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Wedged between highways and railroads, on a barren stretch of moldy concrete and sickly palm trees in Sao Paulo, sits the headquarters of the Latin American Parliament, or Parlatino, designed by famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. Created in 1964, the Parlatino was modeled on the European Parliament as a legislative body that would drive the integration of Latin American and the Caribbean around their unique regional and hemispheric interests. Today, though, the Parlatino is irrelevant, detached from national and even regional policy debates—just one of a succession of Latin American efforts to create a body to coordinate the hemisphere’s interests […]

Stockholm +50 climate conference. On 2 and 3 June, representatives from 110 countries will attend the UN meeting, including environment ministers, heads of state, representatives of business and civil society (Sipa via AP Images).

Last week, the United Nations held the Stockholm+50 conference, a two-day international meeting celebrating 50 years of global action on climate change. The first iteration of this event in 1972—the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which also took place in Stockholm, Sweden—saw countries come together to acknowledge their responsibility to “defend and improve the human environment for present and future generations,” and led to the creation of the U.N. Environment Program, which is still active today. Five decades after that first meeting, Stockholm+50 was intended as an opportunity to reflect on the progress that has been made, and to “springboard” further action toward accomplishing […]

An officer on board a Vietnamese coast guard vessel films a Chinese coast guard vessel sailing in the waters claimed by both countries in the South China Sea, May 15, 2014 (AP photo by Hau Dinh).

Ukraine’s successes in resisting and even turning back an invasion by a numerically superior Russian force has raised expectations in East Asia that smaller nations in the region could conceivably fend off an attack from a large military like China’s. Taiwan, of course, has long struggled with executing such a defense strategy, but since its strategic considerations are in many ways unique, other countries nominally threatened by China may not be able to draw as many lessons from Taipei’s experience. Ukraine’s performance in its war against Russia, on the other hand, may look to them like a more relevant model—for […]

A protester peaks out from behind a shield on which a sign in Spanish reads, “We have said, ‘Enough,’” during an anti-government protest in Bogota, Colombia, May 10, 2021 (AP photo by Fernando Vergara).

The biggest controversy at the Summit of the Americas being held this week in Los Angeles is the guest list. No, this isn’t another column about whether Cuba should be invited. It’s about the entire guest list of presidents and prime ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean claiming to represent their countries. With few exceptions, if you ask the publics that voted those leaders into office, a majority of them think the person representing their country at the Summit of the Americas is doing a poor job. The host, U.S. President Joe Biden, has an approval rating of around […]

Seized firearms that were destined for the Los Zetas drug trafficking organization in Mexico are seen at a news conference, Feb. 8, 2012, in San Antonio. (AP photo by Eric Gay).

The United States is the indisputable mass shooting capital of the world. But in the wake of the recent horrifying incidents in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa and over 230 other communities in 2022, it is worth recalling that the U.S. not only has the highest rate of gun deaths and gun possession among wealthy countries. It is also the world’s preeminent arms merchant. In fact, the U.S. is responsible for more than 40 percent of all reported arms exports globally over the past five years. About half of U.S. sales between 2017 and 2021 were directed to clients in the Middle East, with the rest scattered across more than 100 countries, including many with a record of serious human rights violations. The […]

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives for a ceremony, in Ankara, Turkey on May 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Turkey is nominally a close military and political ally of the United States and other NATO countries, as well as an important economic partner to the European Union. But reading headlines in recent months and years, one wonders how close the Turkish government really feels to its western partners. Under President Erdogan, Turkey has waged war against Kurdish allies of the United States in Syria and Iraq, and supported militias associated with al-Qaida, Hamas and other Islamic extremists. It has also developed a somewhat close relationship with Russia, even buying a Russian air defense system despite strident opposition from the […]

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is greeted at the opening session of the 33rd AU Summit, where he handed over chairmanship of the bloc to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Feb. 9, 2020 (AP photo).

