IN A POOL hall in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, a group of boxers and nightclub bouncers are discussing elections. They were recently taken to meet an army general, who offered them money to wear T-shirts of the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), and fight rowdy opposition supporters in the streets. The sum was not enough, they thought. Then disappointment turned to fear when a well-known champion boxer who had publicly backed the NRM was gunned down by security agents in the night, amid rumours that he had fallen out with his erstwhile patrons. Politicians view the urban poor with contempt, says a bouncer. “When […]Read more >

A CAMPAIGN ad for Sadyr Japarov, the newly elected president of Kyrgyzstan, shows him galloping across a snowy expanse on a white steed, coattails flying in the slipstream. The message is clear: Mr Japarov is a knight in shining armour (or at least in traditional Kyrgyz garb, which he wore on the campaign trail), racing to save the turbulent Central Asian nation, which has seen three popular uprisings in 15 years, including one this past autumn that put him on the path to power. “I’m not going to repeat the mistakes of previous administrations,” vowed Mr Japarov in an interview in his campaign headquarters at midnight on […]Read more >

THE MEGAPHONE has been taken away. On January 8th Twitter, a social network, announced that it was “permanently suspending” President Donald Trump’s account. Viewed in isolation, the two tweets that led to the ban were, by Mr Trump’s standards, fairly innocuous. But Twitter said it had taken its decision in the wake of the riot at America’s Congress on January 6th, in which five people died as legislators’ offices were ransacked by a crowd of Mr Trump’s supporters after Mr Trump had encouraged them to march on the Capitol. The social network said that continuing to give Mr Trump access risked […]Read more >