Domestic Politics Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. On Tuesday, Chinese officials abruptly announced that most of the Uighur Muslims held in detention camps in the country’s western Xinjiang region had been released. The claim—which was not supported by any evidence and almost immediately challenged by inmates’ relatives, foreign governments and human rights groups—marks another step in China’s efforts to deflect international criticism of its repressive policies in Xinjiang, where at least 1 million Uighurs are believed to be incarcerated. Describing the detention facilities as “education and […]

Earlier this month, Sudan’s ruling military council and the opposition pro-democracy movement reached agreement on the broad outlines of a power-sharing deal. The document lays out a three-year roadmap toward free elections and permanent civilian rule. But the two sides have yet to agree on key details, and the opposition is continuing to demand accountability for a bloody crackdown by the military in June that left more than 100 people dead. In a sign of the process’ shakiness, a planned negotiating round was canceled this week in response to the killing of five schoolchildren by security forces during a peaceful […]

On July 26, the Federal High Court in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, banned the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, or IMN, saying that its activities constitute “terrorism and illegality.” The court order, which the IMN can appeal, came at the attorney general’s request amid repeated clashes in recent weeks between the IMN and security forces. Although observers have speculated about the possibility of the IMN, Nigeria’s largest Shiite organization, becoming “a second Boko Haram,” it appears unlikely to turn into an underground insurgency. There are still opportunities for the federal government to deescalate the situation, and even if it fails to do […]

Late last year, a decree abolishing humanitarian protections for migrants in Italy became law. Pushed by far-right leader Matteo Salvini as part of a crackdown on migrants and refugees, the law threatens to drive Italy’s migrant community further to the margins as anti-immigrant sentiment rises across the country. ROME—Things were looking up for 21-year-old Gambian migrant Lamin Saidykhan in early November 2018. Two years after arriving in Italy via a dangerous journey across the Mediterranean, he had finally been granted humanitarian protection status by the Italian government, which would allow him to legally stay and work in the country for […]

After 20 years of on-and-off negotiations, leaders from the European Union and South America’s Mercosur trade bloc announced late last month that they had reached a sweeping trade agreement encompassing 800 million people and almost a quarter of the global economy. Hailed on both sides of the Atlantic as a “landmark,” the accord must still be ratified by the negotiating parties’ legislatures, and it faces stiff opposition in key European countries like France and Ireland as well as in the four Mercosur member states of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. In an email interview with WPR, Bruno Binetti, a Buenos […]

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador does not waste time with mundane political rhetoric. Long before he won the presidency on his third attempt, a year ago this month, the man better known in Mexico as AMLO had already gained a reputation for setting sky-high expectations. The leftist veteran of Mexican politics hailed his administration as ushering in the country’s “fourth transformation”—the previous three being events no less groundbreaking than its Declaration of Independence in 1810, the War of Reform, which led to the separation of church and state in the mid-19th century, and the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Yet […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein; managing editor, Frederick Deknatel; and associate editor, Laura Weiss, talk about Boris Johnson’s investiture as the U.K.’s new prime minister. They also look at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s four-country tour of Latin America and the surprisingly warm reception he received. 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 inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus […]

Uruguay, the small country wedged between South American giants Brazil and Argentina, has become something of a leftist icon in Latin America, albeit a calmer, more restrained one. While other countries caught up in the now-receding “pink tide”—both Brazil and Argentina, plus Venezuela, Ecuador and elsewhere—fell under the spell of charismatic populists, Uruguay engaged in politics and policies that have been decidedly short on leftist agitation. Instead, it was guided by a conciliatory and pragmatic progressivism, blazing trails without polarizing the nation. It is an approach that worked well for the governing coalition, the Broad Front, or FA, keeping it […]

