"The two sides battled Sunday night in Rwindi, about 75 miles (125 kilometers) north of the eastern provincial capital of Goma. About 150 people took refuge outside a U.N. peacekeeping base here, huddling beside a white shipping container as mortar shells and artillery fire rained down.
"These blue helmets would not let us inside, but it's better than nothing," said Clement Elias, 20, referring to the U.N. peacekeepers. He said he heard 100 explosions Sunday night."
BBC: Swazi opposition leader arrested on terrorism charges
"Many Iraqis, however, fear the relative calm won't last long. To them, ordering interpreters to work without masks suggests that some top U.S. officials are taking an unrealistically rosy view of the security situation in Baghdad, which remains a dangerous city.
Many interpreters lead double lives. Even among close friends at work, many don't disclose their identities or neighborhoods. The Mahdi Army, the armed group led by anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, collects and distributes photos of interpreters working with U.S. troops, A.J. and a colleague, Maximus, said.
"If anyone has a picture of your face, they pass it on to another area," said Maximus, 28, who has worked with the military on and off since 2003. "We can't work for the U.S. Army if we don't wear a mask. If they recognize our face, they're going to kill our families."
WP: Baghdad's singing parties"Hidden away in the basement of a Sheraton hotel, this "singing party" brings to mind a 1920s speakeasy. It is a party no one talks about but everyone knows about. Such affairs were common in the days of Saddam Hussein and resumed in Baghdad about four months ago, with certain adjustments for the war that intervened. For one thing, partygoers at the Sheraton can't leave the hotel compound until 5 a.m., when curfew ends."
LAT: Salafists form unlikely alliance in Lebanon
"Lebanon's Salafists, often equated with terrorists in much of the Arab world, have teamed with Saad Hariri and his mainstream Future Movement to become part of the country's political order...
Like most of Lebanon's Sunnis, Salafists are largely staunch supporters of parliamentary leader Hariri, whose Future Movement is part of the U.S.-backed March 14 coalition of Sunni, Christian and Druze political organizations opposed to a mostly Shiite Muslim and Christian alliance backed by Syria and Iran.
Hariri has tapped the Salafists' grass-roots social and religious network and strong community ties as a means to build up his base for parliamentary elections in May.
But Hariri, son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, makes for an awkward fit for Lebanon's increasingly pious Sunni public. Although Salafists dream of reviving a medieval caliphate, the 38-year-old Hariri appears to be a liberal democrat."
Ind: animated documentary revisits 1982 massacre in Lebanon by Israeli troops
"The killings by Phalangist militiamen dispatched into the camps by Israel came after their leader, Bashir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, was assassinated in a bombing wrongly blamed on Palestinians. An Israeli state commission of inquiry set up as a result of a tide of public protest in the massacre's wake found that Mr Sharon, today comatose from a stroke nearly three years ago, bore "personal responsibility" for not having foreseen the danger that the Phalangists would commit the slaughter...Lebanon, for its part, has never seriously investigated the massacre.
The film has been widely acclaimed in Israel. One reviewer, Eitan Weitz, writing for the website Parshan (Commentator), termed it "required viewing" for those aged 16 and 17 nearing their mandatory military service, for army reservists in their thirties and for mothers of soldiers."
NYT: ETA leader arrested in France
"[Mr. Aspiazu] is also believed to have ordered the December, 2006, bombing of a parking lot at Madrid’s Barajas International Airport that killed two people and ended peace talks between the Spanish government and ETA, the spokeswoman said. Mr. Aspiazu was born in 1973, according to Spanish press reports, and came up through the ranks of ETA from the militant Basque youth movement that is behind street violence and vandalism that plague many Basque towns. His age and apparent standing in ETA would be consistent with what Spanish security officials describe as a military command structure that is increasingly composed of young militants."
Econ: Estonia's past and present
Econ: bloodiest day-long battles in (western) history
BBC: drug violence in Mexico continues, claims more lives in Tijuana
"The murders happened just hours after at least 1,000 people marched through Tijuana to demand an end to violence.
The city, on the US-Mexico border, has seen more than 600 murders this year.
Across Mexico, more than 4,000 people have died in drug-related violence in 2008, as gangs fight each other and the security forces.
Correspondents say the surge in violence is related in part to the successes the Mexican authorities have had in recent months in arresting key members of the powerful drug cartels."
NYT: wealthy Mexicans purchase private security (or leave the country)
"Security is tight across the state with armed soldiers and policemen deployed on every road and at almost every junction in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.
Half a million troops are providing a massive security blanket.
Over the summer hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims staged some of the biggest protests in a generation against Indian-rule.
The row began after the state government allotted a plot of land to a Hindu religious shrine trust.
Following violent protests, the government revoked the land transfer order.
This led to violent protests in the [mostly Hindu] Jammu region too.
Police broke up the demonstrations in the valley and the Jammu region and dozens of people were killed, many of them unarmed protesters.
The authorities have jailed or put under house arrest up to 100 separatist leaders who have called for a boycott of the vote."
++McSweeney's: dance dance revolution
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