What Actually Mattered This Week: Russia Coup Ends Not with a Bang, but a Whimper

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WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERED THIS WEEK

Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is buried in private, ending his tumultuous journey

Prigozhin’s coup attempt against Putin’s regime was an unprecedented story.

As I said a few months ago, he’s been a dead man walking ever since.

But why didn't Putin take out Prigozhin immediately?

He took his time to act in a much more calculated way for his own survival.

‘Despair is settling in’: female suicides on rise in Afghanistan

A horrible (but completely unsurprising) development for women under Taliban rule.

With Gabon, Africa's coup wave shows little sign of stopping

For those keeping score: that’s 7 military coups in Africa in the last two years alone.

Saudi Arabia: Man Sentenced to Death for Tweets

Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, was sentenced to death for reposting several posts critical of Crown Prince MBS…to his 8 followers.

I guess the Saudis aren’t aligned with Twitter’s new “maximum free speech” approach…despite a minority share in the company’s ownership.

TRUTHS, DAMNED TRUTHS, AND STATISTICS

THE GZERO WORLD WE’RE JUST LIVING IN

GRAPHIC TRUTH

YOUR GZERO WORLD

Antisemitism is nothing new. An ancient Greek historian in the second century BCE railed against the “ridiculous practices” of the Jews and the “absurdity of their law.”

But lately, it feels like an ugly trend is back in fashion. And the numbers back that up. The Anti-Defamation League found 3,700 instances of antisemitic harassment, vandalism, or assault around the country last year, the highest number in its 43 years of tracking. And then there was the horrific attack at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, which killed 11 people and remains the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States.

At what point do extremist politics—whether on the Right OR Left—become hate? And where do you draw the line between criticizing Israeli policies and being antisemitic? To help me wade through these difficult questions is the Israeli actress, writer, and activist Noa Tishby. She served as Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism before Prime Minister Netanyahu dismissed her for speaking out against his controversial judicial reform agenda.

For a longer, wider-ranging version of my interview check out the GZERO World podcast.

MY QUICK TAKE

The BRICS bloc of nations is not a China-led G7 competitor.

Although recent expansion is a diplomatic win for China, it’s not directly confrontational to the USA.

Do you like what you’ve seen? Sign up for GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer

BECAUSE THE INTERNET

WHAT TO READ THIS WEEK

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar

In The Oncoming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman usefully puts today’s technological revolutions in their historical context and explains why AI and synthetic biology will be so uniquely disruptive to the global order. This is a must-read for those who want a framework for how society can manage the pace and scale of these rapid advances…that none of us are prepared for.

DEEP THOUGHTS

“Do what you can. If you can’t do something you wanted to do, then you will be forgiven…but if you don’t want to try to do anything…you will not be forgiven.” - Nikolai Vavilov

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to GZERO Daily for coverage on global politics. And make sure to read my latest book The Power of Crisis for a roadmap of this decade's great crises and how they might help us build a better world.

I am president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. I currently teach at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University. You can follow me on X, Threads, Facebook, and Instagram.