Turkey’s new Kurdish peace initiative marks a striking turn in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian playbook: the pursuit of “multicultural authoritarianism.” In a carefully managed spectacle, PKK fighters burned weapons in Sulaimaniyah on July 11, signaling a willingness to disarm under the guidance of jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan. Yet rather than herald a democratic opening, the process is designed to entrench Erdogan’s rule and the AKP-MHP alliance while selectively co-opting Kurdish elites. The initiative reframes integration as submission to the Turkish state, not genuine autonomy or rights expansion. Ocalan and veteran Kurdish politicians now echo Erdogan’s calls for “voluntary integration,” while ultranationalist partner Devlet Bahceli floats symbolic gestures, such as appointing Kurdish and Alevi deputies, as a substitute for systemic inclusion. The strategy consolidates power by neutralizing the PKK and the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, simultaneously marginalizing the secularist CHP through arrests and legal harassment. This arrangement aims to construct a domestic front that binds Turks, Kurds, and Alevis under a nationalist-Islamist umbrella, framed as both historical reconciliation and a bulwark against foreign threats. By invoking Ottoman-era pluralism and Islamic fraternity, Erdogan casts the peace process as a revival of imperial strength, and revealing that these “conciliatory moves” are not a step toward liberal democracy. Erdogan’s model echoes other regimes that convert minority accommodation into instruments of control. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s co-optation of Chechen elites, most infamously, Ramzan Kadyrov, neutralized a secessionist threat by granting local strongmen wide internal latitude in exchange for loyalty and repression of dissent. Similarly, in China, Beijing’s managed “integration” of Xinjiang relies on selective co-optation of certain Uyghur elites alongside pervasive surveillance, mass detention, and the suppression of independent religious or political identity. Turkey’s approach sits between these examples: coercion is softened with symbolism, and the appearance of inclusion masks the consolidation of one-man rule. The risks are familiar, backlash if co-opted elites lose legitimacy, and international condemnation if repression resurges. Success would create a durable hybrid regime, celebrated as pluralist abroad but structurally authoritarian at home.

The July 27 massacre at Saint Anuarite Church in Komanda, where at least 43 civilians were killed and several children kidnapped, signals a resurgence of the ADF, now operating under ISIL’s Central Africa Province banner. Once a Ugandan insurgency, the ADF has transformed into a cross-border terror network, leveraging small arms, mortars, and improvised explosives to terrorize rural eastern Congo. The attack highlights a strategic shift: targeting vulnerable civilian spaces to assert relevance, disrupt local governance, and draw international attention just as Kinshasa negotiates peace with M23 and Rwanda. ADF’s renewed momentum reflects both opportunity and neglect. The temporary lull in M23 hostilities, secured under U.S. and Qatari-brokered talks, has freed the group to maneuver in Ituri and North Kivu with less military pressure. Its integration into ISIL’s global network since 2019 has brought ideological branding and occasional financial support, sustaining a force of roughly 1,000-1,500 fighters with semi-permanent camps, rudimentary internal security, and even indoctrination infrastructure. Recent attacks in Irumu, Babili, and Lubero illustrate the group’s widening operational footprint and its intent to destabilize any emerging “pacifist moment” in the region. Regional security dynamics remain fraught. Uganda’s Operation Shujaa has placed thousands of troops in the DRC, ostensibly to counter ADF incursions following Kampala bombings in 2021. Yet their presence rekindles old resentments over foreign armies exploiting Congolese resources and fuels suspicions of tacit M23 support, a perception reinforced by historical alliances between President Museveni and Rwanda’s Kagame. These optics complicate Kinshasa’s balancing act: it must welcome regional intervention to suppress terrorism without reigniting the nationalist backlash of past wars. The strategic risk extends beyond eastern Congo. ADF/IS-CA attacks, combined with the sub-region’s history of proxy conflicts, threaten to re-entangle Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC in cycles of retaliation that could undo fragile ceasefires. For ISIL, the DRC represents an ideal theater: a resource-rich, weakly governed frontier where the group can inflict mass-casualty terror and claim global relevance despite its Middle Eastern decline. Without a sustained, credible security and governance response, the group’s campaign of rural terror risks metastasizing into a regional contagion.

