Tunisian President Kais Saied fired Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament (Reuters), causing one of the country’s biggest crises since its 2011 revolution. The moves, which opposition parties denounced as a coup, followed large anti-government protests over economic malaise, political dysfunction, and rising COVID-19 cases.
 
The turmoil threatens what many experts consider to be the sole democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring. For months, Saied competed (NYT) with Mechichi and parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi for power, increasing his own authority by refusing to swear in ministers. After a day of protests calling for the dissolution of parliament, Saied announced that he would “freeze” the body for thirty days and assume executive power alongside a new prime minister. Military forces blocked lawmakers (Al Jazeera) from entering parliament today. The foreign ministries of Germany, Russia, and Turkey voiced concern.

In a meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Tianjin, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng called U.S. foreign policy (SCMP) “extremely dangerous” for treating China as an “imagined enemy.” Xie called on Washington to remove sanctions and drop a request to extradite Huawei’s financial chief from Canada.
 
Malaysia: Parliament reopened (Nikkei) after being suspended since January, and the government announced it will not extend (AP) a COVID-19 state of emergency beyond August 1. Opposition lawmakers have criticized Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s handling of the pandemic, and the largest party in his coalition withdrew its support earlier this month.

U.S. forces have increased air strikes (Reuters) against the Taliban in recent days and are prepared to maintain the heightened level of air support if the Taliban continues its attacks, the head of U.S. Central Command said.
 
For Foreign Affairs, Seth G. Jones looks at how to prevent catastrophe after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
 
India: At least 164 people were killed (Hindustan Times) and some 100 were reported missing amid floods and landslides in Maharashtra State over the past week. 

U.S. President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi will meet today (USA Today) at the White House, where they are expected to announce the redeployment of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

Sierra Leone’s Parliament approved a bill to abolish the death penalty (VOA) and replace it with life imprisonment or thirty-year minimum sentences. The president is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make Sierra Leone the twenty-third country in Africa to end capital punishment.
 
Mali: The man accused of trying to kill interim President Assimi Goita last week died in custody (AFP), Mali’s government said.

Group of Twenty (G20) environment ministers at a summit in Naples, Italy, failed to reach an agreement (FT) on phasing out coal and reducing subsidies for fossil fuels, prompting criticism (UN News) from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. In their communique, the nations for the first time referenced a goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, rather than 2°C, above preindustrial levels.
 
For Project Syndicate, CFR President Richard N. Haass discusses how the pandemic and recent climate-related disasters have revealed the weaknesses of global governance.
 
UK: A new parliamentary report found that among over four thousand women in the armed forces, 62 percent had experienced (Guardian) bullying, sexual harrassment, and discrimination at work.

Hundreds of Guatemalans protested (Reuters) the firing of prominent anticorruption investigator Juan Francisco Sandoval, who fled the country after being removed from office last week. A U.S. State Department official called the ousting (AFP) “a significant setback to the rule of law.”
 
Mexico: At a meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called for a new and more autonomous body (MercoPress) to replace the Organization of American States (OAS).
 
This Backgrounder looks at the OAS.

States including Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota are reducing their COVID-19 reporting (AP) from daily to weekly even as infections rise across the nation amid the spread of the coronavirus’s Delta variant.