‘Thanks, Putin’: Finnish and Swedish Lawmakers Aim for NATO Membership

Finnish and Swedish oppo­si­tion lead­ers trav­eled to Wash­ing­ton this week to meet with U.S. offi­cials as their coun­tries kick-start debates on join­ing NATO in the wake of Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine. Pet­teri Orpo, the chair of Finland’s cen­ter-right Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty, and Ulf Kris­ters­son, the leader of the oppo­si­tion in Sweden’s par­lia­ment and head of…

Rwanda asylum seeker policy: Ex-PM Theresa May criticises government plan — BBC.com

For­mer prime min­is­ter There­sa May has crit­i­cised the gov­ern­men­t’s plan to send some asy­lum seek­ers to Rwan­da.  Mrs May told the Com­mons she did not sup­port the pol­i­cy due to her con­cerns over whether it met stan­dards on “legal­i­ty, prac­ti­cal­i­ty and effi­ca­cy”.  Home Sec­re­tary Pri­ti Patel said the scheme would be “a major blow to…

Second Global COVID-19 Summit to Be Held May 12 

Wash­ing­ton —  The White House has announced the Unit­ed States will co-host the sec­ond glob­al COVID-19 sum­mit vir­tu­al­ly on May 12 to dis­cuss increas­ing efforts to end the pan­dem­ic inter­na­tion­al­ly and pre­pare for future vari­ants of the coro­n­avirus. “The emer­gence and spread of new vari­ants, like omi­cron, have rein­forced the need for a strat­e­gy aimed…

China’s Costly Exceptionalism

Amer­i­ca has long thought itself excep­tion­al, a blessed place des­tined to bring free­dom to the world. Chi­na has an even longer his­to­ry of self-pro­­claimed excep­tion­al­ism and, spurred by its many mod­ern achieve­ments, is more assertive­ly pro­mot­ing its brand of gov­er­nance as a mod­el for the world. The widen­ing con­fronta­tion between the Unit­ed States and China…

Five trends to expect in Africa for the rest of 2022

Ryan Short, a part­ner at Gen­e­sis Ana­lyt­ics, explores five trends to look for in Africa’s busi­ness world for the rest of the year 2022. He touch­es on achiev­ing “net zero” in green­house gas emis­sions, ESG and impact, the EU’s green tax­on­o­my, and more. He con­cludes giv­ing some advice to African nego­tia­tors ahead of the COP27…

What’s in a name? Experimental evidence of the coup taboo

ABSTRACT Lead­ers of mil­i­tary coups rou­tine­ly deny that their actions amount to a coup, often labelling them as rev­o­lu­tions or even con­sti­tu­tion­al suc­ces­sions. These attempts to mud­dy the waters occa­sion­al­ly suc­ceed in prompt­ing dis­cus­sions over whether the military’s actions tru­ly amount to a coup. But does the label mat­ter? Does pub­lic sup­port for mil­i­tary intervention…