The military said it would not cease all combat operations, but would stop shooting to allow civilians to get out as it did for a UN convoy on Thursday that carried out 226 seriously wounded people...
Following months of heavy fighting, government troops have captured the Tiger's political capital of Kilinochchi and, later, the Tamil Tiger bastion of Mullaittivu on the northeast coast.
Government forces say they have confined the Tamil Tigers into a 300 square kilometres pocket of territory in Mullaittivu district.
Humanitarian relief organisations say that about 250,000 civilians are still trapped in the rebel-held area...
'The military are saying they're are not coming because the Tamil Tigers are refusing to allow them out, they are using them as a human shield. There are even stories of mines being put around their settlements to stop them from leaving,' [AJE correspondent Tony] Birtley reported.
'Of course, the Tigers say that people are scared to come because they may be abused by the army, they may be killed by the army and they'll almost certainly go into a camp to be interrogated by the army.
'It's very unclear why [civilians are not leaving], but these people have spent a long long time living under the Tamil Tigers ... and there's a lot of distrust.' "
Gdn: ...but the president urges civilians to move towards gov't forces, promising safety
Daily Beast: M.I.A. is upset about Sri Lanka's offensive
youtube: but then, one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist (via Sheely)
WP: elections in Iraq: 3 Sunni candidates killed
"Hazam Salim Ahmad, a candidate for the National Unity list, was killed as he left his house in the city of Mosul, where Sunni Arabs and Kurds are vying for control amid attacks by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq...
In Diyala province, gunmen kidnapped Abbas Farhan al-Jubouri, a candidate for the secular National Movement of Reform and Development, after a campaign rally in Mandali...[his body was found 3 hours later]...
In Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood, gunmen killed Omar Faruq al-Ani, a candidate with the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political bloc..
The spate of assaults raised to five the number of candidates killed in the run-up to Saturday's voting. Four were Sunnis. "
Gdn: reports of corruption widespread as well
"Voters across the country have reported receiving visitors bearing food baskets and toys which they dispensed in return for signed commitments to vote for them, sometimes alongside an Islamic oath.
The vote is being seen as a tussle between the incumbents – largely a group of returned exiles backed into office by the US and Britain, and rebellious regions that want to drain power from the central government and divide it among themselves...
This time 400 political blocs will stand, representing 14 of the 18 provinces. Only the disputed province of Kirkuk and the three Kurdish provinces will be exempt from the election, which will see all the Sunni interest groups take part. A total of 440 provincial council seats are up for grabs and up to 75% of Iraqis of voting age are expected to cast ballots...
'These people stay in the Green Zone protected by the tanks they came in on,' added the sheikh, a co-leader of the 7 million-strong Damini tribe, and a key figure in Anbar province, which comprises almost one-third of Iraq. 'This is nonsense. Democracy, American style, came from another world and is not part of our culture.
'As tribes, we don't trust the central government. We don't feel they have the ability to take the country forward. We are the most influential group in the country, yet all the decisions are made inside the green zone and we know nothing about them.
'We are not al-Qaida, but we, the tribes, say that if after eight months there is no change we will demolish everything. We cannot stand this situation anymore. We will withdraw from the political process and we will not stand in the way of any militia groups who send their armed fighters back to the streets.'...
Violence has steadily increased in the fortnight before the poll, with attacks on Iraqi police patrols, in particular, higher than they have been for months.
However Baghdad's police chief yesterday predicted the militias that ruled the capital for more than two bloody years could not rise again. The city will be in lockdown over the weekend with nearly all cars banned from streets and most residents effectively housebound."
"This is the test of the provincial elections in Mosul, a last bastion of the Sunni and jihadi insurgency: whether a political system that more closely reflects local ethnic and sectarian splits will be a first step toward stability. The issue is the same in places around Iraq where calm is still fragile: whether democracy can trump violence.
There are some encouraging signs here in Mosul, even if many people fear the elections are simply another means for Arabs and Kurds to continue their bloody struggle over land, oil and sovereignty. Certainly there is no progress on the more threatening issue of Kirkuk, a city to the southeast so full of oil and ethnic tension that elections there were postponed.
But politics are changing here. In the last provincial elections, in 2005, most Arabs boycotted. As a result, Kurdish groups, who make up at most a third of the city, hold 31 out of 41 seats on the provincial council in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh Province. The provinces have broad local authority to spend and govern.
Now the council has 37 seats, and Arabs, represented by two main parties, are expected to win, and Kurds largely accept that — one reason, many here say, that the violence, while still much higher than in most of Iraq, has not flared more...After the Kurds ruled the city for four years — a time of extreme violence, with the latest killings last fall forcing thousands of Christians to flee Mosul — Kurdish groups readily concede that Arabs should control the city itself...
