In late February, South Africa’s parliament overwhelmingly passed a motion seeking to change the constitution in order to allow the government to expropriate land without compensation. The motion came after the ruling African National Congress formally adopted the principle of land expropriation at its party conference in December. South Africa’s new president and the head of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, has since voiced his opposition to the recent spate of unilateral land grabs across the country, or what critics call “illegal land invasions.” In an email interview, John Campbell, the Ralph Bunche senior fellow of African policy studies at the [...]
On March 16, a Greek appeals court denied an extradition request by Turkey for eight Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece in July 2016, following the failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It was the third such rejection by Greek courts, which say the men could face an unfair trial in Turkey. The fate of the servicemen, whom Turkey accuses of being involved in the attempted coup, has been a source of escalating tensions between Greece and Turkey, two NATO allies. In an email interview, Simon Waldman, a visiting research fellow in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies [...]
After more than five years of negotiations, Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, signed into law a new mining code earlier this month. The code faced strong opposition from mining companies, which now face higher royalties and taxes. The government has said it may be willing to negotiate terms on a case-by-case basis. Congo has extensive mineral wealth and is the top source of cobalt globally and the top source of copper in Africa. In an email interview, Thomas Lassourd, a senior economic analyst at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, or NRGI, discusses why the government decided [...]
