Briefing Archive

Negotiations to bring peace to South Sudan have restarted in earnest, with the parties circulating a power-sharing plan that has failed once before. It is unclear if negotiators have a new strategy to successfully resurrect that agreement or if they are simply out of ideas. What is clear is that there is no end in sight for the current negotiations, even as fighting rages on into a fifth year and aid agencies report that 9,000 people are estimated to be losing access to food every day. Last December, the High-Level Resolution Forum (HLRF) announced a cessation of hostilities agreement between […]

On March 4, Salvadorans went to the polls for legislative and municipal elections. According to preliminary results, the opposition Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA, won 37 of 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, won 23, down from 31. The results are widely regarded as a stinging defeat for the FMLN, which also lost several key mayoral races, including in the capital, San Salvador. Besides the two leading parties, the Grand Alliance for National Unity, or GANA, took 11 seats in the assembly and the National Coalition Party, or PCN, eight. Several […]

On Feb. 21, Pakistan’s Supreme Court disqualified former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from leading the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN, party. Sharif’s brother Shahbaz, another senior PMLN leader, is expected to replace him as party president. The move marked Sharif’s second disqualification in seven months. Last July, the same court disqualified him from office, obliging him to resign as prime minister. These developments represent just the latest blows for the PMLN, which has led the government after winning a landslide election in 2013—but has seemingly been on the defensive ever since then. In 2014, the political opposition, led by […]

The arrival of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Cairo this week brought with it a flurry of diplomatic and economic announcements, including a $10 billion joint fund for the development of a megacity stretching from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, and possibly even Jordan. While the dollar amount is eye-popping, skepticism is warranted given the number of announced megaprojects in the region that have come to naught. But that doesn’t mean that the crown prince’s decision to stop in Egypt, on a tour that includes London and Washington, is not without importance. For the past two years, Egypt’s relations […]

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The tariffs, which will go into effect in 15 days, exempt Canada and Mexico for now, with the possibility of other states to be exempted as well. Combined with the resignation earlier this week of Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser who had been seen as a check on Trump’s protectionist instincts during his tenure as director of the National Economic Council, they signal that Trump is ready to make good on campaign promises of getting tough on trade—and in particular with China. […]

In early February, Guineans voted in municipal elections for the first time in well over a decade. Though such contests necessarily hinge on local dynamics, taken together they can reveal nationwide trends and challenges, and that’s been especially true in Guinea’s case. The extensive delay in holding the vote, and the unrest that has prevailed in the weeks since ballots were cast, offer insight into the main threats to the West African nation’s stability, as well as what to expect as President Alpha Conde approaches the end of his second term—his last under the constitution. The last time voters in […]

Amid all the focus on whether the Trump administration will recertify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has rekindled nuclear ambitions of its own. Later this month, Saudi Arabia will announce the winner of a multibillion-dollar contract to build the nation’s first two nuclear reactors, set to be constructed along the Persian Gulf. A U.S. consortium is competing with many others in what has become a geopolitical contest, but not without controversy. The United States has participated in over 100 nuclear deals like this before, so what makes one with Saudi Arabia so divisive? Riyadh wants […]

Late last week, during his annual speech to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled a raft of new and exotic military weapons systems that were in development, and in some cases ready to be deployed. Putin’s inventory included an enormous, new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile known as “Sarmat”; new maneuverable re-entry vehicles that will, in theory, be fitted onto Russian ballistic missiles to help them overwhelm American missile defenses; a nuclear-powered cruise missile apparently able to fly for thousands of miles just feet above the surface of the earth; and a nuclear-armed underwater drone potentially able to lay dormant […]

On March 11, Colombians vote in what could be the biggest test of the country’s democracy in decades. For the first time, the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, will compete at the polls as a newly formed political party. No matter how it performs, the FARC, now known as the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force—maintaining its old acronym in Spanish—is guaranteed 10 seats in Congress overall, with five in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives, as part of the landmark 2016 peace agreement. But the former guerrillas are aiming higher. Running on a message of […]

Voters in Sierra Leone head to the polls Wednesday in a presidential election that will likely go to a second round, with none of the leading contenders looking strong enough to top the 55 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Six frontrunners—among the 16 candidates that will be on the ballot—appeared in a televised debate on Feb. 15 that for the first time ever included all major candidates. Broadcast on national television and across radio networks, the debate captured how competitive the race is, as term-limited President Ernest Bai Koroma’s decade in office comes to an end. Koroma’s All People’s […]

Eduardo Enrique Urbina Ayala was shocked to see his face and name making the rounds on social media, in posts that framed him as the person responsible for setting fire to a military truck during a protest at the height of Honduras’ post-election crisis in December. The 22-year-old activist had left the country five days before the vehicle went up in flames. “I was already in Costa Rica,” Urbina told me over Skype from an undisclosed Costa Rican city. “I have everything documented in my passport … It’s proof from the state itself.” Nineteen days after Honduras’ contested Nov. 26. […]

Sometime later this year, Malaysia will hold a general election that will be one of the most closely watched polls in the nation’s history. The elections, which must be carried out by August but are expected to be held much sooner, will pit the ruling coalition led by scandal-ridden Prime Minister Najib Razak against a fractured opposition held together by the country’s longest-serving premier, Mahathir Mohamad. Both sides will be appealing to an electorate that has become increasingly frustrated by the country’s recent direction and future prospects. Historically speaking, elections have been relatively uncontested affairs in Malaysia. The ruling Barisan […]