Diplomacy & Politics Archive

On July 2, the World Health Organization announced the end of the latest Ebola outbreak, which took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northern province of Bas-Uele. All told, four people died during the two-month outbreak, while four people survived infection with the virus. “With the end of this epidemic, DRC has once again proved to the world that we can control the very deadly Ebola virus if we respond early in a coordinated and efficient way,” said the WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. While Congo has extensive experience with Ebola, and the latest outbreak took place in […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on LGBT rights and discrimination in various countries around the world. The climate for LGBT Poles has deteriorated under the Law and Justice Party, which came to power in 2015. Attacks on LGBT individuals and organizations are on the rise; legal protections against discrimination remain limited; and curricula reforms privilege nationalist themes over messages of tolerance. In an email interview, A. Chaber, executive director of the Campaign Against Homophobia, explains how LGBT activists are trying to adapt. WPR: What is the current state of LGBT rights in Poland, and […]

Since assuming office in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a range of new economic programs in an attempt to boost India’s prosperity and deliver on an electoral promise to reignite economic growth. Yet two initiatives central to that goal have proven controversial, to say the least. The first, late last year, involved making two high-value currency notes—the 500 rupee note, equal to about $7.50, and the 1,000 rupee note, about $15—no longer legal tender, a policy known as demonetization. As a result of this sweeping move, close to 86 percent of all the circulating currency in India […]

If you want a catchphrase to summarize the Trump administration’s first six months of dealing with the United Nations, the best option is probably, “It could be a lot worse.” U.S. President Donald Trump has frequently attacked the U.N. since taking office. The president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change accord at the start of June marked a major escalation in his offensive on multilateralism. Yet Turtle Bay is not in ruins, in part because, on a day-to-day basis, the U.S. is a more flexible player at the U.N. than its leader’s rhetoric suggests. American diplomats have taken […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. More than six months after a series of military mutinies kicked off in the city of Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire still can’t shake the intermittent unrest that has provided a dark counternarrative to what was once widely viewed as a sterling post-conflict success story. Last weekend, three soldiers were killed when shooting erupted at a military camp in the northern city of Korhogo; gunfire was also reported in the Abidjan neighborhood of Abobo. This was followed by further violence on […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. The influx of refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in Sweden since 2015 has placed strains on the country’s education system. Nevertheless, authorities have endeavored to retain features of the system that set it apart from other countries in Europe, including the right to education in one’s native language as well as an inclusive, secular approach to religious education. In an email interview, Jenny Berglund, an associate professor and senior lecturer at Sodertorn University in Stockholm, describes the rationale behind these policies […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss Iraq’s prospects for reconstruction and reconciliation after the liberation of Mosul. For the Report, Jake Johnston talks with Peter Dörrie about the problematic legacy of the U.N.’s stabilization mission in Haiti, and why accountability for past errors is key to its future role in the country. If you’d like to sign up for the beta version of WPR’s Africa-only subscription, you can do so here. It’s free for the first two months. And if you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well […]

Last month, Colombia’s Congress rejected a referendum that would have prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children. The measure had previously passed the Senate but was defeated during its first debate in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives. LGBT activists hailed the vote as a remarkable affirmation of the rights of same-sex couples in Colombia, where legal victories for same-sex marriage, adoption rights and military service have made Colombia central to what many have called a “gay rights revolution” that has swept through Latin America over the past decade. Yet in a puzzling turn of events, the momentum in favor […]

The legislative and local elections currently taking place in the Republic of Congo are intended to complete the process of installing a new government following a deeply divisive constitutional reform process in 2015. But government critics believe the first round of voting that took place Sunday was significant for another reason: It highlighted, they say, authorities’ struggle to confront an array of social and security challenges as President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s political legitimacy weakens. With the exception of a five-year span from 1992 to 1997, Sassou Nguesso has served as president of the central African nation since 1979. Facing term […]

KATHMANDU, Nepal—It’s not easy to be elected as Nepal’s prime minister. It’s even more difficult to remain in the post for more than a year. When Sher Bahadur Deuba—the 71-year-old president of Nepali Congress, the largest party in the parliament—took the job in May, he became the country’s 10th premier in the past 11 years. This isn’t Deuba’s first exposure to the hazards of the country’s top political position. He was also prime minister—briefly—in 2004. Back then, having sacrificed a male goat before entering the prime minister’s official residence, he was nevertheless sent to a detention center following a bloodless […]

With less than two weeks left before Venezuelans vote on a constitution-drafting constituent assembly, the Trump administration jumped into the fray, threatening to impose economic sanctions if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro moves to rewrite the constitution to his liking. With that, Washington took a step down a path filled with landmines. The Trump administration is not wrong to exert pressure on the increasingly undemocratic Venezuelan regime. The Venezuelan people deserve international support. But in seeking to influence events in Venezuela, Washington should maneuver very carefully. The key to successful outside support is preventing Maduro from successfully framing this conflict as […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. Though mired in scandal and dogged by low approval ratings, Brazilian President Michel Temer has pushed forward with reforms that stand to dramatically reshape the country’s labor market. In general, these reforms, including a law he signed last week, are geared toward scaling back worker protections and increasing the power of employers. In an email interview, Salo Coslovsky, an associate professor of international development at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, explains how […]

Over the past 25 years, three explanatory models of the future of international relations have emerged to dominate how American foreign policy analysts see the post-Cold War world. All have been influential in debates over that time, serving as prisms that helped simplify the complexity of the world’s great challenges to make them more manageable. But if some of their conclusions and predictions have been borne out, important aspects of all of them have been debunked by events. Now we find ourselves in a hybrid world that has visible traits of all of these models, but bears little resemblance to […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia—Two months after a coalition of extremist groups affiliated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State swept into the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines, provoking a large-scale military siege to retake it, the militants continue to maintain control of sections of the city. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been evacuated from the charred and bombed-out city, a testament to the power of the militants to challenge an underequipped and inadequately trained Philippine military. Since the siege began, President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly trumpeted the army’s incipient victory. Now it looks likely that Duterte will deliver his State of […]

After 13 years and more than $7 billion, the “touristas”—as the United Nations soldiers that currently occupy Haiti are commonly referred to—will finally be heading home. Well, sort of. While thousands of troops are expected to depart in October, the U.N. has authorized a new, smaller mission composed of police that will focus on justice and strengthening the rule of law. But the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH, is not just thousands of foreign soldiers “keeping the peace.” It is the latest and most visible manifestation of the international community’s habit of intervening in […]

Earlier this month, Bolivian President Evo Morales publicly berated his Chilean counterpart, Michelle Bachelet, for allegedly disclosing the contents of a filing before the International Court of Justice in The Hague concerning the two countries’ battle over the Silala River. It was just the latest flare-up in a dispute that has further poisoned relations between the South American neighbors. In an email interview, Chrisopher Rossi, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Iowa College of Law who has published detailed accounts of this dispute in the Stanford Journal of International Law and the Inter-American Law Review, explains the two […]

The defeat in Mosul of the so-called Islamic State was supposed to be good news for Iraq. But challenges that remain—ranging from Shiite militias’ new role and Sunni Iraqis’ enduring mistrust of each other and Baghdad, to the lack of state capacity to restore basic services—mean that Mosul’s nightmare will just continue. For some modest signs of constructive political change that is happening in Iraq, we need to look deeper, at local and regional developments. The recapture of Mosul on July 10 by Iraqi forces, with the help of Shiite and Kurdish militia, was supposed to usher in a new […]