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In August, reports emerged that South Sudanese soldiers had violently attacked foreign aid workers during a July rampage in the capital, Juba. They took hostages and raped several women at a hotel popular with foreigners, and also killed a local journalist. During the four-hour siege, those held captive at the Terrain Hotel repeatedly called for help to the United Nations peacekeeping force—stationed less than a mile down the road—and the U.S. embassy in Juba, but none came. Beyond the horrible violence the hostages endured, the attack reflected a litany of systemic failures to safeguard foreign aid workers who seem to […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the globe. A recent report by Human Rights Watch called out the government of Nepal for not doing enough to stop child marriage. Currently 37 percent of girls marry before age 18, and while the government has pledged to end child marriage, few concrete steps have been taken to achieve this goal. In an email interview, Claire Naylor, the co-founder and executive director of Women LEAD, discusses women’s right in Nepal. WPR: What is the current […]

On Sunday, Colombians narrowly rejected in a referendum a peace deal with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, raising questions about what the future holds for a country that has been fighting the guerrilla movement for 52 years. The insurgency—the longest war in the Americas—has left over 200,000 people dead and over 8 million displaced. Polls ahead of Sunday’s referendum predicted a two-to-one margin of victory for the peace deal, but the final tally showed 49.8 percent in favor of the deal and 50.2 against it. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leaders have said they […]

BERLIN, Germany—One year on from a historic wave of migration to Germany, a myriad of challenges remain. And the stakes are high, not only for Angela Merkel’s increasingly unpopular chancellorship. In July, the first Islamist-inspired attacks by asylum-seekers on German soil trained an international spotlight on the country’s efforts to integrate more than a million new arrivals. Last year’s chaotic scenes, which saw hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants cross German borders within a few months, have long since given way to a more sober approach. Responding to a perceived shift in public mood after foreigners attacked women in […]

On Friday, Oct. 7, Morocco will hold parliamentary elections that are an important barometer for the broader Middle East, since it is the only Arab country to organize regular elections with an acceptable level of competition among parties. It is also the only Arab country where Islamists have gotten consistently better results at the ballot box without stoking domestic unrest and instability. Competitive elections in Morocco reflect the monarchy’s ostensible commitment to the political reforms ushered in by the new constitution passed in 2011, during the Arab Spring. That commitment is most evident in the behavior of the powerful Ministry […]

A “less is more” school of thought seems to be emerging in Western capitals where policymakers, public intellectuals and on-the-ground practitioners are trying to find ways to improve the outcomes of international interventions and post-conflict stabilization operations. It may be a fine-tuned judgment about the limited effectiveness and disappointing track record of past efforts, and also about the capacities of receiving countries to absorb aid and technical assistance. But it’s also an expression of the crisis of confidence in Western countries about their core activities to make the world a better place. Syria is the extreme example that raises doubts […]

Good economic news out of the Caribbean has been few and far-between in recent years. For most countries in the region, the aftermath of the global financial crisis has been full of vicious cycles of slow growth, rising debt, increased unemployment, mounting crime and falling foreign direct investment. Attempts to break out of this pattern have largely failed, leading to increased misery for those who stay and the uncertainty of emigration for those who leave. While Puerto Rico attracts much of the media attention, the situation is just as dire in a dozen or more Caribbean countries. In September, the […]

Last month, China successfully launched the world’s first quantum satellite, which is designed to establish “hack-proof” communications between space and the ground. The launch puts China ahead of its rivals in the quest to develop quantum technology, which has major implications for security and defense policy. In an email interview, Taylor Owen, an assistant professor of digital media and global affairs at the University of British Columbia and the author of “Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age,” and Robert Gorwa, a graduate student at the Oxford Internet Institute and a researcher at the University of […]

The race to be the new United Nations secretary-general is almost over. The winner may end up envying the losers. After much shadowboxing, the Security Council begins a decisive round of polls on Wednesday. For the first time in this year’s selection process, the five veto-wielding powers will use colored ballots to indicate those candidates they want to block. Most of the 10 contenders are likely to find they have no way forward. The front-runner remains former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, although Bulgarian EU official Kristalina Georgieva has shaken up the race by joining at the last second. But […]