Briefing Archive

Former South African President Jacob Zuma seems to have decided that given his dire circumstances, with his reputation in freefall and a corruption trial pending, attack is his best form of defense. Over two days in mid-July in Johannesburg, he appeared before the Zondo Commission, which was launched by Zuma’s successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, last year to investigate the rampant corruption—what is known in South Africa as “state capture”—during Zuma’s troubled presidency. State capture is shorthand for how Zuma allegedly allowed close private business interests to exercise undue influence at the highest levels of government, including over appointments and dismissals […]

In a significant escalation, President Donald Trump announced a total economic embargo on Venezuela yesterday, issuing an executive order that would block all transactions with the government and its officials and freeze their property and assets in the United States. The move came on the eve of a meeting in Peru held by the Lima Group, a multilateral body of Latin American countries that supports opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, rather than Nicolas Maduro. Fifty-nine countries, including the United States, are attending. The Venezuelan government and its few remaining partners, such as Russia, are not. […]

A cast of foreign actors is seeking to shape Sudan’s incomplete political transition after the fall of longtime President Omar al-Bashir, each nudging it in the direction they favor. Their competing agendas are complicating negotiations between the ruling Transitional Military Council and civilians in the pro-democracy movement represented by the Forces for Freedom and Change. The two sides reached a major agreement on July 5 to jointly manage a three-year transition to civilian rule, and there was a recent breakthrough on Aug. 4, as they finalized that July deal and thrashed out its details. Yet the transition remains fragile and […]

Late last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that China and Cambodia had signed a secret agreement allowing the Chinese navy to use a military facility near Ream, along Cambodia’s southern coast. According to a draft of the deal obtained by the Journal, it would reportedly grant China a 30-year lease on the port and permit the stationing of troops and storing of weaponry in an installation that covers 192 acres and includes one pier and other facilities. Images have also shown the construction of a military-grade airport and a development project of dubious commercial viability. The facilities, if managed […]

Facing a competitive reelection campaign, Argentine President Mauricio Macri took an unexpected gamble last month in his choice of a running mate: Miguel Angel Pichetto, an opposition stalwart who has nonetheless helped the government advance critical reforms from his perch as the most senior senator from the Justicialist Party, the main political vehicle for the opposition Peronist movement. The move was widely praised by analysts. Pichetto is a moderate, so he can help Macri lure Peronists who are anxious about their party’s more populist ticket, which includes the polarizing former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as its vice-presidential candidate. But […]

On July 25, less than a month after an initial weeklong hospitalization, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi died in a military hospital in the capital, Tunis. A critical bridge between Tunisia’s past autocracies and its current democracy, Essebsi’s earlier hospitalization understandably raised fears about the country’s ever-tenuous transition. Paradoxically, his death gave it a push forward. On the same day that Essebsi was first hospitalized, June 27, two separate suicide bombings in Tunis killed one policeman and injured several people. With both presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for later in the year and the country’s peak tourism season around the […]