Young Israeli settlers scuffle with border police officers over the demolition of a building at the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank town of Ramallah, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 (AP photo/Tsafrir Abayov).

On Wednesday, Israeli settlers clashed with security forces after the Israeli High Court declared two apartment blocks in the West Bank settlement of Beit El illegal and ordered their demolition, stoking outrage among settlers and right-wing members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Following the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly authorized 300 new construction units in East Jerusalem, reacting to pressure from the Likud and Jewish Home parties. The court had previously rejected an appeal—issued by settlers and backed by the government—to prevent the demolition. Right-wing members of the Knesset were outraged at the court ruling: Moti Yogev of […]

Protestors gather during an anti-extremism march, Tunis, Tunisia, March 29, 2015 (AP photo by Hichem Jouini).

On Thursday, Tunisia’s parliament adopted a series of articles in a new counterterrorism bill to replace its authoritarian 2003 law, part of the government’s efforts to bolster security in response to rising domestic and regional threats. Amid outcry from human rights groups, deputies overwhelmingly voted in favor of three provisions authorizing the death penalty for acts of terrorism, despite a de facto moratorium on executions that Tunisia has observed since 1991. Critics argue that the bill, which was issued following the March 26 attack on the Bardo museum that left 22 dead, falls short of international rights standards—notably in its […]

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses a conference held on the occasion of the 5th anniversary his government, Budapest, Hungary, May 29, 2015 (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP).

Earlier this month, European ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss the Mediterranean migrant crisis and the redistribution of asylum seekers. Though France and Germany voluntarily committed to take in 21,000 migrants, other European Union member states rejected the call for a mandatory quota system. Leading that call was one of the most vocal opponents of the EU’s asylum and migration policy: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Last month, Orban defiantly suspended the asylum rules known as the Dublin Regulation, which allows refugees to be sent back to the country where they first requested asylum, citing technical difficulties with its implementation. […]

Saab JAS-39 Gripen fight jet at the Royal International Air Tattoo, Gloucestershire, U.K., July 21, 2013 (photo by FLickr user jez_b licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license).

In March, Sweden abruptly decided not to renew a five-year defense industry cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia, amid a diplomatic spat after Sweden’s foreign minister criticized Riyadh over its human rights record. The controversy led to headlines around the world and exposed the tension for Sweden, the world’s 12th-largest arms exporter, between promoting global defense sales and advancing democracy and human rights. But this is far from a new issue for Stockholm, and given the worsening security climate in Europe, the Saudi episode is unlikely to change minds in Sweden about the need to export defense equipment, even to non-democracies. […]

South African President Jacob Zuma, cenetr, and delegates prepare for a photo op at the African Union Summit, Johannesburg, June 14 2015 (AP photo by Shiraaz Mohamed).

At the African Union’s biannual summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 13-15, the principal task was to consolidate the “Africa rising” narrative—the belief that the continent has moved onto a new and more positive political and economic trajectory over the past decade. Two of the principal themes of that narrative are good governance and democratization. While the AU’s formal declarations in this area are encouraging, several developments suggest the gap between AU theory and practice will once again be persistent. Moreover, the very structure of the organization may stand in the way of progress. The summit was overshadowed by […]

A child peers out near a cross on a gate of the Wangfujing Catholic Church, Beijing, China, Aug. 14, 2014 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

In late May, at a high-level Community Party meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned that religions in China must be free from foreign influence and incorporated into socialist Chinese society. Xi’s warning appears to have its limits: It has not deterred the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, from reiterating his hopes that the embryonic dialogue between Beijing and the Holy See will continue to move forward. But the prospects of warmer ties between Beijing and the Vatican doesn’t play well in Hong Kong, where the city’s Catholic leadership has been a vocal supporter of the democracy movement in […]