Monday 9 March A high ranking SPLA officer said they launched a military offensive to retake Wadakona from the SPLM/A (IO) last week. Tuesday 10 March Clashes between SPLM/A (IO) and government forces continued in Manyo County in Upper Nile State. According to Vice-president, James Wani Igga the IGAD peace talks hit a deadlock after… Read more »
Month: March 2015
Buddhist Nationalism Threatens Myanmar’s Democratic Transition
It’s election year in Myanmar, the big test for the country’s aspiring democratic transition. Among the spirited national debates there are four controversial pieces of legislation currently under consideration in Myanmar’s Assembly of the Union parliament (the Pyidaungsu hluttaw). These reportedly aim to protect race and religion. But in truth, the bills represent a setback… Read more »
How Migration Spurs Battles over Women
(This post was originally published on Jørgen Carling’s personal web site.) Migration affects the lives of women in many ways. One subtle but critical mechanism lies in disputes over ‘who’ migrant women are. Migration researchers can play a role in making the battles apparent and showing how they matter. I have collected fifteen articles that… Read more »
Free Rein of Special Services makes Russia Ungovernable
It took a week for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to produce a pair of plausible suspects in the shocking murder of Boris Nemtsov on February 28. Last Saturday (March 7), FSB Director Aleksandr Bortnikov reported to President Vladimir Putin that two men implicated in the crime were under arrest; and on Sunday, another… Read more »
PRIO Global Fellow, Luka Biong Deng: ‘What next after the final South Sudan Peace Talks?’
The disappointing outcome of the final round of South Sudan peace talks is not a surprise to the people of South Sudan as they were expecting “no deal” or at best a bad peace. With the failure of IGAD mediation, the real question is what to be done to encourage parties to continue pursuing the… Read more »
Reflections on Climate-Conflict Research: More Confusion than Knowledge
Does climate change constitute a threat to peace and security? Many agree that it does. The US administration’s new National Security Strategy, launched last month, portrays climate change as ‘an urgent and growing threat.’ And this week, a new study appears to add scientific credibility to this concern, suggesting human-caused climate change contributed to the… Read more »
This Week in South Sudan – Week 10
Wednesday 4 March The South Sudanese government condemned the attack on Marialachak village in Abyei, where some 100 armed Misseriya killed 4 civilians, wounded 3 others and prompted some 4000 residents to flee the village. The SPLA has attempted to contain a violent police strike over unpaid salaries in Wau, capital of Western Bahr el… Read more »
Fifty Years Since the Selma March
Yesterday, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, President Obama and over 100 members of the US Congress celebrated the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights march in Selma, a turning-point in the non-violent civil rights movement. President Obama was introduced by John Lewis, who with Hosea Williams and others led the march fifty years ago… Read more »
Discussing the Arctic matters in Ottawa
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu provided a useful point of departure for my presentation and discussions in Ottawa on current Arctic matters, asserting that Russia is facing “a wide range of potential security challenges and threats” in the Arctic and is ready to use military means for countering those. It is certainly not the first… Read more »
Murder that Revealed Truth
As days go by, the pain and shock from the news about Boris Nemtsov murder are turning into sad reflections on Russia’s predicament, and my bottom line goes as following: Nemtsov was a voice in the wilderness of Russian propaganda and self-deception. And his murder has cut away multiple layers of lies in Putin’s “war is… Read more »