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Emerging slowly from decades of civil war, Angola stands at a crossroads between a spectacular recovery or further cycles of instability and crisis. The government that won the fighting must now move on a number of fronts – with international support – to win the peace.

Within the last two months, thanks to the active engagement of the facilitation team, Burundi's peace process has exceeded expectations. Momentum has never been so strong since the civil war began ten years ago.

Since October 2001, Uzbekistan has been a key ally of the U.S. in the military campaign in Afghanistan. A U.S. base has been established and a far-reaching Agreement on Strategic Partnership was signed in March 2002.

Afghanistan’s legal system has collapsed. Never strong to begin with, it has been nearly destroyed by 23 years of conflict and misrule.

December 2002 witnessed the signing of a power sharing agreement between Congolese parties under the auspices of the UN Special Envoy, Mustapha Niasse, and South Africa that should lead to finalisation of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and a transitional government.

More than a decade after their independence, each of the Central Asian states is on its own particular path of political and economic development. While most have achieved at least partial integration within the international community, one stands out as an exception: the remote former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea.

On 3 November 2002, an unmanned U.S. “Predator” aircraft hovering in the skies of Yemen fired a Hellfire missile at a car carrying a suspected al-Qaeda leader, four Yemenis said to be members of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, and a Yemeni-American who, according to U.S. authorities, had recruited volunteers to attend al-Qaeda training camps.

The latest phase of the negotiations in Machakos, Kenya closed on 18 November 2002 with the signing of an important new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on power sharing and an extension of the earlier MOU on cessation of hostilities and unimpeded aid access.

Seven years after the end of the war, the issue of refugee return continues to be contentious for Croatia.

In preparing for and orchestrating the proximity talks that marked the end of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), the authors of the Dayton Peace Accords (DPA) placed a particularly high priority on the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their pre-war homes.