Clara Ferreira Marques

A Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t solve thorny political problems. It didn’t draw a line under Apartheid when South African activist Albert Luthuli won it in 1960, or bring freedom to the Soviet Union when physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov did in 1975. But it does, unfailingly, shed…

This is one of a series of interviews by Bloomberg Opinion columnists on how to solve the world’s most pressing policy challenges. It has been edited for length and clarity.Clara Ferreira Marques: Your latest book, “Cuba: An American History”, is a sweeping narrative that illuminates Cuba’s tangled…

The final votes are still trickling in, but the verdict is already out. Russia’s ruling party has retained its supermajority in the Duma, ensuring control of the legislature in the years running up to the 2024 presidential election. Whether that’s really the decisive victory the Kremlin wanted…

Covid-19 vaccines were supposed to be a golden diplomatic opportunity for great powers and aspiring rivals to woo friends — and even enemies — in need. It isn’t going to plan. Russia was the first to approve a vaccine and the most enthusiastic marketer, but has fallen far short of its hyperbolic…

Could climate alarm bells be ringing in the Kremlin? Official pronouncements and a newfound urgency suggest the reality of greener global demand may finally force a fossil fuel behemoth to accept the inevitable. Last week, in a ministerial meeting that touched on environmental monitoring,…

Eighteen months into the Covid-19 pandemic, we don’t know exactly how many people have died. A true global tally is not just overdue. It’s vital. The task is a Herculean one, given that so much of the world struggles to record basic information about deaths even in normal times. But without a…

Cubans are, by necessity, talented at getting by. Yet even they have limits, and this past weekend thousands of fed-up citizens stepped out in what became unprecedented island-wide protests over acute shortages of food, medicine and fuel. The pain of a pandemic that has shut down tourism, combined…

Before thousands descended on St. Petersburg for Russia’s annual economic forum this month, the local governor boasted to radio listeners that no one had held a similar-scale event since the pandemic struck. A few days later, President Vladimir Putin told the audience that his country was in a…

This is one of a series of interviews by Bloomberg Opinion columnists on how to solve the world’s most pressing policy challenges. It has been edited for length and clarity. Clara Ferreira Marques: You were just starting your career during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of…

Even by the standards of Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, effectively hijacking a flight between two European Union capitals in order to arrest an opposition journalist is an act of unbridled recklessness. Many details are still murky, including what role — if any — Russia played. One…