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The following letter on the Middle East peace conference scheduled for Annapolis, Maryland in late November, was addressed by its signatories to U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The statement is a joint initiative of the U.S./Middle East Project, Inc., the International Crisis Group, and the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program, October 2007.

A Maoist walk-out from government on 18 September 2007 and mainstream political parties’ intransigence are threatening elections for Nepal’s Constituent Assembly (CA) scheduled for 22 November.

Six months before scheduled elections, Zimbabwe is closer than ever to complete collapse. Inflation is between 7,600 per cent (government figures) and 13,000 per cent (independent estimates). Four out of five of the country’s twelve million people live below the poverty line and a quarter have fled, mainly to neighbouring countries.

Peace talks between the Ugandan government and the insurgent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are moving in the right direction, but the core issues – justice, security and livelihoods – are still to be resolved and require difficult decisions, including on the fate of LRA leaders whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has indicted.