MediaWatch
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April 2006 I
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France Finally Steps Up
France's boosted pledge of a total of 2,000 soldiers for the U.N. force in Lebanon is still a stingy commitment but could help galvanise other European nations to follow suit, says this newspaper.
Airplane Terrorism Case Prompts Questions About the Work of Islamic Charities in Britain
With another charity under the spotlight for a possible connection to an alleged terror plot, Ian Fisher investigates to what extent Islamic charities ever mask fundraising for extremist groups.
A Strange Battle in Congo
Analysts are disoriented and the Congolese people deeply disappointed about the outbreak of violence after the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, says Juakali Kambale.
Lebanon: A greater folly than '82 war
The latest Lebanon war is a greater political and moral disaster than the one of 1982, since Hizbollah has emerged politically strengthened and a renewal of conflict looks more, not less, likely, says Haroon Siddiqui.
The Bosnia Excuse
The ceasefire in Lebanon is at risk because Western nations can't get over past peacekeeping failures, argues James Traub.
For some in Africa, it's 'magic' over pills
Doctors say that "mystery" HIV potions made of herbs do more harm than good - but still untested and unregulated traditional therapies are flourishing across Africa.
Losing Afghanistan
Nearly five years after the U.S. toppled the Taliban government, there is no victory in the war in Afghanistan, partly because of the Bush administration's reckless haste to move on to Iraq and its meagre spending on reconstruction, argues this newspaper.
A Congo Comeback
Despite violence, the elections offer a tenuous hope that democracy has a chance in the ravaged nation.
The global Aids campaign: a generation's struggle
The lesson of last week's international conference in Toronto is that the global AIDS industry needs to think strategically to meet the challenges of the next 25 years, argues Thomas de Waal.
In Lebanon, Even Peace Is a Battle
Victory in the latest war in Lebanon will not be won on the battlefield, but in the race between Hizbollah and the Lebanese government to rebuild homes and lives, say Carlos Pascual and Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution.
The big loser after Lebanon: democracy
In the wake of Israel's attacks on Lebanon, the death of hundreds of civilians and the complicity of major powers, Arab citizens are being pushed from domestic democratic concerns into the polarising dichotomy of resistance versus surrender, argues Amr Hamwazy of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
Dancing around the ceasefire motion
The United Nations has a bad record on enforcing resolutions and could restore a lot of credibility if it could see the Lebanese one through to the elimination of Hizbollah as a military force, argues this newspaper.
UN must speed help to Lebanon
Concerted international action is needed to consolidate the ceasefire, and the United Nations must deploy peacekeepers to southern Lebanon as quickly as possible, the newspaper says.
Lebanon war is over, but just for now
The war in Lebanon is nominally over, but only political ideologues could find cause to celebrate the end of the conflict, argues Dr James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington.
Return to Kandahar: The Taliban threat
The journalist who starred in the film "Kandahar" has gone back to the southern Afghan city for the first time in four years, where she finds residents living in fear as Islamic insurgents extend their reach still deeper into the country.
Important test for peacekeeping
The international force in Lebanon has two vital tasks - it must keep the lid on a very hot and complicated confrontation, and must also prove that U.N. peacekeeping is a valid alternative to brutish warfare in the Middle East.
Enforcing the ceasefire
The risk in Lebanon is that the U.N., France and Germany may try to restrain Israel from any further ceasefire violations while Britain and the United States remain silent, argues this newspaper.
United Nations: The World's Scapegoat
The Middle East ceasefire will evaporate if great powers hide their failures behind the U.N., argues Paul Kennedy, professor of history at Yale University and author of "The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations".
A new target in the AIDS war
To combat HIV/AIDS, we need better and cheaper medicines, faster delivery and treatments tailored for specific countries, populations and ages. It will cost tens of billions of dollars for years to come, but what choice do we have, asks the Chronicle.
UN to the rescue in Lebanon?
The world keeps turning to U.N. peacekeepers for ever bigger missions, but are they up to the job in Lebanon?
A phoenix from Lebanon's ruins
Hizbollah sees reconstruction and refugee flows in southern Lebanon as its latest quick win over Israel, writes Paul Rogers on OpenDemocracy.
The orphan epidemic
For all the talk at this week's Toronto AIDS conference, there's little focus on the plight of the disease's forgotten orphans.
To empower women in the war on AIDS
Given the tools and the education, women could radically change the course of HIV/AIDS and help prevent infection among future generations.
A Defiant Hezbollah Rises From the Rubble
Israel aimed to break the militant organisation with its month-long offensive, but instead it has been strengthened politically in Lebanon.
U.S. treachery and U.N. apathy
The U.N. ceasefire resolution for Lebanon is heavily weighted in Israel's favour and provides little incentive for Hizbollah to lay down its weapons, argues Linda S. Heard in Gulf News.
Peace in Aceh: Where there is a will, there is a way
The Indian Ocean tsunami brought the political will to leave old grievances behind and boosted the peace process in Indonesia’s Aceh province, say Martti Ahtisaari, chairman of the Crisis Management Initiative, and Pieter Feith, head of the Aceh Monitoring Mission, on the anniversary of the Helsinki accords.
Cease-fire? Make it work
Only a robust U.N. force can ensure that Hizbollah will not be a threat again, says this editorial.
Amid unrest, Haiti gains in fight on AIDS
The fate of Haiti's AIDS patients has begun to improve despite the country's unstable government, warring gangs and frequent kidnappings.
Put children at the centre
HIV/AIDS is not widely regarded as as a children's issue but, to halt and begin to reverse its spead, children need to be put at the centre of the agenda, writes Nigel Fisher, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada.
Abstinence-only message misguided
The United States isn't getting the job done on AIDS, partly because of an ideological focus on abstinence, according to the former U.S. directors of national AIDS policy under Bill Clinton and George Bush.
Africa's heroic grandmothers
Wealthy philanthropists and prominent scientists can be expected to steal the limelight at the Toronto AIDS conference this week, but the unsung heroes are the grandmothers who nurse and bury their children, and support their extended families.
Where AIDS drugs work
People in poor countries may actually work harder to stay on their HIV medication because they realise they have little access to other medical care if they don't, according to new research.
Everyone lost in the Lebanon war
The biggest losers in the Israel-Hizbollah conflict are the Lebanese, as the country wakes up to find more than 1,000 dead, its infrastructure in ruins and the south once again under occupation, says this comment piece.
All the news that fits: Liberia’s blackboard headlines
In a country where wheelbarrows fill in for pick-up trucks and water is carried on little girls’ heads instead of in pipes, it's perhaps no wonder that a battered blackboard serves as newspaper and newsreel all in one.
Lull in violence helps Uganda's young 'night commuters'
The number of barefoot children in northern Uganda leaving home by the thousands each night for the safety of nearby towns has fallen sharply amid a lull in fighting and peace talks to end a two-decade-old insurgency.
Aid can be an obstacle to making poverty history
Aid often does more harm than good by propping up corrupt regimes, creating dependency and holding back reforms that could help business thrive. What's really needed to start making poverty history is a business-friendly environment, says Ruth Lea, director of the Centre for Policy Studies.
Gloom over Karabakh peace process
The appointment of Matthew Bryza as the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE’s Minsk Group on Karabakh, and his recent visit to the region, could be a sign that Washington is determined to move the peace process along despite recent setbacks.
The Sri Lankan town that rarely smiles
If Sri Lanka staggers back into open war, it will probably begin in the government-controlled port city of Trincomalee, which has reprised its role as a primary flashpoint.
Africa still struggles for democracy
Whether Congo faces new peace or more violence, its people have embraced the chance to join fellow Africans who are increasingly finding their voices through the ballot box.
Maoist guerrillas and tribal rebels threaten India's industrial boom
An armed group of left-wing guerrillas who see industrialisation as an unwanted intrusion hold sway over a vast area of India .
Did Israel really need to savage the beauty of Beirut?
Until recently, Israel faced hostility in Lebanon mainly from the Shi'ites, who suffered most from Israel's lengthy occupation of the south. Now it is stirring the enmity of countless other Lebanese, writes George E. Bisharat, professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Pakistan turns to its people, not aid groups, in disaster relief
Rebuilding in post-quake Pakistan has begun at an admirable pace, thanks to a government strategy of paying survivors to do the work themselves.
A scramble in India to limit polio
India could reinfect the rest of the world with polio if a new outbreak is not brought under control rapidly, warns the head of the World Health Organization's polio eradication team.
The real problem is getting to a solution
The paradox of the violence in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon is that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians favour a two-state solution. The problem lies with powerful and often violent minorities that don't agree, writes Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University.
Poverty-stricken Rwanda puts its faith and future into the wide wired world
More "mobile in every pocket" than "chicken in every pot", Rwanda's Vision 2020 project aims to transform its depressed agricultural economy into one driven by communications and technology.
The real problem is getting to a solution
The paradox of the violence in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon is that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians favour a two-state solution. The problem lies with powerful and often violent minorities that don't agree, writes Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University.
Have you thought of Darfur lately?
Is there nothing meaningful the United States can do about the situation in Darfur?
A small charity takes lead in fighting a disease
A drug that could have cured black fever through cheap injections was identified decades ago, but died in the research pipeline because it wasn't profitable. Now a small charity is on the verge of getting the drug approved by the Indian government.
This time, let there be more than promises
Foreign donors have pledged $750 million in aid to Haiti, well above the $500 million the country had requested to jump start its economy. It's a cause for optimism but we should hold the applause, says this newspaper.
Chaos in Congo still taking toll on children
Children in Congo die from the same diseases that needlessly kill children all over Africa, such as malaria, diarrhoea and measles, but on a vast and cataclysmic scale.
Lebanon: Room for diplomacy
An outcome that benefits moderates could still be achieved but this will require imaginative, energetic and sustained diplomacy, led by the United States, writes Democrat Joseph Biden Jr.
Afghanistan in Africa
While the world's attention is focused on conflict in the Middle East, Somalia may be collapsing into a terrorist haven comparable to Afghanistan under the Taliban, says this editorial.
