Asia & Africa today

Salman bin Abdulaziz who ascended the throne of Saudi Arabia in 2015 faced the challenge of abandoning the feudal pyramid and establishing a new power vertical. Volatility in oil prices and falling budget revenues posed a threat to social stability. Additional drivers of instability were the military involvement in the civil war in Yemen, Sunni-Shiite contradictions in the Eastern Province, and tensions with Qatar.

In 2016, the Vision 2030 program, which entailed profound reforms, was adopted. It suggested the IPO of Saudi ARAMCO, the development of non-oil sectors, in particular tourism, the accelerated expansion of the private sector, labor market reforms, including greater women’s participation in labor force, and weakening the conservative control of the Wahhabi corporation over society.

The first stage of the implementation of Vision 2030 provided for the expansion of cooperation with the United States, especially after the administration of D.Trump came into office, and for more political interaction with Washington, but at the same time encouraged the development of mutually beneficial ties with Russia.

Inside the kingdom, the course of reforms drew both the support of a part of society interested in their implementation as it understood the urgency of significant changes, and the opposition of another part that aimed at protecting its privileges and maintaining strict Wahhabi traditions. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman became the personification of the new course.

On 17 September 2021, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) approved Iran’s complete membership application 15 years after obtaining observer status in 2005. Iran is slated to receive full SCO membership in April 2023, marking its first move to join a significant regional organization since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s future membership in the SCO brings many opportunities and challenges, which can affect its future growth and direction. This study focuses on Iran’s membership application to the SCO from 2005 to 2021 and analyzes the opportunities and challenges that Iran’s membership can bring to the organization. It uses a SWOT analysis of Iran’s diplomatic, information, military, and economic instruments of national power as it has used them in its application. Through this analysis, the study shows that overcoming sanctions is the primary driver of Iran’s push to join the SCO, and its instruments of national power are sufficient to contribute to security cooperation within the SCO’s framework. However, Iran’s membership may complicate SCO decision-making processes and fuel additional Western pressure on the SCO as an anti-Western alliance. It remains to be seen if Iran’s membership will be a game-changer for the SCO in achieving its goals. Ultimately, as the SCO matures as an organization, it gives the impression that the Western-led international order is one of many viable frameworks for the international order. With its disadvantaged position in the Western-led international order, Iran may seek to play a more prominent role in shaping an alternative where it can protect and forward its interests.

The article analyzes the approaches of the Mauritanian authorities to the fight against terrorism. While the countries of the Sahel region are suffering from a crisis caused by the actions of jihadist groups, Mauritania has become a positive exception in this regard. There have been no major terrorist attacks there in the last 10 years, although there are significant problems in the country that make it vulnerable to extremism. These are unresolved political issues, huge social and ethnic differences, and the weakness of the economy. The terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has been organizing terrorist attacks in the country since 2005 and recruiting young Mauritanians into the ranks of jihadists, tried to take advantage of the numerous problems of Mauritania and the popularity of political Islam there. The peak of terrorist activity in Mauritania was 2005–2011, when more than ten attacks were carried out. Since coming to power in 2009, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz began the formation of a new anti-terrorist strategy that took into account both the Algerian experience and the Mauritanian realities. This strategy was complex in nature and included both military measures and “soft approaches”. Among the military measures, a successful military reform should be noted, affecting military education, increasing the mobility of the armed forces and the capabilities of special forces units. The approach of the Mauritanian authorities to the internal religious and political arena has also undergone a radical change. In addition to offering dialogue to hardliners and the legalization of the Islamist Tevassul party, the approach aimed at involving the nomadic population of remote desert areas in the public space of Mauritania has fully justified itself.

The article examines the recent (December 2021) establishment of the African Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which was related to the recognition of autocephaly (independence) by the Alexandrian Orthodox Church (APC) of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU), and the subsequent rupture of relations between the APC and the ROC. Straight after the establishment of the African Exarchate, more than 100 African clerics left the jurisdiction of the APC and came under the jurisdiction of the ROC. The reasons for the active transition of Orthodox churches to the African Exarchate of ROC are connected not only with canonical issues, that is, unwillingness to be related to the church schism, but also with the policy of the APC in Africa. The African Exarchate, on the contrary, makes every effort to resolve current humanitarian issues and to build long-term cooperation on equal footing with the Orthodox Churches in Africa. An analysis of the events preceding the establishment of the Exarchate, the positions of the UOC and the ROC, as well as the expansion strategy may shed light on the prospects of the African Exarchate of the ROC.