John Bazemore/AP

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (center) speaks about the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 associates in the Fulton County Government Center, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta.

It may be the last indictment of former President Donald Trump on serious charges this year. But it is likely far from the least.

In the end, the racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 others handed up by an Atlanta grand jury on Monday night could be the most consequential of all the legal threats the ex-president currently faces, according to some legal experts.

In part, that’s due to its sweep. The Georgia indictment features 13 counts against Mr. Trump and 41 counts overall. It charges top Trump allies such as lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows with participating in a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The case also underscores the central role states play in elections. The Constitution gives states the responsibility of running elections for federal office. Many states have laws directly applicable to the sort of election obstructions that Mr. Trump and his allies allegedly engaged in. The Atlanta charges are based on Georgia’s uniquely expansive RICO anti-racketeering law, for instance.

But ultimately its greatest significance might be a result of simple transparency. If and when the case does go to trial in Atlanta’s Fulton County, it will almost certainly be broadcast on live TV, says Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.

That could be a benefit for the nation at a time when disinformation has helped split U.S. politics into entrenched partisan positions, he says.

“The American people should be able to see this evidence and weigh the case for themselves and come to a determination,” says Professor Kreis.

With its large cast of defendants and 41 separate criminal charges – including racketeering counts linking Mr. Trump’s activities to an alleged broader national conspiracy to overturn the presidential election – the Georgia indictment was surprising to many legal experts in its scope.

It’s about Georgia, but it’s not just about Georgia. It places the key swing state at the center of a national conspiracy.

That distinguishes the case brought by Fulton County from the more focused indictments brought against Mr. Trump by special counsel Jack Smith of the Department of Justice, which concern, respectively, his attempts to retain classified documents and to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

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And the broad scope may help prosecutors more than it hurts them, even if the variety of charges makes the case more complex. For example, the indictment claims that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants pressured election officials in Georgia to tip their results in his favor, and that they attempted to access voting machines. The indictment alleges they did the same thing in Michigan.

“That puts the Georgia materials in a much more damning light,” says Professor Kreis.

RICO’s pluses – and minuses

The broad scope means prosecutors can bring in a lot more evidence. The number of co-defendants increases the evidence pool as well. The indictment charges all 19 defendants (and 30 unindicted co-conspirators) under Georgia’s RICO Act, a racketeering law designed to allow prosecutors to charge anyone involved in a criminal enterprise even if they didn’t do the dirty work. RICO (which stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) is typically known as a tool to prosecute the Mafia. But Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney behind Monday’s indictment, has used it to successfully prosecute Atlanta educators who allegedly conspired to inflate standardized test scores and to go after alleged gang activity by a group of Atlanta rappers.

Cheney Orr/Reuters

Law enforcement officers block the street to the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse in Atlanta, Aug. 15, 2023.

“The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent,” Ms. Willis told reporters at an August 2022 press conference. “They want to know what happened. They want to make an accurate decision about someone’s life. And so RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.”

RICO also may be a useful tool in developing inside sources. The criminal enterprise doesn’t need to have been successful for a RICO charge to stand up, and prosecutors often use it to pressure co-defendants into flipping on higher-ups.

Still, complex RICO cases can take a long time to reach a courtroom, experts say. The case Ms. Willis brought against the Atlanta rappers in May last year has yet to go to trial.

At the federal level, special counsel Smith has employed “a strategy of speed and simplicity,” says Shane Stansbury, a former federal prosecutor and distinguished fellow at the Duke University School of Law. In the Georgia case, “we have a sprawling indictment with many, many defendants and encompassing a variety of conduct. That inevitably puts it on a different timetable,” says Mr. Stansbury.

Presidents can’t pardon in state cases

But unlike the federal indictments of Mr. Trump, the Georgia case will proceed no matter who wins the 2024 election. If he returns to the White House, Mr. Trump could scuttle the federal cases or attempt to pardon himself. Presidents have no such powers over the outcomes of state cases.

Mr. Trump may attempt to have the case moved to federal court, arguing that he was acting in his official capacity as president of the United States. He might face a friendlier jury and could draw a judge he appointed to office.

But the bar for such a move is high. The former president has already tried and failed to accomplish this move in New York, where he faces charges related to the payment of hush money to a porn star. 

