Fission Follies

BBC: amidst accusations of bribery and kidnapping, Indian government survives dramatic nuclear deal-related confidence vote
"The lower house was packed to capacity, with MPs summoned from their sick beds and even from prison cells to take part in the vote. . . . Two days of debate on the nuclear accord ended in uproar amid opposition allegations of vote buying.

Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members waved fistfuls of money in the air, alleging that they had been offered bribes to abstain. . . .India's media was awash with reports of alleged defections and desertions among MPs ahead of the vote."

Hindu: BJP MPs cart stacks of cash onto floor of Parliament claiming they'd been bribed
"The Lok Sabha was stunned on Tuesday when three members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that they were bribed by an ally of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to abstain from voting in the confidence motion moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The members tabled in the House wads of currency which was reportedly paid to them as advance. The rest of the cash, they said, was to be paid after the voting."

Outlook: PM Manmohan Singh calls out BJP leader LK Advani (and, uh, his astrologers) after winning the vote
"on each occasion his astrologers have misled him. This pattern, I am sure, will be repeated today. At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come.

As for Shri Advani’s various charges, I do not wish to waste the time of the House in rebutting them. All I can say is that before leveling charges of incompetence on others, Shri Advani should do some introspection. Can our nation forgive a Home Minister who slept when the terrorists were knocking at the doors of our Parliament? Can our nation forgive a person who single handedly provided the inspiration for the destruction of the Babri Masjid with all the terrible consequences that followed? To atone for his sins, he suddenly decided to visit Pakistan and there he discovered new virtues in Mr. Jinnah. Alas, his own party and his mentors in the RSS disowned him on this issue. Can our nation approve the conduct of a Home Minister who was sleeping while Gujarat was burning leading to the loss of thousands of innocent lives? Our friends in the Left Front should ponder over the company they are forced to keep because of miscalculations by their General Secretary."

BBC: Kashmir heats back up with several attacks over the weekend

Dawn: Indo-Pak dialogue thus comes under stress
"NEW DELHI, July 21: Pakistan and India struggled to hide their exasperation with each other at the start of a fifth round of ‘composite dialogue’ between their foreign secretaries here on Monday.

New Delhi warned that the recent attack on its embassy in Kabul had put the talks under stress. Islamabad said given its enormous sacrifices it could not be put on probation in the war on terror.

A source close to the talks between Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Shivshankar Menon described the atmosphere at the Hyderabad House as unexpectedly muddied. Mr Menon is believed to have told Mr Bashir that not only had the dialogue been put under stress but the talks were also at risk following the devastating attack in Kabul on July 7."

NYT: Obama's Iraq/Afghanistan trip so-far so-good

WaPo: Mugabe-Tsangvirai talks to begin in South Africa
"Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed Monday to start urgent negotiations toward forming a new government, a first but very tentative step toward ending the nation's political stalemate.

The deal signed on national television was vague, leaving aside nearly every key question about Zimbabwe's future after almost a decade of ruinous decline. But it included clear language vowing an end to state-sponsored political violence, and set a deadline requiring that the talks conclude within two weeks.

Talks were expected to begin Tuesday in the South African capital of Pretoria"

torturous [missed the memo]

Vanity Fair: the legal basis of a regime that tortures (and the nefarious characters who promoted it)

"How had the administration gone from a commitment to Geneva, as suggested by the meeting with Rumsfeld, to the president’s declaration that none of the detainees had any rights under Geneva? It all turns on what you mean by “promoting respect” for Geneva, Feith explained. Geneva didn’t apply at all to al-Qaeda fighters, because they weren’t part of a state and therefore couldn’t claim rights under a treaty that was binding only on states. Geneva did apply to the Taliban, but by Geneva’s own terms Taliban fighters weren’t entitled to P.O.W. status, because they hadn’t worn uniforms or insignia. That would still leave the safety net provided by the rules reflected in Common Article 3— but detainees could not rely on this either, on the theory that its provisions applied only to “armed conflict not of an international character,” which the administration interpreted to mean civil war. This was new. In reaching this conclusion, the Bush administration simply abandoned all legal and customary precedent that regards Common Article 3 as a minimal bill of rights for everyone.

In the administration’s account there was no connection between the decision on Geneva and the new interrogation rules later approved by Rumsfeld for Detainee 063; its position on Geneva was dictated purely by the law itself. I asked Feith, just to be clear: Didn’t the administration’s approach mean that Geneva’s constraints on interrogation couldn’t be invoked by anyone at Guantánamo? “Oh yes, sure,” he shot back. Was that the intended result?, I asked. “Absolutely,” he replied. I asked again: Under the Geneva Conventions, no one at Guantánamo was entitled to any protection? “That’s the point,” Feith reiterated. As he saw it, either you were a detainee to whom Geneva didn’t apply or you were a detainee to whom Geneva applied but whose rights you couldn’t invoke. What was the difference for the purpose of interrogation?, I asked. Feith answered with a certain satisfaction, “It turns out, none. But that’s the point."

peace or justice [can't eat the cake]

LAT: ICC seeks warrant for the arrest of current president of Sudan on charges of genocide

"If the judges issue an arrest warrant, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir would be the first sitting or former head of state to be charged with genocide by the 6-year-old international court in The Hague...

