Back in '94 when the Zapatistas revolted in a mountainous backwater of Chiapas, many people wondered if the Mexican state could survive a revolution by indigenous people. The governments of Mexico basically allowed Chiapas to secede. It may be coming back to the mainstream.
The Zapatistas, the most powerful political rebels in Mexico in nearly 100 years, are renouncing armed revolution, after decades of opposing the government, for a simple reason: Mexico is so riddled with violence, they say, that the country cannot handle any more of it.
A village in Chiapas
The decision is a searing commentary on the state of Mexico today, analysts say. The rebels have not reached a peace deal with the government, nor won their longstanding push for indigenous rights. But killings in Mexico are rising so quickly that even a movement rooted in armed struggle feels compelled to back away from violence…
Patricio Martinez
Letting go of the revolutionary identity that once defined them, the Zapatistas, whose full name is the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, are venturing into electoral politics. They have endorsed María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, a healer from the indigenous Nahua people, in next year’s presidential elections…
When they first appeared in 1994, the threat of violence was part of the Zapatista program. A transfixed nation watched as an army of indigenous peasants, wearing ski masks and toting assault weapons, stormed several towns in the southern state of Chiapas and declared war against the Mexican state.
The rebels demanded the recognition and protection of indigenous communities, which have persistently ranked at the bottom of the country’s socio-economic ladder. With their armed insurrection, black balaclavas and fervent speeches, the Zapatistas forced Mexico to grapple with its long history of inequality…
A rocky negotiation process with the government ensued, leading to the San Andrés Accords, signed in 1996. It promised a constitutional reform that would grant limited autonomy to indigenous communities, such as the right to elect councils for local rule over their lands…
In the following years, the Zapatista-controlled territories exercised de facto autonomy, delivering broad access to education and health services. Organized crime has been unable to penetrate the area…
This Zapatista model of community organization, and the new political movement backing Mrs. Patricio for president, have given hope to some disenfranchised Mexicans that the way they are governed can be different, and better, with a more democratic system free of the deal-making and patronage politics that exist on practically every level of government…
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Americans complain liberally about bureaucracy and the procedures required by the rule of the "game" like they complain about taxes. Students of comparative politics should know that the bureaucratic rules in the USA and they taxes they pay are much less onerous than the rules and taxes in most other countries.
MANY Nigerians may see building a hotel as an easy way to launder money. For legitimate entrepreneurs, however, running a hotel is far from cheap or simple. In Abuja, the capital, it is rather like erecting a sign that says: “Tax me”. In fact, erecting such a sign would result in city and local taxes of about 80,000 naira ($221) a year.
One Abuja hotelier recorded no fewer than 20 bills for various annual fees, taxes and licences. They range from a 5m-naira charge from the city council for having a car park, to demands from two different agencies for putting a logo on a company car. The hotelier has also been issued with bills for four different types of property tax and a bicycle/cart licence, despite having neither a bicycle nor a cart. Although he is challenging some of the notices in court, it is often safer to pay up and avoid facing the policemen that bureaucrats send to enforce payment on the spot. “It’s a racket …like in the mafia movies,” he says…
It is possible for the well-connected to pay bribes rather than taxes, says the Abuja hotelier. But those who do risk being presented with a backlog of bills if an election puts a new set of officials in charge…
There are a number of reasons for Nigeria’s impenetrable thicket of red tape. The first is the low price of oil, which once accounted for as much as 90% of government revenues. When less money is being doled out [by the national government] to state and local administrations, bureaucrats invent new charges.
