Tuesday 18 April Inflation is increasing rapidly as the South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) depreciated further against the US Dollars (USD) in the black market, hitting a new low at USD$1 to 162 SSP, from $1 to 145 SSP the week before. Wednesday 19 April 16 MONUSCO staff were briefly held hostage by unarmed South Sudanese… Read more »
East Asian Peace: Telling Japan to be Proud
To a Tokyo audience of Japanese peace practitioners, academics, journalists and diplomats, I recently chose to address the Japanese as East Asians. I had three important messages to convey:
- You East Asians have a Peace to Defend
- The East Asian Peace is at Risk
- Please overcome your differences and aim for an East Asian Security Community
You East Asians have a Peace to Defend
… and you Japanese can be proud of your historical role in making that peace happen.
Colours of Peace. Students learn and construct Japanese origami cranes from a U.S. Navy Sailor as a symbolic gesture toward peace in Sasebo, Japan. Photo: Joshua J. Wahl, U.S. Navy
For 140 years, from the First Opium War in 1839 to the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, East Asia did not experience one single decade without a serious war somewhere: terrible civil wars, colonial wars, wars between states, not least between Japan and China, and wars of American intervention. East Asia was the main battlefield in the global Cold War. During 1946–79, 80 per cent of all battle deaths worldwide happened in East Asia, notably in Vietnam, Korea and China.Read More
This Week in South Sudan – Week 15
Tuesday 12 April Sudan, in collaboration with the World Food Program and the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), has opened a second humanitarian corridor between El Obeid in Sudan and Bentiu in South Sudan. Aly Verjee in African Arguments: “Why calling for a ceasefire in South Sudan can be a bad idea” Wednesday 13 April… Read more »
This Week in South Sudan – Week 14
Monday 3 April The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) halts plan to increase work permit fees for foreigners. The strain on Uganda’s generous refugee policy is starting to show, as Bidi Bidi becomes the world’s largest refugee camp. Tuesday 4 April Reuters: “Refugees recount South Sudan attack: ‘If you ran, you got shot’” Foreign Affairs:… Read more »
This Week in South Sudan – Week 13
Tuesday 28 Mars Conflicting reports on clashes in Kajo-Keji, prisoners of war allegedly freed following a prison raid by the SPLA (IO). New research paper by the Enough Project: “A Way Out? Models for negotiating an exit plan for entrenched leadership in South Sudan Wednesday 29 Mars President Salva Kiir appointed a new governor of… Read more »
Peace Diplomacy: Finding Entry Points for Female Mediators
The Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström has invested in a network of female mediators to strengthen women’s roles in peace and reconstruction processes. However, it is not just the supply of female mediators that is the problem, but the demand as well.
Iran’s SNSC Secretary Shamkhani Meets EU’s Mogherini in Tehran in April 2016. Photo: Mohammad Ali Marizad / Wikimedia Commons
- Where can opportunities be found for women to make contributions to these processes?
- How does a mediation effort actually begin?
- How are individuals appointed to become peace brokers in violent conflicts between countries and groups?
An Incomplete Picture of the Humanitarian Crisis in the Lake Chad Region
The broader context of the humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad region, particularly in Borno State in the northeast of Nigeria, remains largely unknown to a Western audience, and in the media coverage it is mostly the stories about Boko Haram’s atrocities that are being told.
Fleeing the Boko Haram. Nigerians on the shores of Lake Chad. Photo: EC/ECHO/Anouk Delafortrie. CC-BY via Flickr
This was also the focus at the donor conference held in Oslo on February 24. Everybody condemned the jihadist group Boko Haram. But the decision-makers gathered in the cold Norwegian winter, worlds away from the heat of the Sahel’s dry season, made no mention of the share of responsibility of the anti-terrorism coalition formed by the armed forces of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.
Playing Chinese Whispers with a Megaphone
These days, a press conference at the White House is cringe TV. President Trump greeting world leaders may leave unfortunate viewers squirming in front of the screen. It’s an experience simultaneously entertaining and unpleasant.
One thing that already has generated countless internet memes and analyses among the Twitterati is Trump’s handshake. When the American president takes someone by the hand, he looks more like someone trying to shake off a piece of chewing gum stuck between his fingers than someone greeting another person.
After trying to wring the hand off his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, and later squeezing the life out of the hand extended by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Trump suddenly refused to shake Angela Merkel’s hand during her visit to the Oval office. The press were calling for a handshake. Merkel was left puzzled and somewhat perplexed when she realized that the American president had no plans even to look in her direction. It could have been a Monty Python sketch, but these days it’s life imitating art.Read More
This Week in South Sudan – Week 12
Tuesday 21 Mars Hervé Ladsous, the outgoing UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, expects the first units of the regional protection force to deploy to Juba within the next few weeks. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) has rejected the participation of RPF troops from countries outside the region. SPLA (IO) has reportedly abducted four oil… Read more »
Democratise or disintegrate: how the AU can help South Sudan
The excerpt below is from a recently published report by Amanda Lucey and Liezelle Kumalo at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). It is part of a broader project called ‘Enhancing African responses to peacebuilding’ by three partner organisations – ISS, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC)…. Read more »