Mr. Trump’s defense in Fulton County is likely to echo his defense in the federal election interference case that special counsel Smith brought earlier this month. It will probably rest on the assertion that his actions involved protected political speech and petitioning of the government. He is likely also to continue to insist that he truly believed there was election fraud. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump announced on his Truth Social network that he would soon present a report proving that Georgia election fraud existed.

“This time, like Jack Smith’s second Trump indictment, the charges are for the non-crimes of objecting to a presidential election (allowed by the Electoral Count Act of 1887) and twisting political arms (allowed by the First Amendment),” said Mike Davis, director of The Article III Project, in a statement critical of what he terms the Biden administration’s “political law-fare” against Mr. Trump.

“Always trying to get someone in trouble”

Georgians themselves are far from settled about their state’s upcoming role in former President Trump’s legal drama.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday rejected Mr. Trump’s continued insistence, with no substantiation, that the state’s 2020 vote was stolen.

“Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair – and will continue to be as long as I am governor,” said Governor Kemp.

But some Georgia voters in the state’s coastal Chatham County, interviewed after the release of the latest Trump indictment, say they remain uneasy about the situation.

Democrat Matthew Hodge says he didn’t vote for Mr. Trump, but that prosecuting the former president at the state level seems like overkill.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Entertainer and auto mechanic Matthew Hodge, a Savannah, Georgia, native, is a Democrat but calls former President Donald Trump “my homeboy.” He worries that a state prosecution of the former president will backfire on Democrats -- and the state of Georgia.

“I don’t get this whole thing of always trying to get someone in trouble,” especially if the crimes aren’t clear-cut, he says.

He also worries that Mr. Trump, who has spent a long career testing the boundaries of the law, might wind up in an even more powerful position if he’s acquitted.

“The man knows how to wiggle, wiggle, wiggle,” says Mr. Hodge.

Iraq War veteran Les White voted for Mr. Trump twice. He saw the former president’s efforts to stay in the White House as both an exercise of free speech and an attempt to execute the office of the presidency to the best of his abilities.

In that light, he says, Ms. Willis’ prosecution reflects a “deeper corruption” that could open the door for other states and municipalities to target national politicians over borderline indiscretions.

He believes that the legal full-court press against Mr. Trump is not just a power play but a ruse to take attention away from Democratic policies “that are taking the country down.”

“I’m not doing better economically than I was before, and no one I know is doing better economically,” says Mr. White.

Patrik Jonsson reported from Savannah, Georgia, for this story.

Montana lawmakers violated young people’s rights – and the state constitution – by ignoring fossil fuels’ impact on the climate, a judge ruled Monday.

In her decision supporting 16 young plaintiffs in Held v. Montana ­– the first constitutional climate case to be tried in the United States ­– District Judge Kathy Seeley wrote that fossil fuel extraction and use within the state was clearly tied to global climate change. She also found that young people have a particular standing to demand changes, since they will be disproportionately and negatively impacted by a rapidly heating planet. The decision has broad implications for environmental action across the country and, potentially, the world.

“It’s one of the strongest decisions on climate change ever issued,” says Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University’s law school, which keeps a database of the more than 2,000 climate lawsuits that have been filed globally.

While the legal arguments in the Montana case, which did not seek financial compensation or damages, are specific to the state, he says, the judge’s findings on climate science itself were broadly noteworthy and decisive. And it could help influence an explosion of climate lawsuits making their way through court systems across the U.S. 

For much of the June trial, internationally renowned scientists gave testimony explaining the connections between fossil fuel use and climatic disruptions such as increased wildfires, heat extremes, and drought.

It was one of the first times that both climate science and climate change denialism were put under the microscope of American legal questioning, Mr. Gerrard said earlier this summer. And the judge’s decision reflects what many court-watchers noted during the trial: Climate science, already highly vetted and agreed upon by experts worldwide, is convincing – as are the impacts of a heating world on young people.

While the plaintiffs used their allotted five days of trial to deeply question scientists and youths, the state rested its case after a day. It called only three witnesses, canceling at the last minute the appearance of a climatologist who had publicly spread doubt about climate change. 

Thom Bridge/Independent Record/AP

Judge Kathy Seeley, shown June 20 in Helena, Montana, ruled Aug. 14 that state lawmakers violated young people’s rights when they ignored fossil fuels’ impact on climate change.

