The United Arab Emirates (UAE) appears to be constructing a new port next to Assab International Airport in Eritrea, which could become its first permanent military base in a foreign country.
Satellite imagery shows rapid progress has been made since work began sometime after September 2015. A square of coastline measuring about 250x250 m has already been excavated and dredged, while a pier and/or breakwater is being constructed and already extends over 700 m from the original coastline.
he Horn of Africa is becoming drier in step with global warming, researchers said on Friday, contradicting some climate models predicting rainier weather patterns in a region that has suffered frequent food crises linked to drought.
A new study using a sediment core extracted from the Gulf of Aden found the East African region covering Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia has dried at an unusually fast rate over the past century.
Lead author Jessica Tierney, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation the research team was confident the drying was linked to rising emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases, and was expected to continue as the region heats up further.
"If the region becomes dry, like we think it might get, that completely changes your models for food security and agriculture," she said.
Study co-author Peter deMenocal of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory warned that many aid groups are expecting "a wetter, greener future for the Horn of Africa". But the new findings show "the exact opposite is occurring".
China is negotiating a military base in the strategic port of Djibouti, the president told AFP, raising the prospect of US and Chinese bases side-by-side in the tiny Horn of Africa nation.
"Discussions are ongoing," President Ismail Omar Guelleh told AFP in an interview in Djibouti, saying Beijing's presence would be "welcome."
Djibouti is already home to Camp Lemonnier, the US military headquarters on the continent, used for covert, anti-terror and other operations in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere across Africa.
France and Japan also have bases in the port, a former French colony that guards the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, and which has been used by European and other international navies as a base in the fight against piracy from neighboring Somalia.
China is already financing several major infrastructure projects estimated to total more than $9 billion (8 billion euros), including improved ports, airports and railway lines to landlocked Ethiopia, for whom Djibouti is a lifeline port.
"France's presence is old, and the Americans found that the position of Djibouti could help in the fight against terrorism in the region," Guelleh said.
"The Japanese want to protect themselves from piracy — and now the Chinese also want to protect their interests, and they are welcome," he said.
