Our interest in this topic stems both from our annual visits to Mauritania which started fifteen years ago, and the tiny amount of research noticed on trafficking in this country.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional organization which was created in 1981, reassembling six Arab countries together: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Thanks to their oil income, GCC countries have enjoyed economic boom since 2002, hence breaking with the 1990s economic slow-down.

One of the major events of the last couple of decades has been the rise of China and India, reflected by their increasingly important economic presence in the world, both in terms of trade flows and of foreign direct investments.

Africa, which has long remained the former colonial powers" “private hunting ground”, does not seem to escape from Indian and Chinese presence and activity, hence worrying Africa"s traditional partners.

For the last 50 years the governance of the US-Japan alliance has often been characterized by secret diplomacy and discretionary choices. In the post-war period Japan's strategic choices have given overall priority to sustaining a strong security alliance with the United States.

The failure of Prime Minister Hatoyama to transfer the dangerous U.S. military base of Futenma out of Okinawa hastened his resignation, announced on June 2nd.

This paper takes a careful look at China's perceptions of the role of nuclear weapons in its national security policy and defense posture.

Relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia have never been as friendly as they were in 2009. After years of tension over Saudi support for Islamist fundamentalism in the post-Soviet space and Russia's proximity to Iran and Iraq, Moscow and Riyadh have progressively moved closer to each other.