Newsletter Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Incumbent President Peter Mutharika squeaked out a victory in Malawi’s presidential election last week, taking 38.5 percent of the vote in a seven-way race. With about 35.4 percent, opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera fell just short in an election that required only a simple plurality to win. In his acceptance speech Tuesday, Mutharika declared, “It is time to move on and develop the country,” according to The Associated Press. Easier said than done. Chakwera followed Mutharika’s speech by vowing to challenge the results […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Beijing, where he met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. The visit, part of an Asian tour to promote Iran’s economic engagement with the region amid intense sanctions pressure from the United States, led some to wonder whether China and Iran’s tensions with Washington are pushing them to increase their cooperation. At the beginning of the month, the U.S. ended sanctions waivers for eight countries that import Iranian […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. For months, Gabon’s government has been ensnared in “kevazingogate”—a scandal over the smuggling of protected timber. This week, the scandal appears to have cost the vice president and the forestry minister their jobs. The drama began earlier this year when nearly 5,000 cubic meters of kevazingo wood was discovered in the country’s Libreville port ready to be shipped to China. The problem is that President Ali Bongo’s government banned the export of kevazingo last year in a bid to protect the country’s […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. In the past year, U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a damaging trade war with Beijing, as well as an all-out assault against Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei. But tit-for-tat tariffs are hurting consumers and farmers, requiring sacrifices on the part of the American public. With no end in sight to the trade tensions, are American voters prepared to bear the costs of all-out economic war with China? This question could be central to Trump’s political fate, but Democratic candidates […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Sudan appeared to be inching closer to a transitional government this week, but renewed violence threatens to derail the talks. The military council, which currently holds power, and the opposition alliance, which is composed of protest leaders and opposition politicians, have agreed on a three-year period of transition to civilian rule. Under the terms of the agreement, the country will be run by a government that includes a sovereign council, a Cabinet and a legislative body. But the two sides remain at […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The trade war between China and the United States is heating up again, with no resolution in sight. As promised, U.S. President Donald Trump more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods Friday, the same day trade talks in Washington between Chinese and American negotiators ended without a deal. Beijing retaliated Monday by slapping higher tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods. With both sides dug in for a potentially lengthy battle, Beijing’s propaganda apparatus has called […]

Editor’s Note: Starting this week, Andrew Green is taking over Africa Watch, WPR’s weekly roundup of the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. South Africa went to the polls Wednesday for the fifth national election since the end of apartheid in 1994. The vote was largely seen as a referendum on the African National Congress, which has been the ruling party for the past quarter-century, and its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa. Official results are not due until Saturday, though early returns show the ANC is set to win, and that Ramaphosa will secure a full term […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The United States has offered its harshest assessment yet of the mass detention of Uighur Muslims in China’s western Xinjiang autonomous region. Speaking at a press briefing Friday, Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said China is “using the security forces for mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps.” Pressed on his use of the term “concentration camps,” Schriver defended it as “appropriate.” He also said that “at least a million but likely […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. It has been clear for weeks that opposition leaders and outside observers were unlikely to quietly accept the results of this week’s legislative elections in Benin, which took place under highly unusual circumstances. In accordance with revised electoral rules, the opposition was excluded entirely, and only two parties were allowed to participate, both of them aligned with President Patrice Talon. Given the pride Benin’s political class takes in its reputation for having a strong democracy, there was some speculation […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Chinese and American trade negotiators are meeting in Beijing this week, with another round of talks scheduled for next week in Washington. Negotiators appear to be closing in on a deal to end the trade war that has been the focal point of tensions between the world’s two largest economies since last summer, but key details have yet to be finalized. That has not stopped some observers from envisioning how a prospective U.S.-China agreement will affect the international trading […]