A continent-sized vote
Many in Congo suspect that the international community is using historic elections to ratify the rule of the current president, Joseph Kabila. In fact, most diplomats see little alternative.
The list: The world’s forgotten territorial disputes
Foreign Policy takes a look at some of the border conflicts the world has forgotten about.
Rough beast?
Humanitarian intervention succeeds only when circumstances are right, says Michael Meyer, who served for two years with the United Nations mission in Kosovo.
Israel has a long history of abusing the United Nations
Last week's Israeli attack on U.N. observers in Lebanon was just the latest in a long line of incidents that have poisoned relations between Israel and the United Nations since the beginning of their relationship.
Brutal peacekeepers: Congo's election, the UN's massacre
In eastern Congo many people would have been unable to vote because of violence that the U.N. has not only failed to stop but has even been party to, the newspaper says.
One new light in Liberia, an inch back from abyss
For more than 14 years, Liberia has lived in darkness, litterally and figuratively.
Partying in Israel's war zone
Hundreds of thousands who have fled northern Israel are now living in tents along the coast in an almost holiday-like atmosphere.
Africa's health shortage
Providing AIDS drugs is a great step forward, but industrialised countries will fail to address the pandemic fully if they don't help Africa build a stronger corps of trained health workers.
Aid groups are criticized over tsunami reconstruction
In tsunami-affected areas in Aceh, there is a veil of disenchantment with international aid agencies, due to the feeling that extravagant promises backed by unprecedented global donations have yet to materialise.
Israel is within its rights
Israel's conduct in Lebanon has been fully compliant with the applicable norms of international law, say David Rivkin and Lee Casey, Washington lawyers who served in the Justice Department under presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior.
Democracy versus chaos in Congo
If Congo can pull off Sunday's election successfully, it would be an enormous step forward for this troubled country.
In Sudan and Congo, Rwanda's ugly legacy
Darfur holds the world's gaze because of the magic word 'genocide'. In contrast to Darfur's apparent moral clarity, the conflict in Congo offers a mind- numbing collection of combatants known by a jumble of acronyms.
Shattered country on the cusp of a brighter future - or return to chaos
For a country with an unelected hereditary leader, there's a blunt irony in calling itself the Democratic Republic of Congo. This vast swath of central Africa is many things - a failed state, a humanitarian crisis, a natural resource bounty - but a representative democracy it is not.
World must not turn away from Darfur's desperation
Mia Farrow, actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador, makes a plea to the international community not "to let genocide take its course" in Darfur.
6 keys to peace
This analysis from Time magazine sets out six crucial steps that need to be taken to bring peace and stability to the Middle East.
Congo’s abandoned miners
The European Union's willingness to send troops to oversee Congo's coming election is an indication of the value the world puts on the country's mineral resources, which have been the object of international looting.
'Civilians bearing brunt of conflict'
Nadia Doumani, Middle East spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, tells Aljazeera that, according to international humanitarian law, the blockade imposed on Lebanon must not prevent food and other essential supplies from reaching the civilian population.
Wave of kidnappings leaves Haiti shaken
A new rash of kidnappings in Haiti has raised fears that well-armed, politically aligned street gangs are seeking to destabilise the new government, while others argue their activities are mainly criminal.
Losing ground in Afghanistan
Building a stable Afghanistan that can stand up to the Taliban once Western soldiers leave will take many years, many billions of dollars and more foreign troops for longer than most Western governments are now prepared to contemplate.
Quest for the Cure
More than a third of the world’s population doesn’t have access to essential medications, with greedy drugs companies, government bureaucracies and apathy all getting in the way. But some frustrated scientists are now finding ways to buck the system.
Lebanon: The other Palestinians
As the world focuses on the crisis in Lebanon and Gaza, which risks turning into a regional conflict, it is time to listen to the Palestinians in Lebanon, in particular those still living in refugee camps.
Lebanon and Israel: The war from where I stand
While ultimately it is the United States that must broker the final deal, there is a role for Germany, a country with a special relationship with Israel and which has also maintained close and friendly relations throughout the Middle East, says Margarita Mathiopoulos, professor of U.S. foreign policy at the University of Potsdam.
Tsunami responders primed by recent calamities
Survivors of the Java tsunami are getting enough aid, at least in the emergency's initial stages, according to relief groups.
Big changes in poor villages
This newspaper visits a Millennium Village in Malawi, a brainchild of Jeffrey Sachs, whose model is simple: Ensure that people are nourished and healthy, upgrade their children's education, get full participation by women and girls, and help some people switch to better jobs than subsistence farming. Funds are coming from philanthropists, foundations, corporations and Japan.
The man who tracked Cambodia's war crimes
The Monitor profiles a man whose extensive research helped bring Khmer Rouge leaders to court.
Sidon overflows with desperate evacuees
The Lebanese town of Sidon is now home to 35,000 refugees, with more displaced and wounded pouring in as medical stocks run low.
With supplies already low, evacuees settled outside Jbeil hope to wait it out
Civil society groups in the Lebanese town of Jbeil are struggling to confront a growing humanitarian disaster with limited resources.
Lebanon needs more than a ceasefire
Ending the conflict requires not only a ceasefire and peacekeepers, but a guarantee that Hizbollah will halt its attacks on Israel permanently and disband its militia, says this editorial.
The road to Damascus is paved with risk
"You need a lot of everything if you are heading to or from Syria," was one taxi driver's advice to the tens of thousands of evacuees of various nationalities clogging the Lebanese-Syrian border.
Desolation won't bring any peace
Unable to see its enemy clearly, the Israeli armed forces are flattening, quite literally, a wide swathe of southern Lebanon.
City attacked for first time as refugees flood in from south
Sidon is only one face of the mounting humanitarian crisis across Lebanon: electricity is cut because of fuel rationing, vegetable markets open for several hours before supplies run out, and hospitals are running short of medicines for chronic diseases.
To flee or to stay? Family chooses too late and pays dearly
One family who held out for days in their village of Tireh in southern Lebanon, terrified of what might happen if they left, finally headed north, but became another casualty of Israeli bombing within minutes.
Fleeing for their lives into the grim unknown
In the Lebanese town of Tyre, civil structures appear to have broken down almost completely. Ambulances can't operate, the dead are rotting in the rubble of smashed homes, and food and clean drinking water are running out.
At Lebanon port, war’s displaced wait for boat that doesn’t come
Tyre, a Lebanese seaside town in the thick of the combat zone, has become the port of last hope for those fleeing the conflict.
Dazed refugees flood Beirut
Tens of thousands of Israelis also have fled their homes, to escape Hizbollah rocket attacks, but they haven't suffered the food, water and medical shortages facing Lebanese refugees.
An unsatisfying G-8 summit
The world's poor come away disappointed from yet another G8 summit.
Uganda: Unexplored options in northern conflict
As Ugandan government representatives and rebel leaders meet in south Sudan in an historic effort to bring an end to the 20-year-old conflict in northern Uganda, let's hope they're thinking about the potential for using traditional justice mechanisms, write Erin Baines and Boniface Ojok, researchers with the Justice and Reconciliation Project in Uganda.
Nigeria: Africa's oil, minerals and conflicts
With all its riches, Africa should be one of the most developed continents in the world and instead it's the one most marred by conflicts and contradictions.
Uganda: Aid - the 'tsunami' wrecking Africa
The British government has just announced further aid cuts for Uganda. James Shikwati, director of the Inter Region Economic Network and a top critic of foreign aid, argues in this interview that Britain and the rest of the international community should cut aid altogether.
Israel must beware the cost
Both in Lebannon and in Gaza, it is not Israel's right to protect its civilian population from terrorist aggression that is at issue, but the way Israel goes about exercising that right, says Henry Siegman, senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Massacre of Haiti innocents
'It's very difficult to nail down the motives behind actions in Haiti and there's often a mix of political, economic and territorial motives at play', says Desmond Molloy, who heads the U.N.disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration programme in the country, commenting on a massacre of civilians by unknown gunmen.
Diplomacy's turn in Lebanon
Stopping the fighting in the Middle East won’t be easy, but the dangers of escalation are too great to permit the major powers or anxious Arab leaders to turn away, says this editorial.
Symbolic slugfest wins Israel nothing
Peter Eigen, Africa expert and founder of Transparency International, discusses the G8's unfulfilled promises to eradicate poverty in Africa and talks about his personal, decades-long battle against corruption.
Kosovo tensions rise as pressure increases
Kosovo Albanian and Serb officials are due to meet for talks about Kosovo's final status, but the process is further complicated by the West's insistance on reaching a solution by the end of the year and Russia's concern that an independent Kosovo could set an unwelcome precedent for its own breakaway republics.
Symbolic slugfest wins Israel nothing
Israel is not solely to blame for the escalating violence, but as a sovereign state with a major army, it has to be the most responsible party, writes David N. Myers, professor in Jewish history at the University of California Los Angeles.
Response and responsibility
Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side only and that is Islamist militant party Hizbollah, along with its Syrian and Iranian backers, says this editorial.
Sparks flying along the pipeline
The sparks flying between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh could easily turn into a full-blown conflagration along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, a new billion-dollar conduit for Caspian oil.
A rocky road to post-conflict democracy
The United Nations should focus on institution-building in post-conflict situations, not simply holding elections. But the problem is that while holding an election is an event that organisers can paint as a "success" and leave, establishing deep-rooted rule of law is a slow process that doesn't lend itself easily to instant celebrations and photo ops, say Ramesh Thakur, senior vice rector of the U.N. University in Tokyo and William Maley, author of "Rescuing Afghanistan".
After Mumbai
If Al Qaeda turns out to be behind the Mumbai bombs, it should prompt both India and Pakistan to try and resolve their 60-year quarrel.
