Nicaragua never makes the headlines in major international media reports, even though the population are victims of the socialist regime led by Daniel Ortega. A cruel dictator responsible for the deaths of 634 citizens only because they hold different opinions to him. The figures are shocking for a country with only 6.3 million inhabitants. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Compass, Álvaro Leiva Sánchez - executive secretary of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH) - describes the human rights crisis in this Central American nation.

Across the Arab world, a new round of revolt and internal upheaval is underway: in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq and Lebanon the fundamentalist forces that today embody political Islam are openly opposed by the peoples in revolt. And a survey shows that democracy is the answer to the Islamist winter.

The NATO summit in London last week, which was supposed to be a celebration of the 70th birthday of the Atlantic Alliance, instead brought to light the profound split between its different members, above all between the United States and Europe, which obviously have very different interests. In addition, NATO is paying the price of never having reckoned with its defeat in Afghanistan against the Taliban, disguised as a retreat of combat forces completed in 2014.

“No-one wants to live in a communist state and Vietnam’s economic boom is fake news. That's why people escape. Don’t believe the government, only certain party members and officials are getting richer, ordinary people are becoming poorer.” A representative of the Vietnamese community in the UK speaks out.

A conversation with Steven Mosher (Population Research Institute) on the events in Hong Kong. "The discontent over Beijing's multiple violations of the Sino-British Agreement has been building for many years.  Public anger boiled over with the introduction of the extradition bill, which puts everyone in Hong Kong at risk of being "shanghaied" over the border to China.  But even the promised withdrawal of the bill will not resolve the deeper underlying grievances of the Hong Kong people". "The demonstrations were started and led by Hong Kong's Catholics, who are roughly 8 percent of the population. But to this number must be added the many non-Catholic students who attend Hong Kong's many Catholic high schools and colleges".