UN mission to Western Sahara renewed in disputed resolution

I have a new article up at World Politics Review on MINURSO, the UN Mission to Western Sahara, that was renewed for another six months last night.

The U.N. Security Council voted to renew the peacekeeping mission to Western Sahara late last night, barely making the deadline to extend the mission to the disputed North African territory after sharp disagreements over the final text. A rift in the council hardened after the U.N. mediator in talks between the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi rebel group, said last week that independence for the territory was no longer realistically possible.

For the article, I was able to talk with Frank Ruddy, who previously ran the board in charge of the referendum on Western Sahara for the UN and is the "World's Greatest Diplomat" (or at least that's how he thought I should attribute him in the article).  Although we only talked for a few minutes, he had some very interesting insights into the situation there, as well as in Equatorial Guinea.  I'm going to draft a post on my interview with Ruddy for WPR's blog and cross post it here later today.