Trial over massacre at Srebrenica begins
If the trial of seven former Bosnian Serb officers for their role in the Srebrenica massacre reaches a verdict, it would be the most far-reaching judgment yet involving Srebrenica. The only thing that could top it would be if General Ratko Mladic and political leader Radovan Karadzic - fugitives from charges of masterminding the massacre - were delivered to the court.
The way in - and out - of Israel's wars
Often it's difficult to sort out who started what in a Middle East conflict, but that's not the case this time: militant Islamists like Hamas in the Gaza strip and Hizbullah in Lebanon provoked this by incursions into Israel.
Only sanctions will stop this brutal campaign
The world is watching, and we are all made complicit by the failure of our governments to end Palestinian anguish, says fiction author Ahdaf Soueif, whose latest book is "Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground".
Darfur security in freefall: Humanitarian collapse may occur any moment
As the rainy season deepens in Darfur and eastern Chad, it's making already difficult relief logistics even harder, and massive human suffering on an unprecedented scale is impending throughout Darfur, says Eric Reeves of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, who has worked on Sudan for the past seven years.
Will UN involvement help peace process?
It's striking that some in Nepal seem to believe the United Nations will help solve the country's 11-year-old conflict in order to help create a democratic state, considering the United Nations is nowhere near being involved. Even if it was, U.N. failures in places like Rwanda, the Balkans and Cambodia don't bode well any role it might play in Nepal.
U.N. presence crucial to keep East Timor peace
Tasks for the United Nations in East Timor include providing humanitarian aid for displaced people, helping establish the truth and deliver justice, assisting reforms to security agencies and supporting the electoral process, writes Sukehiro Hasegawa, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for East Timor.
Justice for Serbia
The arguments Serbia gives against independence for Kosovo are irrefutable from the point of view of international law and are based on the fundamental pillars of international order: the U.N. Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and U.N. Security Council resolutions, writes Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
The bride price
About one in seven girls in the developing world gets married before her 15th birthday, according to analyses done by the Population Council, an international research group.
The butcher of Beslan
The lull in the Russian-Chechen conflict following the death of Shamil Basayev, the self-styled Chechen leader accused of the Beslan school massacre and other murderous acts, should be seized on by the Russians as a new chance for peace talks with the Chechen separatists.
Amid Somalia's troubles, Coca-Cola hangs on
Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Somalia faces a much changed business environment, one fraught with both opportunity and peril. Islamic militias that took over the capital brought some stability to the city, which will mean lower security costs, but some imams have begun railing against Coke, calling it an un-Islamic beverage.
Women rethink a big size that is beautiful but brutal
In Mauritania, the traditional practice of force-feeding women is declining, but many still risk their health by using pills to gain much-prized weight.
The killing fields
Given the history, it should not be surprising if victims of atrocities come to see international justice as an expensive exercise in allaying Western guilt for failing to act in time.
Russia and NGOs: A photo-op for Putin
Even though Russia's President Putin tried to paint a different picture, the new restrictive law on the work of NGOs in Russia allows for government interference that would be unthinkable in other G-8 countries, says Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch.
Bosnia's leftover guns: Sell, give, destroy?
The Bosnian and U.S. governments are discussing gifting a shipment of Bosnia's familiar Soviet-type weapons to Afghanistan but small arms experts would like to see Bosnia's weapons destroyed rather than exported.
A resilient Bosnia makes up for lost time
A small but growing network of female entrepreneurs is helping Bosnia emerge from "the most devastating economic collapse of any economy in Central and Eastern Europe since World War II", according to the World Bank.
A UN role in Timor Leste
The world community, including the U.S., moved on to the next failing state before East Timor had sufficient strength to stand on its own and that's one of the reasons the country spiralled into violence, write Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor's new prime minister and Raj Purohit of Citizens for Global Solutions.
Congo-Kinshasa: long march from plundering to peacekeeping
Diamonds, gold, cobalt, copper and many other minerals could make Democratic Republic of Congo one of the richest countries in Africa, but greed has turned it into a plundered graveyard.
LRA victim: 'I cannot forget and forgive'
Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony denies committing any atrocities, but this Ugandan man responds with the testimony of his own abduction and abuse at the hands of the rebels.
In Sri Lanka, families struggle to escape
As violence surges across Sri Lanka, the abductions and forced training of civilians are seen as a sign that insurgents are preparing for a possible return to war between rebels from the Tamil minority and the government dominated by the Sinhalese majority.
Yahia's question: Who will protect Darfuris?
Darfur continues to burn, not just with bullets and bombs, but with the fervour of increasingly divided rebel groups and the men, women and children who have rallied to their cause, writes Ronan Farrow, a Yale Law School student just back from his second trip to Darfur as a UNICEF youth spokesman.
Srebenica Widows Sue UN, Dutch Government
Why didn't the Dutch troops request back-up or air strikes against an overwhelmingly superior force of 15,000 Serbs in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war? This is one of the questions that will come up if a lawsuit against the United Nations and Dutch government is successful.
Taming the Tamil Tigers
The Indian government should take a more active role in brokering peace in Sri Lanka, while the European Union must work for a return to the bargaining table.
Aristide probe is at a standstill
A corruption investigation of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has become mired in Haiti's dysfunctional legal system, polarised politics and uncertainty over the willingness of newly elected President René Préval to pursue the case against his one-time mentor.
Drug probe targets Aristide
Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers, but documentary evidence remains elusive.
It's not just G8 who need a 'report card'
Campaigners and the aid sector that promised to make poverty history should be held to scrutiny as well as governments, writes Kurt Hoffman, director of the Shell Foundation.
It's not just G8 who need a 'report card'
Campaigners and the aid sector that promised to make poverty history should be held to scrutiny as well as governments, writes Kurt Hoffman, director of the Shell Foundation.
Backtracking in Darfur
If Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's complete refusal to accept any international military intervention in Darfur is not enough to solidify diplomatic efforts to isolate his regime, it's hard to know what would be, says this commentary.
Sri Lanka's uncivil war
In Sri Lanka, the memory of old atrocities both by the government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels seems to overwhelm a recognition of the need to accept compromises for the sake of peace.
Africa: Better off without us?
Parts of Africa are making good progress, but it's no thanks to Western aid and debt relief, which often prop up the wrong kind of leader.
How to meet the Somalia challenge
If the international community wants to help Somalia, it should stem arms trafficking into the country, call in the African Union or U.N. forces to protect humanitarian aid deliveries and lend political support to the transitional regime, writes John K. Cooley, author of "Baal, Christ and Mohammed, Religion and Revolution in North Africa."
East Timor reveals sobering truths
Two lessons to be learned from East Timor are that the international community shouldn't abandon newly-formed countries too soon and more attention should be focused on establishing a neutral police force and independent judiciary.
Abkhazia: A promising pariah on the Black Sea
Many citizens of Abkhazia - who regard it as a historically independent state - are inspired by the civilised divorce of Serbia and Montenegro and hopeful they will follow the same path with Georgia, writes Viktor Erofeyev, fiction author of "Life With An Idiot" and "Russian Beauty: a Novel."
Business joins African effort to cut malaria
When Billiton, one of the world's biggest aluminum producers, realised it was losing its employees in Mozambique to malaria, it decided to join forces with the governments of three countries and with other businesses for a systematic anti-malaria campaign across a broad region. Six years on, malaria is losing the battle.
I will use the Ten Commandments to liberate Uganda
A Times correspondent ventures deep into the jungle for a rare interview with Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and challenges him on the massacres, mutilations and mystical spirits that have made him Africa’s most wanted man.
Push for new tactics as war on malaria falters
Why do 800,000 young African children still die of malaria every year - more than from any other disease - when medicines can cure it for $0.55 a dose, mosquito nets would cost $1 a year per child, and indoor insecticide spraying costs about $10 annually for a household?
Africa finds a new band-aid
Africa won't be saved by rock stars but rather Asia's appetite for raw materials.
Dangers in Dili
Australia deserves credit for helping restore order in East Timor, but there's more than altruism at work - Canberra and Dili are to develop potentially lucrative oil and gas reserves in the tiny nation.
Demystifying Kony
Following a recent interview with Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, an image is emerging of a more conventional rebel leader than the man described by former followers as a prophet who talked to angels.
Congolese hopeful ahead of July 30 vote
Congo's first free elections since independence in 1960 could face many hurdles in the coming month.
A glimmer of light at last?
At 5 percent economic growth, is Africa - often dubbed the continent with no hope - finally taking off?
'Breathtaking' waste and fraud in hurricane aid
Hurricane Katrina produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers in the United States up to $2 billion.
In Thailand, an insurgency rooted in ethnicity
Thailand has become accustomed to the daily violence that has claimed more than 1,300 lives over the past two years, a startling death toll for a country that is better known for its beaches.
Haiti makes best of a tenuous peace
The post-election peace that has been holding in Haiti is as orchestrated as the violence that preceded it, says Paul Denis of the Struggling People's Organisation, a Haitian rival to the president, but one which has joined the governing coalition.
Former child soldier digs up mines he helped lay
The first time Aki Ra laid a land mine he was five years old, two years after Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh in 1975. Now he's back to dig them up.
Broad reach for Java quake
A World Bank report says the damage from the recent Java quake is "much greater than initially believed".
UN defends Rwanda tribunal
The United Nations has taken 12 years and spent £550 million ($1 billion) to convict only 25 people so far for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
U.S. got it wrong on Somalia again
The United States must urgently abandon its mindless unilateralism when it comes to Somalia.
Fresh hope for peace in northern Uganda?
South Sudan's role as peace mediator for Uganda is new, but local leaders know they need to remove Ugandan rebels from their territory in order to bring stability and development.
It's time for global control of small arms
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/25/opinion/edsen.php
We could never make poverty history overnight
Public opinion played a huge role in getting world leaders to agree steps towards making poverty history, so it must also ensure the international community delivers on its promises, write British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Finance Minister Gordon Brown and Minister of State for International Development Hilary Benn.
In Congo's jungles, nowhere to hide
Battles for villages in Congo's mineral-rich Ituri district illuminate the perilous road ahead as the country struggles towards peace and democracy.