KAMPALA, Uganda—His striking image adorns the rundown brick walls of the Kamwookya slum in Uganda’s capital. He looks like an icon watching over hawkers selling ripe papaya and watermelon and boda-boda-boys, or motorcycle taxis, racing down the dirt roads. The pop star-turned-opposition politician Bobi Wine, who was born Robert Kyagulanyi, grew up on these hardscrabble streets, before becoming a symbol of hope for many poor Ugandans—first in song and later in Parliament’s posh chambers. On July 24, the young parliamentarian formally announced that he would run for president in the 2021 elections. Wine had previously discussed his intention to challenge […]

In a major victory for LGBT rights, Botswana’s High Court moved last month to decriminalize homosexuality. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that a colonial-era law prohibiting “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature,” punishable by up to seven years in prison, was unconstitutional. The landmark decision was widely hailed by advocates who had been stung by a recent high-profile defeat in Kenya, where its High Court upheld sections of the penal code that outlaw consensual same-sex relations. More than 30 other countries in Africa have similar laws on the books, according to Human Rights Watch, but hopes […]

Unlike the torrid, slow-burning drama of Brexit in the United Kingdom or the head-spinning tweets that emanate daily from the Trump White House, politics in Japan has become staid and predictable. That was the unavoidable conclusion from last weekend, when Japanese voters went to the polls to elect members of the upper house of the Diet, the country’s legislature. As expected, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition retained its comfortable majority in the 245-seat House of Councillors, although it fell short of the two-thirds supermajority required to achieve Abe’s long-held goal of revising Japan’s constitution. The final tally showed Abe’s […]

In this week’s Trend Lines interview, WPR’s associate editor, Elliot Waldman, talks with Jake Sullivan about the damage being done to America’s global standing under Trump, how domestic issues tie in with the perception of the United States overseas, and the challenges Democrats face in crafting an effective foreign policy message as they vie to take Trump on in 2020. A former national security adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden and director of policy planning at the State Department, Sullivan is currently a visiting fellow at Dartmouth College. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve […]

The long-running Tory leadership contest has finally come to an end, producing the result that everybody expected all along: Boris Johnson has become the new leader of the British Conservative Party and, by extension, the 77th prime minister of the United Kingdom and 55th person to hold the office.* Johnson’s coronation is the culmination of a lifetime of inherited entitlement and personal ambition, a path to the premiership that began at Britain’s most elite private school and its most prestigious university, then passed via plum jobs in its right-wing press. Ever since he was elected mayor of London in 2008, […]

SDEROT, Israel—For the Ozeri family, as for many others in Sderot, a small Israeli town just half a mile from the Gaza Strip, the children’s bedrooms double as bomb shelters. That’s where Adina Ozeri, her husband and their five children all slept the weekend of May 4. Throughout that weekend, “Code Red” public address alerts pierced the air, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza fired over 600 rockets into Israel in a span of two days. Four Israeli civilians were killed and dozens wounded in this latest round of violence, including one man who left his bomb shelter for […]

Editor’s Note: Africa Watch will be off the next two weeks. It will return Aug. 9, with Andrew Green curating the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The Ebola outbreak that began in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo more than a year ago is now officially a global health emergency. The World Health Organization declared the epidemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC, after declining to do so on three previous occasions. The reconsideration followed the virus’ spread to the city of Goma, a major regional hub home to a million people. […]

La Paz, BOLIVIA—President Evo Morales wants Bolivia to become the “energy heart of Latin America,” producing many times more electricity than it consumes and exporting it all across the continent. The key to these grand ambitions will be hydroelectric power, with several megaprojects planned. But these dams are proving controversial for their social, environmental and economic consequences—and for the way the government is trying to push them through. There are three main projects at different stages of development. The Rio Madera complex is a set of four dams in the northeast of the country, near the border with Brazil; two […]

It might have seemed like a barely consequential item amid another torrent of breaking news. But word that President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, just attended the annual gathering of a controversial Iranian opposition group at its unlikely base in Albania should raise flags for many reasons, not least of which are concerns for Albania’s troubled and fragile democracy. If Albania is now unexpectedly drawn into one of today’s most dangerous geopolitical conflicts—the one pitting Iran against the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states—the timing couldn’t be worse. The country is in the midst of a full-blown political […]