Teaching Notes for Toxic Politics, authored by CFR Senior Fellow Yanzhong Huang, discuss how China’s environmental crisis is undermining public health and becoming an Achilles heel in its reemergence as a global power.

A rare positive note as Nigeria spirals into a state of lawlessness is the unintended return to the front burner of longstanding issues around governance at the subnational level. Until now, such issues have bubbled under the surface, receiving fleeting attention only when the country’s perennial crisis threatens to boil over, only to subside as soon as a temporary fix is found. Penultimate week, after still unidentified assailants opened fire on an Abuja-Kaduna train, killing eight passengers and kidnapping tens of others for ransom, Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, emerging from a private meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, threatened to do whatever it takes to protect lives and property across the state, including “importing mercenaries from outside the country to do it.”

The Iran-backed Shiite militia was considered the most powerful non-state group in the Middle East, but an Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah in 2024 has considerably weakened it.