• Global Witness announced that it had left the Kimberley Process, an international diamond regulatory group, because it refused to address links between diamonds, violence and tyranny. Even if these certification schemes manage to address problems at mines, in many cases, the materials must pass roadblocks and pay “taxes” that directly line the pockets of warlords.
• The United…

Here are some interesting links I came across this week:

• For those of you in the academic world who haven’t heard of this free citation service, Zotero, check it out. Makes collaboration, citation and organizing your sources much easier.
• In the face of the recent attention afforded to the London riots, this view is…

The recent attention afforded to the Somali famine has mostly infuriated me. It’s not because I don’t care about those who are starving, quite the contrary; it’s more that I am infuriated with the way that the crisis is being painted in the media. For example:

The way it is so constantly referred to as a “natural disaster”, the result of drought or climate change, or some other ecological problem, as opposed to being a…

This past month or so has been a particularly stressful one for me. I have been living in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire for most of the past year and have watched as the country has been sinking deeper and deeper into

violence and intense propaganda. Sadly, I’ve found I no longer believe a word I read in both local and international news, as I have read “news” that is in direct contrast to what I have seen and heard with my own

eyes and ears. The stories seem to be escalating the…

Something didn't sit right with me while watching this second round of the Presidential vote here in Cote D'Ivoire. The international community…

World

• Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks released some 250,000 diplomatic cables from the…

I have no access to foreign tv news and radio at the moment, as it has been cut off through the government in an attempt to stop what is being termed “illegal” announcements of a Presidential winner. I have

been trawling the internet searching for the international response to

the current situation trying to gauge international opinion and what

information is being released where.

The election happened last Sunday, and since then things have gone…

World

• The UN will be having its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York city from the 20th to the 22nd of September. They are looking to accelerate the progress towards the MDGs by 2015, review successes, best practices and lessons learned, obstacles and gaps, challenges and opportunities to lead to more “concrete strategies of action”.
• A new…

World

• The New Economics Foundation found that the earth is using up resources faster than ever. The study monitors nature’s capital and concluded that this year the earth was using up its own natural
  
  resources to support itself a full month earlier than in the previous
  
  year.
• August 19th was World Humanitarian Day. The…

This week in conflict...

World

• The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative has recently launched its Multidimensional
  
  Poverty Index (MPI), a new way to measure poverty in the world. The MPI expands on the previous Human Development Index (HDI) and includes 10 indicators of health (child mortality and nutrition), education (years of schooling and child enrollment) and standard of…

I decided to start a new type of post on a Peace of Conflict reviewing conflict situations in the world on a somewhat weekly basis. I figured, I read this stuff every week anyway-- I might as well share it with readers in condensed form.

Here's some of what's happening in the world of conflict this week:

World

• The UN General Assembly voted to recognize the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation in a…

I have may have spoken too hastily in the past regarding conflict resources in the DR Congo. My rage at the inherent abuse led me to think that boycotting and protesting companies was perhaps the best way to go. I realize now, that I was wrong. This is the wrong approach.

Over the past six years, I have delved into this subject more than any other and have even gone so far as to ban all products for my personal use if I didn't know EXACTLY where they came from and what…

So, in the past I have neglected to write directly on Israeli/Palestinian issues because of the overwhelming hatred and backlash that seems to follow anything that is written on the subject and the claims of bias, antisemitism, brainwashing or worse. I feel now, however, that I should write something, since the "facts" I keep reading are often ludicrous and so shrouded in propaganda that I'm frustrated beyond belief and…

Human Rights Watch recently released their latest Human Rights Watch Report for 2010.

As I read through the list of countries profiled in the report, I found myself disappointed that Canada, the UK, Australia or any Western European countries had not made…

MONUC, the UN's mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will sadly soon be coming near an end, even though the country is arguably home to the most deadly and violent humanitarian crisis the world has ever seen.In December, the UN extended their mission another couple of months until…