Bougainville Voting on Independence from Papua New Guinea

Update: The results are in! Read our Bougainville referendum update to find out what happened!

Bougainville island and its surroundings could become the world's next independent country (public domain UN map).

This week, voting will begin in a referendum that could lead to the creation of the world's first widely-accepted new country in almost a decade. Bougainville, a group of islands in the South Pacific, will be voting on independence from Papua New Guinea.

Where did this come from? Is the referendum expected to pass? Will Bougainville really become independent? Read on for all the answers!

Fact Check: Is the AfCFTA the World's Second Biggest Free Trade Area?

The AfCFTA is planned to cover almost all of Africa, but doesn't yet.

The recently-created African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) now has 28 full member countries, with 26 more signed on to the project as future members.

That's a lot of members for a free trade area, and everyone seems to be calling it the "world's biggest free trade area since the WTO". But is that label really accurate?

(If you don't want to read the whole article, scroll down to the conclusion for a short summary.)

Syrian Civil War Map & Timeline: Turkey Enters Northeast - October 2019 (Subscription)

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Research by Djordje Djukic. Map by onestopmap.com, Evan Centanni, and Djordje Djukic

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Amid a US withdrawal, Turkey and its rebel allies have begun their long-threatened intervention against Kurdish-led fighters in northeastern Syria, who now have struck a deal with the Assad government to share their territory and jointly fight back against Turkey.

See all this and more on the latest update to PolGeoNow's concise, professional Syrian Civil War control map, which includes a timeline of changes since our previous Syria map report in September, with sources cited.

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• NEW: Special symbols for joint Turkish/rebel control and joint SDF/government control, so you can track Turkey's intervention in the border region
• EXTRA: Label for Barisha village, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in a US raid this weekend
• Up-to-date illustration of current territorial control in Syria, color-coded for the Assad government, rebel groups, "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) fighters, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Colorblind accessible.
• Extent of "buffer zone" sponsored by Turkey and Russia in the rebel-held northwest
• Outline showing approximate location of the one publicly-known US "deconfliction zone"
• Special symbols indicating towns dominated by rebels of the former Al Qaeda Nusra Front (now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS) and by the Kurdish YPG militia (part of the SDF anti-IS coalition).
• Detailed indication of city-by-city control, including key towns and other locations important to current events.
• Locations of recent control changes and other important events, including Ras al-Ayn, Tel Abyad, Ayn Issa, and more.
• Detailed timeline of important events and changes to territorial control since September 10, 2019, compiled by our Syria-Iraq expert, with links to sources. 

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Mauritius Becomes Full Member of AfCFTA (Map)

Update: As far as can be determined, this map is still accurate as of August 2020, with no news on any deposits of ratification instruments since Mauritius. Angola, Cameroon, and Morocco are all reported to have ratified the AfCFTA treaty, but apparently haven't yet completed their membership by registering with African Union headquarters (the AU's official "status list" for the treaty hasn't been updated since October 2019, and recent reports still put the number of deposits at 28). 

In related news, the next stage of the trade area's implementation has been delayed to January 2021, but the organization's headquarters were inaugurated on August 17, 2020 in Accra, Ghana.

Map by Evan Centanni, from blank map by Eric Gaba. License: CC BY-SA

Mauritius Ratifies AfCFTA Treaty

Two months ago, we reported on this year's creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), an African Union (AU) project to increase trade within Africa. Almost all of Africa's countries have signed on to the AfCFTA, but they only become full members once they've ratified its founding treaty (adopted it into their national laws) and formally registered their ratification with the AU.

Yemen Control Map & Report - October 2019

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Map by Evan Centanni and Djordje Djukic, from base map by Koen Adams of onestopmap.com.
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Timeline by Djordje Djukic

Yemen More Divided Than Ever

In the month and a half since our previous Yemen control map report, the separatists of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) have held onto control over much of the country's south, pushing the internationally-recognized Hadi government to abandon Aden and set up a new "interim capital" in the eastern town of Ataq. Meanwhile, fighting between Hadi-loyal forces and the north's rival Houthi government has continued, with both sides capturing territory from each other near the Saudi border.