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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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October 5, 2025

On Today’s Show

On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:

China is increasingly positioning itself as a global leader, Fareed says, in particular by threatening America’s technological dominance. In green tech and AI, China is rapidly advancing, investing and integrating its developments. That makes for quite the contrast with a shut-down US federal government and a White House that attacks science and research.

After that: All eyes are on President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Prospects for peace looked encouraging heading into the weekend, as Hamas responded and Trump signaled progress. Can the Trump-crafted deal fully take hold—releasing the hostages and bringing an end to Gaza’s suffering? Fareed discusses with author, former US government adviser and podcast host Dan Senor and Palestinian political analyst and human-rights lawyer Diana Buttu.

Then, Fareed is joined by Nick Clegg—former UK deputy prime minister, former senior executive at Meta and author of the new book “How to Save the Internet.” They discuss the rising tide of populism in Europe and the US and how big tech has responded by moving to the right, with many of the industry’s leaders courting MAGA and aligning with the Trump administration.

Accused terrorist Mohammad Sharifullah—known as “Jafar”—currently awaits trial in Virginia for allegedly killing American soldiers in Afghanistan. Only one such case before this has ever gone to trial—and was considered highly controversial at the time. Fareed talks with CNN’s Jake Tapper, who has written a thrilling book on that story called “Race Against Terror.”

France: A Warning to Centrists

When French President Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, he represented a bold new centrist politics. Rising to prominence from the business world, Macron bested both the mainstream political parties and the established fringe ones, on the left and right, to take office with plans for reform.
 
Now, The Economist writes, that project has fallen apart. France is unable to pass a budget bill or form a working coalition in its legislature. The current prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has called himself “the weakest prime minister of the Fifth Republic,” which began in 1958. Nearly 200,000 people protested against spending cuts on Thursday. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party could be the favorite heading into 2027’s presidential election.
 
“This is a concern for centrists well beyond France,” The Economist writes. “When the 39-year-old electoral debutant became president in 2017, Mr Macron vowed ‘to ensure that there is no longer any reason to vote for the extremes’. By bringing moderates from both left and right together in a new post-partisan movement, Mr Macron sought to forge a bulwark against the hard left and hard right, and end the ideological quarrels that blocked reform. … France was once a case study in how to fend off the extremes. Today the centre ground looks more fragile than ever.”

After Bolsonaro’s Conviction, Brazil Moves Ahead Cautiously

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is off the political stage, having been sentenced to 27 years in prison for fomenting and plotting a coup after he lost the 2022 election. Still, Bruna Santos writes for the World Politics Review, “Bolsonaro’s conviction will not close this chapter in Brazil’s history. Far from easing the country’s divisions, it could deepen them. For his supporters, the Supreme Court ruling risks turning him into a martyr, even as Bolsonaro and his allies pursue legal appeals and press for amnesty. … For many Brazilians, the echoes of past amnesties, including those that were extended to the military after the transition back to democracy in 1985, make this a test of whether the country will break its pattern of impunity.”
 
Amnesty may be unlikely for now, Santos writes. Right-wing lawmakers have introduced measures that would grant it to Bolsonaro, but President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) has pledged to veto them. Still, if a resurgent right takes power in the future, amnesty could become a possibility. “The next few years will be an important test for Brazil,” Santos writes. “Far-right networks remain well-organized, with pockets of sympathy within the military and security forces.” Bolsonaro’s Supreme Court conviction “alone cannot ensure the health of Brazil’s democracy. That will depend on Congress and Brazil’s civil society taking on fair shares of the burden.”

Japan Is Packed With Tourists

Like other popular destinations such as Spain, Japan is newly worried about being oversaturated with tourists, Leo Lewis and Harry Dempsey write in a Financial Times feature: “In Kamakura, a seaside city south of Tokyo that was once Japan’s capital, Japanese and foreign visitors outnumbered permanent inhabitants more than 90 times over last year. Tourists tend to concentrate their trips on a relatively narrow ‘golden route’ through Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka—adding to the sense of excessive crowding, focusing local grievances and irritating the parts of the country that have yet to feel any of the economic glow. Locals are bristling about rising prices and unaffordable residential rents. … The weak yen, which has fallen by about 45 per cent against the dollar since the end of 2010, has been a powerful magnet and helped erase Japan’s old image as an overly expensive destination. It has also suppressed the ability of younger Japanese to travel overseas and compelled them to take domestic holidays instead.”