Heidelberg, Germany - The world was more peaceful this year
than last, with peace researchers in Germany saying Monday they had
counted just six ongoing wars and 25 serious crises.
Lotta Mayer of the Heidelberg Research Institute on International
Conflict said a greater number of conflicts had eased this year than
the number which escalated.
'It makes one a little bit hopeful,' she said.
The institute calls its annual tally the barometer of conflict.
The overall tally of 31 conflicts this year was down from the 36
counted in 2006.
Despite the trend, thousands of men, women and children were
killed this year in the armed conflicts that remained.
The institute keeps tabs on 328 conflicts around the world, in 130
of which there are elements of violence.
The six that it defined as war were the fighting in the Sudanese
province of Darfur, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq and
Pakistan.
The crushed uprising by democratic protesters in Myanmar was
included in the category serious crises, along with the fighting
between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestinian territories and the
Kurdish conflict.
At the Peace Research and Security Policy Institute in Hamburg,
deputy director des Wolfgang Zellner confirmed Monday, 'It's evident
that a whole range of conflicts are showing a de-escalatory trend.'
He said the international agreement on North Korea abandoning
nuclear-weapons research and recent Middle East peace talks were
examples of this.
But Mayer warned that Europeans were often not conscious of low-
level armed conflicts in distant parts of the world.
'There's a trend to permanent friction and long-term conflicts
which never get decided,' he said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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