Serbia’s government is facing renewed scrutiny after a CIVICUS Monitor report accused President Aleksandar Vučić’s administration of systematically eroding civic freedoms and backing violent groups to suppress student-led protests. What began as a localized outcry in November 2024, after a deadly railway station collapse killed 16 people, has spread into a nationwide movement demanding early elections and an end to Vučić’s 13-year rule. The report paints a stark picture of orchestrated repression: masked men, allegedly linked to the ruling SNS party, forcibly removed student occupiers at the University of Novi Pazar on July 28, while police stood by. In the first week of July alone, more than 400 demonstrators were detained, with reports of beatings, tear gas, and denial of medical treatment. Counter-protest encampments, reportedly organized by the government and guarded by police, have become flashpoints for attacks on journalists and student activists. Vučić’s tacit endorsement of political violence is underscored by his recent pardon of four SNS-linked men convicted of assaulting a female student in Novi Sad, an incident that triggered the prime minister’s resignation. This impunity, coupled with surveillance and politically motivated prosecutions, has led CIVICUS to classify Serbia’s civic space as “obstructed,” placing it on a watchlist alongside Turkey and El Salvador. By normalizing street-level violence and police complicity, the Serbian government risks undermining its own legitimacy at home and eroding its European aspirations abroad. The student movement’s barricades and flash protests reflect a society reaching the limits of endurance under a soft-authoritarian model increasingly reliant on coercion rather than consensus. Unless Vučić pivots toward accountability and reform, Serbia’s path will mirror other hybrid regimes sliding into entrenched authoritarian tendancies.

China’s manufacturing sector continued its decline in July, contracting for the fourth consecutive month and highlighting deepening economic vulnerabilities. The official Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 49.3, missing expectations of 49.7, as weak demand, extreme weather, and protracted trade tensions with the United States weighed on output. Sub-indexes for new orders, employment, and raw material inventories all remained in contraction territory, with only a slight uptick in the jobs index to 48. The downturn coincides with a fragile trade truce between Washington and Beijing that is set to expire in mid-August. Both countries imposed tariffs exceeding 100% in April before agreeing to a temporary 90-day rollback in May. This week’s Stockholm talks ended without an extension, deepening uncertainty for manufacturers already grappling with slower domestic growth and global supply chain headwinds. While China’s June exports rose 5.8% year-on-year, bolstered by markets outside the U.S., the inability to stabilize core industrial output suggests that external demand alone cannot offset systemic weaknesses. Compounding the economic strain, torrential rains and extreme heat disrupted production in multiple provinces, with Beijing recording at least 30 deaths from flooding after issuing its highest-level rain alert. Despite the mounting pressures, the Politburo signaled no major stimulus at its July meeting, opting instead for targeted subsidies such as pro-natalist incentives rather than broad industrial relief. The combination of external trade friction, structural slowdown, and climate-driven disruptions underscores a precarious environment for the world’s second-largest economy, one that could reverberate through global markets if contraction persists.

Two days of violent unrest over a fuel price hike have left at least 22 people dead, including one police officer, and more than 1,200 arrested across Angola. The protests, sparked by a July 1 increase in fuel prices from 300 to 400 kwanzas per liter, paralyzed the capital Luanda and spread to other cities, where looting and clashes with security forces erupted. Interior Minister Manuel Homem confirmed nearly 200 injuries and significant damage to supermarkets and warehouses, highlighting a climate of “widespread insecurity.” The unrest reflects mounting frustration in the oil-rich but deeply unequal nation, where unemployment hovers near 30 percent and inflation at 20 percent erodes household purchasing power. For millions of Angolans, the government’s decision to reduce fuel subsidies—reportedly under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to redirect funds to health and education, has become the latest symbol of elite disconnect. Opposition parties UNITA and Bloco Democrático condemned President João Lourenço’s MPLA government for policies “disconnected from the country’s reality,” while residents in Luanda voiced a sense of abandonment and “deep insecurity.” The heavy-handed response, including police gunfire that killed a 16-year-old in Lubango, risks further delegitimizing the MPLA’s rule, which has faced sporadic but intensifying protests since Lourenço’s reelection in 2022. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have accused Angolan security forces of using excessive force, reviving memories of the state violence and repression that characterized the country’s decades-long civil war and its authoritarian aftermath. Angola’s economic fragility, driven by dependence on oil revenues, persistent poverty, and a weak social safety net, leaves the government vulnerable to future eruptions. Without meaningful relief measures or structural reforms, the fuel protests risk becoming a flashpoint in a broader reckoning with the MPLA’s half-century grip on power.