Sudan probably will not turn over its leader if a warrant is issued. Sudan has ignored arrest warrants issued last year for an official and a rebel leader, and even promoted the official, Ahmed Haroun, to oversee humanitarian affairs for the people he is charged with helping displace in Darfur...

Moreno-Ocampo will have to show that the systematic killings in Darfur were ordered by Bashir with the specific intent to eliminate the Massalit, Zaghawa and Fur groups on the basis of their ethnicity.

The government claims that the conflict was triggered by rebels from those groups, and that the government and allied militias responded in self-defense. Any casualties occurred in the course of a counter- insurgency operation, and in intertribal warfare, officials have repeatedly said."

NYT: potential fallout

"The indictment of a sitting head of state in a war-torn country would not be unprecedented: Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Charles Taylor of Liberia were both charged by international war crimes courts while in office."

there will be blood

NYT: 'I just wish the other family would kill someone in our family so that this nightmare would finally be over'; blood feuds in Albania

"Christian’s misfortune is to have been born the son of a father who killed a man in this poor northern region of Albania, where the ancient ritual of the blood feud still holds sway.

Under the Kanun, an Albanian code of behavior that has been passed on for more than 500 years, “blood must be paid with blood,” with a victim’s family authorized to avenge a slaying by killing any of the killer’s male relatives. The Kanun’s influence is waning, but it served as the country’s constitution for centuries, with rules governing a variety of issues including property ownership, marriage and murder.

The National Reconciliation Committee, an Albanian nonprofit organization that works to eliminate the practice of blood feuds, estimates that 20,000 people have been ensnared by blood feuds since they resurfaced after the collapse of Communism in 1991, with 9,500 people killed and nearly 1,000 children deprived of schooling because they are locked indoors.

By tradition, any man old enough to wield a hunting rifle is considered a fair target for vengeance, making 17 male members of Christian’s family vulnerable. They, too, are stuck in their homes. The sole restriction is that the boundaries of the family home must not be breached. Women and children also have immunity, though some, like Christian, who physically matured at an early age, begin their confinement as boys. Family members of the victim are usually the avengers, though some families outsource the killing to professional contract killers.

Blood feuds have been prevalent in other societies, like mafia vendettas in southern Italy and retaliatory violence between Shiite and Sunni families in Iraq. Appalachian bootleggers in the 19th century also took up arms to defend family honor.

But the phenomenon has been particularly pronounced in Albania, a desperately poor country that is struggling to uphold the rule of law after decades of Stalinist dictatorship.

Blood feuds all but disappeared here during the 40-year rule of Enver Hoxha, Albania’s Communist dictator, who outlawed the practice, sometimes burying alive those who disobeyed in the coffins of their victims. But legal experts in Albania say the feuds erupted again after the fall of Communism ushered in a new period of lawlessness...

'I live in constant fear and anxiety that Christian will be killed, that they are hunting my children,' said [Christian's mother], who relies on charity to support her, the two boys and their two sisters. 'I just wish the other family would kill someone in our family so that this nightmare would finally be over.'

She said she had sent a mediator to try and seek forgiveness from the other family, but to no avail.

The family of the victim, Simon Vuka, declined to comment. But Mr. Kola, who is mediating the case, said that the family was not prepared to forgive the feud because the victim had two young sons who had been left fatherless. 'Many victims’ families feel that imprisoning all the men in the killer’s family inside their homes is a better revenge than killing them.'"

a bloody mess (south asia edition)

NYT: Indian Embassy bombed in Kabul
"A huge blast from a suicide car bomb at the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul killed 41 people and wounded more than 130 on Monday in the latest sign of a sharp deterioration in Afghanistan, where combat deaths have surpassed Iraq’s in the past two months.
It was the deadliest suicide car bombing in Kabul since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan ousted the Taliban in 2001. It comes as Afghan and Western officials have noted with alarm both the weakness of the government of President Hamid Karzai and the growing strength of Pakistani militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan."

Indian Express: all (Indian and Afghan) eyes turn to Pakistan
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai blamed the “enemies” of the strong friendship between Afghanistan and India for the attack but did not name any person or group.

Interior ministry spokesman Abdul H Ashiq said that the Indian embassy was the exact target. The Interior Ministry said it “believes this attack was carried out in co-ordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region”, an obvious reference to the Pakistani ISI.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistani agents of being behind a number of attacks in recent weeks and Karzai last month threatened to send troops across the border to attack militants there if Pakistan does not take action."

