retroactive

middle east
WP: US to increase Baghdad neighborhood presence by 30%; violence continues in other provinces
NYT: troop cuts, or not
"But White House officials said Mr. Bush had been taking the opportunity, as he did in Monday’s State of the Union address, to prepare Americans for the possibility that, when he leaves office a year from now, the military presence in Iraq will be just as large as it was a year ago, or even slightly larger."
WP: weighing options in Iraq
LAT: and identifying obstacles (?)
USAT: allies fall (way) short of pledged contributions

BBC: leader of Sunni militant group Jundullah arrested in Karachi
WP: another missile strike in North Waziristan kills 12, linked to aerial drone

BBC: report due out today warns that Afghanistan is nearly a failed state; calls for more NATO troops
BBC: Afghan MPs approve execution for blasphemy
BBC: women in Kandahar mount protest against kidnapping of US aid worker

BBC: Egypt talks with Fatah and Hamas, separately; border still open
WP: Israel court upholds Gaza blockade

WP: report on Lebanon due out today in Israel, expected to pressure Olmert

LAT: US envoy to UN acts like a diplomat with Iranian officials, naturally unauthorized

LAT: opposition leader arrested in Syria
Gdn: academic sentenced in Turkey for criticizing Ataturk

africa
IHT: more on attack in Algeria, insurgency

BBC: Qaddafi wants more unity in the African Union

BBC: Kenya officials to begin talks
"The three-man teams of representatives from Mr Kibaki's Party of National Unity and the ODM were due to begin their deliberations in the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday.
Negotiations will be based on a series of proposals drawn up by Mr Annan and his team...The former UN secretary general has given the two sides four weeks to resolve the "immediate political issues" and up to a year to sort out details."
LAT: Kenyans want leaders to move more decisively to end violence
NYT: assassinated MP was a potential peacemaker
LAT: US envoy calls violence "ethnic cleansing"
Gdn: the violence is "neighbor vs neighbor"

Slate: checking in with the Save Darfur campaign

asia
Econ: befriending the Free Burma Rangers
BBC: Suu Kyi says no progress after meeting with junta
LAT: singing is suspect in Burma, especially at a music school supported by Yale students
"An Ivy League glee club that hangs with the singing Whiffenpoofs wouldn't have made it onto any watch list in most other countries. But 15 minutes before the performance, a captain from the dreaded Special Branch police came backstage to poke around, while 250 people sat in the audience. The singers' butterflies morphed into terror that their show was about to be shut down as an anti-state activity."
BBC: military says it is fighting child soldier "recruitment"

BBC: bus blast in Sri Lanka kills 18, 11 children near Mannar; fighting continues in northwest

americas
LAT: case highlights conflicts with Mapuche indigenous minority over development in Chile

Gdn: the politics of sex work in Nicaragua
"Two months ago police raids shut brothels across the city, expelled clients and sent sex workers home. The leftwing Sandinista government billed the crackdown as a socially progressive effort to protect women from exploitation.
The would-be beneficiaries did not see it that way. Their work, however ghastly, was a ticket out of poverty.
Dozens of prostitutes from Salvadoreño led a revolt against what they said was a violation of rights. Emerging from the shadows of their trade, they went public and mounted an unprecedented media campaign to overturn the ban. Astonished by the protests, the authorities relented and within a week the women were back at work."

Slate: are Senate Democrats dooming us to terrorist attacks by not extending the Protect Americans Act? (as implied by Bush in his last! SOTU)
"Roger Pilon warned in the Wall Street Journal that 'the clock is ticking.' But which clock? Where is the big terrorist alarm clock that sounds every time the president doesn't get his way? Congressional Democrats hit the snooze button today, buying themselves a few more days to wrangle over the bill and its amendments."
The Onion: letting go of the fear is precisely what the US doesn't need

Weekly Standard: PJ O'Rourke explains US primaries, politics to the Euros
"After the events of the 20th century, God, quite reasonably, left Europe. But He's still here in the United States. The majority of Americans are Christians, and Christians can be divided into two kinds, the kind who think you should get Jesus and the kind who think Jesus is going to get you. Mike Huckabee is one of the latter. Then there are the Mormons such as Mitt Romney who believe some unusual things--things that no sensible European like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Benito Mussolini, Karl Marx, Emanuel Swedenborg, or Cherie Blair would ever believe...Incidentally, there's a balanced position that all of America's presidential candidates could take on the controversial abortion issue. If they want votes they shouldn't campaign to make abortion illegal or legal. They should campaign to make it retroactive. If a kid reaches 25 and he or she is still jobless, feckless, and sitting around Starbucks acting like a--no offense--European, then whack."