Latest Archive

Last week, Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi issued several decrees aimed at restructuring Yemen’s fractious military, including removing the son and two nephews of his predecessor, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, from the military leadership. The removed relatives of the former president were accused of using their positions of power to block reforms. Hadi replaced Saleh as Yemen’s president in 2012 after more than a year of citizen protests, and there have also been growing concerns that members of Saleh’s former regime were biding their time for an opportunity to attempt a return to power. The Associated Press […]

For at least the past decade, China has witnessed tens of thousands of mass social protests per year. In 2005, the last year in which Chinese authorities released figures, there were 87,000 such protests. Scholars and observers have estimated that roughly the same number has occurred in each subsequent year. These protests have been the subject of a great deal of media coverage in the West, with the typical takeaway being that China is a simmering cauldron of unrest, perpetually on the verge of bubbling over. Yet the reality is far more complex. Since 1990, almost none of these movements […]

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently undertook a week-long visit to Japan and South Korea, highlighting NATO’s growing role in Asian security in partnership with nonmember governments. Rasmussen is convinced that NATO needs to deepen cooperation with partner states to address global security issues that can negatively impact NATO members’ security. Conversely, NATO has unique capabilities and experience in leading multinational military campaigns, as in Afghanistan and Libya, which can be applied to joint efforts among NATO and partner states to address security concerns in Asia and beyond. Since taking office in August 2009, Rasmussen has tried to induce alliance […]

In early April, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh left Yemen for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, an example of Saudi Arabia’s deep involvement in the political transition of its southern neighbor. In an email interview, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton, explained the mechanics and the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s influence in Yemen. WPR: What are Saudi Arabia’s main levers of influence in Yemen? Bernard Haykel: Saudi Arabia has long-standing relationships with most, if not all, political, tribal and regional actors in Yemen. The principal form this relationship takes is payments offered by the Saudis […]

A lot has changed in the world of technology since the indigenous Zapatista movement emerged in the mid-1990s in southern Mexico to become a symbol of the fight for global justice. To modern would-be revolutionaries, the communication technologies that allowed the Zapatistas to gain global visibility — highlighted by the then-futuristic-looking pictures of Subcomandante Marcos, the movement’s leader, posing in the Chiapas jungle wrapped in electronic gear — now look obsolete and cumbersome. Communication technologies have since morphed into devices that, despite being smaller, are incomparably more powerful for broadcasting, not only because exponential growth in Internet penetration over the […]

Chadian President Idriss Deby announced Sunday that the country would withdraw its troops from northern Mali, after a suicide attack killed three Chadian troops Friday. The announcement reflects the uncertainties that surround Chad’s increasingly prominent role in efforts toward regional stability. In January, Chad deployed soldiers to assist the French military offensive in northern Mali. Chadian forces there, which currently number around 2,400, have seen some of the heaviest fighting in the war. Although French, Chadian, and Malian forces quickly conquered territory after the intervention began, the ensuing months have seen regular bombings and raids by Malian Islamists, as well […]

In an election held Sunday to choose a replacement for former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died last month, Chavez’s anointed successor, Nicolas Maduro, narrowly beat rival Henrique Capriles for the presidency. Capriles has refused to concede the election, citing some 3,200 voting irregularities, and is demanding a recount. In separate email interviews, two Venezuela experts who spoke with Trend Lines agreed that while Maduro won the election, his narrow margin of victory represented a kind of defeat. “It leaves him seriously weakened,” said David Smilde, a sociology professor at the University of Georgia and senior fellow at the Washington […]

Five Indian soldiers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping operation in South Sudan were killed in an ambush last week that also left seven civilian U.N. staff dead and four more troops wounded. Such casualties are grimly familiar for the Indian army, which has lost more personnel on blue helmet missions than any other country’s military. But the attack capped off a difficult few weeks for India at the U.N., marked by diplomatic disputes over the rules of peacekeeping and the new Arms Trade Treaty. Cumulatively, these episodes may reinforce doubts about New Delhi’s commitment to the U.N. system. Although […]

