Global Politics

Feeble economic growth, allegations of kleptocracy, and the controversial sacking of not one, but two Finance Ministers, headline South Africa President Jacob Zuma’s second term. In its most recent forecast, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the country’s economy to grow at 0.8 percent this year. While the IMF’s report expects poor growth across the […]

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The television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ has gripped viewers and political pundits alike, since its release in April 2017, for its astonishingly realistic parallels between the fictional world of Gilead, and the very real Donald Trump led USA. As the global campaign for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence draws to […]

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The international community has been quick to praise Liberia’s presidential elections as marking the country’s first peaceful transition of power in decades, with former football star George Weah taking an early lead in provisional results. This is indeed a remarkable feat for a country that has been ravaged by two civil wars, unexpected slumps in […]

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Rumblings are rife in Angola that something is afoot at the highest reaches of government. What may be in the offing? Everything from a top-level government shakeup to a full-fledged coup have been talked about. To keen observers of politics and conflict, it would not be surprising if people in power took sudden actions to […]

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Image by United Nations Photo Urging caution in light of Myanmar’s new president. His selection leaves many questions unanswered. Following on from Monday’s vote in parliament, Htin Kyaw has become president of Myanmar. Does he represent a new dawn for a nation which has languished in the shadows of poverty and authoritarianism? He is a […]

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  Vladimir Putin’s Russia has, especially in recent years, come under heavy criticism from many in the West. Much of this criticism, however, deals with Russian aggression toward Ukraine, the extrajudicial killings of critics of the Putin regime such as Alexander Litvinenko, or accusations of widespread corruption. All of these issues are clearly in violation […]

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    Hun Sen’s increasingly despotic grip on Cambodia, and his family’s oligopoly of the country’s economy, should invite stronger condemnation and countermeasures from the West.   In July of this year, the NGO Global Witness published an excoriating exposé of Hun Sen, prime minister of Cambodia. The thrust of their criticism was directed at […]

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Turkey has a history of strict censorship which still remains a prominent issue in modern day Istanbul and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Media censorship is at an all time high with 140 press censorship cases already known in the country, newspapers have been shut down and journalists imprisoned. Now censorship is spreading to the […]

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Their name may owe something to the caped crusaders loved by comic fans everywhere. However, the activities of a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, are making them anything but superheroes to most Nigerians given their impact on the country’s economy. They have gained notoriety in the region after claiming responsibility for two attacks in May […]

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20D will go down in Spanish history. 20th of December – the Spanish write all of their most important dates in this manner – was the first time voters rejected the duopoly that had governed the country since democracy was reintroduced in 1975. For 40 years power in Spain has been held by either the […]

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The small coastal country of Djibouti made headlines last month as it was revealed that three-term President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh was scheduled to appear before the British High Court, which would have made him the first ever acting African head of state to do so. While pro-democracy activists in Djibouti and abroad heralded the development […]

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Since Enrique Peña Nieto became President of Mexico in 2012, the government has tried to change the narrative of a narco-stained nation existing under the siege of organised crime. During his first two years in office, an ambitious package of reforms in education, telecommunications and the energy sectors, to mention just a few, was sent to the Congress. After some successful […]

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A stimulant native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, Khat is a narcotic leaf that induces mild euphoria upon chewing – an extremely popular custom in Somalia, Yemen, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia. Lucrative business More than 25,000kg of khat is sold each day in Ethiopia’s Adaway Market and is a vital source of […]

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As anyone who has spent any length of time travelling in India will attest, it is a country of stark contrasts. In few ways is this more obvious than the vast disparities in wealth between 500 million of India’s total 1.27 billion citizens living on less than $1.25 per day and a small but increasingly wealthy elite […]

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