Partner Op-Eds

The Islamist insurgency taking place in northern Mali is one of the main drivers of recent displacement in that country. So far, roughly 400,000 Malians have been forced to flee their homes, and violence in the north has hindered the delivery of aid to vulnerable populations. Reports of human rights abuses are widespread – including executions, torture, rape and other forms of violence against women, and recruitment of child soldiers...

This past year has offered fresh proof that the world we live in is ever dynamic. Fundamental change can come from something as extraordinary as a fruit vendor’s act of defiance in Tunisia to popular revolts by reform movements across the Middle East. At the same time, a decade of war and the weak U.S. economy dictates that there must be new ways to think about the role the U.S. will play in the world in the coming years.

These days I pick up the paper or switch on the news and find that the UN is fighting one battle here and another there. The UN never used to fight quite like this. It was the peacekeeper.

After his electoral victory in 2006, President Joseph Kabila promised that he would restore peace in what was the epicentre of the Congo wars: the Kivu provinces. More than four years later, the region seems no more stable than before.