Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Last month Slovenia threatened to block Croatia’s accession to the European Union over an unresolved banking dispute. In an email interview, Kristof Bender, the deputy chairman of the European Stability Initiative, discussed relations between Croatia and Slovenia in the context of the European Union. WPR: How have Slovenia-Croatia relations evolved since the breakup of Yugoslavia? Kristof Bender: Most of the time relations between Slovenia and Croatia have been good, particularly if measured by post-Yugoslav standards. Exceptions include a row over the management, ownership and financing of a jointly operated nuclear power plant; a dispute over more than $210 million in […]

The Sinai Peninsula might stand at the fringes of the Egyptian state, but it has often been the location of some of the country and the region’s transformative events. That is happening again. What occurs in the Sinai in the coming weeks and months will help answer many questions about Egypt’s future, including its relationship with Israel and Hamas, and the relative power of the Muslim Brotherhood and the military in the post-Mubarak era. The triangle of land on the shores of the Red Sea at the meeting point of Africa and Asia forms both the border and a buffer […]

While foreign investors might be feeling a lot of uncertainty about Bolivia’s resource sector policy, one thing is perfectly clear: Bolivian President Evo Morales is firmly in control of any foreign-funded project seeking to develop the country’s natural resource wealth. And when partnerships with foreign investors turn sour, he has not hesitated to seize the underlying assets. That has occurred with surprising frequency this year. In the past four months, Bolivia has nationalized a Canadian company’s silver mine, a tin and zinc mine operated by the Swiss commodities giant Glencore and a Spanish electric grid operation. To say nothing of […]

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her visit to South Africa this week to call on the nation’s leaders to join the United States in putting pressure on Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions. World News Videos by NewsLook

With peril looming on both countries’ economic horizons, Sudan and South Sudan brokered a milestone oil-transit agreement over the weekend to the effusive praise of the international community. The deal represents a breakthrough after months of heightened tensions. South Sudan shut down oil production eight months ago over transit cost disagreements. Juba also accused the Khartoum government of siphoning southern oil and confiscating shipments in lieu of unpaid transit fees. In April, the two historical adversaries neared the brink of full-scale border war after South Sudan temporarily seized Sudan’s primary oil production site in Heglig. “Now was the time to […]

Over the past several weeks, a series of articles have noted the absence of any discussion of the Afghanistan War in the U.S. presidential campaign. President Barack Obama might be avoiding the subject, but for better or worse, his policy is a matter of record. By contrast, GOP candidate Mitt Romney has yet to articulate an Afghanistan policy. Of course, it shouldn’t strike anyone as curious that the Romney campaign is as reluctant to talk about Afghanistan as the Obama administration. After all, the war is terribly unpopular. The administration has apparently determined the safest thing to do politically is […]

Video from North Korean state TV shows Red Cross distributing aid to the flood-ravaged countryside. World News Videos by NewsLook

The “formal” departure of Ali Abdullah Saleh from Yemen’s political arena in February, after more than three decades as president, did not bring an end to the country’s dangerous unrest. To the contrary, the weak central government in Sanaa has been weakened further; the military remains divided; entrepreneurs of violence have expanded their geographical influence; sectarianism has taken a violent turn; the shortage of public goods and law and order has become severe; and the country is atop this year’s Forbes list of the “World’s Worst Economies.” In Washington, Riyadh and Brussels, fears are high that the current political and […]

In March 2008, a widow in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency made a public appeal to Mangal Bagh Afridi, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) militant group operating in the area, to help arbitrate a land dispute. Several of her family members had been killed in the dispute, and the formal justice system was not responding to the crimes. Bagh took up her case, ruled in her favor and promptly sent armed militia members to punish the people he determined were responsible for the deaths. Soon afterward, wealthy families, often the targets of kidnapping and extortion, started appealing to Bagh for help […]

Later this month, Somalia’s eight-year political transition is scheduled to end with the declaration of a “post-transition” government. Casual observers will be forgiven for assuming such a step signals that, after 21 years of complete state collapse, a functional central government in Somalia is now in place. The reality is that the post-transition government will be unable to project its authority beyond much of the capital, Mogadishu. Most of the country and parts of the capital itself remain under the de facto control of autonomous strongmen, self-proclaimed regional states, clan militias and the jihadi group al-Shabab. Of these, only al-Shabab […]

Last week, Hillary Clinton began what is likely to be her last extended visit to Africa as U.S. secretary of state. On Tuesday, she met with officials in South Africa, one of nine countries she will visit over 10 days as the U.S. seeks to deepen its ties with the continent. “When I look at U.S. engagement with Africa from one secretary of state to another, I see a very coherent theme,” Mwangi Kimenyi, director of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told Trend Lines. “They read from the same playbook.” While the themes of U.S. foreign policy […]

The back-to-back visits to India last month by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, in charge of that country’s military-industrial complex, demonstrate the heightened competition for India’s defense import market, currently the largest in the world. India has been the leading global arms importer in recent years, with its weapons purchases totaling $12.7 billion from 2007-2011, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Over that period, 80 percent of India’s defense imports came from Russia, making New Delhi the leading purchaser of Russian arms. But Russian officials fear that various […]

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series examining the crisis of the global middle class. Part I examined the challenges facing the global middle class and the implications for international politics. Part II examines ways to strengthen the global middle class and avoid the potential dangers of economic polarization. The damage done to the global middle class, while significant, is not irreparable. The solutions are as varied as the countries themselves, but they all share several key features that influence whether a consumer-driven economy will flourish or not. First and foremost is access to capital for small […]

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series examining the crisis of the global middle class. Part I will examine the challenges facing the global middle class and the implications for international politics. Part II will examine ways to strengthen the global middle class and avoid the potential dangers of economic polarization. When Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire outside a local government office in December 2010, his desperate act set off an unexpected yet wide-ranging chain reaction throughout the region. Demonstrations that broke out in his small town spread all the way to […]

During a visit to New Delhi in July, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agreement to continue training Singapore troops at Indian military facilities. In an email interview, Jayati Bhattacharya, a lecturer in the South Asian studies program at the National University of Singapore, discussed India-Singapore relations. WPR: What is the extent of India-Singapore diplomatic, trade and defense ties, and how have they evolved in recent years? Jayati Bhattacharya: The long-standing relationship between Singapore and India has been accelerated and facilitated by the tectonic shift of economic power in the Asia-Pacific region. […]

Editor’s note: Ulrike Guérot is on a two-week break. Guest columnist Richard Gowan will be writing the Continentalist while she is gone. Is the European Union about to engage in a proxy war in the Sahara? In late-July, European foreign ministers directed EU officials to come up with “concrete proposals” for supporting an African stabilization force in Mali. There’s no doubt that Mali needs stabilizing: Islamist separatists with links to al-Qaida have seized the north of the country, and the south has been in political turmoil since a coup in March. What can the EU do to contain and resolve […]

According to UNICEF, some 700,000 children in Bolivia work — a third of the total child-age population — earning far less than adults. The young workers have now formed a union, UNATSBO, to fight for fairer pay and official recognition. Video News by NewsLook