Drones and Foreign Arms Transfers Fuel Sudan's War

 The UN Political and Peacebuilding Office posted on 22 December 2025 remarks titled "ASG Khiari Warns Indiscriminate Drone Strikes and Arms Flows Are Driving Sudan's War."

UN Assistant Secretary General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Khaled Khiari, condemned the use of drones and foreign supply of increasingly sophisticated and deadly weapons to the belligerents in Sudan's civil war.  Calls to end these flows have gone unheeded and there has been no accountability.  

USAID Dismantled and Children Die

 The Associated Press published on 16 May 2025 an article titled "Children Die as USAID Cuts Snap a Lifeline for the World's Most Malnourished" by Taiwo Adebayo.

Drawing on a program implemented by Mercy Corps in Nigeria to feed malnourished children, the article documents the damage caused by dismantling USAID.  It also looks at the closure of global programs administered by Helen Keller International.  

India Begins Prosecution of Somali Pirates

 The Maritime Executive published on 25 March 2024 an article titled "India Begins Its First Prosecution of Somali Pirates in More Than a Decade."

Indian authorities in Mumbai are now prosecuting 35 Somali pirates captured on the hijacked Bulgarian ship, the Ruen, which is being returned to Bulgaria.  The cases against the Somalis are being brought under India's Maritime Anti-Piracy laws.  

China's Population Decline and Africa

 The Conversation published on 10 May 2023 a commentary titled "China's Population Has Peaked and Is Now Falling--Opportunities and Risks for Africa" by Lauren Johnston.  

India is expected to replace China this year as the world's most populous nation as China's population declines.  African countries with a large working-age population may benefit from the end of China's period of labor-abundance.  Africa will be in competition, however, with countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam.  

China Competes with Kenya and Five Others for Head of International Maritime Organization

 Lloyd's List published on 3 April 2023 an article titled "IMO Leadership Race Wide Open as China and Finland Vie for Power" by Richard Meade.

The International Maritime Organization will hold an election in July for the position of secretary general to head the group.  Candidates from China, Kenya, Turkiye, Bangladesh, Panama, Dominica, and Finland are seeking the position.  

China and UN Peacekeeping Operations

 Brookings posted on 14 September 2020 an analysis titled "China's Pragmatic Approach to UN Peacekeeping" by Richard Gowan.

China's contribution of troops to UN peacekeeping operations has actually declined since Xi Jinping announced in 2015 that China would make available an additional 8,000 troops.  In terms of top providers of troops to UN peacekeeping operations, China is now number ten after countries like Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Rwanda.  On the other hand, it has more the double the combined total of personnel assigned to UN missions by the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council.  To some extent, these lower Chinese PKO numbers reflect a global reduction in UN peacekeeping troops.

Security Implications of China's Military Presence in the Indian Ocean

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published in March 2018 a brief titled "Security Implications of China's Military Presence in the Indian Ocean" by Zack Cooper, fellow for Asian security at CSIS.

The author argues that the security implications of China's push into the Indian Ocean are mixed. In peacetime, these efforts will expand Chinese regional influence. In wartime, however, China's Indian Ocean presence will likely create more vulnerabilities than opportunities. China's new military base in Djibouti provides a rudimentary power projection base, which is bolstered by its access to ports in Bangladesh, Burma, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Ethiopia, China, and the Apparel Industry

Bloomberg Businessweek published on 2 March 2018 an article titled "China Is Turning Ethiopia into a Giant Fast-Fashion Factory" by Bill Donahue.

The article describes the challenges of developing an apparel industry in Ethiopia and warns that it may be necessary to move more cautiously in the years ahead.

Will Africa Become the Next Manufacturing Destination?

The Washington-based Center for Global Development (CDG) published in October 2017 a working paper titled "Can Africa Be a Manufacturing Destination? Labor Costs in Comparative Perspective" by Alan Gelb, Christian J. Meyer, Vijaya Ramachandran, and Divyanshi Wadhwa.

The study concluded that compared with Bangladesh for any given level of GDP, labor is more costly for firms that are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results did not suggest a particularly bright future for labor-intensive manufacturing in Africa. This is an important conclusion as many African leaders are pushing hard to industrialize and are being supported by China in this effort.

On a labor cost basis, a few African countries may be potential candidates for manufacturing. Ethiopia stood out in this study. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Malawi were also possible candidates. Ethiopia's labor cost is reasonable compared to other African countries as well as to Bangladesh, and appears similar to China in the 1980s. Nevertheless, certain factors could derail industrialization in Ethiopia. Political unrest could unsettle investment in the manufacturing sector if repeated in Ethiopia on the scale seen in 2015 and 2016.

Drawing on the CDG study, The Nation published on 27 October an analysis titled "Kenya Can't Imitate China's Economic Model, As Things Stand" by Kwame Owino, chief executive officer of the Nairobi-based think tank, Institute of Economic Affairs. Owino concludes that Kenya's struggle to expand manufacturing shows the difficulty lies in getting into regional and global value chains.