Q & A Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series on food security around the world. As the war in Yemen enters its fifth year, the country’s population is coping with an increasingly severe shortage of food. The United Nations’ humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, said last week that three quarters of Yemenis need some form of humanitarian aid, and the situation is nearing a “tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to prevent massive loss of life as a result of widespread famine across the country.” WPR spoke via email with Noha Aboueldahab, a visiting fellow at the Brookings […]

Since he turned 78 in July, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has appointed a number of new ministers to his Cabinet, fueling speculation about whether he will run for another term in elections scheduled for 2020. Such speculation is not new in Kazakhstan, but given Nazarbayev’s advanced age, observers fear that without a clearly defined succession plan, the country’s stability could deteriorate. In an email interview with WPR, Paul Stronski, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses Kazakhstan’s political outlook. World Politics Review: What is driving Nazarbayev’s ongoing Cabinet reshuffle? Paul […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about corruption in various countries around the world. South Korean President Moon Jae-in entered office in May 2017 pledging to crack down on rampant corruption, in a country where political leaders often enjoy cozy relations with the business elite. But his push to reform South Korea’s giant conglomerates, known as chaebols, has stalled amid weak economic performance and a high-profile rapprochement with North Korea. In an email interview with WPR, Park Sang-in, professor of economics and public administration at Seoul National University, discusses the Moon administration’s efforts to address the […]

An indefinite nationwide strike by Costa Rica’s public workers is now in its third week, as unions remain bitterly opposed to a proposed package of tax reforms and changes to public servants’ compensation that aims to rein in the country’s public debt. Union representatives have met with their government counterparts for marathon negotiating sessions in recent days but have failed to resolve the dispute. In an email interview with WPR, Layla Zaglul, a Costa Rican doctoral candidate at the University of Sussex, discusses the strike and its political and fiscal implications. World Politics Review: What are the main reasons for […]

Last week, Denmark reached an agreement with the government of Greenland, which is an autonomous Danish territory, to fund improvements to airports on the island. The project aroused controversy when a Chinese company expressed interest and was pre-qualified to participate, a concerning development for Danish and American officials. While Denmark’s $559 million deal decreases the chances of Chinese involvement, it came at a steep political price, as it led the pro-independence Naleraq party to break away from Greenland’s ruling coalition, depriving it of its majority in Greenland’s Parliament. In an email interview, Ulrik Pram Gad, a professor of Arctic politics […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of a new series on immigration and integration policy around the world. The German Cabinet is set to meet later this month to discuss a draft proposal that would loosen immigration requirements for skilled workers from outside the European Union. The plan in its current form would reportedly abandon a requirement that companies give preference to German citizens before considering foreigners for vacancies, and would also provide qualified foreigners with opportunities to come to Germany to look for jobs. While the proposal enjoys fairly broad support within the governing coalition and its constituencies, it […]

Malcom Turnbull’s tenure as prime minister of Australia ended the same way it began: with an intra-party revolt. Turnbull, a moderate in his conservative Liberal Party, successfully contested then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s leadership in September 2015. But Abbott and his supporters moved to exact revenge, finally pushing Turnbull out last month. Scott Morrison, the newly sworn-in prime minister, takes the helm of a Liberal Party weakened by internal strife and a tenuous grip on power, as the opposition Labor Party surges ahead in the polls. In an email interview, Lloyd Cox, a lecturer in politics at Macquarie University in Sydney, […]

In her first speech since assuming her new post, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet criticized China this week for forcibly detaining more than a million Muslim Uighur minorities in a secretive network of so-called re-education camps. Her remarks were based on findings from a U.N. panel released last month. The panel cited “credible reports” that the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwestern China had been transformed into “something that resembles a massive internment camp.” Ever resistant to such criticism, Beijing pushed back on Bachelet’s remarks and demanded that she “respect China’s sovereignty.” In an email interview, […]

On July 30, Comoros passed a referendum to revise the nation’s constitution. Among other changes, the referendum extended presidential term limits and abolished a power-sharing system that had rotated the presidency every five years between the main islands of Grand Comore, Anjouan and Moheli. Since the referendum, which was boycotted by the opposition, President Azali Assoumani has moved to consolidate power by arresting and issuing warrants for prominent opponents such as former Vice President Jaffar Ahmed Said Hassani. In an email interview, Shafick Osman, a research associate at Florida International University who specializes in the Western Indian Ocean region, discusses […]

French and British fishing vessels clashed at sea last month, marking an escalation in an ongoing dispute over scallop stocks in the English Channel. French fishermen are prohibited from dredging the shellfish during the summer months in order to prevent overfishing, while their British competitors fish year-round, leading the French to accuse the British of depleting stocks. Negotiators from the two countries failed to finalize a resolution to the impasse last week. According to Johan Bergenas, senior director for public policy at Vulcan, this skirmish is only part of a growing global conflict over increasingly scarce fish stocks and fishery […]

The resignation last spring of Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who faced impeachment on charges of corruption, brought to power an unlikely figure: Martin Vizcarra, a former governor of the remote region of Moquegua in southern Peru. Vizcarra had been serving concurrently as vice president and ambassador to Canada when he was called back to assume the nation’s highest office. His attempts to tackle systemic corruption in Peru, including calling for a national referendum on several key reforms, have led to a standoff with the country’s Congress, which is controlled by the opposition Popular Force party. In an email interview, […]

On Aug. 12, leaders of the five Caspian Sea littoral states—Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan—gathered in the Kazakh port city of Aktau to sign the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The agreement ended decades of uncertainty over the Caspian Sea’s status, clarifying the boundaries between each party’s territorial waters. And while the agreement left open the key question of ownership over the rich oil and gas deposits lying under the Caspian’s seabed, it provides a framework for these five countries to work out arrangements for joint exploration and drilling, as well as long-stalled pipeline projects. […]

Although the Islamic State continues to carry out sporadic attacks in parts of Iraq, the focus across the country has largely turned to post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. Harsh sentences are being meted out to suspected Islamic State militants and their collaborators. The Associated Press reported in March that 19,000 people have been detained or imprisoned on suspicion of connections to the extremist group. Of those, 3,000 have been sentenced to death. Meanwhile, a growing backlog of cases and a dearth of available evidence have stymied efforts to compensate victims. In an email interview, Ali Al-Mawlawi, head of research at the […]

El Salvador’s decision last month to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and establish relations with China came as a blow to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who condemned Beijing for “increasingly out-of-control international behavior.” The move also prompted a harsh response from the United States, as the White House expressed “grave concern” and accused China of “political interference in the Western Hemisphere.” However, according to R. Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College, both Washington and Taipei may be powerless to prevent more countries from following suit. In an email interview, he explains […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative, a major infrastructure and development program across Eurasia. Speaking to reporters on the final day of a five-day visit to China last month, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced that his government would cancel three major Chinese-financed infrastructure projects due to concerns over the projects’ costs and debt burdens. The announcement came as other Chinese-financed projects in Pakistan and Sri Lanka—part of the country’s sweeping Belt and Road Initiative—ran into trouble. In an email interview, Yun Sun, director of the China Program at […]