The pace of Tunisia’s democratic backsliding under President Kais Saied has accelerated in recent weeks. As part of Saied’s increasing curbs on freedom of expression, three more people who have publicly criticized Saied were arrested in the past week, bringing the total number of critics who have been jailed to 12.
Part of what enabled Ukraine to win the public diplomacy war following Russia’s invasion was its obvious adherence to the Geneva Conventions in the face of an aggressive onslaught. But as the war dragged on and Russian atrocities piled up, Ukraine has taken other actions that risk chipping away at its hard-won moral high ground.
Many observers expect Thailand to return to a state of economic normalcy in the year ahead. But as the country gears up for what will arguably be its first free and fair election since a military coup deposed the government of then-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014, few expect the poll will usher in political stability.
The recent anti-government protests in Peru haven’t happened in a vacuum. Rather they are the product of decades of misrule and corruption, as well as the legacy of the country’s civil conflict, which have combined to leave rural Peruvians disenfranchised, marginalized and forgotten by Lima’s political establishment.
On Feb. 10, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega freed 222 political prisoners, but also stripped them of their citizenship. His exiling of his political opponents was not a signal of potential change but rather a show of force, and is part of a successful strategy of repression that has prevented Ortega’s opposition from organizing.
Thirty years after the atrocities committed under former dictator Alfredo Stroessner were revealed, Paraguayans are still seeking justice. The current government, headed by Stroessner’s own Colorado party, appears more interested in forgetting the past than pursuing accountability, lest the party fall into broader disrepute.
Over recent months, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and an end to the legal targeting of opposition figures. But with Hasina unlikely to concede ahead of scheduled elections, the coming year looks set to be a contentious one.
Hunger in the U.S. is spiking again, because many pandemic-era policies that expanded access to food are expiring just as prices are rising. This provides both a challenge and an opportunity for advocates working to end hunger to reframe food as a public good rather than a form of charity and a human right rather than a commodity.
Bollywood has long played a significant nation-building role in India. But over the past decade, both onscreen and off, it has increasingly fed into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s particular brand of nation-building, by both reinforcing anti-Muslim sentiment and engaging in Hindu-nationalist revisionist history.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gotten off to a difficult start. The weeks since his Cabinet was formed saw the worst escalation in violence between Palestinians and Israelis since 2008. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s proposed reforms to the judiciary have been met with intense protests.
The crisis in Peru shows no sign of easing. With the death toll climbing, protesters have now reached the capital. Meanwhile, political leaders are struggling to come to an agreement about a way out of a violent showdown that is crippling the economy, worsening poverty and threatening the survival of Peru’s democracy.