For the third time in four years, Hondurans are calling for the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, decrying him as a “narco dictator.” In early August, Hernandez was named in a 44-page court filing by the U.S. Southern District of New York, which alleges he funded his 2013 election campaign with $1.5 million in drug trafficking money. Hondurans have poured into the streets since the charges were announced, joining a protest movement against Hernandez that is entering its fifth month. Demonstrations kicked off in the spring against unpopular reforms his government proposed to health care and education. The U.S. […]
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One of the first things that clinched my interest in China—and this will inevitably date myself—was its fierce and utterly unique political language, the stuff of endless campaigns of denunciation and ideological warfare. Think the bloodcurdling epithets used to attack enemies during the late Mao period, like “running dog of imperialism” or “capitalist roader,” and, when that long era finally wound to a close, “gang of four.” Language like this has almost entirely disappeared from the rhetorical lexicon of the Chinese state. But there is one important form of it that has remained on the shelf, in two words found […]
Migration barely came up at the recent G-7 summit in France—a far cry from just two years ago, when Italy hosted the G-7 in Sicily, which has seen an influx of migrants and asylum-seekers given its proximity to North Africa. The most prominent mention of migration in Biarritz took place on the sidelines of the summit, when President Donald Trump’s adviser, Stephen Miller—the architect of the administration’s restrictionist immigration policies—defended Trump’s efforts to make migrating to the United States even more onerous than it already is. Yet even if migration has fallen off the front pages, each member of the […]
In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Frederick Deknatel and Laura Weiss talk about a recent Pentagon report documenting the Islamic State’s resurgence in Iraq and Syria. They also discuss a controversial abortion case in El Salvador, and prospects for the G-7 summit in France. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus three more complimentary articles in […]
Every weekend for the past month, throngs of protesters have gathered in central Moscow to demand that the government allow opposition candidates to stand in elections for the city council that will be held on Sept. 8. Authorities have responded by arresting thousands of demonstrators, some of whom face jail sentences of up to eight years. In an email interview with WPR, Anna Arutunyan, senior analyst for Russia at International Crisis Group, explains what it will take for the recent protests in Moscow to evolve into a broader challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s legitimacy. World Politics Review: What are the […]
Oct. 1 will mark 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. But even as they make plans to celebrate the country’s anniversary, Communist Party leaders face several big challenges: ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, an economic slowdown that is being exacerbated by a damaging trade war with the United States, and mounting international criticism over its abhorrent human rights record. Will officials in Beijing, starting with President Xi Jinping, make any efforts to change the country’s political, economic or human rights-related trajectories? And what other domestic and external challenges will affect China’s developmental path? For […]
Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. It was an early evening in May, and Stephane hurried his boyfriend out the door of their apartment so they would arrive before the tables filled up at Victoire Bar, a roadside dive in the Essos neighborhood of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. Sunday nights at the Victoire offered one of the few regular meeting points for the city’s secretive but closely knit community of men who identified as gay or bisexual—or […]
Two weeks after the release of new government data showing a sharp rise in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, hundreds of indigenous women occupied a government building in Brasilia on Tuesday to protest what they called President Jair Bolsonaro’s “genocidal” environmental policies targeting their communities. The following day, a contingent of over 1,000 indigenous women joined some 100,000 other demonstrators in Brazil’s Women’s March on the streets of the capital. “We are all warriors on the front lines of this struggle against today’s political situation, which is so adverse to our peoples,” said Sonia Guajajara, who works with the organization […]
Last week, the United Nations’ independent fact-finding mission on Myanmar released a new report that documents the economic interests of the Myanmar military and the global network of countries and companies that are financing the country’s genocidal “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority. The report urged U.N. member states to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar and financial sanctions on the country’s military-owned companies. But according to David Scott Mathieson, a Yangon-based independent analyst who focuses on a range of human rights, conflict and peace issues in Myanmar, the mission’s findings are unlikely to significantly alter […]
