East and South Asia

Forget the Falklands — Hong Kong residents would prefer to revert to British rule.

Japan seems set to join talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

North America

With 70% of the votes counted, the social democratic (and populist — it’s in opposition to loosening local laws to allow the importation of largely Chinese foreign workers) Siumut, which governed from self-rule in 1979 until 2009, leads in Greenland with 48.4% of the vote, to just 29.6% for the pro-independence, socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit, which has ruled the country since 2009.

Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien thinks Canada has lost its international swagger.

Louise Marchand has resigned as Québec’s top language watchdog after ‘pastagate’ brouhaha.

Latin America / Caribbean

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s remains will be exhumed in April.

Venezuela’s opposition reports an ambush against it.

Sub-Saharan Africa

A journalism strike in Togo.

One criticism of Zimbabwe’s draft constitution.

Europe

Spain ‘was virtually a feudal, agrarian economy the last time almost six million workers were unemployed.’

Marin Raykov, ambassador to France, will become Bulgaria’s caretaker prime minister.

The EU parliament comes to a consensus on the European Union’s budget.

No pope yet.

Armenia to get early parliamentary elections?

Middle East and North Africa

What Muqtada al-Sadr has been up to in Iraq these days.

Israel’s incoming coalition, still not finalized, seems set to agree on an increase of the Knesset threshold from 2% to 4%, which will harm Arab parties in particular.

East and South Asia

Former South Korean presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo may form a new political party.

Japan marks the two-year anniversary of the Fukushima disaster.

North America

Greenland votes today.

Latin America / Caribbean

México takes on telecommunications reform.

1,513 voters out of 1,517 voted to keep the Falkland Islands (or, if you like, Islas Malvinas) as a UK overseas territory.

Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles attacks his opponent’s homophobic slurs.

Sub-Saharan Africa

The International Criminal Court has dropped charges against one of Kenyan president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta’s co-defendants.

Kenya’s Supreme Court will hear the case from Raila Odinga’s campaign in protest of Keyatta’s electoral victory.

An oil-sharing deal is reached between Sudan and South Sudan.

Europe

The Catholic Church’s papal conclave begins today.

But what name will the next pope choose?

Wonkbook‘s primer on the papal conclave.

Hungary passes a set of constitutional reforms that pull the country away from democracy.

Germany’s new anti-euro political party.

Czech president Miloš Zeman’s inaugural highlights.

Former Liberal Democratic minister Chris Huhne is sentenced.

Middle East and North Africa

Qatar says there are no more plans for aid to Egypt.

Israel’s new cabinet seems likely to be much smaller.

East and South Asia

Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai has harsh words for both the Taliban and the United States.

The People’s Republic of China announces a new government reorganization plan.

One of the alleged assailants in India’s infamous gang rape case has either committed suicide or has been murdered in prison.

A battle of the ports in the growing China-India rivalry.

Anti-nuclear activists protest Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe.

Former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo returns to South Korea today.

North America

Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the frontrunner to become the Obama administration’s national security advisor.

A new book from Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson argues that the rise of Canada’s west and the proliferation of immigrants is changing the nature of the Canadian elite — in part by making it more conservative (h/t Tyler Cowen).

Trouble for Canada’s economy?

Latin America / Caribbean

Residents of the Falklands Islands (pictured above) go to the polls today for a new status referendum that’s widely expected to result in a local victory to remain a British overseas territory.

Henrique Capriles, the runner-up in the October 2012 presidential election to the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, will run against his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, in the snap April 14 Venezuelan election.

Caracas Chronicles live-blogs the Capriles announcement.

Megan McArdle last week provides a very thoughtful indictment of the Chávez era.

Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto marks his first 100 days in office.

Sub-Saharan Africa

For the avoidance of doubt, Jubilee alliance candidate Uhuru Kenyatta officially won election as Kenya’s fourth president Saturday morning with 50.07% of the vote.

