don't stand so close to me

Ind: riot by low-caste tribe in Delhi to be UNtouchable
"India's centuries-old controversy over caste and discrimination brought parts of Delhi to a halt yesterday as thousands of members of an ethnic group demanded that their official status be lowered [from "the second-lowest group, Other Backward Classes (OBC)"] in order to provide them with better access to jobs and education. Members of the Gujjar tribe blocked major roads and highways into Delhi in sit-down protests and set fire to tyres as they vowed to create gridlock across India's capital and the surrounding area...
The Gujjars say they have been discriminated against in terms of jobs, health care and education – particularly in Rajasthan – but say that by being reclassified [in Scheduled Tribes and Casts, (STC)] they will be eligible for government positions and university places that are reserved for that group...

Yesterday's unrest was the latest in several weeks of confrontations between the tribe and the police; 40 people have died in violence across the north and west of India in recent weeks. In a number of villages and towns in Rajasthan, police used live ammunition to suppress demonstrations, killing dozens of people. In one case, a policeman was lynched by protesters.

This time last year, 26 people were killed in similar demonstrations.

In Rajasthan yesterday, protesters blocked roads with the bodies of those demonstrators who were shot dead by police. They said the bodies would not be cremated until the government agreed to their demands...

During the 1857 uprising against British colonial rule, Hindu and Muslim Gujjars fought tenaciously against the imperial troops and in support of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the ruler who proved to be the last of the Moghul emperors.

In the aftermath of the uprising, brutally suppressed by the British, the Gujjars and about 150 other ethnic groups were then listed as "criminal tribes".

This listing was officially lifted in 1952 under India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Two years earlier, India's constitution had outlawed discrimination based on caste though the banned practice remains widespread."

NYT: massacre in Mexican town
"The entire municipal police force quit after the attack, and officials fled the town for several days, leaving so hastily that they did not release the petty criminals held in the town lockup. The state and federal governments sent in 300 troops and 16 state police officers, restoring an uneasy semblance of order. But townspeople remain terrified...Mexico’s drug violence has by now become so pervasive that it is infecting even small communities like this one, which has fewer than 9,000 residents."

Survival Int'l: report on the estimated 100 'uncontacted' tribes in the world
Gdn: The Guardian provides the cliffs notes version

LAT: Basra is calm - for now
"'There are 47 parties in Basra, and all of them have militias,' said a high-ranking security official with detailed knowledge of the Basra operation. Like many others interviewed for this report, he spoke on condition of anonymity...Before the campaign ["Knights' Onslaught"], Sadr's radical movement had been poised for victory in provincial elections, scheduled for fall, which the United States hopes will go a long way toward ending Iraq's strife.
'We controlled everything in Basra. We were able to apprehend the criminals. The police couldn't believe it,' Mahdi Army spokesman Muhannad Hashimi told The Times. 'We had more authority than the government. We had supporters everywhere and the people loved us.'"
WP: huge mobilization of Shiites to protest possibility of US staying indefinitely in Iraq

Ind: Tutu calls Gaza blockade "abominable" after 3-day visit
"'My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma.'"

NYT: speaking of the criminals, monks struggle to fill void by junta's lack of response to cyclone Nargis; meanwhile, junta evacuates refugee camps because "they are embarrassing"

Gdn: update on Zimbabwe
BBC: soldiers told they must vote for Mugabe or leave the army

Irish Times (via Slate): making specialists irrelevant

life on mars [not just a bowie classic]

New Yorker: intellectual founder of Al-Qaeda, "Dr. Fadl," defects from an Egyptian prison, via fax (also profiled in the New Republic)
New Republic: defection may be more widespread

LAT: Colombian officials "lose" paramilitary leaders' computers on their way to extradition, and potentially, evidence of their ties to politicians [in sharp contrast to how the recovered computer of FARC leader Raul Reyes was handled]
"Before they were extradited, many paramilitary leaders, including Mancuso, were cataloging their alleged misdeeds, including mass killings, extortion and drug trafficking, to comply with the demobilization conditions. For that reason, critics say, the laptops were treasure troves of information and the government should have kept a closer eye on them."

LAT: Nepal is no longer a monarchy, after 239 years

Texas Monthly: turns out extracting oil can be tricky
"In the early morning of February 18, 2006, Russell Spell was sleeping on a barge off the Nigerian coast when he awoke to the sound of gunfire. A longtime employee of Willbros Group, an international oil and gas contractor, Spell supervised workers laying an offshore pipeline for Shell. His shift was noon to midnight, so he was still in his bunk when he heard the sound of bullets exploding into metal, a commotion so loud it seemed as if a helicopter was landing inside his cabin. The day had dawned placid and sweet, the barge an offshore oasis from the fetid air and roiling gas flares visible on the coast at Shell’s Forcados export terminal. Spell had no idea he was about to become a pawn in the increasingly violent war for control of the world’s diminishing petroleum resources."

Slate: the story of a US WWII soldier accused of killing an officer in the "forgotten theater," and going on the lam with Naga tribesmen in Burma
Econ: obituary for Irena Sendler, who defied authority to help Jews in Warsaw escape the ghetto
"To save one Jew, she reckoned, required 12 outsiders working in total secrecy: drivers for the vehicles; priests to issue false baptism certificates; bureaucrats to provide ration cards; and most of all, families or religious orders to care for them. The penalty for helping Jews was instant execution."

Slate: who disciplines UN troops? (accused of sexually assaulting children and women on peacekeeping operations)

CSM: specialist Paul Staniland offers advice on which terrorists to talk to and when
Slate: reporters have it easier: an interview with the exiled leader of Hamas
"Mishaal is waiting for the U.S. election to change the political landscape, and this seems to be the Syrian posture as well. They are eager to engage in indirect talks with the Israelis for the next few months, but they insist that serious U.S. involvement will be necessary to guarantee a final deal.
Mishaal insists that the Bush administration will never allow reconciliation between the feuding Palestinians factions as long as this president is in office. "The American administration is supporting a corrupt party to topple Palestinian democracy with arsenals and weapons. And that was shown in Vanity Fair magazine."
This was a surprising reference for a militant Islamist leader. Vanity Fair published an article in the April 2008 issue alleging that the Bush administration conspired with a Palestinian warlord and his militia men to engineer a Palestinian civil war to reverse Hamas' election victory. For Khalid Mishaal, this was proof that the American media had finally taken the Palestinian side in this long conflict. More important for him, it also signified that the long rule of the Bush administration was finally coming to a close."

Slate: brokering a deal in Lebanon

NYT: checking in on Tashkent 3 years after the Uzbek uprising
money quote: “You can’t compare Uzbekistan and North Korea,” said a European who has lived in Tashkent for years, and who was not identified for safety reasons. “Not every right is violated all the time. It’s not that systematic.”

LAT: a UCLA doctor gave a liver transplant to the head of one of Japan's biggest gangs

WP: fallout continues over poorly constructed buildings in China

Slate: the neocon approach to nuclear North Korea that failed - and that McCain advoccates

Slate: rumors of rigging the vote spurs inordinate institutional attention
"Paranoia about such tactics by Democrats—especially minority Democrats—morphed from a Bush administration extracurricular activity to its college major during the last eight years."

a few days late
BBC: clashes between police and Gujjars in Rajasthan, India

BBC: Bemba, former Congo VP, arrested in Belgium on charges of war crimes

BBC: arrests of Camorra mafia members in Naples

BBC: Burundi reaches ceasefire agreement with rebels

Slate: looking for life on mars - maybe whatever lives there has no need for specialists in violence?

rescue me from me and all that I believe

washpost: al-Sadr tries to build image, full of anecdotes like:
"Moqtada, his friends said, has always been a prankster, in ways both innocuous and macabre. Once, he made a big show of offering a 7-Up to a student, who was then surprised to learn that Sadr had filled the bottle with water. In a more recent incident, he anonymously sent Shaibani, the aide, text messages threatening to kill him, only to reveal later with laughter that it was all a practical joke."