The main reason, however, is Nigeria’s political system. The “patronage economy” encourages legislators to create ever more government agencies which they can use to provide jobs to pals, says Cheta Nwanze of SBM Intelligence, a research firm… One local newspaper found that the national parliament was in the process of creating 25 new federal agencies. Among them was a National Council for Research and Development, a National Research and Innovation Foundation, a National Research and Innovation Council and Federal Entrepreneurship Centres across the country. As if that were not enough, it is also creating a Chartered Institute for Entrepreneurs. Many will no doubt start issuing licences and permits to any firm in sight…
The result of all this regulation is that businesses stay small and, where possible, in the shadows. In 2013 the National Bureau of Statistics found that Nigeria has nearly 37m firms employing fewer than ten people (most of them unregistered sole traders). Just 4,670 employed 50-199 staff…
Reformers are trying to snip away at the tangle. Yemi Osinbajo, the vice-president, issued a series of executive orders in May in an effort to move Nigeria up a few notches on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index. It currently ranks 169th out of 190, putting it behind countries such as Iraq and Sudan…
In 2011 a report commissioned by the then-president, Goodluck Jonathan, recommended cutting the number of federal agencies from 263 to 161. Since then, however, the number has kept growing.
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If that link doesn't work, copy this URL and go to the YouTube site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
If you want a hard copy of the script for this scene, use this link.
(A copy can help identify and list the concepts mentioned in this scene. Do you think this scene offers any hints that the Monty Python crew attended Oxford and Cambridge Universities?)
I've recommended this before, but there are many teachers new to this blog and this course, so here it is again.
How many concepts can you identify in this bit of Monty Python silliness? Which ideas are purely British? Which ideas apply to all 6 of the CompGov countries? Is this silly or serious or both?
Let's begin with this little poster? Does it make any sense? What is a legitimate basis for a system of government? What is legitimate government?
After that discussion, try listing the concepts mentioned in the following clip. Make sure you know what they mean, when they're important, and why they're important.
Now, get back to work on the terribly serious work of comparing government and politics.
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If a non-Chinese company wants to do business in China, it must have a Chinese partner. And it must have a Communist Party unit. And it must underwrite the costs of the Party unit. Must it also put Party members on its board of directors and give the Party power in making corporate decisions? (Corporate leaders are about as insistent on corporate independence or sovereignty as are Communist Party officials.)
Late last month, executives from more than a dozen top European companies in China met in Beijing to discuss their concerns about the growing role of the ruling Communist Party in the local operations of foreign firms…
President Xi Jinping’s efforts to strengthen the party’s role throughout Chinese society have reached the China operations of foreign companies, and executives at some of those entities don’t like the resulting demands they are facing.
The presence of party units has long been a fact of doing business in China…
One senior executive… said some companies were under “political pressure” to revise the terms of their joint ventures with state-owned partners to allow the party final say over business operations and investment decisions.
A major Chinese investor
He said the company’s joint venture partner was pushing to amend their agreement to include language mandating party personnel be “brought into the business management organisation”, that “party organisation overhead expenses shall be included in the company budget”, and that the posts of board chairman and party secretary be held by the same person…
The State Council Information Office, which doubles as the party spokesman’s office, said there was no interference by party organisations in the normal operating activity of joint venture or foreign-invested companies.
However, it added, “company party organisations generally carry out activities that revolve around operations management, can help companies promptly understand relevant national guiding principles and policies…
While plans to expand party organisations in foreign companies had been a quiet concern for several decades, only under Xi had “some real muscle” been put behind the goal, said Jude Blanchette, who studies the party at The Conference Board’s China Centre for Economics and Business in Beijing…
One country head at a major European manufacturer with a southern China joint venture said that late last year it allowed a party unit to meet on company premises – after hours.
The party unit asked for overtime pay to hold the meeting, which the company rebuffed…
A sales and marketing head in China for a major US consumer goods firm said its party cell had recently become more active, and had pushed for locating a new facility in a district where the local government was promoting investment, a move the company made.
Still, several executives with foreign companies in China said that the role of party units was benign and could help to resolve issues with officials…
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Since the UK voted to leave the EU, Theresa May has tried to boil down arguments over Brexit to simple soundbites. One of the favourite phrases deployed by the prime minister… is that the UK will “take back control” from Europe – over money, over borders and over laws…
PM May
May was clear… Brexit would see the UK making a clear break from the jurisdiction of the European court of justice (ECJ), the Luxembourg-based guardian and interpreter of EU law, as it leaves the single market and customs union.
“We will not have truly left the European Union if we are not in control of our own laws,” she said…
Nothing delights hardcore Brexiters in the Tory party more than promises to end what is often referred to as the “meddling” of EU judges in the British legal system and way of life.
