Africa
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…