NYT: Marines go into southern Afghanistan
"The marines’ drive against the Taliban in this large farming region is certainly not finished, and the Taliban have often been pushed out of areas in Afghanistan only to return in force later. But for the British forces and Afghan residents here, the result of the recent operation has been palpable.

The district chief returned to his job from his refuge in the provincial capital within days of the battle and 200 people — including 100 elders of the community — gathered for a meeting with him and the British to plan the regeneration of the town.

“They have disrupted the Taliban’s freedom of movement and pushed them south, and that has created the grounds for us to develop the hospital and set the conditions for the government to come back,” said Maj. Neil Den-McKay, the officer commanding a company of the Royal Regiment of Scotland based here. People have already started coming back to villages north of the town, he said, adding, “There has been huge optimism from the people.”

BBC: at least 8 killed and dozens injured in Colombo commuter train bombing
"Commuter Ramani Padmalatha, 42, told French news agency AFP that the train suddenly slowed after a "deafening noise".

"People were shouting 'bomb, bomb!' and scrambling to get out of the windows of the carriage... I managed to jump out from the door. People were stumbling out of that carriage with blood stains on their clothes, some with burns, some looking dazed," she said.

NYT: Hezbollah speaks

Indian Express: Tribal agitation disrupts traffic and puts Delhi on alert

Daily Times (Pakistan): Sunni-Shia violence in the Northwest Frontier Province

washpost: Inside South Africa's shantytowns

"This was the kind of place that was not supposed to exist in the new South Africa. All black. All poor. Dense, squalid, dirty, angry -- with charred patches of earth where men once stood.

The violence that flared here, and in communities like it all over the Johannesburg area during two weeks of mob attacks that have left at least 56 people dead, has carried echoes of this nation's notorious past. But the rage is not old. It is new, born of the broken dreams of South Africa's post-apartheid era."

gdn: Aung San Suu Kyi house arrest extended

independent: peacekeepers and aid workers accused of child sex abuse
"Save the Children demanded action after its research found youngsters as young as six were trading sex for food, money, soap and even mobile phones in war zones and disaster areas.

It said all organisations, including itself, had their share of abusers involved in "some of the most despicable abuse against some of the world's most vulnerable children"."

overdue [please do not harrass the ducks]

WP: town on North-South border of Sudan desolate in anticipation of renewed fighting
"...southern officials are accusing Bashir of using a minor street scuffle this month as an excuse to unleash a brutal military campaign that they say is aimed at clearing the area of its pro-southern population ahead of the referendum."
WP: Sudan's president, army celebrates victory over rebels in attack in "macabre" affair

LAT: ongoing catastrophe in Somalia
"Few dare use cellphones lest they fall victim to thieves or be accused of spying. There's no socializing because it's too risky to stop for chitchat and no one knows whom to trust...Somalia's social breakdown has hit the young the hardest. They have rarely known peace, stability or even a semblance of order. In one desolate neighborhood, shabbily dressed children played away a recent afternoon. As usual, it was a war game. They carried guns carved from wood and tossed plastic bags filled with ash to mimic the smoke of exploding grenades.

There are three sides in their game: transitional government soldiers, Ethiopian troops and insurgents. Insurgents usually trounce the soldiers, who then run to Ethiopians for help. Ethiopians chase away the insurgents as they sweep through neighborhoods, terrorizing civilians.

None of the boys seek the role of government soldier. 'No one wants to play the ones who are defeated,' said Ahmed Ali, 13, who played the role of insurgent leader."

Ind: Ethiopia supreme court sentences former dictator Mengistu to death

WP: South Africa marshals troops to protect immigrants
"At least 13,000 people have been chased from their homes, often a step ahead of mobs demanding that foreigners return to their native countries. News reports put the death toll at 42, with hundreds injured."
Ind: context of the violence
BBC: which continues
Gdn: attacks against migrants in Rome too

LAT: chances that Mugabe's party will recognize results of an unfavorable run-off election are, er, slim
FP blog: what happened to those Chinese weapons destined for Zimbabwe? (HT: Chris Blattman)

WP: touch-and-go in Bangladesh due to food prices

WP: Burma finally agrees to allow in aid workers
AP: renews detention of Suu Kyi

WP: FARC vows to continue war despite leader's death
ideologue Alfonso Cano chosen as new leader over military strategist Mono Jo Joy
Gdn: obituary for Pedro Marín, aka "Tirofijo" and Manuel Marulanda, oldest guerrilla leader
WP: will extradition of paramilitary leaders be good for Colombian victims in the end?

BBC: Chavez preparing for elections with huge pay outs

Reuters: judge orders 100 from Pinochet's regime arrested

NYT: drug war in Mexico taking its toll on police
Gdn: main drug cartels
LAT: simulating illegal border crossings from Mexico
"Dubbed the Caminata Nocturna (Night Hike), the three-hour simulation is a combination obstacle course, sociology lesson and PG-rated family outing. Founded in 2004, it's run by members of a local village of Hñahñu Indians, an indigenous people of south-central Mexico. The village's former population of about 2,500 has been decimated by migration to the United States.
Every Saturday night, dozens of the several hundred remaining villagers take part in the Caminata. Many work as costumed performers impersonating Border Patrol agents, fellow migrants and masked coyotes and polleros, the Mexican guides who escort migrants for a fee.
The 7 1/2 -mile hike, which involves quite a bit of running, costs about $10 per person."

BBC: peacekeepers sexually assaulting children

Gdn: Kabul's heroin problem isn't only on the production side

WP: Lebanon reaches belated accord
Gdn: new president sworn in

Gdn: administrators of British prison system concerned about "Muslim gangs" in jails

Chris Blattman: terrorism, civil wars declining?
WP: military spending on the rise everywhere, but especially by the US - nearly 10 times larger than next highest spender (the UK)
WP: an increase of air strikes in Iraq is among the expenditures

LAT: Iraqis growing impatient with militias in continued fighting
LAT: but the US says violence is at 4-year low

Gdn: soccer wars: FIFA suspends Iraqi Soccer Association

WP: US is irrelevant on the peace side of things in the Middle East

USAT: only 20% of detainees in Iraq belong to extremist groups; US military says rest can be reintegrated into society
"The assessment reflects a new approach to detainees, which emphasizes isolating al-Qaeda and Shiite extremists and increasing the release of many average men caught up in the fighting...
U.S. commanders are not suggesting that U.S. forces captured innocent men, but some defense analysts say it is difficult to make distinctions in unconventional warfare, where insurgents don't wear uniforms and most troops don't speak the local language...
The more aggressive release strategy appears to be working, statistics show. Of 8,000 released over the past 10 months only 28 have returned to the main detention facilities, a recidivism rate of less than 1%. Prior to the new program, the rate was 6.4%, Stone said.
The detainee population hasn't decreased by 8,000 because new detainees continue to enter the system. However, the average number of daily releases is about 53 now and the average daily intake of detainees has held steady at about 30 since December."