In popular eurosceptic mythology the ECJ has come to be seen as the ultimate symbol of supranational authority, of power seeping away from these shores to Brussels as the EU tries to become a state in its own right…
[A]mong anti-EU purists at Westminster the issue of legal sovereignty and the role of the ECJ… has long been the most totemic in the Conservative party. Breaking away from the court is the eurosceptics’ holy grail…
Legal experts see real problems ahead – a stark incompatibility between the desire to stay close to the EU in trade and customs, while breaking free from European rules and regulations that govern the single market and customs union.
Sir Paul Jenkins, who for eight years before 2014 was head of the government legal department and its most senior legal official, told the Observer: “If the UK is to be part of something close enough to a customs union or the single market to remove the need for hard borders, it will only work if the rules are identical to the EU’s own internal rules. Not only must they be the same, but there must be consistent policing of those rules.”…
Writing for the Observer, Catherine Barnard, professor of EU law at Trinity College, Cambridge, says May may well find that escaping the court’s jurisdiction is impossible.
But it could be worse than that, because while failing to escape its reach, the UK will also lose influence at the court, which will no longer contain a British judge after Brexit. According to Barnard, contrary to the impression that the ECJ has always tended to make judgments against the UK national interest, it has often done the reverse.
On crucial legal issues, as with so much else in the Brexit debate, ministers are finding that breaking free from the EU while remaining closely involved – and retaining its benefits – is not an easy balancing act to pull off.
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Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
This morning I read Kevin James' blog, "AHS Comparative Government.," from Albany (CA) high school. It's something I do several times a week.
His blog is useful to me because he often finds articles I've missed or he understands things I don't.
If you're looking for articles that might be useful for your comparative government and politics course, make a habit of looking at "AHS Comparative Government."
Presidents of Mexico have long tried to improve law enforcement by enlarging the role of the military in civil policing. The assumption was that military officers are less likely to be corrupt than police. But, are soldiers trained to act like police?
As Mexican lawmakers debate expanding the role of the military in the country’s drug war, a judge has ordered a new probe into whether army commanders ordered soldiers to shoot 22 people in a 2014 incident described by human rights advocates as an extrajudicial massacre.
The federal judge, whose July 31 ruling became public this week, said the federal attorney general’s office failed to fully investigate a military order issued before the killing that instructed soldiers to “shoot down criminals in hours of darkness.”…
The judge said the attorney general's office has failed to diligently conduct an “investigation into the facts or the orders issued to military elements through the chain of command.”
In a statement, the human rights organization Centro Prodh said the ruling highlighted the ineffectiveness of Mexico’s justice system.
“The impunity… shows the structural flaws in the administration of justice in Mexico, especially when public servants are involved,” the statement said. It urged Mexico’s members of congress to vote against proposed legislation, called the Law on Internal Security, that seeks to expand the military’s presence in public security.
For a decade now, tens of thousands of Mexican soldiers and naval officers have been embedded in local communities as part of the government’s strategy to fight drug cartels, in part because military officers tend to be regarded as less corrupt than local and state police forces, some of whom collaborate with the cartels.
Human rights advocates say that instead of solidifying the presence of the armed forces in Mexican communities, lawmakers should instead focus on initiatives to strengthen and professionalize Mexico’s civilian police forces…
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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has addressed the nation following three months of medical leave in the UK.
In a televised speech, Mr Buhari, 74, said he was "distressed" by calls for the dissolution of Nigeria, urging Nigerians to come together.
But the president failed to disclose his illness. It was his second spell of medical leave this year…
Speaking two days after his return, Mr Buhari said that comments around the dissolution of Nigeria had "crossed national red lines".
"Nigeria's unity is settled and not negotiable," he said. "We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble."…
Commentary by Stephanie Hegarty, BBC News, Lagos
Nigerians were hoping to find out just what's wrong with the president - to get some clarity on the mystery illness that had him absent from his job.
But it seems the presidency intends to keep Mr Buhari's condition a secret.
They may have trouble convincing the public to believe the line they've been touting for months that the president is "hale and hearty". He was visibly thin and frail as he greeted politicians on Saturday.
