In Tunisia, President Kais Saied is stripping human rights and democracy.

The pace of Tunisia’s democratic backsliding under President Kais Saied has accelerated in recent weeks. As part of Saied’s increasing curbs on freedom of expression, three more people who have publicly criticized Saied were arrested in the past week, bringing the total number of critics who have been jailed to 12.

In Ukraine, Zelensky faces pressure to take the moral high ground on human rights issues.

Part of what enabled Ukraine to win the public diplomacy war following Russia’s invasion was its obvious adherence to the Geneva Conventions in the face of an aggressive onslaught. But as the war dragged on and Russian atrocities piled up, Ukraine has taken other actions that risk chipping away at its hard-won moral high ground.

People in Cuba protest the US embargo and Biden's decision to keep it

In April 2021, Cuba experienced a watershed moment when Miguel Diaz-Canel became the leader of the Cuban Communist Party, completing a political transition that began three years earlier when Diaz-Canel was inaugurated as president. Now, for the first time since the 1959 revolution, a Castro leads neither the country nor the party, making way for a new generation of leaders to chart the island nation’s path forward.

In Thailand, PM Prayut faces a tough test in upcoming elections that will put stress on the country's politics.

Many observers expect Thailand to return to a state of economic normalcy in the year ahead. But as the country gears up for what will arguably be its first free and fair election since a military coup deposed the government of then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014, few expect the poll will usher in political stability.

protests in iran

Popular protests are on the rise, and they are increasingly going global. Over the past three years, popular movements demonstrating against fiscal austerity and corruption have brought down governments—in democracies and authoritarian regimes alike—from Europe and Latin America to Africa and Asia. And with the advent of new communication technologies and media platforms, what happens anywhere can be seen everywhere.

The US vs China rivaly has many paths forward, and Biden and Xi will need to find a way to navigate a new cold war.

President Joe Biden took office with an ambitious foreign policy agenda summed up by his favorite campaign tagline: “America is back.” Above all, that will mean repairing the damage done to America’s global standing by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Protests in Peru demanding elections and anti-corruption reform.

The recent anti-government protests in Peru haven’t happened in a vacuum. Rather they are the product of decades of misrule and corruption, as well as the legacy of the country’s civil conflict, which have combined to leave rural Peruvians disenfranchised, marginalized and forgotten by Lima’s political establishment.

Political prisoners of Nicaragua.

On Feb. 10, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega freed 222 political prisoners, but also stripped them of their citizenship. His exiling of his political opponents was not a signal of potential change but rather a show of force, and is part of a successful strategy of repression that has prevented Ortega’s opposition from organizing.

In Paraguay, Stroessner's dictatorship still haunts the politics of the country.

Thirty years after the atrocities committed under former dictator Alfredo Stroessner were revealed, Paraguayans are still seeking justice. The current government, headed by Stroessner’s own Colorado party, appears more interested in forgetting the past than pursuing accountability, lest the party fall into broader disrepute.

Violence and corruption in Central America, particularly in the Northern Triangle countries, is causing a wave of outward migration. The Trump administration’s restrictive measures and pressure on regional governments did nothing to address the root causes of the problem, which the Biden administration has now pledged to tackle. Meanwhile, efforts at reform across the region face opposition from entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo.

Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has been stifling democracy and protests in a political crisis.

Over recent months, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and an end to the legal targeting of opposition figures. But with Hasina unlikely to concede ahead of scheduled elections, the coming year looks set to be a contentious one.

Free school lunches are an important program in fighting food insecurity in the US.

Hunger in the U.S. is spiking again, because many pandemic-era policies that expanded access to food are expiring just as prices are rising. This provides both a challenge and an opportunity for advocates working to end hunger to reframe food as a public good rather than a form of charity and a human right rather than a commodity.

In India, the rise of Hindu nationalism under PM Modi has been fed by Bollywood and the film industry in general.

Bollywood has long played a significant nation-building role in India. But over the past decade, both onscreen and off, it has increasingly fed into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s particular brand of nation-building, by both reinforcing anti-Muslim sentiment and engaging in Hindu-nationalist revisionist history.

Protests have been consistent in Israel amid planned reforms and an escalated conflict with Palestine

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gotten off to a difficult start. The weeks since his Cabinet was formed saw the worst escalation in violence between Palestinians and Israelis since 2008. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s proposed reforms to the judiciary have been met with intense protests.

In Peru, protests following Castillo's failed self-coup are crippling the country's economy and democracy.

The crisis in Peru shows no sign of easing. With the death toll climbing, protesters have now reached the capital. Meanwhile, political leaders are struggling to come to an agreement about a way out of a violent showdown that is crippling the economy, worsening poverty and threatening the survival of Peru’s democracy.