Human Rights Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. For at least the past six months, France has been pushing for elections to be held in Libya by the end of this year. At a conference in Paris in May, representatives of various Libyan factions settled on a date: Dec. 10. Yet there have always been questions about whether this was even remotely realistic. Seven years after former dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed, Libya remains highly unstable, its politics organized around the rivalry between the United […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR’s newsletter and engagement editor, Benjamin Wilhelm, curates the top news and analysis from China written by the experts who follow it. President Xi Jinping’s opening speech to the first-ever China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Monday was loaded with promises and reassurances. Seeking to convince the world of China’s openness to foreign goods and services, Xi portrayed himself as a staunch advocate for globalization. The address was delivered to an audience that included political and business leaders from 172 countries, but it was just as notable for who was missing in Shanghai and what […]

Already two months underway, Indonesia’s long presidential campaign is shaping up to be deceptively similar to its divisive race four years ago, which was marred by political smears and religious tensions. Incumbent President Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, finds himself facing off for the second time against Prabowo Subianto, a former army general, but with identity politics and religion crowding other issues out of political debate in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. Both candidates have secured themselves within Islamist camps, to be safe from accusations of impiety. But in doing so, they have aligned themselves with violators of […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. “I came only to confirm to people that I am for peace. The past is gone. We have opened a new chapter for peace and unity.” That was Riek Machar, South Sudan’s opposition leader and former vice president, who returned to the war-torn country Wednesday after more than two years away. His upbeat tone was matched by President Salva Kiir, who similarly described the event as a turning point in a civil war that’s nearly five years old and, […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, discuss why Asia’s two main economic rivals, China and Japan, are now trying to improve their ties. For the Report, Obi Anyadike talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about his reporting from Nigeria, where in the past six months, an estimated 600 Nigerian soldiers have been killed in the fight against Boko Haram. Soldiers are poorly equipped and overstretched, and their morale is dangerously low. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign […]