Uganda has passed draconian anti-gay laws, including life imprisonment for the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” (it is unclear what that phrase means). The laws were passed to protect the “traditional heterosexual family” in Uganda. However, it seems clear that one stimulus for the new law was a clear sense of resentment toward Western groups who had been pushing for changes to Uganda’s current anti-homosexuality laws. The Ugandan law is similar to the anti-gay laws recently passed in Russia. The world is far away from agreement on a universal definition of human rights.
The world’s newest nation-state, South Sudan, is in danger of splitting apart. Control of the government is being contested by rival ethnic groups, the Nuer and the Dinka. South Sudan is potentially a very rich country since it has significant reserves of oil. Its primary difficulty is that it needs to transport its oil through the Sudan, the country from which it seceded. The two groups are essentially fighting over who controls the oil revenues. As is usually the case with civil strife, however, civilians are the ones who pay the highest price.
Turkey is going through a serious political crisis as Prime Minster Erdogan has fired a number of senior police officers after they had arrested business and political allies of Erdogan. The scandal has grown out of last summer’s political protests against what many in Turkey believe is a growing authoritarianism in Erdogan’s rule. The scandal has also roiled Turkey’s economy as investors begin to raise questions about the viability of Turkey’s government. Turkey has a central role in almost all aspects of Middle East politics, and its growing weakness is a worrisome development to an already fragile region.
World Politics News 
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