writers and despots [like recognizes like*]

BBC: Chávez ends 4-day-long television broadcast to celebrate 10th anniversary of Alo Presidente, has spat with Vargas Llosa
The decision to suspend Alo Presidente comes after a series of challenges and counter-challenges about holding a televised debate with the Peruvian writer - and arch-critic of President Chavez - Mario Vargas Llosa.

Mr Vargas Llosa is currently in Venezuela to attend an opposition-led seminar about democracy and authoritarianism in Latin America...

The Venezuelan leader has described his four-day TV extravaganza as a "soap opera", promising that there would be singing, debate and "a little bit of everything".
NYT: while everyone's watching the telenovela, Chávez grabs more control of military
Since February, Mr. Chávez has moved against a wide range of domestic critics, and his efforts in recent weeks to strengthen his grip on the armed forces have led to high-profile arrests and a wave of reassignments.

These are seen here as part of a larger effort by Mr. Chávez to cement loyalty in the military, where some officers are growing resentful at what they see as his micromanagement and politicizing of a proud and relatively independent institution...

In March, Mr. Chávez replaced the chiefs of the army, the air force and the Bolivarian Militia, a Cuban-inspired reserve force created to repel what Mr. Chávez repeatedly raises as the threat of an invasion by the United States.

BBC: writers' glimpses of Nigeria, on 10th anniversary of democracy

BBC: after 100 days, still awaiting substantive change in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's prime minister has set out a bleak assessment of the pace of democratic change in what was once one of Africa's most prosperous nations...Although his party is now part of the government, commentators have warned that the MDC has responsibility without authority.

BBC: Sudanese military takes Darfuri town back from JEM
An army spokesman said Jem had "completely evacuated" the area of Kornoi, 50km (31 miles) from Chad, and retreated towards the border, AFP news agency reports.

Jem seized Kornoi earlier this month and it tried to take an army base at nearby Umm Baru twice last week.

The rebels said they had withdrawn from the area for "humanitarian purposes" to protect the civilian population from air attacks.
WP: astounding one-third of refugees surveyed report or show signs of sexual violence
About half the rapes were carried out in Darfur by Janjaweed militiamen allied with the Sudanese government, and half were assaults by Chadian villagers near the U.N. refugee camp, usually when the women left to search for firewood or herd livestock, according to the report by the U.S.-based group Physicians for Human Rights.

The group reached the 88 women included in the survey through camp leaders and by word of mouth -- a sampling method the report said hinders drawing general conclusions about the prevalence of rape in Darfur or in the Farchana refugee camp in Chad...Further complicating the effort, women displaced inside Darfur live mostly in government-controlled areas and fear reprisal...

As many as 450,000 people have died as a result of the violence, mostly from disease, hunger and malnutrition, and more than 2.5 million have been forced from their homes. About 250,000 have fled into Chad, where they live in refugee camps.
AP: tribal clashes in Kordofan region leave hundreds dead
Tribal clashes over cattle grazing and water rights is common across Sudan, but the violence has grown worse over the years with the number of arms left over from the two-decade long civil war between the north and the south that ended in 2005.

The Messariah and Rezeigat tribes that clashed Tuesday and Wednesday straddle the border region between southern Kordofan and neighboring Darfur, where a separate conflict that has claimed 300,000 lives has raged for more than six years.

Interior Minister Hamed Ibrahim told the Cabinet on Thursday that in addition to the police, 169 tribesman were killed in the fighting, including 89 from the Messariah and 80 from the Rezeigat. Calm has now returned to the area, he was quoted as saying by the state news agency.

A previous round of fighting last year between the two tribes left over 70 from both sides dead, Messariah chief Babou Nimr Mukhtar told The Associated Press.

Mukhtar said fighting began Tuesday when 2,000 Rezeigat gunmen on horseback and in trucks attacked his tribe. Police were deployed to the area to prevent the fighting but were attacked by the Rezeigat, he said.

"Calm is restored. But there is no guarantee it will last," said Mukhtar. He stressed that tribal chiefs, not security forces, were the only ones who could end the rivalry...

Separate tribal clashes in the country's south over the last three months claimed the lives of some 900 people, mostly women and children.

Gdn: report from Mogadishu (spoiler alert: things aren't good)
After the parliament voted to introduce sharia I went back to visit the police officer. He shrugged and smiled when I told him about the debate. "We have always used sharia in our work," he said, handing me a cup of murky tea. "When the whole state is collapsing all that we have is our religion."

He told me he had joined the army in 1970 and then the police just before the collapse of Mogadishu 20 years ago. He had been wearing the same beige uniform ever since. "You are trying to impose law but where is the law when everyone is fighting? When the Ethiopians came those same Islamists that are in the government attacked us every day. They said we were supporting the invaders. In one day 15 shells fell on our police station. Now they are the government hopefully things will be better."...

"This how we establish sharia," the judge told me. "First we establish order and judgment in the middle of the chaos of war and destruction. When we started back in 1996 we were not a political movement. We started as judges to bring justice, then we became a political movement and then we became military." We crossed the basketball pitch of the compound that was once an army college. A lone boot sat in the middle of the pitch. The judge went on: "You know, sharia is fearing God and establishing religion. It's not about chopping hands off. First we establish security and then impose the rulings. It's the fear and hunger and chaos. If I cut the hands of hundreds of thieves I will not bring justice. Feed the hungry first and then punish them if they steal."...

After 20 years people had become used to life without a functioning state, explained one businessman with interests in fuel, mobile telephones and food. "Businessmen learned to do their work without a government. In the port the shipment is downloaded just as if there was a government – only you are the government, so if you have a ship you have to bring your men and your guards and do your work. Amongst the businessmen everything is run through trust – for example, when we need to buy fuel 20 merchants put money together, send it to Dubai, and our Somali friends send us a fuel tanker. Every merchant has his own militia and men who protect his interests. We do business with the government and the Shabaab. Our friends in Dubai are envious of us because we live without a state and we can do trade everywhere without control."

AJE: ongoing protests become clashes between civilians and police in south Yemen
Aden is the former capital of South Yemen, which was united with the north of the country in 1990.

Protesters carried banners with anti-government messages and posters of Ali Nasser Mohammed, the former president of South Yemen.

The death toll since protests started in the south in late April is now 16, including five security personnel.

Socialists, who formerly ruled the south, previously tried to gain secession in 1994, igniting a two-month civil war before the movement was crushed by forces loyal to the government.

Some southerners want independence because of alleged discrimination and neglect.

However, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has give warning that the nation could split up into several entities.


NYT: what unrequitted means during wartime
It goes like this: Boy meets girl. They exchange glances and text messages, the limit of respectable courting here. Then boy asks girl’s father for her hand. Dad turns him down. Boy goes to girl’s house and plants a bomb out front. The authorities call it a “love I.E.D.,” or improvised explosive device, and it is not just an isolated case.

WP: Pakistan military claims control of Mingora
Capturing Mingora, 80 miles north of Islamabad, the capital, has been one of the army's primary objectives. But Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, conceded that the Taliban had not put up a strong fight for the city and that many insurgents probably slipped away. Large parts of Swat remain beyond the government's grip.
LAT: in possible tactical shift, the Taliban targets Pakistan's cities
Only a week ago, the military said it was expecting a long, hard-fought battle with Pakistani Taliban militants who had fortified themselves in the city's hotels and buildings. It now appears that, after initially putting up stiff resistance, many militants chose to flee...

But the militants may have decided to fight another way: seeding fear in other parts of the country through well-coordinated bombing attacks.
WP: meanwhile, insurgent-linked groups offering humanitarian aid to some of the millions displaced from Swat
The government has been overwhelmed by the human tide that has washed over the northwest as about 2 million people have fled fierce clashes in Swat. With Pakistan experiencing its largest exodus since the nation's partition from India in 1947, only a fraction of the displaced civilians are receiving assistance in government-run camps. The rest are fending for themselves or getting help from private charities, including some that are allied with the very forces the Pakistani army is fighting in Swat.

Refugee camps in Pakistan have been prime recruiting grounds for militant groups ever since the Soviet invasion forced millions of Afghans to cross into Pakistan in the 1980s. Now, concern is growing that this latest wave of displacement will create a fresh crop of Pakistanis with grievances against the government and loyalty to groups that seek to undermine the state through violent insurgency.

AP: violence in Afghanistan's western Bala Murghab district; bomb detonated in Kunduz
Northern Afghanistan was once thought to be a peaceful enclave unaffected by rampant Taliban violence in the south and east. But militants have increased attacks in the area in the last two years as the insurgency has spread across the country.

LAT: Azerbaijan enters the fray
The case offers an inside look at one of the stealthy duels being fought by Israel on one side and Hezbollah and Iran on the other in remote locales, from Latin America to Central Asia...

Azerbaijan, a moderate Muslim nation of 8 million, finds itself in a delicate spot. It has strong commercial and diplomatic ties to Iran, on its southern border. About a quarter of Iran's population, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are ethnic Azeris.


AP: battle between Hamas, Palestinian police leave 6 dead
Despite Hamas' threats of reprisals, it was not immediately clear whether it would change its tactic of lying low in the West Bank while it weathers Abbas' crackdown. Since Hamas' Gaza takeover, Abbas' security forces have detained hundreds of Hamas supporters in the West Bank and closed the group's institutions and charities.

The Qalqiliya clash began late Saturday when Palestinian troops surrounded a hideout of Mohammed Samman, a leader of Hamas' military wing, and his assistant, Mohammed Yassin. Both had been on Israel's wanted list for six years, Palestinian security officials said..

Hamas officials in the West Bank said that some 40 loyalists of the group had been arrested in Qalqiliya in the past week as part of the search for the top two fugitives. Some 200 Hamas supporters are in Palestinian Authority custody...

But Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said going after militants is key to one day setting up a Palestinian state. "To build our country and our state, we need to have one authority, one gun, one law," he said.
WP: Obama pushes Israel to stop settlements


BBC: contested statistics in Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan government has strongly denied allegations that more than 20,000 civilians were killed during its recent onslaught against Tamil rebels.

The figures published in The Times newspaper in the UK - quoting official documents and witness accounts - is far higher than previously thought...

"I am bemused that The Times, like a jilted old woman, is continuing a bitter campaign against Sri Lanka based on unverified figures and unsubstantiated assertions," [Permanent Secretary to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Palitha Kohona] said.

"The simple fact is that Sri Lanka eliminated a detestable terrorist group and in the process rescued over 250,000 hostages held as a human shield by the terrorists."
WP: satellite imagery seem to back the jilted old woman

WP: in Northern Ireland, eleven Protestants arrested in death of Catholic
Kevin McDaid, a plasterer who worked with youths in the community, was beaten to death by a large number of Protestants who drove into a Catholic neighborhood armed with bats and clubs after a soccer match. McDaid had gone into the street to make sure his four children were safe.

A 1998 peace accord known as the Good Friday agreement is often credited with ending the religious violence that had caused more than 3,600 deaths since 1969. But despite enormous political strides, an average of four incidents of sectarian violence or threats are reported to police each day in Northern Ireland. Now, instead of paramilitary groups using rifles and bombs, the incidents often involve youths armed with knives, bats and hate...

The mob Sunday night assembled after the Rangers, a soccer team with a long history of Protestant support, clinched the league championship over archrival Celtic, a team favored by Catholics. Both teams are Scottish, and many of their Northern Irish fans fly or take the boat over to Scotland for every game.

The rivalry between the two teams is a "proxy war" between the two long-feuding groups in Northern Ireland, Shirlow said. He said territorial conflicts continue in working-class neighborhoods where boundaries between Catholics and Protestants are clearly known and often marked by fluttering flags: the Union Jack or the Irish Republic's flag. The wearing of a blue-and-white Rangers scarf or the green-and-white Celtic shirt also distinguishes Catholics from Protestants.

After the championship match that the Rangers won Sunday, a group of fans, many of whom had been drinking, drove in several cars to a Catholic housing estate in Coleraine, a town of 24,000 people 55 miles northwest of Belfast. Witnesses told police they beat up the first people they came across.

McDaid had worked with youths in the community to ease sectarianism and had married a Protestant. His wife was severely beaten and suffered head injuries. Another man, Damien Fleming, was critically injured...

Between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, police recorded 1,595 incidents of sectarian violence or threats, a slight rise over the year before. Most are not publicized, and few result in death. The largest category -- nearly 500 reports -- involved "criminal damage," and 287 were assaults...

Catholics accounted for 40 percent of Northern Ireland's 1.7 million people in the 2001 census, while 45 percent considered themselves Protestant. Bew said Protestants would probably remain in the majority for at least another generation. But in many areas, traditional working-class Catholic neighborhoods are expanding because of larger Catholic families and exiting Protestants. In the shrinking Protestant enclaves, some feel threatened and "left behind," Bew said.

LAT: La Familia penetrated state political institutions in Michoacan
A relatively new and particularly violent group, La Familia Michoacana, is undermining the electoral system and day-to-day governance of this south-central state, pushing an agenda that goes beyond the usual money-only interests of drug cartels...

Just last week it became clear how deeply embedded La Familia is. Federal authorities detained 10 mayors and 20 other local officials as part of a drug investigation, saying the organized-crime group has contaminated city halls across the state. The roundup comes at the height of the electoral season, as Michoacan and the rest of Mexico approach local and national contests July 5.

Dozens of mayors, city hall officials and politicians have been killed or abducted in Michoacan as La Familia has extended its control in the last couple of years...

Unlike some drug syndicates, La Familia goes beyond the production and transport of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine and seeks political and social standing. It has created a cult-like mystique and developed pseudo-evangelical recruitment techniques that experts and law enforcement authorities say are unique in Mexico.

No party has been spared its influence or interference, politicians of all stripes said in a series of interviews conducted before the arrests of the mayors...

La Familia emerged this decade as a local partner of the so-called Gulf cartel, whose operatives were moving into the region along with their ruthless paramilitary force, the Zetas. La Familia and the Zetas gradually muscled out most of the other gangs, and La Familia announced its dominance by tossing five severed heads onto the floor of a dance hall in the Michoacan city of Uruapan in September 2006. The gruesome calling card soon became all too common in areas where drug traffickers settle accounts...

Nonetheless, La Familia is stronger today than ever. It has expanded into the neighboring states of Guerrero, Queretaro and Mexico, which abuts the national capital, Mexico City, while battling remaining pockets of the Gulf cartel.

La Familia also has steadily diversified into counterfeiting, extortion, kidnapping, armed robbery, prostitution and car dealerships. The group offers money or demands bribes; increasingly, people in Michoacan pay protection money to La Familia in lieu of taxes to the government...

They recruit at drug rehab centers and indoctrinate followers with an ideology akin to religious fundamentalism, complete with group prayer sessions. Some armed guards wear uniforms with the FM logo, witnesses say. Failure by a recruit to live by the rules is said to be punishable by death.
NYT: being part of una familia has its pay-offs and consequences
NYT: Mexican cartels expanding business in US


Slate: there already are inmates convicted of terrorism in US jails

NYT: the NYC projects where Sotomayor (and Jay-Z, Wesley Snipes, and Marc Anthony) grew up
Slate: status question: can you immigrate from within the Commonwealth?
In the [2001] speech, Sotomayor called her parents "immigrants," but the island they departed has been an American territory for 111 years. Why it has remained so longer than any other overseas possession (save the odd atoll or guano deposit) is an enduring historic puzzle.

Puerto Rico is often described as the world's oldest colony, having recently entered its sixth century under off-island rule. Spanish settlers seized Puerto Rico from the Taíno Indians in 1508, a decade and a half after Christopher Columbus "discovered" it. It remained a Spanish colony until the United States chased Spain out of the neighborhood in the Spanish-American War. That was 1898, the same year the United States acquired the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii became a state. Puerto Rico did not. (Another island acquired in 1898 is Guam, which would share Puerto Rico's 111-year record as a U.S. territory but for its seizure by Japan during World War II.)...

Debate now focuses on whether to continue commonwealth status or to make Puerto Rico a state. Commonwealth status has the advantage of sharply restricting island dwellers' exposure to federal taxation but the disadvantage of limiting their representation in Congress, excluding them from nonprimary presidential elections, and reducing their eligibility for Medicaid and other federal entitlements. Statehood would bring more taxes, more representation, more government benefits, and some loss of cultural identity (including, in all likelihood, additional pressure to make English the island's primary language). During the past 40 years, Puerto Rico has conducted four plebescites on the island's fate.

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NYT: sv mournfully suggests new Cleveland slogan: 'better luck next year'

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*sv has finally gotten to 'the brief wondrous life of oscar wao,' in which she currently delights, and from which this allusion comes: "What is it with Dictators and Writers, anyway? Since before the infamous Caesar-Ovid war they've had beef. Lke the Fantastic Four and Galactus, like the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, like the Teen Titans and Deathstroke, Foreman and Ali, Morrison and Crouch, Sammy and Sergio, they seemed destind to be eternally linked in the Halls of Battle. Rushdie claims that tyrants and scribblers are natural antagonists, but I think that's too simple; it lets writers off pretty easy. Dictators, in my opinion, just know competition when they see it. Same with writers. Like, after all, recognizes like" (p97, fn11). sidenote: he was referring to a dissertation writer in particular.
bonus sidenote: to wit, the ferocity of poets
triple bonus sidenote: Pinochet henchman arrested this week for murder of Jara 36 years ago
Jara, a political songwriter and poet and high-profile supporter of socialist President Salvador Allende, was among thousands swept up in the aftermath of Pinochet's CIA-backed coup in September 1973. The author of El cigarrito and Manifiesto was herded into Santiago's football stadium which was used as a mass jail.

