"For months, the government of Myanmar has been touting progress on a nationwide cease-fire deal, claiming it is a major step toward ending the country?s long-running armed conflicts. But the latest summit meeting on Sept. 9, attended by President Thein Sein and representatives of more than a dozen ethnic armed groups, ended inconclusively. Some groups have refused to sign the agreement unless the government allows all of them to join it. The Kachin Independence Organization, the second-largest of the groups, is recalcitrant because three of its closest allies, which are still actively fighting the Myanmar Army in the country?s northeast, are being sidelined..."