commemorating

MLK Jr's last speech
NYT: RFK's speech in Indianapolis upon learning of MLK Jr's assassination; two months before he himself was killed
(listen to the speech here)
"You know, Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends toward justice. But what he also knew was that it doesn't bend on its own. It bends because each of us puts our hands on that arc and bends it in the direction of justice." -Barack Obama speaking in Ft Wayne yesterday
the Root: how the assassination changed music
BBC: lingering questions about James Earl Ray
WP: the state of pioneering civil rights groups today

LAT: conflict in Mosul between Sunnis and Kurds
"The Iraqi government and U.S. military spokesmen blame the chaos on Al Qaeda in Iraq, a loosely organized Sunni Arab insurgent group, which desires to create a new base in the north. But the problems date to 2003, when the Kurds first sent fighters into Mosul, and the status of the city's Arab elite was diminished...
The Kurds want a referendum, called for under Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, to formally annex the disputed areas to Kurdistan. The referendum, postponed last year after the Iraqi government failed to conduct a census in the contested north, would also determine the status of the city of Kirkuk and other areas along the border of Kurdistan. A vote could prove to be the trigger for greater Arab-Kurdish bloodshed or a bridge to conciliation and prosperity...
U.S. officials recognize that their dependence on the Kurds may have tipped the balance of power in favor of their longtime ally. The Americans relied on Kurdish forces to stop Sunni fighters from seizing Mosul in November 2004, and the influx of Kurdish fighters allowed Kurdistan to cement its grip on Mosul's northern and eastern outer rings"...
an American official compared "Kurdish fighters favorably to Shiite security forces in Baghdad who have been accused of indiscriminately killing and arresting Sunni Arabs [said] 'When Kurds get killed in Mosul, Kurdish special operations/intelligence units surgically go after that person' who did the killing, the former official said. "It's not collective punishment, but they will go and kill that individual. . . . The Kurds are very responsible about it.'"
BBC: Maliki calls off attacks on militias, any "people who carry weapons"

Ind: US renews contract with Blackwater
AP: a contractor is charged under military law for the first time since Vietnam

LAT: Bush pledges more troops for Afghanistan

Gdn: veterans from the 1965 war - the Zimbabwe Liberators Platform - want Mugabe to go
WP: the opposition rejects calls for a run-off; police prevent them from filing lawsuit to release poll results

BBC: Nigerian rebel leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) charged with treason and gun running

BBC: the Maoists' transition from bullets to ballots in Nepal; elections to be held Thurs for a constitutional assembly

BBC: new Tibetan riots in Sichuan
BBC: riots in Kashmir over treatment of political prisoners
LAT: 3 die in Haiti riots over food distribution

Gdn: German military officers accused of selling training services to Libyans

NYT: Sderot, town near Gaza, becomes symbol for Israel's survival, mostly for foreign donors

Ind: pirates are at it again