pay up [handsome boy ransoming school]

Salon: kidnapping on the rise in Afghanistan

"Kidnappers come either from the ranks of the Taliban, who target their ideological enemies, or from criminal gangs looking for victims with deep pockets or, sometimes, children to sell into prostitution or use as labor. The lines blur when criminal gangs sell their hostages to the Taliban, Kabul's police chief said in late November. The Taliban, who are closing in on the capital, already control much of southern Afghanistan, creating a sort of free zone to hold kidnap victims with impunity."

BBC: US employing COIN strategy, but it's slow going

"In Khost province, the US military insists it has hit upon a counter-insurgency model that is working. It has fanned out across the province, creating what it calls district centres, in effect, small military bases.

The idea is that you create a mesh - making it difficult for the insurgents to travel from area to area.

Rolling patrols are meant to reassure the local population that there is security and a permanent US presence.

Small reconstruction teams build projects that aid rural communities such as schools and health clinics. New roads are also being built.

These efforts are intended to pull the locals away from the insurgency and into the embrace of the Afghan government with a helping hand from Uncle Sam.

While it sounds entirely workable on paper, on ground, the difficulties of the process are laid bare.

Frequently patrols stop at local markets where an American officer wanders the streets speaking to shopkeepers who look decidedly uncomfortable with all the attention.

The officers' roll call of questions often has a just-out-of-Westpoint feel to it.

How are you? How's business? Have there being any attacks? Followed by the request: if you have any information please report it to the district centre. But not many Afghans ever do.

Many of them are fearful of insurgent reprisals if they are seen to be openly associating or passing on information to the US forces."
BBC: poppy farmers seeking alternative development

NYT: Hamas factions signaling opposite takes on whether truce will end Friday

LAT: recently freed Christian warlord in Lebanon apologizes for 'past mistakes'

"The war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, set the standard for a new kind of lawless, media-saturated civil conflict now common in desperate corners of the world. It left an estimated 100,000 people dead and nearly a million displaced. Palestinians, Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Christians and their foreign backers were pitted against one another, and sometimes against their own kind.

Geagea's story illustrates the complexity of coming to terms with that dark past.

He was a year away from completing medical school at the American University of Beirut when he was sucked into the conflict's vortex as a member of a right-wing Christian militia eventually called the Lebanese Forces. He gained a reputation for no-holds-barred killing, including violence against rival Christians.

In 1990, Syrian troops occupied the country, ending a conflict already petering out. There would be no truth commission to examine who did what during the conflict.

All parties agreed to sweep the war's dirty business under the rug. The government offered amnesty to all fighters except those accused of killing foreign diplomats, high-ranking officials and religious leaders.

Geagea immediately alienated other Christian leaders and Syrian-backed authorities, who charged him with bombing a church and assassinating several officials during the war. After a trial that independent observers said was seriously flawed, he was thrown into prison in 1994, in the third basement level, with "no fresh air, no sun, no winter, no summer . . . nothing," he said."

BBC: LRA bases attacked in Congo; calls off peace process

Econ: the ICC and/or justice in Sudan, plus post-civil war trials in Lebanon, Cambodia, Uganda, and CAR 

"...Sudan’s most prominent opposition politician, Sadiq al-Mahdi, thinks he has an answer: what he calls a “third way” between hauling Mr Bashir to The Hague and doing nothing about crimes in Darfur. He suggests setting up an independent “hybrid” court for Darfur, which would have both Sudanese judges and international ones and sit in Sudan."

BBC: meanwhile, ongoing clashes between ethnic groups in Darfur 
"Unamid says 150 people died as hundreds of members of the Fallata and Salamat ethnic groups attacked the Habaniya in South Darfur.

About 100 more died in clashes between two groups from the Gimir group.

These clashes do not appear to be directly linked to the Darfur conflict between Arabs and black Africans.

But UN officials say ethnic relations have not been helped by the Darfur conflict, which started in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the western region.

This has seen an increased flow of weapons to the region."
BBC: troops withdraw from Abyei after fighting with police

Econ: getting by in Sierra Leone

"Demobilisation has gone fairly well. Sierra Leone is a less violent place than it has been for a long time; by and large, the rule of law prevails. A special court set up to try the okadas’ former commanders, directly responsible for ordering much of the mayhem, is winding down; some are going to jail. Moreover, the country has had two peaceful elections in a region not famed for democracy. Yet in many ways, despite the relative peace, Sierra Leone’s problems remain as intractable as ever, leaving those responsible for keeping the country on life-support wondering what to do next...

Those who are trying to strengthen the country’s institutions and economy know they are in a race against time. The region’s warlords are being replaced by drug lords, many from Colombia. Circling like vultures around weak states, they are starting to use Sierra Leone as a base to ship drugs on to Europe and beyond, with all the corruption and violence that will come with it. A country like Guinea-Bissau, just up the coast, has already fallen prey; it is now almost a 'narco-state.'"

UN dispatch: counter-piracy (via Chris Blattman)

"There's a pirates nest, I guess; where are they? If you can separate them from their ports or wherever they hide out, then obviously you get them before they even come out. The difficulty you have there is what you have with most insurgent-type activities: sorting out the good from the bad."
NYT: undaunted at sea
"More than a dozen warships from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the United States have joined the hunt.

