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Kenya’s long-running political drama is sinking deeper into crisis, testing the outermost limits of the country’s election laws. Its highest court seemed at first to have struck a rare victory for judicial independence with its declaration that August’s presidential election, which gave a second term to President Uhuru Kenyatta, was “invalid, null and void,” necessitating a rerun. But as the weeks have passed, the Supreme Court ruling looks more like a mixed blessing that guaranteed a prolonged political morass. The new vote was supposed to take place before the end of October, but very few of the underlying problems identified […]

When U.S. President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia last May, making it the first stop in his first foreign trip as president, he unleashed a wave of euphoria in the kingdom. The Saudis viewed Trump as a like-minded leader, whose ascent augured a future of closely coordinated foreign policy and firm advances for a U.S.-backed Saudi Arabian agenda in the Middle East. But five months later, in a twist few could have anticipated, Saudi King Salman landed in Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling that Trump’s embrace of the kingdom has proved less fruitful than the Saudis […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. The murders of two journalists in India in September were just the latest sign of the growing threat to press freedom in the country. In addition to outright attacks on their lives, Indian journalists face mounting pressure to not report on sensitive topics like extremism or on stories that are critical of the government and major businesses. In an email interview, Steven Butler, the Asia Program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, discusses the troubling history of violence […]

PARIS—France’s parliament is poised to pass a controversial counterterrorism law, after the National Assembly and Senate reconciled their respective versions of the bill Monday. The lower house is now set to vote the final text into law today, with the Senate to follow suit next week. The law serves to integrate into the statutory code many of the measures that were adopted under a three-month state of emergency declared after the Paris terrorist attacks of November 2015. Later extended to six months, the state of emergency has been renewed systematically since then. It will now be replaced by the new […]

After several false starts over the past decade, the United States finally lifted sanctions it first levied against Sudan nearly two decades ago. The decision came late last week, after the Trump administration had extended its deadline over the summer on whether to make the Obama administration’s easing of sanctions permanent. The sanctions relief for Sudan was one of former President Barack Obama’s final, surprising foreign policy moves in office. The U.S. has imposed the financial restrictions since the 1990s in response to the Sudanese regime’s penchant for harboring terrorists and for the atrocities it has committed, including the genocide […]

The stakes of the election for governor of Jakarta earlier this year were, in the eyes of nearly all observers, much larger than that particular office. After all, it was only five years ago that Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, used his victory in the same race to transform himself from a well-regarded but somewhat obscure mayor into a powerful national figure. With that precedent in mind, the candidates and their backers saw the election—a two-round affair held in February and April—as an opportunity to position themselves for general elections in 2019. The incumbent, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja […]

Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader and former president of Iraq, died earlier this month, five years after being incapacitated by a stroke and days after a controversial referendum on Kurdish independence. His life and legacy offer insights into the complex mix of leadership and identity in Kurdistan and Iraq—or, for that matter, in Catalonia and other places where identity does not align easily with the borders of a nation state. Talabani was a towering figure in both Kurdish and Iraqi politics, and moved easily between these two magnetic poles. No one could doubt his devotion to Kurdish rights and the […]

YANGON, Myanmar—As Israel’s High Court weighs a ban on weapons sales to Myanmar, where the United Nations’ top human rights official has denounced a military campaign as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” Israel’s Defense Ministry—no stranger to isolation—is unrepentant. In the latest outburst of violence in Myanmar’s volatile Rakhine state, the military’s blistering crackdown in response to attacks in August from Rohingya insurgents has triggered an unprecedented exodus. More than 500,000 Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, have fled into Bangladesh. International condemnation has been swift, with rights groups exerting pressure on Western nations to cut military-to-military engagement. The United […]

In recent months, the tiny Gulf state of Qatar has gone on a military spending spree, buying aircraft from the United States, France and, most recently, the United Kingdom. At the same time, Qatar has been increasingly isolated by its neighbors and fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which launched an economic blockade of Qatar in June with the help of Bahrain and Egypt. In an email interview, Camille Pecastaing, academic director and senior associate professor of Middle East studies at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), explains what’s […]

There are few things more important to average Palestinians than seeing reconciliation between their two main political factions, Fatah and Hamas. For a decade, the Palestinian political system has been divided between them, with Fatah governing in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While the split has suited the parochial interests of both factions, which have been able to manage affairs in their respective enclaves uncontested by the other, it has been disastrous to Palestinians as a whole and to the national interest of ending Israel’s military occupation. Last week, Fatah and Hamas embarked on a new […]

In late September, the U.S. International Trade Commission declared that growing imports of solar panels had significantly hurt U.S. manufacturers. The decision could provide the cover for President Donald Trump to make good on his threats to put up trade barriers with China, whose companies are the leading suppliers of solar cells and panels in the United States. In an email interview, Dieter Ernst, a senior fellow at the East-West Center and former adviser to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, discusses the impact of the commission’s ruling, what it means for the U.S. solar industry, and why a […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss Saudi King Salman’s landmark trip to Moscow and what the visit—the first by a Saudi monarch—says about Russia’s growing influence in the Middle East. For the Report, Salvatore Babones talks with Andrew Green about how geoeconomics is replacing geopolitics as the driver of international power politics, and why that is ultimately good for the United States. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our work […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. An ambush in Niger that killed three U.S. Army Special Forces and five Nigerien soldiers this week focused attention on the U.S. military’s presence in West Africa, a region typically seen as France’s domain. The attack, which marked the first time U.S. troops were killed by a militant group in Niger, occurred Wednesday about 120 miles north of Niamey, the capital, near the border with Mali. It was not clear if the Americans were specifically targeted. The International Crisis […]

Since the initial division of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, there has been a distant hope in diplomatic circles, as well as among many Koreans, that the split might one day be undone. American officials have supported Korean reunification for years, and even China, which benefits from the buffer North Korea provides between its border and the U.S.-allied South, has quietly favored the idea at times of heightened tensions. In preparation for a possible reunion, South Korea funds a Ministry of Unification that studies strategies for bringing the two states closer—and last month financed an […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Nikolas Gvosdev is filling in for Steven Metz, who will return next week. “You can’t surge trust.” That was the constant refrain of Gen. James Amos, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps from 2010 to 2014, whenever he offered advice for U.S. policymakers about the Middle East. Unfortunately, the people who took his advice closest to heart have been the Russians. It is reflected in President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Ankara to confer with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the historic arrival of King Salman of Saudi Arabia to Moscow for talks this week. […]

Argentina’s former president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is a fierce political figure who does not retreat from a fight. And now, in the final days leading up to Oct. 22 midterm elections in which she is running for a Senate seat, she has found a new and unexpected weapon, building her case for victory on the strength of a mystery that has captured the country’s attention. On Aug. 1, a bearded tattoo artist and political activist disappeared without a trace in the southern Patagonia region. The 28-year-old, Santiago Maldonado, had joined a protest by Mapuches, an indigenous people, when someone […]

KAMPALA, Uganda—Not long after he took office in 1986, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, had a singular diagnosis for his continent’s ills. “The problem of Africa in general, and Uganda in particular, is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power,” he claimed in a book titled, appropriately enough, “What Is Africa’s Problem?” But now the former guerilla fighter seems to have changed his mind. Uganda is currently moving full steam ahead with an unpopular constitutional amendment that will effectively guarantee the 73-year-old Museveni the ability to remain in office for the rest of his life, by lifting […]