Q & A Archive

On Jan. 24, a Brazilian appeals court upheld corruption charges against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Despite the ruling, Lula, as he is popularly known, still leads the polls ahead of presidential elections slated for Oct. 7. In an email interview, Kurt Weyland, a professor in the department of government at the University of Texas at Austin and author of several books on Brazil and Latin America, discusses what’s next for Lula, his leftist Workers’ Party and Brazil’s corruption-plagued democracy. WPR: After his corruption conviction was upheld, what can we expect from Lula going forward? Kurt Weyland: It […]

On Jan. 27, officials in Hong Kong disqualified Agnes Chow, a young pro-democracy activist, from running for office in a March by-election. The move sparked public outrage, coming less than two weeks after a Hong Kong court sentenced another activist, Joshua Wong, to jail for a second time for his role in the 2014 pro-democracy protests, known as the Umbrella Movement. In an email interview, Stephan Ortmann, an assistant professor of comparative politics at City University of Hong Kong, discusses the evolution of the pro-democracy movement and what steps the central government in Beijing and the government in Hong Kong […]

On Jan. 15, Greece’s parliament adopted new austerity measures aimed at placating its international lenders, including greater restrictions on the right of workers to strike and cuts on benefits to large families. The measures, which passed despite days of protests and crippling strikes in Athens, pave the way for Greece to enter the final stage of its eight-year economic bailout. In an email interview, Angelos Chryssogelos, a teaching fellow in the department of European and international studies at King’s College London, explains what austerity means for the vast majority of Greeks and the state of the opposition to the Syriza-led […]

Continued attempts at developing a natural gas pipeline linking Central Asian exporters with markets in Europe have fallen apart, leaving the region dependent on exports to either Russia or China. While the United States has helped countries in Central Asia balance geopolitically, some now believe the U.S. will drift from its engagement in the region as part of the Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy. Last week, Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the first Central Asian head of state to visit President Donald Trump in the White House, in a likely effort to shore up ties. In an email interview, […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. It’s been a year since former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh fled into exile, and speculation is starting to pick up about his potential return to the country to face charges for crimes committed during his more than two decades in power. In January 2017, as West African troops entered Gambian territory, Jammeh announced he was leaving so Adama Barrow could take office, flying to Guinea before ultimately settling in Equatorial Guinea, where he remains today. Barrow defeated Jammeh in […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. On Jan. 9, Greek lawmakers voted to limit the power of Islamic courts operating in the country’s Western Thrace region, on its border with Turkey. The new law upends a system of maintaining separate legal rules for the region’s 100,000-strong Muslim minority that stretches back nearly a century. In an email interview, Effie Fokas, a senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy and a research associate at the London School of Economics’ Hellenic Observatory, discusses what […]

It’s been nearly a month since reports of a coup attempt emerged from Equatorial Guinea, yet details of what actually happened and who was involved remain scarce. On Dec. 29, the magazine Jeune Afrique reported that armed mercenaries from at least three different countries had been intercepted in the northeastern town of Ebebiyin, near the border with Cameroon and Gabon. Several days later, on Jan. 3, the government said the mercenaries had managed to infiltrate five towns before their plot unraveled, including Mongomo, where President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was planning to ring in the new year. Obiang, the world’s […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about corruption in various countries around the world. On Jan. 16, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales reshuffled his Cabinet, replacing his ministers of the economy, the environment and social development. Morales, who is halfway through his four-year term, has been plagued by his own corruption scandals after running on a campaign to clean up Guatemala, where graft is rampant. He has an approval rating of just 19 percent, according to a recent poll. In an email interview, Elizabeth Oglesby, an associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Arizona, […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about the production and trade of arms around the world. China, which in recent years has become the world’s third-largest supplier of arms after the United States and Russia, continues to expand its arms exports thanks largely to its relatively cheap weapons and military equipment. But that has also raised questions about how arms sales fit into China’s geopolitical ambitions, especially in Asia. In an email interview, Sam Roggeveen, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Australia and an expert on the Chinese military, discusses the growth of China’s […]

Mexico has taken extraordinary measures in recent years to protect marine life threatened by illegal fishing in its waters. But fishermen and drug cartels that profit off illegal fishing have pushed back, heightening tensions. In late December, Mexican fishermen in the Gulf of California shot down a drone that the conservation group Sea Shepherd had deployed to monitor illicit activities. In an email interview, Johan Bergenas, senior director for public policy at Vulcan Inc., and David Soud, head of research and analysis at I.R. Consilium, discuss the impact of illegal fishing in Mexico and the government’s efforts to stop it. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.It was a busy week for diplomacy related to a long-running dispute over the Nile River, culminating Thursday in Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s first visit to Egypt. “We must make sure that this great river never becomes an object of competition, mistrust or conflict,” Hailemariam said in Cairo. But recent events, including statements from earlier in the week, highlight the extent to which it already has. Ethiopia is nearing completion of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, an enormous project […]

In mid-December, at least five people were killed by security forces during anti-government protests in Iraqi Kurdistan. The leading opposition political party, Gorran, responded to the crackdown by withdrawing its ministers from the government. In an email interview, Hannes Cerny, a visiting professor at the Department of International Relations at the Central European University in Budapest and the author of “Iraqi Kurdistan, the PKK and International Relations: Theory and Ethnic Conflict,” explains the protesters’ grievances and the implications for Kurdish politics. WPR: What triggered the recent protests in northern Iraq? Hannes Cerny: When discussing the recent anti-government protests in Iraqi […]

In late 2016, when lawyers and teachers began organizing demonstrations against the perceived marginalization of Cameroon’s English-speaking population, one of the most significant questions was whether their discontent would translate into a broader anti-government movement that could mobilize French-speakers as well. More than a year later, the answer appears to be no, or at least not yet. While the crisis has intensified, it remains concentrated in the two western Anglophone regions, which are home to a fifth of the Central African nation’s 22 million people. It has failed to spread east to threaten the capital, Yaounde, and the regime of […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. Last week, authorities in China demolished a prominent Christian megachurch in Linfen, an industrial city in one of China’s poorest regions. State police used dynamite and excavators to raze the church, which had a congregation of more than 50,000. It was the latest sign of a growing state backlash against religion in China, where the Communist Party is officially atheist and the practice of organized religion is tightly controlled. In an email interview, Yang Fenggang, a professor of sociology and director […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about corruption in various countries around the world. On Jan. 8, a major corruption trial began in Vietnam that could result in the first-ever conviction of a former member of the powerful Politburo of the Communist Party, Dinh La Thang. The trial is part of a wider crackdown on corruption that has swept up nearly two dozen former officials at Vietnam’s state energy company, PetroVietnam, among other state-owned enterprises. In an email interview, Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia, discusses […]

At the end of December, Libya’s prime minister in Tripoli, Fayez Serraj, announced that Libyan families displaced from the town of Tawergha since the start of the country’s civil war in 2011 could return home. The people of Tawergha allegedly fought on the side of deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Their return to Tawergha, in western Libya, will mark one of the first successful reconciliation efforts between embattled communities in the country. In an email interview, Jalel Harchaoui, a doctoral candidate in geopolitics at Paris 8 University focusing on Libya, discusses the ongoing obstacles to communal reconciliation. WPR: What has […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Nearly seven years to the day after Tunisia’s so-called Jasmine Revolution forced the departure of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country was once again rocked by widespread protests this week—this time sparked by austerity measures including price and tax increases. According to the BBC, protests had occurred in at least 10 locations, including Tunis, the capital, as of Thursday. Hundreds of people were arrested; 50 police officers were injured; the army was deployed in some places; […]