-St Augustine, referring to Cicero's anecdote in City of God (4.4)
LAT: Indian warship destroys alleged pirate ship
"The U.S. military said it could take only limited steps to intervene and thwart pirates. Maritime experts say international law on jurisdiction regarding pirates is murky, with naval forces clearly permitted to attack pirates only when a commercial ship is under assault.
But New Delhi has apparently taken a different approach. Last week, Indian marine commandos on a helicopter swooped in on the scene of a hijacking to fend off pirates assailing an Indian commercial ship. Two suspected pirates were killed in a shootout with British commandos defending a Danish vessel this month.
In the latest incident, New Delhi said the Tabar tried to stop a suspected pirate vessel about 300 miles southwest of the Omani city of Salalah on Tuesday evening. Instead of allowing the sailors to inspect the ship, the alleged pirates threatened to "blow up the naval warship if it closed on her," the statement said."
AP: Saudis in talks with pirates about ransom
Gdn: how ransoms are transferred
"Jason Alderwick, a maritime security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "There is usually a coordinator onshore who deals with the dynamics. Money is brought to a prearranged location, which could be in Somalia or Yemen. There is basically a transfer of money bags. The money goes down the line through a series of intermediaries, with the local government, the mayor or chiefs having a direct hand...
Often the intermediaries have been Somalis nationals living in Europe, the Middle East or Africa, and the money disappears into the traditional banking system, hawala, which operates through trust and personal relationships, and is very hard to monitor...
But in recent months security experts say there is a trend towards direct deliveries, to Somalia or to the captured ship, as intermediaries in third countries with functioning legal systems have become wary of handling the transaction...
A certain amount of trust involved. The shipowners have to be sure that once they have paid they will get their crew and ship back. The pirates have to trust the shipowners to guarantee them safe passage after they have left the hijacked ship."
Gdn: Eyl, pirate capital
"The entire village now depends on the criminal economy. Hastily built hotels provide basic lodging for the pirates, new restaurants serve meals and send food to the ships, while traders provide fuel for the skiffs flitting between the captured vessels...
In the region's bigger towns, such as Garowe and Bosasso on the Gulf of Aden coast, a successful hijack is often celebrated with a meal and qat [narcotic leaf]-chewing session at an expensive hotel.
One successful pirate based in Garowe, Abshir Salad, said: "First we look to buy a nice house and car. Then we buy guns and other weapons. The rest of the money we use to relax."
The pirates appear to have little fear of arrest by the weak administration, who many suspect of involvement in the trade. By spreading the money to local officials, chiefs, relatives and friends, the pirates have created strong logistical and intelligence networks, and avoided the clan-based fighting that affects so much of the rest of the country."
Gdn: amazing photos of the modern buccaneersone group photographed calls itself the Central Regional Coast Guard
Gdn: Q&A on modern piracy
Ind: and a bullet-point general background
"Roman emperor Julius Caesar is said to have been an early victim of pirates - captured on a voyage across the Aegean Sea. It is said that he demanded they double his ransom from 20 talents of gold to reflect his worth."
Gdn: the evolution of Somali piracy
"In the past most piracy was centred on the coastal towns of Harardheere and Hobyo in central Somalia and targeted the Mogadishu port area to the south. But in the past 10 years the focus has moved to the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the north-east, abutting the Gulf of Aden. The reason for the shift is the richer pickings to be found in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, said author Roger Middleton. About 16,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year...
It is widely believed that Somalia's warring faction leaders and Islamist groups such as the hardline al-Shabaab take a cut of the ransom money in return for allowing the pirate gangs to operate."
WP: Mexico deals with its own corruption networks: Interpol liaison arrested
"That the cartels may have penetrated Interpol is an indication of how hard the fight against the traffickers will be -- and of the level of corruption within Mexican law enforcement. The United States recently committed $400 million to aid in that battle, but many U.S. law enforcement officials remain wary of their Mexican counterparts, fearing that shared information flows quickly to cartel leaders."
LAT: 500 officers replaced in Tijuana
"Despite past purges, the 2,200-member police department is still viewed by many as an arm of the drug cartels.
Officers have been accused of working as lookouts, informants, hit men or bodyguards for drug smugglers, and scores of them have been killed over the years.
The 500 officers who were replaced will be sent to a police academy for training and background checks and could return in a few months, authorities said.
Their removal appears to be aimed at weakening Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as El Teo, a suspected crime boss who is believed to control the police in the city's east."
Ind: additional negative externalities of cocaine
"The United Nations says that 150kg of solid chemicals and 250 litres of liquid chemicals are used to develop just one hectare of coca plant. Coca leaves must also be soaked in solvents, such as acetone, to release their psychotropic qualities and each year 20 million litres of acetone, 13 million litres of gasoline and 81,000 litres of sulphuric acid are disposed of untreated in Colombia's rainforest, which produces 15 per cent of the world's oxygen."
WP: soaring crime rates in Venezuela could hurt Chávez
"Those slayings have exposed the government's inability to formulate a response to the sharply rising crime rate, a central theme of opposition politicians vying for governorships and mayoral posts in Sunday's regional elections...
As Chávez completes a tumultuous decade in power, polls show that Venezuelans are most concerned about rampant crime in this oil-rich country. Homicides have soared from fewer than 6,000 in Chávez's first year in office to 13,156 last year, according to official government statistics collected and released by private research organizations. That amounts to a homicide rate of 48 killings per 100,000 people, among the highest in the world and more than in neighboring Colombia, which suffers from a slow-burning internal conflict."
