the lives of others [dirty tricks and disenchantment]

LAT: Central Intelligence Organization officer in Zimbabwe speculates on Mugabe's support
"The CIO casts a long shadow. Small, everyday encounters become fraught with fear. Common coincidences are magnified into something sinister. Everyone knows how the CIO guys work: You never notice them until you spot a car behind you, then drive around the block a few times and find it's still there.

There are plenty of terrifying stories about what happens to the people who are arrested, ranging from lengthy interrogation to torture. So I'm a little taken aback by the man from the President's Office. He turns out to be thirtysomething, educated, articulate and urbane. Had he been born in any other country, he might have found a career at a bank, a think tank, a law firm. Instead, he learned about dirty tricks and disenchantment.

For years, the Mugabe regime has used the CIO to undermine and frighten the opposition, keep an eye on journalists and neutralize threats. But these days the name President's Office is a misnomer, says the senior officer, who, unsurprisingly, speaks on condition of anonymity. He estimates that 60% to 70% of CIO officers -- all but the hard-line ideologues -- no longer back Mugabe...

Slowly and cautiously, [the officer] is trying get a foot into the opposition camp as well, by leaking information to the MDC's security wing through an intermediary. But it's a nerve-racking business, given the ruling party's predilection for watching its own as avidly as it watches the enemy."

NYT: 'white collar' rebels try to establish order in Congo
"Inside his office, Mr. Banga sat at a desk behind a rising stack of paper, listing residents by neighborhood. Rutshuru and neighboring Kiwanja are home to about 150,000 people in all, the largest population area in eastern Congo under rebel control.

“Hoes and seeds,” he said. “That’s what we need. We want to get these people back to work.”

But Mr. Banga, a former power plant engineer who said he joined the rebel army “for revolution,” said his new administration was short of cash.

Not surprisingly, rebel soldiers have begun tax collection — at gunpoint, demanding $120 from each truck that passes through their checkpoints. Aid workers say that the rebels seem more serious about providing security than Congolese government troops, who are notorious for raping and plundering, but that the new taxes are hampering the emergency efforts.

There are new rebel stamps saying “Unity, Justice, Development.” And even a new rebel police force, distinct from the bush fighters, with officers wearing stolen government police uniforms.

“What’s the difference between us and soldiers?” said one young police officer, too young to shave. “We protect people.”

But many of their new subjects are not so sure.

“At night, they invade our homes, looking for money,” said Kavuo Anatasia, 17, a mother. “Kill us, no. But they beat us.”

BBC: in Rutshuru, a rebel seminar on the history of the Congo
"One of the participants at the meeting sought permission from his superiors to be interviewed by me. Nevertheless, I thought he was extremely brave to agree to speak.

"They are trying to teach us the history of our country," said the participant, choosing his words carefully.

I asked him if the reality was that he and his colleagues were being forced to accept the new ideology.

"No," he said. "We are not being forced. We accept their analysis of the situation," he added in a deliberate voice.

I asked him if he was scared.

"We are not scared," he insisted. "It is in the interests of us and of our people to accept these people. We live here; we cannot leave our town. We are going to see how we can try to live together and build the country."

While rebel soldiers stood nearby, the local administrator added:

"From what I have seen of them they are kind. They are more disciplined than the government army - they are not looting and there is security. Although people are still scared, security is coming here step-by-step."

BBC: EU pressuring Kenya to prosecute politicians linked to last year's violence

Econ: trial underway in France against alleged gun runners to Angola in the early 90s
"After a seven-year investigation, the trial of the 42 individuals accused of involvement in arms trafficking to Angola in the 1990s finally got underway. The so-called "Angolagate" scandal involved arms sales to Angola worth US$790m in 1993-2000, during that country’s civil war, by a French businessman, Pierre Falcone, and his Russian-born associate, Arcady Gaydamak, in which numerous French and Angolan officials allegedly received pay-offs and gifts worth US$56m. Both Mr Falcone and Mr Gaydamak deny any wrongdoing...
So far no Angolan officials have been indicted in the trial which will focus on whether French nationals broke French law relating to arms-trafficking and bribery. Demands by the Angolan government's lawyers for the case to be dismissed, arguing that the trial could reveal sensitive military and diplomatic secrets which would constitute an attack on Angola's sovereignty, have been ignored."

Gdn: EU fleet heading to Gulf of Aden
Gdn: but action against pirates hindered by lack of coherent legal framework
"The UN convention on the law of the sea (Unclos) defines piracy as "all illegal acts of violence or detention ... committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship". But it says that piracy can take place only "on the high seas" or "outside the jurisdiction of any state", which excludes the territorial waters of states, including the coastal areas of Somalia.

