failure to integrate

LAT: Iraq wants the US to stop Turkey's assault on Kurdistan
NYT magazine: microcosm of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
"This miniaturist culture war and the fighting in the mountains are related because they both reflect the inability of Turkish society to integrate Kurds — about 20 percent of the country’s total population and the majority in the southeast — in a way that doesn’t insist on assimilation down to the last W, X or Q. For decades, Turkish law has not allowed acknowledgment of Kurds as a distinct ethnic group; from 1983 to 1991 it was even illegal to speak Kurdish in public. Until 2002, broadcasting in Kurdish was essentially banned, and only in 2003 could parents give their children Kurdish names (except, again, for names using W, X or Q). But even these small advances suggest that while the military fight has been a stalemate, the deeper cultural conflict can, with relative ease, be resolved. Such at least is the vision of Abdullah Demirbas. His may not be the effort that makes headlines, but it is probably the one that matters most."

BBC: Odinga calls off protests planned for tomorrow
LAT: more on the potentially lasting ethnic segregation the violence has spurred
"Tens of thousands of people like Kamau are making cross-country treks to resettle in their ancestral homelands. The nationwide population reshuffle is threatening to spur a permanent ethnic remapping of Kenya, worsening the East African nation's political divisions and creating regional fiefdoms.
Some worry that Kenya's sudden shift from ethnic integration to self-imposed segregation is reminiscent of what happened in Somalia after the government collapsed in 1991 and millions of people reorganized into clan-based factions that have engaged in a 17-year civil war."
Gdn: calling in the military delicate, because of its own potential ethnic divisions
AP: Annan begins mediation efforts again

BBC: violence from Kenya doesn't dissuade Zimbabwe from issuing shoot-to-kill orders to police in event of election protests Mar 29

CSM: Brazilian mayor reduces violence

AP: Guatemalan crowd releases 29 police officers held hostage

BBC: rescue mission underway to free 4 kidnapping victims in Colombia
LAT: coca destroying ecosystems in Colombia
BBC: new anti-drug policies proposed in Britain

BBC: ethnic conflict in Nepal
Madhesis break off talks with the gov't, plan strike in the south of the country.

NYT: the underclass in Yemen
"They are known as “Al Akhdam” — the servants. Set apart by their African features, they form a kind of hereditary caste at the very bottom of Yemen’s social ladder...There are more than a million of them among Yemen’s fast-growing population of 22 million, concentrated in segregated slums in the major cities."

LAT: recently arrested terrorism suspects in Morocco have distinct profiles

Gdn: former Khmer Rouge leader on trial visits the killing fields

Slate: the biological basis of aggression?
"A study says brain differences may cause differences in aggression among teenage boys. Sample: 137 12-year-old boys, observed while interacting with parents. Findings: 1) 1) "A significant positive association between volume of the amygdala [a brain area related to fear and arousal] and the duration of adolescent aggressive behavior during these interactions." 2) "Male-specific associations between the volume of prefrontal structures and affective behavior." Researchers' conclusions: 1) "Brain structure is associated with affective behavior and its regulation" in such interactions. 2) "There may be gender differences in the neural mechanisms underlying affective and behavioral regulation" during these years. Crude translation: 1) My amygdala made me do it. 2) "These boys may … be unable to control their emotions because … parts of the brain that normally control strong emotions don't mature till the early 20s." Critique: Correlation doesn't prove causal direction, or even causation. (Related: Rethinking the age of consent.)"