WPR Daily Review.

"Haiti is spiraling toward total collapse."

Views expressed in this geopolitical news and analysis are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Acccessed on 28 April 2025, 2209 UTC.

Content and Source:  Email update from "WPR Daily Review", 28 April 2025.

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April 28, 2025

Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering the worsening crisis in Haiti and the growing use of drones in conflicts across Africa.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

Indian soldiers patrol along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan in Poonch, about 156 miles from Jammu, India, Dec. 18, 2020 (AP photo by Channi Anand).

India-Pakistan: The two countries exchanged fire for the fourth consecutive night, India said today, as tensions continue to ratchet up following an attack last week in Kashmir that killed 26 people. India said it had responded to “unprovoked small arms fire” from several Pakistan Army posts along their de facto border overnight, while Pakistan has not commented on the skirmishes. (Reuters)

Our Take: After the attack last Tuesday—the deadliest on civilians in India since 2008—the Indian government moved quickly to point the finger at Pakistan. New Delhi pointed to...

	Subscribe to WPR to read our take on today’s top story.

“Haiti could face total collapse,” Maria Isabel Salvador, the United Nations special representative to Haiti, said last week. She also said the country was nearing the “point of no return” and close to “total chaos.”

Officials and analysts struggle with the language to describe the dire situation that Haiti now faces. The country has been in such bad shape for so long that warnings about Haiti’s plight can easily be ignored as just more of the same.

However, as Salvador warned, the reports from the capital and elsewhere signal that the country is experiencing a new level of conflict in which the degree of state failure and gang control could be far worse than seen previously, columnist James Bosworth writes.

International Neglect Has Left Haiti Spiraling Toward Total Collapse

By James Bosworth Years of warnings to the international community about the chaos in Haiti went unheeded. Now, the country is nearing a point of no return.

*****

All around the world, armed Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, have become a core component of modern warfare. But it was only recently that drones, as they are commonly referred to, began to feature in conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. Two recent events demonstrate the dramatic manner in which this advanced weaponry is beginning to shape those conflicts.

The first is last month’s deadly drone-coordinated attacks by Islamist insurgents against two military installations in West Africa’s Lake Chad Basin region, killing at least 16 Nigerian and Cameroonian soldiers. The second is the ongoing diplomatic row between Mali and Algeria over the latter’s downing earlier this month of a Malian drone operating in Algerian airspace while attacking insurgents and terrorists plaguing Mali’s northern border region.

Both incidents highlight the ways in which unregulated access to cheap but combat-efficient UAVs is adding a new and dangerous element to conflicts in Africa, Zikora Ibeh writes.

Drones Are Transforming Conflicts Across Africa

By Zikora Ibeh More groups are gaining access to cheap but combat-efficient drones across Africa. The result marks an entirely new era in conflict on the continent.

Question of the Day: According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, fentanyl seized at the Canadian border in 2024 made up what percentage of all fentanyl seized by the agency that year?

20 percent 2 percent 0.2 percent 0.02 percent

Find the answer in the latest WPR Weekly Quiz, then read Benoît Gomis’s briefing on the role security and defense are playing in Canada’s elections today.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, or PA, named Hussein al-Sheikh, a close confidant, as his VP in a newly created position. The move is widely seen as a step toward designating a successor to the 89-year-old Abbas, although al-Sheikh’s insider status is unlikely to assuage Abbas’ deep unpopularity among Palestinians.

Many Palestinians accuse the Fatah-controlled PA and its leadership of corruption and failing to protect Palestinians from Israeli violence. As Hugh Lovatt wrote in October, the PA’s existing crisis of legitimacy has only worsened as Israel has expanded its security operations in the PA-governed West Bank.

The West Bank Is Becoming Ground Zero in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Hugh Lovatt A weakened Palestinian Authority is unable to curb increasing violence in the West Bank. Without pressure on Israel, it will only get worse.

*****

The Philippines deployed personnel to a disputed sandbar in the South China Sea yesterday and displayed its flag there, after Chinese media reported last week that members of the Chinese Coast Guard had done the same earlier this month. The standoff comes days after the U.S. and the Philippines began annual joint military drills in the region.

Rising tensions with China in the South China Sea have pushed the Philippines’ defensive diplomacy into high gear in recent years, with Manila positioning itself as the linchpin of a broader security network in the Indo-Pacific. As Richard Javad Heydarian wrote in August, while the Philippines’ alliance with the U.S. is key to that strategy, it is also enhancing Manila’s strategic autonomy and modernizing its defense capabilities.

The Philippines’ Defense Diplomacy Is All About Agency, Not Alignment

By Richard Javad Heydarian Facing increased Chinese aggression, the Philippines is diversifying its pool of security partnerships beyond the United States.

*****

On Saturday, Turkish authorities detained 47 people, including more senior officials from Istanbul’s local government, as part of the same purported corruption investigation that led to the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. The arrests mark the latest in an escalating legal crackdown on opposition figures across Turkey. Read more in this edition of the Daily Review on Imamoglu’s arrest.

*****

Saudi Arabia and Qatar announced that they will settle Syria’s $15 million debt to the World Bank, potentially easing the new regime’s ability to stabilize the country’s battered economy. Read more on the economic challenges facing Syria post-Assad in this briefing by Francisco Serrano and more on how the battle for influence in Damascus could reshape Middle East diplomacy in this briefing by Jonathan Fenton-Harvey.

More from WPR

Paul Poast on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s deportation. Eduardo Arcos on Ecuador’s presidential election. Daniel W. Drezner on the latest IR movie, “G20.” Nathalie Tocci on the legacy of the Bandung Conference.

Read all of our latest coverage here.

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