Full Coverage: Conflict

30.11.2004

30.11.2004 The prospects for peace are better now than anytime in the past 20 years; Sudanese leaders and the international aid community must seize this opportunity and come through for the people of the long-embattled country, the UN said Tuesday.

30.11.2004 Despite the threat of expulsion by the Sudanese government for making political statements, Save the Children continues to warn that the peace accord has had no immediate impact and that "ethnic violence and civil war will continue to complicate relief efforts".

30.11.2004 The lawyers from the International Aid Network (IAN) started an initiative at the Supreme Court of Serbia to review and revise its position on the cases of forced mobilizations of B&H and Croatian refugees, back in 1995.

26.11.2004 Passions are heating up in the troubled region of Central Africa as Rwanda has threatened to invade neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo to track down rebels it claims are preparing an attack on Rwanda from that country. One Congolese official believes Rwanda is looking for a pretense to attack his country.

24.11.2004 Human rights advocates and several religious organizations have called on the U.S. company Caterpillar to stop selling bulldozers to Israel, on the grounds that they are used by the army to raze Palestinian homes in violation of international humanitarian law.

23.11.2004 A major U.S. human rights group has called on Caterpillar Inc., the Illinois-based heavy-equipment giant, to immediately suspend sales of its D9 bulldozer to the Israeli army on the grounds that they are being used to violate international humanitarian law in the occupied territories.

23.11.2004 The restriction of Palestinian freedom of movement has fragmented Palestinian economic space, raised the cost of doing business, and eliminated the predictability needed to conduct business, said the World Bank Monday at the release of a new report showing how Palestinians have become mired deeper in poverty since the start of the Intifada in 2000.

23.11.2004 The international conference being held in Egypt to discuss the Iraq situation will need a larger meeting table than previous ones, as countries with such differing perspectives as the U.S., France, Iran, and Syria are all present.

23.11.2004 Margaret Hassan, the CARE director murdered in Iraq last week, had lived and worked in the country for 30 years. Margaret Hassan was not killed in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, she was murdered in the Iraq that has been created by Messrs Bush, Blair, Berlusconi, and other Western leaders, say Transnational Foundation President and Chairman Jan Oberg and Christian Hårleman.

23.11.2004 A convoy of trucks over a kilometer long is carrying U.S.-donated food aid through the Libyan desert to over 200,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad. Sudanese government and rebel representatives have welcomed the announcement that a UN peacekeeping force will be sent to Sudan as soon as a peace deal is finalized.

23.11.2004 Uganda's rebel leader has asked for a 100-day extension of the government-imposed ceasefire--set to expire on Tuesday--ostensibly to allow for peace talks, although rebel forces have already violated the agreement in its first six days and appear to be moving away from the ceasefire zone, reports the Kampala Monitor.

23.11.2004 BAGHDAD, Nov 19 (IPS) - An eyewitness commentary to IPS through a U.S. raid on a Baghdad mosque Friday gives a vivid picture of what a 'successful raid' can be like: at least four worshippers dead and 20 wounded in what was a 'horrific scene'.

22.11.2004 Despite official denials that the problem exists, 3,593 Colombians were forcibly disappeared in 2002 and 2003.

22.11.2004 We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the militarization of the Intifada, says University of Ramallah Modern Media Institute director Daoud Kuttab. There have been many signals recently that armed groups are getting ready to continue their struggle politically instead of militarily, and developments since the death of Yasser Arafat have supported that possibility.

22.11.2004 An ethnic militia group which threatened to kill foreign oil workers in southeastern Nigeria last month has started handing in its weapons under a guns-for-cash peace deal agreed with the government.

22.11.2004 Oxfam is strengthening its language of frustration at diplomatic dithering over the Sudan crisis. The peace agreement is welcome but ignores the immediate plight of people dying in Darfur.

19.11.2004 La rencontre entre le président Bush et le premier ministre Tony Blair cette semaine a accouché au-delà de ses ambiguïtés et de ses contradictions sur une menace assez claire contre les Palestiniens. Il y aura un « État » palestinien, a affirmé Bush, si et seulement si les Palestiniens sont en mesure d’imposer la « démocratie ». Mais cette « démocratie » est un mot de code qui veut dire en fait « capitulation ». Si les Palestiniens capitulent, alors ils deviendront « démocratiques » dans la vision de Georges W. Bush. S’ils refusent, et si le nouveau leadership n’accepte pas son rôle de « Pétain » palestinien, alors il y aura encore plus de répression, encore plus de misère. C’est le vrai message qu’on a entendu cette semaine à Washington.

19.11.2004 The U.S.-instituted Iraqi media commission sent out an order recently asking news organizations to "stick to the government line on the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action." The warning, which is just one of many restrictions and intimidations faced by journalists in the country, was sent on the letterhead of interim prime minister Ayad Allawi.

19.11.2004 "Our children, the children of West Africa, have lost the chance to enjoy the normal pleasures of childhood, to go to school, but in particular we have stopped thinking of them as children," said Sierra Leone's president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah Friday, calling for West African countries to re-integrate their former child soldiers into society, starting by providing a "free and functioning school system."