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BBC: Pakistan and the Taliban exchange prisoners; Pakistani troops also withdrawn from some posts in tribal region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