The Human Security Report of 2005 identified a fall in the number of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War. But the evidence examined in the 2008 edition of the Peace and Conflict report shows that the decline has stopped. Armed conflicts -- wars, civil wars, revolts, coups, genocides, ethnic and political violence, and terrorism worldwide -- are flaring up across the world. Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Darfur, South Ossetia, Colombia...the list of conflict-zones is long. And the poor, women, and children, are the hardest hit. With focus on human rights and development, IPS examines armed conflicts around the world and the efforts to stop them.