Posted on December 23, 2020. Tags: Africa, Algeria, cooperation, ECOWAS, Guerguerat, Jerusalem, Maghreb, Maroc, Mauritania, morocco, NATO, normalisation, Peace, Polisario, Politics, Sahara dispute, UN Security Council, United States, Western Sahara
American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over its Sahara and the normalisation of relations between Morocco and Israel could have lasting benefits for the cause of peace in North Africa and the Middle East. For North Africa, the Sahara dispute between Morocco and the Algerian backed Polisario has dragged on for 45 years, making it one […]
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Posted in Africa, Conflict, Culture, Economic Security, Economics, Global Economy, Israel, Israeli Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, NATO, Political Security, Refugees, Religion, Security Issues, UN, US, World
Posted on April 20, 2020. Tags: Asia, Carl Schmitt, Chernobyl, China, coronavirus, COVID-19, Czech Republic, Donald Trump, European Union, Germany, Globalization, Hubei, Hungary, Liberalism, state of emergency, Trump, U.S., United States, WHO
“Viruses know no borders and they don’t care about your ethnicity, the colour of your skin or how much money you have in the bank.” The words of WHO official Dr Mike Ryan about Coronavirus (COVID-19) would seem to many of us common sense. What appears ‘common sense’ does not, however, always manifest in the […]
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Posted in Australia, China, Europe, European Union, Germany, Refugees, Security Issues, UN, US, World
Posted on March 19, 2018. Tags: Africa, African Conflict, Democracy, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Elections, Human Rights, Humanitarian, Internally Displaced Persons, Refugee, Refugee Camps, Refugees, war
The UN Under-Sectretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) this week for the first time. Following meetings with internally displaced persons, Lowcock underscored that the DRC is the site of one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in the world today. A year after his term ended, Congolese […]
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Posted in Africa, Conflict, Refugees, UN, World
Posted on March 10, 2016. Tags: Advocacy, Architecture, children, Displaced Peoples, Homeless, Human Rights, IKEA, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Lebanon, Middle East, RE:BUILD, Refugee Camps, Refugees, Shelter, Syria, UN, Urban Planning, Winter, World
I take my home for granted. There, I said it. Chances are you do, too, if your conception of home – like mine – does not include worrying about the daily dangers of a civil war playing out on your doorstep; the mortar shelling that has left your family homeless; or the stability of […]
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Posted in Conflict, Humanitarian Intervention, Iraq, Middle East, Refugees, Security Issues, Syria, World
Posted on May 7, 2016. Tags: Asia, Asylum Seeker, Australia, Boat People, Cambodia, Campsfield House, Concentration Camp, Detention Centres, Global Detention Project, Guantanamo Bay, International Law, Irregular Immigration, Lesvos Island, Manus Island, Middle East, Naura, Opcat, Papua New Guinea, Refugees, Stop the Boat, Torture, united nations
It’s official: Australia’s “Stop the Boats” campaign is a success. Or so the government claims. Back in 2013, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott ascended to his post in part because of his pledge to “stop the boats,” or, in less catchy rhetoric, to prevent asylum seekers – mostly arriving by sea from the Middle East […]
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Australia, Conflict, Europe, Iran, Political Security, Refugees, Syria, UN, World
Posted on June 22, 2016. Tags: Angela Merkel, Brexit, Brussels, David Cameron, EU Referendum, Germany, Leave, Oil, Remain, Scotland, Scotland's Referendum, Scottish independence
CC Image courtesy of Rareclass This piece was also published in Huffington Post on 23rd June 2016 Something we in Scotland learned the hard way in 2014 is that referendum questions are dangerous because they make both choices on the ballot paper seem equally plausible. By giving the people a choice we somehow assume that […]
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Posted in Europe, European Union, Germany, Global Economy, Refugees, Scottish Independence, UK News, World
Posted on February 21, 2015. Tags: Arab Spring, Asylum Seeker, boat, Brussels, consequences, Death, Dublin, Europe, Frontex, Hungary, Immigration, International Security, Iraq, Ireland, IS, ISIS, Italy, Middle East, Migration, navy, problem economy, Refugee, Sea, Syria, Terrorism, Threat, Triton, UN, UNHCR
John Donne famously reminded us that ‘no man is an island’. Likewise in today’s polycentric, ever-globalized, and interconnected world, no state can remain untouched by social, economic, or political influences from neighbouring states. As terrible as Islamic State has been for people living in Syria, Iraq and Libya, its effects on Europe are also increasingly being felt. […]
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Posted in Africa, Conflict, Economic Security, Europe, Germany, Humanitarian Intervention, Iraq, Islam, Middle East, Refugees, Security Issues, Syria, Terrorism, UN, World
Posted on November 6, 2015. Tags: Burma, Human Rights, Myanmar, Rohingya
Millions of Myanmar’s citizens will go to the polls on 8 November to cast their votes in the first relatively democratic elections in 25 years. At stake is control of the country’s bicameral legislature – the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, which is currently dominated by President Thein Sein’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). As stipulated […]
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Posted in Asia, Humanitarian Intervention, Islam, Refugees, Religion, UN, World
Posted on April 4, 2015. Tags: Baathist, Counter-terrorism, independence, Iraq, Iraq war, ISIL, ISIS, Islam, Islamic State, Middle East, Nouri al Maliki, Saddam, Shi'a, Sunni, Syria, Terrorism, World
ISIS’ exploits dominate headlines, horrifying witnesses around the world. As a history graduate who specialised in researching the rise of Islam, its culture, and its creation of a complex and inspiring civilisation, the recent destruction of millennia old artefacts have almost reduced me to tears. As we now watch and condemn the destruction of priceless […]
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Posted in Conflict, Humanitarian Intervention, Iraq, Islam, Middle East, Political Security, Refugees, Religion, Security Issues, Syria, Terrorism, World
Posted on June 6, 2015. Tags: Africa, conflict, ethnic cleansing, south kordofan, south sudan, sudan
Since 2011, South Kordofan, a Sudanese region situated on the border between South Sudan and Sudan, has been a battlefield between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). The latter is a political party and military organization, claiming to be “a Sudanese national movement that seeks to change the policies of the […]
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Posted in Africa, Conflict, Food Security, Refugees, Security Issues, World
Posted on April 20, 2015. Tags: Asad, conflict, ISIS, Palestine, Syria, Terrorism
A brave 12-year-old girl named Zeynab Daghastani recently attempted to escape the grim living conditions of a besieged Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. Starving and bone-tired, she did not make it very far before being shot and killed by an ISIS sniper. Welcome to Yarmouk. On April 1st, a group of ISIS’s mask-wearing jihadists swept through the […]
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Posted in Conflict, Humanitarian Intervention, Israeli Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Political Security, Refugees, Security Issues, Syria, Terrorism, UN, US, World
Posted on January 2, 2015. Tags: European Union, eurozone crisis, Germany, Immigration, Merkel, Racism, UK, UKIP, United Kingdom
I haven’t been wildly impressed by how Angela Merkel has handled the eurozone crisis, but this speech to the German people shows why (for my money) she’s easily the most impressive political leader in Europe, if not the world, right now. At a time when too many UK politicians have been pandering to extreme tendencies in a craven attempt […]
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Posted in Economic Security, Europe, Germany, Global Economy, Refugees, World