The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy, which backed Raila Odinga for president, will present a petition in court on Monday challenging the result.

Kenyatta has tough choices in selecting a new cabinet.

Outgoing Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki is set to turn over power to Kenyatta.

Looking at the relatively improved political fortunes of Zimbabwe’s longtime president Robert Mugabe since 2008.

Lessons for Zimbabwe’s March 16 constitutional referendum from Kenya.

Europe

Malta’s Labour Party has triumphed by a landslide 55.1% to 43.1% margin against the long-ruling Nationalist Party in Saturday’s parliamentary elections. (with Labour leader Joseph Muscat set to become Malta’s next prime minister).

Edward Hugh considers the long-term demographic and economic trends for Portugal.

Free Democratic Party leader Philipp Rösler criticizes his coalition partner, German chancellor Angela Merkel over citizenship rights and same-sex marriage.

Another week, another conviction for former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, this time for illegal wiretapping.

European Union leaders are criticizing a planned constitutional vote in the Hungarian parliament.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

DW interviews Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite.

Armenian presidential runner-up Raffi Hovannisian has gone on a hunger strike in opposition to the alleged fraud in the reelection of his rival, incumbent Serzh Sargsyan.

Middle East and North Africa

Saudi Arabia has jailed two political activists.

Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda party is moving closer to a new government under prime minister-designate Ali Larayedh.

Israel is likely to get a new government this week under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Yair Lapid getting the finance ministry.

Libya’s parliament is temporarily suspending activity.

Bassem Sabry on the Egyptian judiciary decision to overturn planned parliamentary elections.

Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi is considering the dismissal of prime minister Hisham Qandil.

Australia and Oceania

Liberal premier Colin Barnett won reelection in Western Australia in state elections Saturday, further adding to Labor prime minister Julia Gillard’s woes.

East and South Asia

Who might Congress run for prime minister in 2014 if not Rahul Gandhi?

North America

U.S. senator Rand Paul mounts a 13-hour filibuster against U.S. CIA director appointee John Brennan.

Latin America / Caribbean

Venezuela says farewell to Hugo Chávez (pictured above)

Sub-Saharan Africa

Colorblindness may be to blame for Kenya’s rejected ballots.

Europe

French troops set to withdraw from Mali in April.

Europe will shrink in 2013.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev speaks out against Russian laws.

Middle East and North Africa

Egypt’s judiciary holds up the planned April parliamentary elections.

Hugo Chávez’s legacy in the Middle East.

East and South Asia

Rahul Gandhi, the heir to the most celebrated family in Indian politics, claims he has no designs on the prime ministership in 2014 (though he remains by far the most likely candidate to lead the ruling Congress Party’s campaign next year).

Martin Wolf considers plans to boost inflation in Japan.

North America

The U.S. government kindly reminds its U.N. negotiators not to show up blotto.

Los Angeles, the second-most populous U.S. city, chooses a new mayor.

Student tuition protests return to Montréal.

Latin America / Caribbean

Francisco Toro considers the relationship between Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

The Nation considers Chávez’s legacy.

More on Venezuela’s transition ahead.

Argentina continues to refuse the legitimacy of next week’s Falkland Islands status referendum.  [Spanish]

México’s ruling PRI revises its constitution to allow for private investment in the Mexican energy industry.

Grenada gets a new cabinet.

A Central American Schengen zone (at least, between Panamá and Costa Rica)?

Sub-Saharan Africa

Zimbabwe bars any foreign observers from its March 16 constitutional referendum.

Kenya’s Jubilee alliance doesn’t agree that the unusually large amount of rejected ballots should count in determining whether a candidate has won a 50% ‘absolute majority.’

More on those spoiled ballots in Kenya.

Europe

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s fine line on gay rights.

A closer look at Italian president Giorgio Napolitano (once described by Henry Kissinger as ‘his favorite communist’).

Europe and the United Kingdom are again at odds — this time over capping banking bonuses.