Gdn: he's airing wiretaps of rivals
"President Hugo Chávez has filled the airwaves with tapped conversations of his political foes to embarrass and apparently intimidate them in the run-up to regional elections. State TV has broadcast the recordings, enhanced with comic sound effects, in a barrage of attack adverts that would make even Karl Rove blush...Much of the information is believed to be intercepted by the Cuban-backed intelligence services. The government passes selected excerpts to state networks."
AP: Congo rebels claim that they'll pull back for talks with army
Reuters: if they happen, it'll be with a new army chief
NYT: front lines blurred and confusing
"A group of rebel soldiers lounged nearby, most with assault rifles, one incongruously carrying a spear. Just up the road, a captain from the Congolese Army, with whom the rebels have declared a tenuous cease-fire, sat atop a mound of biscuit wrappers and cigarette butts, studiously reading a paperback titled “The Way to Happiness.”
A certain sense of desperation — and weirdness — seems to be creeping across eastern Congo as more territory slips into a jumbled world between government and rebel control.
Most of the fighting has stopped, and on Tuesday the rebels agreed to vacate certain areas to allow aid workers unfettered access to the thousands of needy Congolese. But it seems that the longer the instability continues — it has been about three weeks since the rebels began a major offensive, casting this whole region into crisis mode — the more dysfunctional and confusing life here gets.
The front line, as people here call it, is basically a blurry edge, where the government and rebel zones peter out. There are no checkpoints or fortified positions. No troops eyeballing each other through carefully calibrated rifle scopes. Definitely no formal demilitarized zone."LAT: reprisals on the horizon in Zimbabwe as Mugabe's power slips
"Samson Bopoto also spent months hiding in the countryside. Every night, he and other MDC activists expected to be killed.
"Now the tables have turned. It's now ZANU-PF are panicking," said Bopoto, 34, an MDC youth organizer who lives in a Harare township. He and his comrades have taken back the local bar. They sit for hours singing MDC songs, and the former ZANU-PF thugs are nowhere to be seen.
Sometimes the ex-thugs come to his house secretly at night, trying to buy forgiveness or at least protection.
Bopoto says it isn't easy to stop the MDC members from taking revenge. Many are waiting until Cabinet posts are settled and the MDC takes its share of power.
"Still, our wounds are open. . . . Just imagine seeing somebody who's the guy who beat up your mom. They say, 'Sorry guys, I was forced to do that.' But we still have a lot of pain."
The power-sharing deal leaves the way open for prosecutions. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says Mugabe should not be held responsible for past crimes, but the question of immunity or prosecution for others hangs unanswered, poisoning the talks.
But without justice, Bopoto said, there could be violence.
"Those people should be brought to book, rather than a relative taking revenge. If that person killed my brother, you should allow justice to take its course. If that doesn't happen, then a person will take it into their own hands. It will cause a sort of uprising because I can't be happy if I see you, who killed my brother, still at the beer hall, living your daily life whilst I'm missing my loved relative."
Ind: Israeli mob boss killed; others brace for revenge
"It was after leaving the Tel Aviv District Court where his son Dror was being indicted on extortion and other charges on Monday that Yaakov Alperon, probably Israel's most famous crime boss, was killed. His rented car was blown up by a remote-control explosive device which also injured two bystanders, including a 13-year-old boy.
Police are bracing themselves for vengeance after the dead man's sister said at his grave: "These are murderers, bad people. The ones who did this will have the same done to their kids."...
But much of the clan's money-making activities were in deadly earnest. They reportedly included a protection racket in Netanya, in which restaurateurs paid in bottles which the Alperons sent for recycling and then pocketed the profits: no paper trail, no tell-tale cash handovers, and reputedly a $5m (£3.3m) business. There have also been struggles for control of betting rings; gambling is illegal in Israel.
Although Alperon was said to be in a turf war with another clan, the Abergils, over the recycling business, it is not clear that police are pursuing that line of inquiry. Reports suggest Alp-eron had other enemies, including the drug baron Zeev Rosenstein, who survived seven assassination attempts before being put away. And Alperon was widely blamed,fairly or not, for the stabbing of another gangster, Amir Mulner, after both men attended an interfamily arbitration summit in 2006 which went badly wrong."
WP / CFR: background on security agreements between the US and IraqSalon (Juan Cole): should Obama target bin Laden?
BBC: riot violence in Czech town directed towards Roma community
WP: UN official says economic downturn could lead to "social strife" in Asia
LAT: 2,000 riot in Gansu province, China
"The violence 700 miles southwest of Beijing was one of the most marked instances of social unrest to grip China in recent months. It was sparked by government plans to relocate the city of Longnan's administrative center after May's devastating earthquake, according to the New China News Agency."
NYT: Islamic justice in Britain
"Despite a raucous national debate over the limits of religious tolerance and the pre-eminence of British law, the tenets of Shariah, or Islamic law, are increasingly being applied to everyday life in cities across the country."
BBC: overturning it in France
"A French court of appeal has overruled the decision to annul the marriage of two Muslims because the bride had lied about being a virgin.
They are now effectively married again - even though both partners said they accepted the original judgement."
NYT: Garzón drops inquiry into Spanish Civil War crimes
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