Scroll to the top

{{ subpage.title }}

Women take part in a ritual event of naked festival, for the first time in its 1250 years of history, at Owari Okunitama Shrine, also known as Konomiya Shrine, in Inazawa, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan February 22, 2024.

REUTERS/Chris Gallagher

Hard Numbers: Japanese women go to naked party, Australian fires rage, French farmers fume, and Zambian creditors get paid.

1250:Washoi! Women crashed the party at Japan's 1250-year-old Naked Festival, a traditionally all-male event designed to drive out evil spirits. While they didn’t actually bare all, the first-ever female participants successfully trampled gender norms while ensuring that the festival continues as Japan’s population ages.

Read moreShow less

A map showing countries in Africa and Asia that criminalize same-sex acts, by degree of punishment.

Paige Fusco

The Graphic Truth: Criminalizing LGBTQ love

Last week, Uganda’s parliament passed legislation that criminalizes identifying as LGBTQ, which puts individuals at risk of life imprisonment, or in some cases, even death. Similarly, draconian legislation over identifying as LGBTQ is under consideration in Ghana, and VP Kamala Harris’s visit to Zambia this week – for a summit celebrating democracy – is stoking anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. As of 2023, many parts of the world are still unsafe for the LGBTQ community, as same-sex acts are deemed illegal in 65 countries, from Latin America to Oceania. The death penalty is a possibility in 11 countries worldwide. We look at the range of penalties in Africa and Asia, the two continents with the highest number of countries criminalizing same-sex acts.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff walk to a helicopter on their way to Cape Coast in Accra, Ghana, Tuesday March 28, 2023.

Misper Apawu/Pool via REUTERS

What We’re Watching: Zambia warns against anti-LGBTQ protests, AI scares tech leaders

Zambia warns against anti-LGBTQ protests ahead of Harris’s arrival

Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema is warning against anti-LGBTQ protests ahead of US Veep Kamala Harris’s visit Friday, part of a three-nation Africa tour aimed at shoring up US relations across Africa.

While in Lusaka, Harris will (virtually) address the Summit for Democracy, a Biden-crafted international conference designed to bolster democratic institutions and norms amid rising global authoritarianism. But dozens of Zambian opposition MPs claim the summit also aims to introduce gay rights to the country.

The opposition Patriotic Front Party reportedly plans to hold protests before the summit, but Hichilema has called for calm and for a dialogue with his opponents. Earlier this month, he vowed to maintain Zambia’s laws criminalizing consensual same-sex acts, which carry a life sentence.

This isn’t the first time gay rights have come up during Harris’s tour. In Ghana, she noted that LGBTQ rights are human rights but did not discuss the proposed Ghanaian bill to criminalize LGBTQ identification and advocacy. Harris’s visit also follows Uganda’s adoption last week of a draconian law that criminalizes identifying as LGBTQ, which could involve the death penalty in some cases.

Read moreShow less

Sergio Massa attends an event after the 2021 midterm elections in Buenos Aires.

REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

What We’re Watching: Argentina’s super minister, China-Zambia debt deal, Ukrainian grain trader dead

Can a "super minister" save Argentina?

Argentina's embattled President Alberto Fernández has appointed Sergio Massa, the influential leader of the lower house of parliament, to head a new "super ministry" that Fernández hopes will help steer the country out of a deep economic crisis. Massa, Argentina's third economic minister in less than a month, will oversee economic, manufacturing, and agricultural policy. He has his work cut out for him owing to soaring inflation, farmers demanding tax relief, and a recent run on the peso. Massa also needs to convince the IMF that Argentina will comply with the terms of its $44 billion debt restructuring deal. There's a political angle too: he's (arguably) the strongest candidate the left-wing Peronista coalition has to run for president next year if the unpopular Fernández drops his bid for a second term. Massa is one of very few politicians who can navigate the ongoing rift between the president and his powerful VP, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. If the new "super minister" does a good job, he'll be in pole position for a 2023 presidential run; if he fails, the ruling Peronistas will face long odds to stay in power.

Read moreShow less

Security forces stand guard at a roadblock after Peru's President Pedro Castillo imposed a curfew in Lima.

REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda

Hard Numbers: Lima curfew, Hotel Rwanda hero’s jail term upheld, Chilean constitutional meh, Zambian prez rules for free

25: Peruvian President Pedro Castillo enforced a curfew in Lima Tuesday in an attempt to stop disgruntled Peruvians from protesting against soaring energy prices. Castillo, a leftist and former school teacher, has a nationwide approval rating of just 25%. What’s more, he recently survived his second impeachment attempt in just eight months.

Read moreShow less

Can “cattle boy” fix Zambia?

A harrowing debt default, cinema-worthy corruption cases, and a controversial attempt to change the constitution all provided the backdrop for Hichilema Hakainde’s election as Zambia’s president earlier this year. Despite attempts by incumbent president Edgar Lungu to rig the vote, Hichilema won a landslide victory by promising to boost jobs and crush corruption. But does Hichilema, a businessman-turned-politician, have what it takes to fix the faltering fortunes of Africa’s second-largest copper producer, a country that was once one of the continent’s fastest growing economies?

We sat down with Eurasia Group analyst Connor Vasey to find out how things have gone during the new president’s first few months in office.

Read moreShow less

People on vehicles, holding Taliban flags, gather near the Friendship Gate crossing point in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan.

REUTERS/Abdul Khaliq Achakzai

What We’re Watching: Taliban loom large, China’s 5-year plan, Israel OKs West Bank construction, Zambians vote

US braces for Taliban takeover: Just weeks before US forces were set to fully withdraw from Afghanistan after almost 20 years, the Pentagon is sending 3,000 additional troops to guard Kabul's airport and help most US embassy staff leave the country safely. The State Department refused to call this development an evacuation, insisting that the embassy will remain open after the US withdrawal for some duties, including processing special US visa applications for Afghans who worked for and helped the US military. Meanwhile, Taliban forces have captured their eleventh provincial capital in just one week as they zero in on Kabul. The Taliban now control the country's second and third largest cities — Kandahar and Herat — as well as roughly two-thirds of all Afghan districts, raising fears of an imminent takeover. US intelligence now anticipates Kabul could fall within 30 to 90 days, much earlier than previous estimates. Given the speed of the Taliban advance, the Biden administration's partial — and hasty — drawdown of the US diplomatic mission in Kabul makes sense in order to avoid the chaotic scenes of 1975, when the last Americans to leave Saigon were lifted off in helicopters from the roof of the embassy after the Vietcong conquered the capital of then-South Vietnam.

Read moreShow less
Stopping the debt spiral in the world's poorest nations
Stopping the Debt Spiral in the World’s Poorest Nations | World Bank President | GZERO World

Stopping the debt spiral in the world's poorest nations

"There needs to be a dramatic and deep reduction in the amount of debt on the poorest countries. That's clear." As the world's poorest nations struggle to recover from a devastating pandemic, World Bank President David Malpass argues that freeing them of much of their debt will be key. His conversation with Ian Bremmer is part of the latest episode of GZERO World.

Subscribe to our free newsletter, GZERO Daily

Latest