“This case is a clear win for climate science,” said Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement. “Throughout the trial, climate science, the role fossil fuel emissions play in climate change, and the harm being caused to Montana’s youth were irrefutable.”

Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and executive director with Our Children’s Trust, the law firm that represents the Montana plaintiffs and other young people in climate cases making their way through other state legal systems, also called the ruling a “sweeping win.”

“Today, for the first time in U.S. history, a court ruled on the merits of a case that the government violated the constitutional rights of children through laws and actions that promote fossil fuels, ignore climate change, and disproportionately imperil young people,” she said in a statement.

But Emily Flower, spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, decried the ruling as “absurd.” She said the office planned to appeal, saying the judge had allowed plaintiffs to put on a “taxpayer-funded publicity stunt.”

During the trial, the state argued that Montana was not the cause of global climate disruption and that it therefore could not be held responsible for the alleged harm young people experienced. Defense attorneys declined to cross-examine young people, ages 5 to 22, who described grief, loss, and fear as their ranch lands burned and their fishing rivers lost water, as smoke inhalation became part of their sports seasons, and as rising temperatures and melting glaciers threatened a landscape they loved.

Earlier in the year, the office called the young plaintiffs “well-intentioned children” exploited by “an out-of-state organization.”

For Grace Gibson-Snyder, a 19-year-old plaintiff, this line has always been particularly galling. She is a sixth-generation Montanan whose great-great-great-grandmother came to the state in a covered wagon, following the gold rush. 

Thom Bridge/Independent Record/AP

Plaintiffs’ attorney Roger Sullivan questions a witness during a hearing in the climate change lawsuit, Held v. Montana, in Helena, Montana, June 12, 2023.

She understands why Montanans are particularly attuned to outsiders disrupting their way of life – whether it’s the Californians moving into her home city of Missoula who are perceived to be running up property values, or vacationers buying up large homes and then trying to control ranching methods. 

But this is home for her and her fellow plaintiffs, she says. They are clear-sighted, and fearful, about what is happening to their beloved state. 

“I don’t think climate change should be a political issue,” she said during an interview earlier this month in Missoula, part of an upcoming global Monitor series on young people and climate. “But it keeps getting politicized. We’re still accused of bringing in out-of-state, liberal ideas and attorneys. And that’s actually a misrepresentation, both literally and also in terms of our goals.” 

Ms. Gibson-Snyder is uncomfortable with the label of climate “activist.” It feels too disruptive, she says, when really she believes in government, democracy, and law. And it also doesn’t feel right for her state, she says, where care for the outdoors is widely bipartisan.  

The lawsuit, she says, was simply asking elected leaders to do what they are supposed to do.

And that, in many ways, is itself specific to Montana. The state is one of a handful, including Hawaii and Massachusetts, that has environmental protection written into its constitution. It reads, “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations,” and it requires the legislature to protect the “environmental life system” from depletion and degradation. 

That constitutional requirement, reflective of the state’s long reverence for the outdoors, was the base of Judge Seeley’s decision. 

“My overwhelming emotion is relief,” Ms. Gibson-Snyder wrote in an email after the verdict. “There is still hope. Hope for me and the other youths’ futures, hope for Montana and the places we love. Hope for the rest of the world to follow suit. 

“Thank you to the courts for upholding our constitutional rights,” she continued. “Thank you to all of the people who have expressed their concerns about the future, brought diverse perspectives to ensure all people are cared for, and spent time fighting for our state.”

For years, Ecuador has been labeled a bastion of peace in a region racked by violence and political unrest. But the recent assassination of anti-corruption presidential hopeful Fernando Villavicencio shattered that perception, highlighting how the small South American nation is facing down a rapidly expanding war on organized crime amid political divisions and limited economic resources.

As Ecuadorians vote for their next president Aug. 20, their shaken views around security and safety following Mr. Villavicencio’s murder could become the most important mandate for the nation’s next leader.

The 59-year-old journalist and political underdog running on an anti-corruption platform was shot multiple times as he climbed into a vehicle after a campaign rally in the capital, Quito, on Aug. 9. 

