May 22, 2022

Good morning. The Times reveals how Haiti became the poorest country in the Americas.

Adrienne Present harvesting coffee beans in Haiti.Federico Rios for The New York Times

Catherine Porter, New Yorl Times newsletter

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, and a new Times investigative series explores why. One stunning detail: France demanded reparations from Haitians it once enslaved. That debt hamstrung Haiti’s economy for decades — and kept it from building even basic social services, like sewage and electricity.

The series is based on more than a year of reporting, troves of centuries-old documents and an analysis of financial records. I spoke to my colleague Catherine Porter, one of the four reporters who led the project, about what they found.

Why tell Haiti’s story now?

I’ve been covering Haiti since the earthquake in 2010, and returned dozens of times. Any journalist that spends time in Haiti continually confronts the same question: Why are things so bad here?

Continue reading How Haiti became the poorest country in the Americas →

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Hints of a new North Korea nuclear strategy

An earlier version of this article appeared in The Japan Times.

For more from this author, visit his recent chapter of Comparative Connections.

Make no mistake: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un truly believes he needs nuclear weapons.

For years, that need reflected a single objective: the protection and maintenance of his regime. A nuclear arsenal was a defensive tool—a deterrent—to ensure that no foreign power would attack his country and end the Cold War division of the Korean Peninsula. Kim’s rationale for possessing nuclear weapons seems to be shifting and his rhetoric and accompanying military developments indicate a new focus—the acquisition of a war-fighting capability.

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Foreign Policy situation report,May 19, 2022

After months of flirting with it, Finland and Sweden have finally decided they want to tie the knot with NATO and join the military alliance. (Thanks again, Russian President Vladimir Putin.) The two countries are meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday morning.

Joining NATO, however, isn’t a simple process, even for two developed democracies with strong militaries that seem like just the right fit for the alliance.

It takes unanimous consent from all 30 NATO members, ratified by votes in parliaments (and in the United States’ case, the Senate) across Europe and North America.

Continue reading NATO Expansion? That’s (Maybe) Gonna Be a No From Turkey, Dawg →