Since Muammar Gaddafi’s fall seven months ago, Libya’s non-Arab minorities, including an estimated 250,000 Tuaregs, have begun more vehemently to insist on their rights.
SECURITY: A quick reaction force moulded by Africa’s circumstances
| May 9, 2012
Africa’s crises are both honing and stalling the formation of the African Standby Force (ASF) of the African Union (AU) – a quick reaction force that could eventually number about 30,000 troops to be deployed in a range of scenarios, from peacekeeping to direct military intervention.
SECURITY: New report on R2P challenges humanitarians
| February 12, 2012
The UN recognizes the international community’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) civilians during conflict, and this philosophy has quickly become embedded in peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions, but a new report questions some basic humanitarian assumptions.
HEALTH: Learning from Saudi experience on risks of mass gatherings
| January 23, 2012
The world’s great mass gatherings – from religious pilgrimages like the annual Haj to Saudi Arabia and India’s huge Kumbh Mela, to major sporting events like the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup – present important health challenges to organizers and participants alike.
Analysis: 2012 – “The Year of Crisis” in the Middle East
| January 12, 2012
If you thought 2011 was a historic year for the Middle East, 2012 is likely to be even more unpredictable.
MIDDLE EAST: The year that was
| January 6, 2012
When hundreds of thousands of people across the Arab world poured into the streets in 2011 to demand freedom from dictatorship, they set in motion a series of events which not only created humanitarian needs in countries that were otherwise relatively stable, but also exacerbated existing humanitarian and developmental challenges.
Libya’s long road to disarmament
| December 30, 2011
Mistrust of Libya’s interim administration is likely to deter tens of thousands of revolutionary fighters from complying with a massive new demobilization plan, according to analysts and former rebels.
Worrying signs for Iraq’s stability as USA pulls out
| December 24, 2011
Every day, the bleak concrete blast walls circling Baghdad’s northern neighbourhood of Adhamiya trigger flashbacks in the mind of Sahib Awad Maarouf of the violence which plagued Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.
CLIMATE CHANGE: For the people, by the people
| December 13, 2011
People are the victims and the drivers of climate change, so the success of any response to the impact of climate change depends on the people it is supposed to help, say 20 UN agencies at the UN talks in Durban, South Africa.
EGYPT: Revolutionary dreams turn into economic nightmare
| December 7, 2011
Thunderous chanting by thousands of demonstrators in Tahrir Square echoed on Falaky Street, hundreds of metres away, but fava bean seller Ashraf Ibrahim could find no reason to join in the revolutionary fervour.
