Comment on U.S., Russia try to reset and retrench relations, but Magnitsky bill threatens process

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivian officials announced Friday they had arrested four more military officers in connection with Wednesday’s thwarted coup against the government of President Luis Arce, raising to 21 the number of detainees allegedly linked to a rogue general’s mutiny attempt. In a press conference, senior Cabinet member Eduardo del Castillo said those arrested include the driver of a tank that repeatedly rammed into the doors of the government headquarters and a former infantry captain accused of giving orders to soldiers who took over the capital’s central Plaza Murillo. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “These people commanded the destruction of Bolivian heritage,” del Castillo said. The coup attempt was led by Juan José Zuñiga, who until his public sacking and arrest Wednesday was the commanding general of the army.

2024 is a make-or-break election year, with seemingly existential democratic contests in many parts of the globe. In Europe, ballooning support for parties of the political extreme was confirmed by the recent European elections. In France, the results pushed Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the national assembly and call for snap elections, which could usher in a radical shift in the political direction of the country and its relationship with the E.

Taking part in an election is seldom a walk in the park. But the Thai Senate race, which culminated this week, has put its candidates and voters through the shrubbiest of hedge mazes—and raised questions about the still-evolving state of democracy in the Southeast Asian nation of 72 million. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Thailand’s 2024 Senate election is the first of its kind after the upper legislative body was created by the country’s 2017 constitution that was implemented after successive coups had ousted former Thai governments—though the first group of Senators was not elected but rather appointed by the military in 2019. As the country has slowly begun to cast aside its military leaders—in general elections last year for the National Assembly’s lower chamber, voters overwhelmingly supported parties that ran on a pro-democratic platform—the fact that the military-appointed Senate (nicknamed “the junta’s senators”) remained in power until this year seemed a vestige of the past. Last year, the Senate thwarted the progressive and most popular candidate for Prime Minister from taking the premiership, handing it instead to the more moderate Srettha Thavisin, who formed a coalition with the military- and royal-linked conservative establishment. Now, even as those Senators leave office, the process for choosing their replacements has been described as the “most complicated election in the world” and slammed by critics as unnecessarily convoluted and undemocratic. Here’s what to know about the Thai Senate election—and where Thailand goes from here. A closed vote behind closed doors On Wednesday, nearly 3,000 senator candidates met at a convention center near Bangkok to vote on one another.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — Mongolia, where parliamentary elections were being held Friday, is a sparsely populated and landlocked Asian nation known for its bitter winter cold and independent spirit. As a democracy of just 3.4 million people in the shadow of two much larger authoritarian states, China and Russia, it has taken on symbolic importance in an era when democracy is under pressure or in crisis in many countries, including the United States. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] In an earlier era, the fierce nomadic tribes of the Mongolian steppe were widely feared, at one point conquering China and expanding west across Asia to the edges of Europe. Today, it is a country punctuated by extremes.

It all started out comically enough. When British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood outside 10 Downing Street in the pouring rain to announce the country’s July 4 snap election, there was a palpable feeling of excitement. Five years (and three prime ministers) since Boris Johnson’s landslide victory in 2019, the British people would finally get their chance to elect a new government—one that, if the polls are to be believed, will almost certainly end with Sunak’s ruling Conservatives getting booted from power after 14 years. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But whatever excitement the snap election generated seemed to quickly give way to bewilderment and disillusionment as, gaffe after gaffe, the Conservatives appeared to sacrifice what little hope they had of narrowing Labour’s poll lead and consequently staving off an electoral wipeout.

She’s one of Japan’s best-loved creations, adorning some 50,000 products sold across 130 countries and earning billions of dollars for parent company, Sanrio. But it’s important to note what she’s not: Hello Kitty isn’t a cat, nor is she, in fact, Japanese. She is an anthropomorphic feline-like British girl born in the leafy suburbs of London, according to the official narrative.