Blogs & Opinions

George Clooney on Sudan’s Rape of Darfur

Feb 25, 2015 | George Clooney, John Prendergast, and Akshaya Kumar

Over time, international outrage has shifted away from Darfur. When change doesn’t come fast enough, attention spans are short — especially for places that appear…

Iraq’s Shortsighted Approach on its Gas Needs

Feb 22, 2015 | Saadallah Al Fathi

Given the growing need for fuels for power generation, Iraq resorted to burning more expensive liquid fuels while the diesel part is mostly imported. But…

Environmental Peacebuilding: Conservation Agreements Reduce People-Park Conflict in Liberia

Feb 20, 2015 | Dr. Eduard Niesten

When I began working in Liberia right after the Accra settlement ended Liberia’s civil war in 2003, I could not help worrying about whether the…

Liberia: A Dangerous Trend against Corruption Fight

Feb 19, 2015 | All Africa

A consultant hired by the National Legislature to craft the new oil law is a dead man and nobody knows what may have been responsible…

Why Can't Uganda Simply Stamp out Blood Minerals?

Feb 18, 2015 | Jeff Mbanga

Let's talk about blood minerals today. About nine years ago, I was assigned to write a story about Uganda's gold exports. Back then, as it…

Climate Change and Terrorism

Feb 18, 2015 | Keith Kloor

Last month, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, Nature published a Q & Awith an anthropologist who studies the murderous motivations of Islamic extremists. He discussed socio-cultural factors and an allure…

Iraq Has Lost Billions from Gas Flaring

Feb 15, 2015 | Saadallah Al Fathi

Last week I discussed the announcement of the Iraq-Shell petrochemical project in Basra and estimated to cost $11 billion (Dh40.3 billion). I surmised that the…

Suspending EPA-L Boss Sign of Political Patronage?

Feb 13, 2015 | Morris T. Koffa, Sr.

It has come to the attention of the Africa Environmental Watch (AEW) that Hon. Anyaa Vohiri, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia…

Natural Resource Management as a Key to Peace in the Central African Republic

Feb 12, 2015 | Kathrine Edelen

Beginning in late 2012, a rehabilitated coalition of ex-rebel militia fighters, known as Séléka, reignited conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) over what it…

Towards an Integrated Approach to the Material Legacies of War: Landmines, Explosive Remnants of War and Environmental Contamination

Feb 12, 2015 | Matthew Bolton and Doug Weir

The world is infused with all kinds of risks – to our security, to our livelihoods, to our environment – that are interwoven in complex…

Climate Security Threat: We Need to Do More

Feb 9, 2015 | Anthony Bergin and Michael Thomas

Our chief ally says climate change is an urgent and growing threat to national security. The Australian Defence Force needs to do more to address…

Larry Koehrsen: Climate Security

Feb 9, 2015 | Larry Koehrsen

Guns or solar panels. Tanks or wind turbines. Homeland security exploded into our consciousness on 9/11 and has defined much of who we are ever…

Sustainable Hydropower Pitch for Burma Difficult to Swallow

Feb 8, 2015 | International Rivers

Burma, or Myanmar, has recently become a lucrative destination for foreign investors, ever since the election a couple of years ago. For the hydropower industry,…

How Resource Wealth Fuels War

Feb 6, 2015 | Daniel Curwin

Natural resources can serve as an impetus for conflict or cooperation, prolong a bloody conflict and play an essential role in the postconflict process. The…

Prosecuting Pillaging May Be Key to Curbing Natural Resource Driven War

Feb 4, 2015 | Carey L. Biron

Governments, lawyers, activists and the broader multilateral system may be missing a key opportunity in the attempt to end war and violence driven by the…

How Dodd-Frank Is Failing Congo

Feb 4, 2015 | Lauren Wolfe

Minerals are ruining lives. For several years now, in conversations about conflict and crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this has been a common…

Khartoum and Juba Oil Dance

Feb 4, 2015 | Alsir Sidahmed

It is official. Juba wants to renegotiate oil-related agreements. Following the dramatic drop in world oil prices to its lowest level in more than five…

In Uganda, It’s Bust Before Boom

Feb 2, 2015 | Robert Looney

The astonishing oil price drop of late 2014 reminds us of the inherent weaknesses of petro-states. Oil-dependent countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are struggling…

The Plunder of Myanmar

Jan 27, 2015 | New York Times Editorial Board

China’s exploding appetites have unleashed a wholesale looting of Myanmar’s valuable natural resources. While this often involves outright theft, it also comes in the form…

The Guilty and the Innocent: China and Illegal Logging in Myanmar

Jan 27, 2015 | Yun Sun

The recent escalation of tensions in northern Myanmar as the result of the Myanmar military’s crackdown on illegal logging and timber trade once again pushed…

China-India Water Disputes: Two Major Misperceptions Revisited – Analysis

Jan 26, 2015 | Zhang Hongzhou

For years, Indian security analysts, most notably Dr. Brahma Chellaney, have been warning of the coming water wars between India and China. While water issues…

Ending Grand Theft on a Global Scale: Prosecuting the War Crime of Pillage

Jan 26, 2015 | Travis Roberts

Underneath the forests, hills, and rivers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo lie billions of dollars in mineral wealth, with millions of that being…

Russia’s "Crimea" Problem in the Far East

Jan 26, 2015 | Nikolay Delchev

It has been almost one year after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014. The event caused much controversy and was condemned by the majority…

A Clear and Present Danger to Planet Earth: Climate Change

Jan 26, 2015 | Des Browne and Michael Shank

We are facing a new security threat, and, if left unaddressed, it has the potential to kill thousands of people in a single summer. We…

Musicians from Nile River Basin Collaborate for First U.S. Tour

Jan 15, 2015 | Jordan Levin

The idea that music brings people together is an appealing one, but it can seem inadequate in the face of the differences that wrack the…

What Haiti Needs to Do Next

Jan 13, 2015 | Alex Fischer and Marc A. Levy

Within three months of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the initial shock and sadness of the tragedy had been replaced by an enormous ambition: Haiti…

A Tale of Two Shocks in Iraq

Jan 12, 2015 | Masood Ahmed

Iraq is facing a “double shock” from the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgency and the global plunge in oil prices. While…

The Civil War’s Environmental Impact

Jan 12, 2015 | Ted Widmer

The Civil War was the most lethal conflict in American history, by a wide margin. But the conventional metric we use to measure a war’s…

Rebuilding Gaza and the Need to Assess TRW Risks

Jan 9, 2015 | Andrew Garrity

The people of Gaza are facing the colossal task of rebuilding homes, roads and schools following the hostilities between Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces…

Future Wars on Water

Jan 9, 2015 | Dr. Muhammad Yaqoob Bhatti

It has been said that all future wars would be on water disputes. Egypt has already issued an ultimatum of war to Ethiopia in the…