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The capacity of security forces to both prevent and provoke conflict is increasingly recognised. Police forces can play a vital role in providing the security environment necessary for peaceful political and economic development, and are at the forefront of tackling international security issues, including drugs trafficking, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.

On 27 October 2002, Somali political leaders gathered in the Kenyan town of Eldoret signed a new declaration that envisages an end to the protracted crisis in their country.

As this briefing paper went to press, all eyes were on the United States and United Nations, the weapons inspectors, war preparations and the Iraqi regime's posture toward them. Yet, as has been true throughout this crisis, the unknown variable in the equation is the view of the Iraqi population.

The democratic government elected in Belgrade in 2000 did not end the extensive busting of arms sanctions engaged in for many years by its predecessor, the Milosevic dictatorship.

Recent state elections in Jammu and Kashmir, and the loss of power by the National Conference party that has dominated politics there since independence, have created a spark of hope that political tensions in the Kashmir Valley could de-escalate.

The Israel-Lebanon border is the only Arab-Israeli front to have witnessed continuous violence since the late 1960s and it could become the trigger for a broader Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet, in recent times it has been the object of very little international focus.

Macedonia’s 15 September 2002 election suggests the country may have turned a corner on the road to stability. Widely anticipated fraud and violence mostly did not materialise.

Warring parties and international aid providers in Sudan have an historic opportunity to bring to an end what is perhaps the most extreme and long-running example in the world of using access to humanitarian aid as an instrument of war.