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Myanmar's military government has acknowledged its serious HIV/AIDS problem in the two years since Crisis Group published a briefing paper.

Although the deadlines for the political transition in Burundi set by the Arusha Agreement have not been respected, the move toward holding elections, the most important step in the Burundian peace process, is currently underway.

On 15 November 2004, Iran and the EU-3 (France, Germany and the UK) signed a new agreement on the nuclear standoff, with Iran accepting more comprehensive suspension of uranium enrichment, and the Europeans dangling more detailed economic rewards.

As the Darfur crisis understandably preoccupies the international community, inadequate attention is being paid to ending Sudan’s 21-year old civil war between the Khartoum government and the mainly southern insurgency led by the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army).

Both wars that devastated the Congo (Democratic Republic) in the past decade and led to some 3.8 million deaths began when Rwandan troops crossed the border into that giant country's unstable eastern region, the Kivus. History may be repeating itself in recent weeks as a Rwandan incursion stirs fears of a third catastrophe, but the situation can still be saved.

Mikhail Saakashvili passed an early test of his new presidency when through a skilful mix of threatened force and imaginative diplomacy he manoeuvred Aslan Abashidze into peacefully ending his thirteen-year control of Ajara in May 2004.

While Macedonia has had a reasonably good year, the survival of the state in its present form -- a key element of stability in the fragile Western Balkans -- is still not completely assured.

The crisis provoked by the struggle in late May and early June 2004 for control of Bukavu, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's strategically sensitive South Kivu province that borders Rwanda, is a stark reminder that the political transition agreed in May 2003 is not synonymous with peace.

In a decision hailed by member states of both organisations, NATO announced at its 28-29 June 2004 summit in Istanbul that the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) it leads in Bosnia (BiH) will be replaced by an EU-led peacekeeping force (EUFOR) by the end of 2004.

The five states that comprise the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) -- Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela -- all face serious crises that taken together call the stability of the entire region into question.