living together

USAT: 75% of Baghdad neighborhoods deemed safe by US military, up from 8% before the surge
WP: op-ed by Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, argues for federalism
"Pluralistic democracy will not take root unless the national political compact recognizes and accommodates the fears and aspirations of Iraq's communities. Resolution can be achieved only through a system that incorporates regional federalism, with clear, mutually acceptable distributions of power between the regions and the central government. Such a system is in the interest of all Iraqis and is necessary if Iraq is to avoid partition or further civil strife."
BBC: clashes in Basra between police and Shia "cult"
LAT: Kurds re-bury victims of Hussein's 1988 killing campaign
LAT: US shifting to training role

LAT: something the US military has focused on in Colombia for years, where they've been advising military reform. The Colombian army has improved its capacity to contest the FARC,
"But the military faces daunting challenges if it is to triumph in the four-decade conflict with guerrillas. It has to gain control over the lawless areas bordering Venezuela and Ecuador, where rebels freely cross over to rest and resupply. It has to bring down human rights abuses and build an officer corps that has not kept pace with recruits.

Most important, the armed forces will have to learn to operate independently if Plan Colombia is phased out as expected over the next five years."

NYT: Taliban insurgency gaining ground in Peshawar, near Waziristan
"The Taliban and their militant sympathizers now hold strategic pockets on the city’s outskirts, the police say, from where they strike at the military and the police, order schoolgirls to wear the burqa and blow up stores selling DVDs, among other acts of violence."
BBC: a suicide attack kills tens at Shiite mosque there, at outset of Shia holiday
"Ashura is the culmination of Muharram, marking the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein, an event which led to the split in Islam between the Shia and Sunni sects."
WP: CIA shief Hayden says militants loyal to Mehsud behind Bhutto's assasination, (though forensic evidence mostly eliminated immediately following the killing) - the same group alleged to be behind the attacks on Pakistan army post in South Waziristan.

check out Paul Staniland's take on Islamist militants in India

Gdn: more violence, detentions in Kenya
BBC: opposition to call for boycotts rather than further protests

BBC: judiciary clears charges against People Power Party leaders in Thailand, possibly clearing way to end military rule
BBC: meanwhile, military acknowledges failure to contain Islamist militants in south

Gdn: Tamil Tigers kill 10 in usually quiet south of Sri Lanka

Gdn: Israel closes Gaza border

BBC: US and Mexico work to coordinate efforts against gun-running to drug cartels
Gdn: 3 hostages die in drug-trade related violence in Tijuana

BBC: journalists ordered released in Niger

BBC: Catholic priest threatened over work on land rights in Para, Brazil

NYT: maintaining integration in an outlier neighborhood of Cleveland
"Cleveland has grown steadily poorer over the last five decades. Many people in the surrounding area believe that Shaker Heights will eventually be overwhelmed by Cleveland residents, many of them African-Americans, trying to escape the city’s high crime rate and struggling schools. They wonder why residents of Shaker Heights have not moved to more distant — and safer — suburbs...In the middle of what the Census Bureau found in 2002 to be America’s third-most-segregated urban area, Shaker Heights flouts local racial attitudes by actively encouraging integration."