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