Soldiers broke the musician's hands before shooting him in the head and riddling his body with bullets, one of 3,100 murders committed by Pinochet's forces during military rule which lasted until 1990, when democracy returned to the South American country.

precrime and prevention [throwing stones]

WP: Obama to combine DHS and NSC
[NSA James] Jones and [Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security John] Brennan, whom Obama tapped Feb. 23 to lead a 60-day organizational review, said the changes will strengthen the White House security staff, which includes aides detailed from other departments.

Among other things, Obama is establishing a new global engagement directorate to coordinate U.S. communications with other countries and to streamline U.S. diplomatic, aid, environment and energy policies in support of security objectives, officials said.
WSJ: public support for Afghanistan war weak, resolve and upholding "American values" necessary
American public support for the Afghan war will dissipate in less than a year unless the Obama administration achieves "a perceptible shift in momentum," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview...

The interview comes as Mr. Gates is trying to fundamentally change how the military prepares for and fights its wars. Mr. Bush brought him in to calm the waters in late 2006 after Donald Rumsfeld's contentious reign. Some predicted an unremarkable and fairly short tenure, but three years later, Mr. Gates has become one of the most powerful defense chiefs in decades. He has cut billions of dollars in high-tech weapons systems and fired a raft of high-ranking generals and senior Pentagon officials.

BBC: large Lahore attack aimed at ISI offices kills dozens, wounds hundreds; blamed on Taliban
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters: "Enemies of Pakistan who want to destabilise the country are coming here after their defeat in Swat. There is a war, and this is a war for our survival."
CSM: women threatened amid " Talibanization" of Karachi
The warnings have caused a panic among upper- and middle-class women who have long enjoyed the liberal environment of Pakistan's most cosmopolitan city, where the fashion industry is thriving, female employment is on the rise, and the literacy rate of 65 percent far exceeds the national average of 46 percent.

While no physical attacks have been reported, some women have been threatened at gunpoint. Others, like prominent activist Attiya Dawood, have had eggs thrown at them while walking through residential parks.

Female students have also been targeted. Private, coed institutions have reportedly received letters signed by the Taliban warning them to close down or segregate their students, or face the consequences, which might include the kidnapping of students. When approached, school administration officials refuse to discuss the situation, with some arguing that it is better for their students' safety to be kept out of the media.

CSM: minors tried under harsh anti-terrorism law in Turkey
"I never thought I could go to prison for throwing a stone," says Hebun, who spent 10 months in an adult prison awaiting his initial trial. "I become really angry when I think that just for throwing a stone they were asking to put me away for 28 years. It's unjust." Now out on bail pending an appeal, he faces an amended sentence of seven years.

Hebun is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the past few years under strict new antiterrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults and even be accused of "committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization" for participating in demonstrations. Critics and rights defenders say the amended antiterrorism laws are deeply flawed and also violate international conventions on the detention of children.

BBC: Somalia conflict creates surge in victims, some 60,000 displaced
It comes as a radical cleric on the US terror list, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, formally became leader of the Somali Islamist rebel group Hisbul-Islam.

The militia, and an allied hardline group, al-Shabab, have been locked in fierce battles with pro-government forces that have displaced more than 60,000 civilians since 7 May.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which funds and runs two of Mogadishu's three hospitals, Medina and Keysaney, told the BBC more than 650 patients have sought treatment since the clashes began and that many more were trapped in conflict zones.

BBC: "Daddy Ken," Nigerian militant leader, arrested after being turned in by locals
It is unusual for people to turn in militants as they are often feared or pay Delta communities to keep quiet. But residents of Odi said they feared a repeat of an army operation 10 years ago which devastated the town...

A military operation is currently under way in the swamps of neighbouring Delta State. The military Joint Task Force (JTF) are hunting militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend). It has been impossible to verify any casualty figures as travel to the region has been restricted by the military.

BBC: former Ivorian rebels (belatedly) transfer control of territory, in move toward elections
Former rebel forces in Ivory Coast have relinquished territory in the north to civilian administrators appointed by President Laurent Gbagbo... He signed a peace deal with the New Forces rebels in 2007. Presidential elections - repeatedly postponed - are due to be held in November.

The former French colony was torn apart by a brief civil war in 2002 when the New Forces seized control of the mainly Muslim north of the country... The transfer of power, due in January under the latest United Nations-backed peace pact signed at the end of 2008, was twice postponed.
BBC: Rwandan parliament approves solitary confinement for cases of genocide, as well as rape and gang-related crimes

CSM: continued conflict in northern Darfur
The past fortnight has seen an upsurge in clashes as rebels try to claim a "liberated" zone ahead of rains due to begin within a couple of weeks.

In return, government Antonov planes have pounded targets every morning and evening, while rebels seek out whatever cover they can find in Darfur's empty desert.

Peace talks between the two sides are set to resume in Qatar on Wednesday. But with fighting on the increase and trust at rock bottom, few experts hold out hope for any major breakthroughs...

In the past year, the war has settled into a low-intensity phase, in sharp contrast to the early days, when government-backed janjaweed militias launched a scorched-earth campaign to deprive rebels of civilian support.

These days, death comes in ones and twos, with bombs dropped from Antonov warplanes. Or it comes day after day in the aid camps, as fragile children succumb to diseases of malnutrition and want.

At the same time, Sudan and Chad have stepped up their proxy war. Chadian war planes have been operating deep into Darfur seeking out bases of Khartoum-backed rebels who launched attacks inside Chad earlier this month.

JEM's offensive brings the risk of Sudanese reprisal against its own bases across the border, turning a war by proxy into a real front line.

WSJ: refugees trapped in Sri Lanka now being sorted into guerrilla and non-guerrilla
After Sri Lanka's army finished off the Tamil Tigers as a fighting force last week, the Sri Lankan government turned its attention to rooting out those who may have served in the separatist guerrilla movement -- willingly or unwillingly. Though the government says the screening is necessary to squeeze the last breaths from a 26-year insurgency, the process is proving wrenching for families who survived the war only to be separated in peace.

So far, say army officials, the screening process has netted more than 9,000 Tamil Tigers. Most came forward voluntarily, army officials say. They are expected to spend about six months at rehabilitation camps, where they will be taught vocational skills and monitored to make sure they don't harbor allegiance to the Tigers and their violent separatist movement. A few hundred hard-core insurgents will be kept longer, army officials say.
CSM: new politics, and competition, among Tamils
Tamil activists say that the end of the 26-year war for a separate state for the island's ethnic Tamil minority should allow more moderate voices to emerge. But it could also spark instability as rivals duke it out in electoral battlegrounds in Tamil areas like Jaffna and among the population displaced by war. The presence of armed groups loyal to Tamil politicians and often in league with security forces adds to the combustible mix.

"The LTTE has always said it was the sole representative of the Tamil people. So who speaks for Tamils now?" asks a social activist in Colombo...

On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan officials said the government will continue its state of emergency, which includes police powers such as searches of private homes and 18-month detention of suspects without a trial. It said the restrictions are necessary to prevent a resurgence of the rebel movement. Sri Lankan officials also say they are holding some 9,100 rebel prisoners and will release many for "rehabilitation."
WP: UNHCHR calls for probe into government and rebel abuses

WP: North Korea sees South Korean decision to inspect ships suspected of nuclear activity as "declaration of war"

LAT: sweep of mayors and security officials for drug corruption in Michoacán, Mexico
Those detained include a key advisor to [state governor] Godoy, a judge and several top regional public security officials, the attorney general's office said. Most were taken to Mexico City for questioning after being rounded up during the morning from their homes, offices and city halls...

Although Mexican authorities have frequently arrested corrupt security agents in drug-related cases, this is the first time they have gone after such a large number of elected officials. The sweep was significant because it represents an effort to hit the political cover that the traffickers enjoy, though it may not make much of a dent in the smuggling network, analysts said... At least 83 of Michoacan's 113 municipalities are mixed up at some level with narcos, a Mexican intelligence source told The Times this month. The source, not authorized to talk to the press, spoke on condition of anonymity...