In the days before his death, Mr. Villavicencio denounced the creeping power of transnational drug cartels in Ecuadorian politics, a problem the country had largely avoided even as neighbors Colombia and Peru became the world’s largest cocaine producers, and others in the region were largely defined by brutal violence. Singling out a cartel with ties to gangs in Mexico, Colombia, and Albania, Mr. Villavicencio promised to crack down on crime and corruption, which have driven a spike in killings here since 2020. His assassination has been a wake-up call not only for Ecuadorians, but the region as a whole.

“We used to be called an island of peace, but this is an event of such magnitude it’s like kicking the chessboard,” says former Ecuadorian President Jamil Mahuad of Mr. Villavicencio’s murder. “This is a war; we have to be prepared to go to war.”

API/AP

Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio spoke during a campaign event at a school minutes before he was shot to death in Quito, Ecuador, Aug. 9, 2023.

“New for us”

His slaying is one of three that have been politically related in the past month, including one Monday.

The violence in Ecuador, a nation the geographic size of Nevada where almost 7 million people live in poverty, is a warning to other Latin American countries, Mr. Mahuad says. “The world is a much more complex place now, this is a risk for the whole region.”

Transnational cartels are more organized, better armed, and unafraid to use terror to seize power. “It’s like an octopus with many tentacles, they have a clear goal to infiltrate all aspects of society,” he says.

Cartels have recently targeted politicians in Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Mexico, while the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was killed in his home by foreign mercenaries in 2021. 

As global demand for cocaine has soared in recent years, criminal networks have expanded their territory into new areas like Ecuador, leading to the explosion of violence. Competition between rival cartels over key shipping routes in coastal provinces here has been blamed for killing thousands, including more than 600 in a series of prison riots since 2021.

“Ecuador is going through a process of expansion of organized crime,” says María McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, author of the book, There Are No Dead Here, on the rise of narcopolitics in Colombia. “They all have learned that the way to maintain their very profitable businesses is by controlling territory and controlling politics,” she says of organized crime groups.

“Nothing is free”

In the hours before he was killed, Mr. Villavicencio went on television to say he had received three death threats from the leader of the Ecuadorian Los Choneros drug cartel, José Adolfo Macías, known as Fito. Mr. Macías is currently serving a 34-year sentence for crimes including drug trafficking and murder, and has led the cartel from inside a maximum-security prison in Guayaquil since the previous leader was killed in 2020.

Vicente Gaibor del Pino/Reuters

Members of Ecuadorian Armed Forces stand guard outside Zonal prison No. 8 after the transfer of the criminal leader Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as "Fito," in Guayaquil, Aug. 14, 2023.

“They told me that if I kept mentioning Fito’s name and talking about the Choneros they were going to break me,” Mr. Villavicencio said in a television interview on Teleamazonas the day of his murder.

Despite the threats, Mr. Villavicencio refused to suspend his campaign or wear a bullet-proof vest, traveling to Quito later that day for a series of political rallies where he told supporters he would not be silenced. “Nothing is free here,” he said, according to a video recording of his last speech at the T. W. Anderson public school in northern Quito last week. “Defending the nation has cost us our lives, and we won’t allow another betrayal.”

Minutes later, he was dead. One suspect was killed in a shootout with police and nine other bystanders were injured, including a legislative candidate and two police officers, according to a statement by Ecuador’s state prosecutor.

Christian Zurita, an investigative journalist who worked with Mr. Villavicencio to expose corruption, will replace the slain candidate on the ballot in national elections this weekend.

“This is so sad,” says Mario Jiménez, a father of two who had planned to vote for Mr. Villavicencio in elections. “He was the only one who had the courage to stand up to the mafias. Now there’s going to be even more fighting.”

Courage ahead

Born in the highland province of Chimborazo, Mr. Villavicencio was a well-known journalist, union leader, and founding member of Ecuador’s Indigenous party, Pachakutik. He made a name for himself during the 2007-2017 administration of populist former President Rafael Correa, exposing government corruption in the nation’s oil industry. He was sentenced to one and a half years in jail in 2014 for allegedly insulting Mr. Correa but managed to avoid prison time by fleeing to the Amazon, where he took refuge with the Indigenous community of Sarayaku until charges expired a year later.

Mr. Villavicencio’s investigations eventually led to Mr. Correa’s conviction on sprawling corruption charges in 2020, forcing the former president to seek political asylum in Belgium after stepping down from power. In 2021, Mr. Villavicencio was elected to the National Assembly, where he led a powerful oversight committee that he used to continue his work, documenting billions in misspent funds. His willingness to take on the mafias, however, also made him a target, says Paolo Moncagatta, dean of social sciences at the Universidad San Francisco in Quito.

