1. UK Royal Navy patrol ship arrives in Ghana.
HMS Trent, a Royal Navy patrol ship, arrived in Ghana on Wednesday 10 November as part of a 3 month expedition that will also include visits to the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Cape Verde. While in Ghana, members of 42 Commando Regiment of the Royal Marines will train military personnel on the boarding and searching of suspicious vessels, evidence handling and medical skills. Harriet Thomposon, British High Commissioner, hailed the deployment as ‘the UK-Ghana security partnership in action: a mutually beneficial partnership built on the sharing of expertise, intelligence and training’. HMS Trent joins the four other British Royal Navy patrol ships each currently deployed in the Indo-Pacific, South Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Caribbean.
2. Security top of the agenda as the 51st annual African CPA conference is held in Abuja, Nigeria.
Security, the economy and COVID-19 are three priority areas being discussed as delegates from 12 countries across the African continent gathered in Nigeria’s capital to attend the 51st conference of the African Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA). Ojo Amos, the Clerk of the National Assembly in Nigeria, stated the conference “would afford member states the opportunity to cross pollinate ideas on how to solve pressing issues in their countries”. This is the first time CPA delegates have been able to assemble since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, with 2019’s conference being held in Tanzania.
3. India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka opt to enhance maritime intelligence sharing.
Speaking at the Goa Maritime Conclave, Indian Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh announced that the three nations, facing similar threats posed by non-state actors in the Indian Ocean, ‘are going to have focused operations where we will deal with these as soon as the intelligence comes in’. The three-day event has also seen India offering to train the maritime platforms of the Maldives and Sri Lanka in an attempt to further enhance trilateral cooperation. Naval chiefs representing 12 maritime forces of the Indian Ocean are in attendance of the event, including those of Bangladesh, Mauritius, Malaysia and Singapore. Encapsulating the importance of international maritime cooperation, Singh added the attending nations are trying to ‘build the collective maritime competence because the Indo-Pacific region is too big for anyone to do it alone’.
4. Joint Heads of Pacific Security hold virtual meeting
Top figures of security agencies in the Pacific reasserted their commitment ‘to an open, inclusive and rule-based Pacific’ on Wednesday as the annual JHOPS meeting took place. Angus Campbell, Chief of the Australian Defence Force, noted how the region had been together facing intersecting challenges of COVID-19, cyclones, bushfires and maritime security. Signifying the importance of collaboration between the Pacific nations in addressing these issues, Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram asserted ‘together we are more effective at identifying and mitigating risk’. Those in attendance included five regional bodies and security leaders from 24 nations and territories.