AFP: all (Indian and Afghan) eyes turn to Pakistan (2.0)
""We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it," presidential spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told reporters. He would not name the outfit but said it was "very obvious" whom he meant.

A senior government official who did not want to be identified told AFP separately: "Pakistan was behind the attack on the Indian embassy."

BBC: background on the tightening India-Afghanistan alliance
"We may never know precisely who carried out the attack. But the bombing points to the "Great Game" still being played out between neighbours seeking to gain influence in Afghanistan."

Dawn: six small blasts hit Karachi, primarily aimed at Pashtun areas of the city, which over the years has been ripped apart by ethnic clashes and urban insurgency
"He said it was worth noting that the areas struck by the bombs had a large number of Pukhtuns, adding the explosions may have been aimed at sparking ethnic unrest.

Rehman Malik, the prime minister's adviser, was quoted by the APP as saying that the blasts appeared to have been pre-planned and aimed at destabilising the city. Tension gripped several neighbourhoods affected by the bombs, with mobs pelting cars with stones, burning tyres and chanting anti-government slogans."

BBC: suicide bomber kills up to 20, mostly police, at Islamabad rally remembering the Lal Masjid clash of last summer

Hindu: after labyrinthine political maneuvering, India moves forward on the India-US civil nuclear deal

Reuters: former Tamil Tiger eastern commander, now the kinda-sorta-leader of the breakaway TMVP, Colonel Karuna returns to Sri Lanka after being jailed in UK for fake-passport sketchiness
"Karuna was the Tiger's eastern commander until he broke away from the rebels, who have been fighting a protracted civil for an independent state in the north and east since 1983. After his split he mounted hit and run attacks on his former comrades, founding a new faction known as the TMVP that was widely seen as government-backed. "

WashPost: disgraced nuclear scientist/international proliferator AQ Khan says Pakistan Army knew all about about uranium centrifuge shipments to North Korea
"A spokesman for Musharraf rejected Khan's claims, calling them "all lies." But some Pakistani experts have long argued that Khan's network could not have operated without the knowledge of the country's pervasive intelligence agencies."

rescue in Colombia; no relief in Zimbabwe

Open Democracy: the hostage rescue in Colombia and the future of the FARC
BBC: on a personal note, a friend's release highlights the types of kidnapping victims that the FARC still holds
"The two liberations illustrate the two very different types of hostages in Colombia: political captives, designed to further the Farc's agenda, and victims of economic extortion, whom the Farc, the ELN guerrillas and criminal groups use to fill their coffers."

LAT: sexual violence in Zimbabwe: "The election is over, but the terror isn't."
"Asiatu, 21, is a prisoner of the [militia members] at a command base of the ruling ZANU-PF party, one of 900 such camps set up by the party to terrorize Zimbabweans into voting for Robert Mugabe in the one-man presidential runoff late last month and extending his 28-year rule...'I'm still at the base. I'm being raped by four or five men daily,' she whispers, bursting into tears. 'Any time they want, night or day.'"
NYT: no rescue on the horizon

the late unpleasantness

BBC: more rioting in Kashmir, Hindu nationalist BJP gets in on the outbidding action
"The area's Muslim majority continued to demonstrate even though the state government has said it will revoke its decision to transfer the land.

In protest, the state's Hindu-majority Jammu region is also witnessing a strike with crowds out on the streets."

NYT: Algerian insurgents link up with Al Qaeda
"Today, as Islamist violence wanes in some parts of the world, the Algerian militants — renamed Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb — have grown into one of the most potent Osama bin Laden affiliates, reinvigorated with fresh recruits and a zeal for Western targets."

WashPost: Zimbabwean officials keep it classy
" Asked about criticism from Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler, about Mugabe's violent reelection campaign, Charamba answered: "They can go hang a thousand times, they have no basis, they have no claim on Zimbabwe politics at all."

Guardian: viral video of Sarkozy getting a little worked up
"When you're invited on, you are entitled to have people say hello to you, or you're not on in the public sector," he growls. "It's all demonstrators here ... It's incredible ... And serious. That will change."

WashPost: bombs and whatnot in northwestern Pakistan

The News: a skeptical, if anecdotal, glimpse of the limits of the current Frontier Corps offensive outside of Peshawar
"And now the truth: It's all hogwash. It's a drama being staged to placate a nervous public, please the cooperative militias by giving them sufficient advance warning, and confuse the Americans who of late have been displaying the audacity to ask for verifiable deliverables against all the money they have been pumping in for the last eight years. A desperate appeasement attempt for the visiting Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Boucher, if you may."

Hindu: Indian government tries to push through nuclear deal with US

BBC: LTTE (probably) launches apparent attack on President's helicopter but fails to bring it down

BBC: Malaysian government accuses opposition leader of sodomy; no wonder Rick Santorum resigned from the Parti Readilan Rakyat