Diplomacy & Politics Archive

TAPACHULA, Mexico—David Gramajo was working as a bricklayer in Atlanta in 2012 when he was stopped by police for driving without a license, turned over to immigration authorities, and deported to his native Guatemala. But once he returned to Guatemala City, he and his wife Alejandra struggled to maintain their business and protect their three children. They received constant threats from gang members who extorted and threatened their family for the little money they had. Eventually, they were forced to leave behind their business and again head north, but this time with a different aim: Mexico. I met David and […]

MARRAKECH, Morocco—Tensions among governments over how to prevent terrorism are evident, from the confusion over U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to clamp down on migration to disputes between neighbors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa over border controls. But the will to cooperate is strong. The challenges center around mismatches in legal authorities and capabilities, and the ever-changing nature of the enemy. Both trends were on display at the annual Marrakech Security Forum this past week, where security officials and experts from Arab, African and European countries gathered to discuss the obstacles they face, but also the progress they’ve […]

In a decree late last month, Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, announced new immigration rules that risk repudiating the country’s history and could presage a painful break with its neighbors. The policy changes themselves are relatively minor, explicitly prohibiting the entry of any foreign national with past involvement in drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking and several other activities associated with organized crime. The new measures also expedite the deportation of all foreign-born residents implicated in similar crimes, whether these were committed in Argentina or in other countries. While the threshold for implication necessary for deportation remains uncertain, it can be […]

Though the government has demonstrated interest in improving women's rights in China, economic and security issues far outweigh gender concerns. Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the world. [marketing]blockbuster[/marketing] China passed its first law against domestic violence in 2015, but a key part of the legislation—issuing restraining orders against abusers—has not been properly implemented, putting women at risk. In an email interview, Andrea den Boer, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent, discusses women’s rights in China. WPR: What is the […]

Antonio Guterres has a personnel problem. Last week, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, nixed the U.N. secretary-general’s nomination of a new envoy to Libya. Guterres had proposed the respected former Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, for the job. On Friday, Haley released a terse statement saying that she was “disappointed” by the choice, and citing it as a symptom of the U.N.’s bias against Israel. The U.S. maneuver is simultaneously tokenistic, destructive and liable to backfire. The Bush and Obama administrations invested a great deal in Fayyad as one of the few Palestinian politicians they […]

For over three decades, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, has ruled his country without any sign of ever wanting to give up power, despite growing indications that Cambodians want him to. As the country prepares for elections, he has begun his most ruthless campaign yet to consolidate his position as a strongman and undermine his opponents to ensure his own political survival. The resignation of the country’s longtime opposition leader is just the latest indication of the heavy price that Hun Sen is exacting on Cambodia’s domestic politics and foreign policy. Since coming to power in 1985 with Vietnamese support […]

In this week’s episode, the second of two special editions of Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, examine the various ways of trying to assess Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy, and how the prism that is used influences the conclusions that are drawn. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: The Foreign Policy Legacy of Barack Obama Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. Listeners of the Trend Lines […]

Upon moving into the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump could have opted for a cautious approach, carefully learning the ropes while building political alliances and public support. Instead he has taken the opposite tack, rapidly staking out ambitious, even revolutionary positions. Among these were draft executive orders to drastically reduce American involvement in the United Nations and other international organizations, and withdraw from some multinational treaties. If implemented, these policies will signal a fundamental shift in the world role the United States has played for the past 75 years. They would be revolutionary indeed. While Trump did not often […]

The African Union has a new face, following its summit last month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Chad’s former prime minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, is taking the reins as the new chair of the AU Commission. And for the first time, the AU’s membership now includes every nation on the African continent, following Morocco’s decision to return to the organization after withdrawing 33 years ago in protest over the status of Western Sahara. But a new look won’t change the fact that in many regards, the AU is still a broken institution. Ninety-seven percent of the organization’s programs are funded by […]

Human rights organizations have become alarmed that, according to documents leaked to Reuters, U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order suspending Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. The rule requires companies to disclose whether their products contain the so-called 3TG conflict minerals—gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin—seen as critical drivers of the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Advocates of the rule, which went into effect in 2014, contend that conflict minerals, which the U.N. has called the “engine of the conflict” in Congo, provide hundreds of millions of dollars to armed groups, which […]

The turmoil that greeted U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order banning most travel from several Muslim-majority countries and his plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico understandably focused global attention on the Trump administration’s migration policies. But the fact is that developments in the United States are not occurring in a vacuum. The issue of how to regulate the flow of human beings seeking to resettle from one country to another is climbing on the global agenda, with potentially harmful implications on a number of important fronts. Restricting immigration has always been the subject of bitter, emotional […]

Leaders from Serbia and Kosovo held a new round of talks in Brussels last week in a bid to defuse tensions that have been on the rise recently. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said she was “encouraged by the constructive engagement from both sides.” Leaders from Serbia and Kosovo declined to comment. In an email interview, Naim Rashiti, the executive director of the Balkans Policy Research Group, discusses the state of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. WPR: What is behind the recent spike in tensions between Serbia and Kosovo? Naim Rashiti: Last month a train traveled between […]

On Feb. 19, Ecuador will hold elections for a new president and members of the 137-seat National Assembly, as well as for the Andean Parliament, the legislative body of the Andean Community customs union made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Ecuadorians will also vote on a proposal to prohibit public officials from having assets in tax havens. With leftist President Rafael Correa ineligible to run for re-election as he finishes an unprecedented third term, many predict the elections will be a referendum on his so-called Citizen’s Revolution. Poverty in Ecuador has decreased 16 percent under Correa, thanks to […]

The French presidential campaign was already off to a surprising start, with dark-horse candidates having won both of the major parties’ primaries. It was thrown into further disarray two weeks ago by the scandal engulfing conservative Republican party candidate and erstwhile frontrunner, Francois Fillon, who is accused of paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros in salary while he was a member of Parliament for work she never performed. Fillon has denied any wrongdoing and refused to bow out, but his candidacy, based in part on his reputation as a clean politician, has taken a severe hit. The scandal […]

Fears of another war are growing in Bosnia and Herzegovina as xenophobia and nationalist rivalries surge in the largely autonomous and Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska. Observers are warning that a growing separatist movement in the territory threatens the terms of the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War of the 1990s. That conflict killed more than 100,000 people and displaced some 1 million civilians through interethnic violence between Catholic Croats, Bosnian Muslims—or Bosniaks—and Orthodox Christian Serbs. Republika Srpska, the majority-Serb enclave of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was formalized by the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords, virtually cleansed the bulk of its […]

Since late 2016, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has been consumed by a blasphemy case against the Christian and ethnically Chinese governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok. After mounting pressure from hard-line Islamists who staged mass demonstrations against him, Ahok—who is a candidate for the Feb. 15 gubernatorial election in Jakarta—is now on trial for a statement that he uttered in mid-October that was deemed insulting to the Quran. His case has sparked fears about the growing voice of radical Islam in Indonesia and the threat it could pose to the country’s reputation for […]

Some of the most compelling dramas about the effects of globalization are playing out in the Mediterranean basin today. This is understandable given the region’s position, where the worlds of the North and South intersect, quite tragically in recent years. But three distinct zones of the Mediterranean show quite different coping mechanisms with respect to three major global challenges: migration, terrorism and economic interdependence. Throughout history, the Mediterranean has been a crossroad of cultural interaction between great empires and civilizations. Resources, people and ideas have moved from South to North, and back again, creating the great multicultural cities of Venice […]