Latest Updates

The brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency enters its twentieth year with no end in sight, made more complicated by the troubling political events in Kampala over the past few months, including the arrest of opposition figures.

The Aceh peace process is working beyond all expectations. Guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM) have turned in the required number of weapons.

Azerbaijan's elections, in which pro-government parties won an overwhelming majority, once again failed to meet international standards. The opposition cried foul, organising peaceful street demonstrations and filing court complaints. Though President Ilham Aliyev has pledged reforms, his actions remain tentative.

Pakistan's military government rigged local elections in August and October 2005 to weaken further the mainstream opposition parties and lay the ground for its supporters to dominate forthcoming parliamentary elections.

More than two years into the transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the peace process remains at risk. As many as 1,000 people a day still die from war-related causes – mainly disease and malnutrition, but also continuing violence.

The Ivorian people will not elect a new president, as they should have done, on 30 October 2005. The government of national reconciliation has neither reconciled anyone nor prepared credible elections for the end of President Laurent Gbagbo's constitutional mandate.

Insecurity in Darfur remains pervasive despite a decline in direct, large-scale fighting between the government and the two main rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Instead of healing the growing divisions between Iraq's three principal communities – Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs – a rushed constitutional process has deepened rifts and hardened feelings.

After drifting toward crisis for much of 2004, the outlook for stability across the Taiwan Strait has improved.