Chinese villages, poisoned by toxins, battle for justice
Hand in hand with its overheated economy, China has developed vast environmental problems, which often cause illness. The countryside saw nearly 90,000 uprisings last year, 50,000 of which were related to pollution.
Gender-based violence galvanized warlords' foes
It was guns not words that chased away the warlords from Somalia's capital Mogadishu, but intense public revulsion for them - especially among women protesting murders, robberies and rapes - provided crucial support for the Islamic militias.
Nepal: the Maoist transformation's fuzzy logic
Now that Nepal's Maoists are entering the political mainstream, to what extent will they change the terrain of Nepal's polity, and how much will they themselves will be transformed by engaging with society?
Monitoring human rights? Get a satellite
Satellites can monitor volcanoes, map deforestation, and help sell property. But can they document human rights violations?
A moribund peace between war criminals
It's time to say it loud and clear: the newborn Darfur peace agreement is already on its death bed, writes Julie Flint, author of "Darfur: A Short History of A Long War".
Military business interests fuel abuses
The fact that Indonesian army gets only half of its budget from the government means that it has to find the other half elsewhere. One way it raises funds is providing private security services, in arrangements that can lead to rights abuse and corruption, according to Human Rights Watch.
No end in sight for Africa's suffering masses
Long-standing CNN reporter Jeff Koinange recounts his years of reporting about Africa, "a continent where misery and hardship are an every day occurrence".
Troubling storm clouds linger over the Balkans
We may regret that Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic's trial ended without conclusion when he died, but a conviction of Milosevic alone, however justified, would hardly have contributed to serious self-reflection within the post-Yugoslav nations unless there were parallel penalties for his Croat, Bosnian Muslim, and Kosovo-Albanian counterparts, writes Jiri Dienstbier, former foreign minister of Czechoslovakia and special rapporteur for the Office of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in the Balkans.
A return to bloodshed
When is a ceasefire no longer a ceasefire? That is the question hanging over Sri Lanka.
Nepal makes way for the comrades
Various landmark participants in the Nepalese political landscape are starting to think that the coalition of opposition parties might have yielded too much to Maoist rebels without obtaining even an assurance that they would renounce violence or hand over their weapons before they could be invited to join a new interim government.
Pakistan's other war
An insurgency in Pakistan's Baluchistan appears to be a battle for the control of resources in the ragged province.
Foreign intervention in Somalia?
Deployment of peacekeeping troops in Somalia could upset the Islamist militia now in control of the capital, which has everything to lose by foreign intervention.
Somali militias turn to culture wars
Mogadishu may be safer, but a new, more silent battle is under way - this one for control of the Islamic movement in Somalia.
Serbia genocide case survives Milosevic
While Milosevic's death brought a sudden end to his trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal, the question of whether he carried out genocide in Bosnia is very much alive and could be answered by the International Court of Justice within a year.
Dealing with the devil in Darfur
If the Darfur peace accord is to have any hope of succeeding, the U.S. must stop empowering those who use abusive force, including rebel leader Minni Arcua Minnawi, and antagonising those who remain unconvinced, writes Julie Flint, author of "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War".
In oil-rich Angola, cholera preys upon poorest
Angola's oil boom hasn't helped improve access to water. In Luanda, residents depend on the polluted Bengo river, which is the main source of the recent cholera outbreak in the capital's slums.
Can UN stem flow of small arms?
No one seems to know what's happened to thousands of AK-47s and millions of ammunition rounds transferred from Bosnian wartime stockpiles to Iraq.
South Africa: A scary picture of childhood
Children should not be on the receiving end of violence or abuse, and must feel safe in their schools, homes and communities, writes a UNICEF representative in South Africa.
Life under Burma's military regime
"In some parts of the country, the situation is as bad as we've seen in sub-Saharan Africa," says Save the Children's Andrew Kirkwood speaking about malnutrition in Burma, in a BBC special series from inside the country.
Post-traumatic stress disorder plagues German peacekeepers
As it prepares for a new foreign deployment in Congo, Germany's soldiers are still suffering from traumatic experiences in Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
The challenges facing an urban world
Failing crops, natural disasters and conflicts are increasingly forcing people into towns and cities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Aid fails to reach the poorest in war-torn Somalia
People living in Somalia's sprawling refugee camps have seen very little aid for months as relief organisations stay away from the conflict-ridden country.
An African war the U.N. must stop
It's time to end the delay game in Darfur - the conflict is spreading despite the peace agreement, and the United Nations needs to act now, argues this editorial.
Remember Asia's Nelson Mandela
Forgetting about Burma and its dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi is just what its military rulers want us to do, says Timothy Garton Ash.
HIV still devastates Lake Victoria after 25 years of suffering
Anti-retroviral drugs are almost unheard of in the Kenyan hinterland despite a promise from the West that every AIDS victim should have treatment by 2010.
Zambia: Difficulties of the Aids Policy
Privatisation and pharmaceutical greed, not Thabo Mbeki's much-debated statements on the science behind HIV/AIDS, are to blame for deaths from the disease in Africa, says this article.
Goodbye AIDS. Celebs Move on to New Causes
AIDS once galvanised Hollywood attention but now has to share the limelight with new worthy causes, such as African debt relief, the plight of orphans, Darfur and Hurricane Katrina.
Somalia's new Islamic leadership
The Islamic courts have established themselves as a major force in Somalia and are drawing upon widespread support within the country, says Harun Hassan.
Saving the planet and ourselves: the way to global security
An obsession with fighting terrorism is consuming resources that should be devoted to solving far more dangerous planetary threats such as climate change and global militarisation, argues John Sloboda.
The Abbas-Hamas problem
The looming civil war between Palestinian factions could turn into a geopolitical and a humanitarian disaster.
Despite the divisions, the national consensus holds
Israeli and western attempts to divide the Palestinians by withholding aid and refusing to talk to their leadership are futile - peace will only come with the end of Israeli military rule over the Palestinians, argues Karma Nabulsi.
The deep hypocrisy in nitpicking Arab massacres
The majority Sunni Arab world is often all too reluctant to acknowledge the Shiite identity of victims of atrocities in the Middle East, argues Rayyan al-Shawaf.
A pledge to Africa already faltering; has the G8 forgotten the continent in just a year's time?
Westerners' despair over the sorry state of Africa easily turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who don't want to help the continent.
Congo's roads paved with hope
Internally displaced people are trickling back to their home villages on rebuilt roads in Democratic Republic of Congo's war-torn eastern regions.
How is South Ossetia different from Kosovo?
Georgia should admit that it lost control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia about 15 years ago, when the government triggered an independence movement by prohibiting the Ossetian language in official documents.
Missing child stirs memories of past horrors
East Timor's optimism about the future has evaporated with the recent fighting and families are yet again forced to flee their homes.
A new G8 opportunity on AIDS
A simmering HIV epidemic in Russia, China and India should keep us from being complacent about some of the gains made in the struggle against AIDS.
HIV vaccine still elusive
The Ugandan public remains anxious about HIV trials, and one of the biggest fears is that potential vaccines can expose trial candidates to the virus.
The main way to stop AIDS
Today's AIDS treatments are no panacea, and the simple truth is that AIDS can only be defeated by reducing the number of people who become infected.
Whether New Orleans or Sudan, storm zones pull this doctor in
Relief doctor Peter Reynaud cherishes a sense of adventure on the Sudan-Chad border - right in the middle of the Darfur conflict.
Refugees can be engines of economic development
Refugees are often looked upon as passive recipients of aid, but they can also make local economies more dynamic, argues the U.N. refugee agency's Kelvin Shimoh.
At the UN, how we envy the World Cup
The United Nations has a lot to learn from soccer's World Cup, writes U.N. chief Kofi Annan.
Nation rebuilding
Recent bloody clashes in East Timor demonstrate just how tenuous peace is and how dependent the country is on international support, writes Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo.
Spreading the diamond wealth
When the film "The Blood Diamond" is released this autumn, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a diamond smuggler in Sierra Leone, mining giant De Beers will be ready with a publicity campaign aimed at positioning diamonds as a source of hope for Africa, not conflict.
Promising move in Haitian politics
Life expetancy for Zimbabwean men is 37 and 34 for women and behind these statistics is a grim tale of AIDS, financial hardship and stress.
Japan fails the test on democracy and Burma
Japan's siding with Russia and China at the U.N. Security Council over the question of Burma is a disappointing move for democratic forces in both countries, writes Michael J. Green, senior fellow and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Short lives lead to short-term goals in Zimbabwe
Life expetancy for Zimbabwean men is 37 and 34 for women and behind these statistics is a grim tale of AIDS, financial hardship and stress.
Our failure in Somalia
It is in the national security interests of the United States to engage more deeply and directly in state reconstruction efforts in Somalia, writes International Crisis Group adviser John Prendergast.
Uganda: The ICC will leave no stone unturned to catch Kony
Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony should be persuaded that, since the International Criminal Court won't back off, a tribunal at home rather than in The Hague could allow him to surrender with dignity, writes this newspaper.
Stopping short of the goal on AIDS
The recent HIV/AIDS summit failed to set financial and treatment goals for combating the killer disease. The goal now must be getting nations to provide the resources they acknowledge are needed.
East Timor unfinished
Nation-building can rarely be accomplished quickly, easily or cheaply and East Timor is one good case in point.
Many Afghans lost to hazards of childbirth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/05/AR2006060501177.html
Somalia, revisited
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/opinion/07wed2.html
The U.N. success story that wasn't
Although things were hotting up in East Timor for months, the international community continued to promote the country as a success story.
Myanmar's unturned page
Myanmar's junta will not change its ways without sustained international pressure on a regime that has been condemned for its use of forced labour, the flight of thousands of refugees and allowing the export of methamphetamine, heroin and AIDS to neighbouring countries, writes this newspaper.
Uganda: Act on Global Fund enquiry
Corruption is especially tragic when it is at the expense of the poor and the sick who were supposed to benefit from the mismanaged Global Fund against Malaria, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis, says this commentary.
