A hotel in the Sri Lanka capital Colombo, flying the national flag
The road to Jaffna from Colombo hugs the western coast of Sri Lanka. Palms stand sentinel, a lagoon shimmers for miles under a deep blue sky, the sea an invisible presence resonating in the dry, salty wind. The road runs smooth, oblivious to the wounds of a war that took thousands of lives, displaced lakhs of people, destroyed villages and communities and deeply split this country.
Following a war—especially the kind of war that pits neighbor against neighbor—it would seem like the best thing for members of both sides to do is to sit down and hash their problems out—say “sorry,” offer forgiveness, maybe have a big bonfire.
The security situation in Afghanistan has continued to worsen. The Taliban has been regaining control of areas in northern and southern Afghanistan since 2006, and the group frequently launches attacks on both Afghan armed forces as well as coalition forces. This poses a threat to the survival of the Afghan government.
During his years in South Africa, Gandhi sought to ingratiate himself with Empire and its mission. In doing so, he not only rendered African exploitation and oppression invisible, but was, on occasion, a willing part of their subjugation and racist stereotyping. This is not the Gandhi spoken of in hagiographic speeches by politicians more than a century later. This is a different man picking his way through the dross of his time; not just any time, but the height of colonialism; not through any country, but a land that was witness to three centuries of unremitting conquest, brutality and racial bloodletting.
IT may not be the first but it is certainly the most significant face-to face contact between the Afghan Taliban and representatives of the Kabul government. Although both sides have tried to downplay the hype built around it, the Doha meeting has broken the ice raising hopes of a renewed peace process in Afghanistan. But there is still a long way to go before formal peace negotiations are possible.
Europe, as both a place and a concept, has changed dramatically in its centuries of history. Once one of the world’s most war-torn places, it is now known for its remarkable peace. While a place of relatively great prosperity, it is also experiencing deep economic turmoil. Europe’s transformations are still ongoing, evident both at the continental level and as narrowly as along certain transportation lines.
Conflicts in Africa are not new, but they have never been more linked than they are today. In most cases, criminal networks or neighboring governments have empowered armed groups to seek control of some of the world’s weakest states.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat once called it the last war. But 40 years after Sadat uttered those words, the Arab-Israeli conflict has no end in sight. The story of the war that Egyptians call the October War and Israelis know as the Yom Kippur War has never been thoroughly explored.
Helicopter gunships hover in the sky above a battlefield. The constant sound of explosions and gunfire pierce the night for an estimated 100,000 refugees and internally displaced people. Military hospitals are full of wounded government soldiers, while bridges, communication lines and other crucial infrastructure lie in war-torn ruins.
The images and sounds on the ground in Myanmar‘s northern Kachin State shatter the impression of peace, reconciliation and a steady march towards democracy that President Thein Sein‘s government has bid to convey to the outside world. In reality, the situation in this remote corner of one of Asia’s historically most troubled nations is depressingly normal.
