chucky on trial [not enough hugging]

Rolling Stone: Chucky Taylor - son of Charles - on trial in Miami for torturing in Liberia
"In the midst of this reign of terror, Chucky was among the most feared men in the country. Only 25, he created and commanded the Anti-Terrorist Unit, the president's personal security force — a source of such pride that Chucky had the group's emblem, a crest of a hissing cobra and a scorpion, tattooed on his chest...Only a decade earlier, Chucky had been an American teenager growing up in a modest, two-story brick house with his mother and stepfather in a parched subdivision of Orlando, a short drive from Disney World. He had come of age in a strip-mall landscape of payday loan shops and an endless parade of fast-food joints...Today, as his father stands trial for war crimes at the U.N.'s court in The Hague, Chucky Taylor sits in the Federal Detention Center in Miami. On September 15th, he will face trial as the first civilian in American history to be charged with committing torture abroad."

Gdn: mutiny in the air: Mugabe's aids hold secret meeting with South African delegation to discuss defecting
"Some of President Robert Mugabe's senior aides have had secret negotiations with South African mediators in an effort to secure amnesties from any future prosecution in return for supporting regime change in Zimbabwe."

BBC: Angola's elections criticized; MPLA looks to win landslide

WP: Kenya's delicate stability
"Nearly eight months after a wave of post-election violence brought one of East Africa's most stable democracies to the brink of collapse, it is almost as if there had been no crisis. And that is what troubles some Kenyans the most."

NYT: Swaziland's king too ostentatious for some (but at least there aren't any messy elections)
"His countrymen wanted His Majesty to be happy, but some also thought so many spouses were an extravagance for a poor, tiny nation. After all, the king, Mswati III, often provided these wives a retinue, a palace and a new BMW."

New Yorker: maybe the king has a modern Machiavelli

WP: excerpts from Woodward's 'The War Within': debating the surge, and its effects
"At least three other factors were as important as, or even more important than, the surge. These factors either have not been reported publicly or have received less attention than the influx of troops. Beginning in the late spring of 2007, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of top-secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups... A second important factor in the lessening of violence was the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had made a strategic mistake in the province, overplaying its hand... A third significant break came Aug. 29, when militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his powerful Mahdi Army to suspend operations, including attacks against U.S. troops. Petraeus and others knew it was not an act of charity."
WP: inside an operation against an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader
"By the time he was captured last month, the man known among Iraqi insurgents as "the Tiger" had lost much of his bite. Abu Uthman, whose fierce attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians in Fallujah had earned him a top spot on Iraq's most-wanted list, had been reduced to shuttling between hideouts in a Baghdad slum, hiding by day for fear neighbors might recognize him."

NYT: reporter says evidence backs Afghan claims of enormous civilian death toll in US attack

IndiaExpress: Pakistan's new president...and the elusive balancing of institutions
"Last but not least, where would the centre of gravity lie? This is Pakistan’s g-spot. There’s much talk about it but it is difficult to locate. Here’s an attempt." (HT: ps)

BBC: peace process in the Philippines off the rails
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao launches attacks after Court blocks peace agreement:
"With perhaps half a million people displaced and some hundreds killed, observers now concur that two MILF commanders - Kato and Bravo - did launch attacks in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato.
The MILF leadership has blamed the attacks on what it calls these two "renegade" commanders, but refuses to hand them over."

LAT: (former) paramilitary groups in Colombia still control commerce in northern border with Venezuela
"The Black Eagles and other gangs now control much of the cross-border trade that was once the exclusive province of the Wayuu [indigenous group], including incoming Venezuelan gasoline, groceries and dry goods and outgoing Colombian sugar and dairy products."
NYT: Colombia's (wealthy sections of) cities become more cosmopolitan as rural development lags, violence lingers

LAT: brutal revenge in Mexico's war on drugs

LAT: rifts in Bolivia extend to former allies
"[indigenous activitist] Cuellar, an ardent advocate of the capital switch [from La Paz to Sucre], broke with the government. The opposition turned to her as an alternative to head Chuquisaca province, of which Sucre is the capital. She won the governor's seat handily against a Morales surrogate, getting overwhelming backing from the urban, educated middle class and elite, mostly of mixed-race and European origins."

Gdn: the real-life wire
"It seems that in Baltimore, one of the most violent cities in America, jurors are far more reluctant to convict criminal defendants than in the suburban enclaves that ring the city."

BBC: maybe we should just hug it out