Domestic Politics Archive

Immigration has been a key issue in the French presidential election, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy promising to drastically reduce immigration inflows, as well as to withdraw France from the European Union’s open-border internal Schengen zone unless the EU tightens its own border controls by the end of 2012. Both measures are widely seen as an effort to win over the first-round voters of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. But according to Saskia Sassen, a professor at Columbia University and an expert on European immigration, Sarkozy is simply the latest in a long line of European presidents and prime ministers […]

A French journalist reporting alongside Colombian security forces tracking FARC disappeared after a gun battle with the rebels. World News Videos by NewsLook

Thousands of people demonstrate across Spain as anger mounts over 37 billion euros in planned budget cuts. World News Videos by NewsLook

Protesters demand Yemen’s new president purge from the payrolls anyone linked to former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. World News Videos by NewsLook

Vladimir Putin will be inaugurated to serve a third term as Russia’s president next month. The pomp and circumstance of the Kremlin ceremonies, however, won’t be able to hide the fact that, far from being a triumphal restoration of his rightful role, Putin’s return to the presidency is in fact a tacit admission of failure. Putin and his associates have not yet succeeded in achieving the truest mark of success for any political regime: the ability to pass the system intact to a next generation of leadership. The Putin system continues to depend on Putin personally for it to be […]

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced his resignation Monday after his coalition government failed to agree on austerity measures needed to bring the Dutch budget into conformity with the European Union’s recently agreed-upon deficit limits. Budget talks in the Netherlands broke down after Geert Wilders’ euroskeptic Freedom Party abandoned negotiations over the weekend. “The news from the Netherlands drives home the fact that this crisis is no longer a crisis of the periphery. It is often portrayed as the core counties versus the periphery, as the North versus the South, but the Netherlands is a core country in the North,” […]

As Beijing prepares for a once-in-a-decade change of leadership, the ouster of Bo Xilai and a series of significant financial reforms have been widely seen as signs that reformist elements within the Chinese government are in the ascendency. This analysis may be correct, but it needs to be tempered with a broader look at the Chinese political and policy landscape, which shows that reforms still lag in multiple key areas and that progressive signals are so far limited to the financial sector. The position of the army, a key political constituent, also remains unclear. The political intrigue surrounding the removal […]

Even in the corridors of the Chinese Communist Party’s headquarters in Zhongnanhai, few would have predicted the remarkable rise in China’s comprehensive national strength since Deng Xiaoping launched the Reform and Open policy in 1978. China’s evolution has been one of the most remarkable feats of governance ever seen. But rather than the definitive manual in strategic planning that it is sometimes portrayed as, the history of China’s post-Mao transformation reads more like a great picaresque novel, in which the protagonist has been forced to beg, steal and kill; navigate untold pitfalls and reversals; and escape from several tight squeezes […]

Russia has been in the international spotlight in recent months, with frustration over endemic corruption, lingering anger over December’s manipulated Duma elections and Vladimir Putin’s carefully orchestrated return to the presidency bringing Russian protesters out into the streets in greater numbers than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union. But despite its political crisis, Russia retains the ability to impact U.S. interests worldwide: The Kremlin is unafraid to flex its still-considerable muscle abroad, blocking U.S.-led efforts to sanction and topple the bloody government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, threatening to upend European and even global security over […]

Socialist challenger Francois Hollande came out ahead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of France’s presidential election Sunday, winning 28.6 percent of votes cast, compared to 27.2 percent for Sarkozy. It marks the first time in the history of the country’s present electoral system that a sitting president has been outpolled in the first round. The two will now face each other in a run-off election on May 6. Until then, the European Union will be holding its breath, as the implications of the election results will extend far beyond France’s borders. When asked what he considered […]

Aung San Suu Kyi, the general secretary of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar, spent nearly two decades under house arrest after her opposition party won the country’s 1990 parliamentary elections but was denied power by the ruling military junta. Now, after winning a seat in parliamentary by-elections held earlier this month, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s role in Myanmar’s domestic politics is poised to change. Reports that her scheduled debut in parliament Monday may be delayed due to a controversy over the wording of the parliamentary oath underscore the difficult choices facing Suu Kyi as she re-enters the […]

SEOUL, South Korea — In the months leading up to South Korea’s April 11 parliamentary elections, it looked like the liberal opposition was poised for an easy victory driven by voters who were sick of corruption and income inequality and in search of something new. To the opposition’s surprise, voters instead bolstered the majority of the ruling New Frontier Party (NFP), signifying a shift back to conservative tendencies in the country’s electorate. The NFP won 152 out of 300 seats, giving it a parliamentary majority, while the opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) came away with 127. Though most observers had […]

Spain’s king comes under fire for an elephant hunting excursion to Botswana that some say is irresponsible considering the country’s economic concerns. World News Videos by NewsLook

North Korea’s new leader addressed his nation and the world for the first time Sunday, vowing to place top priority on his impoverished nation’s military, which promptly unveiled a new long-range missile. World News Videos by NewsLook

Mali’s new interim leader threatened to wage total war on Tuareg rebels and Islamists controlling the north of the country as he was in sworn in Thursday, ending a brief stab at military rule. World News Videos by NewsLook

Turkey’s gradual transition to democracy under the rule of a moderate Islamist party has prompted much praise, along with a concerted effort — particularly by Ankara — to promote the Turkish model as a template for the post-Arab Uprising states. Indeed, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has achieved much since ascending to power a decade ago. Democratic plaudits, however, miss a gaping crack in the democratic structure the AKP has built: the government’s frontal assault against freedom of the press. Turkey has become one of the world’s top violators of press freedom. The most recent ranking from Reporters Without […]

Colombia is in the midst of a mining boom, with high commodities prices and Chinese demand placing its nascent mining sector at the center of the country’s economic development model. The challenge for Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is to capitalize on the sector’s promise, while avoiding some of the environmental and social challenges that have impacted other South American mining countries, such as Chile and Peru. These challenges are particularly salient for newcomers like Colombia, whose mining sector is slowly taking off. Excluding oil, mining now accounts for 30 percent of the country’s foreign investment and 24 percent of […]