NYT: the FBI dissented on tactics used against detainees and kept records in "war crimes" file, says DOJ report
"The report describes what one official called “trench warfare” between the F.B.I. and the military over the rough methods being used on detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq...Many of the abuses the report describes have previously been disclosed, but it was not known that F.B.I. agents had gone so far as to document accusations of abuse in a “war crimes file” at Guantánamo. The report does not say how many incidents were included in the file after it was started in 2002, but the “war crimes” label showed just how seriously F.B.I. agents took the accusations. Sometime in 2003, however, an F.B.I. official ordered the file closed because 'investigating detainee allegations of abuse was not the F.B.I.’s mission,' the report said."

not your onion
WP: if you're going to crush insurgencies and manage British soccer hooligans, it best be in style

BBC: Peruvian MP in trouble for shooting another legislator's dog

BBC: Canadian foreign minister resigns for leaving classified documents in "unsecured location," i.e., hot ex-girlfriend's house

was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? hell no!

NYT: Iraqi (Maliki government) troops move into Sadr City

BBC: Lebanese unity plan "in trouble" (tastefully understated)

CNN: no one can agree if Bush apologizes for soldier using Koran as target practice

Indian Express: Pakistani artillery barrages along Line of Control; 1 Indian soldier killed

Indian Express: militants crack the whip
"Top militant leaders of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen have warned Pakistan government against softening its stance towards India and threatened to wage a "war in Islamabad and Lahore" if there is any "retreat" on the Kashmir issue. . . . Militant leaders like Salahuddin have re-emerged since the new government led by the Pakistan People's Party came to power in March, and have been addressing meetings in different parts of the country."

Daily Mirror (Colombo): secrets and lies on battle casualty figures, but one way or another there are definitely a lot of them

Me: I took a photo of this white-domed Buddhist temple back in March; turns out it got badly damaged in this lethal LTTE suicide attack last week

Ind: they beat the Nazis - but can they hold off the Brits?
"With kick-off not until 10.45pm local time (7.45pm BST), there are concerns about the heavy handed tactics of Russia's feared Omon riot police, who have been tasked with dealing with any crowd trouble. In the wake of last week's riots in Manchester, critics have pointed out that allowing plenty of time for fans to drink during the hours leading up to the game could be problematic.

On Sunday, the Omon, best known internationally for their crushing of opposition rallies and gay parades, held training exercises in the Luzhniki Stadium aimed at dealing with potential disturbances."

Ind: Mbeki decries attacks on immigrants in South Africa; army going in?
"In scenes reminiscent of unrest during the apartheid era, gangs of men armed with clubs and jugs of petrol have been targeting Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians and others who they claim are taking scarce jobs and houses and committing crime.

The country's Human Rights Commission supported by the opposition Democratic Alliance called on the ANC government to mobilise the army in the worst affected areas."

Gdn: no Downing Street visit for the Dalai Lama; yet another person who won't vote for Gordon Brown!

Irish News: dissident republicans in N Ireland nearly kill off-duty Catholic police officer

Sunday Tribune: threats of more to come
"The Real IRA has warned of further attacks on the security forces after the attempted murder of a police officer in Co Tyrone with an under-car bomb last week.

The dissident organisation said the attack showed the seriousness of its intention to kill "members of the crown forces." It claimed its capacity to do so would be demonstrated in further attacks."

MSNBC: specialists in a particular kind of violence

"Two Belgian beer fans have launched a video game named 'Place to Pee', which allows players to slalom down ski slopes or kill aliens while relieving themselves at urinals."

tight in the eyes [lines, peaceful and violent]

LAT: wall still stands in Belfast, 10 years after peace deal
"...for dozens of front-line communities of Belfast, fences still make the best neighbors...In this city of 650,000, roughly half Catholic and half Protestant, only the university district and upper-class streets, chiefly on the south side, bear no clear-cut tribal identity...

[One Protestant] says his varied work experiences since -- as security guard, construction worker and now grocery store deliveryman -- mellowed him through regular social contact with Catholics...But he says that some neighborhoods, those most notorious for Irish Republican Army sympathies, give him the creeps...Catholic colleagues on occasion have invited him across the wall for an after-hours pint at their pub. He won't go.
'You'd be afraid that they might recognize you're from the other side. Am I too tight in the eyes?' he said, referring to a stereotype of Protestant eyes supposedly being closer together...

There are striking similarities between the experiences of the [Catholic] Quinns and the [Protestant] Youngs. Both feel safe living beside a peace line. Both say their problems come from hell-raisers within their own communities, not the other side. Both feel powerless to stop them.

Quinn said her previous neighborhood -- barely half a mile away in a sprawling, low-rise housing project -- was increasingly overrun by glue-sniffing, car-stealing teens. Such behavior was once brutally suppressed by IRA "kneecapping" squads. But the group has been keeping its 2005 promise to renounce bloodshed, and that means no more vigilante violence.

'The hoods have taken over. There's no telling them what to do. It's the Wild West,' she said.

Quinn says she has never called the cops to prevent a crime and doesn't think she ever will. Her attitude illustrates the other daunting task of peacemaking -- to build Catholic trust in what was once an overwhelmingly Protestant police force.

A sweeping reform program with affirmative-action recruitment over the last seven years has dramatically reshaped the police, with the goal of a 30% Catholic force. But many Catholics remain hostile to the police -- or fearful of being labeled collaborators.

So does she think the IRA should resume shooting teens in the legs? An uncomfortable silence follows.

'Well, I don't know. But the current situation is out of control,' she says finally...

"'I've really no problems with Roman Catholics,' Young said with a wry smile. 'It's my own kind that cause me the headaches. Maybe I need another peace line!'"

NYT: Lebanon faces sectarian violence
"He returned to this northern village only after family members won his release just over a week ago by threatening the kidnappers with retaliation. By that time Mr. Obaid, a Sunni Muslim, had gained a whole new way of seeing his Shiite countrymen and his native land.
'We cannot go back to how we lived with them before,' he said as he sat with relatives and friends at home here. 'The blood is boiling here. Every boy here, his blood is boiling. They push us, they push us, they push us.'"

LAT: rumors in China fuel panic
"Rumors are an integral part of Chinese folk history, songs and poetry. Last year, authorities drained a reservoir in central Sichuan province to dispel rumors that a growling water beast lived there. In 2006 a rumor spread in Anhui province that the virus that causes AIDS was being injected into watermelons, devastating sales.
Chinese emperors long sought to halt the spread across their far-flung empire, with the first recorded anti-hearsay campaign launched by King Li nearly 3,000 years ago, despite a proverb: 'Trying to stop people's mouths is like trying to stop a flood.'"

NYT: meanwhile, US downturn in economy means boon in denunciations for reward money
"Some coordinators suggest that rising crime rates might be driving up the number of tips. But in Jackson, Tenn., Sgt. Mike Johnson said his call volume had gone from two or three a day to eight or nine. He theorized that rising crime there was not a factor because the program advertises steadily regardless of trends. “People just need money,” Sergeant Johnson said...In some cases, the quality of the tips is lagging as people grasp for any shred of information that might result in an arrest. A woman in Macon, for example, recently called to report that a family member — who was wanted for burglary and whose name and address were already known to the police — was at home. His home. Such a tip might seem worthless on its face, said Jean Davis, who took the call. But many police departments do not have the personnel to watch a suspect’s comings and going. In that case, the young man was arrested."
(SV wonders if hotlines will disrupt the relationship between economic downturns and increased crime. Or if the denunciations are mostly useless.)

