Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers June 17 to June 24. 

Former Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore’s sentence of life imprisonment by an Ouagadougou military court for complicity in the murder of his predecessor, Thomas Sankara, marks an important victory for the rule of law in the country and the region as a whole. In exile in the Ivory Coast since his ouster from power following a popular uprising in 2014, Compaore was tried in absentia. Erstwhile Presidential Security Chief Hyacinthe Kafando, currently at large and also tried in absentia, similarly received a life sentence.

President Biden delivers his first State of the Union speech tonight. Here are ten things you might not know about the tradition of having a president deliver an annual address.

When the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) began generating electricity a few days ago, it marked a triumphant moment for a troubled country. Paired with the images of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s engagements at the recent AU and European Union-Africa Summits, in which he advocated for a stronger African voice in international decision-making, and the news that the Ethiopian parliament voted to lift the state of emergency that had been imposed late last year, the latest developments can seem like a return to form for Ethiopia and its relations with the rest of the world.