Briefing Archive

RAMALLAH, West Bank—The coronavirus came quietly to Gaza on March 21. Two residents who had returned from Pakistan via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt were diagnosed with COVID-19, sending waves of shock and fear across the Palestinian territories. The outbreak started out small in the West Bank, as well. Seven Palestinians who had interacted with a group of tourists visiting Bethlehem on March 5 were confirmed to have the novel coronavirus. Authorities quickly scrambled to implement a containment strategy for Jesus’ biblical birthplace, and imposed a lockdown on the entirety of the West Bank on March 22. Movement between […]

MADRID—On the first Friday in March, Spain was deep into the rigorous hand-washing phase of its response to the coronavirus pandemic, but still about a week away from a lockdown. That night, I met a friend at a quiet tapas bar close to home. Afterward, we went to another bar in the Arguelles neighborhood, a popular late-night haunt for students at several nearby universities. It was the typical Friday pandemonium of people yelling orders, drinks and plates being passed around, and used napkins covering the floor. As I washed down my Spanish omelet with a glass of Verdejo, I looked […]

In the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the odds were never in Taiwan’s favor. An island just 80 miles off the coast of China, it has extensive business and cultural ties with the mainland, where hundreds of thousands of its citizens live or work. The first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan just before the Lunar New Year holiday, a busy travel season for millions of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. When researchers from Johns Hopkins University modeled the projected contagion of the virus in January, they assessed that Taiwan had […]

The arrival of two U.S. Navy hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles last week provided dramatic images of the changing role of the U.S. military during the coronavirus pandemic. The USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy usually call on ports in Africa or around the Indian Ocean to provide basic health services to underserved populations. During conflicts, they provide emergency medical care to American troops. This time, the symbolism is quite different, as their intended beneficiaries inhabit the two largest cities in the world’s wealthiest country. The U.S. military and other armed forces around the world are now […]

LONDON—The British Labour Party finally concluded its protracted leadership contest last weekend, four long months after suffering its worst election defeat since before World War II. The result came as no surprise, with the former shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, replacing Jeremy Corbyn as party leader after romping to a first-round victory with 56.2 percent of the vote—more than twice as much as the Corbynite runner-up, Rebecca Long-Bailey, and far ahead of third-place finisher Lisa Nandy. Starmer, who hails from Labour’s social democratic “soft left,” is expected to lead a more moderate party than Corbyn did, but Labour will […]

In early March, Thai government negotiators convened in Kuala Lumpur for a second round of direct talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, a secretive separatist group that is thought to control the vast majority of rebels operating in Thailand’s restive “deep south.” Until an earlier round of talks in January, the BRN had been excluded from dialogue with the government in Bangkok, which was controlled from 2014 until last summer by a military junta. Now, a nominally democratic government led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former army chief, is cautiously reviving a long-stalled peace process. The Thai […]

Somalia's semiautonomous Jubbaland region has become a proxy battleground in a Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute that is rooted in a disagreement over which direction the border between the two countries extends into the Indian Ocean. A 62,000-square-mile triangle of the Indian Ocean is driving a wedge in the Horn of Africa. For years, Kenya and Somalia have been at odds over the pie-shaped slice of the sea, to which each lays a claim and which is believed to contain sizable oil and gas deposits. But tensions between the two have been rising in recent months and are magnifying a standoff between […]

Hungary’s parliament this week handed populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban expanded emergency powers aimed at tackling the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. But critics warn that the new law gives Orban dictatorial authority, turning a public health emergency into a crisis of democracy. On Monday, the ruling right-wing Fidesz party used its large legislative majority to pass the “Protecting Against the Coronavirus” law. It allows the government to extend the state of emergency it declared on March 11 indefinitely, paving the way for Orban to continue bypassing parliament and ruling by decree until he deems the crisis […]

Shortly after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December, the Chinese Communist Party faced a PR problem. Its attempt to cover-up the public health crisis had sparked fervent criticism from journalists, foreign governments, international organizations and, more worryingly, from Chinese citizens themselves. Once the authorities in Beijing responded to the outbreak by shutting down Wuhan and its surrounding province, the party had to rebrand. A chief part of that effort was to declare that, in the battle against the coronavirus, its authoritarian government had proved that it could manage a […]

In terms of progressive ideas, Uruguay has always punched above its weight. It introduced a free, universal public education system in 1878, 40 years before the United States. Eventually, Uruguay blossomed into one of the most robust social welfare states in Latin America, with the region’s lowest income inequality. It was the first country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana and the second in the region to legalize gay marriage, after Argentina. This small country of 3.5 million people has also burnished its environmental credentials, conserving native forests, protecting biodiverse areas and striving to be carbon neutral by 2030. […]

With the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic crash dominating the headlines, the civil war in Syria has faded into media obscurity. But there is more bad news there that warrants the world’s attention. Turkey is engaged in a military campaign in Syria’s northwestern ldlib province that risks a conflict with Russia, protects radical Islamist rebels and prolongs the civil war, all at the expense of the civilians Turkey claims to protect. Meanwhile, the limited cease-fire deal that Ankara recently negotiated with Moscow only delays further bloodshed. Washington, which provides military aid to Turkey both bilaterally and through NATO, should […]

Like every other American institution, the United States military is struggling to deal with the spread of the novel coronavirus. Its immediate focus is on supporting civil authorities during this crisis while staying prepared for other missions. It is a complex and difficult balance to strike, and the virus is likely to take a serious long-term toll on readiness. Even after the crisis passes, things will never be the same for the military. For now, a good portion of the military is supporting civilian efforts to counter the coronavirus pandemic, much of it undertaken by the reserve components. Last week, […]

Editor’s Note: You can find all of our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. If you would like to help support our work, please consider taking advantage of our subscription offer here. With a third of the global population on lockdown amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 40,000 people as of March 31, governments are rightfully thinking about how to make it easier for their citizens to stay home and reduce activities that are likely to further spread the disease. The restrictions on movement, while important for public health reasons, mean that millions of workers are losing […]