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The news is mostly good from Sierra Leone where significant strides are being made in the peace process. With the arrival of a Nepali battalion, the United Nations Mission (UNAMSIL) has nearly reached its force ceiling of 17,500.

On 8 October 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) confirmed an indictment charging Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), with crimes committed in Croatia.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) published a detailed report in summer 2001 that found Zimbabwe to be in a severe political and economic crisis, characterised by state-directed violence aimed at crushing political opposition and by growing potential for internal conflict and regional instability.

The destruction of the World Trade Centre and part of the Pentagon by terrorists has again focused international attention on radical Muslims and their potential to engage in acts of terrorism.

In response to the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001, the United States and a broad though informal coalition of allies and like minded states are building up a military capability in Central Asia that will in all likelihood strike inside Afghanistan.

Megawati Soekarnoputri, eldest daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Soekarno, was sworn in as president on 23 July 2001 after the dismissal of her predecessor, President Abdurrahman Wahid. The new government faces daunting challenges in almost every field.

This briefing paper continues ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis. It covers the period from the signing of a political agreement by the contending parties on 13 August 2001 through the start of the NATO mission to collect NLA arms, to the 6 September 2001 agreement by Macedonia’s parliament to begin consideration of the promised constitutional and legislative reforms. It focuses on the still tangled and unsettled internal Macedonian political scene and on the international community’s need to address the dangerous security vacuum that will arise unless an adequate follow-on force can be agreed once NATO’s limited present mission is completed.

The Socialist Party’s decision on 21 August to nominate Ilir Meta for another term as Prime Minister closed out the longest election in Albania’s turbulent post-communist history.

Although a political agreement has now been signed, and NATO is poised to enter Macedonia, the possibility of a full-blown civil war, with serious regional consequences, remains high. This briefing  paper  continues  ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis.1 It examines what has happened in the past several weeks, the political agreement signed by the contending parties on 13 August 2001, and what yet needs to be done, in particular by the international community, if that agreement, against still heavy odds, is to bring peace.

This ICG briefing paper continues the analysis of the Macedonian crisis begun in the ICG’s two most recent reports from Skopje: Balkans Reports No. 109, The Macedonian Question: Reform or Rebellion (5 April 2001) and No. 113, Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace (20 June 2001).