The coup in Niger follows coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. Each of these was led by military officers angered by the presence of French and U.S. troops and by economic crises inflicted on their countries.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who leads the Burkinabé government, came to power through a coup d’état in September 2022. He ousted Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had himself come to power through a coup in January 2022. Neither of these coups was a surprise.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has given new license to the killing of Indigenous people in Brazil. Before he came to power in 2019, it wasn’t clear what he wanted to build, but he knew exactly who and what he wanted to destroy: the Indigenous people and the Amazon rainforest, respectively.

On July 22, U.S. President Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris released a “fact sheet” on U.S. “measures” against Cuba. The release from the White House said that Cuba was a “top priority for the Biden-Harris administration.”