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Last week, Pravind Jugnauth, the son of Mauritius’ outgoing prime minister, Anerood Jugnauth, was appointed prime minister after his father announced he was stepping down. Many in Mauritius have denounced the move as nepotism and called on the opposition to hold a referendum. In an email interview, Roukaya Kasenally, a senior adviser at the Africa Media Initiative, discusses politics in Mauritius. WPR: To what extent does the appointment of outgoing Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth’s son, Pravind Jugnauth, as prime minister belie Mauritius’ reputation for solid democratic institutions and practices? Roukaya Kasenally: In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Democracy Index, Mauritius […]

More than 11 years after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Dominic Ongwen’s arrest, and nearly two years after he was captured and transferred to The Hague, his prosecution finally began in December. Ongwen, a former senior commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), faces 70 counts, including charges of murder, enslavement, rape and torture. He allegedly committed or oversaw these atrocities as part of the Ugandan rebel militia’s bloody campaign against the people of northern Uganda’s Acholiland that originally began in 1987. Though the LRA remains active in pockets of central Africa, it was driven from Uganda […]

On Oct. 31, Michel Aoun, a former Lebanese army general, was elected president of Lebanon, ending a 29-month-long crisis in which the country had no president, its institutions were paralyzed, and its economy risked collapse. After being voted into office with the support of 83 lawmakers—well over the 65 needed to win—the Christian leader and founder of the Free Patriotic Movement was shown smiling in his seat in televised broadcasts of parliament, as fireworks crackled across Beirut in celebration. But the significance of Aoun’s election was not limited to the seat of the presidency. It marked the start of a […]

President Donald Trump’s rushed move to block entry to the U.S. for refugees and travelers from selected Muslim-majority states is sure to exacerbate the perception of a “clash of civilizations” between the West and the Islamic world. It will likely lead to more radicalization, shrink America’s soft power, and weaken its brand as a rule-of-law country. The silver lining to this story is the showcase it has provided for the vitality of American civil society, which has mobilized to resist these harsh measures. Seeming to savor his role as disruptor in chief, Trump blithely undermined several essential features of U.S. […]

Last week, Hong Kong agreed to return nine armored vehicles to Singapore that had been seized in November while in transit from Taiwan, where they had been used in joint military exercises. The decision ends a diplomatic row that brought relations between China and Singapore to a low point. In an email interview, Lieke Bos, a project officer at the Royal United Services Institute, discusses Singapore’s ties with China. WPR: What is the nature of relations between Singapore and China, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Lieke Bos: Relations between China and Singapore have been relatively stable ever […]

With the self-proclaimed Islamic State besieged in Mosul and on the defensive in parts of Syria, the future of the group’s network beyond its core territory has been thrown into question. At its peak in 2014 and early 2015, the Islamic State established affiliates across the Middle East and North Africa that it labeled “provinces,” or wilayat, rapidly increasing its operational reach and influence. But with its senior leadership now facing considerable pressure in both Iraq and Syria, it is unclear whether the Islamic State will be able to maintain communications and organizational ties with these affiliates abroad. Moreover, as […]

It has been hard to keep up with the sheer torrent of dreadful political proposals that have emanated from the United States in the past 10 days. President Donald Trump’s decision to block refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. is undoubtedly the vilest of the lot. But the new administration has also managed to promulgate a bundle of ideas about international crisis management that will, if put into action, prove pretty disastrous. Last week, I predicted that Trump would adopt “haphazard” approaches to conflicts overseas. That may have underestimated both his sense of purpose and […]

Earlier this month, Indonesia’s military chief unilaterally suspended defense ties with Australia, forcing President Joko Widodo to quickly walk back the move and raising questions about the amount of power the military has. In an email interview, Fabio Scarpello, a postdoctoral researcher at Murdoch University in Australia, discusses civil-military relations in Indonesia. WPR: What are the basic tenets of civil-military relations in Indonesia, and what historical legacies have shaped them? Scarpello: Since its return to democracy in 1998, Indonesia has successfully implemented first-generation security sector reform and established a substantial, though imperfect, institutional framework that grants civilian control over the […]

