A tide of protest in Indonesia’s easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua is a challenge to Jakarta, says Charles Reading: find a new security paradigm, or face increasing radicalism in the country’s poorest region.
Flood-ravaged Pakistan faces economic, political and security fall-out. Deadly attacks rock Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Afghan’s protest ‘civilian’ deaths. IDF accused of systematic abuse by rights groups. Blast in the Caucasuses. All this and more in today’s security briefing.
The opposition of Kenya's Christian churches to constitutional reforms is in part rooted in a new and disturbing hostility to Islam. This attitude marks a significant retreat from the churches’ past role in Kenya’s democratisation, says Daniel Branch.
The bitter conflict over South Ossetia in August 2008 has turned to post-war stalemate. But just as the war and the current impasse involve more than Georgia and Russia, says Rein Müllerson, so progress in the region and beyond requires bold diplomatic thinking on all sides.
The appointment of a new head of the lead United Nations anti-drugs agency is a precious opportunity to abandon a failed policy, says Juan Gabriel Tokatlian.
The transition to a new Chinese leadership has already begun. The domestic and international demands made of it will be greater than ever. But the character of the emerging generation will severely constrain its ability to cope, say Kerry Brown & Loh Su-hsing.
Daniel Metcalfe's book ‘Out of Steppe’ describes his journey through Central Asia. In this excerpt he describes the Karakalpak landscape around the Aral Sea. The Soviet tourist destination, previously the centre of a successful fishing industry, is now depopulated, polluted by the chemicals used t
South African cabinet meet to discuss the possibility of sending peacekeeping troops to Somalia. North Korea expresses further anger as Seoul and Washington carry out further military drills. Secular Palestinian groups join Hamas, saying that a return to direct talks with Israel would be ‘dangerou
The small Black Sea republic of Abkhazia, already free of Georgia’s control since the war of 1992-93, emerged more secure from the Georgia-Russia war of August 2008. But if the “dreadful” years of its modern history have ended, the young state is now living through “difficult” times. George Hewitt
A pattern of human rights violations and other irregularities suggests that this long battle in Turkish courts against those accused of involvement in plans for public chaos and a military coup is not solely committed to strengthening Turkey’s democracy
The failed assault on a Japanese oil supertanker is, alongside developments in Iraq and Yemen, a signal of the al-Qaida movement’s protean challenge.
Grenade attack rocks Kigali just two days after Kagame re-elected as president, while opposition groups urge international community to reject result. The Lord’s Resistance Army is violently abducting recruits in central Africa, according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch. A top Iraqi gen
