Turkish voters rebuke Erdogan

TURKEY: The party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered a high-profile defeat in municipal elections on Sunday, ceding control of the capital Ankara to the opposition. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) also appears to have lost Istanbul, the country’s biggest city, in a stunning rebuke for Erdogan, who is also AKP party chairman and widened his executive powers under a new presidential system introduced last year.

ISRAEL: With elections on April 9, my take on the gambit that’s the Trump/Netanyahu stance on the Golan Heights.

BREXIT: With Britain’s deadline for exiting the European Union extended to April 12, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet appears split between ministers who want a customs union with the EU (unthinkable just weeks ago) and those who want a no-deal Brexit that leaves trade and other major ties simply broken. You can follow the live debate here.

NEW ZEALAND: I’ve been waiting for Australian scholar and rector Mark Durie to weigh in on the Christchurch terror attack, and now he has: Calls to censor Brenton Tarrant’s ideology are mistaken—because it reveals that the “real struggle we face in the West is over moral worldviews which despise the value of human life.”

NIGERIA: Tani Adewumi, an 8-year-old refugee from Boko Haram persecution, won the New York State chess championship while living in a homeless shelter.

GLOBAL: Japan is one turn of the screw from becoming a nuclear power ready to confront North Korean threats. What’s happening in Venezuela should be a message to everyone too generous with public funds. These and other insights on the fragile stability in the world are from Marvin Olasky’s latest conversation with Geopolitical Futures founder George Friedman.

HOMEFRONT: Around the world, 250 babies are born every minute, but when one of them is your grandson the world stands still.

Sign up to receive Globe Trot via email.