Domestic Politics Archive

Ahead of a potential meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, recent statements from Washington and Pyongyang have veered wildly in tone and substance, moving from conciliatory to combative and back again. Yet the latest head-spinning developments follow several months of seemingly steady progress toward a potential breakthrough on the Korean Peninsula. The following 10 WPR articles trace that remarkable shift and also describe the risks for both sides going forward. The following 10 articles are free for nonsubscribers until June 14. Making Nice Will the Spirit of Korean Reunification Linger After the Olympics? […]

Last month, authorities in Italy requested a formal investigation of five French border patrol agents in the Alps who entered Italy to perform an unauthorized drug test on a Nigerian citizen, in what the authorities say was a violation of Italian sovereignty. It was just the latest episode in months-long tensions at the French-Italian border near Col de l’Echelle, or Colle Della Scala, a high mountain pass in northwestern Italy that has become a popular route for migrants trying to enter into France. In March, a volunteer mountain guide on the French side of the border was charged with facilitating […]

Now that the tide in the Syrian civil war appears to have definitely turned in favor of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, one of the key factors that will shape Syria’s future is the precise nature and durability of the relationship between the two countries that saved Assad from collapse: Iran and Russia. Tehran and Moscow worked together to bolster Assad, but the character of their ad hoc alliance has always remained a bit of a mystery. They each, for their own purposes, wanted the regime in Damascus to survive. Beyond that, it has never been clear just how committed Russian […]

LOME, Togo—A pediatric inpatient ward in the Sylvanus Olimpio University Teaching Hospital of Lome, the capital of Togo, sat vacant for much of February. The water had stopped running, and staff were short several supplies: a pair of scissors, a rolling cart, a blood pressure cuff to fit children’s arms. Nurses packed patients into a separate ward, where they could be prepared for discharge before hospital staff went on strike again. The smallest patients lay three to a bed, their mothers waiting on makeshift stools for a doctor. The more desperate wandered the complex in search of help. A woman […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. May has been a tough month for press freedom in Cambodia. On May 5, the Phnom Penh Post, an independent newspaper often critical of the Cambodian government, was sold to a Malaysian investor with links to Prime Minister Hun Sen. And on May 18, a court refused to release two Radio Free Asia reporters who have been held in pretrial detention for six months on charges of espionage. In an email interview, Sebastian Strangio, a journalist focusing on Southeast […]

Thieves mugged tourists in front of their swanky, beachfront hotels. Gang members traded gunfire with police, sending partygoers into a panic. A police officer was assaulted by multiple people right outside his home. This year’s celebrations for Carnival, which marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar, brought global attention to mounting insecurity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s iconic coastal city that boasts a population of around 6 million. Fogo Cruzado, or Cross Fire, an app created by Amnesty International Brazil to monitor crime in Rio, recorded 24 deaths by guns during the seven-day period, as well as a […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to cancel his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. They also weigh in on Italy’s new populist government. For the Report, Simon Allison talks with Robbie about Zimbabwe, which is gearing up for elections later this year, the first in the post-Mugabe era. New leaders from both the government and opposition are finding their feet, though they’re haunted by familiar problems. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read […]

For months, Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, has been hounded by a short, harsh refrain: Boua ka bla. In Bambara, the West African country’s most widely spoken language, the words mean, roughly, “The old man must give up.” In the context of Malian politics, they articulate a clear demand that Keita, who is 73, leave office when his term expires this year. In songs and at rallies, the phrase has been taken up by a host of government critics. The most prominent among them is the activist and radio personality Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, popularly known as “Ras Bath,” who the […]

Last Friday, the International Monetary Fund formally opened negotiations with Argentina for a financial bailout, after a run on the Argentine peso drove its value down by roughly 20 percent against the dollar between January and the beginning of May. The financial crisis comes against the backdrop of Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s unpopular economic reforms, which have so far struggled to deliver promised results. In an email interview, Bruno Binetti, a Buenos Aires-based nonresident fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses the causes of the financial crisis, and the economic and political implications of an IMF bailout for Argentina and Macri. […]

There was never any doubt about who would win Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela. The lead-up was so patently undemocratic that even before the vote took place, the results were rejected as illegitimate by a large number of countries, including the United States, Canada, the entire European Union and a dozen of Venezuela’s neighbors in Latin America. That, however, was hardly the end of the challenge for the international community and, more crucially, for Latin American countries growing more worried about the impact of Venezuela’s social and economic collapse on them. The aftermath of the election has unleashed a torrent […]

Last week, thousands of women marched through Santiago, Chile, in a demonstration organized by university students to protest sexual harassment and violence against women on campus. The demonstration followed an even larger one the previous Friday protesting violence against women. In an email interview, Kirsten Sehnbruch, an associate researcher at the Universidad de Chile and the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion, and Patricio Espinoza, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute, discuss the current protests and how they fit into Chile’s broader student and feminist movements. World Politics Review: What […]

A new attorney general took office in Guatemala last week amid sharp tensions over the role of a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission that has helped bring high-profile charges against some of the country’s most powerful politicians. Maria Consuelo Porras, a former substitute judge for Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, will run the country’s Public Ministry and direct its criminal, human rights and anti-corruption investigations. The outgoing attorney general, Thelma Aldana, and her predecessor, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, showed impressive leadership and independence in investigating and prosecuting these sorts of cases. Now their enemies want those advances reversed. Across Central America, public […]

In his first major policy address since becoming secretary of state, Mike Pompeo on Monday outlined the Trump administration’s “Plan B” for dealing with Iran now that the U.S. has decided to no longer comply with the terms of the nuclear deal it negotiated with Tehran and five other world powers in 2015. At the heart of Pompeo’s approach is a list of 12 demands that Iran would have to meet in exchange for the U.S. concluding a formal Senate-ratified treaty guaranteeing Iran’s unfettered return to the global economy. As far as demands for international behavior go, Pompeo’s are reasonable: […]

A distance of more than 400 kilometers separates Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, from Bulawayo, the country’s second-largest city and industrial center. Unless you can afford a plane ticket, and most Zimbabweans can’t, the best way to travel between the two is to drive six or seven hours on a narrow highway, often longer if you hit a pothole, a police roadblock or a traffic jam. There is also a train that links the two cities, but it is in a state of considerable disrepair, running slowly and never on time. Nelson Chamisa wants to do the trip in just half an […]

Egypt and Israel have a shared interest in the defeat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate. But when that offshoot—which calls itself Wilayat Sinai, or Sinai Province—is snuffed out, what happens next in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula is unclear, and the interests of these allies of convenience begin to diverge. Since 2011, jihadi militants in Egypt’s North Sinai governorate, who declared their allegiance to the Islamic State in November 2014, have threatened the security of both Egypt and Israel. Before joining the Islamic State, one of the jihadis’ goals was driving a wedge between the two neighboring states. Through […]

To judge by much of the expert commentary so far, last week’s parliamentary elections in Iraq were a setback for the United States. The winning coalition, led by the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has been viewed as anti-American—but also not quite pro-Iranian, given Sadr’s reinvention as an Iraqi nationalist. The affable incumbent, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, came in third, behind an explicitly pro-Iranian coalition. It usually takes Iraq many months of bargaining to actually form a new government. In the 2014 elections, it took about four months; in 2010, it took nearly nine months. So it isn’t yet clear who will […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss Israel’s lethal response to the Gaza protests, the latest surprise developments in North Korean diplomacy and Venezuela’s presidential election. For the Report, Julia Steers talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza’s violent campaign to silence his opponents at home and abroad, against the backdrop of a constitutional referendum this week that could keep him in office through 2034. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our […]