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A car-ramming attack outside the Parliament building in London yesterday highlights the ways in which terrorism and our reactions to it have radically shifted in the almost 20 years since 9/11. If London police end up confirming that the incident was in fact an act of terror, it will be the latest in a series of banal, low-tech attacks that have barely elicited a collective shrug. Of course, part of that has to do with the fact that no lives were lost and no serious injuries reported. And the fact that many aspiring terrorists are reduced to weaponizing cars, trucks […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR’s newsletter and engagement editor, Benjamin Wilhelm, curates the top news and analysis from China written by the experts who follow it. The repression of China’s Uighur ethnic minority has been Beijing’s worst-kept secret for years. There have been plenty of reports of crackdowns in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, with this 2012 briefing from WPR just one example. More recently, details of an emerging surveillance state in Xinjiang have been filling Western media outlets. But despite the available information, China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims has largely remained off the international agenda. It remains to […]

The ongoing crackdown by security forces in Nicaragua against anti-government demonstrators has left hundreds dead and thousands wounded, causing many Nicaraguans to flee to neighboring Costa Rica. According to the Costa Rican government, around 17,000 Nicaraguans have presented asylum applications or have appointments to do so in the coming weeks, taxing the resources of a small country that has historically been friendly to migrants from Central America and beyond. In an email interview, Caitlin Fouratt, an anthropologist and professor at California State University, Long Beach who conducts research among migrants and refugees in Costa Rica, discusses the political, budgetary and […]

While the U.S.-China trade war has been getting the headlines, investors from China are running into resistance in countries around the world, including the United States. Typically, governments welcome foreign investment, especially local governments, as a mechanism to create—or save—jobs, reinvigorate their economies and gain access to new technologies. Growing investment outflows from China, however, are pushing some national governments to take a more skeptical look at Chinese money. In a measure aimed primarily at China, Congress strengthened the ability of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, to review and block transactions that might […]

No stranger to political controversy, the International Monetary Fund may soon find itself embroiled in one that pits China’s interests against those of the United States. Beijing’s hugely ambitious international development project, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, is raising fears of debt crises in the developing world, and the IMF may be called in to clean up the mess. The U.S. is poised to oppose any IMF deal providing funds that would ultimately go to pay off Belt and Road-related tabs. How the IMF handles this situation could give clues about how the institution will deal with competing […]

The Islamic State’s eagerness to profit from antiquities focused global attention on the illicit trafficking of cultural property. Yet the world’s understanding of how such trafficking unfolds remains limited. Today, thanks to Facebook and other social media tools, it is easier than ever to participate in a booming black market antiquities trade. The instability that followed the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011 has given rise to some of the most devastating conflicts the Middle East has ever seen. Syria and Iraq, in particular, have suffered from the dismantling of state infrastructure and the expansion of terrorist and violent extremist […]

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese Minister for Economic Revitalization Toshimitsu Motegi ended two days of “productive talks” last week and signaled they would hold another round in September. With significant gaps remaining on key issues and much at stake in the bilateral economic relationship, the next phase of talks could be an important turning point for the two allies. Negotiators are aiming to further bridge the divide on issues like auto tariffs and Japanese market access for American exports before a likely meeting next month between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a feasible but challenging […]

After seven years of war in Syria, the endgame is here. All major frontlines have been frozen by foreign intervention, and military action now hinges on externally brokered political deals. The result could be a de facto division of the country. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Russian-backed forces spent the past two years taking out isolated rebel strongholds, like Eastern Aleppo and Ghouta. Recently, they recaptured the area along the border with Jordan and territory near the Golan Heights—but at that point, they ran out of low-hanging fruit. The sight of Russian diplomats shuttling between Israelis, Syrians, Iranians and Americans to […]

With the 10th anniversary of the Global Financial Crisis just around the corner, the media will spend much of the rest of 2018 rehashing the story of the 2008 economic meltdown and its implications for the world today. There will be a surge of opinion pieces pegged to the demise of Lehman Brothers, the pivotal moment in the crisis, in the middle of September. Analysts will chart the near collapse of the global economy and speculate about how this paved the way for the rise of Donald Trump, Brexit and a grab-bag of other global ills. Fewer pundits will emphasize […]

Reports out of Washington suggest that the Pentagon is considering cutting U.S. counterterrorism operations in West and Central Africa, redirecting the special operations forces there to instead prepare for big wars. In one sense, this is perfectly normal—the Department of Defense constantly adjusts its posture and procedures as security threats evolve. But in this case, downsizing America’s military commitment to Africa may signal something bigger, indicating that President Donald Trump believes it is time to take his administration’s foot off the gas in the global conflict with violent jihadism. Following the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush committed the United […]

Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party now utterly dominate Cambodia, after the CPP won control of the entire lower house of parliament in elections late last month. The regime had, of course, ensured in advance that the CPP would sweep the vote, the culmination of Hun Sen’s increasingly brazen repression. There were few if any impartial observers on election day. With Cambodia’s political regression all but complete, what is left for the remnants of the opposition? How will key international donors and foreign countries respond, and what’s next for Hun Sen himself? The Cambodia National Rescue Party, […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the implications of renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran and a new round of tariffs against Chinese imports. For the Report, Leila Beratto talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Algeria’s campaign of mass expulsions targeting migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, and why it has rights activists and neighboring countries up in arms. 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 your […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. After keeping his country in suspense for well over three years, Congolese President Joseph Kabila finally made clear this week that he does not intend to run for a third term. Government spokesman Lambert Mende announced the decision on Wednesday, the last day for candidates to file papers with the election commission. Kabila’s term officially ended in December 2016. But well before that, beginning in January 2015, Congo had been hit with periodic protests organized by government critics who […]

On Aug. 2, Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, posted a statement on Twitter criticizing the arrest of a prominent female activist in Saudi Arabia, Samar Badawi, one of several civil society activists, many of them women, to be detained recently in the kingdom. The next day, Canada’s Foreign Ministry posted another critical tweet, calling on Saudi authorities “to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists.” The Saudis quickly responded by expelling the Canadian ambassador and halting all pending trade and commercial agreements, and the spat is still escalating. So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to shift […]

Three days before Ivan Duque was sworn in as Colombia’s new president on Tuesday, a scene of cinematic mayhem unfolded in neighboring Venezuela. On Saturday, President Nicolas Maduro was delivering a speech at a military parade in Caracas when the formations suddenly scattered in a flurry of panic. Armed drones reportedly packed with explosives had detonated near the reviewing stand in what looked like an attempt on the president’s life. Barely three hours later, Maduro, who was not hurt, went on television to make a stunning accusation. The attack, he claimed, could be traced to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, […]

“Over whatever number of years we have put about $80 billion into Egypt. Most of the time, this is the kind of government they had—almost all of the time. And the reality is, no matter how much I wish it was different, it ain’t going to be different tomorrow.” These words, spoken by former Secretary of State John Kerry to The New York Times’ David Kirkpatrick, are unfortunately all too accurate. Egypt is in the depths of a resurgent authoritarianism that has thoroughly crushed any possibility for political opening or reform, no matter how incremental. Kerry was correct in his […]

After it was ratified by the Knesset on July 19, Israel’s so-called nation-state bill, designed to define the state more exclusively on ethnically Jewish lines, joined the short list of Basic Laws that make up the country’s ersatz constitution. A photo of grinning Knesset members from the right-wing Likud party, commemorating the occasion by gathering for a selfie around a smirking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quickly went viral. It took a few days for the smiles to fade, as leading members of Netanyahu’s coalition began to experience buyer’s remorse. Much to their surprise, Israel’s ethnic minorities—specifically, the Druze community, renowned […]