He has made some sort of recovery - in his last public appearance before he left in May… he was barely able to stand…
His main opponents in Nigeria's 2015 election had claimed he had prostate cancer - which he denied.
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Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari has returned to the country after more than 100 days in the United Kingdom, where he received treatment for an undisclosed ailment.
Buhari at Abuja airport
The presidential jet that brought him touched down at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, where he was received by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, some state governors, police boss Ibrahim Idris and his chief of staff Abba Kyari…
The president is expected to speak to "Nigerians in a broadcast by 7 am on Monday, August 21, 2017," his media adviser Femi Adesina said in a statement on Saturday…
His absence in Nigeria since May 7 has birthed rounds of protests and calls for him to resign. But much like his aides, Buhari has consistently said he would only return to Nigeria on the instruction of his doctors.
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If government officials are so worried about China's anti-corruption drive that they won't accept bribes, what's a company that wants permits and information to do? See "Guanxi: The Chinese Cultural Concept."
Beijing is apparently starting to worry about an unintended side effect of its sweeping crackdown on graft – officials are giving the business community a wide berth.
A Communist Party journal even warned this week that when bureaucrats stay away from business because they don’t want to be targeted in the campaign, the result is just as damaging as corruption.
“[This attitude] has cast a shadow over normal government-business relations,” according to a commentary in the latest issue of Qiushi, or Seeking Truth...
Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a high-profile anti-corruption drive and introduced frugality measures for officials in late 2012.
Since then, the business community has complained that it has become difficult to communicate with government officials, who can now be punished for accepting gifts or attending lavish banquets…
Zhuang Deshui, deputy director of Peking University’s Clean Government Centre, said some bureaucrats were now simply unwilling to take the risk of interacting with businesspeople.
“But this means they are, to some extent, failing to meet the country’s needs when it comes to economic development,” Zhuang said…
He said this was not an ideal situation, since it was important for civil servants to have contact with the business sector so they could keep track of trends and issues.
“Without these communication channels, it’s hard for officials to address problems in the sector and it’s also hard for businesspeople to keep on top of the latest policies,” Cheung said. “There needs to be a balance so that officials can keep these channels open.”…
Still, some small business owners are happy that they no longer have to shell out for banquets. Ge Guoqiang, who owns a textile company in Zhejiang province, said the anti-corruption campaign had saved him more than 200,000 yuan (US$30,000) a year in entertaining local cadres…
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Here are some of the Communist Party of China's announcements about "advancing the rule of law." (from Xinhua) Do the things bragged about really advance the rule of law?
Please note that actions of the CPC Central Committee as well as the National People's Congress are highlighted as advances in the rule of law.
The 12th National People's Congress (NPC)and its standing committee have formulated 20 laws and passed 39 decisions to revise 100 laws as of the end of June, data from the NPC showed.
These are part of the achievements China has made to comprehensively advance the rule of law…
In 2014, the central leadership decided to compile the General Provisions of the Civil Law -- a crucial first step in developing the civil code.
The law, a key move in building China into a moderately prosperous society by 2020, aims to regulate civil activities and modernize state governance…
In November 2016, the NPC Standing Committee issued the Interpretation of the Basic Law of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in response to disagreements on the provisions of the Basic Law in Hong Kong, which had affected the implementation of the Basic Law and the "one country, two systems" principle…
Moreover, the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law was revised in 2015, adding a new chapter on dealing with smoggy days and stipulating the establishment of a monitoring and early warning system for heavily polluted days.
The system of reeducation through labor was abolished in 2013, showing improvements and progress in judicial protection of human rights…
As wrongful convictions are a disgrace to justice, China's judicial authorities have pledged to learn from past lessons and prevent such cases.
To improve judicial justice and credibility, measures for letting judges assume lifelong responsibility for cases they handle and holding them accountable for any miscarriage of justice were outlined at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee.
These measures require officials to shoulder more responsibility, preventing them from making wrong judgements.
In the past five years, the CPC Central Committee has formulated or revised nearly 80 Party regulations, accounting for more than 40 percent of existing regulations.