LAT: food prices offer opportunity for Islamic groups to give gifts, gain support

WP: pro-democracy protest organized on facebook in Egypt falls apart

WP: hundreds captured in Mosul sweep, just after Maliki offered amnesty
"[Al-Qaeda spokesman for Anbar] Janabi said that most fighters were warned in advance of the operation because the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government had trumpeted its plans for the offensive for weeks. The fighters, Janabi added, had moved their heavy weapons, along with "our explosives experts" and "engineers of our missile attacks," to other areas, while a small group of volunteers stayed behind to fight "a war of exhaustion" against Iraqi and U.S. forces."
LAT: US sniper uses the Koran for target practice; commanders pull him from duty, apologize

NYT: Chávez consolidates power, nationalizing private enterprises
McClatchy: meanwhile, his relationship with the FARC indicated by the guerrillas' communications, may not be enough to warrant sanctions

LAT: the crackdown on cartels in Mexico continues
"Pressured by the government, they say, the Sinaloa cartel is in retreat and disarray, split into factions that have turned on each other. Several mid- and high-ranking members of the gang have been arrested, and army troops already deployed in the region have seized drug shipments, destroyed opium poppy fields and seized more than 100 airplanes believed to be used by traffickers...The Sinaloa cartel is one of the oldest in Mexico. Founded by a few close-knit families and once dominant in Mexico's drug trade, it has been challenged over the last decade by the so-called Gulf cartel, based in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas. But the Sinaloa traffickers still control Pacific smuggling routes that U.S. officials say have become the most popular for shipment of Colombian cocaine to the United States."

Gdn: Icelanders curiously happy
"Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world."

cat and mouse [destruction in their wake]

NYT: US to make enormous prison in Bagram, Afghanistan more permanent, less "spartan"; unlikely to be "more legal"
you have to wait til the last three paragraphs to learn:
"The population at Bagram began to swell after administration officials halted the flow of prisoners to Guantánamo in September 2004, a cutoff that largely remains in effect. At the same time, the population of detainees at Bagram also began to rise with the resurgence of the Taliban.
Military personnel who know both Bagram and Guantánamo describe the Afghan site, 40 miles north of Kabul, as far more spartan. Bagram prisoners have fewer privileges, less ability to contest their detention and no access to lawyers.
Some detainees have been held without charge for more than five years, officials said. As of April, about 10 juveniles were being held at Bagram, according to a recent American report to a United Nations committee."
BBC: meanwhile, aid destined for civilians doesn't arrive

WP: Iraqi refugees not receiving enough either
LAT: Iraqi government offers amnesty to militia members in Mosul
"'Gunmen who carried weapons against government forces but were not involved in crimes against civilians shall be granted amnesty and also the opportunity to participate in building the new Iraq,' the statement said." Maliki says "monetary compensation" will be offered to weapons turned in.
Ind: camera phones fuel honor killings in Iraq; women's status in Iraq worse than before occupation
"In 2007, at least 350 women, double the figure for the previous year, suffered violence as a result of mobile phone "evidence", according to Amanj Khalil of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, citing figures compiled by women's organisations and the police directorate in Sulaymaniyah.The true figure is probably much higher...The position of women in Iraqi society has deteriorated dramatically since the start of the occupation. Despite the horrific number of honour killings, their status may be improving only in Kurdistan, where the government is secular, in contrast to Baghdad where the religious parties hold power. The Kurdish police and courts are also more sympathetic than elsewhere in Iraq to women whose lives have been threatened. There are no shelters for women in Baghdad or Basra...A woman can only get a new passport if she is accompanied by a male relative. One woman, whose father was too ill to attend the passport office, had to take her 14-year-old brother with her to vouch for her before officials would give her a new passport. Many women escape from miserable marriages, often arranged by their families, not by flight but by suicide. In 2007, some 600 women and girls in Kurdistan killed themselves..."

WP: US "reward for justice" not working
WP: the back story, on scoring an interview with a bounty-bound Yemeni, is more interesting

LAT: quake response may signal important changes in China
or not: "A government rooted in authoritarianism and with the world's largest army may be in a better position to marshal relief resources and manpower than a decentralized democracy."

BBC: Burma continues to obstruct aid efforts; France's UN envoy says it could lead to crime against humanity

NYT: the horn of Africa "perfect storm" of hunger and violence

BBC: Tsvangirai delays return because of assassination plot; US Ambassador says violence "out of control"

BBC: former RUF leader Sesay on trial in Sierra Leone

BBC: Dominican president wins 3rd term

BBC: reverse-colonial influence: Portuguese parliament approves bill conforming language to Brazilian standards

BBC: cat chases mouse, causes 72-hour blackout in Albania [this really happened]

Slate: Bushism of the day [he really said that]
"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."—Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

busy dying [not the change you deserve]

WP: Lebanon factions agree to talks in Qatar
BBC: interactive maps and photos of a Palestinian refugee camp set up in 1948, which still exists in southern suburbs of Beirut

BBC: on 20th anniversary of Soviet withdrawal from Kabul, is NATO making same mistakes?
AP: UN official says armed forces in Afghanistan allowing vigilante and militia groups to kill civilians

BBC: Pakistan and the Taliban exchange prisoners; Pakistani troops also withdrawn from some posts in tribal region

WP: Muslims, mostly Bangladeshi immigrants, fear retaliation after bombings in Jaipur
"Investigators say they believe that the attacks, which killed 80 and wounded 200, were the work of Harkat ul-Jihad-al-Islami, a Bangladeshi militant group...A previously unknown group, the Indian Mujaheddin, asserted responsibility for the attack via e-mail Thursday and threatened further violence in a letter. 'If you continue to arrest innocent Muslims, then we will slaughter you on the streets of Chennai, New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore,' the letter said."

Ind: dispatch from Beichuan county in Sichuan province, destroyed by the earthquake
"Reaching Beichuan is a long march into hell. When you finally emerge scrabbling through the dirt into the town, what lies before you is a breathtaking vision of horror."

WP: Interpol says Colombians didn't tamper with computer files suggesting that Chávez and Correa offering support to the FARC
Chávez discredits findings, calls lead investigator a "gringo policeman"
"Interpol said the amount of documentation recovered from the FARC camp was enormous.
The computer data totaled 610 gigabytes, including 210,888 images, 22,481 Web sites, hundreds of spreadsheets and thousands of video files. Noble also said his computer experts had decrypted 983 other files, which were turned over to Colombian investigators."

Reuters: SPLA and Sudanese armed forces fighting in oil-rich Abyei region
"Analysts say that Abyei, often called the "Kashmir" of Sudan's north-south conflict and coveted by both sides, could be the flash point to reignite civil war if its status is not resolved amicably and quickly."

NYT: Anglicans become targets of Zimbabwe police
"Anglican leaders and parishioners said in interviews that the church was not concerned with politics and that it counted people from both the ruling party and the opposition in its congregations. Yet the ruling party appears to have decided that only Anglicans who follow Nolbert Kunonga — a renegade bishop in Harare who is a staunch ally of President Robert Mugabe — are allowed to hold services."
Ind: run-off election scheduled for June 27

Gdn: in Rwanda, genocide survivors facing violence by gangs
WP: but in some decent news, women in one village are making decent livelihoods, helping to recuperate the Rwandan economy
"In the 14 years since the genocide, when 800,000 people died during three months of violence, this country has become perhaps the world's leading example of how empowering women can fundamentally transform post-conflict economies and fight the cycle of poverty. That is particularly clear here in Maraba, a southern village where a host of women -- largely relegated to backbreaking field work in the days before the genocide -- found unwanted opportunity in the fertile lands they would inherit from slaughtered husbands, fathers and brothers."