But [Goran, deputy governor] is equally frank that their real goal is winning rural areas outside the city — places where Kurds say they have a majority and that, they argue, should ultimately belong to the nearby autonomous enclave of Kurdistan. The Kurds have long been frustrated by the failure of international promises for a census and referendum to settle Kurdish claims, particularly in Kirkuk.
So Mr. Goran said the elections would serve as their own census, he hoped, to further the Kurds’ agenda.
'We are looking not only to know our political size but our ethnic size,' he said. 'How can we know the truth? By democratic means. We don’t want to force any identity on anyone. Voters will choose what identity they want.'...
More and more, the roads out of Mosul feel like an international boundary, with checkpoints and virtual customs stops before the Kurdish cities of Dohuk and Erbil. While Mosul is battened down and tense, Kurdistan is safe and lively, full of construction, car dealerships and nice Turkish washing machines for sale. Arabs say that, despite their holding Iraqi passports, Kurdish pesh merga troops harass them and admit them only grudgingly."
BBC: ...and Najaf, where Shiite parties compete
BBC: Iraqi troops, prisoners, and hospitalized have started to vote
NYT: thousands of Shiite pilgrims may miss the polls
NYT: women are running for office
"Of the estimated 14,400 candidates, close to 4,000 are women. Some female candidates have had their posters splattered with mud, defaced with beards or torn up, but most have been spared the violence that has claimed the lives of two male candidates and a coalition leader since the start of the year. But on Wednesday, a woman working for the Iraqi Islamic Party was killed when gunmen burst into her house in Baghdad and shot her 10 times in the chest, according to an Interior Ministry official."
LAT: ...as are Communists
Gdn: and Black Iraqis
"In Iraq's deep south another American-led revolution is stirring. But this time it is being sparked by popular voice, not bombs.
The country's 1m-plus black citizens have tapped into Obama-mania like few other groups across the Arab world. For them Obama's inauguration was the dawn of a civil rights movement that they never had the impetus to strive for.
Black Iraqis will this week stand for the first time as an electoral bloc in provincial polls that will help shape Iraq in its slow transition to full sovereignty and possibly help shake off the stereotype that places them near the top of the heap in a nation of persecuted minorities.
Like the marsh Arabs to the north of their relative stronghold in Basra, black Iraqis are an underclass who find it near impossible to rise above their time-worn status of hard-labourers and peasants. Up to 50% of black Iraqis migrated to the Arabian Peninsula after the birth of Islam 1,500 years ago.
The rest have come steadily in the centuries since, some trafficked as slaves and others lured by broken promises of riches."Ind: Blackwater brings Iraqis together: the firm is banned from operations
CSM: Iraqi courts to gradually assume jurisdiction over 15,100 detainees in Iraq
NYT: Obama administration likely to quiet down the democracy talk
NYT: and take harder line towards Karzai
"[Administration officials] said that the Obama administration would work with provincial leaders as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave economic development and nation-building increasingly to European allies, so that American forces could focus on the fight against insurgents."
AJE: ...who also tampers democracy talk - postpones elections until August
Gdn: more reports of reprisal violence in Gaza
"Among the dead are Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Israeli military. Others include criminals who were among the 600 prisoners to escape from Gaza City's main jail when it was bombed as the war began. Their attackers are thought to be their victims' relatives...
Palestinians in human rights organisations are reluctant to speak publicly about what is a sensitive issue, but one respected human rights worker in Gaza said he believed between 40 and 50 people had been killed in reprisal attacks since the start of the war. But there was not yet enough evidence to suggest this was an organised campaign by Hamas, he said."
Gdn: Spanish judge launches investigation into alleged Israeli war crime in Gaza, in 2002
AJE: judge rejects motion to delay Guantanamo trial of alleged planner of USS Cole attack
Slate: ex-Marine advoctes end to torture training
"...a review of the experiences of American servicemen captured in Iraq and Somalia shows that our enemies don't water-board their captives. Nor do they have the resources to mount a program of systematic sensory deprivation and humiliation, as we did in Guantanamo and in the American prison at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base. In fact, our soldiers need training from SERE based on an entirely different premise, as illustrated by the experience of Michael Durant, the helicopter pilot who spent several weeks in captivity when he was captured by Somali fighters during the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" raid. Durant survived by befriending his captors and forcing them to see him as a fellow human being. SERE conditions servicemen to expect nothing but the worst from their captors; Durant's life depended on his ability to understand his captors and find ways to manipulate them psychologically.
At the same time, the problem with SERE extends far beyond its questionable relevance to the threats that the war on terrorism pose to American soldiers. The school, which all pilots and special-forces soldiers attend, unintentionally serves to legitimize the use of torture by U.S. personnel in the field."
