There was an insane amount of very interesting world news this week. It was almost impossible to include it all, but I did my best. Please skip to the bottom section if you want to get right into it.
This week is about Botswana.
Welcome to the 195 series, where I take you on a mini-tour of every country (and maybe some places that want to be countries). Each week I'll feature a new location. Some you may have heard of, while others may be new to you. The point is to learn and nurture our curiosity about the wider world. Maybe you'll find a new artist or musician you like, too.
Here's the link to copy and paste into your browser to support this project: https://lazo-letters.ghost.io/#/portal/signup. You can sign up for $2 a month or $22 a year.
Country Info:
Population: Roughly 2.5 million.
Current government: Botswana is considered one of Africa's most stable democracies. It's a multi-party republic, with a President who serves as the head of state and government and is limited to 10 years in office.
But according to the organization Freedom House, the country is dominated by a single political party (the Botswana Democratic Party), and media freedom is threatened. They write:
The right of political parties to form and operate is legally guaranteed and is respected in practice. However, the opposition has alleged that the BDP abuses state resources, including the influential state media, to its own benefit. The lack of a public-financing system also leaves opposition parties at a disadvantage.
Religion: The official religion is Christianity, but much of the population practices some form of indigenous religion besides their Christian belief.
According to the widely cited 2011 Population and Housing Census: "79 percent of citizens are members of Christian groups, 15 percent espouse no religion, 4 percent are adherents of the Badimo traditional indigenous religious group, and all other religious groups together constitute less than 1 percent of the population."
Standout artist: Meleko Mokgosi, whose "large-scale, figurative, and often text-based works engage history painting and cinematic tropes to uncover notions of colonialism, democracy, and liberation across African history." Check out his website here.
The New York Times profiled him in 2019 and wrote:
If you’ve ever felt you lack the education to understand art representing histories, people and symbols from a culture outside your own, the artist Meleko Mokgosi isn’t going to let you off easy.
Standout film: A United Kingdom, a cutesy, romantic movie about the future King of Botswana who goes to London to study and falls in love with a British woman. It's shot in Botswana and stars David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike.
A surprising thing: Botswana is one of the world's biggest producers of diamonds. But the country's finance ministry recently said the diamond industry would likely shrink this year due to reduced demand.
Story of the week: The leaders of Botswana and Namibia have signed an agreement allowing their citizens to cross the two countries' borders without passports.
What I'm writing:
On this podcast episode, White House correspondent George E. Condon and foreign policy correspondent Cristina Maza break down Ukraine a year later.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:https://t.co/waAsgUUr9r pic.twitter.com/AeEh8Or8s7— National Journal (@nationaljournal) February 28, 2023
• National Journal's White House correspondent George Condon and I went on our podcast, National Journal Radio, to talk about the first anniversary of Russia's war against Ukraine.
• I wrote about the role of European women – including Ukrainian women – in driving international policy during wartime. This story is unlocked and free to read.
My latest: A look at the role of European women – including Ukrainian women – in driving international policy during wartime. https://t.co/65pG9i8ASg
— Cristina Maza (@CrisLeeMaza) March 2, 2023
• I spoke with Bedran Çiya Kurd, head of Foreign Relations for the self-governing Kurdish region in Syria, about the current humanitarian situation and the potential threats the Kurds face from both Turkey and Syria. He told me:
We are Syrians. We are a part of Syria. And we think that Syrians must lead a solution to the Syrian crisis. Even if the Syrian crisis takes a long time to resolve, eventually, the Syrian regime must accept the demands of the Syrian people. There should be constitutional change. The new Syrian constitution should guarantee the rights of all the communities, including the Kurdish people. We want Syria to be decentralized so that each region has the right to determine its own politics, culture, self-defense, and security.
"Both the Syrian regime and the Turkish regime are hostile," Bdran Çiya Kurd tells @CrisLeeMaza. The head of foreign relations for the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria discusses the dual threats and the recent earthquake.https://t.co/t82N5WBj9j pic.twitter.com/xUoFtx1WQw
— National Journal (@nationaljournal) March 3, 2023
What I'm reading:
• The war in Ukraine triggered a reckoning in universities, Lydia Tomkiw reports for Coda Story. Professors have been debating how to teach imperialism and colonialism in Russia and the wider region since the invasion.
• The U.S. has intelligence that the Chinese government is considering providing Russia with 100 drones and other lethal weapons for the war in Ukraine, the Financial Times reports.
• A European Union official told Politico Europe that the Uhad had fallen short of presenting evidence of China planning to provide weapons to Russia.
• China is spending billions on global pro-Russia disinformation campaigns, even outspending Russia, the Guardian reports. James Rubin, a coordinator at the Global Engagement Center, said that “in the communication space, the alignment between China and Russia is near complete.”
• The Russian defense ministry reported down two drones in southern Russia in what was likely an attempt to target civilian energy infrastructure, the BBC reports. While Ukraine has not claimed responsibility, it would be the closest attempted drone attack to Moscow since Russia's invasion.
• Radio Free Europe has a video explaining who the Russian Volunteers Corps are and what they're allegedly doing in the Bryansk region of Russia. Bellingcat Monitoring describes RVC as “a unit officially formed last year made up primarily of anti-Putin, anti-Kremlin, Russian far-right figures active in Ukraine.”
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said a Ukrainian sabotage group entered Russia, killing two civilians in a “terrorist act," the BBC reports. The incident has not been independently verified, but a video on Telegram claims to show members of the Ukraine-based Russian Volunteer Corps inside Russia.
