Kyrgyzstan

Mikhail Beketov is lucky to be alive, although I'm sure there are days when he doesn't think so. On November 13, 2008, the environmental reporter who campaigned against a highway that would have destroyed a forest in Khimki, a town outside Moscow, was beaten nearly to death by men with metal bars. The attackers made a special effort to destroy his hands and left him to die in the November cold. He would have if neighbors had not noticed him and called the police 24 hours after the attack.

History seemed to repeat itself this week in the mountainous Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. For the second time in five years, angry protesters—ignored and suppressed by a corrupt government—ousted yet another president.