He died in a hospital in Phnom Penh, 93 years-old and still portraying himself as a Cambodian hero. Nuon Chea was the senior-most surviving member of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, having served as Brother No. 2, as he was known, under its leader Pol Pot. He was widely seen as one of the major planners of the regime’s rapid, brutal overhaul of Cambodian society from 1975 to 1979, which included emptying Phnom Penh of citizens, murdering a sizable portion of the population, and torturing and killing some 14,000 people at an infamous prison called Tuol Sleng. Nuon Chea was also […]
A drive to the airport in Shanghai from an outlying suburb earlier this week revealed an entirely new city to me. Brand new high-rise apartments rose in thick clusters in the near distance, as new access roads zigged, zagged and looped around new train and subway stations. Mine was not the usual surprise of newcomers to this city, but rather that of someone who had lived there for six years, up until 2009. Shanghai was already plenty big and new and physically impressive then. But to look at the way entirely new zones—from Pudong in the east to the southwestern […]
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. “After months of prolonged resistance, we are frightened, angry and exhausted.” The contrite message, part of a lengthy apology sent to reporters Wednesday and signed “from Hong Kong protesters seeking democracy and freedom,” came after four days of demonstrations at Hong Kong International Airport that caused hundreds of flight cancellations and several violent incidents. The protests were largely peaceful until Tuesday, when scuffles broke out between passengers and demonstrators, who had blocked the departure gates. Later that evening, protesters […]
Since 2016, protesters from New Zealand’s indigenous Māori population have occupied a plot of land at Ihumātao, near Auckland, to prevent construction of a housing development.* The land was confiscated from its original Māori inhabitants in the 19th century, and protesters are demanding that it be incorporated into a nearby public reserve. The standoff intensified last month after police unsuccessfully tried to evict the protesters, and it could damage Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s standing among the Māori population if it is not resolved peacefully. In an email interview with WPR, Grant Duncan, a professor of political studies at Massey University’s […]
In mid-July, government officials inaugurated operations at the sprawling Mirador mine in southern Ecuador. An open-pit copper, gold and silver mine in the Zamora-Chinchipe province near the Peruvian border, Mirador’s reserves reportedly include 3.2 million tons of copper, 3.4 million ounces of gold and 27.1 million ounces of silver. The amount of copper makes it Ecuador’s largest copper mine, but still smaller than the massive copper mines in Chile and Peru. The mine, which can already produce 10,000 tons of minerals per day, is expected to increase its output to 60,000 tons per day and potentially earn the Ecuadorian government […]
In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, talk about North Korea’s recent string of short-range ballistic missile tests, the Trump administration’s less-than-forceful response, and what that says about the broader dysfunction plaguing the U.S. intelligence and foreign policy communities. They also discuss the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Algeria, which are now in their 25th week. As Francisco Serrano notes in his in-depth report for WPR this week, the outlook for the country’s protest movement remains unclear, given the risks that Algeria’s military leaders could still revert to form and […]
Even longtime observers of Sudan didn’t predict the collapse of President Omar al-Bashir’s government when protests against his economic policies began late last year. Widespread discontent and a crumbling economy, though, eventually proved to be too much for his entrenched but beleaguered regime. Since Bashir was forced out of power in April, the Transitional Military Council running the country has presided over a massacre of civilian protesters in Khartoum. Despite some recent progress in negotiations between the generals and protest leaders who are eager to begin a democratic transition, the situation remains fraught and exposed to the meddling of outside […]
When the history of Myanmar’s genocide against the Rohingya people is finally written, it may read a lot like the cases of Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The International Criminal Court could eventually prosecute a few of the military officers responsible for killing and torturing thousands of Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority long persecuted in Myanmar. Chances are, though, that justice will be lumbering and uneven. Like others before them, most of the perpetrators will likely evade prosecution altogether. History could turn out differently, however, if calls are heeded from the United Nations independent fact-finding mission in Myanmar to sanction the […]