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People ride motorcycles as South Korea's LGBTQ community and supporters attend a Pride parade, during the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, in Seoul, South Korea, June 14, 2025.
June is recognized in more than 100 countries in the world as “Pride Month,” marking 55 years since gay liberation marches began commemorating the Stonewall riots – a pivotal uprising against the police’s targeting of LGBTQ+ communities in New York. Here’s a look at where LGBTQ+ rights stand today:
47%: A recent poll of more than two dozen countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia found that openness towards LGBTQ+ communities has dipped in recent years, with the proportion of people who believe LGBTQ+ people should be open about their sexual orientation or gender identity falling 8 percentage points, to 47%, since 2021.
1.3 million: The US government on Tuesday ordered the closure of the Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ youth, which has served more than 1.3 million people since it was established in 2022. The official announcement omitted the “T” for transgender – a sign of the administration’s broader anti-transgender push.
61: As of 2024, 61 countries have laws criminalizing same-sex relations, with 7 countries – Yemen, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Mauritania, Iran, Brunei– still imposing the death penalty for such acts.
9.3%: The percentage of U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ+ has increased significantly since 2020, rising from 5.6% to 9.3%, according to a Gallup poll last year. The main driver of this growth is younger generations: more than one in five Gen Z adults now identify as LGBTQ+.
10: Since 2020, 10 countries have moved to recognize same-sex marriage, with Liechtenstein and Thailand legalizing it earlier this year. Still, only 38 countries out of 195 countries have legalized same-sex marriage—see our graphic here.
1: There has only ever been one openly transgender member of the US Congress: Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) became the first after winning her seat last November.
HARD NUMBERS: Gaza aid point killings rise, US states approve opioid settlement, and more
Palestinians wounded in an Israeli strike near a humanitarian aid distribution centre are rushed to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
59: Israeli forces on Tuesday killed at least 59 Palestinians trying to access a food and aid distribution point in Gaza. This marks the deadliest day in a recent wave of shootings near the distribution points. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in similar incidents since a private group backed by Israel and the US, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, launched aid distribution sites in Gaza.
7.4 billion: All 50 US states approved a $7.4 billion settlement with Purdue over the pharma giant’s role in the opioid crisis. $6.5 billion of that will come from the owners of Purdue, the Sackler family. Unlike past opioid settlements, this one allows individuals to keep suing the Sacklers in civil court for another 15 years.
70,000: Nearly 70,000 people have already applied for the “Trump Card,” a VIP visa program that offers US residency to foreigners willing to cough up $5 million for the privilege. The program was officially launched last week.
6: Recent clashes between police and supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales have left six people dead and hundreds injured, deepening a political crisis in the gas-rich Andean country ahead of this fall’s presidential election. The courts have banned Morales, who was ousted amid protests in 2019, from running for a fourth term.
The G7 countries – the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Japan – will convene this weekend in Kananaskis, a rural town in the mountains of Alberta, Canada. High on the meeting’s agenda are tariffs, artificial intelligence, and international security, with special focus on Russian sanctions and Israel’s recent attacks on Iran.
While the G7 was originally formed as an informal grouping of the world’s wealthiest democracies, the BRICS – composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – have sought to challenge their dominance of the global agenda.
Here’s a look at how the share of the global economy held by G7 and BRICS nations has evolved over time.
A gas station in Düsseldorf, Germany, on June 10, 2025.
12%: Oil prices spiked 12% in early trading on Friday following Israel’s attacks on Iran, reflecting fears that a wider Middle East conflict could restrict access to crude exports. Later in the morning prices softened slightly, but were still up nearly 9%, to more than $75 per barrel.
4: Although school shootings are rare in Europe, four of the worst incidents this centuryhave occurred since 2023, raising concern about whether the phenomenon – until now largely a US problem – is spreading more rapidly.
3: Is the wait over? Millions of BTS fans hope so. The K-Pop supergroup has not performed together in three years due to its members’ mandatory South Korean military service. But now that they have been discharged (honorably!), rumors are flying that the group could take the stage again at a festival outside Seoul this weekend.
