Briefing Archive

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest, highly anticipated report on the state of Earth’s climate. The report, which updates the previous effort from eight years ago, represents the collective assessment by several hundred scientists from around the world of efforts to keep global temperatures from rising to levels that would trigger catastrophic changes in Earth’s environment and weather conditions. Spoiler alert: It’s bad. The report rules out any possibility of preventing the 1.5-degrees-Celsius rise in global temperatures that was the most ambitious target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. That threshold will be reached by […]

The ongoing withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is transforming diplomatic and security dynamics in Central Asia, creating opportunities for Russia and China to enhance their engagement with increasingly anxious governments in the region. The resurgence of the Taliban that began in the spring—and their takeover of large swaths of Afghanistan’s territory, including at least eight regional capitals so far—is unnerving senior officials in Central Asia.  Russia, meanwhile, is eager to take advantage of the U.S. withdrawal by shoring up its influence in Central Asia, enhancing its security footprint and preventing Washington from resuming military operations in any Central Asian […]

Zambia will hold general elections Thursday amid rising uncertainty about whether President Edgar Lungu will relinquish power if he loses. Political tensions are high, as Lungu deployed the army last week to several parts of the country, including Lusaka, the capital, in a controversial and unprecedented move. Lungu justified the decision by citing the need to maintain order amid flare-ups of preelection violence that left at least two people dead.  But opposition and civil society leaders have pointed to the fact that the military has been deployed to a number of areas without high levels of violence as evidence that […]

A man from a long-marginalized minority group dies after a police officer kneels on his neck, triggering protests and bringing issues of police brutality and systemic injustice into focus.  The place is not Minneapolis, but the small city of Teplice in the Czech Republic. The date is not May 25, 2020, but June 19, 2021. And the victim is not George Floyd, but Stanislav Tomas—a 46-year-old Roma man. The Roma are the largest ethnic minority in Europe, numbering 12 million to 15 million, according to Julija Sardelic, a political scientist at Victoria University of Wellington and author of “The Fringes […]

After an unprecedented political crisis, Samoa finally has a functioning government, headed by the first female leader in the small Polynesian island nation’s history. Fiame Naomi Mata’afa had been scheduled to take office as prime minister months ago, but her predecessor, Tuila’epa Malielegaoi, tried desperately to cling to power. In the end, Samoa’s institutions held fast, making it a notable bright spot in a global landscape of democratic decline.  The country’s general election on April 9 was peaceful and orderly, but closely contested. Official results showed a tie, with Tuila’epa’s HRPP party and Fiame’s FAST party each taking 25 seats in […]

Since taking office in 2017, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo has demonstrated a pattern of heavy-handedness, authoritarianism and impunity that belies his carefully crafted global image of a debonair and progressive African leader. The latest controversy involves a bill, supported by members of Akufo-Addo’s administration and key religious institutions in the country, that would criminalize displays of same-sex affection and advocacy for LGBTQ rights, punishable by up to a decade in prison. Ghana has long had a mixed record on protecting LGBTQ rights, but for much of the past four years in particular, LGBTQ Ghanaians—as well as their allies and advocates—have […]

In the run-up to India’s 2014 elections, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, campaigned on the slogan, Achhe din aane waale hain—“The good days are coming.” Led by the charismatic and popular Narendra Modi, who now serves as prime minister, the BJP stormed to power that year, decimating the long-ruling Indian National Congress party. Then, in the 2019 elections, the BJP improved on its previous electoral performance, taking more than 300 seats. It was the first time in 30 years that a single party had won a majority of the 543 seats in India’s legislature in back-to-back elections.  […]

MALAGA, Spain—In a decision with international significance, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled last month that the country’s 50-day lockdown to counter the initial spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020 was unconstitutional and therefore illegal. In coming to its historic decision, the court focused on whether Spain’s lockdown constituted a limitation or an effective suspension of fundamental rights.  Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez invoked a “State of Alarm”—the least serious of the three states of emergency outlined in Spain’s Constitution—in March 2020, which should have only allowed for a limitation of fundamental freedoms. The court ruled instead that the […]

Three weeks after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, and a week after being sworn in as prime minister, Ariel Henry held his first Cabinet meeting on July 28. It did not go well. In an effort to distance himself from the unpopular Moise administration, Henry attempted to revoke a 2020 presidential decree creating a national intelligence agency, which had been widely criticized as an unaccountable secret police that could potentially spy on Moise’s political opponents.  But in response to Henry’s proposal, the Cabinet’s secretary-general, Renald Luberice, submitted a letter expressing his opposition to dismantling Moise’s agenda, in which he […]