The coming of the micro-states
As Montenegro declares independence, will Kosovo, Transdniestria and South Ossetia be allowed to follow lead?
Fight AIDS at a store near you
The world's fight against the AIDS epidemic may be increasingly funded by the sale of mobile phones and airline tickets, by bigger investments from corporations working in AIDS-hit countries and by greater health spending by the most afflicted countries themselves.
Uganda: Has AIDS become a lucrative business?
The Global Fund scam in Uganda shows the difficulty the country is facing in channelling funds from the centre to grassroots communities. The AIDS problem is at the community and family level and that is where the money should be targeted, writes this newspaper.
Telling it like it is
Since education about prevention - condom use and clean needles - lies at the heart of any AIDS strategy, the refusal of conservatives in Africa, the Muslim world and elsewhere to acknowledge this reality at last week's U.N. conference on HIV is plain foolish, says this newspaper.
Eritrea: UN's failure to live up to its responsibility cannot be covered up by any resolution
In a two-minute session on the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution that vividly demonstrates more than ever before the the failure of the U.N. mission and its fundamental principles regarding the two countries, says this commentary.
Two important rulings on AIDS
Federal judges in New York and the District of Columbia have declared unconstitutional a 2003 rule that limits the way U.S. health groups spend their privately raised money if they want to get federal money for international AIDS work. This is welcome news as the decision removes at least one impediment for health groups trying to reach a high-risk community and save lives.
Namibian widows suffer more than the loss of their spouses
When a Namibian woman's husband dies, her husband's family often takes his possessions and usually throws her and her children out of the house. This often results in severe poverty for the widow and her children, but the power of tribal laws seems too deep-rooted to be easily changed.
Indonesia still learning to cope with quakes
Aid workers and government agencies are taking their experiences from the 2004 tsunami and applying those lessons to Indonesia's latest calamity.
Zambia: Drought preparedness
It may seem strange to be talking about drought after a good rainfall and bumper harvests in many parts of Zambia. But it is appropriate because drought is a normal occurrence for most of the country.
African graft stings donors
Uganda, one of the first countries to receive a multimillion-dollar grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, recently revealed that tens of millions of dollars in funds has gone missing, much of it plundered by high-ranking public officials on personal phone bills, lavish "Christmas packages" and fancy four-wheel drive vehicles.
Keep fighting AIDS
The nations attending this week's AIDS conference are supposed to be reporting on whether their targets for fighting AIDS are being met and devising a plan of action for the next few years. Instead, they are watering down the original plan.
The woman trying to heal a broken Liberia
"Even in the capital, electricity, water, road systems have completely deteriorated, bridges are destroyed," says Liberian president Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson during an official visit to London.
Fighting in the shadows
Somalia is erupting into violence again and Americans find themselves once more in the middle of battles they only dimly comprehend and may well be losing.
June 2006
Sri Lanka's uncivil war
In Sri Lanka, the memory of old atrocities both by the government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels seems to overwhelm a recognition of the need to accept compromises for the sake of peace.
Africa must push on Darfur
The African Union should reaffirm its own determination to end the genocide in Darfur and continue to urge other nations to back an armed U.N. presence.
Africa: Better off without us?
Parts of Africa are making good progress, but it's no thanks to Western aid and debt relief, which often prop up the wrong kind of leader.
How to meet the Somalia challenge
If the international community wants to help Somalia, it should stem arms trafficking into the country, call in the African Union or U.N. forces to protect humanitarian aid deliveries and lend political support to the transitional regime, writes John K. Cooley, author of "Baal, Christ and Mohammed, Religion and Revolution in North Africa."
East Timor reveals sobering truths
Two lessons to be learned from East Timor are that the international community shouldn't abandon newly-formed countries too soon and more attention should be focused on establishing a neutral police force and independent judiciary.
Abkhazia: A promising pariah on the Black Sea
Many citizens of Abkhazia - who regard it as a historically independent state - are inspired by the civilised divorce of Serbia and Montenegro and hopeful they will follow the same path with Georgia, writes Viktor Erofeyev, fiction author of "Life With An Idiot" and "Russian Beauty: a Novel."
Business joins African effort to cut malaria
When Billiton, one of the world's biggest aluminum producers, realised it was losing its employees in Mozambique to malaria, it decided to join forces with the governments of three countries and with other businesses for a systematic anti-malaria campaign across a broad region. Six years on, malaria is losing the battle.
I will use the Ten Commandments to liberate Uganda
A Times correspondent ventures deep into the jungle for a rare interview with Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and challenges him on the massacres, mutilations and mystical spirits that have made him Africa’s most wanted man.
Push for new tactics as war on malaria falters
Why do 800,000 young African children still die of malaria every year - more than from any other disease - when medicines can cure it for $0.55 a dose, mosquito nets would cost $1 a year per child, and indoor insecticide spraying costs about $10 annually for a household?
Africa finds a new band-aid
Africa won't be saved by rock stars but rather Asia's appetite for raw materials.
Dangers in Dili
Australia deserves credit for helping restore order in East Timor, but there's more than altruism at work - Canberra and Dili are to develop potentially lucrative oil and gas reserves in the tiny nation.
Demystifying Kony
Following a recent interview with Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, an image is emerging of a more conventional rebel leader than the man described by former followers as a prophet who talked to angels.
Congolese hopeful ahead of July 30 vote
Congo's first free elections since independence in 1960 could face many hurdles in the coming month.
A glimmer of light at last?
At 5 percent economic growth, is Africa - often dubbed the continent with no hope - finally taking off?
'Breathtaking' waste and fraud in hurricane aid
Hurricane Katrina produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers in the United States up to $2 billion.
In Thailand, an insurgency rooted in ethnicity
Thailand has become accustomed to the daily violence that has claimed more than 1,300 lives over the past two years, a startling death toll for a country that is better known for its beaches.
Haiti makes best of a tenuous peace
The post-election peace that has been holding in Haiti is as orchestrated as the violence that preceded it, says Paul Denis of the Struggling People's Organisation, a Haitian rival to the president, but one which has joined the governing coalition.
Former child soldier digs up mines he helped lay
The first time Aki Ra laid a land mine he was five years old, two years after Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh in 1975. Now he's back to dig them up.
Broad reach for Java quake
A World Bank report says the damage from the recent Java quake is "much greater than initially believed".
UN defends Rwanda tribunal
The United Nations has taken 12 years and spent £550 million ($1 billion) to convict only 25 people so far for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
U.S. got it wrong on Somalia again
The United States must urgently abandon its mindless unilateralism when it comes to Somalia.
Fresh hope for peace in northern Uganda?
South Sudan's role as peace mediator for Uganda is new, but local leaders know they need to remove Ugandan rebels from their territory in order to bring stability and development.
It's time for global control of small arms
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/25/opinion/edsen.php
We could never make poverty history overnight
Public opinion played a huge role in getting world leaders to agree steps towards making poverty history, so it must also ensure the international community delivers on its promises, write British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Finance Minister Gordon Brown and Minister of State for International Development Hilary Benn.
In Congo's jungles, nowhere to hide
Battles for villages in Congo's mineral-rich Ituri district illuminate the perilous road ahead as the country struggles towards peace and democracy.
Chinese villages, poisoned by toxins, battle for justice
Hand in hand with its overheated economy, China has developed vast environmental problems, which often cause illness. The countryside saw nearly 90,000 uprisings last year, 50,000 of which were related to pollution.
Gender-based violence galvanized warlords' foes
It was guns not words that chased away the warlords from Somalia's capital Mogadishu, but intense public revulsion for them - especially among women protesting murders, robberies and rapes - provided crucial support for the Islamic militias.
Nepal: the Maoist transformation's fuzzy logic
Now that Nepal's Maoists are entering the political mainstream, to what extent will they change the terrain of Nepal's polity, and how much will they themselves will be transformed by engaging with society?
Monitoring human rights? Get a satellite
Satellites can monitor volcanoes, map deforestation, and help sell property. But can they document human rights violations?
A moribund peace between war criminals
It's time to say it loud and clear: the newborn Darfur peace agreement is already on its death bed, writes Julie Flint, author of "Darfur: A Short History of A Long War".
Military business interests fuel abuses
The fact that Indonesian army gets only half of its budget from the government means that it has to find the other half elsewhere. One way it raises funds is providing private security services, in arrangements that can lead to rights abuse and corruption, according to Human Rights Watch.
No end in sight for Africa's suffering masses
Long-standing CNN reporter Jeff Koinange recounts his years of reporting about Africa, "a continent where misery and hardship are an every day occurrence".
Troubling storm clouds linger over the Balkans
We may regret that Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic's trial ended without conclusion when he died, but a conviction of Milosevic alone, however justified, would hardly have contributed to serious self-reflection within the post-Yugoslav nations unless there were parallel penalties for his Croat, Bosnian Muslim, and Kosovo-Albanian counterparts, writes Jiri Dienstbier, former foreign minister of Czechoslovakia and special rapporteur for the Office of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in the Balkans.
A return to bloodshed
When is a ceasefire no longer a ceasefire? That is the question hanging over Sri Lanka.
Nepal makes way for the comrades
Various landmark participants in the Nepalese political landscape are starting to think that the coalition of opposition parties might have yielded too much to Maoist rebels without obtaining even an assurance that they would renounce violence or hand over their weapons before they could be invited to join a new interim government.
Pakistan's other war
An insurgency in Pakistan's Baluchistan appears to be a battle for the control of resources in the ragged province.
Foreign intervention in Somalia?
Deployment of peacekeeping troops in Somalia could upset the Islamist militia now in control of the capital, which has everything to lose by foreign intervention.
Somali militias turn to culture wars
Mogadishu may be safer, but a new, more silent battle is under way - this one for control of the Islamic movement in Somalia.
Serbia genocide case survives Milosevic
While Milosevic's death brought a sudden end to his trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal, the question of whether he carried out genocide in Bosnia is very much alive and could be answered by the International Court of Justice within a year.
