Briefing Room 25.04.26: Trouble Brews in Tigray, and Madagascar's Growing Military Crackdown

Welcome back to The Briefing Room, our subscriber-only show that doubles as your weekly reminder that there are other major events happening in the realms of conflict and geopolitics outside of the Middle East.

I'm Simon, and this week, those major events are taking us first to northern Ethiopia, where the ghosts of the Tigray War threaten to once again turn this unquiet region into a site of horrors. Next, we're taking a short detour to Japan to check out the impact of Tokyo's decision to restart arms exports.

Then, we'll finally travel to Madagascar, where a people power revolution is—surprise, surprise—slowly curdling into what appears to be a burgeoning military dictatorship. It has been less than four years since the end of the Tigray War in Ethiopia, widely understood to be one of, if not the, deadliest conflict of the 21st century so far.