“Rafael Correa was one of his principal enemies, but he wasn’t the only one,” says Dr. Moncagatta. “Villavicencio was a man with a lot of information, and he was very exposed.”

In a statement on social media following the assassination, Mr. Correa expressed his condolences: “I hope that those who are trying to sow even more hatred with this new tragedy understand that it only destroys us more.”

In the aftermath of last week’s assassination, some have called Mr. Villavicencio a hero, while others question why he didn’t use more caution. Those who are willing to stand up to the cartels are often hard to stop, says Ms. McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, who is also acting deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. “Most people keep their heads down because they are scared, and it’s understandable. But people who are willing to challenge these cartels think a different way is possible, it’s part of who they are, and you’re not going to stop them.”

Mr. Villavicencio was considered a likely contender for a runoff election with Luisa González, representing Mr. Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution party, according to a recent survey by Quito-based pollster Cedatos. 

Now, according to Dr. Moncagatta, Ecuadorians are faced with a difficult choice in the upcoming vote. “There is a high probability that an authoritarian government wins to come in and put an end to the violence,” Dr. Moncagatta says. “It makes me sad, but it looks like years of violence are coming.”

While Ecuador has not reached the levels of violence seen in Colombia when presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was killed by the Medellín Cartel in 1989, the country needs international support, and politicians need to start working together, Mr. Mahuad says. “This is new for us; we need to develop new skills, which will take many years and much courage.”

Mahamadou Hamidou/Reuters

Members of the Nigerien military involved in the country's coup attend a rally at a stadium in Niamey, Niger, Aug. 6, 2023.

When Niger’s military seized power on July 26 from the country’s democratically elected president, observers warned that it could have disastrous consequences across the Sahel.

Those consequences could prove monumental for France as well, as they highlight a growing weariness with French influence both within Niger and across the Sahel more broadly.

Thousands of supporters of the coup marched through the streets of Niamey, the Nigerien capital, on July 30, denouncing the former colonial power and setting the door of the French embassy on fire. France’s colonial past has been blamed for some of Niger’s present woes and there are questions of whether the end of “Françafrique” – France’s sphere of influence over its former colonies – is near.

But just as France benefits from its security presence in Niger as well as Niger’s natural resources and immigration policies, Niger continues to enjoy profitable trade relations with France and – until the coup – a hefty development aid package. As the current crisis threatens the future of democracy in Niger and across the Sahel, it has also created a moment of reflection for France about the effectiveness of its policies as well as its future influence in the region. Is there still a place for France in Niger? 

“In truth, [France] has been re-examining its involvement in the region for some time now. How could it not?” says Ebenezer Obadare, Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. “It has contributed significant technical, humanitarian, and military aid to the country over the years, in addition to its involvement in various counterterrorism measures.

“On the other hand, Niger reportedly has one of the world’s largest deposits of uranium, which France needs to power its nuclear plants. For these reasons, it’s going to be difficult for France to simply up sticks and walk away.”

Michel Euler/AP/File

French President Emmanuel Macron (left) and his wife, Brigitte Macron (right), welcome Mohamed Bazoum, president of Niger, before dinner at the Élysée Palace in Paris, June 22, 2023. Mr. Bazoum is currently being held under house arrest by the military junta that seized power in Niger on July 26.

A long-lasting legacy?

Niger and France have held close ties since Niger became independent from France in 1960, but Niger remains economically dependent on its former colonizer. Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world – with 42% of its population living in poverty in 2021, according to the World Bank – and is one of the largest recipients of French aid. Two years ago, the French Development Agency committed a €97 million ($106 million) development package there.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s government has since suspended the aid post-coup, calling for “an immediate return to constitutional order in Niger” and the release of President Mohamed Bazoum, who remains under house arrest. But Mr. Macron needs Niger’s support in a region that has increasingly rejected a French presence. 

In 2014, France rolled out military support to countries across the Sahel region to fight jihadist militants. At its peak, the mission counted over 5,000 troops across Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. But the effort proved ineffective and in 2022, France began withdrawing its troops from the region.

Niger and its democratically elected president were seen as the last French-allied bastion in the Sahel, after Mali and France fell out in 2021 when a coup d’etat drove President Bah N’daw from power. French relations with Burkina Faso have also worsened after a similar coup in September 2022. 

