Slate: - at least she wasn't alone -
Slate: and is still breaking out in occasional goosebumps
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."
WP: Obama issues orders to close Gitmo and secret prisons, speed withdrawal of troops from Iraq
WP: outgoing ambassador to Iraq warns against pulling out too quickly
WP: ...as the country, and Basra, prepares for provincial elections this month
"Though the Supreme Council has matured, it still exudes the air of the clandestine organization it was in exile. While Sadr's men are often confident in a street-savvy way, and Dawa's are sometimes cerebral, even aloof, the Supreme Council's officials tend to look at any question with squinting suspicion. They still push an unabashedly Shiite message, even as Iraq haltingly recovers from sectarian war."
WP: atrocities coming to light, now that Israel out of Gaza (but article very short on details)
"Early Wednesday, Israel completed its pullout from the Gaza Strip after a military offensive that began Dec. 27. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed and the operation caused an estimated $2 billion in property damage to the already impoverished territory. Thirteen Israelis died during the offensive.
'We don't have any illusion. We know they will come back. But thank God they are finally gone,' said Adel Hamed, 34, of Gaza City. 'If they were trying to destroy us, they failed.' "
LAT: one family's horrific experience of being gunned down trying to escape, and left to die
" 'It was so terrifying,' Shurrab said the next day from his hospital bed in Khan Yunis. 'I shouted at the soldiers to help us, but no answer.'
With the body of [his son] Kassab lying in the street, Shurrab said, he and [his other son] Ibrahim sat bleeding in their car for 20 hours.
Shurrab called the local ambulance service and was told that they were waiting for coordination with the Israeli army so they could come safely to the scene. He phoned his relatives, who called the Red Cross and gave his number to local journalists.
As night approached and his bleeding son grew weaker, he spoke with Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic and several local radio stations, pleading to be rescued.
Ibrahim complained to his father that he felt cold.
"I could not do anything for my son," Shurrab said.
Around midnight, the cellphone battery died. Soon afterward, Ibrahim stopped responding.
"I waited for my fate," Shurrab said, crying.
Israeli troops allowed an ambulance through at 11 a.m. Saturday. Ambulance driver Mahmoud Heikal said he saw Israeli troops watching from a nearby house as he approached the red Land Rover. Kassab Shurrab lay dead in the street. Ibrahim had bled to death in the car."
Gdn: and this family lost 48 members
AJE: Amnesty Int'l joins other groups in denouncing Israeli gov't for white phosphorous weapon use in Gaza
"The commanders here call the current situation “stalemate,” meaning they can hold what they have but cannot do much else. Of the 20,000 British, American and other troops here, only roughly 300 — a group of British Royal Marines — can be moved around the region to strike the Taliban. All the other units must stay where they are, lest the area they hold slip from their grasp."
Gdn: US accused of killing 25 civilians after bombing called in
AJE: civilians trapped between LTTE and gov't forces in Sri Lanka
AJE: gov't trying to get 250,000 into a "safety zone"
"The Sri Lankan air force on Wednesday dropped leaflets in the region telling civilians to move to the 35sq km zone until the army can transport them to safer locations."
WP: Rwanda deploys troops into Congo
"On Tuesday morning, U.N. soldiers reported that 1,500 to 2,000 Rwandan troops entered eastern Congo around the village of Kibati, which is just north of the main eastern city of Goma, Dietrich said. They were headed north toward the town of Rutshuru, a stronghold of Nkunda's rebels."
wronging rights: there is cause for pessimism
WP: with Ethiopians out of Somalia, Islamists are in but fractured
"After the deaths of at least 10,000 people and the displacement of 1 million, Ethiopia and the United States are now supporting a political compromise that stands to return to power some of the same moderate Islamist leaders they originally ousted.
Those leaders...face an even worse version of the same problem they had when they first tried to govern: how to control the Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist group. After fighting a two-year-long insurgency, the Shabab has split off from the core movement and become more radical and battle-hardened, with various factions controlling much of southern Somalia.
Militarily, the Shabab is now the biggest threat to the fragile transitional government and the moderate Islamists seeking to become part of it.
At the same time, the Shabab is showing signs of internal divisions. And with the Ethiopians' exit, it is facing an array of new challengers, including local militias and warlords with such nicknames as White-Eyed and Greasy who are restyling themselves as Islamists...
In the south, for instance, a group known as the Juba Valley Resistance Movement is marketing itself as an anti-Shabab militia allied with moderate Islamists. "The international community needs to support us," said Mohamed Amin Abdullahi Osman, its leader. "We are against Shabab and want to defeat it."
In the same region, a warlord named Barre Hiiraale who was ousted by the Shabab in October is attempting to revamp his image by associating himself with an old and widely respected moderate Muslim group, al-Sunna wal Gama'a. Hiiraale's militia has successfully fought the Shabab in several towns in southern Somalia in recent weeks...
