![Eastern [African] Exposure: Ethiopia, Ethnicity, and other Kindling for Tigray’s Backstory](https://astutenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Demonstration_of_Tigrayan_and_Eritrean_community_in_Brussels-768x432.jpg)
There’s a whole mess of bloody messes around the world that few Americans care about. In fact, they could form a whole category of conflict labeled: “Top Ten Violent Hot Spots You’ve Never Heard Of (But Should Have).” The list might include, for starters, Nigeria’s resource war between herders and farmers (six times deadlier than…
The Horn of Africa itself is of significant interest to many countries that consider themselves a geopolitical entity, since its geographical location allows it to control the connection between the Red Sea (and therefore the Suez Canal) and the Indian Ocean, where a large flow of ships passes. Djibouti hosts French, Italian, American and even…
In Africa, more and more conflicts are moving from previously “sluggish” stages to “hot.” This trend is confirmed by the recent events in Mozambique along with development of Morocco’s situation with the integration of Western Sahara recognized by several states of the world as the territory occupied by Moroccans, the recent attempt of a military…
The most intense phase of Ethiopia’s several-week-long civil conflict appears to be drawing to a close after the country’s national defense forces gave an ultimatum to Tigrayan rebels in the restive region’s capital to surrender or face utter destruction, but the consequences of this conflict will likely linger for long after the war formally concludes…
The two-week-old civil war in Ethiopia is now embroiling neighboring Eritrea. The two countries previously fought a two-year border war (1998-2000) which resulted in 100,000 dead. But in a bizarre twist, the Ethiopian central government in Addis Ababa is siding with Eritrea to now wage a war against its own people in the northern Tigray…
The news that Russia is to build a naval base adjacent to the Red Sea underscores the geopolitical background to the recent escalation of conflict in Ethiopia. The Horn of Africa with its intersection of trade routes is the subject of intense geopolitical contest. China and more recently Russia are offering economic partnership for development,…
