A doctor checks on COVID-19 patients at Llavallol Dr. Norberto Raúl Piacentini Hospital in Lomas de Zamora, Argentina, May 8, 2021 (AP photo by Natacha Pisarenko).

Last week, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response released its long-awaited final report, “COVID-19: Make It the Last Pandemic.” Co-chaired by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, the 13-member panel was established in September 2020 at the behest of the World Health Assembly to examine the global response to the coronavirus pandemic and propose improvements based on the lessons learned. Its final report offers several useful recommendations designed to create “a new system that is coordinated, connected, fast-moving, accountable, just and equitable.” What is missing is a strategy to achieve these […]

A nurse during a night shift at a field hospital set up to handle a surge of COVID-19 patients, in Cranston, Rhode Island, Feb. 10, 2021 (AP photo by David Goldman).

Can the international community pay attention to multiple health crises at the same time? The coronavirus pandemic is putting this question to the test, and the experience of the past year suggests that the answer is a qualified no. If that is indeed the case, it means that the world will likely be living with the after-effects of COVID-19 for years to come. At the same time, the pandemic has spurred some changes in the world of public health that may create additional chances for improving access to health care in the long term. COVID-19 itself has already had devastating […]

Health workers tend to an Ebola victim kept in an isolation cube in Beni, Congo, July 13, 2019 (AP photo by Jerome Delay).

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. Nearly two dozen women came forward this week to accuse aid workers of sexual exploitation and assault during the international response to the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that began in 2018, even as evidence has emerged that World […]

A protest rally to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moise, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb. 28, 2021 (AP photo by Dieu Nalio Chery).

Since February 2019, when President Jovenel Moise was implicated in the largest corruption scandal Haiti has ever known, the country has been mired in a violent crisis with political, economic and constitutional dimensions. Instead of heeding protesters’ demands to step down or addressing the allegations against him, Moise formed alliances with armed gangs that continue to terrorize the population and quash anti-government demonstrations. Moise, who has been ruling by decree since July 2018 due to his inability to form a government, has also eviscerated the independent institutions that could hold him and his allies accountable. He is clinging to power […]

A gas station that ran out of gas to sell following a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, in Atlanta, Georgia, May 11, 2021 (AP photo by Ben Margot).

The internet today is on the brink of reaching a state of entropy, as anyone who tried to fill up the gas tank of their car anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States this week knows. Nearly a week after a crafty network of cybercriminals penetrated the databases of the company that operates the massive Colonial fuel pipeline, which runs nearly the entire length of the East Coast, the United States is still reeling from the crippling cyberattack. The ransomware attack forced the Colonial Pipeline company to close down a sizable portion of its 5,500-mile-long fuel conduit for […]

Annalena Baerbock of Germany’s Green party at a party convention in Leipzig, Germany, Nov. 9, 2018 (AP photo by Jens Meyer).

Germany’s Green party has surged in public opinion polling ahead of general elections this fall, indicating it is likely to be part of the country’s next coalition government. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, Claudia Major, head of the international security research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about how the Greens’ views on foreign policy have evolved in recent years and how they fit into the German political mainstream. Listen to the full interview with Claudia Major here: If you like what you hear, subscribe to […]

Delegates applaud as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for the closing session of China’s National People's Congress in Beijing, May 28, 2020 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).

In the current age of extreme political polarization, it has become a cliché to observe that the only remaining bipartisan initiatives in Congress concern the naming of post offices. But in mid-April, a major bill sailed out of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee mark-up with near-unanimous support. Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, cast the lone dissenting vote against the Strategic Competition Act, which would ramp up pressure on China on a variety of fronts, including military deterrence, economic competition and human rights. Another draft law targeting China, the Endless Frontier Act, passed the Senate Commerce Committee this week […]

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, is reflected in glass as he leaves at the end of an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 11, 2020 (AP photo by Francisco Seco).

As soon as the global magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic started to become evident in the early part of last year, the obvious corollary became inescapable: COVID-19 would have far-reaching political impact around the world. One of the places where the political ramifications of the crisis—or, more precisely, the consequences of its mismanagement by authorities—are becoming more pronounced is Central Europe, a region that in recent years has drifted steadily in an authoritarian, illiberal direction. While a steady erosion of democratic practices has been on display across much of the globe over the past 15 years, the pattern in Central […]

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, May 11, 2021 (AP photo by Hatem Moussa).

Israeli forces and Palestinian militant factions in the Gaza Strip have been engaged in their heaviest exchange of fire this week since the 2014 Gaza War. A heavy barrage of Israeli airstrikes has killed at least 83 people thus far in Gaza, including 17 children, while authorities in Israel have reported seven fatalities due to Palestinian rocket attacks. Among them was a 6-year-old child. Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations are all working to broker a cease-fire, but there is no indication yet of an end to the violence, with potentially far-reaching implications across the region. The conflict follows weeks […]

Annalena Baerbock of Germany’s Green party at a news conference in Berlin, April 26, 2021 (pool photo by Markus Schreiber via AP).

