Q & A Archive

Earlier this month, Hong Kong’s legislature vetoed an election-reform package that was backed by mainland China but strongly criticized by pro-democracy lawmakers and activists. In an email interview, Michael C. Davis, professor at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, discussed Hong Kong’s democracy movement. WPR: What do democratic advocates in Hong Kong fear from China’s proposed electoral plan? Michael C. Davis: China’s democratic reform proposal essentially provides for a vetted election for Hong Kong’s chief executive. Under the Aug. 31, 2014, Beijing decision and the Hong Kong legislative bill to carry it out, a heavily pro-Beijing 1,200-member nominating […]

The U.S. Navy and Air Force have begun preliminary work on developing a sixth-generation unmanned fighter. In an email interview, Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and co-author of “Ghost Fleet,” discussed the next generation in U.S. military technology. WPR: What are some of the already operational next-generation U.S. military technologies that emerged from, or were accelerated by, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Peter Singer: In some ways you can think of Iraq and Afghanistan as akin to World War I, where a number of science fiction-like technologies made their bones. Back then it […]

The release of tens of thousands of diplomatic cables that Wikileaks says it obtained from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry have added detail and color to long suspected Saudi behavior in the Middle East. Mostly, that means money and how Riyadh wields it. Samir Geagea, a Lebanese politician who is a vocal critic of Syrian President of Bashar al-Assad—and a staunch defender in the Lebanese media of Saudi Arabia—begged for more money from Riyadh to support his flailing political party and former Christian militia, the Lebanese Forces. The Saudi ambassador in Beirut wrote favorably back to Riyadh that Geagea “expressed readiness […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the South China Sea territorial disputes and the various claimant countries’ approaches to addressing them. Last month, Taiwan proposed a peace plan to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea and reduce regional tensions. In an email interview, Lynn Kuok, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies and a senior visiting fellow at the Centre for International Law, Singapore, discussed Taiwan’s role in the South China Sea disputes. WPR: What are Taiwan’s claims in the South China Sea, and to what […]

This fall the United Nations will celebrate its 70th birthday. As for most 70-somethings, the commemoration evokes nostalgia for a more idealistic time, reflections on creaky joints and renewed hopes for the future. To be sure, this grand edifice of mid-20th century geopolitics needs some serious refurbishing to align its mission and capabilities with the demands of the 21st-century world. Migration crises affecting Africa, Europe and Asia in unprecedented numbers; war in Sudan and enduring conflict in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere; and failing U.N. peace processes for Syria and Yemen show clearly that the current global […]

Last week, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has a warrant out for his arrest by the International Criminal Court, left South Africa without incident, even after South Africa’s High Court ruled that he was to be prevented from leaving. In an email interview, Pierre de Vos, professor of constitutional law at the University of Cape Town, discussed South Africa’s judiciary. WPR: How has South Africa’s judiciary evolved since the end of apartheid, both as an institution and demographically, compared to other government branches, and has it been cleared of all apartheid-era judges? Pierre de Vos: The composition of the South […]

Last week, the Lebanese army tested advanced TOW-II missiles, its newest weapon supplied by the United States. The live-fire demonstration took place at an army base in the Baalbek region, not far from the Syrian border. In late May, the U.S. agreed to provide more than 200 of the anti-tank guided missiles and dozens of launchers, at a cost of over $10 million, to help guard Lebanon’s border from Islamist militants and the threat of spillover from Syria’s civil war. Lebanese soldiers have come under attack by militants near the Syrian border in the past two years, including from the […]

Earlier this month, lawmakers in Uruguay announced they were working on legislation that would classify femicide—the gender-motivated killing of women—as a crime. In an email interview, Patricia Leidl, a Vancouver-based international communications adviser, discussed government responses to crime against women across Latin America. WPR: What has prompted the recent public outcry against violence against women in Latin America? Patricia Leidl: The “recent” outcry over violence against Latin American women is in fact not recent at all. Since the early 1990s, human and women’s rights defenders have been raising the alarm over steadily climbing rates of gender-based violence in Mexico, El […]

Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that the United States is seriously considering stationing hundreds of American troops, along with heavy weaponry, in the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Baltics, all of which are former Soviet republics bordering Russia as well as members of the European Union and NATO, have found themselves in an increasingly vulnerable position since Russia began intervening militarily in Ukraine last year. All three are home to large Russian-speaking minorities, whose controversial status could serve as justification for a Russian attack. In recent months, NATO and Russia have been staging military drills […]

Last week it was the Pyramids, and Wednesday, the Karnak Temple in Luxor. Twice in one week, militants attacked major tourism sites in Egypt, reviving fears of a return to the violence that marked the 1990s. Then, the low-level insurgency by Islamic radicals against former President Hosni Mubarak culminated in the horrific 1997 attack on the Temple of Hatsepshut, across the Nile from Luxor, when gunmen killed 58 tourists and six Egyptians. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a parking lot just outside the sprawling, Pharaonic-era Karnak Temple along the Nile. Two gunmen then engaged in a […]

This week marks one year since the so-called Islamic State (IS) took control of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The fall of Mosul forced Iraq back onto U.S. President Barack Obama’s agenda and prompted a re-examination of the U.S. policy toward IS. Just yesterday, the White House announced that up to 450 additional U.S. troops will be deployed to train Iraqi forces and help in the fight against the group. World Politics Review partnered with the Global Dispatches podcast to present this interview with WPR columnist Steven Metz on the evolving U.S. strategy against IS. Speaking with host Mark […]

South Sudan’s army today claimed that it repelled an attack by rebels allied with former Vice President Riek Machar and regained control of several areas in Unity state from rebel forces. In an email interview, J. Peter Pham, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, discussed the status of the fighting and and its economic and humanitarian effects. WPR: What is the current status of fighting between government forces and rebel groups, and among rebels groups, and what are the obstacles to a political resolution? J. Peter Pham: South Sudan is in the midst of its annual rainy season, […]

Last month, Costa Rica announced an initiative that aims to eradicate child labor by 2020. In an email interview, Noortje Denkers, a program official for the International Labour Organization’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, discussed the fight against child labor in Central America. WPR: How widespread is child labor in Central America, and in what sectors is child labor most common? Noortje Denkers: According to global estimates on child labor from 2012, the broader regional figures show that Latin America and the Caribbean, including Central America, has shown the greatest progress in the fight against child labor […]

Last month, the foreign ministers of Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia met in Seoul for the fifth round of so-called MIKTA foreign ministerial meeting. In an email interview, Günther Maihold, the Guillermo and Alejandro de Humboldt chair at the College of Mexico, discussed the MIKTA grouping. WPR: What was the impetus behind the creation of the MIKTA grouping, and what are the main areas of cooperation between the MIKTA countries? Günther Maihold: When the foreign ministers of Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 25, 2013 and […]

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, elected last year after his pro-Russian predecessor Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in the Maidan uprising, delivered his first annual message to Parliament yesterday. In it, he denounced the country’s pervasive corruption and called for significant reforms, while also accusing Russia of violating the Minsk agreement that established a cease-fire in embattled eastern Ukraine in February. Poroshenko, a billionaire whose business history drew suspicion from the U.S. State Department before he took office, may seem to be an unlikely reformer. His recent battles with Ukraine’s powerful oligarchs are ostensibly about establishing the rule of law, both to […]

He sat with his back to the camera, a black scarf over his head hiding his identity. In a 47-minute televised interview with Al-Jazeera recorded in “liberated territory” in northern Syria, the leader of the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, said his group has no plans to attack the West. Its focus is toppling President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The choreographed media campaign by the Nusra Front and its leader, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammed al-Golani, capped the group’s rise as one the most powerful of Syria’s rebel factions. Nusra fighters played a key role in […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the South China Sea territorial disputes and the various claimant countries’ approaches to addressing them. China’s increased pace of island-building in the disputed South China Sea has angered many of its neighbors, but China insists that its land-reclamation activities are no cause for concern. In an email interview, Mira Rapp-Hooper, a fellow with the Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the director of its Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, discussed China’s rights under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. WPR: What […]