Displaying items by tag: power struggles

In North Korea leaders put workers' wages into a government fund used to strengthen defence power, including nuclear development, importing luxury goods, operating the Labour Party, and constructing political achievements. Workers’ complexes are surrounded by barbed wire and under military surveillance, like labour camps. Peru’s power struggle is creating the worst political crisis in decades, with both the president and the vice-president claiming to be the country’s rightful leader, and its congress closed while surrounded by riot police. Peru’s dysfunctional and corruption-ridden political system has courted crisis for years, with three of its past presidents under investigation and one dead after shooting himself during his arrest. In Iraq at least ten are dead and 286 wounded, after riot police fired on thousands of demonstrators against unemployment, government corruption, and poor services. In Cape Town civil unrest and anarchy on the roads is being created by taxi operators displeased by strong-arm police tactics over their reckless driving. See also and and

For centuries the social and political organisation of many Iraqis has centred on the tribe. Socially, tribes were divided into related sub-tribes, which further divided into clans, and then into extended families. Today 75% of Iraq’s people are members of a tribe with a strict honour code. Despite the liberation of most of IS-occupied areas, political differences and a struggle for power remain. There have been clashes between the Popular Mobilisation Units and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces near Kirkuk. Also, on 20 July clashes between the Sunni Nineveh Guards and the Shi’ite faction of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada took place in Mosul. There are fears that these clashes might expand into open warfare amid deep differences over the disputed tribal areas extending from the Iranian border, through Kirkuk province and into Yazidi areas near the Syrian border. Terrorists have also been exploiting tribal differences for years. For historical roots, see: