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Like all elections, South Africa’s upcoming national vote on May 8—the country’s fifth ballot since the end of apartheid—will see rival parties waging a struggle to control the narrative and frame the contest in the best possible terms. Given the change in the leadership of the ruling African National Congress in December 2017, that means much of the campaign will focus on President Cyril Ramaphosa and the extent to which he is delivering his promised “new dawn” in South Africa following what he has called the “nine lost years” of Jacob Zuma. Restoring the sense of mission and idealism that […]

On March 27, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the airwaves to make a dramatic announcement: India had successfully shot down one of its own satellites in low-Earth orbit with a missile. Only three other countries have demonstrated that capability: Russia, China and the United States. “India stands tall as a space power,” Modi declared, noting that the technology had been developed indigenously. But Modi’s glee at this demonstration of his country’s technological prowess was not shared by many space experts, who caution that the debris created by the missile test poses a threat to other satellites and spacecraft […]

For critics of U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy, there is little more to do at this point than wait and hope: wait for the 2020 election, and hope that U.S. voters opt to replace him as president. But even in a best-case scenario in which America rejects Trump’s counterproductive “America First” agenda in 2020, the next president will face the daunting task of digging out from the ruins Trump will leave behind—and that’s assuming he does no further damage in the intervening two years. That will not mean returning to the status quo ante, nor necessarily should […]

BARCELONA, Spain—For the past two years, millions of women and men across Spain have joined in a general strike and protest to mark International Women’s Day, on March 8, pressing for women’s rights and gender equality. Last year, the sheer scale of the demonstrations was stunning, with an estimated 5.3 million Spaniards participating in workplace walkouts. Now, it looks like they will be a yearly occurrence. Not since the anti-austerity protests of the indignados in 2011, which gave rise to a new political party, the far-left Podemos, have so many Spaniards taken to the streets. With a general election planned […]

The Philippines is set to hold congressional, provincial and local elections on May 13, midway through President Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year term. The polls are widely seen as a referendum on the controversial but still-popular Duterte, who has drawn international condemnation for his repressive tactics and his brutal war on drugs. The key battleground in next month’s elections is the 24-seat Senate, where Duterte-backed candidates are poised to win a majority of the 12 seats up for grabs. In an interview with WPR, Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, discusses the outlook for the elections, […]

Since Abiy Ahmed became prime minister of Ethiopia a year ago, domestic and foreign observers have heavily scrutinized his political reforms and, especially, the peace deal he reached last year with Eritrea. But the changes he’s introduced extend farther afield. On the foreign policy front, Abiy has demonstrated a willingness to engage with wealthy Middle Eastern countries on the other side of the Red Sea, dismissing his predecessors’ wariness of becoming entangled in the region’s politics. Evidence of this engagement was first apparent in the role that Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, played in brokering the Eritrea peace deal. It […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Hong Kong’s government introduced revised extradition legislation last Wednesday, going ahead with plans to ease the handover of fugitives to jurisdictions that it does not have extradition treaties with, including China, Taiwan and Macau. Human rights groups and lawyers’ associations in Hong Kong have protested the move, saying that Beijing could use extradition as a weapon against political dissidents or anyone else its justice system deems criminal. Mainland China was deliberately excluded from Hong Kong’s 1997 extradition law, passed […]

When the European Commission recently attempted to blacklist 23 countries that it accuses of maintaining deficient systems to restrict money laundering and terrorism financing, a technocratic spat quickly escalated into a diplomatic dispute. Though only one element of sweeping reforms intended to strengthen the European Union’s own anti-money laundering regime, the list not only had the predictable effect of enraging countries included on it—such as Saudi Arabia and three U.S. territories—but also provoked insurmountable criticism from within the EU itself. The list was ultimately rejected by 27 of 28 member states after a fierce lobbying campaign, forcing the European Commission […]