Catalan premier Artur Mas is forming a united political front against Spain’s federal government on Catalunya’s sovereignty.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Presidential runner-up Raffi Hovannisian is not letting up in his protests over alleged electoral fraud committed by president Serzh Sargsyan.

Moldova’s government gets a vote of no confidence.

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s trial is once again delayed.

Middle East and North Africa

Israel’s haredi parties consider the costs of being forced into opposition.

The challenge that the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi face from Salafist and more conservative rivals.

Is al Qaeda becoming a problem in Lebanon?

East and South Asia

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao kicks off the National People’s Congress with an address and an official goal of 7.5% growth.

Malaysia strikes in Borneo — one of the most bizarre relationships in international affairs.

Incumbent Bangkok governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra (pictured above) of the Democrat Party won reelection on Sunday.

Haruhiko Kuroda begins confirmation hearings in Japan’s Diet to become the next Bank of Japan governor.

Another minister designee of South Korean president Park Guen-hye steps aside.

North America

A tough spell for Alberta premier Alison Redford — the populist Wildrose is once again leading polls.

The New Democrats seem set to win the British Columbia provincial elections in May.

Canadian MP Marc Garneau challenged Justin Trudeau for running a campaign without substance at a Liberal Party leadership debate on Sunday.

Latin America / Caribbean

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has a new respiratory condition — not a good trajectory for the cancer-stricken leader.

Francisco Toro and Juan Cristobal Nagel have compiled the best of the past decade of posts at their always-thoughtful Caracas Chronicles into a book.

Brazil’s economy grew by just 0.9% in 2012. [Portuguese]

Puerto Rican governor Alejandro García Padilla wants to boost the economy through energy and tourism.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Uhuru Kenyatta leads in the early Kenyan presidential results, but it’s still too early to know much of anything as of 1 a.m. EST (yes, the counting is very slow).

Full interactive results from Kenya’s IEBC here.

Forget ethnicity — Kenya has two tribes, rich and poor.

Some honest mocking of lazy Western media tropes on Kenya.

Djibouti’s opposition gets a warning from the government.

Keep an eye on western Kenya’s result, in particular.

Some kudos to outgoing Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki for remaining relatively above the fray in the current election.

Defeated Ghanaian presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo gets his day at the supreme court on March 14.

Nigeria is set to eclipse South Africa as the continent’s largest economy.

Europe

More than two-thirds of Swiss voters have approved curbs on executive compensation in a referendum.

Rumbles that the current governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco, may lead a technocratic government.  I think that’s unlikely, but there it is.

Beppe Grillo’s army of newly-elected Five Star Movement deputies comes to Rome.

Germany will veto extending the Schengen free-border zone to Romania and Bulgaria later this week.

Labour still leads the Nationalist Party in advance of Maltese elections on March 9.

Former Polish president Lech Walesa is in trouble for making anti-gay remarks.

Charlemagne at The Economist checks in on Golden Dawn, Greece’s neo-nazi party.

Denmark’s conservatives would improve their poll standing if Lars Barfoed were to step down as leader.

Czech president Václav Klaus will face treason charges from the Czech senate in his final days in office over a pardon scandal.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Fredrik M Sjoberg, writing at The Monkey Cage, argues why there might be something to claims of electoral fraud in Armenia by presidential loser Raffi Hovannisian.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych are meeting to discuss natural gas and customs unions.

Middle East and North Africa

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee in Washington by satellite Monday.

It looks like Netanyahu will cave on including the haredim in his next government coalition.

More on Tunisia.

Tough interview with former UK prime minister Tony Blair on Iraq, a decade later (see below).

East and South Asia

More Shahbagh clashes in Dhaka.

North America

U.S. soldier Bradley Manning (pictured above) has pled guilty in the Wikileaks case.

The U.S. budget sequester has arrived.

Latin America / Caribbean

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is allegedly clinging to life.

Lima mayor Susana Villarán faces a recall vote on March 17.

Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier goes to court in Haiti.

Felix Salmon predicts Argentina will default in 2013.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Kenya’s election on Monday is more likely than not to be peaceful.

Europe

Pope Benedict XVI’s final day.

The new ‘Vote for Pope’ website explains all.

Europe caps bank bonuses.

Italy’s center-left has ruled out a ‘grand coalition’ government with conservative former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

UKIP outpolls the Tories in a U.K. by-election (the Liberal Democrats, however, won the seat).

Bulgaria will hold elections on May 12.

Middle East and North Africa

Yesh Atid refuses to join an Israeli government coalition without Naftali Bennett and refuses to join a coalition with the haredim.

East and South Asia

Haruhiko Kuroda is formally nominated as the next governor of the Bank of Japan.

Thailand and the southern Muslim rebel group Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) sign their first peace accord.

Still a rocky start for South Korean president Park Guen-hye.

A death sentence for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee in Bangladesh over 1971 war crimes.

Chinese intellectuals pen an open letter for greater freedoms.

North America

U.S. secretary of state John Kerry shows off his French language skills.

Steve Clemons from The Atlantic ponders the post-Hagelian moment in U.S. politics.

Latin America / Caribbean

Venezuelan vice president Nicolás Maduro has met with ailing president Hugo Chávez.

Sub-Saharan Africa

South African finance minister Pravan Gordhan presents a tough 2013 budget.

James Verini in Nairobi considers the upcoming Kenyan election for Foreign Policy.

Former Kenyan finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who served under prime minister Rail Odinga, blames Odinga for the economic conditions of the past five years.

Rwandan president Paul Kagame will not seek a new term in 2017.

Europe

Five Star Movement leader Beppe Grillo calls center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani a ‘dead man talking’ and refuses to discuss any alliance, complete with corpse-like illustration (pictured above).  Original blog post here.  [Italian]

For March Madness fans of U.S. college basketball, here’s the ‘Sweet Sistene’ bracket for choosing a new pope.

Frank Stonach is shaking up Lower Austria.

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte calls for a eurozone exit clause.

Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša has been ousted by parliament.

Middle East and North Africa

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ask president Shimon Peres for a 14-day extension to finalize coalition talks.

Former television news anchor Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid would win a new set of Israeli elections.

East and South Asia

A tribunal in Dhaka is expected to deliver a verdict on Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee Thursday.

Spiegel interviews Nobel laureate Mo Yan.

North America

U.S. secretary of state John Kerry’s first gaffe.

Former Republican U.S. senator Chuck Hagel is confirmed as U.S. secretary of defense.

Latin America / Caribbean

Colombian coffee growers go on strike.

In Paraguay, the Colorado Party’s Horacio Cartes leads polls for April’s presidential election, but two challengers are each within single digits.  

Sub-Saharan Africa

Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga face difficult questions over land reform in Kenya.

Europe

The European Union’s ministers back a fish dumping ban.

Pope Benedict XVI is set to hold his final audience.

Iceland’s Progressive Party is on the rise in polls in advance of spring elections.

Paul Krugman: ‘This is the way the euro ends: not with the banks but with bunga-bunga.’

Lithuania moves closer to joining the eurozone.

Tyson Barker argues why this time is different for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Middle East and North Africa

The National Salvation Front will boycott Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections. That’s huge.

Neither Fatah nor Hamas?

East and South Asia

Haruhiko Kuroda is Shinzō Abe’s nominee to become the next Bank of Japan governor.  The New York Times reacts here.

Philippine president Benigno Aquino’s government has passed a law compensating the victims of former president Ferdinand Marcos.

Outgoing South Korean president Lee Myung-bak will become a consultant to developing countries.

The Korea Times examines South Korean president Park Guen-hye’s ‘simple’ fashion statement for inauguration (pictured above).

Burmese president Thein Sein will visit Europe.

On China’s Poly Group.

North America

Chicken Justin won’t debate.

