Asia-Pacific Archive

Americans have been riveted to the tales of tragedy and human suffering caused by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana. Half a world away, monsoon season flooding at even more epic levels has resulted in great loss of life, property damage and health challenges for communities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The economics and cultural dimensions of the two cases are profoundly different, but the acute policy and governance demands related to climate and resilience are not that dissimilar. Monsoons in South Asia often produce heart-wrenching images of water-engulfed villages and desperate families seeking shelter and food. […]

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s devastating military defeats in 1991 and 2003 demonstrated that taking on the U.S. military in conventional battles is a very bad idea. Knowing that, some of America’s adversaries, like Russia and Iran, turned to what security experts call the “gray zone”—methods that relied on proxy forces, psychological warfare and other provocations at a level that would not compel U.S. intervention. Extremist groups like al-Qaida, the Taliban and the self-styled Islamic State cannot muster the resources for full-on gray zone aggression even if they wanted to. This has forced them to rely on insurgency instead. Luckily […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about education policy in various countries around the world. New Zealand has produced a high-quality and decentralized education system, but its colonial past is still present in the disparities of achievement among students. Today, the descendants of white, European colonialists far exceed their indigenous Maori and Pasifika peers. In an email interview, Sarah Bolton, a 2017 Ian Axford fellow in public policy and Fulbright scholar examining educational inequality in New Zealand, explains the inherent opportunities and challenges facing the country’s schools and the importance New Zealand has placed on environmental […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editors, Robbie Corey-Boulet and Omar Rahman, discuss the recent cut in U.S. aid to Egypt and what’s behind French President Emmanuel Macron’s outreach to Africa. For the Report, Shreen Saroor and Mytili Bala talk with Peter Dörrie about stalled transitional justice in Sri Lanka and the fate of thousands of people who were abducted or disappeared before, during and after the country’s long civil war. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our […]