France still has 1,500 soldiers in Niger and around 1,000 troops in neighboring Chad, but the coup in Niger has raised further questions about France’s military presence in the Sahel and across Africa. Since the 1990s, 78% of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have taken place in Francophone countries.

Jerome Delay/AP/File

French air force mechanics maintain a fighter jet on the base in Niamey, Niger, June 5, 2021. Now, the junta said on state television it was terminating the military agreements and protocols signed with France.

“When this wave of coups started, Niger was seen as an island. But when the coup [there] began, we realized it wasn’t,” says Douglas Yates, a specialist in African politics at the American Graduate School in Paris. “Like the Roman Empire, there has been [the idea of] a long-lasting legacy of France in the Sahel, but Macron’s influence there has been completely reduced.”

Until now, Mr. Yates says, France has used military solutions to deal with development and national problems in the Sahel. But “France needs to reflect on whether military [intervention] in the Sahel is the answer.”

Paris’s military presence has been at the heart of anti-French sentiment across the region. Mali has seen protests against the former empire since 2013, and after putschists took power in Mali and Burkina Faso, they turned to new partners like Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, who launched an intense anti-France propaganda campaign.

Locked in a relationship

Russia has attempted to court African leaders and expand its political and business ties on the continent, evidenced by the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg at the end of July, where Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to include African countries in a grain deal to avert food crises.

But some observers say African countries should be wary of Mr. Putin’s charm offensive. While Russia has the money to provide security or arms to the continent, Mr. Yates claims that relying on Russia would be a “gamble” for Africa. And Russia’s trade relations with Africa are small compared to the European Union’s, just 5% of the larger bloc’s.

That is important for Niger, which has one of the largest reserves of uranium in the world. France has operated uranium mining companies in Niger for over 50 years, and gets between 10 and 15% of the natural resource from its former colony. France counts on nuclear energy to power around 70% of its energy needs.

Donat Sorokin/AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) speaks at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 28, 2023. Russia has been trying to make inroads into West Africa as French influence has dwindled.

Despite Niger’s control of such a rare resource, uranium only contributes about 5% to the national GDP. That has created frustration within the Nigerien population, in addition to health and environmental concerns related to three French-owned uranium mines. Niger’s northern town of Arlit was reportedly left with 20 million tons of radioactive waste after one of the three mines closed in 2021.

Still, both sides are set up to lose if uranium exports fail. “It’s like that old [French] saying: ‘I’ve got you, you’ve got me, by the chin hairs,’” says Paul Vallet, a researcher of foreign policy and military history at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. “The two are locked in a relationship where neither are free to move without the other reacting.”

Ordinary Nigeriens could find themselves the unintentional victims if France’s relations with Niger go sour and if the military junta prevails. Despite “the essential ambivalence in attitude to French or Western countries among people in the ex-colonies,” Mr. Obadare of the Council of Foreign Relations says, “[they] continue to be seen as the most desirable places to live, hence the flood of young African migrants to them.”

Niger has been integral to helping the European Union stem illegal sub-Saharan migrants from arriving in North Africa. It holds a strategic position within Africa’s migration routes, and after a 2015 summit in Malta, it implemented a series of measures to curb access to its northern border with Libya – a jumping-off point to Italy.

If political instability continues, in addition to a halt to Niger’s development aid or trade revenue, it could push Nigeriens to leave the country, putting pressure on neighboring countries and Europe.

As Niger’s military junta attempts to settle into power, West African regional bloc Ecowas has said that military intervention is not off the table. France, though it has temporarily suspended development and military aid, does not appear ready to make any sudden moves or cut ties entirely with its former colony. 

“The putschists’ aim will be to get France and Ecowas to move towards recognizing their de facto regime,” says Mr. Vallet. “[But] France and Ecowas will need to figure out how they can support the Bazoum loyalists if the putschists remain in power and manage to get them reintegrated in any future political process. … This is going to be the condition for their future relationship.”

Editor's note: The original story misidentified Mr. Yates' current place of work.

I recently decided to spend a month on an island in Nicaragua, far from anything resembling a city. The highlight of my experience turned out to be nothing that most tourists would be interested in: a two-hour ride to my destination on a crowded so-called chicken bus, which is how the locals, and intrepid foreign backpackers, get around.

