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Africa

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The Mozambique Channel is the next security hotspot

The waters off Mozambique are becoming a major new security hotspot in the Indian Ocean. An Islamist insurrection in northern Mozambique that the government seems powerless to suppress has also increasingly led to disruption in the Mozambique Channel, a key global shipping route. The Quad countries

By David Brewster

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Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO, and what’s next?

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari fully supported the candidature of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to become Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. Even though the two are the products of different political philosophies, in June 2020 Buhari nominated Okonjo-Iweala, who served as Nigeria’s

By Anthony Maliki

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Agalega: A glimpse of India’s remote island military base

The small, remote Mauritian island of North Agalega, located in the south-western Indian Ocean, 1,122 kilometres north of Mauritius, is currently a hive of construction activity. India sought access to the islands in 2015 to develop as an air and naval staging point for surveillance of the south-

By Samuel Bashfield

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Australia’s silence on Chagos dispute doesn’t help

Australia’s defence of the rules-based international order is based on enlightened self-interest. As the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper made plain: “We will act on the principle that Australia will be safer and more prosperous in a global order based on agreed rules rather than one based on the

By Benjamin Herscovitch

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The power of example: America’s presence in Diego Garcia

In remarks delivered at the US State Department in early February, President Joe Biden championed the rule of law as part of “America’s abiding advantage” and spelled out his vision for a nation leading “not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example”. In its swing

By Blake Herzinger

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Chagos: A boundary dispute tips over a sovereignty ruling

The decision last month of a Special Chamber of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea on a maritime boundary dispute between Mauritius and the Maldives reflects two dimensions to the engagement by international courts in resolving disputes among Indian Ocean states. First, it represents

By Natalie Klein

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The Diego Garcia dispute hits cyberspace

The dispute over the ownership of Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Archipelago involves a complex array of legal, human rights, security and geopolitical issues. The United Kingdom wants to retain the islands it calls the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Mauritius wants to see the

By James Mortensen, Samuel Bashfield

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Artefacts paving France’s return to Africa

In November, the French Senate unanimously voted to return a small selection of pre-colonial African artefacts to Benin and Senegal that were looted by colonial forces. Benin will receive 26 artefacts from the former Kingdom of Dahomey, while Senegal will receive a sword and scabbard belonging to a

By Charmaine Manuel

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Russia’s red star in the Red Sea

While the world’s attention in recent weeks has been firmly fixed on the United States’ presidential race, Russia under Vladimir Putin has made a number of surprising moves. One was a swift deployment of its peacekeepers to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, putting a stop for now to a bloody

By Alexey Muraviev

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Jihadist attacks in Nice: The Tunisian connection

In the last five years, the French city of Nice has been targeted twice by jihadist terrorism. Both times the perpetrators were young men from Tunisia, the smallest country in North Africa, situated between Algeria and Libya. The first incident came on Bastille Day in 2016, when an attacker

By Leila Ben Mcharek

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Seychelles: New man, changing strategic environment

The election of Wavel Ramkalawan as President of Seychelles breaks the 43-year stranglehold of the party of former dictator France-Albert René. For Australia and the West, the election result removes many old assumptions about the central Indian Ocean and presents some new risks and opportunities

By Ashton Robinson

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Western Indian Ocean: Where trouble on land spells danger at sea

South Africa may be facing an unholy mix of insurgency, radicalism and major power competition in the Western Indian Ocean. Much attention is given to the rivalry between major naval powers operating in the Indian Ocean. This has included the dense concentration of international military forces in

By Francois Vreÿ, Mark Blaine

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What is Turkey’s endgame in Libya?

Turkey’s reimagining of the Pax Ottomana has not made many friends in the region, and it currently finds itself at odds with Egypt, UAE and Greece to name a few. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made very clear his ambition that Turkey will be a leader in the Mediterranean and in

By Iain MacGillivray

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Diego Garcia: The US has a clear choice

Mauritius is the legitimate sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including the island of Diego Garcia, which hosts an important US military base in the Indo-Pacific region. The government of Mauritius has publicly announced its willingness to enter into an agreement that would preserve the base,

By Jagdish Koonjul

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Decolonise Diego Garcia: Why America should not fear Mauritius