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Central Asia to urge senior officials in the region to maintain independence from Russia and China, the New York Times reports.
• Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko in China, NPR reports.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping and Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko expressed “extreme interest” in a peaceful resolution of the war in Ukraine after meeting in Beijing, the BBC reports. Lukashenko said his country "fully supports" a Chinese peace plan.
• Belarusian anti-government organization B.Y.P.O.L. claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft at an airfield near the Belarus capital of Minsk, Reuters reports.
• Finland began constructing a 124-mile security fence along its border with Russia, the longest border between the European Union and Russia, the BBC reports.
• Kosovo and Serbia agreed to back a proposed European Union plan for normalizing relations but stopped short of signing it, Voice of America reports. Here is a copy of the plan.
• Serbia and Kosovo have taken a profound step forward in normalizing their relations by reaching a consensus on a proposal brokered by the European Union, Ian Bancroft writes for Euractiv. But it will remain stillborn without a clear plan on how the agreement will be implemented.
• Monday’s meeting in Brussels was the culmination of months of negotiations, paired with not-so-subtle arm-twisting from the United States and NATO, meant to produce an agreement that would bring the two closer to establishing diplomatic and formal bilateral relations than ever before, Una Hajdari writes for Euronews. But the mood in both countries is notably sour.
• When two historians from Belgrade gave a lecture in Zagreb about the Serbian nationalist Chetnik movement during World War II, it highlighted some unusual connections between Serbian and Croatian right-wing academics, Balkan Insight reports.
• Authorities in Bulgaria banned an annual torch-lit march in downtown Sofia in honor of a late general who led the pro-Nazi Union of Bulgarian National Legions during World War II, the Associated Press reports.
• The Hungarian low-cost airline WizzAir suspended flights to Moldova, citing safety concerns after a Russian missile launched at Ukraine flew over Moldova, the Washington Post reports. The suspension comes amid growing tensions between Moldova and Russia over the Russian-backed breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria.
• At least 59 migrants, including 12 children, died after their boat sank off southern Italy, the BBC reports. Dozens of migrants, mainly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Iran, are still missing. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government recently pushed through a strict new law tightening the rules on rescues.
• Jacek Karnowski, a Polish politician key to the liberal opposition’s campaign for the 2019 general elections, was spied on by intelligence services using Pegasus spyware, Balkan Insight reports.
• Denmark's parliament voted to cancel a public holiday to boost its defense budget by an additional $427 million, the BBC reports. The cancellation will allow the governing coalition to raise the defense budget to the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP by 2030, three years earlier than planned.
• In Italy, leftist candidate Elly Schlein became the new leader of Italy’s traditionally center-left Democratic Party, Politico Europe reports. They write:
Right-wing hardliners could not dream of an easier target than Elly Schlein, the new leader of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party (PD). A global citizen with a female partner and an upper-middle-class upbringing, the youngest and first female leader of Italy’s most-established progressive party has sparked the ire of the country’s conservatives.
• The New Statesman notes that Schlein has been compared to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jeremy Corbyn.
• British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed on a new post-Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, the BBC reports. The agreement will address how goods cross the Northern Ireland border, the role of EU law and the European Court of Justice in settling trade disputes, as well as the protection of the Good Friday Agreement.
• Huge crowds gathered in Mexico to condemn President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's efforts to shrink the electoral authority, a move critics view as a threat to democracy, Reuters reports.
• The Vietnamese National Assembly elected Vo Van Thuong as president in a reshuffle of the country’s top leadership amid a crackdown on corruption. The selection of a close ally of Nguyen Phu Trong as Vietnam's next president further strengthens the Communist Party general secretary's grip on power, raising concerns about the one-man rule, Nikkei Asia reports.
• Prominent Cambodian opposition figure Kem Sokha was sentenced to 27 years of house arrest after being found guilty of treason in a case condemned by the United States as politically motivated, Reuters reports.
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to address one of the worst food crises in decades, the Wall Street Journal reports. The food shortages, which have led to starvation, result from North Korea's international isolation and natural disasters that have damaged crops.
• Two Iranian warships docked in Rio de Janeiro following permission from Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government, Reuters reports. The ships were allowed to dock despite pressure from the U.S. to bar them.
• Over 800 Iranian female students have been made ill due to suspected poisoning, the New York Times reports. The deputy health minister Younes Panahi said the motive might be to prevent girls from attending schools, which has raised the alarm about the possible infiltration of Islamic extremist groups.
• Iran could make enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in about 12 days, Reuters reports. It would have taken over a year while the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was still in effect.
• Around 160,000 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the Israeli government’s plans to weaken the country’s judicial system, CNN reports.
• U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price denounced the Israeli finance minister’s call for the elimination of a Palestinian village as “repugnant," the Hill reports.
• The Israeli military called settler attacks on Palestinians "actions of terror," CNN reports. At least one Palestinian man was killed, and cars and buildings were burned by a crowd of about 50 settlers, who launched an attack in retaliation for the killing of two brothers who lived in a nearby Jewish settlement.
• The Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group is the "most influential Russian actor operating in Africa today," according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. Deutsche Welle has the report.
• Nigeria's ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of the disputed presidential election, the BBC reports. Both opposition parties have dismissed the election as a sham and demanded a rerun.
• Ethiopia is seeking to cut short a United Nations-mandated inquiry into atrocities in the Tigray war, Reuters reports.
• Accounts are emerging of massacres committed by Eritrean forces in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in the week before the November peace deal, the Washington Post reports.
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com.