The south really wants Abyei; they have a core constituency who reside in the area who believe that Abyei belongs to the south. There are a number of….

When you are dealing with a mass movement, as opposed to a quote-unquote "elite," you are talking to people who don't have time to read long research….

I feel really uncomfortable writing about Sudan when I'm not there. It always looks different. When you're outside Sudan it's easy to lose sight of h….

Southern Kordofan is not a disputed territory. It is, and will remain, in the north, where the Nuba Mountains are. People believe there was a genocid….

During the civil war, the Sudanese government armed the Misseriya nomads as proxy. Even though both groups had coexisted quite well prior to the conf….

o this idea that we fail to stop these things because there's not awareness about them, or that we need better early warning information, I'm increas….

I try not to cover Sudan from afar. I feel really uncomfortable writing about Sudan when I'm not there. It always looks different. When you're outsid….

Things always seem less dire when you're in the country than when you're outside. I don't exactly know why it is, except that people just have to get….

Something I've learned over time, and trying to remind myself this week as I am back in New York and feeling pretty anxious, is that things always se….

There's a huge misconception that it's all about the oil, and the truth is there's actually not much oil left in Abyei. The misperception arose becau….

No question that the spotlight on Darfur has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. And that's deeply problematic, because it hasn't disappeared….

It's really difficult to get good information, and there's a reason for that. They're not letting journalists in. Whenever something really bad is ha….

Peacekeeping there is still just totally ineffective. The UN is now saying they are sending reinforcements in the area, but I have no particular reas….

For sure I see so much in Sudan that is wonderful, normal life - young entrepreneurs starting up NGO projects, kids mucking around and being kids. Ev….

It's best to think of these as two things - they're related, but there's different dynamics going on with each of them. A key difference is Abyei is ….

There's a bigger question again about how to do prevention. It's not simply about putting out the early warning. The early warning was put out on Aby….

I think people felt like they did everything they had been told they should do to fix the problem, and it still wasn't fixed. Then you have these oth….

Every indication is that the Sudanese government will be defining it as an Arab, Muslim country. But there are also a lot of Christians and a lot of ….

What's really interesting, though, is that some people in the Messirya are starting to see Darfuri rebels - so non-Arab, [from the] Justice and Equal….

Strikingly consistent across all of the battles in Sudan's history has been a fundamental conflict over what are and what are not seen as legitimate ….

I think fundamentally the bigger question is, what are we expecting peacekeepers to do? Are they actually, as the traditional conception would have i….