tainted trials

americas
Gdn: US already on defensive about 9/11 military trials
LAT: standards will be stricter than in Nuremberg; and apparently the military offered straight-faced assurance that defendants will have more rights than those facing trial for assassination of Lincoln. yes, in the 19th century.
WP: FBI claims the "Clean Team" gathered evidence without 'coercive' measures

IHT: drug traffickers' patron saint
"Jesús Malverde has been revered for almost a century in northwestern Mexico. According to folklore, he was a Robin Hood who took from the rich and gave to the poor until he was killed by the police in 1909...Courts in California, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas have ruled that Malverde trinkets and talismans are admissible evidence in cases involving drugs or money laundering."
[so much for offering protection from the law...]
Econ: drug-related violence in Vancouver
"...for many of the 2.2m residents of Vancouver, accustomed to idyllic calm, a spate of gun killings is starting to give their city the aura of Prohibition-era Chicago. In violent battles over power and money, brazen young bandits are blowing each other to pieces for a piece of another prohibited market—that for drugs."

LAT: remembering slavery in Barbados and the West Indies

africa
Econ: no one's innocent in Kenya
Gdn: opposition offers power sharing scheme for new elections in 2010

IHT: in one of its four open cases in Africa, ICC receives 3rd war crimes suspect from the Congo
"Ngudjolo allegedly led forces of the National Integrationist Front — including child soldiers — who attacked the village of Bogoro in the eastern Ituri region in 2003, the court said."

BBC: Nigeria orders oil companies to start production again in the Niger Delta, says it's safe enough

Ind: evolution of US operations in Somalia since 1993
"As America has lost its grip on southern and central Somalia it has turned its attention further north. Somaliland, formerly a British protectorate, declared itself independent in 1991, while Puntland, at Africa's most easterly tip, gained semi-autonomy from the rest of Somalia in 1998. Both provinces have their own intelligence services; both are funded by the US.

So far there appears to have been little reward. One Puntland Intelligence Service officer thinks he knows why. "The Americans know nothing," he said, sitting in a café in the port city of Bosasso. 'They pay for information, but they don't know what's right and wrong.' This officer insisted he gave only good information but knew of others who used their position to settle old scores."

Econ: Europe's colonial legacy in Africa hobbling intervention now

Scientific American: Jeff Sachs writes about resources and war in the "drylands"

BBC: another ambush in Algeria

middle east
BBC: presidential election in Lebanon rescheduled (again) for Feb 26

Gdn: Musharraf not so popular
Gdn: suicide bomber kills six opposition supporters
Econ: summarizing scholarship on suicide bombing

Econ: Gaza border back in order (of sorts)
BBC: Olmert urged restraint

LAT: Azerbaijan in the middle
"In the turbulent world of geopolitics, the Middle East gets most of the ink. But it is here along the gloomy shores of the Caspian Sea that one of the most vital global contests -- for energy, money and political dominion -- is being waged between East and West."

asia
Econ: religious conflict and violence in the tribal belt...of India

Econ: (trying) to end military rule in Bangladesh

LAT: junta in Burma plans "elections" for 2010
Econ: maybe it plans to follow the lead of its friendly neighbor to the north

Econ: Sri Lanka's independece celebrated. sort of.
Gdn: clashes between the LTTE and gov't forces in the north

Ind: top Khmer Rouge leader gives interview
"The command had come from above, he said. 'All the prisoners had to be eliminated. We saw enemies, enemies, enemies everywhere.'"

Gdn: East Timor calls state of emergency after attack on PM

europe
Gdn: Serbia warns of potential violence in Kosovo
"Critics of the plan to declare independence, which follows the failure of Serbia and the Kosovo-Albania leaders to negotiate terms for separation, have already warned of the risk that Kosovo's Serbian population, concentrated in northern Mitrovica, would respond by declaring their own independence, setting the stage for violent confrontation."
Econ: assessing the new president
Econ: assessing a familiar face in Montenegro

Gdn: British troops allowed to record video while deployed, contribute to museum exhibit

Gdn: massive arrests last week in operation against Cosa Nostra, the Gambino crime family

misc
CSM: counting the atrocities: a profile of Patrick Ball

Gdn: no red roses for your sweetheart in Saudi Arabia

Gdn: Obama, Japan supports Obama