Briefing Archive

On April 5, following the injunction of a judge in Dhaka, Khaleda Zia, the former Bangladeshi prime minister and current leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), showed up in court accused of responsibility for a lethal arson attack last year. Prosecutors claimed that Zia instigated the attack on a bus, which left 12 people dead, by calling on her supporters to enforce a transportation blockade as part of protests against the government of the present prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, of the Awami League. After her appearance in court, Zia almost immediately obtained bail. To no surprise, her party […]

Security officials from South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s government allegedly attacked and detained 16 members of rebel leader and former Vice President Riek Machar’s publicity team Tuesday. The publicity team was in Juba in advance of Machar’s return to South Sudan’s capital on April 18, when he is set to assume the office of vice president again in a unity government with Kiir as part of a fledgling peace deal. Tuesday’s violence is only the latest round of renewed fighting in South Sudan. The U.S. State Department issued a statement Monday condemning recent attacks on rebels in the northwest of […]

Russia’s North Caucasus insurgency has gone relatively quiet, but reduced casualty numbers belie a still-worrying situation where long-standing grievances remain. As more and more fighters join the cause of globalized jihadi groups, most of all the self-declared Islamic State (ISIS), Moscow may find that it has only transformed and widened its war. A thwarted suicide bombing outside a police station near the Northern Caucasus city of Stavropol on Monday was the latest sign. Adding to the threat is the fear of blowback at home of previously dormant ISIS-inspired terrorist cells. This comes after a remarkable reduction of violence in Europe’s […]

The recent terrorist attacks in Belgium exposed critical deficiencies in Europe’s intelligence agencies. Soon after the attacks in late March, the Turkish government announced that, in July 2015, it had arrested Ibrahim El Bakraoui, a Belgian responsible for the Brussels airport bombing, and deported him to the Netherlands after determining that he intended to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State. European authorities never followed up. It was just the latest sign of the European Union and Turkey’s failure to cooperate on counterterrorism since the outset of the Syrian conflict. For close to three years, the European Union withheld from Turkey the […]

On Sunday, Peruvians will head to the polls to elect a new president and 130 members of Congress. But in a campaign season that has been fraught with controversy, few are likely to be satisfied with the results. Peru’s presidential campaign season began with a field of 19 candidates. By last Sunday evening’s debates, it had narrowed to 10. Among them were the daughter of a former president now in jail; two former presidents-one of whom was involved in a drug-trafficking scandal; and a candidate that’s running from a jail cell. Described as “crazy” and “chaotic” by some in the […]

With just days to go before presidential elections in Chad on Sunday, civil society groups are continuing to call for people to take to the streets despite a ban on demonstrations. On April 5, a small number of protesters, including members of two citizen groups—Ca Suffit, or That’s Enough, and Trop C’est trop, Enough is Enough—succeeded in holding a brief demonstration on Rue Felix Eboue in the center of Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, despite a strong police presence. The protesters were calling for an end to the country’s political stagnation ahead of the election, as well as for the release of […]

Large street protests across France in the past week against proposed labor reforms are the latest sign of the trouble President Francois Hollande finds himself in at home. The demonstrations came on the heels of Hollande’s retreat from another controversial and unpopular measure, pushed after the terrorist attacks in Paris last November, to strip dual nationals convicted of terrorism of their French citizenship. As he enters the final year of his term, Hollande is in the weakest position by far of any president in the history of France’s Fifth Republic. His poll numbers for job approval have been negative since […]

BEIRUT—Syria’s nationwide cessation of hostilities has made clear the growing rift between the country’s mainstream opposition and the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate. But just as the cease-fire has highlighted these maybe irreconcilable differences, it has also shown the extent to which the Nusra Front is tangled up in and ultimately dependent on the rest of the Syrian opposition. The Nusra Front often sells itself as the beginning and end of the fight against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. But Nusra cannot win single-handedly. It is a symbiote—it can only succeed when it is attached to a Syrian opposition […]

Colombia is inching closer to a future free of armed guerrilla groups. Talks with the 52-year-old, 7,000-person Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are far along, even though they missed a March 23 deadline for a final accord. Government and FARC negotiators in Havana have reached agreements on most of the negotiating agenda, and they are probably weeks away from a bilateral cease-fire with U.N. verification. The FARC, though, isn’t the only guerrilla organization in Colombia whose origins date back to 1964. The National Liberation Army, or ELN, has about 1,800 fighters plus a larger support network and is […]

On April 1, a new civilian government in Myanmar, headed by the long-time opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), assumed power after more than a half-century of military rule. The NLD’s victory in last year’s elections was touted as an historic feat, and the party has signaled that it will undertake significant political, economic and social changes in the coming years. But it is likely to face major challenges as it seeks to implement them, especially from an army that is still a potent political force. Since coming to power following an opening under the ruling junta in 2011, the […]

Since taking office last November, Tanzania’s president, John Magufuli—a former minister of works known as the Bulldozer for his ability to push through his agenda—has seemed to adopt a new title: the broom. He wants to sweep away the country’s reputation for endemic corruption and poor public service. Magufuli has identified three areas of priority for his government: cutting wasteful and unnecessary expenditure; improving public services; and tackling the corruption that has long plagued public life and placed Tanzania 117th out of 168 in the Transparency International 2015 corruption index. From the start, these commitments have been matched with action. […]