Latest Updates

When delegates to Afghanistan’s Constitutional Loya Jirga assemble in Kabul on 13 December 2003, they will begin debating and ultimately deciding upon a draft document that is intended to establish a strong presidency while accommodating the other dominant figures at the country’s centre.

The International Crisis Group is publishing a series of reports on the problems of repatriation for Burundi; the first report, Burundi’s Refugees: Defusing the Land Time-bomb,* emphasises how both the transitional government and the international community have thus far given too little attention to this issue, which is essential for lasting peace in the region. This report, Refugees and Internally Displaced in Burundi The Urgent Need for a Consensus on their Repatriation and Reintegration, explores the urgent need for a consensus on repatriation and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced in Burundi. 

With the collapse of the ceasefire and peace talks between government and Maoist insurgents, Nepal appears to be in for months more of bloody fighting.

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, a courageous human rights lawyer, has focused renewed attention on the deep divisions and tensions within Iran.

This briefing is one of a series of occasional ICG briefing papers and reports that will address the issue of political reform in the Middle East and North Africa. The absence of a credible political life in most parts of the region, while not necessarily bound to produce violent conflict, is intimately connected to a host of questions that affect its longer-term stability:

This briefing is one of a series of occasional ICG briefing papers and reports that will address the issue of political reform in the Middle East and North Africa. The absence of a credible political life in most parts of the region, while not necessarily bound to produce violent conflict, is intimately connected to a host of questions that affect its longer-term stability:

The massive car bomb in Najaf on 29 August 2003, which took the lives of over 90 Iraqis, including the prominent cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, has put renewed focus on the fate of the country’s Shiites.

Few political actors in the Middle East have seen their environment as thoroughly affected by recent events in the region as Hizbollah, the Lebanese political-military organisation that first came on the scene in the mid-1980s.

In April 2001, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister of Security and Political Affairs, gave a long interview on Aceh to Media Indonesia, a Jakarta newspaper. The interview appeared just after a presidential instruction had been issued authorising military action as part of a comprehensive strategy to address the Aceh problem.