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On Jan. 13, 2017, as his term was winding down, former U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order announcing plans to revoke longtime sanctions imposed on Sudan. The order also called for a sanctions review by next month that would determine whether the government of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, had continued with what the order described as “positive actions,” including maintaining a cease-fire in conflict areas, improving access to humanitarian aid and cooperating with the U.S. to address regional conflicts and terrorism threats. As Sudan awaits the sanctions review, this week marked the six-year anniversary of the conflict in […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about NATO members’ contributions to and relationships with the alliance. Just days before the recent NATO summit in Brussels, Turkey moved to block Austria’s involvement in alliance operations, the latest example of how Turkey’s various rifts with European countries threaten alliance cohesiveness. Turkey’s relationship with NATO is also being tested by divergent views on how best to combat the self-styled Islamic State. In an email interview, Emre Caliskan, a Turkish analyst and co-author of “The New Turkey and Its Discontents,” describes Turkey’s traditional role in NATO and how it might […]

After a political shake-up last month, Austria is set to be Europe’s next battleground in the fight between mainstream politicians and far-right populists. On May 10, after months of political bickering and party infighting, Reinhold Mitterlehner stepped down as Austria’s vice chancellor and chairman of the center-right Austrian People’s Party, or OVP. That effectively ended Austria’s grand governing coalition between the OVP and the center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPO. A few days later, Chancellor Christian Kern, who leads the SPO, announced that Austria would hold snap parliamentary elections on Oct. 15. Aside from growing frictions within the ruling coalition, […]

The crisis in America’s foreign policy apparatus entered a stunning new phase this past week with President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, followed yesterday by his comments on Twitter essentially taking Saudi Arabia’s side against Qatar in an intra-Gulf dispute. In between, reports emerged that during his visit to Brussels two weeks ago, Trump removed a passage from his speech explicitly confirming his commitment to NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, without notifying his national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, all of whom had argued […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. When authorities inaugurated a new railway line linking Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, to the coastal city of Mombasa last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta hailed the milestone as “a new chapter,” according to the BBC. The railway, which was funded by China, is reported to be the largest infrastructure project in Kenya since the country’s independence from Britain in 1963. In an email interview, James Shikwati, economist and founder […]

U.S. President Donald Trump’s battle with the multilateral system just got real. For the first four months of his presidency, Trump fought a phony war with the United Nations and other international institutions. On the campaign trail and in the wake of his election victory, he had condemned the U.N. as lazy, impotent and anti-American. From its first week in office, his administration threatened major financial cuts to international institutions and aid projects. But there was more bark than bite. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., calmed foreign diplomats’ fears by taking a rational and collegial approach to […]

Demonstrations are continuing across Morocco in the wake of the arrest of a number of popular leaders of an emergent social justice movement. Despite the government crackdown, protests against corruption and unfair privilege—known as “hogra” in the local Darija dialect of Arabic—have steadily unfolded in the city of Al-Hoceima on the northern Mediterranean coast. Last week, they spread to the capital, Rabat, and the main commercial hub, Casablanca. Located in Morocco’s mountainous Rif region, Al-Hoceima has been at the center of the protest movement, known as al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or the Popular Movement, which has developed over the past seven months […]

This past week brought some further clarity to the underlying assumptions that drive U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. There’s now enough information to determine that the Trump team’s worldview is based on deeply held premises about the nasty, brutish nature of the human condition. He and his team are systematically walking away from the U.S. government’s decades-long emphasis on international cooperation and the architecture that supports it. The shift will have particularly dire consequences for the global community’s capacity to confront terrorism and climate change, with its impact on nuclear nonproliferation still an open question. In the aftermath of […]

Is there any reason to feel good about this year’s miserable British election campaign? The process has been messy, cantankerous and punctuated by appalling acts of terrorism. With the opposition Labour party unexpectedly gaining ground on the ruling Conservatives, it is possible that this Thursday’s poll will leave Great Britain looking even more confused, less united and less consequential on the global stage. Liberal internationalists should nonetheless take a soupcon of comfort from this rather poor exercise in democracy. Despite the storm of Brexit, the campaign has at least for now defused fears that the United Kingdom could renege on […]

Since the collapse of world oil prices in 2014, the wealthy Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf have all faced difficult times, but especially Oman. Last month, things got even worse when Standard & Poor’s downgraded Oman’s credit rating to junk status over concerns with the country’s budget and revenue prospects as oil prices stay low. After recording average budgetary surpluses of 9.7 percent of GDP in the 2000s, Oman has seen fiscal deficits of 1.1 percent of GDP in 2014, 15.1 percent in 2015 and 20.6 percent in 2016. Unless oil prices increase significantly, the country will face the […]

Last month, at a ceremony in Toulouse, France, the French firm ATR officially gave four passenger planes to Iran, and the planes were flown to Tehran the following day. The ATR 72-600s are the first of a 20-plane deal made with the firm following the 2015 nuclear deal and lifting of sanctions, according to the Associated Press, and their purchase is part of a larger effort by Iran to update its commercial fleet. In an email interview, Bijan Khajehpour, managing partner of the Vienna-based consulting firm Atieh International, describes the current needs of Iran’s aviation sector as well as the […]

Bahrain’s political scene has never been defined by the presence of a robust opposition. But the dissolution last Wednesday of Waad, a major secular opposition group, took an ongoing crackdown to new heights. Waad was hardly the first opposition movement to be targeted; one year ago, for example, the government suspended the activities of al-Wefaq, at the time Bahrain’s main Shiite political party. But Waad will likely be the last opposition group to endure the government’s wrath for a while, by virtue of the fact that it was the only one left. Waad was a fixture of the pro-democracy protests […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Morocco’s northern Rif region was the scene of violent clashes and mass arrests in an escalation of tensions that can be traced back to the gruesome death of a fish vendor during an altercation with police last October. On Friday, Amnesty International accused authorities of carrying out “a chilling wave of arrests” of at least 71 people in recent days, including activists and bloggers. Among those arrested was Nasser Zefzafi, a 39-year-old who has emerged as a leading activist […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss Donald Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. from the Paris Agreement to fight climate change, its implications for America’s global leadership role, and the response from other world leaders. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per month, click through to WPR’s Trend Lines Patreon page. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. In Sri Lanka, controversy surrounding a private medical university has led to months of demonstrations and fierce debate on the merits of private education institutions in general. Last month, in Colombo, police used tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters who, according to the Associated Press, ignored an official protest ban to make their case that the medical university, the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine, should be shut down. In an email interview, Nisha Arunatilake, a fellow with […]

Colombia right now is closer than it has ever been to solving its illicit drug problem. This may be a surprising contention, since the country just measured record-breaking cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine. Yet the landmark peace deal between the Colombian government and the country’s principal guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has eliminated the most prominent obstacle to consolidate democratic governance over the vast rural areas where coca is cultivated. Or, at least it has eliminated the handiest excuse for longstanding inaction. Passed in November, the peace accord, along with President […]

After months of speculation, President Donald Trump announced Thursday his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change agreement. The move came in the face of high-profile pressure from a diverse set of voices—everyone from Pope Francis and U.S. military brass to business leaders such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, and other members of the G-7 had urged the U.S. president to remain in the accord. Nevertheless, Trump declared in the White House Rose Garden that “we’re getting out” of the landmark deal to reduce global carbon emissions. Trump immediately added that […]