Efforts to tackle Somali piracy have relied instead on UN security council resolutions. In June a resolution was passed allowing states that had the consent of Somalia's transitional federal government to "enter the territorial waters of Somalia for the purpose of repressing acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea" and to "use ... in a manner consistent with the action permitted on the high seas with respect to piracy under relevant international law, all necessary means to repress acts of piracy and armed robbery".

However, "action permitted on the high seas" does not permit pursuing and boarding a pirate vessel or arresting those on board. To do so needs the further authorisation of the transitional government.

There have also been suggestions that Somali hijackers could escape the Unclos definition of "pirates" by claiming they are motivated by "political" rather than "private" gain, although it appears that the funds are being used for private enrichment in Somali communities."

Econ: lack of clarity also an issue dealing with these pirates

Slate: revisiting the Russian and Georgian invasions
"Georgia started it and killed civilians in the process. My conclusion? We knew that already. We also knew, and indeed have known for some time, that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is susceptible to extreme bouts of criminal foolhardiness. A year ago this month, he attacked demonstrators in Tbilisi with riot police, arrested opposition leaders, and even smashed up a Rupert Murdoch-owned television station—possibly not, I wrote at the time, the best way to attract positive international media coverage. I'm told Saakashvili—who did indeed overthrow the corrupt Soviet nomenklatura that ran his country—has many virtues. But caution, cool-headedness, and respect for civilian lives and democratic norms are not among them.

We knew that about him—and so did the Russians. That was why they spent much of the previous year taunting and teasing the Georgians, shooting down their planes, firing on their policemen, and attacking their villages, all in an attempt to create a casus belli, either in South Ossetia or in Abkhazia, another Russian-dominated, semi-autonomous enclave inside the Georgian border. And when Saakashvili did what they'd been hoping he'd do, they were ready. As one Russian analyst pointed out, the Russian response was not an improvised reaction to an unexpected Georgian offensive: "The swiftness with which large Russian contingents were moved into Georgia, the rapid deployment of a Black Sea naval task force, the fact that large contingents of troops were sent to Abkhazia where there was no Georgian attack all seem to indicate a rigidly prepared battle plan." There was, it seems, one minor miscalculation. As a very senior Russian official recently told a very senior European official, "We expected the Georgians to invade on Aug. 8, not Aug. 7."
BBC: AI reports 20,000 Georgians still unable to return
"A new twilight zone has been created along the de facto border between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, into which people stray at their peril," Amnesty's Nicola Duckworth said."

Econ: in Moldova, a different approach to separatist demands
"Unlike the belligerent Georgia, Moldova has taken a gentle approach to its Russian-backed separatists, and it is not trying to join NATO. Yet it is barely nearer than Georgia to a deal over lost territory...
Russia does not recognise Transdniestria’s independence, but it wants to keep troops there, a condition all other parties reject...

Yet the dispute has none of the deep hostilities of the Caucasus. Trade across the Dniester is flourishing. The Transdniestrian football team, Sheriff, tops the Moldovan league. Tiraspol is something of a museum of Soviet nostalgia, with its Lenin statue and Karl Marx street. But Sergei Cheban, head of the foreign-affairs committee in the Transdniestrian parliament, tries to be reasonable. Of Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he says “we do not need that kind of recognition,” holding out the chance of a sovereignty deal with Moldova."

BBC: Albanian children trapped by blood feuds
"The non-governmental National Reconciliation Committee (NRC), a group that tries to mediate between warring families, estimates that several thousand Albanian families are currently embroiled in feuds nationwide, leaving some 800 children confined to their homes.

Blood feuds were officially banned during the 40-year rule of Albania's communist-era hardliner Enver Hoxha, but in the chaos that accompanied the fall of communism in the early 1990s, the practice resurfaced, often sparked by disputes over rural property, or slurs on family honour."

BBC: International Court of Justice to hear Croat claims of Serbian genocide
"Croatia first filed the complaint in 1999, accusing Serbia of "a form of genocide which resulted in large numbers of Croatian citizens being displaced, killed, tortured, or illegally detained as well as extensive property destruction".

It referred to crimes committed "in the Knin region, and in eastern and western Slavonia and Dalmatia".

In February 2007, the ICJ cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide during the Bosnian war.

However, it said Serbia had broken international law by failing to stop the killings."

WP: Ortega consolidates power in Nicaragua
"The U.S. Embassy has been accused of counterrevolutionary subversion. A nervous Catholic Church is appealing for calm. The opposition party is crying electoral fraud, while roaming gangs armed with clubs are attacking marchers. The mayor here has called it anarchy. And everyone is asking: What is President Daniel Ortega after?

This sounds more like the Central America of the 1980s. But Ortega, the former Marxist revolutionary comandante who returned to the president's office in 2006, is at the center of a chaotic new struggle. Critics charge that he and Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America, are marching backward, away from relatively peaceful, transparent, democratic elections to ones that are violent, shady and stolen."

