Q & A Archive

In elections over the weekend, the ruling coalition in Malaysia, which has been in power for 56 years, won 133 out of 222 seats in parliament, despite apparently having lost the popular vote by a thin margin. Anwar Ibrahim, who leads the opposition coalition, claimed the election outcome—which kept Prime Minister Najib Razak in office and his National Front coalition in the parliamentary majority—was the result of electoral fraud. “We are in uncharted waters for Malaysian politics,” said Jason Paul Abbott, director of the Center for Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville. “We just need to hope what we […]

In mid-April, Japan and Vietnam vowed to expand their defense cooperation during an official visit by Vietnam’s army chief to Tokyo. In an email interview, Corey Wallace, a teaching fellow at the University of Auckland who studies international security and Japan’s regional relations, explained the development of the Japan-Vietnam defense relationship and what it means for each country’s tensions with China. WPR: What has been the recent history of Japan-Vietnam defense cooperation? Corey Wallace: While official defense connections began developing when Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a key turning point for the defense relationship came in 2010. […]

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged earlier this week in the clearest terms to date that members of his Shiite organization, the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon, are helping President Bashar al-Assad fight the opposition in neighboring Syria. On Tuesday, in a televised speech, Nasrallah said Hezbollah would stand by the Syrian president and would not allow the country to “fall into the hands” of the United States, Israel or jihadi extremists. Two experts who spoke with Trend Lines agreed that while the speech broadly reflected the dynamics on the ground, Nasrallah’s characterization of Hezbollah’s role in Syria […]

In late-April, the Obama administration blacklisted two Lebanese money exchanges for allegedly facilitating Hezbollah’s use of narcotics trafficking profits to fund terrorist activities. In an email interview, Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of the forthcoming “Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God,” explained the broad range of Hezbollah’s illicit activities and the growing savvy of its criminal network. WPR: What are Hezbollah’s main illicit business activities, and where is it most active? Matthew Levitt: Hezbollah is engaged in an amazingly broad array […]