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PODCAST

Hold Your Fire!

International Crisis Group

Join Crisis Group"s Executive Vice President Richard Atwood as he dives deep into the conflicts that rage around the globe with Crisis Group analysts and special guests. These experts bring a unique, on-the-ground perspective to understanding both why those conflicts persist — and what could bring them to an end. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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All Episodes

49:02

Blinken in Beijing: Will the Secretary of State's...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/06/23

This week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to Beijing, where he met with top Chinese foreign policy officials as well as President Xi Jinping. His trip, the first high-level visit in nearly five years, comes at a low point in China-U.S. relations, with the two giants at loggerheads over issues ranging from trade policy to Taiwan.This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard talks to Amanda Hsiao, Crisis Group’s senior China analyst, about the takeaways from Blinken’s visit and the state of

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53:34

Myanmar’s Forgotten War

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/06/16

In February 2021, Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup that plunged the country into a protracted crisis. Mass protests against the junta met a brutal crackdown and morphed into armed resistance, with new groups, known as people’s defence forces, fighting the army across swathes of rural Myanmar. Some of the country’s ethnic armed organisations, older rebel forces that have battled the Myanmar army for decades mostly from the country’s upland areas, have thrown their weight behind the new

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48:51

Could Jihadists Seize Parts of Coastal West Africa?

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/06/02

Recent years have seen increasing fear in some Gulf of Guinea countries, notably Benin, Togo, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, that jihadists who have overrun much of the Sahel move south. Militants already operate in forested areas along the Benin-Burkina Faso border, and northern Benin and Togo have both seen an uptick in jihadist attacks.This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Crisis Group’s Africa Deputy Director Pauline Bax and Sahel Senior Analyst Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim to discuss what’s

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45:15

Libya: Political Gridlock, Regional Politics and...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/05/26

Last week, Libya’s parliament fired one of the country’s two prime ministers, Fathi Bashaga. Libya for years has been split between two rival governments. An internationally recognised prime minister, Abdelhamid Dabaiba, sits in the capital Tripoli and a rival government, until recently headed by Bashaga, is based mostly in the east. Last summer, Bashaga, who was backed by Khalifa Haftar, a powerful commander from eastern Libya, tried several times to seize Tripoli by force. Those efforts failed,

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47:32

Riyadh and the World: What to Make of Saudi Arabia’s...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/05/22

Saudi Arabia’s diplomacy is flourishing after a decade in which Riyadh has been entangled in regional conflicts and rivalries. Over the past few years, Saudi Arabia has turned the page on the Gulf Cooperation Council dispute, opened talks with Huthi rebels in Yemen, agreed to re-open diplomatic relations with Iran and welcomed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad back to the Arab League. This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Abdulaziz Sager, Founder and Chairman of the Gulf Research Center

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43:00

Fighting in Khartoum, Talking in Jeddah

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/05/12

Fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and a rival paramilitary outfit, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has torn apart Sudan for nearly a month. The capital Khartoum and its residents have borne the brunt of the violence, with millions caught in the city and supplies of drinking water, food and medicine running low. Hundreds of thousands have left their homes. This past week, the warring parties’ representatives have met in the Saudi city Jeddah for talks brokered by Saudi Arabia and the U.S.,

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41:32

What to Expect from Ukraine’s Counter-Offensive

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/05/05

As fighting rages in Ukraine, with high casualties but little ground gained or lost on either side, Kyiv seems poised to launch its much anticipated counteroffensive. New Western equipment, including tanks, has arrived and Ukraine appears to have struck Russian supply lines, including in Crimea. Russia, meanwhile, has dug in along key stretches of the front and upped attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities, mostly hitting civilian infrastructure. This past week also saw an alleged attempted drone

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42:20

What Can Stop Sudan’s Devastating War

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/04/28

Sudan has entered its second week of fighting between rival military factions. Battles between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have torn apart cities and towns, especially the capital Khartoum, where millions of civilians are facing shortages of basic necessities. A 72-hour ceasefire between the rival forces has offered some respite, allowing many Sudanese to flee the country and diplomats’ and other foreign nationals’ evacuation. But clashes still continue and

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52:51

War in Sudan

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/04/22

Two rival armies are driving Sudan toward full-blown civil war. Fighting between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Abdelfattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force led by Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagalo, is tearing apart cities and towns across the country, including the capital Khartoum. The battles have already killed hundreds of civilians and left millions more facing shortages of basic necessities. This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Crisis Group’s

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47:18

Drones and Diplomacy: Will Türkiye’s Elections Change...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/04/04

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in power for two decades, faces a stiff challenge in Türkiye’s forthcoming election, which will take place only a few months after devastating earthquakes killed some 50,000 people. The vote comes at a time of evolving Turkish foreign affairs. Some years ago, Ankara was boxed in, its relations with its neighbours, the Gulf and some of its Western NATO allies fraught. Today, things look different. Ankara has gone some way to repair ties in the region. Its support has

