Wavel Ramkalawan’s recent visit to the United States for President Biden’s US-Africa Leaders Summit last week left people with more questions than answers. Although ostensibly joining other leaders from across the African continent for a summit meant to focus on civil society, business, diaspora and youth leadership, one could not help but wonder whether or not the administration had other hopes for the visit. Seychelles, as is the case with quite a few other African nations, has been falling victim to Russian influence. The ongoing war in Ukraine has seen the Russian Federation incre ..read more

 The story which one would have anticipated to be making waves recently in Seychelles is the surprising banning of the Seychelles Independent News (SIN) from presidential press conferences by Wavel Ramkalawan. Claiming, quite strangely, that the country was “moving towards a more serious media”, the President took the decision to ban the publication from press conferences on the basis of the claim that they were publishing defamatory material about his administration. The move was strongly criticised by the Association of Media Practitioners Seychelles (AMPS), who condemned the P ..read more

 President Ramkalawan, has for quite some time now, been overplaying the nature of the Seychelles relationship with the European Union. During a February visit to the Embassy of Seychelles in Brussels and in a meeting with European Union officials as well as EU ambassador to Seychelles, Vincent Degert, Ramkalawan made sure to, “on behalf of the government and the people of Seychelles express our appreciation for the strong partnership that exist between Seychelles and the EU”. The President similarly attempted to leverage this relationship during his recent address to the nation, where he ..read more

 The right of a defendant to legal representation is one of the most basic aspects of international justice. No matter how horrific the crime, every person accused of committing a crime is entitled to having their case heard with the help of an attorney in a court of law. This seems to be true everywhere but in Seychelles, where the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACCS), under the leadership of May De Silva, has been denying the Valabhji couple, defendants in the case sinisterly named “Operation Black Iron” their right to legal representation. Of course, the ACCS, and the foreign lawyers w ..read more

 There are some things that no longer come as a surprise to anyone. One of those is the ability of those in power to do everything and anything possible to cling to power. Such was the case with the recent appointment of the former Commander of the Seychelles Coast Guard, Colonel Jean Attala, as the new Chief of Staff of the Seychelles People’s Defence Force (SPDF). Despite the fact that its name suggests that its purpose is to protect the interests of the people, President Wavel Ramkalawan has once again proven that the sole purpose of the military is to uphold his own perso ..read more

 The nostalgia with which many reflect on Britain’s colonial legacies is not surprising. Tony Blair famously stated in a 1997 speech, “I value and honour our history enormously,” and that the country’s history of empire should be the cause of “neither apology nor hand-wringing”. The post-Brexit world has only encouraged this sentiment, which seeks to reinvigorate the spirit which once allowed Britain to rule more than half the world. Although the empire that is seen by many as a product of the British state, an often overlooked aspect of Britain’s successful domination of the gl ..read more

 Corruption in countries like the Seychelles has become something which people unfortunately accept as a given. When there is little oversight, those that are in power take advantage. That doesn’t make it okay but it is expected. What people don’t anticipate is the extent to which those in power will go in order to shamelessly promote their own interests at the peoples’ expense. Such was the case in a recent expose published by The People, according to which Chief Justice of the Seychelles Supreme Court Ronny Govinden, took advantage of his position of power and proximity to the Seychelle ..read more

 Factual errors continue to riddle one of the most high-profile cases Seychelles has ever seen. In an exclusive report, on the basis of confidential information overheard in the halls of the Seychelles Ministry of Justice in Victoria, more questions are unfortunately raised than answer. One thing is certain however, and that is that the prosecution in the case of the “missing 50 million US dollars” have not been completely upfront with the public, and their own evidence proves it. For those unfamiliar, the saga begins with 50 million dollars donated by the government of the United Arab ..read more

 Huge, industrial fishing vessels operate in the Seychelles national waters yearly, looking for a fish known as “blue gold”: tuna. The most sought-after tuna is the yellow fin tuna, but fishers also catch big-eye tuna, skipjack tuna, and swordfish – all of which turn a healthy profit in the international market. Undeniably, the fishing industry fortifies the Seychelles’ economy. In 2019, the small East African archipelago nation exported about 6,600 metric tons of fish and crustaceans, which brought more than $13 million into the country, according to a local news r ..read more

Spanish and French fishing vessels were found to have been illegally fishing in the exclusive economic zones of Somalia, India and Mozambique, claims a new report by the Blue Marine Foundation, an NGO dedicated to marine conservation. The two operate sizeable distant-water fleets that engage in purse seining, large-scale industrial fishing, which poses threat not only to the target species but also – due to large amounts of bycatch it produces – endangers marine life in general. The Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) were established by the UN in 1982 and are reserved for the ..read more