La Familia has been doing battle with the so-called Gulf cartel, which moved into Michoacan a few years ago in what was initially a strategic partnership. The arrangement ruptured last year, with the two groups struggling over control of land to produce drugs and over transport routes, including Michoacan's valued Lazaro Cardenas seaport. La Familia specializes in marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine. In the last year it has set up shop in 20 to 30 cities and towns across the United States, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said Tuesday.
PCB: Adam Isacson on Colombia's new "Integrated Action" security plan
It is a set of new Colombian government programs that have gone under many names in the past few years. These include Plan Colombia 2, Plan Colombia Consolidation Phase, Social Recovery of Territory (or Social Control of Territory), the National Consolidation Plan, the Center for the Coordination of Integrated Action (CCAI), or the “Strategic Leap.”

Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s defense minister until last week, offered this definition: “It means state institutions’ entry or return to zones affected by violence to satisfy the population’s basic needs, like health, education and public services, as well as justice, culture, recreation and infrastructure projects.”

The underlying idea is that Colombia’s historically neglected rural areas will only be taken back from illegal armed groups if the entire government is involved in “recovering” or “consolidating” its presence in these territories. While the military and police must handle security, the doctrine contends that the rest of the government must be brought into these zones in a quick, coordinated way.

WSJ: predicting gang involvement in LA's youth: as easy as ABC
The multiple-choice screening, some 70 questions long, shows how closely Los Angeles has begun to examine the work of social scientists to tackle complex policy issues like gang violence. Last year, city officials turned to Dr. Klein and his colleagues at USC to design a test that they hope will empirically identify which children are headed toward a life on the street. This year, the test will help decide the direction of the millions of dollars the city spends annually on gang-prevention efforts.

The screening, intended for children between 10 and 15 years old, asks a range of questions on issues ranging from past relationships to drug use to attitudes toward violence. One question asks test takers if they recently had a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend; another asks test takers if they are kind to younger children.

In order to avoid stigmatizing children with the label of potential criminal, Dr. Klein says test takers aren't told that the questions are intended to screen for future gang involvement.

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FP: what (those sneaky) human rights advocates don't say about the use of child soldiers
WR: Angelina Jolie knows all about it
Jolie stopped by [the ICC] on her way to Cannes to observe the trial of Thomas Lubanga. As we've discussed previously, Lubanga is charged with using child soldiers during Congo's Ituri conflict. Prosecution of the use of child soldiers is of tremendous personal importance to Jolie, who is slowly assembling her own child army. Or she was there in her capacity as UNHCR goodwill ambassador. Whichever.

MSNBC: Rachel Maddow on Guantánamo, prolonged detention and "precrime"
Daily Show: dispose of them!

tough enough [energy to spare]

NYT: civil wars last a long time; but according to some, not long enough
But if you accept the general definition of a civil war as one fought within internationally recognized borders, then throughout history civil conflicts have tended to outlast international wars by a factor of about 20, according to Paul Collier...

Civil wars can be ended by outside intervention, as in the Balkans. But according to Edward N. Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, such intervention may in fact only prolong wars. “It leads to congealed wars,” he said. “In Bosnia now there is very little economic development or reconstruction, because actually it’s a frozen war. The best way is when people just exhaust themselves and run out of energy to fight.”

[sv wants to exhaust herself fighting this guy]

Gdn: this is what exhaustion looks like:
Sopika is one of at least 250,000 Tamil civilians being held in Menik Farm in the north of the country. Barbed-wire fences encircle the endless rows of white tents, preventing civilians from getting out and journalists from getting in, as the government continues to prevent the stories of Sopika and thousands like her from being told...

Her story is testimony to the brutality of both the Tamil Tiger fighters and the government during the final stages of a 26-year conflict, during which each side accused the other of acts of unspeakable cruelty. Both, it seems, were telling the truth and it is the Tamil civilians who paid the price....

The government has denied using heavy weapons. But by the time the family reached Mullaitivu, Sopika said she found the noise of the jets and artillery overwhelming. Her parents decided they had to make a break for it. It was 2am when they set off with several other families.

"As we were walking, the Tigers started to fire and the young boy walking in front of me got shot," she said. "My face and clothes were splattered with the blood of this boy. He died.

"We turned back because we were afraid of more death," she said.
LAT: ...and other lessons from Sri Lanka
The military budget grew by 40% a year, and the army exploded by 70% to 180,000 troops, adding 3,000 a month compared with 3,000 a year previously, drawing largely from rural Singhalese attracted by relatively high wages in a struggling economy.

With more soldiers, the army was able to hit the Tigers on several fronts simultaneously, breaking with years of hit-or-miss operations.

"Before, the army would take territory, then move on, allowing the LTTE to come back," said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara. "That changed and we hit them on all four fronts so they could no longer muster all their resources into one place."...

Other lessons are either unique to Sri Lanka or would be politically unpalatable in other societies, including the high civilian and military death tolls and alleged human rights violations...

Because Rajapaksa's base was the nation's Sinhalese majority, there was relatively little domestic pushback over the deaths and displacement of ethnic Tamil civilians...

"A military precept the world over is that you can't win militarily against an insurgency, which is essentially a political struggle," said Maj. Gen. Mehta. "They turned that on its head."

WP: these high costs of the war
WP:...will not involve wars crimes charges, if government gets its way

LAT: some euros exhaust themselves trying to become jihadis
After getting ripped off in Turkey and staggering through waist-deep snow in Iran, the little band arrived in Al Qaeda's lair in Pakistan last year, ready for a triumphant reception...
Wary of spies, suspicious Al Qaeda chiefs grilled the half-dozen Belgians and French. They charged them $1,200 each for AK-47 rifles, ammunition and grenades. They made them fill out forms listing next of kin and their preference: guerrilla fighting, or suicide attacks?

Then the trainees dodged missile strikes for months. They endured disease, quarrels and boredom, huddling in cramped compounds that defied heroic images of camps full of fraternal warriors...

Beyayo is about 5-foot-5, chubby and bespectacled. Like the others, he is of North African descent. He grew up in the tough Anderlecht neighborhood of Brussels, and his brothers have done time for robbery and arms trafficking. But he does not have a criminal record. He interspersed college courses with fundamentalist Islam...

After several men called their mothers from Iran, the group entered Pakistan via Zahedan, an Iranian border town that is a hub for militants and smugglers, the Belgian anti-terrorism official said. As they approached the tribal zone dominated by the Taliban, military patrols looked the other way and diners at a roadside restaurant seemed to know exactly where they were headed...

Fearful of the drones as well as informants spotting them and targeting hide-outs for missile strikes, the trainees hunkered inside during the day. They moved frequently among crowded, squalid houses shared with local families in mountain hamlets.

The suspects say they wanted desperately to fight American troops in Afghanistan. To their dismay, the chiefs made them cough up more cash for weapons. They were assigned to train with an Arab group numbering 300 to 500, but spread out in small units for security. Religious and military instruction took place indoors, with firearms and explosives sessions confined to courtyards for secrecy.

A Saudi chief named Mortez assured the Europeans that they would go to the Afghan front. But idle weeks followed...

Late last year, Beyayo, Othmani and two others finally came home and into the clutches of police, who had monitored them closely. A central question: the extent of their involvement in terrorist activity.

Their defense lawyers insist that they are failed holy warriors.

"They just weren't tough enough," Marchand said.

Investigators have doubts. French police point out that the explosives instruction described by Othmani is far more extensive than that received by many previous trainees.

Police think the Europeans may have exaggerated their haplessness to conceal a dark purpose.
AJE: 60 Taliban militants reported killed in Helmand province of Afghanistan, drug loot seized

WP: the military tries to regain its footing in Swat
The battle for Swat, which is seen as a crucial test in Pakistan's war with radical Islamist insurgents, has forced about 2 million civilians to flee the area. The vast majority of Mingora's residents have left, and they may not be able to return to their homes for months or longer. The military estimates that as many as 20,000 residents remain trapped in the city and has said it will move carefully to avoid civilian casualties as well as the mines that Taliban fighters are thought to have laid to destroy advancing vehicles...

The Taliban has controlled Swat off and on since late 2007. Under a peace deal with the government, its fighters were supposed to lay down their weapons this spring in exchange for the institution of Islamic courts in Swat. But the truce collapsed when Taliban fighters overran the adjacent areas of Buner and Dir, putting their forces within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. For nearly a month since the deal's demise, 15,000 Pakistani troops have fought about 3,000 to 4,000 Taliban fighters up and down steep mountain passes...