In last week’s column, I assessed the threat from America’s “big five” adversaries: Russia, Iran, China, North Korea and the self-styled Islamic State. Some or all of these five, I believe, will test the incoming Trump administration as it gets its feet wet and redesigns U.S. strategy to reflect the new president’s unorthodox ideas and style. I suggested that challenges from the big five will stay below the line of provocation that might drive the United States to respond forcefully. Instead they will rely on the ambiguous, camouflaged, multidimensional aggression and pinprick applications of force that security experts call “hybrid” […]

Gambia’s new president, Adama Barrow, finally returned to the country yesterday, his arrival formally marking the end of a six-week political crisis. Barrow was elected president on Dec. 1. He initially received a concession call from his opponent, Yahya Jammeh. But Jammeh, in power since 1994, reversed course within days. Refusing to step down, he instead attempted to use various forms of intimidation and legal maneuvering—a state of emergency, a parliamentary extension of his powers and a legal suit—to block the transition. West Africa’s regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), responded quickly and forcefully. Demanding that […]

When five diplomats from the United Arab Emirates were killed in a bombing in Kandahar earlier this month, Afghan authorities quickly blamed the Haqqani network, which many suspect of having ties to Pakistani intelligence. That triggered speculation that the attack—the first on diplomats from a Gulf state in Afghanistan—was meant to send a message to the UAE about its growing counterterrorism cooperation with India. The timing of the blast was seen as especially significant since it came just weeks before Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the deputy supreme commander of the […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the global reactions to U.S. President Donald Trump’s first week in office. For the Report, Daniel McDowell talks with Peter Dörrie about the problems facing globalism and how they are getting worse. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: With an Eye on China—and Trump—Japan Enhances Security Ties With Southeast Asia Could Trump’s Hard-Line Support End Up Backfiring for Israel’s Far Right? Temer Has Few Easy Choices to Solve Brazil’s Prison Crisis China’s Complicated Relationship With Workers’ Rights Globalization Was Already […]

While Donald Trump spent his first week as president of the United States rapidly upending ties with Mexico, undermining major free trade deals, and flaunting his protectionist ambitions, outgoing French President Francois Hollande visited Latin America, where he signed a host of bilateral agreements with Chile and Colombia. In Chile on Sunday, he warned against creeping protectionism, which he called the “worst response” that “impedes trade, hinders growth and even affects employment, including in countries that advocate for it and implement it.” The comment was an indirect jab at Trump and other populists on the rise, not least Marine Le […]

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 world. On New Year’s Eve, a man broke into a house in southeastern Brazil and shot and killed his ex-wife, their son and 10 other people, before taking his own life. The incident was a particularly shocking example of the rampant violence against women in Brazil, where disturbing cases of gender-based violence are a near-daily occurrence. In an email interview, Sueann Caulfield, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, discusses women’s rights in Brazil. […]

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, began the year with a weeklong tour of Southeast Asia and Australia earlier this month. The trip, which was planned in relative haste following the stunning election of Donald Trump as president of the United States last November, was an opportunity for Abe to try and impress upon Southeast Asian countries the importance of maintaining and defending international norms and laws, especially in the disputed waters around Southeast Asia. Abe visited the Philippines and Vietnam, two states with the most contested territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. Abe also visited Indonesia, the […]

Ever since Donald Trump won the presidential election in the United States, observers of the Middle East have been nearly unanimous about the ramifications of his presidency for Israel. Trump, they concluded, would help usher in a further consolidation of the Israeli right, dealing another blow to the political center and left, and further worsening Israel’s relations with Palestinians. While that consensus scenario remains highly probable, there is a sharply different possible turn of events that should not be discounted. In fact, there is a significant chance that in the coming months the Israeli center could rise, which would lead, […]

With his inauguration address last Friday, President Donald Trump announced to Americans and the world that the “America First” era had arrived. No longer will the U.S. put the interests of other nations ahead of its own. No longer will America’s global role as backstop of the international order take priority over its own domestic needs. The address represents a sea change in America’s foreign policy discourse. It is not just the words that are different, but the very grammar and syntax of its logic, which calls into question the international order that the U.S. built and backstopped over the […]