1.5%: Argentina’s monthly inflation fell to just 1.5% in May. That’s the lowest level in five years – and a stark fall from early 2024, when it exceeded 25%. President Javier Milei’s radical cost-cutting policies have helped put a lid on rising prices.
50%: China’s production of baijiu liquor, the country’s go-to tipple, has dropped more than 50% since 2016. Demand for alcohol overall in China is plummeting as a result of changing tastes, a slowing economy, and a new campaign to stamp out drinking among the Communist Party’s 100 million members.East and West German citizens celebrate as they climb the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate after the opening of the East German border was announced, on November 9, 1989.
– By Willis Sparks
Sometimes I find myself talking with one of my super-smart, well-informed younger acquaintances about some major event from “recent” history. I’ll tell them I remember watching nightly coverage of the fate of Americans held hostage in Tehran by furious Iranian students while I was in high school. Or, sitting on the floor of my grad school apartment, watching live TV coverage of Chinese tanks crushing Chinese protesters, and later of giddy Germans dancing and drinking atop the Berlin Wall. Then there’s the sunny fall morning when a plane struck a tower in lower Manhattan.
Then I remember that the person I’m speaking with wasn’t yet born when most (or any) of these things happened.
Everywhere in the world, succeeding generations have formative experiences that shape their understanding not only of the past but of the present and future. When we think about the politics of various countries today, this “horizon of memory” can help us consider something important about what’s happening and why.
50.5% of Americans are under 40. This means they have little memory of the Cold War, and didn’t grow up with the assumption that America has a “responsibility to lead” on the global stage. If you didn’t experience Cold War hopes and fears firsthand, you might find it odd that US presidents were once called “leader of the free world.”
43.3% of Germans are under 40. I haven’t visited Berlin since there were two of them. I went in the spring of 1990 because I wanted to put my hand on the Wall, to touch history, before it was gone. No German under the age of 40 will remember that surreal historical inflection point or the complex (sometimes contradictory) feelings triggered by Germany’s reunification.
45.9% of Russians and 42.4% of Ukrainians are under 40. No Russian under 40 will remember the Soviet superpower and the daily life that came with it. Even the Mikhail Gorbachev-period that I saw for myself on a visit to Moscow in April 1989 will be largely unfamiliar. Across the border, no Ukrainian under 40 will remember life in an empire ruled from the Kremlin. On both sides of the border, Vladimir Putin’s arguments about Russia’s historic claims to Kyiv land differently with people over 60 than those who are 30.
69.4% of South Africans are under 40. Everyone in that country knows the African National Congress was once the party of liberation. But unless you’re over 40, you likely won’t remember the astonishing day in February 1990 when a smiling Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years, walked out of his small cell in suit and tie. Nor will you recall the widely shared jolt of raw idealism when he became his country’s president. If you’re under 40, the ANC is the party of power.
64% of Brazilians are under 45. No Brazilian under 45 can remember living under the military dictatorship that was the “Fifth Brazilian Republic,” which lasted from 1964 to 1985. For them, debates over threats to democracy posed by former President Jair Bolsonaro might not resonate as they do for their parents.
78% of Iranians are under 50. No Iranian under 50 will remember life before the revolution that established the Islamic Republic (1979). They know the days of the Shah only through the happy or unhappy memories of their parents and the ideological education they continue to receive.
Without doubt, these events are crucial for all of us. No matter our age today, these are the movements of history on which we build the world around us. But I know my grandparents understood the poverty and fear of the 1930s differently than I ever can. My parents came of age in the peaceful but paranoid 1950s and entered adulthood with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
At 60, I’m blessed to have seen some dramatic historical turning points and to value the perspective they offer. But I’ve also learned that politics, anywhere and everywhere, is impossible to understand without reminders of our horizons of memory — and respect for the assumptions, beliefs, and aspirations of those who’ve engaged the wider world since.
What memories of historical events have shaped your worldview? Let us know here, and if you include your name and where you’re writing from we may include your response in an upcoming edition.People light candles outside Santa Fe Foundation hospital, where Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay of the opposition Democratic Center party was shifted to from another hospital, after he was shot during a campaign event, in Bogota, Colombia, on June 7, 2025.
