On a Thursday morning that should have been unremarkable, the Brazilian capital woke to familiar shadows? The Supreme Court, a austere concrete-and-glass monument to justice, had become once again a scene of fevered alertnya. Police cars idled in a loose ring around the plaza, their blue lights cutting through layers of uncertainty. Around a dozen patrol cars had sealed the area, and an AFP journalist watching from behind the barrier counted officers movingwith purpose. The cause was a man, a backpack, a perceived leap of fencesand a collective gasp of dread. He had tried to jump the court’s fences, a…

On Saturday, 3 October, Latvia will hold a parliamentary election that feels less like a routine civic exercise and more like a quiet referendum on survival. With the border with Russia and Belarus under constant surveillance, and the spectre of Moscow’s hybrid war hanging over every aspect of public life, 1.5 million citizens are being asked to choose the 100 members of the Saeima, the country’s unicameral parliament in Riga. This is, by any measure, the most delicate moment in Latvia’s recent history. The economy is showing cracks: inflation has reached 3.5 per cent, and purchasing power remains below the…