Voters in Germany will go to the polls in September for elections that will be unusually consequential for the country’s foreign and defense policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel is retiring after almost 16 years in the position, and three major parties recently announced their candidates to replace her. Much attention has focused on one of the candidates in particular: Annalena Baerbock of the Green party, which is surging in popularity and is likely to enter government as part of a coalition in the fall. This could allow the Greens to exercise influence over decision-making in Berlin. What would that mean for […]

Soldiers stand outside a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 14, 2021 (AP photo by Jerome Delay).

The unmarked white vans, known locally as “drones,” stop at marketplaces and on busy street corners across Uganda. A mix of uniformed and plainclothes security officers shove terrified captives into the vehicles and drive them to undisclosed locations. Many are never seen again. The pages of the Daily Monitor, an independent Ugandan newspaper, are awash with stories of families searching desperately for their missing loved ones. Their crime: supporting opposition candidate Bobi Wine in the country’s January presidential election. From his origins in a ghetto in the capital, Kampala, the popstar-turned-politician—whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi—rose to challenge long-ruling President […]

Exhausted workers who carried the dead for cremation sit on the rear step of an ambulance in New Delhi, India, April 24, 2021 (AP photo by Altaf Qadri).

When the Biden administration made its surprise announcement last week that it would seek to waive American patent protections on coronavirus vaccines, many were quick to cheer this as evidence that the president’s much-beloved slogan about global leadership, “America’s back,” was already becoming something more than mere rhetoric. Here was Washington appearing to put self-interest aside for the benefit of global public health, and in doing so, it would not only be taking on the American pharmaceutical giants that had pioneered the most important vaccine technologies in the first phase of this crisis, but also those of America’s European allies, […]

Armed Afghan policemen sit with confiscated poppy bulbs during a poppy eradication sweep of a farmer’s field in the village of Karezaq, Afghanistan, April 11, 2004 (AP photo by David Guttenfelder).

Corruption and criminality have long bedeviled both conflict and post-conflict settings. As illicit economies that predated or emerged from the years of conflict persist and grow, they often undermine apparent battlefield victories and aspirational regime transitions to the point of eviscerating stability and liberalization. From Somalia to Afghanistan to Myanmar to South Sudan to Haiti, the stabilization efforts of international and local actors have often been held hostage to the unsavory behavior of elites, both old and new. One reason why anti-corruption and anti-crime efforts have struggled is that they have been understood as technical, institution-building efforts rather than as […]

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president for a Europe fit for the digital age, speaks on Europe's Digital Future at EU headquarters in Brussels, Feb. 19, 2020 (AP photo by Virginia Mayo).

It may be some years before your AI-powered assistant can sit at your kitchen table, finishing off a haiku while debating the nuances of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” as imagined by Ian McEwan in his 2019 novel, “Machines Like Me.” Even if that always remains the stuff of fiction, AI, short for artificial intelligence, has already crept into daily life. It is now helping heart surgeons spot minor problems that go undetected in routine scans. It is similarly more accurate than human experts at interpreting mammograms to detect early stage breast cancer. And it is starting to solve the complexities of […]

A protester holds up a sign that reads in Spanish, “No more corruption,” during a demonstration outside the attorney general’s office in Panama City, Panama, Jan. 23, 2018 (AP photo by Arnulfo Franco).

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has generated an unprecedented level of spending, with more than $21 trillion committed to fighting the coronavirus so far, much of it falling under emergency measures that bypass bureaucratic hurdles and expedite the flow of funds. The speed and scale of this spending has created new opportunities for state-level corruption—ranging from fairly mundane examples, like demanding bribes for medical services, to more systemic forms of financial malfeasance, shady procurement practices and opaque spending. The pandemic has also drawn attention to the ways in which pervasive graft exacerbates inequality in development outcomes, within and […]

A researcher for Brazil's state-run Fiocruz Institute handles a cage of captured monkeys at Pedra Branca State Park, near Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 29, 2020 (AP photo by Silvia Izquierdo).

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted humanity’s growing vulnerability to emerging infectious diseases and underscored the need to reduce our collective exposure to these pathogens. Not surprisingly, then, the past year has seen a torrent of reports on pandemic preparedness, including one I co-authored for the Council on Foreign Relations. Most of these focus on controlling outbreaks after they start, rather than averting them in the first place. Moving from reaction to prevention requires identifying and mitigating the main drivers of new infectious diseases. These drivers are almost entirely anthropogenic and are the same forces responsible for precipitous declines in global […]

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 10, 2020 (pool photo by John Thys via AP).

As a European Union and NATO member that borders Turkey, hugs the Black Sea coast and maintains cordial relations with Russia, Bulgaria is a strategically significant country. Yet in recent years, it has rarely made international news—except for the occasional domestic clash over Russian influence and periodic mass protests over corruption and state capture. The latest such uprising may have finally forced the departure from high-level politics of Boyko Borissov, who has served three nonconsecutive terms as prime minister since 2009 and was a mainstay of the Bulgarian political scene before that. His center-right populist Citizens for the European Development […]

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