The people of Swat have long been known for their moderation, but the valley was vulnerable to Taliban advances because of its proximity to the Afghan border and the ineffectiveness of the government in exerting local control. During their reign in the valley, the militants have instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law, one that features public lashings for petty crimes and beheadings for those who dare to challenge Taliban authority. The militants are led locally by Maulana Fazlullah, a charismatic young preacher who spreads his message of armed insurrection against the state through pirated radio transmissions.
NYT: military captures 'slaughter square', or nearly does
The army’s capture of the central square, known as Green Square, carried symbolic weight. Under the Taliban, it had gained notoriety as “Slaughter Square.” Beheaded bodies — often of people accused of spying or of un-Islamic behavior — were thrown in the square to intimidate residents.

However, Mehmood Shah, a defense analyst and a retired brigadier in Peshawar who used to be in charge of security in the tribal regions of the North-West Frontier Province, said most of the captured neighborhoods were suburbs and the troops had not moved into the city in a “major way.”...

On Sunday morning, helicopter gunships struck multiple targets in the Orakzai tribal region, including a religious school, The A.P. reported, citing a local government official, Mohammad Yasin.

At least 6 civilians were among the 18 dead, Mr. Yasin said, adding that the targets were strongholds of Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to the Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. Hundreds fled the area amid the fighting, he said.

The Pakistani military said curfew was relaxed from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Matta and Khawazakhela, two towns that have been cleared of militants.
NYRB: but Pakistanis are clearly not sufficiently exhausted
"According to the Islamabad columnist Farrukh Saleem, 11 percent of Pakistan's territory is either directly controlled or contested by the Taliban. Ten percent of Balochistan province, in the southwest of the country, is a no-go area because of another raging insurgency led by Baloch separatists. Karachi, the port city of 17 million people, is an ethnic and sectarian tinderbox waiting to explode. In the last days of April thirty-six people were killed there in ethnic violence. The Taliban are now penetrating into Punjab, Pakistan's political and economic heartland where the major cities of Islamabad and Lahore are located and where 60 percent of the country's 170 million people live. Fear is gripping the population there...

The insurgency in Pakistan is perhaps even more deadly than the one in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan there is only one ethnic group strongly opposing the government—the Pashtuns who make up the Taliban—and so fighting is largely limited to the south and east of the country, while the other major ethnic groups in the west and the north are vehemently anti-Taliban. Moreover, more than a few Pashtuns and their tribal leaders support the Karzai government. In Pakistan, the Pashtun Taliban are now being aided and abetted by extremists from all the major ethnic groups in Pakistan. They may not be popular but they generate fear and terror from Karachi on the south coast to Peshawar on the Afghan border."
BBC: remembering Swat's idyllic period

WP: Iraqi displaced waiting for a permanent settlement
The camp illustrates some of the problems Iraq faces as it attempts to build the institutions of a modern state: Although there is a semblance of peace, the country remains riddled with fault lines of sect and ethnicity, and saddled with competing authorities...
WP: car bomb in Baghdad
WP: another on friday

AJE: fighting in Mogadishu intensifies
AJE: and thousands leave the city
NYT: ...as the cleavage shifts to a religious one inland
Their shrines were being destroyed. Their imams were being murdered. Their tolerant beliefs were under withering attack.

So the moderate Sufi scholars recently did what so many other men have chosen to do in anarchic Somalia: they picked up guns and entered the killing business, in this case to fight back against the Shabab, one of the most fearsome extremist Muslim groups in Africa.

“Clan wars, political wars, we were always careful to stay out of those,” said Sheik Omar Mohamed Farah, a Sufi leader. “But this time, it was religious.”

In the past few months, a new axis of conflict has opened up in Somalia, an essentially governmentless nation ripped apart by rival clans since 1991. Now, in a definitive shift, fighters from different clans are forming alliances and battling one another along religious lines, with deeply devout men on both sides charging into firefights with checkered head scarves, assault rifles and dusty Korans...

If Mogadishu falls, Somalia will be dragged deeper into the violent morass that the United Nations, the United States and other Western countries have tried hard to stanch, and the country will fragment even further into warring factions, with radical Islamists probably on top.

But out here, on the wind-whipped plains of Somalia’s central region, it is a different story. The moderates are holding their own, and the newly minted Sufi militia is about the only local group to go toe-to-toe with the Shabab and win...

But the Sufis have achieved what the transitional government has not: grass-roots support, which explains how they were able to move so quickly from a bunch of men who had never squeezed a trigger before — a rarity in Somalia — into a cohesive fighting force backed by local clans.
CSM: Somaliland attempts secesion by order
If this doesn't feel like Somalia, residents say that's because it's not. This is Somaliland, a northern former British protectorate that broke away from chaotic southern Somalia in 1991, established an admirably stable government, and hoped never to look back.

No country has recognized Somaliland's independence, however. The argument has always been that to do so would further destabilize Somalia, even as Somalia seems to be destabilizing well enough on its own...

A territory of 5 million people, Somaliland is trying to be a good regional citizen, hosting tens of thousands of refugees from southern Somalia and, lately, trying and imprisoning pirates, which few governments anywhere have been eager to do.

At least 26 men are serving time in Somaliland prisons for piracy. Last month, a European warship stopped nine men who were attempting to hijack a Yemeni vessel but allowed them to flee in a lifeboat. The would-be pirates washed ashore in Somaliland, where police and the scrappy coast guard, which patrols a 600-mile coastline with two speedboats and a tiny fleet of motorized skiffs, chased them down...

Yes, the territory has a foreign minister, along with liaison offices — don't call them diplomatic missions — in a handful of countries including the United States. It has a president and a bicameral legislature, as well as feisty opposition parties. It issues its own currency — crisp bills printed in the United Kingdom — and its own passports and visas...

From colonial times, Somaliland took a different path. In the 19th-century scrum over Africa, Britain acquired the territory mainly to supply its more important garrison in Aden, across the sea in Yemen.

Relatively few British expatriates settled here, leaving tribes and institutions intact, while southern Somalia became a full-fledged colony of Italy, complete with Italianate architecture and banana farms to supply the home country.

The British and Italian territories were joined at independence to form the Somali Republic, but in 1991, with the southern-based regime verging on collapse, a rebel government in Somaliland declared itself autonomous. After two years of fighting, a new government emerged that melded traditional clan structures with Western-style separation of powers, a hybrid system that some experts have called a prototype for the rest of Somalia.

TNR: the war on terror
Slate: send Cheney back to the bunker

LAT: the FARC ventures into Panama
The heavily armed rebels usually show up in groups of 20 or more, dressed in green fatigues and seeking food.

"Of course you have to give it to them," said one resident of this isolated village 35 miles west of the Colombian border. "People don't like that they're here, but with few police and many informants around, they keep quiet."

Then just as suddenly, the rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, melt back into the jungle.

Over the last decade, the leftist insurgents have regularly spilled over into Panama, seeking rest and respite from pursuing Colombian armed forces. But rarely have they appeared as frequently or penetrated so deeply into Panamanian territory as in recent months, say residents and officials here in Darien province...

U.S. counter-narcotics officials believe that the FARC and other Colombian traffickers are shipping more drugs from Colombia overland across Panama to avoid tighter control of Pacific and Caribbean coastal waterways by the Panamanian and U.S. naval forces...

"In the last year or two, you really notice them more," another El Real resident said this month. "They come around to buy necessities -- rice, beans, salt and milk -- and they always pay. They don't involve themselves in local disputes and other issues. But they have their informants who tell them if the police are coming."

Like others interviewed for this story, El Real residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of FARC reprisal.

They have good reason. In early April, rebels killed a Colombian refugee in nearby Boca de Cupe in front of his three children, leaving a note pinned to his chest inscribed with the word sapo -- Spanish slang for "snitch."...

A recent census turned up the presence of 108 gangs in the country, a revelation to authorities who thought Panama was immune to a problem that has spawned crime waves in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Many of the gangs are thought to have links to the FARC.

In reaction, the U.S. Embassy has launched a $4-million anti-gang program that is funded from the Merida Initiative, the anti-drug aid package that was passed by Congress mainly to help Mexico fight the cartels.
WP: meanwhile, in the land of futile policymaking, trying to get crop substitution to stick

DLC: report on the 'narcoinsurgency' in Mexico
LAT: Mexico prison break was an inside job, caught on camera

BBC: Bolivia celebrates 200 years of independence, and hangs on to some of its colonial legacy
But in Sucre, the festival has a sombre side. There is still a huge split between the city's European descendents and the indigenous people - a split which is repeated in many countries of the region...

"There are many myths saying Indians are dangerous. From when they are very young, children in the cities are told "don't go there or the Indian will get you". In cities like Sucre, people panic if you say 'Indians are coming to take over'," [a priest] said.