The key to strict Party governance relies on a "key few" officials, referring to leading officials at the central, provincial and local levels…
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Driving at night is difficult everywhere in the world… In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, however, being on the roads as night feels more than just testing; it feels positively dangerous…
[H]alf of the time you cannot see the road ahead of you, because of the blinding dazzle of oncoming cars, all driving with their headlights, foglights and any other lights they might have proudly on full beam. How does any reasonable driver react to this situation? Well if the reasonable driver is anything like me, he puts his headlights on full too…
Given that everyone else is behaving badly, you’re an idiot not to. Yet if everybody could resist the urge to behave selfishly, everybody would be better off. Hence the full-beam headlights. If most Kenyan drivers dipped their lights, everybody would be able to see. But nobody does it because nobody else does…
Nobody likes paying taxes, but it feels lot more of an imposition when you know that people far richer than you aren’t bothering. So too if you’re a politician and everybody else is stealing from the national treasury: you’re an idiot if you don’t get your share. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, they even have a name for this behaviour… Article 15, a mythical part of the constitution which reads simply, “fend for yourself”.
In Britain, you trust that most people will follow the informal social laws that make society work – such as forming an orderly queue at the post office. And when everyone else is following the rules, you feel ashamed not to – not least because of social pressure…
In many African countries, it is the opposite. Pollsters show that people in Kenya have some of the lowest levels of trust in the world. According to one poll by Pew, just 25% of people agreed with the statement “most people in society are trustworthy”; in Sweden, the figure was 78%. And so the rules that make society work break down. Politicians who steal are not chastised but reelected... Shame comes from failing to get the most out of the system, instead of from being a functional part of it. And everyone is worse off – not least drivers, blinded by cars coming in the opposite direction.
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Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Operatives of the Lagos State task force yesterday impounded 146 motorcycles and arrested 21 riders at the Second Rainbow area of Mile 2.
Impounded motorcycles
Confirming the incident, chairman of the agency, Olayinka Egbeyemi, said the enforcement was carried out based on series of complaints to his office by members of the public…
He said activities of the motorcycle riders were on the increase as they terrorize members of the public both day and night by dispossessing them of their valuables such as phones, jewelries and bags…
Magistrate Lateef Owolabi of the Lagos State Mobile Court sitting at Oshodi on the same day forfeited the impounded 146 motorcycles to government and subsequently sentenced the 21 arrested riders to two weeks imprisonment with N5,000 as an option of fine to jail term.
Prosecuting counsel, Adedoyin Odukoya, disclosed that the 21 arrested riders were convicted after they all pleaded ‘guilty’ to the two-count charge levied against them.
He added that the charges are driving/riding motorcycles on restricted routes contrary to Scheduled (1) item (22) of the Lagos State Road Traffic Laws of 2012 and ‘Conducts likely to cause Breach of Peace’ contrary to Section 166 Sub. (1) (d) of Lagos State Criminal Laws of 2011.
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Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Iran President Hassan Rouhani has appointed three women as vice-presidents and one as a civil rights assistant following criticism of his all-male cabinet.
Iran's 12 vice-presidents run organisations linked to the presidency…
Masumeh Ebtekar has been named vice-president for family and women's affairs, Laya Joneydi is vice-president for legal affairs and Shahindokht Mowlaverdi is the president's assistant for civil rights…
Reformists believe the lack of diversity in the new cabinet is a sign that Mr Rouhani is bowing to pressure from Iran's religious establishment…
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Whenever I read Nigerian newspapers, I'm reminded that language is a flexible tool. I have trouble reading English language newspapers from Nigeria. There are sentence structures, probably from indigenous languages, imposed on to English. There are new meanings used for English words. There are unfamiliar proper names and abbreviations. I usually end up looking up topics on BBC or Sahara Reporter. Here's part of the reason.
Urban Nigerians speak a fantastic blend of languages.