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42:39

Somalia’s Latest Battles Against Al-Shabaab

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/03/24

Over recent months, the Somali army, backed by clan militias, has recaptured areas in central Somalia from Al-Shabaab militants. Profiting from local anger at Al-Shabaab’s predation, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government has deployed Somali forces to Hirshabelle and Galmudug states, just north of the capital, Mogadishu, to fight militants. The campaign has reversed some of Al-Shabaab’s gains of the past few years, forcing the militants out of several areas, including some important towns. Yet

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45:33

Iran: A Deal with Saudi Arabia, Closer Ties to Russia...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/03/17

Last week, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to restore diplomatic relations in a deal brokered by China. The two countries had broken off ties in 2016, after Saudi authorities executed a prominent Shiite cleric and dissident, prompting protesters in Tehran to sack the Saudi embassy. Last week’s deal follows several rounds of talks, hosted by Iraq and Oman over recent years, between Iranian and Saudi officials. It comes at a time of deepening Iranian ties to Russia, with Iran sending weapons to help

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54:20

Will the Ukraine War Blow U.S.-China Relations...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/03/11

The past few weeks have seen U.S.-China tensions ratchet up. In early February, a U.S. fighter jet shot down what Washington concluded was a Chinese spy balloon off the east coast of the U.S., prompting loud condemnations from Beijing. Later that month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after meeting with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference, warned that China was considering giving lethal aid to Russia for its war efforts in Ukraine. He warned of serious consequences

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42:40

Another Year of War in Ukraine?

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/02/24

One year into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prospects for a settlement remain bleak. On 21 February, President Vladimir Putin announced in a belligerent yearly address that he would suspend Russia’s participation in New START, its last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the U.S. The speech followed U.S. President Joe Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv, during which he reaffirmed Washington’s determination to support Ukraine. Top U.S. officials also warned that China was considering

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49:33

Insecurity and Identity Politics Ahead of Nigeria’s Vote

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/02/17

Nigerians will go to the polls on 25 February to elect a new president. The election is shaping up as a three-way contest between Bola Tinubu, a veteran Nigerian politician from the ruling All Progressives Congress party, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, and Peter Obi, who appears to have won over many young Nigerians. A cash crisis, caused by a bungled government policy to replace old banknotes, plus fuel shortages look set to complicate the vote. The country also grapples with an array of

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46:37

Mark Malloch-Brown on the Ukraine War and Challenges...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/02/10

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood speaks with Mark Malloch-Brown, president of Open Society Foundations (OSF), Crisis Group trustee, and former UN Deputy Secretary-General and UN Development Programme administrator, about challenges facing open societies today. They talk about the erosion of democracy around the world, including in the West, authoritarians’ increasing global influence and the challenge some of the more competent autocrats’ governance poses. They discuss the war in

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54:56

Israel-Palestine’s Worsening Violence and Despair

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/02/03

On Friday last week, a Palestinian gunman killed seven civilians in occupied East Jerusalem, the deadliest such attack for years. The shooting came the day after a raid by Israeli forces in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin, also the deadliest such operation for years. The week’s violence follows months in which more Palestinians died, according to human rights groups, than in the past almost two decades. More frequent Israeli raids, which Israel says aim to root out Palestinian

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54:09

Great Lakes Tensions Spike After Rwanda Nearly Downs...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/01/27

On 24 January, Rwanda's defence forces fired a missile at a DR Congo army jet for allegedly violating Rwandan airspace. Congolese officials called the incident an “act of war”. The shooting has ratcheted up already high tensions between Rwandan and Congolese authorities, with the two governments at loggerheads since the resurgence of the M23 rebel group in late 2021. The M23 was defeated in 2013 but has re-emerged in the past year, taking control of significant areas in the eastern DR Congo’s North

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50:08

Bonus Episode: Eritrea’s Long Bitter Feud with...

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/01/20

Today we're bringing you a bonus episode on Ethiopia and Eritrea from Crisis Group's The Horn podcast.The contemporary rivalry between Eritrea and Tigray goes back several decades. After an almost-17-year-long civil war starting in the mid-1970s, the Eritrean EPLF and Tigrayan TPLF jointly defeated Ethiopia’s Derg regime in 1991, resulting in Eritrea’s independence and the TPLF taking power in Ethiopia. Despite their joint achievement, their already-complicated relations soon started to sour. A

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56:46

Ten Conflicts to Watch in 2023

Hold Your Fire! ·

2023/01/15

On this week’s Hold Your Fire! Richard Atwood is joined by Comfort Ero, Crisis Group’s president and CEO, and Stephen Pomper, chief of policy, to reflect on 2022 and look ahead to 2023. They talk through “10 Conflicts to Watch”, Crisis Group’s yearly flagship commentary co-published with Foreign Policy magazine. They discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine, its global ramifications and what it says about global affairs today. They also take a look at other flashpoints on the list, which this year includes

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