BBC: former Taylor deputy testifies in the Hague
says Sankoh, head of RUF in Sierra Leone, complained to Taylor about Liberian atrocities, but he threatened to withdraw.
he also discussed origins of armed groups in the region:
"They trained alongside rebels from The Gambia, Sierra Leone and the Philippines, all of them supported by the Libyan authorities.
He told the court that when the time came to invade Liberia, three truck loads of weapons were provided by the defence minister of Ivory Coast.
Within days of crossing into Liberia in 1990, Mr Blah says he was briefly detained by child rebel fighters recruited by his own side.
He said they were used because they took orders and were 'unreasonable and aggressive.'"

Gdn: decent recap of the wars in the Congo
Gdn: ongoing violence fueled by recruitment among Hutu children
Gdn: photos

BBC: Somali kids play "Islamists and Ethiopians"

WP: the US has detained 2,500 teenagers as illegal enemy combatants since 2002

NYT: gang violence, policing, and immigration in LA
"The Los Angeles Police Department was one of the first in the nation — nearly three decades ago — to institute a procedure that prohibits officers from initiating contact with people for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status. The procedure, known as Special Order 40, was designed in part to reassure illegal immigrants who historically had shied from reporting crimes and assisting police investigations.

But in the context of contemporary immigration politics, the procedure is now perceived in black neighborhoods and beyond as a roadblock to using immigration laws as a tool against Latino gang violence. A push to reverse the procedure, led by Mr. Shaw and viewed by many as a symbol of deeper racial conflicts in South Los Angeles, has inflamed tensions between many blacks and Hispanic immigrants, groups long resentful of each other as shifting demographics and a smattering of racially motivated killings have racked South Los Angeles."

McSweeney's: meet the marijuana lobby

WP: Republicans, nervous about November elections, try to capture electorate's mood with new motto: The Change You Deserve
in a twist of ironic genius that allows the Daily Show to actually report reality, it's a trademarked slogan of an anti-anxiety drug. "...the warning label...states that patients should be watched to see if they are 'becoming agitated, irritable, hostile, aggressive, impulsive, or restless.'"
WSJ: anti-anxiety meds may not be enough if Peggy Noonan's diagnosis is right - she says Republicans are "busy dying." also, they're stupid. (that's right, Peggy Noonan.)

McSweeney's: in case you should find yourself in one of the dangerous circumstances above, Borges has some advice for you

democracy wins! freedom reigns! [touting themes familiar to him]

Slate: there are sadly lots of death toll calculations lately; here's how it's done

Slate: members of the military are sabotaging the Guantánamo tribunals
"Since the inception of the commissions, the brakes have almost always been applied when some member of the military has balked, even when going along would have been the far easier course. These refusals—some silent, some very public—have combined to stall the tribunals."

NYT: McCain says the US will be out of Iraq by 2013

NYT: Bush such an easy target, even the NYT can't resist
"...Mr. Bush laid out what he called “a bold vision” for how the Middle East might look on Israel’s 120th anniversary, a vision that bears little resemblance to the way the region looks today.Drawing parallels to the transformations of Europe and Japan after World War II, Mr. Bush in his speech touched on themes familiar to him, including the triumph of democracy over terrorism. He predicted “free and independent societies” across the region."

also, he took a shot at Obama, alluding to him as an "appeaser" like isolationists pre-WWII, while mischaracterizing Obama's openness to diplomacy as wanting to host fireside chats with terrorists.

New York Magazine: the Crown Heights orthodox vigilantes
The Shmira—the name means “to watch” or “to protect” in Hebrew—has a contentious history in the neighborhood. Founded in 1968, its original membership was conspicuously multiethnic. Today the Shmira’s 100 or so members are all Jewish. They monitor the neighborhood from a police-style patrol car.

Chris Blattman: diplomats confront militia members in Zimbabwe

AP: Mexican Popular Revolution Army rejects talks with gov't
"The EPR burst into public view in the 1990s during a rally in the poor southern state of Guerrero. It claims hundreds of members across Mexico but after lethal ambushes on rural police and army bases, the group remained quiet for nearly a decade."

NYT: Kenyan running community disrupted by the displacement and violence

NYT: marriage is so gay in California

subprime subcontinent; or a (Srinagar hotel) room with a (depressing) view

BBC: just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, another Pakistani coalition falls apart
"Ex-PM Nawaz Sharif says his PML-N is quitting the government because of differences over the reinstatement of judges sacked by President Musharraf. Mr Sharif wants the judges, who became a focus of opposition to Mr Musharraf, to get all their old powers back. But the biggest party, the PPP, wants limitations on their powers. Mr Sharif has said that despite quitting the government, his party would support the Pakistan People's Party (PPP)-led government from the treasury benches on an issue-by-issue basis."

Daily Times (Pakistan): armed group/political party/masters-of-Karachi Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) ready to jump into fray to support PPP; ironies abound since MQM and PPP have engaged in recurrent and very lethal ethnic clashes in urban Sindh for decades

The News (Pakistan): More ironies and more abounding - after all the past drama, will Zardari's PPP now cozy up to Musharraf's "King's Party," the PML-Q?
"Now after 20 years, last week in Lahore, Gilani was once again found meeting MPA Najaf Sial of PML-Q who is heading the forward bloc in the Punjab. Many believe that Gilani was meeting MPs of forward bloc on the instruction of Zardari to see the possibility of any future alliance with PML-Q."

The News (Pakistan): And it just keeps getting better - another media crackdown in Pakistan?

Indian Express: more violence in Kashmir; deadly encounters in Jammu in the south and Kupwara in the north. Could get worse
"Three days after claiming to have foiled an infiltration bid by militants amidst heavy gunfire in the Samba sector in Jammu, the Border Security Force on Monday made an embarrassing admission that some of the militants might have succeeded in entering the country that night."

BBC: in Sri Lanka ruling government and its former-LTTE ally win a majority of the Eastern Province Provincial Council in a crucial election

Daily Mirror (Colombo): opposition charges serious electoral irregularities in said election
"The UNP-SLMC alliance which lost the battle for the Eastern Provincial Council vowed yesterday to take to the streets to protest against the electoral fraud committed by the government and the Pillaiyan group on the day of polling. The party also vowed to take it up with the international community."

Hindu: scattered unpleasantness in West Bengal local elections
"The first phase of the panchayat polls in five districts on Sunday was marred by a confrontation between CPI(M) MP Lakshman Seth and CRPF’s DIG Alok Raj.

During the polling, which was by and large peaceful, Maoists detonated a landmine in Purulia, killing a BSF jawan and injuring 11 others, while CPI(M) cadres allegedly blocked supporters of the Trinamool Congress from casting their vote at some villages in Nandigram in East Midnapore district. A large contingent of paramilitary forces, including the CRPF and the BSF, was deployed in the areas where polling took place on Sunday. Sporadic incidents of violence involving Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) activists were reported from parts of Nandigram on Monday. Leaders of the two parties traded allegations of instigating violence in the Balrampur and Gorchakrabera areas in which rival supporters were injured in clashes and some houses destroyed, forcing their occupants to seek shelter elsewhere."

BBC: bangladesh's ruling junta decides on December elections

NYT: burma's ruling junta continues its lethal obnoxiousness

BBC: Afghan security officials suspended in wake of attack on Karzai
"The move came after the attorney general took over an investigation into the attack. Among those suspended are defence and intelligence heads"

Follow-up on last week (I): Sri Lankan defence analyst Iqbal Athas' criticisms of press suppression attracts the ever-classy attentions of the Ministry of Defence. Choice excerpts from press release entitled "Iqbal Athas - haunted by his own disturbed mind":
"Dear Mr. Athas, do you seriously believe that the defence authorities in this country are silly enough to deploy intelligence officers to follow a crap writers like you? . . . The public are increasingly aware about these sociopaths, despite their extravagant ballyhoos carried on through the media and other forums. . . . In our view, Mr. Athas should seek flowers from the terrorists and not anybody else for his great propaganda contribution to the Eelam cause and the terrorist outfit as well."