NO COMPLIMENT was too flowery at the launch in May of “Antidotes for Corruption”, a book by Dino Melaye, a Nigerian senator who has fended off numerous allegations of graft. “What is being launched today is, ipso facto, a new potent Intercontinental Ballistic-cum-Cruise missile—an unassailable Assault weapon against, arguably, Mankind’s Enemy Number One: Corruption,” read the opening sentence of a leaflet handed out at the event…
Claudio Munoz in The Economist
It is not just Nigerian politics that is prone to verbal flourishes. In December Arik Air, an airline, blamed flight cancellations on the “epileptic” supply of aviation fuel… Nigerians have taken English, the former colonial language, and made it their own. Many switch back and forth between standard English and Pidgin, peppering their speech with local words and colloquialisms…
In a country with more than 500 languages Pidgin English is the lingua franca. Pop culture depends on it. Fela Kuti, one of the most popular Nigerian singers of the 1970s and 1980s, argued that, “You cannot sing African music in proper English.” Many Nollywood producers feel the same about the action films and convoluted romantic dramas that they export all over the continent…
Many English-language radio hosts talk in accents that indicate they have lived in Britain or America. But Nigerians can also tune in to the Pidgin “people’s station” Wazobia FM and, soon, BBC Pidgin. The celebrated novelist Chinua Achebe’s defence of writing in English, rather than his native Igbo, would ring true today whether spoken by politician or pop star. “We intend to do unheard-of things with it.”
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How do these numbers compare with other countries? Are the comparisons different if you consider per capita statistics? Are Chinese civil society organizations different in kind from other countries' organizations?
"Anyone who offends China will be killed no matter how far the target is."
That is the tagline for Wolf Warriors 2, the Chinese box office hit that is equal parts testosterone-fuelled machismo - think blazing guns, explosions, and tanks - and chest-thumping Chinese patriotism.
It sees a soldier venturing into an African warzone and saving hundreds of lives from Western baddies. It's basically the plot of your typical Hollywood action movie, but this time it's a Chinese man upholding justice and keeping the world safe…
The film has raked in a record 1.6bn yuan ($238m; £181m) in just one week. The massive response in China also made the film top the global box office worldwide last weekend, beating Hollywood blockbuster Dunkirk…
The film revolves around a covert rescue mission when rebels overrun a town in an unnamed African country.
Leng Feng, a Chinese special forces soldier played by Wu Jing, is sent in to save Chinese businessmen and locals held by Western mercenaries.
Many moviegoers said online that they were touched by the patriotic plot…
The film premiered just ahead of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese army, a hugely symbolic event for the country.
Over the weekend, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) held a grand military parade which presented the latest in China's arsenal of weapons.
In a stern speech, which in parts was not dissimilar to lines from the film, President Xi Jinping vowed to fight anyone who tried to split China.
The Chinese government's mouthpiece People's Daily hailed Wolf Warrior 2 as a "superhero movie of Chinese style" that showed "fearless heroism and responsibility" and evoked passion for patriotism…
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Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Sahara Reporters, based in New York, lifts some of the veil shielding Nigerian President Buhari from public scrutiny. It implies that he's been treated for cancer. (That would seem logical from what I know of chemo and radiation therapy and Buhari's absence from the public.)
I still marvel at the ability of the president and his close associates to keep the Nigerian press away from the story. Is there no Nigerian reporting source who can send a reporter to London (or hire one already there)? Can no reporter discover what hospital, clinic, or doctors' group is treating the man? I suspect that there are rumors floating about Abuja and the rest of the country, but no one is writing them down.
This is the second time a Nigerian president has been struck down by illness and whisked off to London for secretive treatment. In 2010, President Yar'Adua died in London after seven months in a London hospital.
Politically things get complicated because the constitution requires that Presidential and Vice Presidential running mates come from different sections of the country. But the political informal agreement among parties is that the presidency should rotate between northerners and southerners. So, some politicians are always upset by the assumption of the presidency by someone from the "wrong" part of the country. Buhari is a northerner (Fulani). Acting President Osinbajo is a southerner (Yoruba). His wife is the granddaughter of Obafemi Awolowo, one of Nigeria's founding fathers.
