Chinese workers may soon be allowed to elect their own trade union representatives, in a potentially dramatic shift in the country’s labor relations.
New guidelines that could allow workers to choose their own representatives were “almost approved” and would be implemented “as soon as possible,” said a government official.
The new rules signal a shift in the balance of power from [READ MORE]
The wave of protests rocking Tunisia, the New Year suicide attack on a Coptic Church in Alexandria and the riots in Jordan’s southern town of Maan may seem unrelated.
But they each highlight “the accelerating decay of the institutional foundations and fraying of the social fabric” across the so-called “moderate” Arab regimes, writes Marc Lynch.
They are [READ MORE]
The role of labor unions is one of the most striking aspects of the dramatic wave of protests in Tunisia, writes Christopher Alexander, author of Tunisia: Stability and Reform in the Modern Maghreb.
“The government worked very hard, and with great success, to domesticate the Tunisian General Labor Union,” the country’s [READ MORE]
A young unemployed man whose self-immolation sparked the “most dramatic wave of social unrest in Tunisia since the 1980s” was buried today.
Mohamed Bouazizi (left), an unemployed college graduate, started a fruit and vegetable stand to earn a living. He set himself on fire after police closed his stall because he lacked [READ MORE]
The news that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was slapped across the face by the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for suggesting lighter media restrictions is the latest hint that all is not well within the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite.
Revelations that hard-liners vetoed the proposed nuclear fuel swap over a year ago is [READ MORE]
The murder of a leading Nigerian democracy advocate has been linked to his efforts to expose corruption and promote transparency.
Chidi Nwosu (right), president of the Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation, was killed last week at his home in the city of Aba, southeastern Nigeria. Recent reports suggest that [READ MORE]
Wednesday, January 5, 2011. The Crisis in the Arab World’s Aging Leadership with David Ottaway, Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center and former Bureau Chief, Washington Post, Cairo.
The Arab world’s leaders are aging in years and tenure in power. This poses serious questions about transitions in countries of major importance to the United States like Saudi Arabia and Egypt but many others as [READ MORE]
As the death toll from the New Year bombing of an Alexandria church rose to 23 souls, analysts and activists are highlighting the Egyptian government’s culpability for fomenting sectarian tension and failing to address citizen’s basic security needs.
“I have never seen anything of this magnitude before,” said veteran publisher Hisham Kassem, a member of the World [READ MORE]
China’s growing international influence has been most evident in its south-east Asian periphery and sub-Saharan Africa, but its presence is now being felt in Central Asia, according to this report in The New York Times.
The five largely Muslim post-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are considered vital alternative sources of energy and as [READ MORE]
The Cuban government’s proposed economic reforms don’t mean “renouncing even the smallest portion of the construction of socialism”.
Or so President Raul Castro told the Cuban Workers Federation – the regime’s official labor front. (Genuine trade unions are forced to organize clandestinely and many independent labor activists like Ivan Hernandez Carrillo are in jail).
“The Cuban model doesn’t even [READ MORE]
China’s democracy movement suffered a double blow this week with the loss of two leading advocates.
Crowds of well-wishers today gathered to pay their respects to veteran Chinese democracy activist Szeto Wah, a prominent campaigner for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and a tribune for mainland dissidents, who died Sunday of lung cancer.
[READ MORE]
A leading democracy advocate has been jailed in Russia after being arrested at a New Year’s Eve demonstration, arguably the latest manifestation of the political degradation that threatens Russia’s future as a coherent state.
Former deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Solidarity opposition movement, was among 68 activists arrested after participating in a Moscow rally, one [READ MORE]
Belarus today freed one of several opposition presidential candidates held since the post-election crackdown two weeks ago, but at least 200 pro-democracy activists remain in jail.
The December 19 poll gave President Alexander Lukashenka – ‘Europe’s last dictator’ – a fourth term in office, but the election was deemed fraudulent by the European Union, the United States and [READ MORE]
Today’s sentencing of Russian oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky provides the latest confirmation that while we celebrate the holiday season, authoritarian regimes take calculated advantage of the festivities to commit human rights abuses or consolidate their rule.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan during the 1979 holidays, writes Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, while Beijing’s communist rulers [READ MORE]
Russian oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky today had his prison sentence extended until 2017 following a trial widely condemned as politically motivated.
The sentence is the latest example of authoritarians taking advantage of the holiday season to violate human rights.
Moscow judge Viktor Danilkin ordered Khodorkovsky to serve 14 years in prison, extending his current eight-year term. He said that Khodorkovsky and co-defendant [READ MORE]