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Megawati Soekarnoputri, eldest daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Soekarno, was sworn in as president on 23 July 2001 after the dismissal of her predecessor, President Abdurrahman Wahid. The new government faces daunting challenges in almost every field.

This briefing paper continues ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis. It covers the period from the signing of a political agreement by the contending parties on 13 August 2001 through the start of the NATO mission to collect NLA arms, to the 6 September 2001 agreement by Macedonia’s parliament to begin consideration of the promised constitutional and legislative reforms. It focuses on the still tangled and unsettled internal Macedonian political scene and on the international community’s need to address the dangerous security vacuum that will arise unless an adequate follow-on force can be agreed once NATO’s limited present mission is completed.

The Socialist Party’s decision on 21 August to nominate Ilir Meta for another term as Prime Minister closed out the longest election in Albania’s turbulent post-communist history.

Although a political agreement has now been signed, and NATO is poised to enter Macedonia, the possibility of a full-blown civil war, with serious regional consequences, remains high. This briefing  paper  continues  ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis.1 It examines what has happened in the past several weeks, the political agreement signed by the contending parties on 13 August 2001, and what yet needs to be done, in particular by the international community, if that agreement, against still heavy odds, is to bring peace.

This ICG briefing paper continues the analysis of the Macedonian crisis begun in the ICG’s two most recent reports from Skopje: Balkans Reports No. 109, The Macedonian Question: Reform or Rebellion (5 April 2001) and No. 113, Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace (20 June 2001).

As Indonesia continues to struggle with its ongoing presidential crisis and secessionist violence in Aceh and Irian Jaya, the Bush Administration has undertaken an overall review of its military assistance policies toward Indonesia.

On 28 June 2001, St Vitus’s Day – an anniversary with enormous resonance in Yugoslavia – Serbian government transferred former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague.

This briefing paper examines in broad terms likely directions in the policy of the European Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) in the next two to three years, with special reference to its position in the development of European Union (EU) crisis response structures and processes.

There are many challenges facing the Lusaka cease-fire signatories and the wider international community in implementing the Congolese peace agreement, but perhaps none so complex as the effort to disarm the non-Congolese armed groups destabilising the region from Congolese bases.

President Abdurrahman Wahid’s chances of retaining office suffered another setback when the parliament [DPR] took the next step in the dismissal process by adopting a “second memorandum” on 30 April 2001.