President Donald Trump likes to claim that the tariffs he has imposed on steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels and a variety of other imports are forcing foreigners to pay for the privilege of selling their goods in the American market. But what does the data say? Are American firms and consumers in fact paying the price? Two new empirical studies shed light on the answer, and, unfortunately for the president, neither one supports his position. The authors of these studies have carefully parsed the data and analyzed the distribution of the tariffs’ costs—internationally and among various groups and regions […]

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia—Since protests swept 42-year-old Abiy Ahmed into power as Ethiopia’s prime minister a year ago, the country has undertaken a dramatic series of changes. Abiy has ended Ethiopia’s two-decade conflict with its neighbor Eritrea, introduced ambitious reforms designed to lessen repression, and vowed to organize Ethiopia’s first free and fair elections. Taken together, these developments from Africa’s youngest head of state amount to an attempted revolution from within Ethiopia’s long-ruling coalition. As Ethiopia remakes itself at home under Abiy, it is also forging a new set of ties with wealthy Middle Eastern nations across the Red Sea, breaking […]

Comoros’ Supreme Court has certified President Azali Assoumani as the winner of last month’s presidential election with 59 percent of the vote, despite protests from the opposition and serious flaws in the voting process. At least three people were killed in a failed uprising at a military base several days after the election, prompting the United States to withdraw its personnel from the islands. Meanwhile, the opposition has been decimated by a campaign of arrests and intimidation, says Simon Massey, a senior lecturer in international relations at Coventry University. In an interview with WPR, he discusses the possibility of further […]

President Donald Trump announced late last month that he is cutting off $450 million in U.S. aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, delivering on a previous threat amid news that another migrant caravan was forming in Central America. The move has drawn significant criticism, even from within Trump’s administration. The aid is largely used for social, economic and governance development programs that many consider to be an effective, long-term solution to underlying issues—such as violence, poverty and corruption—that are driving people out of their home countries and toward the United States. Perhaps not unexpectedly, Trump’s attempt to reconcile these […]

The world is losing its battle against climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions rose to record levels last year, as countries lagged in meeting their already inadequate pledges under the Paris Agreement. Based on the current trajectory, the warming Earth will blow well past the 2-degrees Celsius ceiling widely agreed to be the maximum acceptable increase in average global temperatures before catastrophic impacts set in. In the face of this looming threat, climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts are necessary but insufficient. Humanity must also consider a third option it has long resisted: geoengineering, or the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the […]

The annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women was held over the course of two weeks last month in New York. Established in 1946, the commission is the largest global forum on gender equality and women’s rights. It provides an opportunity for representatives from U.N. member states, international organizations and civil society groups to take stock of recent progress and assess unfinished business in advancing gender equality around the world. This year’s commission meeting, which included a record number of attendees, was focused on social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure to […]

The unexpected outburst of popular opposition to the regime long in power in Algeria has stimulated a renewed conversation about the dramatic tidal wave of change in the Middle East in 2011 known as the Arab Spring. The conventional view has been that cascading protests toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but then fizzled out. Egypt returned to its previous strongman system, only one that was even worse than before. Libya, along with Yemen, got stuck in incomplete transitions that led to state failures and armed conflict, exacerbated by outside interference. And Syria is only now, eight years later, […]

Foreign policy rarely plays a major role in U.S. presidential elections. The United States has always been an insular nation. Particularly for people in the American heartland, the world’s troubles seem far away. The connectivity of the modern world and the globalization of terrorism have challenged that insularity, but even so, national elections seldom pivot on international affairs. 2020 could be different: Debates over American foreign policy and national security could sway enough undecided voters to tip the scales, and the political battle lines are already forming. As Alex Ward pointed out in Vox, President Donald Trump is likely to […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman discuss the resignation of Algeria’s aging president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The move follows massive demonstrations that have brought hundreds of thousands of Algerians into the streets to demand Bouteflika’s removal, but also broader political reforms. Amid questions about the shape of Algeria’s future, WPR’s editors discuss the prospects for political renewal there and elsewhere in the region, and the implications for U.S. policy toward the Middle East. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and […]