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Today at WPR, we’re covering how climate change is threatening Italy’s global brand, and why outside powers’ influence in Africa is waning.

Depictions of Niger, Sudan and other African states as mere backdrops to geopolitical conflicts between distant outsiders neglect the role played by regional institutions, neighboring states and nonstate actors, while distracting from wider regional trends that will ultimately have a global impact of their own.

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.

Today at WPR, we’re covering tensions between Algeria and Morocco, in the context of last week’s deadly incident on their maritime border.

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.

A group of five will soon be a concert of eleven. At last week’s summit of the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa agreed to invite Ethiopia, Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to officially join the group on Jan. 1, 2024. The expanded BRICS shows its members’ dissatisfaction with the Western-led economic and political order.