Q & A Archive

On Nov. 10, Australia and Peru concluded a free trade agreement while leaders of both countries were attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam. Free trade negotiations between the two countries began in May following the U.S. decision to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the major multilateral free trade deal that involved 11 other Pacific Rim countries, including Australia and Peru. In an email interview, John Edwards, a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute and adjunct professor with the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy at Curtin University, explains why Australia and Peru moved forward with their own free trade […]

Last April, the International Organization for Migration released a report documenting “shocking events on North African migrant routes.” Interviews with West Africans trying to reach Europe revealed that migrants were being kidnapped, beaten, raped and “sold as slaves” in public squares and garages in Libya. A spokesman for the agency went so far as to describe Libya as a “torture archipelago.” The findings generated a fair amount of news coverage, but before long they were folded into the broader story about the dangers of trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea—a story that has been on the world’s radar for several […]

The Arab League’s economic boycott of Israel stretches back to the state’s founding in 1948. Today, only two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, have formal relations with Israel as a result of peace treaties, while the Arab League’s boycott remains in place for its other members. Yet backdoor cooperation with Israel is growing among some Arab states, creating the prospect of more economic and trade relations. The king of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, reportedly even called for an end to the boycott of Israel in September. In an email interview, Paul Rivlin, an economist and senior research fellow […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series on the Islamic State after the fall of Raqqa and the outlook for Syria and its neighbors. The only sound in the video from Raqqa is the howl of the wind and the hum of a pickup truck passing through block after obliterated city block. “Drive around Raqqa for hours and all you will see is destruction,” the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville wrote on Twitter, where he posted the video. “The pictures say enough.” The buildings that weren’t flattened by airstrikes don’t have many of their walls or any windows left. […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. In late September, Brazil’s Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of allowing religious education in public schools to be taught by people promoting their own faith, testing the country’s secular public education system. In an email interview, Simon Schwartzman, a Brazilian social scientist who has written extensively on the country’s education system and who serves on the board of the Institute for the Study of Labor and Society (IETS) in Rio de Janeiro, discusses the Supreme Court’s decision, the state of […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about the production and trade of arms around the world. Earlier this year, a ship from North Korea laden with 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades was seized off the coast of Egypt. The United Nations called it the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” In an email interview, Andrew C. Winner, chair of the Strategic and Operational Research Department and a professor of strategic studies at the Naval War College, discusses the nature of North Korea’s arms industry and efforts to curb […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. In September, Ghana’s government implemented two significant education reform policies, making secondary education free and requiring new licensing requirements for teachers. Despite the progressive steps, previous attempts at education reform have not always achieved the desired results, and the latest one is already showing similar signs of struggle. In an email interview, Veronica Dzeagu, the national coordinator for the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition, a network of civil society groups and educational research institutions, discusses the state of the country’s education […]

After President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership in January, the trade deal’s remaining members resolved to carry on without their biggest partner. Earlier this month, at a meeting in Vietnam, they agreed to new core terms, despite the last minute vacillation by Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau. While Canada’s continued hang-ups about the TPP have stalled a final agreement, many experts believe the U.S. departure from the deal may actually put Canada in a better position than before. In an email interview, Dan Ciuriak, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation […]

On Nov. 19, Greek primary voters elected Fofi Gennimata to head a new alliance of the fractured center-left that was once united by the dominant PASOK party. Using an open primary system, four parties allowed all Greek citizens to choose from a slate of candidates competing for the authority to decide what the new unified party would look like. In an email interview, Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, an associate professor of political science at the University of Athens, describes what gave rise to the alliance of center-left parties, how it will contend with the radical left Syriza party that leads the […]

On Nov. 2, Iceland’s president, Gudni Johannesson, asked the leader of the Left-Green Movement, Katrin Jakobsdottir, to form a government, even though the party came in second to the incumbent Independence Party in parliamentary elections late last month. After a first attempt at forming a coalition government failed, Jakobsdottir has now entered into talks with the centrist Progressive Party and the conservative Independence Party, which led the previous coalition government. In an email interview, Olafur Th. Hardarson, a professor of political science specializing in Icelandic elections at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, discusses the election results, the coalition talks […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.One of Donald Trump’s first policy moves related to Africa was his decision last March to expand the Pentagon’s authority to carry out airstrikes in Somalia, home of the al-Qaida-linked Islamist extremist group al-Shabab, as well as a growing presence of fighters affiliated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The decision heralded an increasingly aggressive role for the U.S. military in Somalia, the extent of which is starting to come into focus. Beginning Nov. 9, the U.S. carried out airstrikes for […]

During her visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo last month, Nikki Haley, the U.S ambassador to the United Nations, appeared to have a singular goal in mind: getting a firm commitment on a new deadline for the country’s long-delayed elections. “The president must say that we’re going to have elections in 2018,” she said before her meeting with President Joseph Kabila. “We will not support with funding, resources, anything, if the calendar does not specifically specify no later than 2018 for these elections to happen.” Nine days later, Congo’s election commission announced a new timeline that seemed to align […]

While talks between the United Kingdom and the European Union over the terms of Brexit are ongoing, the question of how to sever Northern Ireland from the EU has emerged as a major point of contention. If talks fail, the U.K. will likely exit the EU without a smooth transitional framework in place. That would raise several border issues in Ireland and Northern Ireland and could even threaten the Good Friday peace agreement that ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s. In an email interview, Frank Barry, a professor of international business and economic development […]

On Nov. 9, South Korean President Moon Jae-in unveiled his “New Southern Policy,” aimed at deepening relations with the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. Moon’s announcement, made on a state visit to Indonesia, came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in the region ahead of the latest ASEAN summit in the Philippines and U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to Asia. In an email interview, Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the forthcoming book South Korea at […]

As a political solution to Libya’s civil war remains elusive, with rival governments operating in Tripoli in the west and Tobruk in the east, running a fully functioning economy has been all but impossible. Once a major oil exporter, the war-torn country has had to make do with less production and, given the collapse in global prices, less revenue. In an email interview, Mohamed Eljarh, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, discusses what remains of Libya’s non-hydrocarbon economy and the toll that the deteriorating economic situation is taking on the country’s people […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Speculation about the end of Robert Mugabe’s reign as president of Zimbabwe typically centers on the 93-year-old’s health. This week, however, the conversation turned to a different kind of threat, as Mugabe encountered what The Guardian described as “his biggest political challenge in almost two decades.” On Monday, Mugabe fired Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had formerly been seen as a potential successor. In announcing the move, Khaya Moyo, the information minister, said Mnangagwa had “consistently and persistently exhibited […]

Editor’s note: This article is the first in an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. On Oct. 23, leaders of European Union member states agreed to revise the legal statute regulating the bloc’s system of “posted workers,” which are employees sent by their companies on temporary assignment from one member state to another. As populist sentiment within the EU has risen, reforming the posted workers system has increasingly become a hot-button issue, as countries seek to protect their workers from what many consider to be unfair competition. In an email interview, Matthias Busse, an […]