Global Archive

United Nations-led efforts to forge a global cease-fire are gaining momentum, as dozens of parties to conflicts around the world have joined Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call to lay down their arms amid the coronavirus pandemic. The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote soon on a resolution codifying the global cease-fire, although disputes among the U.S., China and Russia—all veto-wielding permanent members of the council—could still impede the process. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, long-time U.N. watcher and WPR contributor Richard Gowan joins Elliot Waldman for a conversation about conflict resolution and peacemaking efforts amid the pandemic. Gowan […]

Competition over scarce natural resources is often a key driver of the tensions that fuel armed conflict in different corners of the world. Yet in the heat of battle, environmental considerations are often relegated to afterthoughts, as smoke from burning buildings clouds the skies and toxic byproducts of munitions poison the soil and groundwater. As former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in 2014, “The environment has long been a silent casualty of war and armed conflict.” Conflict-related environmental damage directly and indirectly affects the wellbeing of nearby civilians by threatening their health, ecosystems, livelihoods and economies. Accordingly, humanitarian organizations […]

“We are at war,” French President Emmanuel Macron stressed while announcing a nationwide lockdown last month. He was not alone in his choice of rhetoric, as leaders around the world have invoked battlefield metaphors to galvanize national responses to the coronavirus pandemic. The drama of the analogy certainly makes it a convenient political instrument to justify radical state-led interventions. Yet it also blurs the differences between the current public health crisis and an actual war. During an armed conflict, militaries face human opponents with wills of their own, but there is no such enemy during this pandemic—only an unfeeling virus. […]

As the global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continues to mount, so does the economic wreckage. Millions more people are joining the already swollen ranks of the unemployed this week, and oil prices continued their historic rout. China’s GDP contracted for the first time in nearly half a century during the first three months of this year, and the International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will shrink by around 3 percent in 2020. Of course, governments and central banks around the world are doing whatever they can to contain the fallout. But will it be enough? For […]

President Donald Trump justified his recent announcement that the U.S. would halt further payments to the World Health Organization by claiming that “the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion” about the coronavirus pandemic. This charge has been widely rebutted by global health experts and practitioners. WHO representatives, journalists and academics have all demonstrated that the organization was doing what it could through diplomatic channels with Beijing to get updated information about the novel coronavirus that first emerged in central China and has since spread around the world. Contrary to Trump’s accusations, […]

As a teenager, I watched in confusion as my father, a successful chest surgeon who specialized in infant care, went back to school to gain an advanced degree in public health. This required easing himself out of a job that had always impressed me with its heroics, often literally saving a life or two each week. When my father patiently explained the rationale, I gradually came to not only accept it but admire it, for its logic and even nobility. No matter how hard he worked, in the operating room he could only help a few people each week. But […]

This Wednesday, most of us will commemorate the 50th Earth Day not by frolicking in nature but by hunkering down in the comforts of our built environment. That’s a pity, because it’s pretty out there. Suddenly blue skies and cleaner water are showing us what a healthier environment might look like, if only our governments took decisive action to decarbonize the global economy and if we stopped running down the natural capital assets upon which our prosperity and indeed survival depend. Beyond a chance to daydream of a greener future, our current quarantine provides an apt moment to reflect on […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the things we previously took for granted, didn’t sufficiently appreciate or simply didn’t know—whether on a national or international level—that the coronavirus pandemic has brought into sharper focus. 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 three more complimentary articles in our weekly roundup […]

The dusty border town of Taftan in western Pakistan is a frequent stopover for religious pilgrims. Many members of the country’s Shiite minority pass through it en route to visit holy sites in neighboring Iran. But after Iran emerged as one of the countries hit hardest by the coronavirus, the Pakistani government set up a quarantine camp in Taftan to prevent further movement, inadvertently turning the town into an epicenter for the spread of COVID-19. Testing in the camp is sporadic at best, while health facilities are abysmal. Many pilgrims reportedly paid bribes to escape back into Pakistan, and as […]

During normal times, if the world’s petroleum producers announced an agreement to slash output, oil prices would immediately spike. During normal times, lower crude prices would boost economic growth. During normal times, low oil prices might be reason to celebrate. But if there is one fact we can agree on, it is that these are not normal times. The global economic crisis triggered by efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic has not only upended some of the patterns we had grown accustomed to—it has also revealed that many long-standing preconceptions have become outdated. That is evident in the dramatic shifts […]

One of the many challenges facing governments and businesses during a disaster is ensuring the steady supply of food and other essential items. People’s natural impulses to stock up in preparation for shortages often kick in at the same time that complex supply chains are coming under immense strain. Add to this the direct impacts of COVID-19 on workers in the food industry and the export restrictions on agricultural products that some governments have put into place to ensure that their own populations stay well-fed, and you’ve potentially got the makings of a looming food security crisis. Robyn Metcalfe, a […]

At a time when global cooperation is desperately needed, it seems to be scarcer than ever. G-20 leaders have effectively given up on trying to coordinate a global response to the coronavirus pandemic. Countries are beggaring their neighbors with export restrictions on medicines and food, and scrambling to snatch up medical supplies where they remain available. Among the various closures and cancellations to try to contain the spread of COVID-19, the World Trade Organization announced in March that it was cancelling the biennial ministerial meeting scheduled for June in Kazakhstan. The cancellation of a WTO ministerial meeting has barely registered […]

For those still curious about the meaning of gaslighting, look no further than President Donald Trump’s verbal assault on the World Health Organization last week. In a flagrant attempt to divert attention from his own poor performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump excoriated the WHO for alleged delays and dysfunction in its global response. Beyond its immediate details, the episode offered a textbook example of how conservative U.S. politicians curry favor with their sovereignty-minded constituencies by treating multilateral organizations as pinatas and scapegoats during crises. To recap, the president unloaded on the WHO on April 7, first on Twitter and […]

Jean Palou of the Chilean daily El Mercurio interviewed WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, by email last week for an article on the prospects for multilateralism and global governance institutions during and after the coronavirus pandemic. Grunstein outlined the challenges to the international system that predated the pandemic; why global governance still matters, even if it has been hampered; and the major questions going forward as the next phase of this global crisis unfolds. The following is the full transcript. El Mercurio: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called the coronavirus pandemic the most challenging crisis since the organization’s founding after […]

In the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the odds were never in Taiwan’s favor. An island just 80 miles off the coast of China, it has extensive business and cultural ties with the mainland, where hundreds of thousands of its citizens live or work. The first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan just before the Lunar New Year holiday, a busy travel season for millions of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. When researchers from Johns Hopkins University modeled the projected contagion of the virus in January, they assessed that Taiwan had […]

In times of hardship and uncertainty, many people tend to assume the worst-case scenario—or at least plan for it. Followers of the Survivalist movement have taken this idea to an extreme, creating a lifestyle from the perceived inevitability of disaster—be it nuclear war, natural disaster or global pandemic. Inherent in this worldview is the idea that in times of extreme duress, our treasured social bonds break down and we revert to a kind of Hobbesian state of nature, competing with other humans for scarce resources. Dan Gardner, a journalist, author and senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School […]

Editor’s Note: WPR has made this article, as well as a selection of others from our COVID-19 coverage that we consider to be in the public interest, freely available. You can find all of our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. If you would like to help support our work, please consider taking advantage of our subscription offer here. The Chinese government first reported “cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology” to the World Health Organization on Dec. 31, 2019. A week later, the new virus responsible for the disease outbreak was identified. Less than 100 days later, we no longer […]