Zimbabwe’s political and economic decline since 2000 has been a major preoccupation for South African policymakers, severely testing Pretoria’s ability to juggle often contradictory narratives in its foreign policy discourse: on one hand, a commitment to democracy and human rights, and on the other, liberation solidarity, the promotion of an African consensus and a residual anti-Western sentiment in the ruling African National Congress (ANC). With Zimbabwe now on the cusp of fresh elections, this issue is set to return to the top of the South African agenda. The elections will take place under a new constitution overwhelmingly endorsed by Zimbabwean […]

Malaysia has chosen May 5 as the date of national elections that will decide whether Prime Minister Najib Razak’s National Front, the multiethnic political coalition that has governed the country since independence, will hold on to power. The main opposition coalition, the People’s Alliance, which made gains in the 2008 elections, continues to close the National Front’s narrow lead in opinion polls. “This is a critical turning point for the country,” Bridget Welsh, associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University, told Trend Lines. “It will have to decide whether to stick with the incumbent government of 55 years, […]

The announcement this week that Jabhat al-Nusra (the Nusra Front), one of the main armed groups battling to take down the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has formally announced its allegiance to al-Qaida could signal a major shift in Syria’s two-year-long civil war. It certainly complicates matters for the United States. Over the past several months, Washington has concentrated its efforts on two parallel but complementary tracks: forging a broad-based, secular-leaning, pro-Western provisional government that could take over the administration of areas where the government in Damascus has lost control; and encouraging different rebel military groups to develop a […]

In December, if only for a brief moment, the prospects of a brighter future for Venezuela-U.S. relations appeared on the horizon. With Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s firebrand socialist president, having just returned to Cuba to undergo what would be his final cancer treatment, his vice president and anointed successor, Nicolas Maduro, announced that Caracas would engage in a dialogue with Washington to examine and possibly improve bilateral relations. Five months later, Chavez is dead, and this Sunday Venezuelans will vote in a snap election for a new president. The election will decide whether Chavez’s so-called Bolivarian revolution, a policy of social […]

Colombians under 65 cannot remember living in a country at peace. Internal armed conflict has raged almost continuously in the South American nation since 1948. With talks ongoing between the government and the larger of the country’s two leftist guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombians may soon discover what peace is like. But they may find it only a bit more peaceful or secure than what came before. The talks taking place in Havana, Cuba, which are the fourth peace process attempted with the FARC since 1982, have a better-than-even chance of resulting in an accord. […]

The Arab-Israeli conflict has never lost its power to conjure visions of Nobel Peace prizes among world diplomats, even as it has repeatedly thwarted the efforts of even the most skilled among them. Despite the occasional success, well-intentioned plans have also backfired disastrously, triggering new waves of deadly violence. As the Obama administration launches a new push for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the watchword must be, “First, do no harm.” Forging a successful peace process that brings results would obviously create tremendous benefits for the local population and for America’s strategic interests. It is undeniably a worthy goal. But […]

A small sea of ink has been spilled lately over the “rise of Africa” as an exciting frontier market for investors from both advanced economies and other emerging markets. Africa’s relatively rapid growth rates, improved fiscal and debt management and improving political stability are painting a picture of the kind of robust economic prospects usually associated with India, China, Brazil and other middle-income economies. And despite remaining high risks associated with African markets, global investors increasingly find Africa’s potential returns compelling. For example, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, a hypothetical $100 investment in Africa’s 40 largest […]

On April 1, India’s Supreme Court concluded a protracted legal battle between the Indian government and the pharmaceutical company Novartis, ruling that Indian companies could continue to produce low-cost generic versions of a drug the company had sought to patent. In an email interview, Sudip Chaudhuri, an economics professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta specializing in patents and the pharmaceutical industry, explained the background and likely impact of the ruling. WPR: What effect will the decision have on companies’ evergreening, or repatenting products after minor changes in their makeup, of pharmaceutical patents in India? Sudip Chaudhuri: Using […]

In a speech in early April, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim declared that “extreme poverty,” defined as living on less than $1.25 a day, could be eradicated worldwide by the end of the next decade. In an email interview, Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center on Global Development who has written on the Millennium Development Goals, discussed what ending extreme poverty means, and what it would take. WPR: What is the technical meaning behind World Bank President Jim Kim’s recent call to “end extreme poverty” by 2030? Charles Kenny: Kim is suggesting that we can reduce the […]