Despite recent high-profile visits to ailing President Muhammadu
Buhari in the United Kingdom, where for close to 90 days he has been undergoing treatment for a grave illness, SaharaReporters has learned that the Nigerian president is not as healthy as has been portrayed by members of his inner circle. Mr. Buhari’s illness remains officially shrouded in secrecy, but sources close to his inmost associates had long told this website that the president was beset by cancer.
In recent weeks, the cabal around Mr. Buhari has used a flurry of well-orchestrated visits to the ailing president by political personages to sell a narrative of “miraculous recovery.” But such rosy impressions are belied by a palpable deterioration in President Buhari’s health, according to accounts offered by a few sources knowledgeable about the Nigerian leader’s condition…
Mrs. Buhari traveled to London to see her ailing husband… SaharaReporters learnt that three or four days after her arrival in
London, Mrs. Buhari was told to join her husband for dinner. The meeting turned out heartwarming as Mr. Buhari reportedly managed to speak and to sit to eat with her. After subsequently spending more time with her husband, Mrs. Buhari told other family members that he was making “a miraculous recovery.” …
A few days later, acting President Osinbajo snuck out of Abuja for a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Buhari. On his return, he asserted that Mr. Buhari was in great shape, was recovering quite fast and would soon be back…
Some… insiders alleged that the acting President’s close aides had leaked information to the media, especially SaharaReporters, that Mr. Buhari was far from a picture of great shape.
SaharaReporters learned that Mr. Osinbajo encountered a highly emaciated and feeble Buhari who could not speak coherently.
Archbishop of Canterbury and Buhari in July
Yet, our sources revealed that Mr. Buhari’s ability to receive visitors was no indication of improved health, but came after his completion of a course of treatment that lasted three months. According to the source, since the completion of that course of treatment, Mr. Buhari occasionally enjoys momentary relief. “He can see people and sit for a little bit of time, but that does not mean he is healed as his doctors are yet to conclude that he is free of the disease afflicting him,” one of the sources said. They added that the President had not regained his health and had lost so much weight that he is “padded” just before his meetings with governors and politicians…
One of our sources stated there was no plan by Mr. Buhari’s doctors to let him travel to Nigeria in the near future.
“They [doctors] have asked that Mr. President should stay in the UK for another period of monitoring and round of treatment that could last weeks if not months.”…
Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
It's not unusual for people in the US to have names associated with ethnic groups in other countries. We have to remember that the US is not the only country of immigrants.
Mexico has named Kenneth Smith as its chief negotiator for high-stakes talks set to begin next month aimed at revamping the 23-year-old NAFTA free trade pact…
Smith started his career with the Mexican government working for Mexico’s original NAFTA negotiating team.
“He’s been working with us since 1993... he’s had a long career working on trade, having passed through the Economy Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry,” Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Monday.
Guajardo also commented on Smith’s unusual name for a Mexican national.
Kenneth Smith Ramos
“His (Anglo-sounding) name will surprise many, but he’s super Mexican,” he said…
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In the days of the Soviet Union, an old joke was that determining what was going on politically in the Kremlin was as difficult as describing what was going on inside a burlap bag full of fighting cats.
Somedays it seems that the old joking analogy now fits Iran.
President Hassan Rouhani, endorsed by Iran’s supreme leader on Thursday with a nationally televised cheek-kiss, is starting his second term under newly intense pressure from both hard-line opponents and many of his own reform-minded supporters…
Rouhani (center) during the endorsement
Now, as Iran prepares for his second inauguration on Saturday, some of the forces that helped give Mr. Rouhani a 24 million-vote mandate in May are concerned he will not fulfill his promise of appointing women and young politicians to his 18-member cabinet, and instead is running nominations by the supreme leader…
“We supported him during the campaign, but now there is no place for us,” said Jila Baniyaghoob, a women’s rights advocate…
The reform-minded Mr. Rouhani has always occupied a precarious position leading a country that is governed both by a religious ruler and a democratically elected president and parliament. But experts say this is a particularly challenging moment.
Closed in by rivals in Iran’s other centers of power — the supreme leader, influential clergy members and the judiciary — Mr. Rouhani can steer debate but not call the shots. Mr. Khamenei, who often publicly opposes the president but has supported him behind the scenes on key issues like the nuclear agreement and foreign outreach, is far more interested in economic growth than social change.
