#International Crisis Group

I had not given much thought to the flight plan of the airline I recently booked to go back to the U.S. from Vietnam, but recent events in the airspace over the South China Sea prompted an online search. As I discovered, my commercial flight will be flying not far from where a U.S. surveillance plane was warned on Wednesday to leave by a Chinese radar operator.

Just when things are hotting up again with its neighbors in the East and South China Seas, Beijing faces new challenges from its western neighbors in Central Asia.  A report released on February 27 entitled “China’s Central Asia Problem” issued by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based non-governmental organization tasked with reducing deadly conflict, […]

It was Zaire then. As I sat along the shore of Lake Tanganyika in Bujumbura, Burundi,   I marveled at the moment. Baby hippos splashed playfully in the water as their adults looked carefully from across the way. The sun set with purples and yellows and pinks, in rays shooting up to the sky in sharp […]

Winning over Pakistani hearts and minds is proving difficult Two new reports provide further insight into the breakdown of U.S.-Pakistan relations. The first, put out by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, charts the growing hostility of Pakistani public opinion toward the United States. The second, issued by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a respected non-governmental […]

Afghanistan’s democratic gamble seems to have paid off handsomely for Hamid Karzai and all those who play private politics with him.  For he must think politics in Afghanistan is a game; why else would he and his friends take the money and run? In the past year President Karzai has threatened to leave the safety […]

The International Crisis Group (ICG) released a new paper on Afghanistan’s judiciary sytem, its faults, failures and the way back to institutional legitimacy and stability.  Please find the executive summary here.  However, I highly recommend that you read the paper that you’ll find here, in PDF format. In the meantime, here’s a taste: The legal […]