CSM: Pakistan military launches offensive in Swat
"Within 100 miles of the capital Islamabad, Swat was until recent yearsa thriving tourist venue renowned for its lush forests, clear rivers, and ski resorts. But since their resurgence last September, militias led by Maulana Fazlullah have conducted brutal killings of political foes and those deemed "immoral." On Sunday, 43 people – including former and present ministers – were added to the hit list, which is read on the radio. Almost all of the politicians named have since fled.
Headless bodies are strung up daily in a public area residents now call Khooni Chowk ("bloody intersection"), for sins ranging from non-adherence to dress codes to defiance of the militants' regime, says Niaz Ali Khan, a student from Mingora who studies in Swat."
NYT: Taliban targeting police
"Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province.
LAT: opposition agrees to join another attempt at unity government in Zimbabwe
"Under severe pressure from Southern African leaders, Zimbabwe's opposition voted Friday to join a unity government under President Robert Mugabe, despite failing to win its key demand for control of the police."
AJE: Somalia's transitional (non-functional) gov't to elect new (powerless) president
"Parliament is meeting in neighbouring Djibouti because of the security situation in Somalia, where armed opposition groups are battling government forces and each other...
The election on Friday comes two days after 200 members of the opposition ARS were sworn into parliament as part of an agreement brokered by the UN.
Another 75 seats are still to be filled by other opposition and civil society groups, as part of an effort to bring former opponents into the government."
BBC: the effects of recent sectarian riots in Nigeria
"Jos is at a crossroads between the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria and the mainly Christian south.
The latest violence followed a disputed local election in which a Christian candidate defeated a Muslim.
Most of the clashes have been between members of the Hausa-Fulani community – the biggest ethnic group in northern Nigeria - and local ethnic groups, that are mainly Christian.
However, many feel that the conflict is not about religion but about who should be seen as the rightful owners of the city.
Members of the Hausa-Fulani community say they are discriminated against because the government of Plateau State sees them as 'settlers'...
Many local governments in Nigeria operate policies that give preferential rights to communities that are judged to be the original inhabitants of an area.
In Jos, there are three ethnic groups - all predominantly Christian - which are recognised as indigenous...
Tensions between indigenes and settlers occur across Nigeria and as the population has grown, competition between them for land, jobs and education has intensified.
However in Jos, the friction between settlers and indigenes coincides with religious and ethnic divisions."
BBC: Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar, remains empty after violence
BBC: first trial at the ICC hits snag as witness recants testimony
WP: grassroots online organizing in China
BBC: FARC to release high-profile captives Sunday
Bloomberg: ...may have detonated bomb in busy Bogota sector that killed 2
Plan Colombia and Beyond: jailed paramilitary leader explains the cocaine trade from Colombia
LAT: Mexican capos might have arrived at a truce
LAT: the DEA is out of Bolivia
Ind: maybe they can just use Google Earth, like the Swiss
"Swiss police said they stumbled across a large marijuana plantation while using Google Earth, the search engine company's satellite mapping software."
Gdn: separtists, the mafia, and ecologists in Corsica
Fighting to defend the law is not easy on a Mediterranean island where clans, mafia godfathers and armed separatists crisscross in a nebulous atmosphere of omertà (code of silence), clientelism and protection rackets, and where property speculation is the fast money earner...
Corsica, 100 miles south of the French coast, is one of the last remaining unspoiled corner of the western Mediterranean. Due to France's stringent coastal protection measures and the spectre of violent separatism, the mountainous island still boasts large expanses of coastline that have been spared mass construction. Now the Corsican executive, headed by a member of Sarkozy's ruling centre-right party, has proposed a new 20-year development plan to boost the island's economy, which will declassify stretches of protected land to allow for more building. Environmental groups warn that Corsica risks repeating the concrete nightmare of Majorca or France's Côte d'Azur.
The plan, known by its acronym Padduc, has spawned a movement called the anti-Padduc front, made up of 80 different groups including trade unions and ecologists. The row has also boosted the island's nationalist and separatist cause. This weekend, Corsican hardline nationalists will launch their new political party, Corsica Libera. They oppose building developments which, they say, threatens the island's national identity.
This month, one of Corsica's main armed separatist groups, the FLNC-UC, issued its strongest statement in which it made death threats against the island's ruling political class, warned against the building plans and laid claim to 14 bomb attacks over the last six months.
In the low-level separatist violence that has simmered on the island for 30 years, empty holiday homes have been sporadically targeted with homemade bombs. While tourists are welcome, mainland French "foreigners" acquiring land are not."
Gdn: Iceland on fast-track to joining EUInd: with the world's first gay premier
Slate: reform US federal government archiving practices
Slate: end taxation without representation for DC
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