In Thursday’s endorsement ceremony, the ayatollah advised the president to “pay attention to the people’s problems, which today are primarily the economy and living conditions.” He also urged Mr. Rouhani to have extensive interaction with the world and to “stand strongly against any domination,” state media reported…
[M]any of Mr. Rouhani’s leading supporters in the May election had hoped the new cabinet would represent a new generation of women, youths and daring politicians, ready to implement Mr. Rouhani’s agenda and curb of the influence of hard-liners.
Instead, although all the positions are not yet filled, it looks like the ministers will be a delicate mix of older technocrats, don’t-rock-the-boat moderates and even some hard-liners. Reformists are now saying the 18 slots will all be filled by men, dashing hopes built up during Mr. Rouhani’s campaign…
The supreme leader himself blasted the president over his cultural policies, saying that his government is too lenient toward what Mr. Khamenei calls “Westernization.” Clerics blasted Mr. Rouhani’s signing of a multibillion-dollar deal with the French oil company Total, saying he should be investing in the nuclear program instead.
Mr. Rouhani has also had public fights with the Revolutionary Guards, whom he has called an alternative “government with guns.”…
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Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has presided over a spectacular display of military and political might, ordering members of his 2.3 million-strong armed forces to “unswervingly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist party of China”.
Xi Jinping
Xi donned camouflage fatigues for the hour-long Sunday morning parade, which marked the 90th anniversary of the creation of China’s People’s Liberation Army, on 1 August 1927…
On the surface, Sunday’s parade was a tub-thumping display of China’s increasingly sophisticated military prowess. “A strong army is the backbone of a strong country,” boasted one commentator narrating a live television broadcast of the event.
But with a key Communist party summit marking the end of Xi’s first term in power on the horizon it was also an intensely political showcase of his apparently unassailable position at the top of China’s one-party system.
Willy Lam, a politics expert from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the demonstration… was about bolstering Xi’s image as China’s top dog. “In Chinese tradition, power grows out of the barrel of the gun: whoever has control over the military and the police will be the supreme leader”…
China will host its 19th Communist party congress this autumn, a twice-a-decade conclave at which some of the most senior positions in Chinese politics will be distributed.
As Xi prepares for the event, which marks the midpoint of his anticipated 10-years in office, some believe he is seeking to promote himself as the third great leader of post-revolution China, after its founder, Chairman Mao and Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s breathtaking economic boom…
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Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
The textbook descriptions of cleavages in Nigeria usually outline geographic, ethnic, and religious cleavages as coinciding (reinforcing). Here's an example that doesn't fit that model.
More than 40 men have been arrested in Nigeria over the weekend for performing homosexual acts, police say…
Nigerian newspaper Punch reports that the police raided a hotel in Lagos State on Saturday afternoon and says the hotel was cordoned off while the investigation was carried out.
Homosexual acts are punishable by up to 14 years in jail in Nigeria…
The BBC's Chris Ewokor in the capital, Abuja, reports that Nigeria has an influential Christian evangelical movement in the south and strong support for Islamic law in the north, both of which oppose homosexuality…
The country has had a ban on gay relationships since 1901, and in 2013 also outlawed same-sex marriages, gay groups and shows of same-sex public affection.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd editionis a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
China’s Communist Party is curbing the online activities of its 89 million members ahead of a leadership shake-up later this year.
The new rules made public on Tuesday said that all party cadres faced punishment if they visited “illegal websites” or disclosed party and state secrets online.
Cadres need permission from the party before registering social media accounts or setting up a WeChat group that contains their job information, the party’s personnel, propaganda and cyber watchdog said…
The new measures follow a surge in restrictions on free expression ahead of the 19th party congress, a meeting of the senior leadership that will mark the halfway point for President Xi Jinping’s presumed term in office. The president has recently warned military and government officials to stay loyal.
China already blocks access to Twitter, Facebook and news websites such as The New York Times. Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service was partially blocked in China in July, and the government has also begun cracking down on virtual private networks – technology that allows users to route their data overseas to get around the Beijing’s internet firewall…
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