WPR Blog Archive

France 24 just posted last Friday’s panel discussion program, The World This Week, which I had the pleasure of participating in. The other panelists were Matthew Saltmarsh of the IHT, Paul Taylor of Reuters and Pierre Haski of Rue89.com. We discussed tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Europe’s ongoing economic woes, Jamaica’s unrest, and the Gulf oil spill. Part one is here. Part two is here. One thing I’dd to why the Gulf spill is not comparable to Katrina. In addition to resonating with the President George W. Bush’s troubled relationship with facts and credibility, Katrina also underlined the lack of […]

In late May, the leader of a Darfur rebel group, Khalil Ibrahim, was denied entry into Chad — a country that has long been a host for Ibrahim’s rebel forces. In an e-mail interview, Roland Marchal, research fellow at the Center for International Studies and Resarch (CERI), explains the current state of Chad-Sudan relations. WPR: What is the current state of Chad-Sudan relations? Roland Marchal: An armed peace. To a certain extent, we are back to the pre-2005 situation when Chadian President Idriss Deby and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir were cooperating to secure their common borders and consolidate their regimes. […]

Just a bit of perspective on the comparison, now gaining traction, between the U.S. reaction to the Gaza flotilla assault and the Chinese reaction to the Cheonan sinking, which Dan Drezner was the first to raise: The Obama administration has reacted to this incident in remarkably similar ways to China’s reaction to the Cheonan incident — with a call for more information. It bears noting that the U.S. and South Korean reaction in the immediate aftermath of the Cheonan sinking were along the same lines. The difference is that China’s reaction comes after a thorough, multilateral investigation has provided pretty […]

Israel’s forceful interdiction of a humanitarian aid flotilla destined for the Gaza Strip has understandably provoked shock and outrage. Part of the shock reflects a global audience’s difficulty comprehending how the Israeli government blundered headlong into an obvious and avoidable trap. I would argue that the shock is misplaced, since the incident is ultimately consistent with Israel’s recent behavior at least since the Lebanon War of 2006, which has very obviously prioritized the operational advantage conferred by liberty of action over the political costs exacted by international isolation. Dan Drezner goes so far as to compare Israel’s diplomatic isolation to […]

In late May, Russia announced that it would invest $1 billion in uranium exploration in Namibia. In an e-mail interview, Raksha Maharaj, a director at South Africa-based Emerging Market Focus, explains Russia’s renewed interest in Africa. WPR: What is the extent and nature of Russia’s current economic involvement in Africa? Raksha Maharaj: In recent years, Russia’s sphere of influence in Africa has been largely diluted by the increasing activities of countries like China and India, as well as the continued involvement of Western countries. Russia’s trade with Africa has grown an estimated 14.9 percent since 1992, and amounted to $8 […]