Q & A Archive

In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of the podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, discuss the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russian agents seeking to influence the outcome of the election. Have we entered a post-Mueller era of the Trump presidency? If so, what are the implications for U.S. foreign policy on Russia, the trans-Atlantic partnership and elsewhere? WPR’s editors look at these and other questions in their discussion of the week’s top news. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and […]

Throughout its history, Singapore’s political scene has been tightly controlled by the People’s Action Party, or PAP, which currently holds all but six of the 89 elected seats in the island nation’s Parliament. While the PAP’s dominant position is unlikely to change anytime soon, it faces a potential uphill climb in the next general election, which is due by January 2021 but could be held as soon as this year. Tan Cheng Bock, a former PAP presidential candidate, is setting up a new political party to challenge the PAP, an effort that has earned the support of Prime Minister Lee […]

Argentine President Mauricio Macri paid a three-day visit to India last month, a sign of India’s recent efforts to deepen its links with Argentina. But while high-level engagements have increased in recent years, the two sides have mostly been unable to realize the full benefits of increased cooperation, says Ronak D. Desai, a scholar at Harvard University’s Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute. In an interview with WPR, he explains why Latin America is increasingly seen as a priority for New Delhi’s diplomatic strategy and what it will take for India to compete with its rival, China, in the region. World […]

In promoting the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised it would yield impressive economic dividends for the general population. But those never materialized. Instead, the economic situation has deteriorated considerably since U.S. President Donald Trump took office and embraced hard-line policies toward Iran. In January, Rouhani said the country was facing its worst economic crisis since the 1979 revolution. In this week’s in-depth report for WPR, Jasmin Ramsey, the communications director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, examines how Iranians are coping with their […]

Italy’s populist government scored a big legislative win late last year when it signed a new security decree into law, making life much harder for immigrants, especially asylum-seekers. But mayors and regional governors across the country are refusing to implement many of the law’s provisions, setting up a legal fight with the central government in Rome. In an interview with WPR, Marco Calaresu, a political scientist at the University of Sassari in Italy, and Anna Di Ronco, a sociologist at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, discuss the mounting grassroots resistance to the security decree and explain why […]

U.S. President Donald Trump held a meeting last Friday with five Caribbean leaders who have publicly sided with the United States in backing the self-proclaimed presidency of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido. In return for their support, the U.S. is promising investment in their economies, a powerful diplomatic tool that may entice other Caribbean countries to break off their longstanding ties with President Nicolas Maduro’s government in Caracas. In an interview with WPR, Robert Looney, a distinguished professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, discusses the mounting support for Guaido in the Caribbean and its implications for the […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, are engaged in a no-holds-barred campaign of threats and intimidation against opposition parties ahead of local elections planned for Sunday. Opinion polls have found AKP candidates trailing in key cities like Istanbul and Ankara amid an economic recession that has damaged Erdogan’s political brand. Fearing a resounding defeat at the polls that could undermine his presidency, Erdogan has even said he could intervene to change the results. In an interview with WPR, Sinan Ciddi, executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington, explains what’s […]

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a new series on gun policy and the debate over gun control around the world. Last week, two gunmen opened fire at a high school near Sao Paulo, killing eight people, including five schoolchildren. The mass shooting has cast a spotlight on the issue of gun control in Brazil, as President Jair Bolsonaro makes a concerted push to relax restrictions on firearms. In an interview with WPR, Robert Muggah, co-founder and research director at the Igarape Institute in Brazil, discusses Brazil’s polarizing debate over guns and how Bolsonaro’s policy initiatives might be […]

Thousands of Portuguese nurses marched through Lisbon earlier this month to call for higher wages and better working conditions, as the main nurses’ unions negotiate with the government following a recent three-week strike that paralyzed the country’s health sector. Other public sector unions have taken similar actions, putting intense pressure on Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who survived a no-confidence motion last month. In an interview with WPR, Jorge Fernandes, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, points out that this turmoil is largely a result of behind-the-scenes politicking by Portugal’s major political parties ahead of legislative elections […]

For the first time since it was founded in 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month rebuked Saudi Arabia for its human rights record. In a rare show of unity, the council’s statement, which condemned the kingdom’s “continuing arrests and arbitrary detentions of human rights defenders,” was co-signed by all 28 members of the European Union. But that move coincided with another unanimous decision by EU member states: to prevent Saudi Arabia from being added to an EU blacklist of countries with insufficient controls on money laundering and terrorism financing. In an interview with WPR, Julien Barnes-Dacey, […]

In late February, Canada’s former justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, testified before a parliamentary committee that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other high-ranking aides had pressured her to intervene on behalf of the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin in a criminal case being pursued against the company. Trudeau now faces his biggest political crisis since taking office, with general elections looming in October. In an email interview, Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, explains the background of the SNC-Lavalin scandal and its implications for Trudeau and Canada’s political landscape. World Politics […]

Germany’s Green party had a weak showing in federal elections in 2017, causing analysts to largely write it off as a political force. But the past two years have seen an abrupt turnaround in the party’s fortunes. Buoyed by widespread concern about the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, as well as broader upheaval that has undermined the traditional mainstream parties, the Greens are now in the No. 2 position in national polls, and they are expected to perform well in the European Parliament elections in May. As journalist Andrew Green writes in this week’s in-depth report, […]

Pakistani authorities announced last week that they had arrested 44 people affiliated with violent extremist groups. Among those taken into custody, according to Pakistan’s interior minister, were two relatives of the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attack in Kashmir last month that killed 40 members of India’s security forces. But it is too early to know whether this means Islamabad is finally taking meaningful steps to crack down on the militant organizations it has long harbored, cautions Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson […]

French President Emmanuel Macron called for reconciliation with Italy last week, after a heated diplomatic spat briefly led France to recall its ambassador from Rome for the first time since World War II. While the temperature has since come down a bit, the war of words reflects a larger battle being waged between members of the European Union over issues like immigration and fiscal policy, says Jan Zielonka, a professor of European politics at the University of Oxford and the author of “Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat.” In an interview with WPR, he discusses the EU-wide political implications of France […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. The first documented slaying of a journalist this year took place in Ghana when Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a member of the highly regarded investigative outlet Tiger Eye P.I., was gunned down near his family home in Accra on Jan. 16. Police believe he was assassinated for his journalistic work. In an interview with WPR, Vivian Affoah, a program manager at the Media Foundation for West Africa in Accra, discusses Hussein-Suale’s case, the obstacles that Ghanaian journalists face in their work […]

The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled last week that the United Kingdom must cede control over the Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago that was separated from Mauritius several years before Mauritius gained independence in 1968. The 13-1 verdict, while nonbinding, was an embarrassing defeat for the U.K. and a victory for many Chagossians who have sought to return to their homeland since being expelled in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for a U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia. In an interview with WPR, Marko Milanovic, a professor of public international law […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss challenges facing China and what they mean for relations with the U.S., against the backdrop of the Chinese Communist Party’s annual National People’s Congress, which is taking place this week. For the Report, Shira Rubin talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about how Israel’s New Right party could jeopardize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election prospects. 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 […]