Though Somalia's fundamental social structure is based on clan, Islamic scholars and charities representing a spectrum of beliefs have long played a respected and, until recently, apolitical role in society.
A more political version of Islam began to take hold after Somalia's last central government collapsed in 1991 and peaked with the Islamic Courts' brief takeover of Mogadishu.
The movement's leaders never settled on what version of Islam they represented -- some militiamen shut cinemas and frowned on music, for instance -- but the group still managed to open ports and get business going and to establish a measure of security in the capital for the first time in 15 years.
It also accomplished the minor miracle of uniting clans under a shared religious order, an idea that endures.
But the Ethiopian invasion fragmented the movement, scattering its leaders to Djibouti and Eritrea. The Shabab remained, gaining a kind of popularity by default among Somalis who did not necessarily care for its radical ideology but were glad someone was fighting Ethiopia."
LAT: militias may be recruiting as far away as Minnesota
"The youths, who have U.S. passports, followed a well-trod trail from Minneapolis to Mogadishu. Another group took off in August. The FBI believes that over the last two years, 12 to 20 Minnesotans have gone to Somalia.
As a result, a joint terrorism task force led by the FBI is scrambling to determine if extremist Islamic groups are seeking recruits here in the nation's largest Somali community -- as well as in San Diego, Seattle, Boston and other cities."
Gdn: talks fail in Zimbabwe
Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, described the failure of 12 hours of talks brokered by regional leaders as "probably the darkest day of our lives" for his Movement for Democratic Change and for the nation, which is hit by mass hunger, cholera and hyperinflation.
LAT: desertions up from the FARC
"Added patrols and checkpoints also created supply problems for the rebels, who depended on sympathetic farmers or rebel family members to bring food and clothing to drop points in the zone.
At the same time, the army stepped up its campaign to urge rebels to lay down their arms and join the demobilization program, promising cash for intelligence. The message was written on thousands of leaflets thrown from helicopters over the rugged mountains ringing this town, and read out regularly over the 6th Army Brigade's radio station in Ibague. The army says it even knows the decimated 25th Front's remaining soldiers and unit commanders: Accumulated intelligence has enabled it to re-create an organizational chart...
Ernesto was reluctant to dial the phone number given out over the radio, fearing that he could end up being killed in the process, a fear heightened by the recent scandal of "false positives," in which the Colombian army killed civilians and later claimed them as battle casualties.
But he called and agreed to meet an army patrol at a predetermined location. He later surrendered his machine gun and was promised a $500 reward. For providing intelligence that led to the capture of an extortion specialist known as Chucho, he was promised a second sum of $25,000. He said, smiling, that he was still "patiently waiting" for the government to pay up.
'The FARC treated its people well. They taught me how to read,' Ernesto said. 'But it was time to start a new life. I want to be an engineer.' "
LAT: but they seem to be doing well just over the Venezuelan borde
"Although the border area has long absorbed Colombian refugees fleeing decades of war, members of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have become visible as never before in the last two or three years, buying supplies, looking for medical assistance and forging relationships with indigenous women, said Venezuelan Congressman Arcadio Montiel, a Wayuu Indian.
Leaders of several Indian communities clustered around this town in a wild rain forest area that forms the border with Colombia told The Times over the weekend that the FARC's presence is harming their culture and youth.
"They have replaced the caciques, or chiefs, as authority figures and so who do the youths now want to emulate? The rebels," said Javier Armato, a Yupa Indian who is a former Zulia state deputy and onetime Chavez supporter...
Montiel and several community leaders say the FARC operates camps in the Perija Mountains to the west, where they say the rebels rest and recruit and train Venezuelan Indian youths...
But Indian leaders here say the rebels are slowly corrupting their cultures with arms, drugs and values that are anathema to their ways. They are also slowly taking control of Indian lands by squatting and by marrying indigenous women
On many Saturdays, rebel mule trains descend from the rugged Perija Mountains through the two dozen Indian communities that surround this town, indigenous leaders said.
After parking their mules in foothill pastures, the rebels continue on by bus into Machiques, the nearest big city, to make telephone calls, run business errands and go to a market, they said. The supplies are taken back up into the mountains.
At other times, they suddenly appear at doorways, seeking food, clothing or medicines.
"They don't pay for anything, it's always for 'solidarity.' But you can't say no to them. Nor can you complain about them to others, because someone might inform on you," said one indigenous leader, who requested anonymity because of security concerns."
LAT: violence, tension surround approaching referendum for Chavez
"The fiery Chavez has at times used violent rhetoric, including the threat of "civil war," to warn of chaos if he loses the vote next month. In a speech Saturday in Carabobo state, he vowed to break up student protests with tear gas."
++
Gdn: travel recommendation - next time you're in Mexico, don't miss the narco bling museum
The Onion: SV has an extra ticket for this show if you're interested
No comments:
Post a Comment