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Sudan’s US envoy, forced to resign, tells us ‘the situation is disastrous’

When Nureldin Mohamed Hamed Satti arrived in Washington back in July 2020, he was welcomed as Khartoum’s first ambassador to the United States in 23 years. Yet Satti’s mission proved to be short-lived. On Jan. 31, the 75-year-old former UN official was forced to resign after a military coup back home plunged Sudan into a political and humanitarian crisis.

Op-ed: Want to be a US ambassador? Pay up.

As the Biden administration approaches its first anniversary in power, it might be useful to explain one way in which Washington operates, even though it has not changed with the transition from Trump to Biden. This feature of American statecraft, which is often misunderstood, is the uniquely American tradition of selling the title of “ambassador.”

V-Dem warns of democratic backsliding in COVID’s wake

While some nations have seen a significant deterioration of freedoms during the past 18 months, the pandemic’s direct impact on the vitality of democracy itself has so far been limited, the Swedish nonprofit V-Dem says. But those who run Washington’s top global development organizations aren’t waiting to sound the alarm.

Op-ed: Evolution of the pandemic

The woman in the grocery store was quite upset. She didn’t like wearing a mask. She hadn’t been vaccinated and she was convinced it was a conspiracy. “The government and Dr. [Anthony] Fauci are just trying to kill enough people worldwide so the population drops to a billion people,” she explained.