Shifting Sands: Instability in Undefined Asia

Shifting Sands: Instability in Undefined Asia Author: Strategic Foresight Group Originally Published at Peace and Conflict Monitor on: 04/28/2003 Category: Special Report There are periods in history when the world changes. The Second World War from 1939 to 1945, and the end of Cold War and apartheid from 1989 to 1992 were the last two […]

The Elusive Peace: Nepal

As both the Nepal government and Maoist rebels are adamant on their respective stands, prospects of peace remain as elusive as ever and the Himalayan kingdom continues to bleed, literally.

The Mizrahi-Palestinian Connection, Part II

Scholarly analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has depicted it as a conflict between two homogenous entities, namely Israel and the Palestinians. However, scholars largely ignore the impact of the “inner-Israeli” conflict between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim on the “external” conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Not only are the Mizrahim excluded from the peace process itself, but academics also fail to research the role they play in the conflict, while their occasional public role is that of extremely right-wing “Arab-haters” who prevent the Ashkenazi-dominated “liberal peace camp” from reaching a solution– hence they are portrayed as an obstacle to peace. Part II of a three-part series. Part I

Pawn of pawns: USA, Africa and empire in the 21st century

President Bush’s trip to Africa poses many questions, including the nature of US influence there and elsewhere, the extent to which African states can play off the US against the EU, and the effect on weapons research. Matt Norton in this guest editorial takes a journey through some of the issues.

Powerful Rural Women in Turkana, Kenya

On a hot weekday morning about 100 people were meeting in a church in Kainuk, Kenya, a remote rural town on the border between the areas of Turkana and Pokot. Suddenly all the children sitting on the porch of the church took off like a startled flock of birds, running at breakneck speed away from the church. When their parents sitting inside the church saw their children in flight, they dashed after them. The meeting dissolved into chaos…

Protesting Arms

Protests in Cancun, Mexico overshadowed the 144 arrests at London’s huge arms fair.

Saddam Hussein Goes Home and Hides Under a Rug

Myths live and die by their own logic. One of the reasons that myths, especially living myths, become mythic in the first place is that they seem to live outside the rules that govern the rest of us. They are bigger than life, mightier than circumstance, and awesome (in the case of Saddam, terribly so) in their capacity to shape circumstance and the world to their liking, and often to do their bidding.

SARS and the High Moral Ground

The hysteria surrounding SARS has abated, but has it left a legacy by recasting infectious disease as a more central security concern?