dark matter [when things collide]

NYT magazine: the Taliban (and Al Qaeda) unchallenged in Pakistan
"Pulling into Namdar’s compound, I felt transported back in time to the Kabul of the 1990s, when the Taliban were at their zenith. A group of men and boys — jittery, clutching rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — sat in the bed of a Toyota Hi-Lux, the same model of truck the Taliban used to ride to victory in Afghanistan. A flag nearly identical to that of the Afghan movement — a pair of swords crossed against a white background — fluttered in the heavy air. Even the name of Namdar’s group, the Vice and Virtue brigade, came straight from the Taliban playbook: in the 1990s, bands of young men under the same name terrorized Afghanistan, flogging men for shaving their beards, caning women for walking alone and thrashing children for flying kites.
The young fighters were chattering excitedly about a missile that had recently destroyed one of their ammunition dumps. An American missile, the kids said. “It was a plane without a pilot,” one of the boys explained through an interpreter. His eyes darted back and forth among his fellows. “We saw a flash. And then the building exploded.”
WP: US to deploy predator drones along Afghan-Pakistani border more frequently
In interviews, the officials attributed their failure to find bin Laden to an overreliance on military force, disruptions posed by the war in Iraq and a pattern of underestimating the enemy. Above all, they said, the search has been handicapped by an inability to develop informants in Pakistan's isolated tribal regions, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
BBC: here's a handy map of the region, where the Taliban is taking the long view

BBC: the delicate issues surrounding justice and the LRA
"Accounting for war crimes in Africa is always going to involve tough choices...If everyone is pursued, peace may remain a mirage - but if no one is hunted down, the rule of law may never recover."
BBC: Joseph Kony, LRA leader, still at large in the DRC
BBC: LRA spokesman denounces Congolese military mobilization to protect civilians
BBC: but maybe they can broker a deal with the military: elsewhere in the DRC, the army is working with FDLR rebels to extract profits
"Our researchers visited areas where the FARDC [DR Congo army] and the FDLR were operating side by side, each controlling their own territories, trading in minerals from 'their' respective mines without interfering with each other's activities. They depend on this mutual support to continue their trade," [a Global Witness official] said.
BBC: meanwhile, 12 goats spared humiliation of standing trial in Kinshasa

BBC: Russia has pulled out of Georgia; here's a map of other potential 'flash points'

WP: Kim Jong, Ill?
(credit for the witticism goes to Slate.com)

Gdn: Sri Lanka attacks kill 20; gov't shoots down LTTE plane

WP: devastation in Haiti

Econ: Beirut in the balance

Econ: El Salvador gearing up for elections in 2009
BBC: former Angola rebels accept election outcome

LAT: Zimbabwe bloggers important source of information
BBC: Morocco's king just shut one down

LAT: Thai prime minister booted for gaining income on a cooking show. he didn't get the memo that stock dividends from oil companies would've been a-ok.

Gdn: win a trip to Iraq this winter!

Slate: what will happen if the Large Hadron Collider generates a big black hole? it's highly unlikely, but still. (ps, SV likes the modesty of the name for the massive device that will help physicists discover the foundations of the universe)