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On July 20, an honor guard of three Cuban soldiers in full dress uniform raised the island country’s flag over the embassy in Washington for the first time since January 1961. The re-establishment of diplomatic relations concluded “the first stage” of the dialogue between the United States and Cuba, said Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, but a “complex and certainly long process” of negotiations still lay ahead before the two countries would have truly normal relations. “The challenge is huge,” he added, “because there have never been normal relations between the United States of America and Cuba.” Indeed, myriad issues still […]

Almost 70 years to the day after the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and four and a half years after suspending its entire nuclear energy program, Japan restarted a nuclear reactor today, the first to operate under new safety requirements adopted in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. While the news is noteworthy in and of itself, Japan’s historical approach to its civil nuclear program, as well as to nuclear weapons in particular, is especially instructive in light of the Iran nuclear deal. Many observers have suggested over the years that Iran could well aspire to the so-called Japan […]

Last month, after years of hedging on the issue, India agreed to include Japan as a permanent participant in its annual Malabar naval exercises with the United States, set this year for October. Japan has participated in the Malabar exercises before, but only as an invited observer. The decision to expand the Malabar exercises is a significant turning point not just for India’s role in the region, but also for the development of the trilateral relationship among the U.S., Japan and India. This long-underperforming trilateral partnership brings together the U.S. and the two largest and most influential democracies in the […]

Last month, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro formally requested that the U.N. mediate its long-standing border dispute with Guyana. In an email interview, Mark Kirton, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, discussed Guyana’s relations with Venezuela and the impact of the territorial dispute on bilateral ties. WPR: How extensive are Venezuela and Guyana’s political and economic relations, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Mark Kirton: Relations between the two countries are characterized by prolonged periods of controversy and tension, interspersed with short periods of economic and political cooperation. Tensions stem from Venezuela’s claim to the Essequibo […]

The United Nations was famously founded to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” It has a distinctly mixed track record on this front. Today, the U.N.’s goal often seems to be best described as making the scourge of war a little bit less dreadful. The Security Council demonstrated this tendency last Friday, when it endorsed an American-backed resolution launching a new panel to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war. The panel, which will involve the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), is empowered to identify those responsible for dropping […]

During a session of the Angolan parliament late last month, members of the main opposition party, UNITA, boycotted a vote on a private investment law because of concerns over transparency. It was a rare display of dissent against President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, with some UNITA lawmakers questioning the details surrounding recent loan deals with China, struck during dos Santos’ visit to Beijing in June. “How much did our president get from China? Nobody knows. How will we pay for it? Nobody knows,” Raul Danda, a UNITA legislator, told his fellow parliamentarians. “We asked our president to explain what he […]

One of the hottest reads among Washington national security experts this summer is not the latest White House policy document or a big report from an influential think tank, but a novel by two of the national security community’s own: Peter Singer and August Cole. Their book, “Ghost Fleet,” is a riveting thriller in the Tom Clancy tradition. Much of the attention it is getting is due to its explanation of cutting-edge military technology, but it is also captivating—and important—because its core scenario is one that every policymaker and policy expert fears: a major war between the United States and […]

Ever since the last-minute agreement reached last month to reopen negotiations for a third bailout for Greece, Germany has become the target of harsh criticism both in the European Union and the United States. The agreement, which set even harsher terms for reopening talks than what had been on offer before Athens called for a referendum it hoped would strengthen its bargaining position, has been characterized as a “German diktat,” with critics calling the German government vindictive, contemptuous and brutal. Such criticism stands in stark contrast to perspectives in Berlin, where many policymakers regard the compromise found as a rather […]

On July 30, Societe Generale, one of France’s biggest banks, was declared an “assisting witness”—somewhere between a suspect and a witness—in a money-laundering case against Teodorin Obiang, the son of Teodoro Obiang, Equatorial Guinea’s president who has been in power since 1979. Days later, Maixent Accrombessi, a close aide to Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was held for questioning in a corruption probe in Paris hours before he was set to return to Libreville. His detention was part of an ongoing investigation into the French military-uniform company Marck—which signed a $7.6 million contract with Gabon in 2005—on suspicions of corruption […]

If Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is successful in reaching an elusive peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), maintaining peace in the rural outposts of Colombia where the guerillas operate as a de-facto shadow government will prove exceedingly difficult. James Bargent explores this “other Colombia” in his World Politics Review feature this week. In the latest Global Dispatches podcast, Bargent, speaking from Medellin, and host Mark Goldberg discuss the challenges of implementing a potential peace deal in the remote areas of Colombia where the FARC has long held control and the Colombian government has a minimal […]

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—After gently glancing his fingers over a miniature statue of the Hindu goddess Parvati attached to the dashboard of his taxi, Ganesan sped past the tollbooth onto the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway connecting Bandaranaike International Airport to Colombo. “This is the work of Rajapaksa,” he muttered, referring to the multimillion-dollar, multilane highway. Partly funded by the Chinese, the road was built by former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who, after dominating the island country’s politics for a decade, was surprisingly defeated in January’s presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena. Now, with Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections scheduled for Aug. 17, Rajapaksa is […]

It is not every day that a population gets to experience the failings of government quite so pungently. Beirut, the cosmopolitan capital of Lebanon, has been choking in garbage. A brief respite due to a partial temporary solution will soon come to an end, and authorities are warning of grave health consequences if rotting refuse and garbage fires start choking the city again. But Beirut’s garbage crisis looms as much more than a health, welfare or infrastructure matter. More than anything, it is an unmistakable, asphyxiating metaphor for the country’s precarious political situation. And it may become the most unlikely […]

Billboards in New York’s Times Square advertise it as “Egypt’s gift to the world.” An expansion of the Suez Canal, completed in just a year—at President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s request—is set to formally open Thursday, with a party estimated to cost $30 million and full of foreign dignitaries. Those ads in Times Square, which have also appeared in London and, curiously, in a special cover wrap of some editions of The Economist, claim that “Egypt boosts the world economy.” How? By allowing two-way shipping traffic that, the Suez Canal Authority says, will cut transit time by seven hours. But plenty […]

There has been no shortage of buzz about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s activist foreign policy since he took office in May 2014. He has visited a number of countries in India’s immediate neighborhood, expanding India’s “Look East” policy by looking north to Central Asia. He has boosted ties in Europe, traveling to France, Germany and Russia; and the Middle East, hosting Gulf leaders in New Delhi; in addition to visits for bilateral meetings and multilateral summits from Australia and Japan to Brazil and the United States. All in all, he has brought renewed vigor to India’s foreign policy concerns […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Neil Bhatiya is filling in for Michael Cohen, who will return next week. On Monday, President Barack Obama unveiled the final version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) rules. The new regulations, a tweak to initial rules that had been released in June 2014, are meant to provide the framework for individual U.S. states in meeting emissions-reduction goals in their electricity sectors. In forecasting a 32 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels, the plan relies on incentivizing the adoption of low-carbon energy sources nationwide, especially solar and wind power. As […]

On Tuesday, a prominent human rights activist and critic of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza was shot and seriously injured by gunmen on motorbikes in the capital, Bujumbura. The attack comes days after a powerful general and close ally of Nkurunziza was shot and killed Sunday. These are just the latest events in what has been a tense and often violent several months following Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term in April. Many in Burundi deemed that move unconstitutional, and breakaway members of the military attempted a failed coup in May. As many observers predicted, Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a […]

Colombia’s conflict has always looked different from the vantage point of the jungles, mountains and plains of the country’s most forgotten corners. This is “the other Colombia”: a country of extreme poverty, underdevelopment and state neglect, where Marxist guerrillas have fought the military to a stalemate in over half a century of conflict—and where the peace agreement those rebels are currently negotiating will face its toughest tests. “The country still has these ‘black holes,’ where the state has no monopoly on arms, where there is no institutional presence, no authorities, not even a military presence,” said Orlando de Jesus Avila […]