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Massive technical, political and security obstacles must be overcome very quickly or Haiti's elections -- municipal and local in October, parliamentary and presidential in November -- will have to be postponed.

Swaziland has been an absolute monarchy for more than 30 years, with a royal leadership that ignores worsening social ills and a small elite that is often openly corrupt. A new constitution that further codifies broad royal powers and privileges is in the final stages of preparation.

The international community is failing in its responsibility to protect the inhabitants of Darfur, many of whom are still dying or face indefinite displacement from their homes. New thinking and bold action are urgently needed.

Peace may yet be possible in Northern Uganda in 2005. Many elements seem to be in place, but they need to be pursued by President Museveni’s government in a more comprehensive framework, given stronger international support and – most urgently – be committed to by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the context of a specific process with a clearly definable endgame.

As parliamentary elections approach in September 2005, early hopes that a strong, pluralistic political party system would help stabilise Afghanistan's political transition are fading.

For too long, the international approach to the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur has been defined by tough rhetoric followed by half-measures and inaction.

As he visits Washington six months after his appointment as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and more than 100 days after his election as President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is in a difficult position.

Serbia has used the first months of 2005 to good effect, instituting a major policy change on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY) and sending signals that it is somewhat more willing to engage both the international community and Kosovo Albanians in dialogue about that province's status.

The continued existence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo of 8,000 to 10,000 Hutu rebels with links to the 1994 genocide in their home country, Rwanda, is a key source of regional instability.