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Published in: openSecurityUkraine ceasefire announced at Minsk summit—what next?
The ceasefire agreement in Minsk over Ukraine was better than no outcome at all. But only a little better.
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Published in: openSecurity“Frankly, I don’t think we know who we killed”
A drone strike in Somalia highlights how the US is increasingly pursuing a strategy of remote-control warfare.
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Published in: openSecurityBlowback: the failure of remote-control warfare
It all seemed so convenient: remote-control warfare would minimise military casualties while rendering the civilian...
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Published in: openSecurityFear, rumours and violence: Boko Haram’s asymmetrical warfare
While the global media were transfixed by the Islamist killings in Paris, Boko Haram was engaging in further...
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Published in: openSecurityCIA torture programme cast a wide net
The CIA’s ‘deep interrogation’ and the Guantánamo detention camp came to symbolise the US ‘war on terror’. Yet it...
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Published in: openSecurityHow states can constrain resort to political violence
Recognising there are political elements to any campaign of militant violence makes it less ‘terrifying’ for society...
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Published in: openSecurityUkraine steels for more unrest as Donetsk bus attack kills 12
The latest violence in eastern Ukraine would lead most observers to think an end to the military and political...
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Published in: openSecurityDominic Ongwen and the slow-grinding wheels of the International Criminal Court
He may not be a household name but his eventual trial at the ICC may highlight the long-forgotten victims of the...
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Published in: openSecurityEthnicised justice and dealing with the past in ex-Yugoslavia
There was much hope in the international community that the Hague war-crimes tribunal on former Yugoslavia, allied...
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Published in: openSecurityPakistan’s 21st amendment: national consensus or soft coup?
The attack on the school in Peshawar in December shocked the world. In Pakistan, the upshot is a growing military...
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Published in: openSecurityDeadly cargo: explosive weapons in populated areas
It’s been a year of searing images of horrifying mass civilian injury and death, from Gaza to eastern Ukraine. The...
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Published in: openSecuritySouth Africa’s parliament and the politicisation of the police
The police were a symbol of the old, apartheid South Africa. Unfortunately they are becoming a symbol of the ‘new...
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Published in: openSecurityReflections on intervention in the 21st century
Where stands now the ‘responsibility to protect’? Recent egregious intervention failures require simplistic nostra...
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Published in: openSecurityEastern Ukraine: the humanity behind the headlines
The government in Kyiv, aid organisations and the international community must work together to address the...
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Published in: openSecurityPakistan school attack: years of inaction led to this atrocity
The Peshawar atrocity did not come out of a clear blue sky—the foreboding context an inert, corrupt state ambivalent...
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Published in: openSecurityNew security laws could make Turkey into a police state
The latest crackdown on journalists in Turkey is another twist in the spiral into authoritarianism of a state bereft...
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Published in: openSecurityAfter the torture report—rebalancing the scales of justice
In the voluminous responses to the long-awaited US Senate committee report on torture by the CIA, the essence of...
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Published in: openSecurityAfter the Kenyatta case, how is the ICC to help victims?
The states party to the founding statute of the International Criminal Court must ensure victims of war crimes can...
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Published in: openSecurityWhatever happened to winning hearts and minds?
European governments risk adopting the same counter-productive approaches towards the latest Islamist groups and...
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Published in: openSecurityBetween Scylla and Charybdis: life in Pakistan’s tribal frontier
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas touching Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan suffer a toxic mix of state and...