Dealing with the devil in Darfur
If the Darfur peace accord is to have any hope of succeeding, the U.S. must stop empowering those who use abusive force, including rebel leader Minni Arcua Minnawi, and antagonising those who remain unconvinced, writes Julie Flint, author of "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War".
In oil-rich Angola, cholera preys upon poorest
Angola's oil boom hasn't helped improve access to water. In Luanda, residents depend on the polluted Bengo river, which is the main source of the recent cholera outbreak in the capital's slums.
Can UN stem flow of small arms?
No one seems to know what's happened to thousands of AK-47s and millions of ammunition rounds transferred from Bosnian wartime stockpiles to Iraq.
South Africa: A scary picture of childhood
Children should not be on the receiving end of violence or abuse, and must feel safe in their schools, homes and communities, writes a UNICEF representative in South Africa.
Life under Burma's military regime
"In some parts of the country, the situation is as bad as we've seen in sub-Saharan Africa," says Save the Children's Andrew Kirkwood speaking about malnutrition in Burma, in a BBC special series from inside the country.
Post-traumatic stress disorder plagues German peacekeepers
As it prepares for a new foreign deployment in Congo, Germany's soldiers are still suffering from traumatic experiences in Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
The challenges facing an urban world
Failing crops, natural disasters and conflicts are increasingly forcing people into towns and cities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Aid fails to reach the poorest in war-torn Somalia
People living in Somalia's sprawling refugee camps have seen very little aid for months as relief organisations stay away from the conflict-ridden country.
An African war the U.N. must stop
It's time to end the delay game in Darfur - the conflict is spreading despite the peace agreement, and the United Nations needs to act now, argues this editorial.
Remember Asia's Nelson Mandela
Forgetting about Burma and its dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi is just what its military rulers want us to do, says Timothy Garton Ash.
HIV still devastates Lake Victoria after 25 years of suffering
Anti-retroviral drugs are almost unheard of in the Kenyan hinterland despite a promise from the West that every AIDS victim should have treatment by 2010.
Zambia: Difficulties of the Aids Policy
Privatisation and pharmaceutical greed, not Thabo Mbeki's much-debated statements on the science behind HIV/AIDS, are to blame for deaths from the disease in Africa, says this article.
Goodbye AIDS. Celebs Move on to New Causes
AIDS once galvanised Hollywood attention but now has to share the limelight with new worthy causes, such as African debt relief, the plight of orphans, Darfur and Hurricane Katrina.
Somalia's new Islamic leadership
The Islamic courts have established themselves as a major force in Somalia and are drawing upon widespread support within the country, says Harun Hassan.
Saving the planet and ourselves: the way to global security
An obsession with fighting terrorism is consuming resources that should be devoted to solving far more dangerous planetary threats such as climate change and global militarisation, argues John Sloboda.
The Abbas-Hamas problem
The looming civil war between Palestinian factions could turn into a geopolitical and a humanitarian disaster.
Despite the divisions, the national consensus holds
Israeli and western attempts to divide the Palestinians by withholding aid and refusing to talk to their leadership are futile - peace will only come with the end of Israeli military rule over the Palestinians, argues Karma Nabulsi.
The deep hypocrisy in nitpicking Arab massacres
The majority Sunni Arab world is often all too reluctant to acknowledge the Shiite identity of victims of atrocities in the Middle East, argues Rayyan al-Shawaf.
A pledge to Africa already faltering; has the G8 forgotten the continent in just a year's time?
Westerners' despair over the sorry state of Africa easily turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who don't want to help the continent.
Congo's roads paved with hope
Internally displaced people are trickling back to their home villages on rebuilt roads in Democratic Republic of Congo's war-torn eastern regions.
How is South Ossetia different from Kosovo?
Georgia should admit that it lost control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia about 15 years ago, when the government triggered an independence movement by prohibiting the Ossetian language in official documents.
Missing child stirs memories of past horrors
East Timor's optimism about the future has evaporated with the recent fighting and families are yet again forced to flee their homes.
A new G8 opportunity on AIDS
A simmering HIV epidemic in Russia, China and India should keep us from being complacent about some of the gains made in the struggle against AIDS.
HIV vaccine still elusive
The Ugandan public remains anxious about HIV trials, and one of the biggest fears is that potential vaccines can expose trial candidates to the virus.
The main way to stop AIDS
Today's AIDS treatments are no panacea, and the simple truth is that AIDS can only be defeated by reducing the number of people who become infected.
Whether New Orleans or Sudan, storm zones pull this doctor in
Relief doctor Peter Reynaud cherishes a sense of adventure on the Sudan-Chad border - right in the middle of the Darfur conflict.
Refugees can be engines of economic development
Refugees are often looked upon as passive recipients of aid, but they can also make local economies more dynamic, argues the U.N. refugee agency's Kelvin Shimoh.
At the UN, how we envy the World Cup
The United Nations has a lot to learn from soccer's World Cup, writes U.N. chief Kofi Annan.
Nation rebuilding
Recent bloody clashes in East Timor demonstrate just how tenuous peace is and how dependent the country is on international support, writes Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo.
Spreading the diamond wealth
When the film "The Blood Diamond" is released this autumn, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a diamond smuggler in Sierra Leone, mining giant De Beers will be ready with a publicity campaign aimed at positioning diamonds as a source of hope for Africa, not conflict.
Promising move in Haitian politics
Life expetancy for Zimbabwean men is 37 and 34 for women and behind these statistics is a grim tale of AIDS, financial hardship and stress.
Japan fails the test on democracy and Burma
Japan's siding with Russia and China at the U.N. Security Council over the question of Burma is a disappointing move for democratic forces in both countries, writes Michael J. Green, senior fellow and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Short lives lead to short-term goals in Zimbabwe
Life expetancy for Zimbabwean men is 37 and 34 for women and behind these statistics is a grim tale of AIDS, financial hardship and stress.
Our failure in Somalia
It is in the national security interests of the United States to engage more deeply and directly in state reconstruction efforts in Somalia, writes International Crisis Group adviser John Prendergast.
Uganda: The ICC will leave no stone unturned to catch Kony
Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony should be persuaded that, since the International Criminal Court won't back off, a tribunal at home rather than in The Hague could allow him to surrender with dignity, writes this newspaper.
Stopping short of the goal on AIDS
The recent HIV/AIDS summit failed to set financial and treatment goals for combating the killer disease. The goal now must be getting nations to provide the resources they acknowledge are needed.
East Timor unfinished
Nation-building can rarely be accomplished quickly, easily or cheaply and East Timor is one good case in point.
Many Afghans lost to hazards of childbirth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/05/AR2006060501177.html
Somalia, revisited
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/opinion/07wed2.html
The U.N. success story that wasn't
Although things were hotting up in East Timor for months, the international community continued to promote the country as a success story.
Myanmar's unturned page
Myanmar's junta will not change its ways without sustained international pressure on a regime that has been condemned for its use of forced labour, the flight of thousands of refugees and allowing the export of methamphetamine, heroin and AIDS to neighbouring countries, writes this newspaper.
Uganda: Act on Global Fund enquiry
Corruption is especially tragic when it is at the expense of the poor and the sick who were supposed to benefit from the mismanaged Global Fund against Malaria, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis, says this commentary.
The coming of the micro-states
As Montenegro declares independence, will Kosovo, Transdniestria and South Ossetia be allowed to follow lead?
Fight AIDS at a store near you
The world's fight against the AIDS epidemic may be increasingly funded by the sale of mobile phones and airline tickets, by bigger investments from corporations working in AIDS-hit countries and by greater health spending by the most afflicted countries themselves.
Uganda: Has AIDS become a lucrative business?
The Global Fund scam in Uganda shows the difficulty the country is facing in channelling funds from the centre to grassroots communities. The AIDS problem is at the community and family level and that is where the money should be targeted, writes this newspaper.
Telling it like it is
Since education about prevention - condom use and clean needles - lies at the heart of any AIDS strategy, the refusal of conservatives in Africa, the Muslim world and elsewhere to acknowledge this reality at last week's U.N. conference on HIV is plain foolish, says this newspaper.
Eritrea: UN's failure to live up to its responsibility cannot be covered up by any resolution
In a two-minute session on the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution that vividly demonstrates more than ever before the the failure of the U.N. mission and its fundamental principles regarding the two countries, says this commentary.
Two important rulings on AIDS
Federal judges in New York and the District of Columbia have declared unconstitutional a 2003 rule that limits the way U.S. health groups spend their privately raised money if they want to get federal money for international AIDS work. This is welcome news as the decision removes at least one impediment for health groups trying to reach a high-risk community and save lives.
Namibian widows suffer more than the loss of their spouses
When a Namibian woman's husband dies, her husband's family often takes his possessions and usually throws her and her children out of the house. This often results in severe poverty for the widow and her children, but the power of tribal laws seems too deep-rooted to be easily changed.
Indonesia still learning to cope with quakes
Aid workers and government agencies are taking their experiences from the 2004 tsunami and applying those lessons to Indonesia's latest calamity.
Zambia: Drought preparedness
It may seem strange to be talking about drought after a good rainfall and bumper harvests in many parts of Zambia. But it is appropriate because drought is a normal occurrence for most of the country.
African graft stings donors
Uganda, one of the first countries to receive a multimillion-dollar grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, recently revealed that tens of millions of dollars in funds has gone missing, much of it plundered by high-ranking public officials on personal phone bills, lavish "Christmas packages" and fancy four-wheel drive vehicles.
Keep fighting AIDS
The nations attending this week's AIDS conference are supposed to be reporting on whether their targets for fighting AIDS are being met and devising a plan of action for the next few years. Instead, they are watering down the original plan.
The woman trying to heal a broken Liberia
"Even in the capital, electricity, water, road systems have completely deteriorated, bridges are destroyed," says Liberian president Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson during an official visit to London.
Fighting in the shadows
Somalia is erupting into violence again and Americans find themselves once more in the middle of battles they only dimly comprehend and may well be losing.
