. Though Kadima is the largest party in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, it is losing popular support. And analysts say its future will depend on whether Mofaz can accomplish what Livni could not: unifying the party, expanding its political base and ensuring that it provides a real alternative to the governing party, Likud. Daniel C. Kurtzer, the […]