The crowning, and somewhat baffling, climax - "It may be possible for a person with a disturbed consciousness to see crocodiles in his teacup." And here I thought my frequent sighting of aardvarks in my whiskey glass was somehow unusual. . . .

See also the surrealistic epic "Mr Athas, it is the truth you rape" ("in our view it is the truth that he regularly rapes for the journalistic treachery he is engaged in").

Follow-up on last week (II), from NYT: Russia plans near-quarantine for English soccer fans

intellectuals on the march [travel warning for prague]

AP: fighting quelled in Beirut, but spreading to eastern outskirts and northern Lebanon

AP: after defeating JEM attack on Khartoum, Sudan cuts ties with Chad

LAT: dispatch from the wall outside Sadr City
"For [Army Capt] Boyes' team, each attempt to add to the wall, which is designed to run the 3-mile length of Route Gold, is a combat mission. But the military has made it clear it won't cross the road, whose formal name is Al Quds Street, even as the Pentagon stepped up accusations that Iranian-backed fighters were using the area beyond as a base to launch attacks that have killed scores of U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians in the last month."
WP: and from an Iraqi-US patrol in Mosul
"Back at the outpost, [Lt] Baxter rounded up his men for a quick debriefing. Anything to report? he asked.
'The [Iraqi Army soldiers] suck,' a soldier said.
Another chimed in, 'And all the people we talked to today are liars.'"
LAT: helping one young bomb victim walk again

BBC: violence in Kashmir claims several lives

Adam Isacson: the FARC and Chávez - the veracity and contents of the recovered computer files of FARC leader Raúl Reyes

Ind: Oxfam warns that death toll could reach 1.5 million in Burma if junta continues to block supplies, access
NYT: op-ed recycled from 1990 - should the US pre-emptively invade? (for example, Burma?)
"In such clear-cut cases, would military intervention on human rights grounds be morally justified? If it is, a second question must be posed: How could the principle of big-power intervention on behalf of human rights be established without a future American or Soviet government perverting it to prop up, as in the past, repressive dictatorships? Could some effective international control mechanism be worked out - a Helsinki Accord with teeth?
I don't claim to know the answers. But the questions are certainly worth asking."

NYT magazine: Hmong leader, US ally during the Vietnam war, charged with conspiracy to overthrow Laotian government
"...though Vang Pao may have dreamed aloud of a glorious revolution in Laos in years gone by, his role in the conspiracy charged by the government may be hard to prove. The government presents the case as a clear-cut gunrunning conspiracy in violation of the Neutrality Act, which outlaws military expeditions against nations with which the United States is at peace. But the old general’s defenders contend that the case against him is the consequence of a misguided post-9/11 zeal. If convicted in a trial, the former American ally could face the rest of his life in prison. And already his indictment has apparently emboldened Laotian and Thai authorities to crack down on the beleaguered Hmong who remain in refugee camps or in hiding in the jungles of Laos [who were abandoned by the CIA when the US pulled out of Vietnam and attacked by the victors]."

LAT: the legacy of land redistribution in Zimbabwe
"So few have benefited from the land redistribution that Mugabe's broader support has been undermined among traditional allies such as the war veterans. But he was careful to ensure that the top military and security commanders, on whom he relies for protection and survival, got one or more farms.
With Mugabe looking increasingly precarious, analysts believe that in the end it will be the 'securocrats,' the 20 or so commanders who form the strategic Joint Operation Command, who will determine whether the president goes.
Mugabe began the land seizures in 2000, after he faced his first serious political threat: the emergence the year before of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change from the union movement, supported by white farmers.
Last month, Mugabe's regime began a new wave of evictions of the few remaining white farmers after it lost control of parliament for the first time since independence in 1980. He sent out his security forces in a campaign of intimidation targeting farmers, opposition supporters and activists."
BBC: the police continue to arrest opposition members

BBC: Basques, seafaring, and piracy

Gdn: intellectuals mobilizing to resist 'vulgar' city council vision for Prague
"The intellectuals of Prague - copies of Kafka to hand, fuelled by too many espressos and cheap cigarettes, black polo-necks and scarves to the ready - are on the march. After the stag nights, the coming of McDonald's and Starbucks, and the shopping malls, the final straw was a banal administrative order. Now the 'culture wars of Prague' are reaching their climax...The intellectuals' enemy is the city council. Last week an estimated 500 theatre directors, gallery owners, artists and writers demonstrated against a municipal order in effect cutting public subsidies."

negotiating settlements [but not for your mom]

WP: Hezbollah seizes "most of Beirut"
Pro-government politicians criticized the army for not doing more to counter opposition forces. Hezbollah and the allied Amal movement remained in control of the capital's streets and maintained a presence in many West Beirut neighborhoods whose residents are mainly government supporters...Lebanon has many armed groups, but Hezbollah is the only officially sanctioned armed force besides the military. The movement repeatedly has vowed to use its arms only against Israel, but the events of this week seemed likely to undermine that assurance...The army had issued a statement saying the fighting had compromised its unity. Soldiers were intervening only to contain clashes and negotiate settlements between fighters."
Gdn: Hezbollah announces it will cede West Beirut to Army

NYT: in another city across the way, truce approved for Sadr City by Sadr's militia and parliament

LAT: PKK launches attack on Turkish military base, at least 20 die

LAT: Burma continues to export rice, distribute rotting food to cyclone survivors
BBC: appropriately, mock referendum held despite hellish conditions

NYT: Tsvangirai will return to Zimbabwe for runoff election

Gdn: Q&A on Serbian elections tomorrow
Radicals are ahead in polls

BBC: former column of Tamil Tigers preparing for election run, with party Tamil People's Liberation Tigers
"'We were trying to get a separate state for ourselves with guns in our hands,' [former child soldier and party leader] Pillaiyan told the BBC.
'Despite all our efforts we couldn't get a proper solution for our Tamil people, an independent state for them. So we left the Tamil Tigers, our responsibility is to the Tamil people. We want to do better for them through the political process.'"
BBC: meanwhile, the LTTE sinks ship hours before voting begins

BBC: Sudanese rebels, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM, from Darfur), just outside Khartoum

Reason: how expensive Iraq really is, and how the administration hides it
WP: the politics of the military: Army Chief Liaison to Pakistan replaced because of public protest over his involvement in Guatánamo

NYT: Russia parades its military, "in echo of Soviet days"
WP: speaking of the Cold War, US and Russia each expel military attaches and diplomats
[for no discernible reason from the article]

BBC: gender politics in Spain and Italy

Washington Monthly: "confessions of a former sweatshop inspector"

Reason: recommendations for dealing with inner city crime from Ed Burns (creator of The Wire)
no. 1? "end drug prohibition."

WP: Republicans hate mothers [this really happened]

on again off again

NYT: UN suspends relief aid to Burma after supplies confiscated by junta, then announces flights will resume Saturday
junta does not seem concerned with the gravity of the situation; consulates closed for the weekend rather than continue even pretending to process visas for the humanitarian community
NYT: upping the dose of surreal, somehow the junta plans to hold its referendum on the constitution
the monks are too busy trying to provide relief to organize protests
WP: a freelance reporter manages to file from the hardest-hit delta

NYT: Hezbollah militias take over Beirut neighborhoods
"Pro-government fighters had mostly abandoned their posts and handed their weapons over to the Shiite militias who were present even in West Beirut."