Latin America / Caribbean

Raúl Castro is set to step down as Cuban president in 2018.

Mexico’s new president Enrique Peña Nieto has enacted a major education reform.  [Spanish]

The opposition Barbados Labor Party has chosen Mia Mottley as its new leader.

A week later, and no one in Venezuela has yet seen ailing president Hugo Chávez.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Guinea’s opposition will not participate in the expected May elections.

Djibouti’s ruling party has declared victory in last week’s election.

Stephen W. Smith is not happy about Mali.

Another review of Kenya’s final presidential debate.

Did you know former longtime Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi has endorsed Musalia Mudavadi?

Europe

Malta, which goes to the polls on March 9, worries about fallout from Italy’s political tumult.

British chancellor George Osborne came out defiant Monday in light of his country’s loss of its ‘AAA’ credit rating.

Pope Benedict XVI has cleared the way for a minor rules change, allowing for a quicker conclave to elect his successor.

Mining and Chinese influence have become key issues in the Greenlandic election campaign.

How same-sex marriage is splintering Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats.

Germany is ready to launch EU talks with Turkey.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan claims his ally Raffi Hovannisian has won Armenia’s presidential vote.

Moscow writes off $30 billion in Cuban debt.

Pessimism over EU-Ukraine talks this week.

Middle East and North Africa

Syria’s opposition will now join peace talks in Rome.

Mohamed ElBaradei calls for a boycott of Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections.

Sectarian killings are on the rise in Iraq.

Iran simply does not care for ‘Argo.’

Tunisia’s Ali Larayedh, formerly interior minister, will form the new government.

Australia and Oceania

Labor’s Julia Gillard would lose this autumn’s Australian elections by 55% to 45%, according to a new Newspoll survey.

East and South Asia

On Japan’s reinflationary policy.

Japan is likely to enter talks to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Police general Pongsapat Pongcharoen leads polls to become the next governor of Bangkok.

North America

U.S. president Barack Obama is meeting Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe.

Latin America / Caribbean

‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier avoids court again.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez still has respiratory problems.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Uhuru Kenyatta has pulled out of the Feb. 25 presidential debate.

Europe

Checking in on Cyprus.

The Pirate Party is sinking in Germany.

Former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi points to Mafia and bureaucracy as his country’s top problems.

Chinese investment in Greenland at the forefront, a couple of weeks before elections.

YouTrend helpfully notes in its coverage of the ‘papal conclave’ to be held around Feb. 24 or 25 that the ‘gioviale cardinale di Piacenza’ has about 33.5 cardinals supporting him, while the ‘prelato pelato di Monza e Brianza’ has about 32.  A close race indeed.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Does an incumbent president really hold post-election talks with his challenger if the vote wasn’t rigged? The latest from Yerevan.

Life in prison for Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko?

On Moldova’s political crisis.

Middle East and North Africa

Egyptian elections will begin on April 28.

Egypt’s feud between the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Australia and Oceania

More Kevin Rudd bait.

East and South Asia

China will tax carbon… eventually.

North America

What’s the French word for ‘pasta’?

Latin America / Caribbean

Barbados goes to the polls today.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo appeared at the International Criminal Court on Wednesday.

Europe

Spain’s 2012 budget deficit is unexpectedly under 7%.

A broader Dutch coalition that includes the Christian Democrats?

Protests continue after the resignation of Bulgarian prime minister Boiko Borissov’s government.

Forecasting the sooner-than-expected Bulgarian elections.

The leader of a fiscally conservative, anti-corruption party in Italy steps down for lying about his resume.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk is cautious over joining the eurozone.

Last week’s third-place candidate in the Cypriot presidential election, Giorgios Lillikas, will not likely support either candidate in this Sunday’s runoff.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Was former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma implicated in the 2000 murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze?

Middle East and North Africa

A fight between Iraqi parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi and prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

East and South Asia

India’s trade unions are calling a two-day strike.