The United States military base on Diego Garcia has a problem: it is housed inside an unlawful jurisdiction, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). According to the African Union, UN General Assembly and a recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, BIOT is a colonial holdover

By Peter Harris

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China eyes African prospects to iron out trade tension with Australia

Growing Sino-Australian diplomatic and trade disputes have led to Chinese import bans on certain Australian products, but iron ore – Australia’s biggest export to China – has largely been kept out of the fray. Although China did impose new import procedures that could potentially hold up

By Cornelia Tremann

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Finding compromise in the Chagos Islands saga

The Chagos Archipelago of 54 islands, formerly administered as a dependency of the British Colony of Mauritius, was excised from Mauritius by the UK in 1965, three years before independence. It was renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), and its inhabitants (about 1500 people) were

By David Snoxell

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In India and Africa, women farmers lack land rights

In October 2016, women from across the African continent met at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with a charter of demands pushing for women’s right to use, control, own, inherit and dispose land. The Women2Kilimanjaro hike’s demand for more inclusive land rights proved not to be in

By Vani Swarupa Murali

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Are African nations putting policing over public health?

In the health and epidemiological challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, countries have had little choice but to introduce strict measures to contain its spread, banning travel, imposing lockdowns, releasing prisoners en masse and bringing other actions unthinkable under ordinary

By Nicholas Bugeja

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Mauritius, Diego Garcia and the small matter of nukes

Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia is a key part of the US global military network. The dispute over sovereignty of Diego Garcia is heating up, with the UK coming under increasing pressure to cede it to Mauritius. Mauritius has indicated that if it regained control over Diego Garcia, it would allow

By Samuel Bashfield

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To act, or not? Al-Shabaab’s response to a Covid-19 crisis in Somalia

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, regional security agencies have flagged the potential for a new wave of violent extremism to emerge within Somalia. World Health Organisation figures show that Somalia has had more than 1200 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and more than 50 deaths. However, the

By Stephanie Carver, Samantha Kruber

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As Africa prepares to fight Covid-19, China steps up

As China slowly begins to recover from Covid-19 and re-start its economy, it is seeking to position itself at the head of the global virus response and fill the void in humanitarian assistance created by Western paralysis. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa, where China has a long history

By Cornelia Tremann

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Coronavirus in conflict: The fight has hardly begun

The War on Covid-19 In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mobilising language of war is being used by leaders from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and British

By Eleanor Gordon, Florence Carrot

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Middle East dispatch: MBS purge, dam dispute, refugees in jeopardy

Vulnerable cases Early efforts to contain Covid-19 focused on quarantining those travelling by air, leaving the impression of coronavirus as a disease mostly affecting stable and industrialised nations with busy transport networks. Of course, the danger was always more widespread, particularly in

By Lauren Williams

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The tiny African country making a big case against Myanmar

Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague announced a decision ordering that Myanmar’s Rohingya people be protected from further atrocities. Myanmar rejected the ruling on the very same day. Never mind that in September the United Nations–backed International Independent

By Antje Missbach, Franzisca Zanker

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In Africa, the US plays catch-up with China

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced his first trip to Africa, 15–19 February, with stops in Senegal, Ethiopia, and Angola. The choice of these three countries demonstrates that the US remains focused on security and economic investment issues in Africa, and, in the case of Angola, is

By Cornelia Tremann

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Diego Garcia: Unnerving neighbours and raising ghosts

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding decision in February 2019 supporting Mauritius’s claim to the UK-administered Chagos Archipelago, which includes Diego Garcia. Subsequently the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution in May 2019 endorsing the ICJ

By Ashton Robinson

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Australia’s stance on Diego Garcia dispute is increasingly untenable

The US base on the island of Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is among the most important US military facilities in the world, and is the foundation stone of the US presence in the Indian Ocean region. It’s been a vital element in Australia’s strategic position in the region for

By David Brewster

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Diego Garcia: The costs of defending an Indian Ocean outpost

On 22 November, the United Kingdom failed to comply with UN Resolution 73/295 passed in May, which demanded the UK “withdraw its colonial administration from the Chagos Archipelago unconditionally within a period of no more than six months”. Australia was one of only six states to vote against

By Samuel Bashfield

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Russia’s southern strategy

“Valiant breaks London–Cape record by 54 mins”, led the 9 July 1959 edition of the Cape Argus. The arrival of the sleek, white-painted, and still highly classified long-range British nuclear bomber, which represented the cutting edge of Britain’s new Cold War airborne nuclear deterrent, drew