LAT: Sinaloa cartel executes Mexico's national coordinator against organized crime
"Seven mid-ranking federal police officials have been killed in the last month. Like Millan Gomez, they were linked to recent actions against drug traffickers. In all, more than 1,000 people have died this year in violence related to organized crime, according to tallies kept by Mexican news media. Federal officials estimate that 2,500 people were killed last year."

Slate: maybe the US Army isn't punishing dissent after all

Slate: just another way this administration makes a mockery of the law: the Special Counsel, charged with overseeing the gov't since Watergate, is himself under investigation by the FBI. but you guessed it, he still has his job.

Slate: the realism of Grand Theft Auto IV
"The residents of this neighborhood are living a nightmare. Their elected political officials have offered little help, and the police don't answer their calls to stop the gang wars. So you guessed it: Their only hope is to pay yet another crack-dealing gang to intervene and keep the peace between the warring outfits. To put it bluntly, they can rely on street justice by turning an enemy into an ally, or they can sit, suffer, and hope for the best.I thought of these Chicagoans and their moral conundrum when I played GTA IV for the first time a few days ago."

Slate: what it would take for Hillary to be on again, win nomination
e.g., "Hillary appeals to the Supreme Court, which, based upon a 2000 ruling, decides that the candidate with fewer votes wins the election."

campaigns and last chances

LAT: opposition says 24 of its members have been killed in Zimbabwe, 5 after beatings on Mon
"During the Monday beating incident, about 100 ruling party supporters arrived at dawn, ordering people from their houses in Dakudzwa and about seven other nearby villages to a central point near a Catholic church, according to witnesses interviewed by The Times by phone. About 400 villagers were gathered outside the church.
'They started telling us, 'We're not going to do anything, we're just campaigning. You're not supposed to vote for the opposition party. If you are opposed to the ruling party you should come up and confess and we won't do anything to you,' said Rebecca Vela. 'More than 10 confessed; they all got beaten. The women were beaten naked.'"
NYT: many schools have been closed and 121 have been taken over by militias linked to ruling party as a base of operations to give opposition backers a second chance to "mend their ways" in the run-off elections
"A member of ZANU-PF’s Politburo, speaking anonymously about its secret deliberations, said in an interview that the party had no intention of giving up power through the ballot box.
'We’re giving the people of Zimbabwe another opportunity to mend their ways, to vote properly,' the Politburo member said. 'This is their last chance.'
If voters fail to return Mr. Mugabe to office, the Politburo member told a Zimbabwean journalist working with The New York Times, 'Prepare to be a war correspondent.'"

BBC: "armed men" in Casamance region of Senegal cut off left ears of cashew harvesters
"The cashew-nut harvest time has regularly seen as upsurge in violence and armed attacks.
The Gambia lies between Casamance and the rest of Senegal and the MFDC rebels started a war for independence in 1982.
A peace deal was signed in 2004 but the armed robbery remains common in the area, badly hitting its once vibrant tourist industry."

WP: Ahmadinejad's claims draw ire of clerics
"Several clerics in the Iranian parliament accused Ahmadinejad of implying that Imam Mahdi or Imam Zaman (Imam of the Age), as the Shiite messiah is also called, supports his government. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran's government has been overseen by Shiite clerics, but religious leaders here have resisted Ahmadinejad's frequent hints that his government's actions are guided by the Mahdi."

Gdn: Whitehouse says it "lost" 5 million emails from early days of Iraq invasion
(didn't find this in any major US outlet)

USAT: 43,000 troops deployed, even though they had been declared medically "unfit for combat"

Gdn: former Guantánamo prisoner detonated suicide bomb in Iraq last month

BBC: US soldier accidentally calls home while in Afghanistan battle, leaves message on answering machine
"When he was played back the message, he said was embarrassed by all the swearing. 'He said, 'Don't let Grandma hear it',' Mrs Petee said."

BBC: the legacy of war and resettlement in Palestine and Israel 60 years later

Gdn: fighting between Hezbollah and gov't backers spreads beyond Beirut
"This morning, the rival sides exchanged gunfire in two villages in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa valley, with three people reported injured, according to security forces...'Beirut relives the chapters of sectarian and militia horror,' the pro-government An-Nahar newspaper said on its front page today. The opposition al-Akhbar newspaper said: 'Lebanon in the mouth of the dragon.'"

WP: paramilitary leader 'Macaco' extradited to US from Colombia
"Prosecutors in Colombia consider Jiménez one of the three most brutal warlords to have formed the directorate of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a coalition of paramilitary groups. The AUC, as the group was known, was assembled to fight rebels but morphed into Colombia's top drug-trafficking cartel while carrying out massacres and illegally seizing land."
Victims' advocate Ivan Cépeda lost a motion to block extradition to allow victims to confront him and seek reparations. "Cepeda's organization has estimated that Jiménez's paramilitary bloc killed and disappeared as many as 10,000 people. 'This superimposes drug trafficking over crimes against humanity,' he said."
BBC: Colombian military officer and troops sentenced to 50+ years for massacre of anti-narcotics police force in 2006

LAT: dual currency in Cuba punishes the poorest
"Those with jobs in hotels, airlines and shops and on the thriving black market earn CUCs, referred to as "the dollar" and worth about 25 times the peso. The peso is the currency given to all state workers and pensioners, which must be converted to CUCs to purchase most goods. The Cuban government retains the peso because it lacks sufficient foreign reserves to back and circulate only CUCs.
The U.S. dollar, which circulated in Cuba from the mid-1990s to late 2004, was removed by then-President Fidel Castro and now is subject to a 10% tax whenever it is converted to CUCs -- in effect a devaluation by the state. The tax is felt most by tourists and the estimated 10% of Cuban households receiving money from relatives abroad.
Those like Rosa, who have neither foreign benefactors nor the vigor to run their own dollar-earning schemes, watch the buying power of their moneda nacional recede each month as more goods become available only for 'dollars.'"

BBC: Germany bans two right-wing groups that deny Holocaust happened

WP: Bush's astute assessment of world food prices offends Indians
"'[W]hen you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food,' [Bush] said. 'And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.'
In the days since, Indian newspapers have published articles citing comparative food consumption statistics for the United States and India. One headline said, 'U.S. eats 5 times more than India per capita,' and quoted data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A cartoon in the Times of India on Tuesday showed a couple of overweight American tourists looking at emaciated Indian men rummaging for leftover food in a trash heap. 'No wonder we're having food shortages back home in the States -- these guys in India have started eating way too much,' they say.
'Bush is shifting the blame to hide the truth. We all know that the food crisis is an outcome of the American policy of diverting huge land area from food to fuel production,' said Devinder Sharma, a food policy analyst and chair at the New Delhi-based Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security. 'America has the largest land for ethanol production in the world.'
'If Indians start eating like Americans, the world would have to grow food on the moon,' he said."

The Caucus: Hillary's campaign will continue to offer citizens chance to mend their ways, even though it won't make a difference
"...the campaign advisers acknowledged some hard truths. Even if the Florida and Michigan delegations were seated, it would not be enough for a win. The financial health of the campaign appeared grim — Mrs. Clinton loaned herself $6 million last month, and she is prepared to donate more. And if there was good news to share about overnight on-line fund-raising totals, Mr. Wolfson did not mention it."

don't hate. miscegenate.

