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Turkey and the Kurds |
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Turkey’s military is once again claiming new successes in its 13-year war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The armed forces increasingly recognise the need for social and economic measures to address the plight of the Kurdish population in south-east Turkey. Among Turkey’s political élite there is also some acceptance of the need for a political solution. But if the Army has become less obsessed with a purely military solution, it shows no willingness to make any concessions to the Kurds’ cultural and national aspirations. There thus appears little end in sight to an insurgency which is increasingly damaging Ankara’s relations with the West.
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Sri Lanka's civil war |
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A UK-brokered deal between Sri Lanka’s two main Sinhalese parties has increased the chances that a coherent package of political autonomy for the Tamils will be presented to parliament or directly to the people via a referendum in the coming months. But while the peace process has been reinvigorated following successes by the Sri Lankan military, such as the capture of the Jaffna peninsula, the main Tamil insurgent group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has shown few signs of willingness to negotiate seriously. With the Army overstretched, however, and the economy creaking from the strains of the insurgency, President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government has few options but to search for a political settlement.
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The Labour Party and Northern Ireland |
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With the UK Labour Party poised to win the 1 May general election and regain power for the first time in almost two decades, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) will almost certainly call an early cease-fire in Northern Ireland in the near future. The stakes in this second cease-fire would be much higher than before, with failure raising the spectre of a full-blown sectarian conflict. Without the historic ties of UK conservatism to Northern Ireland unionism, and with strong external backing from a sympathetic Clinton administration in the US and a more positively disposed government in Dublin, a new UK Labour government may well preside over the start of a political settlement in Northern Ireland.
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The future of the Eurofighter |
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Europe is producing two advanced fighter aircraft, the Eurofighter 2000 and Rafale – three counting the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen – raising the prospect of a heavily congested export market when US and Russian aircraft are included. With four European governments involved – Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK – the project is likely to come under increasing political pressure as the countries concerned struggle to meet the European Union’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) entry commitments and to trim public budgets. If Europe is to stay in the aerospace business, cooperative rather than competitive ventures are required.
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Russia's organised crime networks |
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Organised crime in Russia is threatening to undermine the country’s economic progress and deter foreign investors. With the government taking little or no action against it, the Russian Mafiya is increasing its stranglehold on whole swathes of economic life and expanding its activities overseas.
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