Islands

A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing.

To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass.

But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account.

Continue reading "If a government falls in paradise, does anyone hear?" »

The common experience of flying into a small island is that the view from the window, until almost the last moment, is the sea. A nervous flyer can be forgiven for wondering whether the experience is a routine landing or a ditching in the ocean.

As I discovered last week, visiting two Indian Ocean island states, this first impression of a small island state is the same in the Pacific as it is in the Indian Ocean.

The Seychelles and the Maldives have their unique stories.

Continue reading "Our island influence is not specific to the Pacific" »