And yet, in the past two months alone, the pirates have attacked more than 30 vessels, eluding the naval patrols, going farther out to sea and seeking bigger, more lucrative game, including an American cruise ship and a 1,000-foot Saudi oil tanker.

The pirates are recalibrating their tactics, attacking ships in beelike swarms of 20 to 30 skiffs, and threatening to choke off one of the busiest shipping arteries in the world, at the mouth of the Red Sea."

WP: Somali PM fired by president
"Hours later, as the government veered toward collapse, Islamist insurgents held a brazen news conference in the capital and vowed never to negotiate with the leadership."

BBC: ...who is then sanctioned by Kenya

BBC: Tuaregs kidnap UN envoy to Niger
"The Tuaregs have traditionally been a nomadic people roaming across the Sahara Desert but some took up arms, saying the Niger government is not doing enough to improve their lives.

The FFR [Front des Forces de Redressement] broke away from the better known Tuareg MNJ rebels who are fighting for greater autonomy and a larger share of northern Niger's vast mineral wealth.

The MNJ has had frequent clashes with the country's army and has also kidnapped foreigners working in the uranium mines."

LAT: 22 activists disappeared in Zimbabwe over last 6 weeks

LAT: it's a tactic that allows Mugabe hangs on

"To help understand his staying power, one need only rewind to the 1980s and the massacres of his early years in power, when he was a conquering hero who had thrown out the white minority regime of Ian Smith.

The name of the murderous operation, Gukurahundi, was as lyrical as a haiku: the wind that blows away the chaff before the spring rains.

Mugabe's political opponents were the chaff. The spring rains were supposed to signify the golden era of a one-party state (or rather, a one-man state).

Western leaders and news media ignored the massacres of the "dissidents" by the army's crack Five Brigade in Matabeleland province in southern Zimbabwe. Some estimates put the dead at 20,000.

Mugabe drew his most important lesson from the West's blase reaction, analysts believe: that there's a level of "acceptable" violence that will escape international condemnation, but still destroy any threat to his power."

WP: dissident ANC members establish new political party in South Africa

"The new party, the Congress of the People, has been accused of offering little more than criticism and is not expected to topple the ANC in general elections next year. But the ANC is clearly worried about an exodus of members to the new party, and whether that might signal there is enough discontent among voters to seriously cut into its large parliamentary majority."  

NYT: signs of renewed conflict along ethnic lines in Bosnia

"The power-sharing agreement between former foes has always been tense. Now, however, the uneasy peace has been complicated by Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in February, which many here worry could prompt the Serbian Republic to follow suit, tipping the region into a conflict that could fast turn deadly...

But the decentralized political system that Dayton engineered has entrenched rather than healed ethnic divisions. Even in communities where Serbs, Muslims and Croats live side by side, some opt to send their children to the same schools, but in different shifts."

AP: mass arrests at protest outside Kremlin

"The Other Russia movement organized the protest, in defiance of a ban, to draw attention to Russia's economic troubles and to protest Kremlin plans to extend the presidential term from four years to six. Critics say the constitutional change is part of a retreat from democracy and is aimed at strengthening the grip of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his allies.

News broadcasts on Russia's main television networks made no mention of the Moscow crackdown or of protests in St. Petersburg and Vladivostok.

Kasparov and other prominent liberals have just launched a new anti-Kremlin movement called Solidarity in a bid to unite Russia's liberal forces and encourage a popular revolution similar to those in Ukraine and Georgia."
BBC: Abkhazia wants in

BBC: Turkmenistan holds first parliamentary elections since adoption of new constitution

Ind: Turkish intellectuals issue apology to Armenians
"Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed during the collapse of the Ottoman empire, but insists they were victims of civil strife and that Muslim Turks also died. Most Western historians agree that the ethnic cleansing that killed roughly 700,000 Armenians amounted to genocide...

The public apology coincides with a diplomatic rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, whose shared border has been closed since the Nagorny-Karabakh war in 1993 and who have been locked in almost 100 years of hostility. President Abdullah Gul made history in September when he became the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia, and the two countries have been talking about restoring full diplomatic relations."

Obs: comparing ETA and Islamic terrorist groups 
"Personal networks are hugely important in recruiting. Islamic militant cells, especially in Europe, have often used outdoor adventure activities to bring otherwise disparate individuals together. As one British security source said last year: 'That moment when someone takes someone else's rucksack because they are exhausted is worth a decade of indoctrination in terms of preparing a group for violent action.'"

Ind: Italy arrests 100 alleged mafia associates  

BBC: Colombian NGO calls gov't data 'unbelievable'
"About 114,000 members of the warring factions were said to have been dealt with by the army in the last six years.

However, other estimates say there are only 30,000 in the warring factions.

Even allowing for recruiting to replenish depleted ranks, the government figures suggest that eight members of the warring factions are killed every single day in Colombia, something not substantiated by any other sources." 

BBC: museum dedicated to Pinochet opens in Santiago

WP: new leader for Thailand - 3rd in four months

WP: Secret Service slow to respond to shoe

BBC: journalist beaten, still in custody; supporters rally for 2nd day

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wronging rights: charity porn / pornographic charity (via Chris Blattman)