Briefing Archive

YANGON, Myanmar—Beginning in the early 2000s, China’s rise buoyed commodities markets and improved the fortunes of many resource-rich countries. Myanmar was no exception: Bilateral trade has expanded considerably, with China now accounting for approximately 40 percent of Myanmar’s imports and 15 percent of its exports. Although estimates vary significantly, data provided by Myanmar authorities to the World Trade Organization indicate that China, including Hong Kong, made up nearly 60 percent of approved investments in its southwestern neighbor between 2005 and 2012. Cumulative Chinese foreign direct investment in Myanmar has since exceeded $14 billion, with much of that bound for the […]

After months of peaceful protests, Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina was stripped of immunity and forced to step down last week. He now faces charges of illicit association, customs fraud and bribery for his alleged role in a massive corruption scheme. A judge has ordered that he remain in jail until his trial in December. Over a dozen public officials, including former Vice President Roxana Baldetti, Cabinet members and government ministers, have been arrested and put on trial for their participation in the criminal network. The corruption scandals uncovered by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the U.N.-led International Commission against […]

The trial of Hissene Habre, the former leader of Chad, on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture has begun in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. Habre, who ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990, is accused of presiding over a network of secret police known by its French acronym, the DDS, which carried out systematic torture and disappearances during his rule. A Chadian truth commission in the 1990s established that there could have been as many as 40,000 victims. The reopening of the trial at the Palace of Justice in Dakar on Monday was a media spectacle—amid chaotic scenes, […]

Last week, Azerbaijan sentenced Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and anti-corruption campaigner, to seven-and-a-half years in prison for illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion. Her conviction comes three weeks after prominent human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus were sentenced to eight-and-a-half and seven years, respectively, for fraud, tax evasion and treason. The United Nations, the European Union, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others, have all condemned the arrest, trial and sentencing of these and other human rights advocates and anti-corruption campaigners in Azerbaijan. The U.S. State Department released a statement saying it “is deeply troubled” by Ismayilova’s conviction […]

The governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, arguably the Arab world’s two most influential states, continue to express their determination to strengthen an alliance that has grown under Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. In late July, el-Sisi and Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman signed a deal they called the Cairo Declaration, a strategic blueprint to advance bilateral cooperation in a host of areas, especially defense and the economy. Since 2013, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states have helped keep el-Sisi’s regime afloat, with billions in economic aid. Egypt, in turn, has been a partner in […]

As the plight of Syrian refugees and their harrowing attempts to enter Europe dominate international media, calls have mounted for the United States to play a greater role in managing the crisis. Last week, a photo of the lifeless 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach, went viral, only intensifying demands to address the humanitarian needs of many Syrians fleeing the civil war that has raged since 2011. European countries—the target for many migrants—have responded unevenly; Germany and Sweden are liberally accepting European Union-bound refugees and have called on other member states to absorb more migrants, though prospects […]

Belarus will hold a presidential election on Oct. 11, but one needn’t bother staying up for the result: The incumbent, Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s so-called last dictator, traditionally claims 80 to 90 percent of ballots, with the result fixed both beforehand by mass early voting and afterward via a completely invisible counting process. But in a region gripped by the turmoil caused by Russia’s proxy war in Ukraine, Belarus’ election still matters. Lukashenko has been in power since 1994. The last election in 2010 culminated in mass protests against election fraud and almost 700 arrests. That isn’t likely to be the […]

Ahead of Singapore’s general elections on Sept. 11, both major parties contesting the poll have said it will be definitive, even historic. At a press conference on Sept. 1, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore since the city-state was founded five decades ago, told reporters, “The country is at a turning point. Question is, in what direction do we now go?” That sentiment was echoed by Sylvia Lim, one of the leaders of the main opposition Workers’ Party. In some ways, election day will indeed be historic. For one, it is […]

In April, Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, announced that he would run for a third term in the 2015 presidential election, stoking outrage among his opponents. Unrest swept the capital, Bujumbura, and protests devolved into violence as security forces increasingly cracked down on dissent against the ruling CNDD-FDD party. An attempted coup was quickly quashed, leading to a series of arrests and beatings of its accused perpetrators, and unleashing more violence in the streets, causing thousands to flee. Officials in neighboring Rwanda called on Burundian authorities to mitigate a humanitarian catastrophe and quell unrest. That deviated from other East African nations, […]

While the lingering effects of the Ebola crisis have dominated coverage of Liberia for over a year, the country is quietly approaching a number of precipices. A convergence of political, religious and international factors on the horizon has the potential to destabilize Liberia, which has seen a tenuous peace since warlord-turned-President Charles Taylor resigned in August 2003, ending 14 years of civil war. A United Nations peacekeeping mission is poised to significantly draw down by June 2016; religious tensions have been stoked by a movement to declare Liberia a Christian state; and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf reaches her term limit […]

In late June, the Thai navy told reporters it had elected to buy three submarines from China. The billion-dollar purchase has yet to be officially finalized, and specifics regarding the decision remain murky. While the deal will move Bangkok one step closer to acquiring a capability it has lacked for more than six decades, it has become caught in a broader debate about Thailand’s perceived drift away from the United States and toward China following a coup last year. Thailand’s submarine quest is neither new nor surprising. The country has lacked a submarine capability since 1951 and has tried since […]

In late July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Beijing, his first state visit to China as president. Weeks earlier, back in Istanbul, Turkish nationalists enraged at the treatment of Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province had attacked Korean tourists, thinking they were Chinese, and stormed the Thai Consulate after Thailand deported a group of Uighurs who had fled China. With Erdogan pushing a more nationalist agenda to overcome a challenge from the right after his party’s electoral setbacks in June, most observers focused on whether China’s ethnic tensions and Turkish criticism of Beijing’s policies toward the Uighur minority could […]

On the night of Aug. 28, Turkish fighter jets joined U.S.-led airstrikes against the self-proclaimed Islamic State for the first time, following through on a long-reluctant commitment to fight the brutal jihadi group. But Ankara’s heightened efforts against the Islamic State have hardly been noticed by many people in Turkey, which is grappling with the deadly renewal of its war with Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey as snap elections loom in the fall. For Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the growing chaos comes down to one matter alone: the restoration of single-party rule for his Justice and Development Party (AKP), […]

The victory by Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance in the Indian elections of May 2014 seemed to herald the start of a new era for India’s defense establishment. The new government came to power vowing to strengthen the Indian armed forces and reform the country’s jumbled and sluggish approach to defense acquisition. Such promises were music to the ears of Indian military planners charged with preparing for various conflict scenarios, including the possibility—however unlikely—of a two-front war versus neighboring rivals China and Pakistan. Under the new approach laid out by Modi’s government, the military modernization process was supposed to be […]

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s right-wing Radical Party announced that it was leaving the ruling coalition over a bill that would give more power to the country’s regions, including in eastern Ukraine, which is currently controlled by pro-Russian rebels. Russia insisted on the decentralization of power as a condition for the truce that was agreed upon in February between Ukrainian troops and separatist rebels, which has unraveled bit by bit. The bill has sparked controversy across Ukraine and put President Petro Poroshenko in a tight spot. Russian-backed separatists say it does not give them sufficient sovereignty in the east, while nationalists claim […]