Hi everyone, this is Elliot Waldman, WPR’s editor-in-chief. Welcome back to our Weekly Review, where we recap the highlights from our coverage this week and preview what’s on deck. | If you have any comments or feedback, just hit reply to send them along. | Top Stories | Here are some of the week’s major developments that we covered in our Daily Review newsletter. (If you don’t already receive the Daily Review, you can adjust your settings here.) | Bad Bunny’s Expansive Vision of America: The grammy-winning Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show opened in an unlikely place: In the middle of a sugar cane field, with a man holding a guitar who pronounces, “qué rico es ser latino!”—“how wonderful to be Latino!” That set the tone for the entire 13-minute performance, which was an unabashed celebration of Latin culture and the contributions of Hispanic immigrants to the United States. | As most viewers would have been aware, the halftime show was a sore topic on the right from the moment it was announced last year, facing criticism not just from pundits but from President Donald Trump and his aides. Indeed, there was little about the performance that wasn’t political, even down to the set design. (Read more here.) |
|
| A ‘Disturbing Escalation’ in Hong Kong’s Repression: “Today, my father was convicted simply for being my father.” Those are the words of U.S.-based pro-democracy campaigner Anna Kwok, who is wanted by authorities in Hong Kong for allegedly violating a draconian national security law. On Wednesday, a judge in the territory found Kwok’s father, Kwok Yin-sang, guilty of violating that law by allegedly trying to withdraw funds from his daughter’s insurance policy. | He is the first person to be tried in Hong Kong for “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” belonging to an “absconder”—the regime’s term for someone who has opted to go into exile rather than become a political prisoner. Activists denounced the conviction as a new low in the Chinese government’s ongoing campaign against Hong Kong dissidents. (Read more here.) |
|
| In Bangladesh, an Election That ‘Feels Like a Festival’: The Bangladesh Nationalist Party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections Thursday, the country’s first election since a youth-led uprising ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. Turnout in the polls was just shy of 60 percent, greater than the 42 percent seen in the last election two years ago. | Many Bangladeshis said this was their first time participating in the electoral process since 2008, the year Hasina and her Awami League party took power. Subsequent elections were marred by allegations of widespread fraud and intimidation as opposition parties were severely repressed. After those years of authoritarianism, voters saw this year’s elections as a breath of fresh air. (Read more here.) |
|
| This Week’s Most-Read Story |  | An anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 30, 2026 (SIPA photo by Jen Golbeck via AP). |
| Anti-ICE Protests in Minneapolis May Help Prevent a Civil War. And in this week’s top story by page views, Charli Carpenter noted that many of the conditions in the United States right now fit the recipe that analysts describe as a “tinderbox” for civil war. In such a situation, she wrote, non-violent protests can help counter the divisions that spark and metastasize civil wars: | [I]t is important to understand the dynamics that keep civil wars at bay when “tinderbox” conditions are in place. And it is worth noting that many of these dynamics are on display in the tactics used by citizens in blue cities, most recently in Minneapolis, to protect their neighbors from ICE raids. The first thing to note is that community-based actions and protest events in Minneapolis are deliberately and self-consciously nonviolent. So long as any lethal action involves one-sided violence from the government, rather than a resort to armed violence by citizens themselves, citizens will retain the moral high ground—and conflict dynamics will likely be kept in check. Nonviolent movements have a track record of political gains and reduced bloodshed in repressive situations, including the ability over time to topple autocratic rule. To the extent that anti-ICE activism remains largely nonviolent, it may improve human rights over time, while also holding civil war dynamics in check. |
|
| What’s On Tap | And coming up next week, we’ve got: | A briefing by Michael Hart looking at what’s driving high levels of economic growth in Vietnam. A briefing Simeon Tegel on the no-holds-barred approach to law enforcement and security that is sweeping Latin America. A briefing by Keïsha Corantin on what Maduro’s ouster means for the conflict with the ELN guerilla group in the Venezuela-Colombia border region.
| That’s it for now. Until next week, | —Elliot Waldman | | This Week On WPR | Americas | | | | | Asia-Pacific | | | | Europe |  | | Couples Therapy in Munich | Transatlantic tensions are higher than they’ve been in recent memory, but the reality is that the U.S. and Europe still need each other. |
|
|
| Middle East & North Africa | | United States | | | Global | | | |
|
Comments
Post a Comment
Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.