Photo Credit: People's Daily
by Tyler Roylance
Staff Editor
Earlier this month, Chinese authorities were forced to temporarily suspend trading of shares in the online unit of the People’s Daily newspaper, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party. The price had soared so rapidly since the website’s April debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange—giving it a greater market value than the New York Times—that it triggered regulatory rules aimed at halting speculative manipulation. This development is just the sort of absurd extreme that comes shortly before an economic bubble bursts.
May 15, 2012
Transparency’s Demise in Argentina
by Britta Crandall
“You are immensely lucky to be living in a full democracy where each of you can say, feel, express, and shout whatever you wish.”
—President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, April 29, 2012
May 14, 2012
An Interview with Karl Beck
In the following interview, Karl Beck, Freedom House’s director for Southern Africa, discusses possible political scenarios for Zimbabwe after 88-year-old President Robert Mugabe leaves the scene.
May 11, 2012
A ‘To Do’ List for Internet Freedom
Almost a year ago, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt declared before the UN Human Rights Council that the “same rights that people have offline … must also be protected online.” This was the underlying theme of a groundbreaking May 2011 report by UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Frank La Rue. The report, which was endorsed by 41 governments, detailed how established human rights principles apply to the internet and made recommendations for putting these principles into practice. After a year of inaction, the time has come for a concerted, collective effort by democratic countries to carry out the recommendations of the La Rue report.
May 09, 2012
Dictatorships Go High Tech—With Our Help
When news broke last month that Swedish telecommunications company TeliaSonera had collaborated with Eurasian dictatorships, it should have come as no surprise. The firm reportedly gave the security services of Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Uzbekistan complete access to their countries' telecom systems, thereby facilitating intercepts of telephone calls and text messages. This collaboration, sadly, fits a pattern.
