spiked | Darfur: colonised by ‘peacekeepers’: "The UN’s latest peacekeeping plan for Darfur is designed to quell the strife that erupted in the province in 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the central government in Khartoum. The conflict is complex, with a variety of interlocking factions and ethnic groups whose political antagonisms and struggle with the central government gird longstanding rivalries over the region’s depleted resources (2). But it is not only regional politics and economics that represent a barrier to peace – the international community’s involvement in the conflict has served to prolong and escalate the bloodshed. "
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
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