Last weekend, the African Union hosted two summits in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, aimed at tackling Africa’s humanitarian and political crises. The events were scheduled ahead of the 20th anniversary of the continental bloc’s establishment in July. The first, held on Friday, May 27, was a humanitarian summit and pledging conference examining the root causes of the continent’s humanitarian crises, while the other, on May 28, was centered on terrorism and unconstitutional changes of government as drivers of instability. The gatherings sought to identify long-lasting solutions to the many humanitarian and political challenges across the continent, with special emphasis on financing, post-conflict recovery, […]

Ukrainian refugees wait near the U.S. border, April 4, 2022, in Tijuana, Mexico (AP photo by Gregory Bull).

The images from Poland earlier this year were inspiring: As refugees began to cross Ukraine’s western border, Polish citizens poured out of their homes to receive them. They set up soup kitchens at the border and established caravans to shuttle refugees to train stations. They opened their homes and beds to families passing through, and as the days went on, a stream of international grassroots volunteers showed up to support the relief effort. As the weeks passed, however, many Poles began asking, Where is the national government in all this? Some were angry that the Polish government took credit for their grassroots […]

Supporters hold a poster of presidential candidate Jose Ramos Horta during a campaign rally in Dili, East Timor, March 15, 2022 (AP photo by Lorenio Do Rosario Pereira).

In Timor-Leste’s recent presidential election in April, Jose Ramos-Horta—the former president, prime minister, foreign minister and resistance-era spokesman—won with a 62 percent majority. A political perennial, Horta’s success can largely be attributed to support from another former president, prime minister and resistance-era hero: Xanana Gusmao. In the two decades since Timor-Leste’s independence, Gusmao’s endorsement has been decisive for all the country’s presidential candidates, including for Horta in his first successful run for the presidency in 2007; former military commander Jose Maria Vasconcelos, who won in 2012; and outgoing President Francisco “Lu-Olo” Guterres, who was elected in 2017, but with whom […]

Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks during a news conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on Dec. 9, 2020 (Keystone photo by Martial Trezzini via AP).

For the past week, China’s state-controlled media has been gushing about the benefits of the recent visit to the country by Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights. Its reaction summarizes the results of the disastrous trip to a country that stands accused of committing genocide against ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the northwest Xinjiang region; crushing democratic freedoms in Hong Kong; smothering human rights in Tibet; and engaging in increasingly authoritarian behavior across the rest of the country. Activists had hoped Bachelet’s visit—the first by a U.N. human rights commissioner in 17 years—would give […]

A man holds a banner as Gambians cheers in Serrekunda, Gambia, Jan. 19, 2017 (AP photo by Jerome Delay).

BANJUL, Gambia—The Gambian government’s announcement last week that it will prosecute exiled former President Yahya Jammeh for a wide range of atrocities committed under his rule offers new hope to his victims for justice and closure. The announcement, made in a white paper, was the government’s formal response to the recommendations of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, or TRRC, which were delivered in November 2021. The TRRC was launched in 2018 to hear cases and compile an impartial record of alleged human rights violations and abuses between 1994 and 2017, when Jammeh had ruled Gambia with an iron fist. From January 2019 […]

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson waves at the media as he leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Minister's Questions at the Houses of Parliament, in London, Feb. 9, 2022 (AP photo by Matt Dunham).

The revelations of outrageous behavior by the civil servants and advisers closest to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have become so predictable in their mixture of bureaucratic procedure with B-movie farce, that it now seems surprising when a day goes by without another incident splashed across the morning headlines. The leaks about raucous parties in offices used by Johnson’s team at 10 Downing Street during pandemic lockdowns began to filter through to journalists late last year. Ever since, the Conservative Party and the British government Boris Johnson has led since August 2019 have struggled to break free from an image […]

Shanghai residents cheer and pose for photos near midnight on the eve of the lifting of a COVID-19 lockdown, May 31, 2022 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

China’s official name is the People’s Republic of China, but the degree to which that description fulfills its promise is a wildly varying, fluid story that remains open to debate. Chinese politics and culture, in all their ramifications, nonetheless begin with the Chinese people, who bear the full weight both of their government’s policies and the xenophobia of assumptions that because they are Chinese citizens, they are by default agents of the Chinese state. Chinese citizens are varied and complex, just like people in any country or corner of the globe. They can be prone to displays of nationalism, but […]

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