Saudi Arabian interests have an anti-Iran role in the war in Yemen;   “peace” between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the flourishing Jihadist militias on the African continent. Saudi Arabia is spreading its dangerous geo-political web also over Ethiopia and Eritrea. These two countries, after twenty years of conflict, reached an agreement on 9 July described as…

As the International Criminal Court (ICC) has marked the 20th anniversary of its foundation, the member countries are called upon to step up efforts to support the Court in the face of increasing challenges to delivering justice. But some African countries are currently threatening to leave the ICC. The Court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute,…

At the White House it is not advisable to insist too much. The Turkish leader guarantees the USA and NATO important strategic interests in the Middle East. He could look to Russia, China or Iran. There is no easing off in the diplomatic war between the USA and Turkey; indeed, it seems to be intensifying.…

There are all sorts of reasons for celebrating Nelson Mandela in this centenary year of his birth. We recall the way he worked incessantly to overcome racial domination and achieve freedom for both the oppressed and their oppressors. We marvelled at how he could emerge from 27 years in prison without rancour or bitterness, even…

Continual growth in commercial exchange between the Asian giant and many African countries. Closeness of ties that can be seen also in the diplomatic field with the opening of eighteen new Indian embassies on the continent. Back in 2002, on 26 May, the Indian minister for Commerce and Industry, Murasoli Maran, launched the programme “Focus…

The Cotonou Agreement is the overarching framework for European Union (EU) relations with countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) and is based on three pillars: development cooperation, economic-trade cooperation, and the political dimension. The negotiation will start this month of September. This agreement will be valid until 2020. The European Commission has…

The resource curse, also known as the paradox of abundance, is the theory that countries with an abundance of natural resources, such as oil and minerals, achieve less economic growth than countries that are not endowed with natural resources. However, there are some exceptions, and  Botswana is one of them. The case of this southern…

Bogus accusations against Iran as a manufacturer of nuclear arms. The Israeli government fears Iran may change the balance of power in the Middle East, compelling it to respect the rights of Palestinians. The Iranian nuclear question is again dominating the international political scene. It has obscured the deep crises in Syrian, Yemen and Libya,…

Trade agreements have potentially very damaging impacts on health. They multiply precarious jobs, weaken working conditions and open up the health sector more widely to the market. Since the failure of the “Doha Round” (2004), which was to remove barriers to world trade in a variety of sectors and reduce agricultural subsidies, international trade negotiations…

Africa is a continent ‘on the move’, a concept that refers mainly to the migration flows within and from the continent. Media often put more emphasis on intercontinental flows, while African migration remains overwhelmingly intra-continental. Although the exodus of young Africans to other continents, especially toward Europe, is on the rise, the largest number of…

In October 2013, the US Justice Department announced the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the founder and operator of ‘Silk Road,’ a massive online marketplace for drugs and other illicit goods. Authorities called it ‘the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet’ and estimated that it had facilitated the transfer of more than a…

The Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) are international agreements between countries to facilitate the direct investment of companies from a country, usually economically developed, in another developing country. These agreements originated in the 1960s and aimed to protect the legal security of investors of one country in the foreign country receiving the investment. The BITs can…