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This article by Nate Silver, a well known economics blogger for the New York Times, takes an interesting stance on the Tucson assassination. He looks at it from a data analysis perspective and looks at the history of political assassinations in the U.S. He comes to the conclusion that there not enough data is released by the government about domestic terrorism to make any conclusions, but some of the statistics he presents are still interesting and good discussion points.

March 19 marks the 10th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. But the U.S. conflict with Iraq began long before that. Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and American forces were fighting Iraqis continuously for the 13 years that followed in order to enforce UN-mandated no-fly zones, punish Saddam Hussein for attempting to assassinate former President George H. This timeline lays out (literally) all of the United States' involvement in Iraq. Again, it's very important to have a thorough understanding of the history of a country before analyzing the present as you can see patterns and determine motivations based on past occurrences and trends.

Journalist Gauri Lankesh, a leading critic of India's governing party, was assassinated outside her home earlier in September. Lankesh opposed the use of religion in politics and India's Bharatiya Janata Party has been recently pushing a Hindu agenda. The BJP has denied all accusations of the murder.

South Africa is experience a similar police brutality as the US. However their's comes from a much different history, hence "coloured lives". South African citizens remember police from the apartheid, who then followed white leadership and used force to assassinate leaders, start violence, and enforce the rules. That is tearing the police-citizen relationship apart. They recently murdered 16 year old Nathaniel Julies when he was caught in between fire, sparking outrage and protest.

This is a demonstration of low capacity -- there's no governmental authority able to maintain order.

It seems like gang violence has become one of Haiti's greatest challenges among the natural disasters and political upheaval. Definitely agree it is a sign of a low-capacity country, that is unsurprising, however, given their president's assassination. Similar to Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, and Venezuela, who have all struggled with gang control of major portions of the country's territory. A common theme in this region of the world.

yup yup, thanks Sam, Anay and Ershai!

Japan is holding a state funeral for Shinzo Abe, the country's longest-serving prime minister, who was assassinated in July at a political rally. The event has sparked controversy, however, with a protest of around 10,000 people today in Tokyo after a man set himself on fire near the PM's office earlier this week. The pushback is associated not only with the cost of the funeral, at around $11 million, but primarily with disagreement around giving such a high honor to a relatively unpopular political figure. Japanese state funerals have been historically reserved for members of the imperial family with only one other politician receiving a state funeral since WWII, back in 1967.

This is disappointing but not unexpected considering the elderly conservative demographics of Japan now. Abe has so much on his record that should have disqualified him from such an honor. At his core, he was a war crime apologist. His government had Japanese educational texts redacted to gloss over the crimes of the Japanese Empire in WWII, including the crimes of his beloved grandfather, who was nicknamed "The Monster of the Showa Era". He denied that Japan exported "comfort women" for their soldiers from conquered nations, and pressured the victim countries into silence. He refused to recognize the Ainu people - the indigenous people of the Japanese isles - until 2019. He tried to remilitarize Japan to bolster nationalism, thankfully unsuccessfully. The Japanese people and East Asia as a whole will be better off with his apologist mouth shut for good.