"In the past, people were told Indians would come, rape the women and steal everything. Actually, it is the other way round. Even today young Indian girls working as maids are still sexually abused. It's common for young men to be allowed to use them to get sexual experience."

BBC: presidential elections in Mongolia
Last year, five people died and hundreds were hurt in protests over alleged fraud in general elections.

President Enkhbayar of the former Communist Party campaigned on law and order.

Mr Elbegdorj of the Democratic Party pledged to fight corruption and reform control of Mongolia's natural resources.

In 1990, Mongolia abandoned its 70-year-old Soviet-style one-party state and embraced political and economic reforms.

AJE: Nepal settles on a communist prime minister, after days of negotiating; Maoists boycotted
Kumar's predecessor Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the leader of the [Maoist party] UCPN-M, resigned on May 4 after the country's president stopped him from firing the army chief.

Though Dahal attempted to block parliamentary proceedings for Saturday's vote, he did put an end to protests several days ago that made Kumar's election possible.

Both Dahal's and Kumar's parties are communist but differ in policies and beliefs.

AP: Canadian court finds Rwandan resident guilty of war crimes
Munyaneza was living in Toronto when he was arrested in October 2005 after reports that he had been seen circulating among Canada's Rwandan community. At the time, African Rights, a Rwandan group that has documented the genocide, linked Munyaneza to key figures indicted by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

During his trial, more than 66 witnesses testified in Montreal, and in depositions in Rwanda, France and Kenya, often behind closed doors to protect their identities. Many accused Munyaneza, who was 27 at the time, of being a ground-level leader in a militia group that raped and murdered dozens.

AP: Naxalites kill 16 police officers near Nagpur

++
WSJ: ask and tell already

NPR: it's just business, arrgh
That surprising call marked another step in an unusual working relationship, between a bargainer for pirates demanding a $7 million ransom and the businessperson trying to save sailors' lives. "We started talking because I was curious about the inner working of the system ... and he was very forthcoming with that," Gullestrup says.

Over the course of their conversations, Gullestrup asked about the pirates' thinking when they lowered the ransom figure. Gullestrup won't say exactly how much the company paid, only that it was between $1 million and $2 million.

For his part, Mohammed says he was curious about the shipping company's bargaining strategy, and that the men have continued to e-mail back and forth — two or three times a day.

"We talk about the issues of piracy or this or that," Mohammed says...

Pirates, meanwhile, are colluding, sharing intelligence in an unregulated environment. Economists would say the dynamic centers on market power. The situation makes it hard for a shipper like Gullestrup to figure out the market rate for ransom.

"The owners are escalating the ransom payments because they're not coordinating how to deal with pirates," Gullestrup says. "The pirates are extremely good at sharing information. We know for a fact from Ali the pirates have piracy workshops. Pirates of various clans, [their] elders are getting together and they will exchange information."...

Mohammed says he gets something out of the relationship, too. He doesn't see himself as a pirate. He says he agreed to negotiate for pirates so he could learn enough about their business to start his own.

"If I become an expert on piracy and try to milk that, I think it is a legit business," he says. "The news media and global news media will need someone who is going to be an authority, to report from the inner feelings of a pirate, and to report whether pirates are going to stay around for a long time or not, and how to eliminate piracy."...

The executive expresses a certain appreciation for Mohammed's character. "He's a very kind person, and he has a wife and a son," Gullestrup says. "He has a large herd of camels. He sent me an e-mail that said he allocated three camel babies to me, for which I'm honored."

Mohammed called the gift a good gesture. "It's those little things that count."
WP: US trains coast guards in Africa

NYT: remembering perpetrators in a horrific, and (relatively) human light
MR. LU’S fascination with war came from eight years of service in the Chinese Army. That period began when, at 18, he enrolled in the People’s Liberation Army Institute of International Relations, in Nanjing. It was an unusual move for the elder of two sons from an intellectual family; Mr. Lu’s father is a prominent novelist. But it was one that his father insisted on, Mr. Lu said, because he did not want him to get caught up in the chaos of 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square student protests and massacre.

OI: Jack Bauer vs Barack Obama

between the tragic and the ridiculous [just another day]

WSJ: Pakistan conflict, now in third week, creating fastest civilian displacement since Rwandan genocide
The U.N. believes around 15 to 20% of the displaced are in camps at the moment around 250,000 in some 24 camps, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said, "which means most people are either with host families, communities, in rented accommodation or somewhere else."...

Holmes said the U.N. had previously asked for an extra $150 million and had only received $50 million in firm contributions as of last week, but since then a number of countries have made pledges...

He said the U.N. is also reminding all sides to "make sure that civilians are protected insofar as is possible, that they're not targeted, that areas where they're known to be are avoided, that people are not using civilians as protection or human shields."
WT: Taliban flee from government attacks toward Pakistani capital
As the Pakistan military intensifies its attacks in the northwest and the U.S. keeps launching missiles there, more insurgents are seeking safety in Karachi and other urban areas, militants said.

"We come in different batches to Karachi to rest and if needed, get medical treatment, and stay with many of our brothers who are living here in large numbers," militant Omar Gul Mehsud, 32, told the Associated Press while strolling along the beach, astonished at the vastness of the sea, which he'd never seen before...

On the outskirts of Karachi, large settlements of Afghan and Pakistani refugees have swelled over the past year by as many as 200,000 people. These refugees are mostly Pashtun, the ethnic group that dominates the militancy. An intelligence report obtained by the AP warns that such neighborhoods have become favored hideouts for militants linked to Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's top Taliban commander.
AP: more concern that offensive may turn conflict into urban warfare
CSM: from clearing to holding in Pakistan's strategy
Pakistan is trying to wrest control of Buner from the Taliban, who seized the district – just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad – last month. But the military Pakistan has a poor track record of holding cleared territory, leaving many experts and refugees skeptical about the long-term gains from this operation.

"The Army can clear if by clearing it means utter devastation, but it certainly doesn't seem able to hold," says Christine Fair, an analyst with RAND Corporation in Washington. "Partly they have a doctrinal problem. They don't have a lot of institutions you'd expect them to have, because they are not a counterinsurgency military."...

Pakistan does have some institutions valuable for this transition, however. One is the district coordination officer, or DCO, who acts as a bridge between military and civilian administration in a given region. It's a role that gained more power under the former military dictatorship of President Pervez Musharraf.

The DCO for Buner, Yahya Akhunzada, says he has been meeting nearly every day with the military to coordinate the return of people, police, and administration to cleared areas. Police are starting to return to Daggar and Totalai, two regions in lower Buner. Within a week, 200 police will be sent from the provincial capital of Peshawar as reinforcements, allowing routine policing to restart in these areas.... And until the police have regained their footing, it's unlikely judges will return to their courts, teachers to their classrooms, and residents such as Qamar to their homes.

Backstopping the police is where a good paramilitary force ought to step in to relieve the Army – and where Pakistan admits it has a problem.
BBC: US to give $110 million in emergency aid
The money will be used to provide generators, tents, water trucks and food to some of those forced to flee. An initial $26m will go towards the immediate purchase of wheat and other food produced in Pakistan itself...

"One of our guiding principles is that this should be more than just the delivery of supplies," Mrs Clinton said. "It should be an investment in the people of Pakistan, so we will buy locally from the bumper crop of wheat and we'll work to help create quick impact job programs that will put Pakistanis to work making goods for their fellow citizens."

NYT: Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush’s ambassador to Afghanistan, to become country's "chief executive officer"?
Such an alliance would benefit Mr. Karzai by co-opting a potential rival. For its part, the White House has made no secret of its growing disenchantment with Mr. Karzai, and some Afghanistan experts said that enlisting Mr. Khalilzad would have the virtue of bringing a strong, competent leader into an increasingly dysfunctional Afghan government.

The position would allow Mr. Khalilzad to serve as “a prime minister, except not prime minister because he wouldn’t be responsible to a parliamentary system,” a senior Obama administration official said... Administration officials insisted that the United States was not behind the idea of enlisting Mr. Khalilzad to serve in the Afghan government, and they gave no further details on what his duties might be.