Slate: 12 women became suicide bombers in Iraq between Jan and Apr of this year, more than in the 5 previous years combined
BBC: two stadiums in Baghdad prepared for arrival of civilians seeking safety; gov't announces push to clear out Mahdi Army forces from Sadr City
"The government has distributed leaflets in two key districts of Sadr City, warning people to leave.
The speculation is that government forces are preparing for a big push into eastern Baghdad to end the current fighting once and for all."
CSM: meanwhile, newly gated Saidiyah neighborhood being repopulated

Slate: the 7,000 more troops Gates wants for Afghanistan have to be redeployed from Iraq

Gdn: US House issues subpoena for Addington, aide to Cheney, about Guantánamo methods.
UK human rights lawyer questions why US didn't seek UK advice, given its experience interrogating IRA members.
Republican lawyer blows him off, asserting that the IRA was not an "existentialist" threat, therefore the experience is irrelevant.

WP: Mexican cartels brazenly recruit, especially among soldiers and army deserters
"It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any 'soldier or ex-soldier.'
'We're offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families,' it said in block letters.
But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox...
'The cartels are very good at this -- they've had songs written about them, they put up these signs, they make themselves out to be Robin Hoods,' Carlos Martínez, a Nuevo Laredo elementary school principal and community activist, said in an interview. 'People like this. We Mexicans like a good joke -- we like to make fun of our problems.'
The banners also appeal to many poorer Mexicans who respect the brashness of the cartels, which provide food, clothing and toys to win civilians' loyalty."

LAT: USAID's plan to shift Cuba "democracy-promotion" programs away from Miami-based groups
A chief goal, officials say, is to spend most of the $45-million budget on communications equipment, such as cellphones and Internet gear, that possibly could be smuggled into Cuba to increase its people's exposure to the outside world...USAID is hoping to receive bids from Central European and Latin American nongovernmental groups that have experience with dissidents in authoritarian societies, Cardenas said. 'They know how to evade the authoritarian governments' efforts to control your behavior,' he said.
And because they are not U.S. organizations, it will be easier for their staff members to enter Cuba and make contact with people, he said.
[which begs the question, why not lift the travel ban for US citizens??? (also at least posed by a Congressional rep in the article.)]
Generación Y: blogger Yoani Sánchez writes clandestinely from Cuba, posing as a tourist in internet cafés (in spanish) Update: apparently the blog has been shut down; Sánchez was recently named one of the world's "most influential people" by Time magazine, perhaps drawing too much attention. HT: Laia Balcells.

Gdn: aid to Burma after cyclone disaster slow and complicated

Slate: Israel and African refugees
"But if Israel embraces thousands of African refugees, millions in Egypt alone could try to follow. All developed countries worry about the effects of an influx of poor refugees. But the problem is especially delicate for Israel, which worries about someday losing its Jewish majority to the growing Palestinian population (especially if it does not relinquish control of the West Bank). And then there's the country's location: It's not as if there are other prosperous democracies in the region for refugees to choose among."

LAT: Palestinian police force clashes with Islamic militants in West Bank

BBC: strike in Lebanon over the minimum wage politicized, violent
"Pro-government supporters exchanged rifle and grenade fire with Hezbollah sympathisers in three neighbourhoods, security sources said."

Slate: the state of Abkhazia's autonomy from Georgia; or Georgia's from Russia
LAT: Medvedev sworn in as president; demonstrating his autonomy, nominates Putin as prime minister

LAT: Human Rights Watch calls for investigation into possible Kosovo and Albania war crimes

Slate: the prez of lower-than-Bush-approval fame
plus, Gallup used to conduct face-to-face interviews?!

Slate: don't hate. miscegenate.
"In 1967, Loving v. Virginia reached the Supreme Court. Citing the 14^th Amendment, the court overturned the Lovings' conviction and ruled that all anti-miscegenation laws would henceforth be null and void (see the opinion below). "Under our Constitution," wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren, "the freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed upon by the state." At least two subsequent Supreme Court justices have Mildred Loving to thank for the legality of their own interracial marriages."

there are gonna be some changes around here (or not)

BBC: Trouble on the frontier
"At least four people have been killed in a suspected suicide attack in north-west Pakistan, amid signs a truce with militants may be breaking down. The blast in the town of Bannu would be the first suicide attack since March when Pakistan's new government indicated it would talk with militants. In another attack in the north-west gunmen shot dead two policemen outside a bank in the Swat valley, police said. Last week top militant Baitullah Mehsud suspended talks with the authorities."

NYT: Burma junta makes (comparatively) friendly noises as cyclone toll rises

Ind: Burma's wind of change?
"The secretive military junta that has ruled the impoverished nation for two decades took the unprecedented step yesterday of issuing an urgent appeal for international help.
There were also complaints that the 400,000-strong military was only busy clearing streets where the ruling elite lived and leaving other residents to fend for themselves. "The regime failed to warn people and are failing to help them now," said Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK. "One of the few things that may motivate them to allow aid in is the fear of another uprising. People are asking why they can mobilise the police and army to attack democracy protests but do nothing now.""

Gdn: Russia makes it easier for British soccer hooligans to get drunk and burn Moscow to the ground (for the love of the game)

"The special visa exemptions will only apply between May 19 and 23. Anyone overstaying the 72-hour entry period will have to pay the fee for a regular visa when leaving the country, officials said. Announcing what Uefa called a "historical decision", the association's president, Michel Platini, praised Russian authorities for their "exceptional and unprecedented" concession. "This is great news for football fans travelling to watch this year's Uefa Champions League final in Moscow," he said. "Our job is to make sure that they are able to get to and from Moscow as easily as possible."

Times: peace bedfellows Ian Paisley and Bertie Ahern take their swansong
"The departure of the two men brings down the curtain on the Northern Ireland peace process, a decade after the Good Friday agreement. While neither leader is leaving willingly — Mr Paisley, 82, was gently but firmly pushed from office by his Democratic Unionist Party after his son, Ian Jr, became involved in sleaze allegations — their successors will attempt to ensure stability and the continuation of a new period of good relations between both parts of Ireland."

Belfast Telegraph: Protestant paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force in de-mobilization limbo

BBC: Somali civilians at mercy of armed groups
"Civilians are completely at the mercy of armed groups in Somalia, says human rights group Amnesty International. It says the situation is "dire" in the centre and the south with government troops, their Ethiopian allies and Islamist insurgents "out of control". They carry out killings, torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary detention and forced disappearances, a report says."

Sunday Times (Colombo): In wake of failed military offensive on Jaffna, Sri Lanka's top defence analyst comes under (yet more) government pressure for telling the truth
"Like in some other countries, in Sri Lanka there is little or no cause to celebrate World Press Freedom Day. Yet, it is an occasion to reflect on the increasingly difficult role of the media in keeping the public informed of the many challenges before a nation, particularly the escalating Eelam War IV that is taking a heavy toll of lives and a loss of limb for others. For those in the media, who have to undertake this arduous task, there are no flowers. Instead, they are frowned upon.

They become victims of vicious campaigns orchestrated by those who are embarrassed by nothing but the truth. There are all kinds of name calling and gratuitous advice on words journalists should use and how they should perform their duties. Suspicious characters wielding pistols or grenades stalk outside their homes. When the Police discover them, superiors who then identify themselves offer seemingly convincing alibis. They are stranger than fiction. It is made out that those involved were on an "official mission" though the resources they use, like motorcycles for example, are in the names of civilians. Sometimes the stalkers provide unsolicited escort when one travels. They want to find out whom one visits and what for. It is a regular occurrence."

LAT: Iraqi militia commanders harden stance toward U.S.
"He still hates Iran. But now, he said, he accepts its weapons to fight the U.S. military, figuring he can deal with his distaste for the Iranians later. So he takes bombs that can rip a hole in a U.S. tank and rockets that can pound Baghdad's Green Zone without apology or regret."