Armed Conflicts

Watchdog Body Will Oversee Private Military Contractors

By Carey L. Biron
Member governments, security companies and civil society organisations on Thursday formally created the first international body to be tasked with the monitoring and oversight of private military contractors’ adherence to human rights standards and international law.

Q&A: Congolese Wrongly Branded as “Pathological”

By Rousbeh Legatis
Western analysts all too often take a distorted and reductionist approach to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), says Kai Koddenbrock, who analysed more than 50 policy papers for a study published in the journal International Peacekeeping in November 2012.

Syria Diplomacy Helps Shuffle Global Order

By George Gao
When U.S. President Barack Obama tried to drum up momentum for airstrikes in Syria to punish and deter the use of chemical weapons, he failed to gain much of a following.

Killers Roam Free in Nepal

By Sudeshna Sarkar
When the police finally arrested a man this month in the Nepali capital for the murder of a teenager nine years ago, it became a matter of life and death for Nanda Prasad Adhikari and his wife Ganga Maya.

U.S. Urged to Curb Militarisation in Latin America

By Jim Lobe
The United States needs to phase down its drug war and tighten the reins on its cooperation with local militaries and police in Latin America, according to a new report released here Wednesday by three influential think tanks.

Wanted for War Crimes, Sudan’s President Threatens U.N. Appearance

By Thalif Deen
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of war crimes and genocide in the politically-troubled Darfur region, is apparently planning to visit New York and address the U.N. General Assembly next week.

OP-ED: High Opportunity for Nuclear Disarmament at High-Level Meeting

By Jonathan Granoff
Every nation in the world has been invited to participate at the highest political level in the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament scheduled for Sep. 26. This has never happened before. We have never been at such a moment of crisis and opportunity.

U.N. Team Confirms Syria Chemical Attack but Not Culpability

By Thalif Deen
After an intense investigation of the military attack on civilians in Syria last month, a U.N. team of arms inspectors has reached a predictable conclusion: the deadly attack had all the trappings of the widespread use of chemical weapons.

OP-ED: Making Sense of Syria

By Bhaskar Menon
Tarzie Vittachi, a Sri Lankan journalist who in his final years was the bemused occupant of a high United Nations office, once summed up with his characteristic terse wit a central truth about international affairs: “Everything is about something else.”

Executions on Hold ‘for the Wrong Reasons’

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
The execution of three Taliban men ordered by the courts has been kept on hold - not because the Pakistani government opposes the death penalty but because it fears the Taliban, political leaders say.

OP-ED: Getting Children Into Somalia’s Classrooms

By Maryan Qasim
Somalia is well-known for being a country torn apart by decades of conflict, by hunger and instability. Today, with fragile stability emerging and a new government in place, there is an opportunity to define a new future of peace, prosperity and justice.



U.S. Public-Elite Disconnect Emerges Over Syria

By Walter García and Jim Lobe
While much of the foreign policy elite here sees the tide of public opposition to U.S. air strikes against Syria that swept over Washington during the past two weeks as evidence of a growing isolationism, veteran pollsters and other analysts say other factors were more relevant.

Low Expectations for High-Level Nuke Meet

By Thalif Deen
The upcoming event at the United Nations is being billed as something politically unique.

DRC Peacebuilding Ignores Local Solutions

By Rousbeh Legatis
Despite existing local expertise and strategies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to build peace-supporting structures at the community level, official debates and media coverage continue to focus predominantly on military interventions.

Hopeful but Homesick in Peshawar Schools

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
“I miss my mother and cry every night,” eight-year-old Afaq Ali tells IPS. He is a Class 5 student at the University Public School in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the administrative centre for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to its west.

Dutch Apologise for Indonesian Executions

By AJ Correspondents
The Dutch government has formally apologised for the mass killing of Indonesians during colonial occupation which ended in 1949.

OP-ED: South Sudan’s Army Must Be Held Accountable

By Skye Wheeler
On the last day of July, South Sudanese soldiers shot dead two unarmed women, Anyibi Baba and Ateil Rio. The killings were the latest in a pattern of grave violations against civilians by Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers fighting a Murle rebel group in Jonglei state. 

Somali President Rides Through a Bumpy Year

By Muhyadin Ahmed Roble and Yusuf Ahmed
After his first year as president of the world’s most dangerous and failed state, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is still grappling with limited financial resources, corruption, a lack of service delivery, and the ongoing assassinations of government officials, including attempts on his own life.

Europe Failing Syrian Refugees

By Ray Smith
Refugee rights organisations are demanding an EU-wide temporary protection regime for Syrian refugees. The announcement by some countries that they can take a few thousand refugees is not enough, the groups say.

Israelis Prepare Themselves Regardless

By Pierre Klochendler
Unmindful of news of the U.S. delaying its military action on Syria to pursue the Russian plan for international monitors to take control and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons, Israelis continue to collect their gas mask kits at Home Front Command distribution centres.

Mixed Reactions to Obama’s Embrace of Russian Deal

By Jim Lobe
President Barack Obama’s decision to put off a vote by Congress on the use of military force against Syria in order to pursue a Russian proposal to place Damascus’ chemical-weapons arsenal under international control has evoked both cheers and jeers from across the political spectrum here Wednesday.
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