Newsletter Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Voters in Hong Kong came out in droves Sunday to hand pro-democracy candidates a resounding victory in local elections and deal the pro-Beijing camp a staggering defeat. Amid escalating protests and unrest, hopes were higher this year for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement in the district council elections—a vote that the pro-Beijing establishment has dominated in recent years. But this landslide victory still caught Beijing off guard. With more than 70 percent voter turnout, 3 million Hong Kongers cast ballots […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. President Emmerson Mnangagwa is stifling any form of public protest against his government as Zimbabwe’s economy keeps sinking. Police violently disrupted an opposition party gathering in Harare on Wednesday, firing tear gas and beating people with batons, and more repression looks likely. Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa warned his followers, “Our country is burning.” The latest crackdown comes after the government fired more than 200 doctors for participating in a months-long strike over low pay and poor working conditions. Earlier this month, police […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. A recent report in The New York Times provides an unprecedented behind-the-curtain look at the mass detention of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang autonomous region of western China. Based on 403 pages of internal government documents that the paper obtained from a source described as “a member of the Chinese political establishment,” the report reveals the origins and implementation of China’s brutally repressive policies in Xinjiang. Human rights groups and foreign reporters have already exposed many […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. At least three university students were killed this week in the latest episodes of ethnically motivated violence in Ethiopia. The increasingly volatile situation is at risk of exploding ahead of national elections scheduled for next year. Africa’s second-most-populous country has been wracked by violence along ethnic lines this year, including the murder of the army chief of staff amid an attempted coup in June and intercommunal violence in the central Oromia region in October that left at least 86 people dead. After […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. “Our society has been pushed to the brink of a total breakdown,” Hong Kong’s senior police superintendent, Kong Wing-cheung, told reporters Tuesday, amid a week of citywide paralysis due to strikes and heightened violence. Street clashes between police and protesters turned deadly last week, when a student protester died after falling from a parking garage amid a standoff with police. But the death, the first of a protester after months of antigovernment demonstrations, has only further inspired the pro-democracy […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Even for a region that has witnessed the growing entrenchment of extremist groups and skyrocketing violence, it was a particularly deadly week in Africa’s Sahel. On Nov. 1, Islamist militants killed 54 people, including dozens of soldiers, in an attack on an isolated military base in northeastern Mali; the Islamic State claimed responsibility. Days later, gunmen ambushed a Canadian mining company’s convoy in northern Burkina Faso, killing at least 37 people and wounding 60 more. Though the two attacks are not directly […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. European leaders reportedly fear that the anticipated “phase one” trade deal between the United States and China could harm the interests of the European Union. “We don’t want Europe to be a collateral victim of a U.S.-China trade deal,” a French government official told Politico, as President Emmanuel Macron traveled to China this week for a two-day visit that included a stop in Shanghai for the China International Import Expo and a state visit to Beijing, where he signed […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The space for dissent in John Magufuli’s Tanzania is closing rapidly. Amnesty International issued a report this week accusing Magufuli, who was elected president in 2015, of creating a “climate of mounting fear with growing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.” Magufuli, who earned the popular nickname “the Bulldozer” from his time as minister of public works, was elected promising to reform Tanzania and end corruption. Instead, his administration has steadily trimmed the rights of opposition […]