What happened in Gabon on 30 August was only the latest coup attempt in Africa, a continent that has seen eight in the last three years. The first took place in Mali, a country that suffered two coups in nine months between 2020 and 2021, while the last one before Gabon’s took place in Niger.…

Three countries visited. Cooperation contracts. The intention is to get out of a state of political and economic isolation imposed by Western sanctions. Last 12 and 13 July, a delegation, made up of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif and businessmen and led by the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, visited the African continent,…

“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth by falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages”.  That’s Samuel Johnson in November 1758 writing in his The Idler essays for the London Weekly about the growing role of journalists – ‘news-writers’.  You wonder what he might have made…

Africa is responsible for only 4% of CO2 emissions but is suffering enormous agricultural and health damage. It is proposed to provide help by taxing multinationals and the consumption of the richest countries. Climate change is making its effects felt on humanity, affecting the cornerstones of survival and social organization. But accountability and consequences don’t…

The sustainability of the energy sector and the search for clean and low-carbon energy technologies are the basis of the European Union’s strategy on energy policy which has as its main objective the so-called carbon “neutrality” by 2050. Europe, in addition to increasing the domestic production of clean energy, aims to diversify its import basket,…

The expanding presence of China-based companies in Latin America, and the security problems they have experienced there, create an inherent demand for Chinese private security companies. The enormous expansion of global engagement by China and its companies over the past two decades has generated a corresponding need to protect Chinese operations and personnel in the…

To facilitate its Arctic ambitions, China aims to increase bilateral influence over its Arctic pariah, Russia. China’s northernmost tip is over 1,400 km south of the Arctic Circle. It sees the mass of sea, ice, and land as a new strategic frontier, and as Arctic space becomes increasingly critical for infrastructure and defense, China has…

Of the 90 million containers that find their way through EU ports every year, law enforcement is able to physically inspect only two percent. This, combined with the criminal tricks, makes it almost impossible to detect the enormous amount of illicit goods that enter the continent through ports, according to a new Europol report. The…

The competition between Asian countries for chips is fierce. But not everyone is willing to give up the Chinese market to satisfy Washington. The global demand for semiconductors has been declining in the last six months: after years in which the demand for electronic devices had also skyrocketed the demand for semiconductors used for their…

The growing demand for Rare Earths for energy transition requires more resilient supply chains. Are stockpiling and recycling part of the solution? In the coming years, energy transition and the progressive electrification of our economies will increase the consumption of Rare Earths and other elements, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper collectively indicated as…

We think of sanctions as an alternative to war.  They are also a projection of power.   States, corporations, and recently, individual citizens, are punished economically. The aim is to stop or curtail actions which are inimical to the interests or values of the sanctioning State or contrary to international law, or to both.  In the…

Finland has just joined NATO.  Norway was a founding member in 1949. Sweden wishes to join but to date is blocked by Turkey. A few weeks ago, the Russian Ambassador in Stockholm, Ukrainian-born Viktor Tatarinsev, commented “the Swedes will undoubtedly be sent to their deaths in the interests of others” adding that joining NATO would…