May 2006
Strategic victimhood in Sudan
Darfur has never been the simplistic morality tale portrayed by the media and humanitarian organisations.
Riot in Kabul
Most Afghans don't want the disorder of a failed state and don't want the Taliban back in Kabul. But they also don't want to be humiliated by foreigners. Afghanistan needs at least the current low level of military assistance it receives from U.S. and NATO forces, but those forces must be disciplined to avoid harming non-combatants.
Seeking justice for the killing fields
The international community and the United States in particular should do all that they can to ensure the success of the tribunal that will try former Khmer Rouge leaders.
Trappings of state
The outbreak of violence in East Timor should come as no surprise since U.N. forces have left.
Still a genocide
Darfur may not be genocide by gas chamber or machete, but it is still a calculated policy of targeting ethnic groups and planning their elimination, writes this newspaper.
Billions in aid brought East Timor little
East Timor is now poorer than it was before independence and impatient foreign donors are partly to blame as they spend money on salaries and consultancy fees for foreign advisers. "They all had a time frame - one year, two years, four years. You can't build a country from nothing in that amount of time", says a senior manager at a local company.
Fighting in the shadows
Somalia is erupting into violence again and Americans find themselves once more in the middle of battles they only dimly comprehend and may well be losing.
The deadliest war in the world
By conventional measures, the conflict in Congo is over, but the country remains as broken, volatile and dangerous as ever.
Conflict in Africa's horn
While U.N. resources are limited, crises in Darfur, Congo and elsewhere need more peacekeepers. The Ethiopian-Eritrean border has been quiet since December 2000 precisely because of aggressive intervention by the international community, says this editorial.
A tale of two Indias
HIV experts call India a "next wave" country - ripe for the kind of devastation South Africa has experienced during the past decade, but also capable of the bold action that has helped countries like Thailand and Brazil contain their epidemics.
In praise of ... Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
The Liberian president's biggest tasks are changing her country's warlord culture of killing and plundering public money, as well as tackling education, water, electricity and HIV/AIDS. In comparison, meeting the Queen of England during her state visit should be a piece of cake, writes this newspaper.
The Ivory Coast's war of the elephants
Many in strife-torn Ivory Coast believe the national soccer squad can help end the country's civil war.
In Somalia, 'No idea who is fighting who'
"Even if one side wins, they will then fight among themselves," says one Mogadishu resident who fled recent fighting between warlords and Islamist forces in the city.
Growing in India: Food for the world
One tenth of humanity resides in rural India, in villages haunted by the perennial spectre of inadequate harvests. But a country that has long struggled to feed itself is now making preparations to feed the world.
An African answer to fighting AIDS
It's critically important to recognise that antiretroviral treatment is only one element in combating HIV/AIDS, says Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, South Africa's health minister.
Still dying of hunger
It would cost around $5 billion a year to provide 100 million hungry children and their mothers with a basic package of food, nutrition and healthcare. It may sound like a lot, but it's about the same amount the United States has allocated to assist 7 million American mothers and children this fiscal year, writes James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme.
Africa: Tribalism lives, for better and for worse
Tribalism in Africa is the glue that holds society together, but also the gunpowder that can tear it apart.
Brothers at War
In the Rajoub family, one brother is a minister in the Hamas government; another used to be Yasser Arafat's security adviser. In this family, the growing divide between Palestinians goes right through the living room.
When giving birth means being damaged and shunned
Fistula disappeared more than 100 years ago from North America and Europe thanks to better antenatal care. Today, it affects the poorest women in the most isolated places, attracting little attention and fewer resources.
Walls came tumbling down
The rains that have been pounding many areas of East Africa are too late to end the hunger crisis in northeastern Kenya.
Balkan ghosts awakened
The new Montenegro wants early European Union membership, but this won't happen because it could encourage separatism in other parts of former Yugoslavia, argues this commentary.
The famine is a silent tsunami
The rains that have been pounding many areas of East Africa are too late to end the hunger crisis in northeastern Kenya.
Africa: the corrupt continent
There's hardly a country in Africa that has enough honest officials who can deliver aid, medicines or schoolbooks without paying or receiving bribes or exploiting that aid for political patronage, says Michael Holman, former Africa editor for the Financial Times.
Pursuing an illusion of peace in Darfur
No substantial efforts are being made to even try convincing Abdul Wahid Mohammed al-Nur, representative of Darfur's largest tribe, to sign the recent peace agreement. This is a vital task when the alternative is the probable failure of the Darfur Peace Agreement, writes Julie Flint, co-author of "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War".
A huge 'no' to Africa's big-man politics
By denying its president a third term, Nigeria has defied the African tradition of bowing to the Big Man - the kind who takes power by bullet or ballot and never lets go.
The Burmese people can't wait much longer
The misery of the Burmese people is more than an embarrassment, it' s a disgrace. But the U.S. and EU have to understand that direct pressure on the regime could backfire, writes journalist Ludu Sein Win.
Let's learn from global health failures
The World Health Organisation publicly admitted its "3 by 5" AIDS treatment programme failed, but that hasn't prevented the organisation from announcing a new "10 by 10" strategy. Should G-8 countries really be expected to continue footing the bill for proven failure, asks Dr Carol Adelman, director of the Centre for Science in Public Policy at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Hearts of darkness
Thousands of Karen villagers have fled since the Burmese army's offensive, and have crossed into Thailand or are waiting in internally displaced people camps just inside the border. The Herald's reporter visits some of the camps.
Montenegro breaks free
There is little to be surprised at in the decision in Montenegro - a small mountain state - to break away from Serbia.
A Palestinian lifeline
Hamas has only benefited from the West's attempt to starve its government, says this newspaper.
Debt relief works
Even after 7 percent growth in the past two years, Tanzania is still desperately poor. But debt relief has worked in this country, just not fast enough, writes the Guardian's Larry Elliott.
Struggles of the South
"The poor man, the common citizen, he can't get $1 a day. What kind of government is that? And these are the people I fought for. I'm regretting it", says a former fighter of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, blaming the southern Sudan government that he helped put in power for the situation in the country.
Lives in limbo at Sudan camp
Southern Sudan has begun the staggering task of re-creating itself as a viable nation and its people have started restoring the towns to life, but their efforts are easily derailed by everything from landmines to rain, which turns the region's dirt roads into impassable sludge.
Darfur's fleeting moment
A failure of international will has allowed Darfur to bleed into another year of rape, slaughter and starvation, write Anthony Lake, former national security adviser to former President Bill Clinton, and Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University.
Famine in Kenya: The rains have finally come, but for many it's already too late
The worst drought in decades has brought the tribal peoples of northeastern Kenya to the brink of starvation.
Homosexuality and HIV/AIDS in Uganda
How can HIV/AIDS policy in Uganda be successful when homosexuality is illegal?
Crimes against humanity: Anatomy of an arms dealer
Guus Kouwenhoven once enjoyed a glitzy life but is now facing a possible life sentence as the first arms dealer to be tried for crimes against humanity.
Worth it
It's in America's interest to aid Palestinian citizens, bypassing the Hamas government they elected, writes this newspaper.
Darfur and beyond: We need permanent peacekeeping forces
Peacekeeping is as an international problem but states' refusal to get involved is guided by national-level interests - thus the solution is standing national peacekeeping armies, argues John Gledhill of Washington's Georgetown University.
Where AIDS galloped, lessons in applying the reins
Kenya, a nation where experts say the AIDS epidemic shows signs of easing, is a rarity in Africa.
Doing the daring in Darfur
Darfur is the killing fields of this decade and the international community must help stop atrocities there.
Buttressing Ecowas' call
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is gone yet Liberia is still under U.N. sanctions. It's time for them to go as well.
Uganda doesn't back Congo rebels
If the U.N. has any evidence of Uganda arming groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, why haven't they officially communicated that to the Ugandan government?
Doing the right thing in Nigeria
Three cheers to the Nigerian parliament for rejecting a constitutional change that would have allowed President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term in 2007, says this newspaper.
What does the Kremlin want?
Does the Chechen conflict amount to genocide?
Sudan: Help Darfur Now!
This is not the moment for anyone involved in Darfur's peace accord to rest on their laurels. Darfur is still far from peace, says U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Serbia cannot escape curse of Mladic
Far from burying the past, Montenegro's close-run referendum to form a separate state from Serbia may mark the beginning of a new cycle of uncertainty, writes Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall.
Chechnya only seems normal
The Chechen capital Grozny is bustling with activity in its bazaars, public transport, building sites and restaurants, but behind appearances war is on everyone's mind.
I am a witness. What can I do?
"I am as sick of messianic rock stars as the next man, woman and child", says Bono.
Starved for a solution
A Darfur peace accord signed on May 5 is not expected to lessen the needs of people in Darfur anytime soon.
Using rape as a weapon of war
"In war, any tactic an aggressor can use to demoralise his enemy works in his favour. Rape does just that", says Janet Kerr, a psychologist and sexual violence expert who works in a displacement camp in Darfur, in this account of how rape is being used as a weapon in the Darfur conflict.
Bob Geldof: Aid isn't the answer. Africa must be allowed to trade its way out of poverty
Africa and its people must trade its way into the global market and sit where it rightfully belongs, negotiating as equals with the rest of us, says Bob Geldof.
Niall Fitzgerald: Not a burden, but a land of opportunity
Promoting growth is the only sustainable way to help Africa help itself, says Niall Fitzgerald, Reuters chairman.
A flawed peace pact
"Rape being used as a weapon, burning of villages is being used as a weapon, destroying commerce is being used as a weapon...If I were [Sudanese president] el-Bashir, I wouldn't want a bunch of international troops digging around Darfur looking for evidence of war crimes", says a Western diplomat in this analysis of the Darfur peace deal.
A pact with suspense
If the Darfur peace accord falters, the question is whether the world, which until now has failed to use tough tactics against Sudan's government, will do more to ensure the peace.