By Allan du Toit

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How Africa is breaking China’s neo-colonial shackles

If there’s any indication of how Africa is moving up on everyone’s agenda, look no further than the first edition of the Russia-Africa Summit, which saw 43 African heads of state converging last week on Sochi. Beyond the fact that the summit reflects the brisk trade Moscow does with the

By Wenyuan Wu

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The withering of Robert Mugabe, as told by Australia’s Prime Ministers

The way incessant talk of China’s rivalry with the United States dominates the present turbulent world, it’s hard to conceive of an earlier time when Australia’s prime ministers devoted hours upon hours to the fate of far-off Zimbabwe. But the death on Friday of African independence hero-

By Daniel Flitton

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Can Japan catch up in the economic scramble for Africa?

Recently, China entered the market as an exporter of used cars overseas. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce revealed the populous African nation of Nigeria as one of the destinations for 300 cars in the first batch of freight. The vehicles included brands such as Land Rover, Toyota, Hyundai,

By Anthony Maliki

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Congo’s Ebola outbreak: sounding a global alarm

As the one year anniversary of the ongoing Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province draws near, the World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has sounded the global alarm about this most recent outbreak of the deadly virus. Over 2500 cases and

By Jesse Schnall

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Belt and Road: colonialism with Chinese characteristics

Although China’s top-ranking diplomat Yang Jiechi has repeatedly assured the world that his country’s supreme foreign policy project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), “does not play little geopolitical games”, many governments believe this is exactly what it does. The second BRI

By Anthony Kleven

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Remembering Rwanda: small mercy from the horror of Kibeho

What you don’t expect to see when you arrive at Kibeho are the eucalyptus trees. When Belgium ruled Rwanda, gum trees were planted across the colony to provide firewood. A small country in central Africa, Rwanda is mainly populated by two ethnic groups: the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu.

By John Connor

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The strategic consequence of the Chagos Islands legal dispute

At the end of last month, the African archipelago nation of Mauritius secured an important legal victory in its territorial and maritime disputes against its former coloniser, the United Kingdom. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) produce an advisory opinion that rejected the UK’s claims

By Bec Strating

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The new US Africa strategy is not about Africa. It’s about China

President Donald Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton outlined the US administration’s new Africa strategy in a speech last week at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC. The main tenets of the strategy, including the prioritisation of trade and

By Cornelia Tremann

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America builds on development aid

In the biggest reform of US foreign aid policy in recent history, the US Senate this month passed the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development, or the BUILD Act. This legislation, signed into law by President Donald Trump on 5 October, will create the new US International

By Cornelia Tremann

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China’s aid: the image boost

Mounting accusations of Chinese debt traps, trade imbalances, and neocolonialism in Africa made for a heady backdrop to this month’s meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. China’s Xi Jinping made clear he was having none of it. In his keynote speech to African leaders gathered in

By Cornelia Tremann

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China’s arms trade: a rival for global influence?

Against the backdrop of the recent China-Africa Defence and Security Forum, numerous articles have been written questioning the rationale behind the conference and the potential ramifications of a closer Sino-African relationship. The fall in export of Russian made weapons to Africa

By Nan Tian

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A life in fear: violence against adolescent girls

The escalating violence by Boko Haram in Nigeria in 2014 sparked widespread international condemnation, but the fighting triggered a regional crisis in neighbouring countries of northern central Africa that continues to this day. While the roots of the problem are complex – involving inequality

By Eleanor Gordon, Hannah Jay

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Xi Jinping, Senegal, and China’s West Africa drive

Xi Jinping’s choice of Senegal for a state visit on 20–21 July, his first visit to West Africa, en route to the BRICS summit in South Africa, suggests that China seeks to deepen cooperation in a region that has seen comparatively less Chinese engagements than elsewhere in Africa. In using

By Cornelia Tremann

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“Poor old” China meets “poor young” Africa

The success of China’s reform and opening program across 40 years has shifted the nation from backwater to the centre of global growth, lifting 800 million people from poverty in the process. A largely complementary economic relationship has meant Australia has enjoyed a record-breaking prosperity

By Lauren A. Johnston

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