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Iran-U.S. Friendly Wrestling Matches Mysteriously AbbreviatedMay 20, 2013 | by Viola Gienger
The state visit marks the first in more than four decades by a leader of Myanmar, which the State Department refers to as Burma, its name before the military junta changed the name of the country and its capital in 1989. In November, Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Burma. He was accompanied by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had first visited in 2011 and then in September 2012 welcomed Nobel Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Washington, where she gave her first public address at USIP. | Read more Burma Transition Pressures Mount as Presidents Meet in U.S. VisitMay 21, 2013 | by Viola Gienger
The plan for the two matches had been a rare example of the two sides seeing eye-to-eye, as they campaigned alongside Russia to persuade the International Olympic Committee to keep the category on the roster for the 2020 Olympics. The IOC had recommended in February that wrestling be dropped and is due to make a final decision in September, according to USIP’s Garrett Nada. | Read more Google, Facebook, Microsoft Eye Syria Social Media Data for TrendsMay 17, 2013 | by Viola Gienger and Anand Varghese
USIP’s Center of Innovation in Science, Technology and Peacebuilding recently co-hosted the latest meeting of experts in its “Blogs & Bullets” initiative with Stanford University and George Washington University to study the implications with specialists from technology companies, educational institutions, advocacy groups and others. Representatives included experts from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Bit.ly, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the U.S. government’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. | Read more USIP Experts Comment on Pakistan ElectionsMay 13, 2013 | by USIP Staff In the wake of Pakistan’s general elections held on May 11, USIP experts comment on the vote’s high turnout and discuss the significance of the elections for Pakistan’s democratic future. It was the first Pakistan election in which a civilian government recognized as democratically elected completed a full term and will hand over to another democratically elected civilian administration. Andrew Wilder, director of USIP’s Afghanistan and Pakistan programs, noted that the high rates of voter participation indicate the public is rejecting militant demands. | Read more What do Pakistan’s Vigorous Campaigns and Electoral Violence Mean for Unity Afterwards?May 10, 2013 | by Nadia Naviwala
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) violence has turned the elections into a battle for the soul of the state. Relatively secular parties, which supported security operations against the Taliban while in power over the past five years, are seeing their candidates killed and rallies and offices attacked. This has boosted the odds for parties that favor negotiations and peaceful engagement with the TTP, including the party of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. How the next government will deal with growing militancy and violence is entirely unclear. But as a heated campaign season comes to an end, one point has been missed: all political parties agree that Pakistan desperately needs governance. | Read more Clean Hands in Peacekeeping: The U.N. Needs to Do MoreMay 10, 2013 | by Carla Ferstman A new United Nations investigative report on massive human rights abuses committed by Congolese government soldiers and M23 rebels provides a much needed examination of atrocities perpetrated at the end of 2012. The U.N. is now reviewing its support to those units of the Congolese Army that were implicated in the abuses. Yet the report leaves unanswered significant questions about the U.N.’s peacekeeping work in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And by implication, it raises the wider issue of why the U.N. does not apply the same human rights conditions to militaries that participate in its peacekeeping activities that it does to a host government’s military. | Read more Colombia’s Peace Talks: How Civil Society is Having a SayMay 9, 2013 | by Virginia M. Bouvie
For Colombia, the formal channels were laid out in the "General Agreement for the End of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable, Durable Peace," signed in Havana, Cuba, on August 26, 2012. The peace process is a response to "the clamor of the population for peace," notes the preamble to the agreement. Moreover, the parties proclaimed that "the building of peace is a matter for the entire society and requires the participation of everyone, without distinction." | Read more "Brilliant Art of Peace" Compiles Wide-Ranging Kofi Annan Lecture SeriesMay 3, 2013 | by Viola Gienger
Published this month by the U.S. Institute of Peace Press, the book was edited by Abiodun Williams, former senior vice president of USIP’s Center for Conflict Management, who has since become president of The Hague Institute for Global Justice in The Netherlands. He organized the lecture series in his position as Annan’s director of strategic planning. Among the inspiring prose is the comment from Morrison in an essay entitled “The Humanities after 9/11”: “I am convinced that the language that has the most force, that requires the most acumen, talent, grace, genius, and, yes, beauty, can never be, will never again be, found in paeans to the glory of war or erotic rallying cries to battle,” she writes. “The power of this alternative language does not arise from the tiresome, wasteful art of war, but, rather, from the demanding, brilliant art of peace.” | Read more Iraq’s Turbulence Signals Urgent Need for ActionMay 2, 2013 | by Manal Omar and Sarhang Hamasaeed
While interest in developments inside Iraq has shifted away for many experts, the country’s future is pivotal to the region. What had been just potential for the conflicts in Iraq and Syria to influence each other has escalated to a combined threat in many ways. Groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra have already merged leadership, and fighting forces on both sides of the border are actively pursuing their political aspirations of mutual support. This rapidly evolving scenario will require far more effort and resources to contain if action is delayed. | Read more |
Welcome to USIP's Olive Branch blog, a place for timely analysis, views from the field and an exchange of ideas about how to build peace and end or prevent conflict. Through its work in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and beyond, the Institute blends its expert analysis with its field work, a dynamic in which each must always inform the other on parallel tracks. We hope that this blog will reflect that spirit of combining thought with action. And we invite you to browse our posts and then send us your own ideas, comments or reflections. Each blog post and comment posted on the Olive Branch represents the views of the author and not necessarily that of USIP, a non-partisan, congressionally-funded organization that does not advocate for policy positions.
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Burma’s President Thein Sein is visiting Washington this week to meet President Barack Obama as the U.S. continues its push to support progress toward democracy in the once-closed Southeast Asian nation. The efforts 
Iran’s wrestling team pulled out of the second of a pair of friendly matches with the U.S. aimed at saving the sport’s role in Olympic competition, and unexpectedly flew back home last week after winning the first face-off in New York.
The intense role of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in recording – and sometimes distorting – the searing Syrian conflict is raising some mind-bending questions about whether and how data analysis could help sift the information deluge to find ground truth and even help predict conflict in the future.
On the day before elections in Pakistan, it’s hard to tell what Pakistan’s near-term future will look like.
Colombia’s peace talks in Havana don’t directly involve representatives of civil society, but the Colombian government and the FARC anticipated limited roles for civic groups and the public since the negotiations began last November. In addition to the "official" venues for such input, there has been an upsurge of additional civil society initiatives that also seek to influence the peace process and may improve any 
Seventeen of the world’s most eminent thinkers including Nobel laureates, academics and scientists contributed their thoughts to a 2002-2006 lecture series commissioned by the United Nations secretary-general at the time, Kofi Annan. Their reflections are now compiled into a 
Unlike any time in the past 16 months, the threat of all-out chaos and violence in Iraq’s most volatile provinces is high and has a potential to return the country to the upheaval of 2005-2007 or worse, given the regional dynamics and the complications stemming from the war in neighboring Syria..png)
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