Caribbean Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, discuss the U.S. military presence in the Sahel, after the deaths of four American Army Special Forces operators in Niger. For the Report, William LeoGrande talks with Andrew Green about Cuba’s upcoming leadership transition and whether a new generation of political leaders can satisfy Cubans’ growing expectations for economic reform without a Castro in charge for the first time since the revolution. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think […]

On Nov. 26, Cubans will go to the polls to elect delegates to 168 municipal assemblies, the first step in an electoral process that will culminate next February when the National Assembly, Cuba’s parliament, will select a new president. In 2013, when Raul Castro pledged not to seek a third term, he also imposed a two-term limit for all senior government and Communist Party leadership positions. That means the succession will replace not only Castro but almost all the remaining members of the “historical generation” who fought to overthrow Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship in 1959. The changing of the guard comes […]

The hurricanes that swept through the Caribbean last month were a stark reminder of the vulnerability of its small island states to events largely outside their control. In recent years, Caribbean countries have entered a new era of economic and environmental instability entirely different in scope from what they endured only a decade ago at the height of the global financial crisis, which hit many islands hard given their dependence on trade, tourism and investment from the United States. Climate change and the shifting effects of globalization are significant new obstacles to their continued growth. With the earth’s climate beginning […]