Q & A Archive

Earlier this month, India’s new foreign secretary, Vijay Kashev Gokhale, visited neighboring Bangladesh for meetings on issues ranging from Rohingya refugees to the sharing of water supplies. New Delhi and Dhaka also signed a memorandum of understanding to build an 80-mile oil pipeline that would allow oil to be exported to Bangladesh. India’s efforts to deepen ties with Bangladesh are part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious “neighborhood first” foreign policy initiative. In an email interview, Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, discusses […]

On April 9, Colombia’s government fired the head of the Colombia in Peace Fund, a $500 million, donor-financed entity tasked with supporting post-conflict programs tied to the country’s 2016 peace accord with the Marxist guerrilla group known as the FARC. The move came after donor countries, including Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, complained to the government about funding delays and a lack of transparency. The implementation of the Colombian peace agreement has faced a number of stumbling blocks so far. In an email interview, Adam Isacson, a senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, discusses […]

On March 21, the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda held snap elections less than a month after they had been called by Prime Minister Gaston Browne, and 18 months before the constitution required them. Browne’s Antigua and Barbuda Labor Party routed the opposition, paving the way for the prime minister to continue with an ambitious reform program that aims to turn Antigua and Barbuda into an “economic powerhouse in the Caribbean.” The election also overturned a centuries-old communal land ownership system on Barbuda, opening the door to private ownership and development on an island that was devastated by Hurricane […]

In March, Swedish authorities said they had made a record number of drug-smuggling arrests since the start of 2018, following another record-breaking year in 2017. So far this year, Swedish customs authorities have seized more than 2,000 pounds of cannabis, over 725 pounds of cocaine, 307 pounds of amphetamines and 88 pounds of heroin coming in from outside the country. Sweden has long had one of Europe’s most restrictive drug policies, based on a zero-tolerance approach to eradicating drugs from society that is still highly popular domestically. In an email interview, Henrik Tham, a professor emeritus in the department of […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. In March, Tanzania’s government imposed sweeping new regulations restricting online media, including requiring a license to run a blog that costs $930—more than Tanzania’s GDP per capita in 2016. The new regulations also affect online radio stations, streaming platforms, social media and internet cafes, which will now be required to install surveillance cameras. The clampdown follows other restrictions placed on Tanzania’s media in recent years that have severely limited freedom of expression. In an email interview, Jeff Smith, the […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about the production and trade of arms around the world. Between 2014 and 2017, Germany’s government approved some $31 billion in weapons sales, including almost $18 billion to countries outside the European Union and the NATO alliance. Under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has become one of the top five arms exporters in the world by volume, despite major domestic opposition to the sale of German weapons. In an email interview, Sophia Besch, a research fellow at the Center for European Reform and an expert on German defense and security policy, […]

In mid-March, Canada announced it would be sending 250 troops and six helicopters on a 12-month deployment to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, which is considered the deadliest peacekeeping mission in the world. Since 2013, 162 troops from the U.N. mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, have been killed by al-Qaida and other extremists. Canada’s involvement in international peacekeeping has lagged in recent years, but shortly after taking office in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that his government would commit 600 troops to U.N. peacekeeping missions. In an email interview, Simon Palamar, a research fellow on […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. On April 13, Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno, announced that two Ecuadorian journalists and their driver had been killed by Marxist rebels, who kidnapped them near the border with Colombia late last month, where they were investigating rising crime. Moreno revealed that the rebels were associated with a dissident faction of Colombia’s demobilized FARC guerrillas. The episode has raised alarms over the state of press freedom and safety in Ecuador, which witnessed a decade of media restrictions and intimidation under […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. On April 13, two lawmakers from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, resigned amid nationwide blowback over their public support for a group of Hindu men accused of the rape and murder of an 8-year-old Muslim girl. The party’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, broke his silence on the episode the same day, saying “no culprit will be spared.” The high-profile case has raised concerns about worsening intercommunal tensions in India under the right-wing, Hindu nationalist BJP. In January, Human […]

Earlier this month, after Israeli soldiers killed 17 Palestinians during protests near Gaza’s border with Israel, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu engaged in a war of words. Erdogan called Netanyahu a “terrorist,” while the Israeli leader responded on Twitter by saying he would not be lectured to by someone who has been “bombing civilians indiscriminately for years” in Syria. The public spat has threatened to undo a rapprochement agreement between Turkey and Israel signed in late 2016. Nearly six years ago, diplomatic ties were severed following Israel’s attack on a Turkish-flagged aid flotilla heading […]

On this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss the political fallout from another suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, including a potential military response from the United States. For the Report, Celeste Hicks talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about how courageous survivors of sexual violence helped bring Chad’s former dictator, Hissene Habre, to justice. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. Since early March, the government of President Paul Kagame in Rwanda has ordered the closing of thousands of churches and dozens of mosques, citing unsafe conditions for worshippers. It also banned mosques in the capital, Kigali, from using loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer. Kagame insists that there is no reason for so many places of worship in a small, developing country like Rwanda. The predominantly Catholic country has seen a proliferation of non-Catholic churches in the decades since the […]

On March 27, Japan announced an extensive reorganization of the main branch of its military, known as the Ground Self-Defense Forces. The government described it as the most sweeping revamp since the forces were founded in 1954. The restructuring includes integrating the five regional armies that make up the Ground Self-Defense Forces under a single command. While Japan’s postwar constitution restricted the country’s military capabilities, escalating threats from China and North Korea have raised concerns for Tokyo, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken steps to loosen the constitutional constraints. In an email interview, Michael Green, the senior vice president […]

Population growth in the Middle East has created a variety of challenges for governments, but especially how to integrate so many young people into the economy. Failing to come up with a solution could have severe ramifications, though. A baby boom in Egypt since 2011 has added 11 million people to a population that is now approaching 100 million, according to Bloomberg. With a quarter of Egyptians between the ages of 18 and 29 unemployed, and an increasing number of young people entering a labor market that is ill-equipped to absorb them, many experts are raising concerns. Egypt isn’t alone. […]

On April 5, the French government announced it would provide about $1.35 billion over the next five years in state-backed credit and financing from the European Union to the country’s organic agriculture sector. The announcement was part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to reform France’s agricultural sector—including a pledge in February to invest more than $6 billion to make the industry more environmentally friendly, among other things—and follows signals from Macron that he would consider changes to the EU’s Common Agricultural policy, or CAP. For years, French farmers have been among the main beneficiaries of the CAP, which provides […]

In mid-March, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Islamabad for a three-day visit, heading a 30-member Iranian delegation. During talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Zarif pledged to increase bilateral trade between Iran and Pakistan from around $1.16 billion today to $5 billion by 2021. They also discussed other areas of cooperation. In an email interview, Payam Mohseni, the director of the Iran Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, discusses how Iran and Pakistan’s mutual desire for a deeper relationship must contend with regional rivalries. WPR: What is the […]

On March 23 in Hanoi, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his Vietnamese counterpart, Tran Dai Quang, announced plans to rapidly increase trade between their two countries from more than $60 billion today to $100 billion by 2020. Bilateral trade has been growing quickly since South Korea and Vietnam signed a free trade deal in 2015, building on economic ties formed after diplomatic relations were established in 1992. In an email interview, Lee Jaehyon, a research fellow and director of the Center for ASEAN and Oceania Studies at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, discusses South Korea and Vietnam’s deepening […]