Illegal logging is a growing feature of transnational organized crime in Africa, often facilitated by the collusion of senior officials, with far-reaching security and environmental implications for the countries affected. African countries are estimated to lose $17 billion to illegal logging each year. This is part of a global market with an economic value of…

“Tribal wars”, “ethnic conflicts”, “racial conflicts”. To explain the reasons for the violence between different communities, identity and cultural oppositions are brought up. But there are always economic reasons and ambitions for power at the basis of any disagreement. The divisions of human groups have no scientific basis. According to the French anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle,…

On November 4, 2020, a new war began in Ethiopia. Just three years earlier, the country had signed a peace agreement with neighbouring Eritrea that earned Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. The current conflict, which pits the central government against a coalition of its Kililochs (region-states), has caused thousands…

At the height of the numerous protests that have swept through Sri Lanka over the past 4 months, a crowd of protesters stormed the presidential palace in the capital Colombo, forcing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee. Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is elected as the ninth President via a parliamentarian election. Uncertain future. On Saturday…

An unprecedented initiative that provokes contrasting opinions and evaluations. A double standard in migration policy.  There have been reactions both in favour and against the recent agreement between Great Britain and Rwanda regarding asylum seekers in the United Kingdom and their possible diversion to Rwanda. The agreement was signed on April 14th. Regardless of whether…

Why did British Home Secretary Priti Patel, claiming her aim is to destroy the cross-channel traffickers’ “business model”, choose Rwanda for her recent £120 million Migration and Economic Development Partnership?  And from what budget does the funding come? Asylum seekers and migrants seeking a safe or better life in the UK are to be treated…

Putin’s mother may or may not have been a closet Orthodox Christian who had her son secretly baptized. Metropolitan (head of a major diocese) Tikhon, friend of Putin, first trained as a screenwriter, is known for his ultraconservative nationalist theology, his opposition to democracy and support for censorship as well as his promotion of Orthodoxy…

On May 29, the first round of presidential elections takes place in Colombia, the third-largest electorate in Latin America in terms of population. It is a country that has been ruled for more than six decades by centre-right forces, following an agreement between them after a long period of political instability, dictatorships and violence, in…