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What is it with technical standards these days? Suddenly, this closed and unwelcoming world populated by guys with shirt-pocket protectors working on incomprehensible documents thick with unexplained acronyms—as well as not-so-hilarious racism and misogyny under the flimsy cover of April Fool’s Day jokes—is today’s hot internet governance topic. To anyone familiar with the world of technical standards, it still feels incongruous to hear people like British Prime Minister Boris Johnson—who would be cruelly laughed out of the room at the Internet Engineering Task Force, one of the leading standards bodies—extolling the virtues of making “our voices heard more loudly in […]

In early March, Mexico’s lower house of Congress approved a bill to legalize and regulate recreational cannabis. The bill, now under consideration in the Senate, is expected to pass with some changes, and ultimately be approved by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “The law should meet two goals,” Senate Majority Leader Ricardo Monreal said in April. “Reducing criminality and eliminating the prohibition that has led to thousands of people being imprisoned for having a few grams of marijuana.” How likely are these two objectives to be met? Of the two, the second goal is the more easily achievable, even if […]

This time last year, the Libyan capital was caught up in a year-old military campaign that had further internationalized the country’s dangerous divisions. Today, there is a new mood of cautious optimism in Tripoli. In October, negotiators from the two main warring sides—the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord and forces led by Khalifa Haftar, a commander based in eastern Libya—reached a cease-fire agreement that allowed for the resumption of a U.N.-led dialogue process. This in turn paved the way to the formation of Libya’s first unified government since the country slid into civil war in 2014. The new Government […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Middle East Memo, which takes a look at what’s happening, what’s being said and what’s on the horizon in the Middle East. Subscribe to receive it by email every Monday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it. In recent weeks, Egypt has released a handful of high-profile political prisoners, including three journalists, Khaled Dawoud, Solafa Magdy and Hossam el-Sayyad. Dawoud, who had become a leader in the opposition al-Dustour, or Constitution party, was arrested in 2019 following the outbreak of brief anti-government protests. […]

If the deepening climate crisis teaches us anything, it’s that we are embedded in the natural world and ignore this reality at our peril. At last month’s Leaders Summit on Climate, U.S. President Joe Biden pressed the world’s major economies to slash greenhouse gas emissions and unveiled America’s own plans to do so. The U.S. commitment was impressive, if necessarily tentative. It remains to be seen whether a politically divided United States can deliver on the administration’s pledge to cut emissions 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Still, the scale of ambition suggested a dawning ecological realism—an overdue recognition […]

MALAGA, Spain—In early April, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez traveled to Angola and Senegal, accompanied by representatives of 12 Spanish companies he hopes will do business there. The visit followed the launch in late March of his ambitious Focus Africa 2023 project, which aims to increase Spain’s commercial presence and investment throughout the continent, as well as to improve economic opportunities and infrastructure in several sub-Saharan nations. Closer to home, in terms of Sanchez’s political agenda, the project seeks to address the root causes of migration, with the hope that, in time, these improved circumstances will reduce the levels of […]