They said that Mr. Karzai had sought out Mr. Khalilzad, but that the idea of enlisting a chief executive had also been raised by Gordon Brown, the British prime minister.
NYT: US says Afghans killed in last week's airstrike mostly Taliban

NYT: Iraqi government arrests two influential Sunni leaders for "committing crimes against civilians" in potentially destabilizing move
The Awakening movement played a crucial role in reducing the violence in Iraq over the past two years, but some Sunni leaders have complained that the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has broken its promise to integrate their members in the country’s security forces. They also have expressed concern that the government regards them as a threat, and that it is planning attacks on Awakening members as the American military reduces its activities in Iraq.
CSM: implementing the US-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) requires reimaginging Iraq's city limits
WP: Kurd-Arab conflicts continue in the north
For a few frantic minutes, Iraq's most dangerous fault line came perilously close to becoming a battlefield. As with another standoff last fall between the pesh merga [a detachment of the Kurdish government militia] and the Iraqi army in the dusty border town of Khanaqin, Bashika has emerged as a flash point in a growing test of wills over who will control land claimed by Arabs and the Kurdish autonomous government in the north of Iraq that many fear may be resolved only through violence...

In the contested region, running along a crescent in northwestern Nineveh, offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the two main parties of the Kurdish autonomous government, have sprouted in almost every village in the four years of Kurdish rule... Together, the two parties control a variety of functions, including security, intelligence gathering and issuance of motor vehicle license plates. Mail from the Arab-controlled provincial council is often sent back, unopened, Kurdish officials said. Orders are ignored.

NYT: Obama says his Guantánamo plan “will begin to restore the [military] commissions as a legitimate forum,” amidst criticism
“I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference,” said Cmdr. Suzanne M. Lachelier of the Navy, the military lawyer for one of the detainees charged with coordinating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “We’re going to end up with trials with evidence that is the product of coercion and secret hearings.”...

The filing [to military judges]... said the revisions would involve the rules for the treatment of classified evidence, one of the most contentious issues at the prison at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But the filing did provide details of several changes Mr. Obama outlined on Friday. He said, for example, that “the accused will have greater latitude in selecting their counsel.”... It said that a detainee would be permitted a lawyer “of the accused’s own choosing.” But it added that the requested lawyer must be assigned to the Pentagon’s office of military defense lawyers for Guantánamo.

Maj. David J. R. Frakt of the Air Force, another defense lawyer for a Guantánamo detainee who is facing charges, said that change indicated that several of the Obama administration’s alterations to the Bush administration’s system were what he called “minor cosmetic changes.”...

The filing was part of a package of materials provided to the military judges at Guantánamo asking them to suspend cases until Sept. 17. The documents indicated that the administration had concluded that to win convictions it might need to retain the advantages the commissions were intended to give military prosecutors.
NYT: Senate rejects Obama's request for $80 million to close Guantánamo
Administration officials have indicated that if the Guantánamo camp closes as scheduled more than 100 prisoners may need to be moved to the United States, including 50 to 100 who have been described as too dangerous to release.

Of the 240 detainees, 30 have been cleared for release. Some are likely to be transferred to foreign countries, though other governments have been reluctant to take them. Britain and France have each accepted one former detainee. And while as many as 80 of the detainees will be prosecuted, it remains unclear what will happen to those who are convicted and sentenced to prison...

The House last week overwhelmingly approved the $96.7 billion spending measure after stripping the money for closing Guantánamo and inserting language barring Mr. Obama from transferring any detainees to the United States without first presenting a detailed plan to Congress, and giving lawmakers a chance to review it.

CSM: Supreme Court suit lets Mueller and Ashcroft off the hook for violating constitutional rights of Pakistani detainee, makes future cases more difficult
US Supreme Court handed a major victory to FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday when it dismissed a lawsuit that sought to hold both men personally responsible for allegedly violating the constitutional rights of post-911 detainees wrongly suspected of involvement in terrorism...

"A plaintiff must plead that each government-official defendant, through the official's own individual actions, has violated the Constitution," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. A plaintiff must "plead sufficient factual matter to show that [government officials] adopted and implemented the detention policies at issue not for a neutral, investigative reason but for the purpose of discriminating on account of race, religion, or national origin."

In a dissent, Justice David Souter said he would allow the suit to move forward. "[The complaint] does not say merely that Ashcroft was the architect of some amorphous discrimination, or that Mueller was instrumental in an ill-defined constitutional violation; [the complaint] alleges that they helped to create the discriminatory policy."

The high court decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal will help insulate high-level government officials – and former Bush administration officials – from similar war-on-terror lawsuits. At the same time, it will make it significantly more difficult for current or former terror suspects and their lawyers to obtain judicial oversight of their treatment by the US government. Similar civil lawsuits are pending in the federal courts against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Justice Department legal advisor John Yoo, among others.

In his dissent, Justice Souter said the majority decision undercuts the possibility of suing government supervisors for the unconstitutional actions of their subordinates. Such suits were authorized in a 1971 Supreme Court case called Bivens. "Lest there be any mistake," Souter wrote, "the majority is not narrowing the scope of supervisory liability; it is eliminating Bivens supervisory liability entirely."...

Many of the allegations in Iqbal's suit are consistent with the findings of an April 2003 report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General. The report criticized officials for establishing a system that punished detainees and treated them as guilty until proven innocent. The report said that many Muslim men were held under harsh conditions on baseless leads that the FBI took months to investigate and disprove.

The suit alleges systematic mistreatment, including being held 23 hours-a-day in a solitary-confinement cell with the windows painted over and the lights always on. Iqbal was given minimal bedding. The air conditioning was run in the winter, the heat turned on in the summer. He was subject to daily strip and body-cavity searches. The guards once forced him to submit to three consecutive body-cavity searches in a row. When he protested a fourth search, he was punched and kicked by the guards. By the time he was released, he'd lost 40 pounds.
WP: CIA concerned about losing right to use certain clandestine activities
Harsh interrogations were only one part of its clandestine activities against al-Qaeda and other enemies, and agency members are worried that other operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan will come under review, the officials said...

Agency officials said they will carry out any future debriefings or interrogations under provisions of the 2006 version of the Army Field Manual... But according to several past agency and military officials, the Field Manual is sometimes so broad as to be unclear...

The special task force set up by Obama in January will determine whether the Field Manual interrogation guidelines are too narrow and whether "additional guidance is necessary for CIA," according to a White House statement. A report on that study is not expected before July.
LAT: the story behind the US-led rendition and torture of an Egyptian from Italy
Lady seems a rather tragic figure at the heart of the case: a veteran spy who, after the Sept. 11 attacks, established himself as a point man in the shadows of the battle against the Islamic extremist underworld. Although he took risks to try to stop the abduction, in the end he allegedly became one of its dutiful architects.

The bearded, curly-haired Lady, now 55, spoke excellent Italian. He thrived in the convivial culture of Italian law enforcement, doing business over espresso and long lunches, hosting barbecues. He cultivated bonds with anti-terrorism units of agencies that are wary of one another: the SISMI spy service, the paramilitary Carabinieri and the national police. He passed along valuable leads from U.S. intercepts and offered cash and high-tech equipment for costly stakeouts...

Lady also developed his own agents at a mosque that was a European hub for Al Qaeda, targeting a network suspected of sending militants to training camps in northern Iraq. He helped Milan anti-terrorism police build a case against the rendition target, Abu Omar, regarded as a vehement ideologue in the group.

At a discreet sit-down with D'Ambrosio in October 2002, however, Lady said that his CIA bosses had decided to circumvent the police and abduct Abu Omar, supposedly hoping to force him to become an informant. As a result, Lady was embroiled in a feud in his own agency. The American told D'Ambrosio that he had an "awful" relationship with the CIA's Rome station chief, who resented Lady's criticisms of the planned rendition and had sent a tough deputy to Milan to make sure he followed orders...

The U.S. government has refused to comment. The Italian government has tried to scuttle the prosecution in the name of state secrecy laws. Responding to a high court decision on a government appeal, the judge here will decide Wednesday whether the trial can continue and what evidence can be used...

On the witness stand in October, D'Ambrosio summed it up: "We were between the tragic and the ridiculous."
NYT: Spanish lawmakers seek to limit judges' use of universal jurisdiction to only cases involving Spanish victims or on Spanish territory
As for universal jurisdiction laws, Belgium’s case may be instructive. Israel protested to Belgium in 2003 after survivors of the 1982 attacks on the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps near Beirut filed a complaint in Belgium against Ariel Sharon, who was defense minister at the time of the attacks.

But it was American pressure that made Belgium retract its law in 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld threatened Belgium that it risked losing its status as host to NATO’s headquarters if it did not rescind the law.

If Spain restricts its current broad law, it will fall in line with most European countries. Germany also has a broad form of universal jurisdiction, but the state prosecutor must approve any criminal case before it can proceed. In Spain, an investigating judge can ignore the opinion of the state prosecutor.

LAT: major figure in "the Camorra," or Naples mafia, captured in Spain
The nickname of purported boss Raffaele Amato is "the Spaniard." He partied in Marbella, a beachfront refuge of high-rolling international desperadoes and dubious fortunes. Investigators say he set up multinational cocaine deals in Barcelona...

