Human Security Archive

Juan Guaido is on tour and looking presidential, visiting some of the more than 50 countries around the world that have recognized him as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president. In the past two weeks, the 36-year-old opposition leader made an official state visit to Colombia; met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London; addressed the European Parliament in Brussels and met with the EU’s new foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell; held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris; chatted with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European officials on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Burundi’s ruling party has selected a close ally of President Pierre Nkurunziza to stand in May’s presidential election, fueling concerns that an ongoing government crackdown on political opponents, civil society groups and journalists will only continue. At a party conference over the weekend, the ruling CNDD-FDD selected Evariste Ndayishimiye as its candidate after Nkurunziza confirmed he will step down after 15 contentious years in office. Ndayishimiye is a retired army general who serves as the party’s secretary general and heads the department […]

Not so long ago, nations of what was once called the Third World commonly looked to each other as prospective allies and partners, even extending their diplomatic ties across the oceans in order to advance their shared interests and protect themselves amid the dangers and complexities of the Cold War. The most famous moment of this period was undoubtedly the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955, which brought together 29 Asian and African states with a combined population of 1.5 billion people and led to the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement. The momentum of Bandung was seriously blunted by the […]

The Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread rapidly in China, where more than 6,000 cases have now been confirmed and more than 100 people have died from the disease. Dozens of cases have also been reported in other parts of the world, including other Asian countries as well as Europe and North America. Chinese authorities have moved swiftly to contain the outbreak, placing travel restrictions on more than 48 million people in over a dozen cities, including the central metropolis of Wuhan. The director-general of the World Health Organization says he is confident that China is taking appropriate response measures, and […]

A recently released trove of more than 700,000 leaked documents illuminate the shocking extent of corruption and kleptocracy in Angola. The files, known as the Luanda Leaks and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and dozens of partner media outlets, detail how the country’s former first daughter, Isabel dos Santos, abused her power for personal gain, amassing a fortune estimated at $2.2 billion and earning her the title of “Africa’s richest woman.” Dos Santos, who splits her time mostly between London and Dubai, allegedly exploited positions of influence given to her by her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, […]

Once again, Greta Thunberg has addressed a high-profile international event, excoriating the world’s leaders and global elites for their inaction in the face of the climate crisis. Once again, the responses to her speech ranged from hero-worship to character assassination. Whether at the United Nations General Assembly in September or the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday, the cycle has become a familiar one by now. Greta speaks. Greta is lauded and attacked. Wash, rinse, repeat. The sense of déjà-vu all over again is reinforced by the fact that neither Thunberg nor her admirers and critics ever stray far from […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. China is scrambling to contain the spread of a new and deadly viral outbreak as hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens plan to travel for the busy Lunar New Year holiday this weekend. Residents in the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated, are being urged not to leave, and authorities will shut down public transportation networks and suspend outbound flights in the city starting Thursday. A total of 540 cases of the disease have been confirmed around […]

The Trump administration is due to soon formally release its findings from a review of U.S. foreign assistance programs, aimed at “realigning” them for “a new era of great-power competition,” which critics have described as an effort to curb foreign aid overall. Given this context, aid and development organizations must be prepared to show how their work serves America’s strategic interests. Anti-corruption efforts do just that by striking at the heart of what keeps leaders of adversaries like China and Russia in power. Both countries are increasingly weaponizing corruption by using flows of illicit money and opaque deals to gain […]

HARARE, Zimbabwe—Samantha Kureya’s memories of the night she was abducted are not totally clear, but she vividly remembers one phrase that her attackers kept repeating. “You are too young to mock the government,” they said. The young Zimbabwean comedian, whose viral online skits poke fun at the government, was taken from her home in Harare, the capital, on Aug. 21 by three unidentified men wielding machine guns. She said they drove her to a remote location she did not recognize, where they beat her, forced her to strip and made her drink sewage water, before abandoning her. The incident left […]

ATHENS, Greece—The last dog days of summer are usually quiet in Athens. Most people leave for their summer holiday, scattering to beaches looking out over azure waters or mountains filled with wildflowers. Only a few dazed tourists remain behind to wander the city. But in the central Athens neighborhood of Exarchia last August, the mood was somber and determined as protesters marched through the streets. “You can’t evict a movement!” read one banner, clearly aimed at the right-wing New Democracy government, elected the previous month, and its hard-line policy on migration. Exarchia has long been associated with left-leaning political activism, […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series on prison conditions and criminal justice policy around the world. Dozens of inmates were killed in a wave of violence that swept across Honduran prisons in recent weeks, as rival gangs staged a series of bloody riots and retaliatory attacks against each other. The country’s penal system has a long history of gang-driven violence, but the recent killings represent a notable uptick, says Eric L. Olson, director of policy at the Seattle International Foundation and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In an email interview […]

Imagine this scenario: A viral disease emerges and spreads rapidly across borders. It has a nearly 100-percent fatality rate, with symptoms that include high fever, blotchy skin lesions, coughing, diarrhea, vomiting and hemorrhaging. There is no treatment or preventative vaccine for the disease, so it results in widespread loss of life and a staggering economic toll. The international system struggles to come together to stop it from spreading even further. This might sound like any of a number of infectious diseases among humans, including SARS, Ebola and H5N1 influenza, also known as bird flu. But it actually describes African swine […]

It was supposed to be a landmark year for the Balkans. In 2019, the European Union was due to give the green light to accession talks with Albania and what is now called North Macedonia. In Serbia, meanwhile, President Aleksandar Vucic saw a rare window for a lasting peace deal with Kosovo, 20 years after the war that led to Kosovo’s independence. Yet because of a de facto veto by French President Emmanuel Macron at an EU summit back in October, the Balkans now looks as far from a European embrace as it has for years. At that summit in […]

Hailed as the model for resolving long-running separatist insurgencies in Southeast Asia, the 2005 agreement that ended a nearly 30-year civil war in Indonesia’s Aceh province, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra, is showing its cracks. Under the peace deal, Aceh was granted more political autonomy as the separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, known in Indonesian as the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or GAM, laid down their arms. Since then, the province has held several democratic elections, while its economy has grown at an annual clip of 5 percent over the past decade. But while the deal has provided […]