Last month the Obama administration eased financial and investment sanctions on Myanmar, praising it’s government for freeing hundreds of political prisoners and finally allowing the political opposition to take part in elections. While the easing of sanctions demonstrates valuable support for further political reforms in Myanmar, the US investment policy does not effectively address the [...]

A high-profile North Korean human rights activist vowed today to keep raising human rights issues in China including its alleged harsh treatment of foreign political prisoners. According to the Yon-Hap News Agency, Kim Young-hwan made the remarks during a press conference to foreign media in Seoul, speaking about the alleged torture he suffered during his [...]

Concern is building in Zimbabwe over the fate of a human rights activist who has been missing for roughly a month, with many fearing the worst. Paul Chizuze has been missing since the 8th of February and since his disappearance and in the name of open protest, freedom of expression and civility, his friends and [...]

Foreign policy used to be a craft practised by diplomats and statesmen. No longer.

A United Nations human rights agency has demanded that the Chinese government immediately release a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer who has been detained for nearly a year, according to a statement released on Monday by an advocacy group. The lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, had said he was tortured during previous rounds of detention. The New York [...]

At this critical juncture in geopolitics, Uganda has made great strides to fulfill both its domestic and regional commitments. The Museveni administration continues to use the resources at its disposal to make the best of what is a rather debilitating situation in rural Uganda; the government maintains pressure on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to [...]

It is quite simply paradoxical juxtaposition – a delegation from Uganda on one hand seeks a seat at the United Nations Security Council on behalf of the continent of Africa, a symbolic request unsurprisingly indicative of the bravado of the Museveni administration while on the other, the nation has prospectively failed meeting the Millennium Goals [...]

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai stated last week that a law to increase local black ownership of foreign firms would be implemented gradually and without forced sales. Ultimately, his staff have reiterated sentiments that investment is returning and that ‘Zimbabwe is back‘. Zimbabwe’s government published regulations earlier this year forcing foreign-owned firms, including mines and [...]

In the wake of the latest threat by the Chinese government, Google Inc.’s only choice is to pack up and exit the Chinese market, wholesale. In lieu of this, Chinese authorities on Friday told local news websites that if Google China does close, they will be required to use only official news accounts of situations, [...]

Marian Tupy is a policy analyst at the CATO Institute in Washington DC with a unique interest in Zimbabwean affairs. He, along with many of our readers and indeed writers, was horrified while watching images emanating from Zimbabwe covering the cholera outbreak, and was baffled as to why it wasn’t nipped in the bud at [...]