Newsletter Archive

While the war in Syria has receded from the international spotlight, residents in the country’s northeast are bracing for a new wave of armed conflict. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for months threatened to launch a military invasion of the region to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a buffer zone in the border area between the two countries. Turkish military deployments and diplomatic outreach to Russia suggest that a decision from Ankara to launch a military operation is likely and may even possibly be imminent. Turkey maintains its own enclave within Syrian territory, in Idlib province. But […]

Last weekend, the African Union hosted two summits in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, aimed at tackling Africa’s humanitarian and political crises. The events were scheduled ahead of the 20th anniversary of the continental bloc’s establishment in July. The first, held on Friday, May 27, was a humanitarian summit and pledging conference examining the root causes of the continent’s humanitarian crises, while the other, on May 28, was centered on terrorism and unconstitutional changes of government as drivers of instability. The gatherings sought to identify long-lasting solutions to the many humanitarian and political challenges across the continent, with special emphasis on financing, post-conflict recovery, […]

European Union leaders agreed this week to a partial ban on Russian oil imports, overcoming a veto by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. But the agreement commits only to banning seaborne imports to the EU by the end of 2022, leaving Russian oil imported by pipeline untouched. Seaborne imports account for two-thirds of the oil the EU purchases from Russia, leaving one-third outside the ban’s scope. However, Germany and Poland announced at this week’s leaders’ summit in Brussels that they will not use the exemption, pledging to phase out both seaborne and pipeline imports by the end of this year. […]

China’s official name is the People’s Republic of China, but the degree to which that description fulfills its promise is a wildly varying, fluid story that remains open to debate. Chinese politics and culture, in all their ramifications, nonetheless begin with the Chinese people, who bear the full weight both of their government’s policies and the xenophobia of assumptions that because they are Chinese citizens, they are by default agents of the Chinese state. Chinese citizens are varied and complex, just like people in any country or corner of the globe. They can be prone to displays of nationalism, but […]