Japan hits a record $17.4 billion trade deficit for January 2013.

An interview with Democratic Party of Japan leader Banri Kaieda.

James Fallows on the Chinese hacking affair.

North America

Anti-corruption units swoop in on Québec politics.

On the U.S. prison epidemic.

On the fight over U.S. sequestration budget cuts.

Latin America / Caribbean

The opposition Barbados Labour Party is favored to win Thursday’s election.

Lula backs Dilma in 2014.

Mexicans approve of new president Enrique Peña Nieto so far by a margin of 56% to 29%.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Making the case for an African pope.

What China thinks about Ethiopian investment.

Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga are essentially tied in polls for the Kenyan presidency.

Europe

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet has announced her candidacy for mayor of Paris.  [French]

Irish taoiseach Enda Kenny makes an apology for the Magdalene laundries.

Greece prepares for the first general strike of the year Wednesday.

Hilary Mantel has some choice thoughts about the Duchess of Cambridge.

Germany’s view of the Italian election.

Edward Hugh on self-perpetuating Spanish contraction.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Raffi Hovannisian, who officially lost Armenia’s Monday presidential election, is declaring victory and calling on incumbent Serzh Sargsyan to concede.

The Economist considers Georgian mineral water.

Stability and progress in Central Asia.

Middle East and North Africa

Tunisian prime minister Hamadi Jebali (pictured above) has now resigned after technocratic government talks fail.

It looks like Tzipi Livni will soon join the coalition of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as justice minister with a portfolio for Palestinian negotiations.

An interview with Iyad al-Samarrai, secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Australia and Oceania

The Labor-Green alliance is over, but the Australian government won’t fall.

Australia is going through yet another moment where Labor is looking to former prime minister Kevin Rudd as its electoral savior.

East and South Asia

Shinzō Abe gets the New York Times profile treatment.

North America

A preview of the ‘Throne Speech’ of Ontario’s new premier, Kathleen Wynne.

Latin America / Caribbean

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is back in Venezuela after 68 days of treatment in Cuba.

60% of Colombians apparently disapprove of the reelection of president Juan Manuel Santos.  [Spanish]

Ecuador’s ruling Alianza PAIS has won two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly.  [Spanish]

A closer look at the geography behind Ecuador’s Sunday presidential election.  [Spanish]

Sub-Saharan Africa

Welcoming Mamphela Ramphele and her new party to the fray of South African politics.

Europe

A McKinsey pope for the Vatican?

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Belarus has sentenced a border guard in retribution for the Great Teddy Bear Airlift of 2012 (pictured above).

Official results from the Armenian presidential election.

Middle East and North Africa

Hezbollah operating in Syria?

Peer Gatter on Yemen and the politics of qat.

Another day, another failure to form a Tunisian government.

All sorts of interesting polling data from Turkish politics.

Australia and Oceania

New Zealand will introduce ‘plain’ cigarette packaging.

East and South Asia

The Shahbagh protests in Bangladesh (pictured above) have effected legal reform — the state will now be able to appeal a life sentence into a death sentence.

Will Mehmood Khan Achakzai be the caretaker prime minister in Pakistan?

Narendra Modi seems likelier than ever to lead the BJP’s 2014 campaign in India’s general elections.

North America

Time‘s penance in looking back on the anti-war Iraqi protests exactly one decade later.

Latin America / Caribbean

Newly reelected Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has revolutionary plans.  [Spanish]

Marina Silva is starting a new Brazilian political party.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Mali will hold (much delayed) presidential elections on July 7.

Which African leaders are savviest on Twitter?

Are Swaziland’s elections meaningless?

Europe

Reexamining the iron closet.

Continuing conflict in Kosovo.

The 2014 Paris mayoral race is in full swing.

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi pays homage to bribery.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Polls in Armenia are now open.

Middle East and North Africa

Former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s trial is underway.

Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett are both less than enthusiastic about the haredim parties.

Equal rights for Saudi women?