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General Pervez Musharraf imposed martial law in Pakistan on 3 November 2007.

Ten months after an unprecedented popular revolt shook the 23-year regime of President Lansana Conté and more than a half year after a new government was formed, Guinea’s stability is as fragile as ever. The honeymoon of Prime Minister Lansana Kouyaté, the ex-diplomat entrusted with producing “change”, is over.

The risk that Ethiopia and Eritrea will resume their war in the next several weeks is very real. A military build-up along the common border over the past few months has reached alarming proportions. There will be no easy military solution if hostilities restart; more likely is a protracted conflict on Eritrean soil, progressive destabilisation of Ethiopia and a dramatic humanitarian crisis.

Violence continues unabated in Pakistan’s strategically important and resource-rich province of Balochistan, where the military government is fighting Baloch militants demanding political and economic autonomy.

The dispute over the Abyei region is the most volatile aspect of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and risks unravelling that increasingly shaky deal. The CPA granted the disputed territory, which has a significant percentage of Sudan’s oil reserves, a special administrative status under the presidency and a 2011 referendum to decide whether to join what might then be an independent South.

A three-year peace process between the government of Alvaro Uribe and the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) is at a standstill, with concern rising that it is doomed by mutual recalcitrance.

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.

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.

Uzbekistan remains a serious risk to itself and its region. While 69-year-old President Islom Karimov shows no signs of relinquishing power, despite the end of his legal term of office more than half a year ago, his eventual departure may lead to a violent power struggle.

Most outside observers see only one dimension of conflict in Papua – the Indonesian government vs. the independence movement – but it is much more complex.