On Saturday, a Colombian presidential candidate was shot in the head at a rally in the country’s capital, Bogotá. Three days later, a series of bombs went off in and around the third largest city, Cali, leaving at least four dead. The sudden surge of violence has many Colombians wondering if the country is headed back to a darker time.
“It’s a painful memory of where we come from,” says Colombia Risk Analysis director Sergio Guzmán. “Back then, political candidates were falling like flies.”
What was “back then”? In the 1980s and 1990s, Colombia suffered the worst of a decades-long internal conflict that left 220,000 dead, tens of thousands missing, and millions displaced. Initially a fight between Marxist rebels and the government, it rapidly expanded to include powerful drug cartels and right-wing paramilitaries. The violence was especially acute during the 1990 presidential campaign, when three candidates were assassinated, at least one of them by Pablo Escobar’s fearsome Medellín Cartel. In the early 2000s the state regained ground from the guerillas and the cartels, laying the groundwork for a 2016 peace accord with the main guerilla groups.
But amid rising violence generally, the assassination attempt on Senator Miguel Uribe has rattled a country on edge.
“The shooting is the most significant assault on a presidential hopeful in several years,” says Antonio Espinosa Calero, Eurasia Group’s Andean Region Researcher. “It has certainly fueled anxiety about instability and violence ahead of the upcoming election.”
The shooting isn’t the only reason for the country’s collective anxiety. President Gutavo Petro hasn’t been able to keep a lid on the drug cartels, crime is on the rise nationwide, and political violence has spread across nearby countries – like Ecuador and Mexico.
Wasn’t there a peace deal? Yes. Under the 2016 peace accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, members of the guerilla group agreed to hand over their weapons to the government, in exchange for amnesty and political participation.
This hasn’t fostered peace? It has not. Instead, the drug cartels – which were not part of the peace deal – have filled the void, along with other guerilla groups that refused the peace. From 2021 to 2024, the number of kidnappings jumped 72%, while the number of extortion cases more than doubled. Cocaine production has reportedly reached record levels. Killings of human rights activists and other social leaders have soared.
Has the president tried anything? Elected in 2022, Petro tried to implement a Total Peace (“Paz Total”) to rid the country of violence. The former guerrilla fighter, Colombia’s first leftist president, tried to reach accords with every major armed group in the country. The plan has failed to bear fruit, as talks with groups like ELN – a dissident rebel group – have repeatedly broken down. The kidnapping of a famous soccer player’s father in 2023 only underscored the sense of chaos.
Politicians’ use of violent rhetoric hasn’t helped the situation, Colombia experts say. Petro is renowned for using provocative language in his social media posts, and he has already hinted at a conspiracy behind the shooting of Uribe.
“The presence of President Petro on social media,” Atlantic Council’s Colombia expert Enrique Millán-Mejía, has contributed to “an environment of political violence.”
Petro’s opponents – Uribe among them – have often responded in kind. The senator himself posted on X in May, “Every day Petro is in power, Colombia bleeds.”
Where does Colombian politics go from here? It’s a boost for the tough-on-crime candidates who seek to replace the term-limited Petro next year. A poll last year found 85% of adults believe the security situation is getting worse, and this assassination attempt will likely increase those numbers.
“The shooting will amplify public demand for change and concerns over safety in Colombia,” says Espinosa Calero, “likely benefiting conservative and tough-on-crime candidates in the lead-up to next year’s general elections.”
On Ian Bremmer’s World In 60 Seconds: Ian breaks down the assassination attempt on Colombia's presidential candidate, the US-China trade talks, and Canada plans to hit NATO's 2% defense target seven years early.
Ian's takeaways:
An assassination attempt on a Colombian presidential candidate highlights that “security continues to be a really serious problem,” as opposition momentum grows amid President Petro’s struggles.
On US-China trade, Ian says, “There is real progress happening,” as factory shutdown threats push both sides toward short-term stability, even if long-term trust remains elusive.
And Canada’s plan to hit NATO’s defense target early? “It’s about Trump,” Ian notes, as Ottawa moves to ease tensions with Washington ahead of 2025.