Amato's capture Saturday was a major victory for Italian investigators. The balding 44-year-old gained notoriety for allegedly setting off a turf war with a rival clan between 2004 and 2007 that littered the high-rise slums of Naples with 70 bodies...

The Camorra's intense activity in Spain reveals evolving alliances and shifting global crime networks, investigators say... "They reorganized the routes," Laudati said. "One important route for cocaine into Spain went through North Africa. Another crossed the Balkans into Italy. And Barcelona became a hub for a land route for cocaine to Italy through France, where the Marseilles underworld has always had close ties to the Camorra. So you had a mixed operational group of bosses base itself in Spain."

WSJ: prison break in Mexico sees more than 50 cartel enforcers released in inside job
PCB: Colombian defense minister resigns in bid to seek presidency

CSM: stronger NRA as anti-Obama hysteria grows; GOP seeks to tap in
Despite these successes, Mr. Lapierre, the NRA CEO, spoke almost in doomsday terms this weekend about opponents of the Second Amendment. "The bomb is armed and the fuse is lit," he said. "They are going to come at us with everything they've got, and we are going to be ready for them. If they want to fight, we will fight."

To critics, it is rhetoric completely out of proportion to the current threat. "Despite the fact that they won their Supreme Court case, they act as if they lost," says Josh Sugarmann, founder of the Violence Policy Center in Washington... The concern is that the amplitude of the rhetoric on the issue of gun rights is creating a certain hysteria. At a major gun show in Phoenix two weeks ago, Daniel Guier, a gun owner from Chandler, Ariz., witnessed an entry queue that snaked around an entire coliseum, people standing five abreast.

"There's a paranoia now that I've never seen before due to the unpredictability of Washington and the idea that, sooner or later, Obama will put up the fight," says Mr. Guier. "Unfortunately, that means that a lot of people who probably shouldn't be owning guns are buying guns."

WSJ: Tamil Tigers' leader is dead, but is the insurgency?
The rebel defeat echoes the experiences of other nations, from Colombia to Russia, where hard-fisted tactics defeated extremist foes. Yet as those nations also found, the political and economic turbulence left by decades of fighting suggests the limitations of such a victory.

Mr. Prabhakaran was the heart and soul of the Tamil Tigers, and security experts say he has left a profound and lasting influence on global terrorism. "The Tamil Tigers were the most creative terrorist group in the world," said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore. "And they shared their expertise."

The 54-year-old Mr. Prabhakaran was shot with other senior leaders as they attempted to drive through a government security cordon in an ambulance, according to military and government officials. Troops had surrounded the last of the Tiger rebels in a slice of territory about the size of a football field, and were closing in.
LAT: Prabhakaran's innovations, and legacy
At its peak, the group controlled one-third of Sri Lanka, had its own sizable army and navy, a nascent air force, courts, tax collectors, hospitals, smuggling operations and liaison offices in 54 countries. Its innovations included the use of suicide vests lined with C-4 plastic explosives, recruiting female suicide bombers and perfecting political terror.

Tiger naval operations reportedly inspired Al Qaeda's 2000 attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole. Until the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Tigers, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, reportedly carried out two-thirds of all suicide attacks in the world...

But even as other militant groups such as the Irish Republican Army turned in their guns for a place at the negotiating table, his refusal to compromise ultimately left Tamils with little in the way of a lasting political legacy.

CSM: Nepalese peace on shaky ground as Maoists take on opposition role
Prachanda, a former rebel leader whose name means "the fierce one," quit [as caretaker Prime Minister] following a dispute with the Army over integrating his former fighters into the military as part of a 2006 peace accord that ended the insurgency. His resignation, ostensibly in "defense of civilian control over the Army" after the country's president countermanded his decision to sack the army chief on May 3, failed to ignite mass protests as the Maoists had hoped.

Instead, the Maoists find themselves increasingly isolated, with most rival parties joining hands to form a new government. Now the party looks set to take up the role of the country's main opposition, something new for the former rebels who were fighting a guerrilla war against government forces until 2006. Analysts say that the army chief row could effectively put an end to the politics of consensus that was the foundation of peace agreements signed after Maoists officially ended their war in November 2006... There are 19,702 Maoist fighters living in cantonments across Nepal monitored by the United Nations. Unless they are resettled into society, lasting peace is hard for most Nepalis to imagine.

LAT: Israeli prime minister meets with Obama, lays out his conditions for Palestinian statehood
Netanyahu has long contended that any Palestinian state would have to cede traditional sovereign powers to have a military and to control its borders and electronic communications, steps he said are necessary to give Israel "the means to defend itself."...

Though the two leaders exchanged praise and insisted they shared many goals, it was clear after the four-hour meeting that they remained separated by a wide distance on key issues. Where Obama emphasized that Israel must halt growth of Jewish settlements, Netanyahu said nothing on the subject in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office.
BBC: Israel's security leader says West Bank barrier wall not needed for security
The UN has criticised Israel, citing an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that parts of the barrier built inside Palestinian territory in the West Bank - 90% of the route - are contrary to international law... Meanwhile, Israeli police say a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza has landed in the town of Sderot, causing damage but no casualties... It was one of very few rockets launched from Gaza in recent weeks. Israeli security officials have said the Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, is trying to maintain a truce so it can re-arm following Israel's offensive earlier this year.
CSM: for Netanyahu, concessions re. Palestine risk fragmenting his coalition; Iran a priority
WT: RAND suggests change in rhetoric toward Iran


CSM: Islamists in Somalia near capital, throwing a wrench into Western stabilization plans
After a week of heavy mortar and rocket attacks that have left at least 135 people dead and sent tens of thousands fleeing, the insurgents have moved to within a half-mile of the hilltop presidential palace in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, which is being guarded by African Union peacekeepers with tanks and armored vehicles...

Despite a beefed-up African Union peacekeeping force and a UN-backed reconciliation effort, the moderate president, Sheik Sharif Ahmed, has failed to win the support of hard-liners such as Aweys or the powerful insurgent group Al Shabab, which the State Department has labeled a terrorist organization...

The top UN diplomat for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said Friday that 280 to 300 foreigners were fighting alongside the insurgents. Somali government officials say the foreigners come from countries such as Afghanistan and Chechnya and have trained local fighters in explosives and tactics.
BBC: guess who's baaaack? Ethiopia!
On Sunday, fighters from the al-Shabab group, which is linked to al-Qaeda, took the key town of Jowhar from government forces. This is the home town of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and now that the country's rainy season has arrived, Jowhar is the only passable route into central Somalia from the capital.

Since withdrawing at the beginning of the year, Ethiopian troops have kept up a strong presence along the Somali border... About 4,300 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers from the African Union have arrived in Mogadishu, where they have taken up positions vacated by the Ethiopians in January.

But analysts say they are only in effective control of the presidential palace, airport and seaport in Mogadishu, while the Islamist guerrillas control chunks of the capital, along with swathes of central and southern Somalia.
BBC: East Africa's Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) asks for port and air blockades

WP: Sudanese rebels to be brought before the ICC on war crimes charges
It is the first time that Darfur's rebels have been charged with war crimes since the court began investigating mass violence in that Sudanese region in 2005. Until now, the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has focused on the Sudanese government's role in atrocities, and has issued arrest warrants for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a top aide and an allied militia leader...

While Darfur's rebel factions are believed to be responsible for a small portion of the killings in the region, they have frequently targeted foreign peacekeepers and aid workers, and have stolen vehicles, communications equipment and other items that they have used to bolster their capacity to fight the government.

Moreno-Ocampo wrote in November that he decided to prosecute the rebels because attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers constitute an "exceptionally serious offense" that strikes at the heart of the international community's ability to maintain peace and security in conflict zones such as Darfur.

WP: unstable power-sharing deal in Kenya, and remembering post-election violence
The gangs that carried out the massacre had come marching in a military formation, locked the church doors and shoved gasoline-soaked mattresses against the outside walls, hacking to death people who tried to escape the flames through windows.

But what newspapers and angry letters to the editors have focused on in the days since the memorial service is who did not attend the ceremony, billed by hopeful organizers as one of "healing, forgiveness and reconciliation."

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the former opposition leader in whose name the violence was carried out -- some of the gangs called themselves "Raila's Army" -- didn't show up. Not a single leader from the local Kalenjin community, whose members made up those machete-wielding, torch-bearing gangs, came to the ceremony, a deliberate boycott. Instead, some local Kalenjin residents said that if a monument to the victims were built, as has been proposed, they would destroy it.