no protection

NYT: massive death persist even during "peace" in the Congo
"The survey, released Tuesday, estimated that 45,000 people continue to die every month, about the same pace as in 2004, when the international push to rebuild the country had scarcely begun. Almost all the deaths come from hunger and disease, signs that the country is still grappling with the aftermath of a war that gutted its infrastructure, forced millions to flee and flattened its economy."
Chris Blattman: assesses the utility of the survey and its estimate (conducted by the IRC)

LAT: instability persists in Kenya
Ind: weighs in, deems election of Kibaki fradulent
WP: Kenya elite avoid the clashes, but not the ethnic conflict

LAT: reflecting on the situation in Anbar, early mistakes in Iraq
"Gaskin, who commands 35,000 Marines and soldiers, credits the turnaround [in Anbar] to an alliance between U.S.-led forces and tribal sheiks who have turned against the insurgency.
'Nothing happens out here without tribal approval,' he said. 'They were tribal before they were Muslims.'"
LAT: negotiating with tribes in border region with Syria

NYT: in Iraq, Awakening Council members, or Concerned Local Citizens, increasingly targets of violence
"Officials say that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has a two-pronged strategy: directing strikes against Awakening members to intimidate and punish them for cooperating with the Americans, and infiltrating the groups to glean intelligence and discredit the movement in the eyes of an already wary Shiite-led government...Both Sunni and Shiite officials in Baghdad blame two government-linked Shiite paramilitary forces for some of the attacks: the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization. Sunni officials charge that militia leaders are involved, while Shiite officials believe that the attackers are renegade members of the groups...Killings of guardsmen are mounting even as Awakening members are becoming increasingly frustrated with the Iraqi government, which has yet to fulfill its promise to integrate 20 percent of the volunteers into the Ministries of Interior and Defense and give nonsecurity jobs to the rest — a process that American officials say could take until the end of the year."
BBC: Iraqi police chief dies in suicide attack in Mosul

LAT: not at war, but militants would be ready for violence in Lebanon

LAT: in Mexico, soldiers disarm police in 3 border cities
"'There are municipal police forces that have collapsed and that function more as support staff to organized crime rather than as guardians of public safety,'" [Atty Gen] Medina Mora said."
Reuters: which may not be a good sign for the civilian population
"The army and navy, which play a leading role in President Felipe Calderon's campaign against organized crime, should be withdrawn to their barracks, said Jose Luis Soberanes, head of the country's human rights commission. 'Individuals belonging to the armed forces committed grave abuses,' he told Mexico's Congress. 'In 2007, we widely documented cases of torture, rape and homicide.'"
Econ: summarizes increasing violence in last two weeks, highlights open fighting in Tijuana
WP: sting on Sinaloa cartel in Mexico City
NYT: Gov Spitzer proposes a $200/gram tax on cocaine (like 29 other states have already enacted)

BBC: in other news on the failed drug war front: eradication of poppy in Afghanistan, um, failing.
Gdn: young Afghan journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy, being brother of reporter who exposed northern warlords' human rights abuses

Gdn: Burmese poet arrested for criticizing general in verse
"The eight-line poem appeared to be an innocent verse about Valentine's day, by Saw Wai. But when read vertically the first word of each line describes Burma's leader, General Than Shwe, as 'power-crazed'."
Econ: depressingly, junta has tremendous power that seems unaffected by protests

Gdn: speaking of power-crazed generals, Musharraf claims Pakistan on track for March elections
LAT: but we'll see how long that lasts, as critics increasingly vocal
LAT: US moves ahead with plans to train security forces, with new army chief

BBC: Putin bans critic from elections because he doesn't have 2 million signatures

NYT: move over anti-Castro constituents, make room for anti-Chavistas
"According to census data, the Venezuelan community in the United States has grown more than 94 percent this decade, from 91,507 in 2000, the year after Mr. Chávez took office, to 177,866 in 2006."

LAT: cyanide kills witness, dirty secrets of Argentina's dirty war

LAT: Paraguay Colorado party nominates woman as presidential candidate
in case you haven't heard of it, Paraguay is "a landlocked tropical nation of almost 7 million people in an area nearly the size of California..."

Gdn: Beijing face-lift before Olympics to include a "'social cleansing' operation to clear the city of beggars, hawkers and prostitutes."

NYT: remembering the children's rights pioneer and orphanage martyr
"[Janusz Korczak's] work at the orphanage was interrupted in 1940 when the Nazis forced him and his orphans into the Warsaw Ghetto."
Gdn: German railway acknowledges role in holocaust

BBC: Alaskan language dies with its last speaker

The Onion: as usual, they have the story first: Clinton's in