Human Security Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss Russian President Vladimir Putin’s victory lap during his visit to Syria on Dec. 11 and the extent of Russian influence in a changing Middle East. For the Report, Stephania Corpi talks with Peter Dörrie about how the ongoing political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is driving a wave of outmigration into neighboring countries in South America. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our […]

The aftermath of Monday’s terrorist attack in New York was a case of both good news and bad news. That the city essentially shrugged off an attempted suicide bombing in the subway that only seriously injured the bomber himself demonstrated a salutary resilience and sangfroid, as defeating terrorism requires in part a refusal to be terrorized. That the attack was so rudimentary and amateurish is a testament to the broad success of American and European approaches to counterterrorism that make more sophisticated attacks prohibitively difficult to mount. But the fact that such attacks don’t generate much surprise anymore—whether in New […]

LIMA, Peru—Last December, Maria Victoria Fernandez, a 26-year-old nurse from Caracas, Venezuela, began traveling by bus to Peru, having decided that life in her home country was no longer tenable. The journey of nearly 3,000 miles through Colombia and Ecuador and down Peru’s Pacific coastline to Lima took her five days to complete. She had $170 in her pocket and her 2-year-old daughter, Sofia, on her lap. The day they left home, Sofia fell sick, meaning the trip was, for Fernandez, more stressful than any hospital shift she could remember. “We didn’t have medicine, and she had a fever and […]