Commonwealth
Opinion
‘New’ Zimbabwe, Commonwealth and Brexit
by Dr Balasubramanyam Chandramohan, Senior Research Fellow The recent events that led to change of leadership in Zimbabwe resulted in the creation of a ‘new’ Zimbabwe. However, there are more continuities than changes in the power structures at the systemic level, and...
How did Zimbabwe get here? Exclusive extract from forthcoming book
How did Zimbabwe get here? What is going on? What is likely to happen? The short answer is a combination of short-term factors, and long-term trends, economic structural pressures, political policy choices, and personal power agenda. Read this extract from Robert...
A Flutter of Butterfly Wings: New Challenges for Gibraltar
by Dr Maria Mut, Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies Two classical physics theories perfectly apply to the current situation in Gibraltar. The first has been attributed to Heraclitus: ‘Everything flows, moves and nothing lasts forever’. The...
As pressure mounts on South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, he blames an old enemy: Western intelligence agencies
South African President Jacob Zuma has had his back to the wall. The National Executive of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) met at a hotel in Pretoria over the weekend of November 26-27. The discussions – so intense that delegates almost came to blows – were over whether to remove the president from his post.
For the journalists who hung around outside the ANC meeting to decide the fate of their president, it was a long and dreary wait, which continued into the Monday. The president was facing numerous allegations, ranging from corruption and bringing the ANC into disrepute to – perhaps most telling of all – charges of allowing the opposition to take key cities during municipal elections earlier this year.
Botswana’s elephants and conservation – are things starting to fall apart?
The picture of Dr Mike Chase grimly viewing the carcass of a poached elephant in the Chobe Enclave in northern Botswana is doubly poignant. Not only is it one of at least 26 elephants poached for their ivory there recently, but Mike Chase has just completed the massive Great Elephant Census of many of Africa’s savannah elephants. This massive survey is aimed at providing data to help conserve elephants and their habitat and inform debates over the levels of poaching and of human-elephant conflict. It found a decline in savannah elephant numbers in 18 states surveyed (but oddly excludes those in Namibia, Central African Republic and South Sudan – and all forest elephants) over the last nine years (much of which was already known, though and recorded in the African Elephant Database) and the full import of the new minimum estimate of 352,271 has still to be assessed against existing data.
Swaziland – thinking the unthinkable to save rhinos by legalising trade in horn
by Professor Keith Somerville, ICWS Senior Research Fellow Swaziland has submitted a proposal on the legalisation of trade in rhino horn to the Conference of the Parties to CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora),...
Taking the bull by the horns – dehorning rhinos to protect them
by Professor Keith Somerville, ICWS Senior Research Fellow The large bull rhino, accompanied by a couple of rhino cows, was about a hundred metres away. The jeep carrying the darting team moved closer, there was a popping sound and the bull twitched and moved off with...
Censorship and the SABC
by Martin Plaut, ICWS Senior Research Fellow On Friday 27th of May this year South Africa’s state owned broadcaster – the SABC – announced that it would will no longer broadcast footage of people destroying public property during protests. The SABC’s Chief Operating...
LGBTI vote at the UN shows battle for human rights is far from won
by Professor Henning Melber, ICWS Senior Research Fellow and Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria The world has edged closer to placing the same value on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people as it does on human...
Ivory – battle lines being drawn over the trade in tusks ahead of CITES summit in South Africa
by Professor Keith Somerville, ICWS Senior Research Fellow Ivory and elephants have for decades been very emotive topics among conservationists, wildlife departments and NGOs in states which have elephant populations and in Western countries which believe they have a...
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