As the fight for control of Tripoli continues, NDI staff in Benghazi have been meeting with representatives of the National Transitional Council (NTC) as they plan for the days ahead. NDI Resident Country Director Matyas Eörsi and Senior Advisor David Rolfes report from Benghazi.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is facing its worst political crisis since inter-ethnic war tore through the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Prolonged ethnic division among the country's three largest groups – Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats and Serbs – have prevented the formation of a government 10 months after general elections. Political and economic reforms needed to advance Bosnia’s bid to join the European Union have stalled.

When Senator Gloria Musu Scott decided to draft a bill to provide domestic partnership benefits for Liberians in common law marriages — a new concept in Liberia — she didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. So she visited Liberia’s new Legislative Information Service (LIS) to find how other countries have handled the issue and conducted an Internet search that turned up similar laws in several U.S. states.

A hotly-debated topic in Mauritania these days is social security, described as "the foundation for social justice in a modern state" by Mohamed Abdallahi Ould Guelaye, president of the Mauritanian Parliamentary Commission on Public Welfare and Health and author of a recent report on social security reform. "It is an expression of national solidarity: the wealthy pay for the poor, the healthy help the sick and are helped in turn when they fall ill," he said.

In Turkey, both policymakers and civil society groups are striving to give citizens more say in how public policy is made, but it is rare for the two groups to actually come together.

Violence between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz last June in the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalalabad left 470 dead, thousands injured and 400,000 displaced. With the goal of deterring future violence, a delegation from Kyrgyzstan recently affirmed the government’s commitment to carry out the recommendations of an international commission to defuse tensions and promote reconciliation.