Analysis

Analysis

Italian spyware and the demise of a Moroccan news site

1 April 2015 -

Western companies selling surveillance technology to law enforcement and intelligence services are on the rise. In 2012 the Moroccan news website Mamfakinch, founded to report on the Arab Spring protests, was targeted with spyware developed by an Italian company called Hacking Team. The attack proved to be the fatal blow to the site and its many co ...

Analysis

How Iraq ended up with ISIS and angry Sunnis

17 March 2015 -

Twelve years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the curfew in Baghdad has been lifted. However, there is little reason to rejoice. In 2013, Barack Obama announced the end of a decade of American intervention in Iraq. Today, his nation is involved in yet another war in the area. As the International Coalition has resorted to targetting the Islamic Sta ...

Analysis

What is the way forward for Nepal?

23 January 2015 -

Since the end of the civil war in 2006, repeated deadlines for a new constitution have passed, and several governments have come and gone in Nepal. As a result, the distance between the Nepali people and their government seems increasingly unbridgeable.

Analysis

Indonesia: An archipelago of opportunities

1 May 2014 -

Indonesia has been living in the shadow of the Asian giants China and India. From now on, though, the Southeast-Asian nation has the ambition to become one of the emerging powers of the 21th century on it's own merits. With 250 million inhabitants, an expected economic growth of 5.7 percent this year and a gross domestic product of more than a tril ...

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Analysis

Western consumption: a source of environmental conflicts

22 April 2014 -

Mining projects, oil and gas extraction, energy crop plantations and tourist resorts are increasingly encroaching on pristine areas. Here they come more and more into conflict with local communities, who fight back to stand up for their rights. Worldwide, these projects in the service of progress lead to conflicts and human rights violations. Howev ...

Analysis

Kick out the jams

6 November 2013 -

This summer, on July 18, the 310 year-old American city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy. Motor Town's descent into the abyss of real estate meltdown and black poverty, has become a symbool of the decline of the once mighty West. But people have been rebuilding hope, from the margins and with their own hands. Detroit should be a symbol of resilience ...

Analysis

Meanwhile In Goma…Withdrawal Of M23 And Kampala ‘Negotiations’

18 December 2012 -

The day Goma fell to the M23 I was on my way there, having planned to take a boat to Eastern Congo's largest city on November 20th from Bukavu. Eventually I had to travel to Kinshasa through Bujumbura and Nairobi. Three weeks later, the flights from the capital to the east have become normalised again.

Analysis

‘A revolution takes time’

5 September 2012 -

Marwan Bishara, political analist of Al-Jazeera English, and producer and host of Empire, a programme that discusses world leaders and their agendas, was one of the prominent guests at the Friends of Europe congress on the Arab Spring. For Bishara, the Arab Spring is first and foremost a political revolution of consciousness. “The revolutionary see ...

Analysis

Kris Berwouts on the road in Congo

12 July 2012 -

I spent the last twenty days of June in the Congo. Most of that time, I visited people and communities at grass root level. In brief, I went to Fizi – Baraka – Uvira – Bukavu – Kalehe – Minova – Goma. All by road. I ended my trip in Kinshasa, trying to wrap with a more national perspective. What follows is not really an article, nor is it an elabor ...

Analysis

Destructive, omnipresent and top secret

18 June 2012 -

A quarter of all countries worldwide maintain a fleet of submarines. Submarines continue to be of crucial importance as nuclear deterrents, for espionage and for asymmetrical warfare. A survey of the geopolitical hotspots where submarines rule the waves.

Analysis

‘Smaaklik!’

13 June 2012 -

In 2008, Africalia and the city of Ghent chose South African Ismail Farouk to create a work of art for Ledeberg, a borough of Ghent. His functional artwork ‘Smaaklik’ is not there yet, in the meantime Farouk shares his views on space and society in Ledeberg, Europe and his home country South-Africa.

Analysis

Bleak horizon

10 April 2012 -

In spite of the efforts made by NGOs and the distribution of EU funds, Europe’s main minority is no better off than it was 10 years ago. A lack of appropriate supervision in Brussels, the corruption of local leaders and the indifference of national governments are at the root of the problem.