A ceremony at Tiananmen Square to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, in Beijing, July 1, 2021 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which uses relevant WPR coverage to provide background and context to the week’s top stories. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 100th birthday Thursday, with the kind of grand pomp we’ve come to expect from Beijing for such occasions. The anniversary was an opportunity for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to vaunt the party’s accomplishments, particularly in lifting hundreds of millions of people […]

Malians supporting the overthrow of former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in Bamako, Mali Friday, Aug. 21, 2020 (AP Photo).

Editor’s Note: This is Andrew Green’s final week authoring our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, although he’ll continue to be a valued contributor and friend of WPR. We’d like to thank Andrew for having done such an amazing job with Africa Watch since taking it over. Tune in next week for an update about the newsletter moving forward. You can subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. After more than two years and 100 newsletters, I’ll be signing off from Africa Watch. […]

Trump supporters at a rally near the White House, prior to the storming of the Capitol, in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021 (AP photo by John Minchillo).

There are at least two ways in which the newly approved Congressional Select Committee on the events of Jan. 6 might go about investigating the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on that day. One is to treat the assault as a one-off—an aberrant security breach in which thousands of people who supported former President Donald Trump stormed the seat of American democracy to protest the 2020 certification of election results that put President Joseph R. Biden in the White House. Another is to approach the mob violence that day as the culmination of a yearslong influence […]

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in Paris, France, Jan. 11, 2021 (Photo by Romain Gaillard for Sipa via AP Images).

On June 22, Mauritanian authorities arrested former President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz as part of a corruption investigation that began in January 2020. The immediate trigger for Ould Abdel Aziz’s arrest was that he had refused to check in with a judge. As the case moves forward, the current administration led by President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, a former ally of Ould Abdel Aziz, faces a dilemma: Allowing Ould Abdel Aziz to escape the charges would give the former president a symbolic political victory and would undermine the rule of law, but convicting him of corruption would raise the stakes in […]

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban leaves at the end of an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, June 25, 2021 (AP photo by Olivier Matthys).

Violations of democratic norms by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are nothing new, but the explosion of anger in Europe against the anti-LGBTQ law just approved by the Hungarian parliament, dominated by Orban’s Fidesz Party, suggests Orban has crossed a critical red line. At last week’s European Union summit, no topic garnered more attention, or more fury, than the new law. If descriptions of what went on behind the scenes are accurate, Orban was berated with an uncommon degree of emotional intensity. Leaders of countries from across the EU lambasted Hungary’s self-described proponent of “illiberal democracy” in starkly personal terms—tears […]

Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan. 21, 2021 (AP photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi).

One day in April 2016, the Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire was sitting in his office, frustrated at the persistent economic crisis in his country that was making it difficult to provide for his family. So, he decided to vent. He took out his phone, propped it up against the Bible on his desk, and recorded a video in which he spoke about the symbolism of the Zimbabwean national flag, and how the promises of freedom and prosperity that it symbolizes had been violated by the regime of then-President Robert Mugabe. The video quickly went viral, inspiring a hashtag, #ThisFlag, and […]

Myanmar nationals living in Taiwan hold up the three-finger salute of resistance to express their disdain toward the military regime in Myanmar, during a demonstration in Taipei, Taiwan, May 2, 2021 (AP photo by Chiang Ying-ying).

Back in February, several weeks after Myanmar’s military ousted the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, I spoke on the phone with a 25-year-old researcher in Yangon, the country’s largest city. Having joined popular demonstrations against the coup, he said he was surprised at the scale of resistance to the new junta. The movement, which quickly became known as the Civil Disobedience Movement, had galvanized hundreds of thousands of nonviolent protesters across the country, as massive strikes at public agencies, banks and businesses threatened to grind government functioning and the economy to a halt. The researcher, who asked […]

Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Castillo gives a press conference at his campaign headquarters in Lima, Peru, June 15, 2021 (AP photo by Martin Mejia).

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Pacific Alliance, a Latin American regional trade bloc founded by Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile, with the hopes of expanding to others, such as Panama or Ecuador. The concept had been presented for the first time in 2006 by then-Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez: a network of countries on the Pacific coast that could increase their trade with the Asia-Pacific through interregional agreements. When the Pacific Alliance was finally launched in April 2011, its members had conservative presidents that aligned politically and commercially with Washington. Other countries in the […]

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