Before traveling to Nicaragua, I had had certain anxieties, even though, or maybe because, I had visited developing countries before. Would I be safe? Would I find my way? What if I fell ill or had an accident? How would I thrive in a place where I didn’t know a soul?

When I got off the boat from the mainland, the bus was already there, idling in place. I looked askance at the old thing, which was battered but serviceable. Still, there was something appealing about its adornments: It was partylike, draped with green exterior lights, and a broad decal at the top of the windshield read, in stylized letters, “Pon a Dios en Primer Lugar” (Put God First). 

I boarded the empty bus and for a while thought that I might be the only passenger. But then, close to departure time, came the flood of bodies, all seemingly locals, laden with bags and boxes. In short order, I was wedged against a window, and it was standing room only.

These people were poor. I could see it in their aspect; I could hear it in their gently expressed laments. And yet there were glosses to emphasize their need to put their best foot forward: the pink bow in the hair of the little girl with dirty feet, the pomade in the slicked-back hair of the little boy in well-worn trousers, the lovely bracelet on the wrist of an old woman in a faded dress and torn shoes. These Nicaraguans describe themselves as moreno (brown); they also tend to be of shorter stature, so I must have stuck out with my pale Maine snow-country complexion and 6-foot-3 frame. But no one remarked. No one glanced at me. Slowly but surely, I began to feel at ease.

About 40 minutes into the trip, the bus stopped to take on yet more passengers, even though this seemed an impossibility. One of them was a young pregnant woman, in clear distress, moaning with discomfort. Immediately, two people vacated a front seat so she could sit and rest. Others, strangers all, began to comfort her with affirming touch and words of encouragement. And then, the most moving gesture: An older woman pushed forward and began to arrange the distressed woman’s hair. I couldn’t take my eyes from this scene, whose theme might have been, “We are all in this together.” As for this older woman, her gesture seemed to be saying, “I know you are not well, but you are a woman and you deserve to look beautiful, so I will fix your hair.”

I am happy to say that the young woman visibly improved under these ministrations. She nestled into the supportive arms of her benefactors and disembarked at her destination as others helped her from the bus.

This was my introduction to Nicaragua. 

My ride on the chicken bus, and that incident with the young woman, eased any apprehensions I might have harbored. But it wasn’t until I arrived at my own destination that I realized how unfounded my initial reservations had been. On the wall outside my room in a poor village of this beautiful country, someone had painted the following words: A head full of fears has no room for dreams.

Among these people, I learned that I had nothing to fear. Let the dreaming begin.

AP

Iraqis raise the Muslim holy book outside the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad during a June 30 protest against the burning of a Quran in Sweden.

To save its democracy, Sweden is trying to prove truth can fly faster than a lie.

In recent weeks, officials have repeatedly said Sweden does not condone the burning of holy books, such as the Quran, even if it has granted permits for such public acts as a constitutional right. They have, for the first time, named Russia as the source of false narratives online about Sweden being hostile against Islam. And since last year – when Sweden experienced its largest disinformation campaign ever – officials have pointed out that someone with links to the Islamic State group was behind false reports that Swedish social services were taking children from Muslim families to Christianize them.

Sweden has lately become a role model for such quick fact-telling. After Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, it set up a lie-squashing body last year – the Psychological Defense Agency – just in time to counter a campaign aimed at preventing its entry into NATO and turning the Islamic world, especially Turkey, against Sweden.

“I believe truth will win in the long run when you have free debate,” the agency’s spokesperson, Mikael Östlund, told Deutsche Welle last week. The issue, he added, is to ensure an open debate.

The task of the new agency is to counter foreign sources of disinformation, not information generated inside Sweden. “We try to take action against malicious disinformation and propaganda coming from abroad that tries to change our view of reality, our voting behavior, our everyday decisions,” Magnus Hjort, the agency’s acting director general, told the German news outlet Süddeutsche Zeitung.

“Nothing and nobody prevents people from telling lies,” he said. “But we will do everything to expose these lies as lies.”

The agency does try to educate Swedes on ways to discern facts from fake news. But it also presents “correct and verified information ... in a way that makes it possible for people to think through their choices and make informed decisions,” according to the agency website. By laying a groundwork of truth, Sweden hopes that lies find no place to grow.