Conflict Watch

Places where conflict is likely (or not likely) in the (near) future:

In Mozambique, today, the latest peace negotiations between Mozambique's government and former rebels moved forward with cautious optimism:

After 11 rounds of talks aimed at resolving the crisis, news finally came Monday that the government and Renamo had reached a partial agreement to change electoral laws -- an announcement that was broadly welcomed.

Election violence is likely in Bangladesh this year given the amount of violence from the court rulings on war criminals

More than 100 people have been killed since January in political violence sparked by verdicts handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal.

Mexico is likely to see more violence even though Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales was caught yesterday.  One might think that his capture would lead to less violence, but his capture essentially leads to a power vacuum that could lead to more violence, as rivals within the Zetas fight for power and as other cartels move to take advantage of the Zeta's leadership struggle.  Jamie Haase, a former special agent with ICE, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says:

But as always happens in the drug war, any time you remove a person from an extremely lucrative position, there will be others waiting to take their place. The net result may be more violence as others rush into fill the power vacuum created by law enforcement’s intervention.

Lastly, does poverty lead to conflict (an age old question with no resolution)?:

Asia has by far the highest number of conflicts, and the longest running conflicts," according to according to a new study of subnational conflict on the continent from the Asia Society. The authors, Thomas Parks, Nat Colletta, Ben Oppenheim, identified 26 subnational conflicts, ranging from Kashmir to Aceh to southern Thailand, affecting 50 percent of the countries in South and Southeast Asia between 1992 and 2012. But when you look at where these conflicts are taking place, a lot of preconceived notions about the relationship between development and violence don't hold seem to hold up.