Raising their voices
"I was surprised I wasn't able to find about this serious topic in your newspaper...I don't know if you believe that this topic won't sell your papers or you are just not aware of the problems". This letter from a 14-year old high school girl goaded a Newsday editor into action on Darfur.
Why insist on Mladic's arrest
How important is it to arrest the general who led at Srebrenica, compared with integrating 8 million people in a region that badly needs stability?
Where is the global outcry at this continuing cruelty?
Israel is celebrating its 58th birthday and so it should, for it's pulled off an amazing stunt: the creation of a state for one people on the land of another without incurring effective sanction, writes Dr Ghada Karmi, research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University, and a former consultant to the Palestinian Authority.
It's hell in Darfur, but is it genocide?
One of the many tragedies of Darfur is that it had to be mislabeled a genocide before politicians and activists were stirred to respond, writes Michael Clough, author of "Free at Last? United States Policy Toward Africa and the End of the Cold War."
Ideology Only
President Bush deserves credit for a big increase in U.S. funding for AIDS prevention programmess abroad, but he also needs to shoulder part of the blame for letting ideology drive how the money is spent.
For journalists, security the key issue to covering Darfur
Dirt roads, angry rebels and government censorship make it hard and dangerous to cover what's going on in Darfur, CNN reporter Nic Robertson says.
Aid for Palestinians
EU officials are now trying to channel funds without going through the Hamas leadership, in a welcome development that Canada should consider supporting.
Bridging Bosnia's Many Divides
The bridge in Mostar has been rebuilt but the city is still dead, say survivors of the war in Bosnia.
By moderating, Hamas can absolve itself of blame for Palestinians' plight
Hamas is presiding over a government that is on the brink of collapse and over a people who are suffering from collective punishment.
Obstacles to peace
Conditions in Darfur are even worse than they have been portrayed, and only the most credulous can be optimistic about the effectiveness of the peace agreement signed in Nigeria.
Stigmatization Worsens Effects of HIV/Aids
The brutal killing of an HIV-positive boy in Kenya shows that the AIDS stigma is still alive and well, Sunny Ntayombya says.
Lack of food adding to misery in Darfur
The U.N. World Food Programme has only received one third of the cash it needs for relief work in Sudan, but where are the donors? Other rich nations should follow the U.S. lead and boost their contributions for Darfur.
Toward hope in Darfur
The new peace agreement offers a glimmer of hope for a region that has known nothing but despair and human misery, but any foot-dragging could unravel the accords.
Send in the clowns during serious times
Clowns Without Borders bring laughter rather than medicine to children and parents hit by conflict and disaster in Kosovo, Nepal, Chiapas and Sudan.
Darfur: Enough is Enough
The Sudanese government has been called a serial contract breaker by peace negotiators around the globe, and fears remain about the Darfur peace accord.
Don't ostracise Hamas
The U.S.-led effort to undermine the new Palestinian leadership has backfired and a humanitarian crisis is now imminent.
Emergency aid may be too little, too late for Palestinians trying to survive a crisis
The timetable for establishing an emergency fund for the Palestinian territories is far less clear than the scale of the crisis it will attempt to alleviate, says the Independent's Donald Macintyre.
Darfur Needs U.N. Peacekeepers Now
Now is the time for action in Darfur: with negotiations over and a peace deal in effect, a well-armed U.N. force from African and Arab countries should be deployed immediately.
Darfur's slow burn
The Darfur peace agreement may only be the prelude to a regional conflict which could draw in Chad and the surrounding countries, argues Katharine Houreld.
Feed the rich: Meet the United States, foreign-aid recipient
Poor countries' donations to Katrina victims should inspire gratitude and shame in the United States. It's as a bit like Bill Gates lining up for dinner at a food bank.
The U.N. sex-for-food scandal
The abuse of young girls in Liberia is just the latest case in a growing tragedy played out in countries visited by peacekeepers, and the United Nations is not acting quickly enough.
Abkhazia's dream of freedom
Abkhazia's case for independence from Georgia echoes Kosovo's tug away from Serbia, and Abkhaz leaders are increasingly seeing double standards in the West's different treatment of the two territories.
Quick action can solidify tenuous peace agreement
The death of an African Union interpreter in Darfur -- stabbed to death by a crowd of displaced people angry at the international community's failure to protect them -- underscores the urgent need for all sides to put the terms of the peace agreement into concrete action.
Botched Kosovo intervention dims hopes for peace
Western leaders negotiating Kosovo's future status are panicking – and they still don't have a Plan B for Balkan peace.
Foreign aid is in everyone's interest
Those who say foreign aid doesn't work are mistaken, argues Jeffrey Sachs of the Columbia University Earth Institute.
Hope, if not peace, in Darfur
The real benefit of last week's Darfur peace deal is that it might speed up the arrival of desperately needed U.N. troops.
A strange way to help Africa
Africans must find westerners odd: first they send missionaries to teach them their beliefs, then they send development experts and finally celebrities come to publicise the suffering of the continent. And what does it say about us when only a pretty pop star can make us care about ending the African scourge of fistula, asks Carol Goar.
In the end, it's the children who pay
Western governments' decision to cut financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority will bring more hardship to embattled children in the occupied territories who rely on functioning healthcare and water and sanitation services, argues Cesar Chelala.
What Ails Afghanistan?
Afghanistan will never be stable unless Pakistan's military government is replaced with a democracy, argues Chris Patten, the former EU commissioner for external relations.
Not the worst of accords on Darfur
If the peace agreement fails, it will be because of its process rather than its provisions, says author Julie Flint.
Peacekeepers next priority for Darfur: Worth Repeating
This edited version of an editorial from the Washington Post argues that, for the Darfur peace deal to last, the holdout rebel factions must sign up to the agreement and Khartoum must declare Darfur open to a U.N. peacekeeping force.
Risks remain despite peace pact in Darfur
The Darfur peace agreement is meaningless unless accompanied by a real commitment to ending violence and a guarantee of unrestricted humanitarian access, say Robert Glasser, chief executive of CARE Australia, and Andrew Hewett, executive director of Oxfam Australia.
Sudan: the pitfalls of US foreign policy
The Khartoum regime remains a threat to peace in Darfur, writes columnist and author Tom Porteous, formerly with the BBC and the British Foreign Office.
Darfur: A small step in the desert
The new Darfur peace agreement owes much to British and U.S. pressure but is unlikely to end the conflict.
Darfur Gets a Fighting Chance
Only a well-armed U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur can ensure that the agreement between the Sudanese government and rebels leads to genuine peace.
New coalition of the willing needed in Darfur
The last thing Darfur needs is more U.N. involvement, argues Mark Steyn.
A 'grandfatherly' killer
Having lunch with ex-commanders and "mass killers" of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda is easy, writes the Toronto Star's John Goddard.
Darfur deal raises bar for peace
Bringing peace to Darfur will be a tough job even if both sides feel pressure to comply with the new pact.
World still oblivious to deadly Darfur crisis
The best thing to happen to Darfur last week might have been when George Clooney joined a protest march in Washington.
Time for UN to address Burma
The U.N. should investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since the Burmese military took power, but China and Russia keep blocking action against the junta.
Much too long to wave goodbye
Confusion over a tsunami warning after an earthquake near Tonga raises questions about the pace of today's electronic media and the lack of communication between emergency services and journalists.
North Korea is heading towards another famine
'Choongoong' which means 'spring food shortage' is well under way in North Korea.
Unity through autonomy
Iraq should follow the Bosnian model for peace - keeping the country whole by decentralising it and dividing it into ethnic federations, says Joseph Biden Jr of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Lessons From Nepal
Autocratic and corrupt regimes across Africa should learn some lessons from Nepal where the king has been forced to reinstate parliament after protests against his direct rule. Africans who have so far failed to rid themselves of incompetent or autocratic leaders could also take note of the successful revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine.
Got your conflict? Mr Ahtisaari is your man
This is a profile of Marti Ahtisaari whose past jobs include negotiating Nambia's independence and brokering an agreement between Indonesia and Aceh separatists. His current task is to get Serbs and ethnic Albanians to agree on the status of Kosovo.
Balkan betrayal
How hard can it be to arrest a man whose face everyone knows, in a country the size of Scotland?
An Incomplete Peace: Sudan's Never-Ending War With Itself
The administration's effort to clinch a peace deal for Darfur comes at the end of a long string of confusing and seemingly contradictory U.S. stances on Sudan.
The Myanmar test
If the United States doesn't lead the way in pressing for a resolution on Myanmar, the junta's victims will continue to suffer and die, and a recently-passed U.N. resolution on protecting civilians in armed conflict won't mean a thing.
International Triple Standards and the Plight of the Gambian People
It is embarrassing that the United States -- one of the world's self-proclaimed champions of democracy, human rights and the rule of law -- should watch silently as the Gambian state ruthlessly bullies its own citizens simply because the head of state is a Washington ally.
Fighting the Malaria Menace
Just like any other disease on the African continent, malaria deaths deprive nations of their best human resources, with devastating knock-on effects like poverty.
Insuring against disaster
Ethiopia's drought insurance could blaze the trail towards a solution to one of the most vexing problems in aid.
Impunity on Trial in Africa
The arrest of former Liberian president Charles Taylor is the latest attempt to hold African politicians to account for their crimes.
Nets for Africa: A practical way to defeat despair
"We Americans have a perfect retort to Osama bin Laden's call for expanding the terrorism war to Sudan. We should respond by showing our abiding concern for the plight of Africans by helping to save millions of children who are at risk of death from disease", says Jeffrey Sachs, author of "The End of Poverty" and director of Columbia University's Earth Institute.
Peace and reconstruction in Aceh
Peace in Indonesia's Aceh is not yet irreversible and reconstruction has a long way to go. But in sharp contrast to Sri Lanka, which has seen a deepening of its civil war divide, Aceh has the potential to become a success story, says Michael Renner, director of the Global Security Project at the Worldwatch Institute, a research and policy organisation based in Washington.
