Evo Morales declared he would run in Bolivia’s next presidential election as the candidate for the ruling MAS party—two years before the ballot and before MAS had even held its primary. It is the latest gambit in Morales’ increasingly bitter struggle with President Luis Arce, as both seek to lead the party into the 2025 election.
Robert Fico, the highly controversial three-time former prime minister who opposes military support to Ukraine, looks set to win Slovakia’s parliamentary elections on Sept. 30. He has pledged to reverse the EU and NATO member state’s political direction, after years of deep reforms designed to realign Slovakia with the EU mainstream.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden met with his counterparts from the five states of Central Asia in the first-ever leaders’ summit of the so-called C5+1 format. The meeting is a step in the right direction when it comes to U.S. policy toward an increasingly strategic region, but one that Washington has historically neglected.
For Washington and Brussels, the IMEC trade corridor linking India, the Gulf and Europe is an effort to mold the resulting partnerships in line with Western interests. However, for India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, their participation in the project does not reflect a desire to choose sides amid an era of great power competition.
Despite being in the midst of its rainy season, Panama is experiencing one of its driest periods on record. The lack of rainfall means that the Panama Canal—a vital conduit for global maritime trade—is facing severe challenges, with the implications extending beyond Panama’s borders to affect international trade and global supply chains.
In the two decades before invading Ukraine, as Russia attempted to project power around the globe, Moscow quietly boosted its military ties and diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia. Now, however, that influence seems to be dramatically fading, largely cutting Moscow out of a critical region in global politics.
With less than a year to go until South Africa’s next national election, several opposition parties have joined forces, hammering out a preelection coalition agreement in an attempt to unseat the ruling ANC. But despite the ANC’s slipping popularity, the opposition has struggled to make significant inroads into its electoral majority.
Last week, Armenia held joint military exercises with U.S. troops for the first time. Remarkable in and of themselves, the exercises were even more noteworthy because they followed a series of other recent developments that have underscored the degree to which Armenia’s relations with Russia have deteriorated in recent years.
Amid the fanfare surrounding BRICS’ expansion last month, the longstanding tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s mega-dam project on the Nile went largely unnoticed. In offering both countries membership, BRICS has absorbed a complex regional conflict, raising questions over its potential to shape global affairs.
The first Africa Climate Summit concluded with significant momentum for the continent’s approach to climate diplomacy. For many observers, though, these achievements were overshadowed by concerns over the endorsement of market-based schemes like carbon credits as a way out of the continent’s climate finance quandary.
Ahead of next week’s SDG Summit, the outlook for realizing the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is discouraging. Recent cascading crises threaten to reverse the progress made on several goals. They have also exacerbated one of the most significant challenges to realizing the SDGs: financing gaps.
With China’s economy slowing rapidly, many analysts around the world worry that a continued contraction in Chinese growth could potentially have an adverse global impact. Without China acting as the global engine of growth, they say, growth around the world could stall. But the story is more complicated than that.
Even as regular climate diplomacy has resumed between the U.S. and China, officials and observers of both countries have become markedly more pessimistic about the feasibility of carving out a separate lane for climate progress amid rising tensions. That may imperil our chances of a timely energy transition.
Last week’s ASEAN Summit comes at a time of rising geopolitical tensions in the region, including between member states and China. Nevertheless, paralyzed by its commitment to unanimity-based decision-making, ASEAN is either unwilling or unable to check Beijing’s worst instincts. The result is a deepening fragmentation within the bloc.
One hundred days into his term, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu—who won a disputed presidential contest in February—has mostly lived up to expectations, with few surprises. That might be because, amid a struggling economy and pervasive insecurity, not many Nigerians had high hopes for his presidency to begin with.
The global spread of Italian food and wine as well as the popularity of Italy as a tourism destination—alongside the depiction of all three in popular culture—have helped establish the country as a “soft superpower.” Now a force largely outside of Rome’s control is threatening all three sectors: the climate crisis.
Two tourists were shot dead by the Algerian coast guard last week after mistakenly straying into Algerian waters while jet-skiing off the coast of Morocco. The incident highlights the potential for unintended escalation between the two neighbors and historical rivals, whose diplomatic ties have been severed since August 2021.