Gdn: teachers targeted by gangs in Ciudad Juarez

BBC: Brazil to deploy heat sensing plane to monitor uncontacted tribes
"Officials say the plane will help them to protect remote communities without interrupting their way of life.
Some 39 isolated groups are believed to be living in the Amazon region."

BBC: Iraqi gov't paying Sons of Iraq
"...the plan is for all the estimated 100,000 Sahwa militiamen to be on the Iraqi payroll by early next year.

Leaders in several Baghdad districts are unhappy though - including some in especially violence-prone areas - because salaries have been reduced to the same level as their men...

US commanders acknowledged several years ago that a lack of jobs was a key factor in driving the insurgency - the biggest single cause of that being the early US decision to disband the old Iraqi army, providing thousands of potential recruits overnight.

While the Sahwa began as a tribal rebellion against al-Qaeda in Iraq in late 2006, the US military has in effect turned it into a massive programme to buy out large chunks of the insurgency - in many cases re-employing former Saddam Hussein-era soldiers they sacked five years ago."

AP: Pakistan bristles at US missile attack beyond the FATA

BBC: Sri Lanka army captures LTTE stronghold
"The Tigers are believed to have three more defensive lines on the narrow isthmus of land that divides rebel territory from the government-controlled Jaffna in the far north, he said."
BBC: AI warns of humanitarian crisis; estimates that two-thirds of residents now displaced, living in camps run by the Tigers

WP: cab drivers latest to protest in China

++
strange maps: democratic votes, 2008 and cotton production, 1860

self-defense [protect the chick peas]

BBC: village in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan weighs collaboration and resistance
"Less than two weeks ago, a couple of pro-Taleban activists from a nearby village made an appearance at night prayers in one of the village mosques. They appealed for donations and manpower for what they described as the "holy war" in Afghanistan.

The people in the mosque contributed some coins towards their cause. But no one volunteered for the war.

Since then, there has been a general unrest among the villagers about the Taleban's intentions. They want government help if they decide to resist a possible Taleban takeover...

Until last year, the people of this village were generally supportive of the Taleban's movement in the neighbouring Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) which border Afghanistan.

But that support has undergone a change since the Taleban's recent forays into Peshawar, the capital of NWFP where a number of educated young men of the village hold jobs...

Reports of tribal militia fighting to evict the Taleban from some areas in the Bajaur and Kurram tribal regions - as well as in the Buner district of NWFP - have also affected their earlier view of the Taleban as a godly force...

Nearly every village from one end of the province to the other has had someone working in Kabul - where wages have been several times higher than in Pakistan - for the past few years...

Likewise, before that, nearly every village had someone who worked for the Taleban in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

There are a dozen trained and semi-trained former Taleban foot soldiers in this village alone.

From 1996 to 2001, nearly all of them spent time in training camps and did sentry duty on check-posts or even participated in active combat for the Taleban.

Going to Afghanistan for the Taleban was almost a rite of passage for young men here. Some were recruited through the Pakistani madrassa (religious school) system and have now come back to run their own madrassas.

Until 2004, this village had no madrassas. Now it has four.

Villagers fear these ex-Taleban members might become harbourers of a larger Taleban force of outsiders.

If the Taleban take hold of the village, people fear they will persecute those who work in Afghanistan, or transport material to Kabul for Western troops or work for the Pakistani army and the police...

It appears the new NWFP government is encouraging local people to form their own self-defence militias and has even promised to issue them weapons, if available.

"But government weapons are in short supply, and we may get none, in which case we will have to use our own weapons," the lawyer tells the gathering of village men.

Almost every home in the village has a couple of Kalashnikov rifles kept for self-defence or because they are so fashionable. All are unlicensed as the weapon is prohibited...

This raises several questions in the minds of the villagers.

Will the police allow them to use these weapons? What if the wrong people get killed in the heat of the moment? Will villagers be put on trial and their weapons confiscated? What if people start settling personal scores under the guise of fighting the Taleban?

A major issue is the credibility of the government. What if someone high in the government orders the police to pull back and leave people at the mercy of the Taleban?

The situation is complicated, but the drift is obvious. The Taleban are getting closer to the village, and people's knee-jerk reaction has been one of resistance.

"If the government provides leadership and support, the people can easily deny the Taleban a foothold in the village. But if the government fails to offer them support, those 10 or 12 Taleban out there have the organisation and the will to overrun the place," says the lawyer.

If that happens, trigger-happy young men of the village - who could have fought alongside the village force - will instead be manning the Taleban check-posts.

That has already happened in some places, such as the regions of Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Tank. People opposed the Taleban but they had no government support. The Taleban moved in and the young men joined them. Their families sanctioned the move as it meant that they got protection."

BBC: Gates endorses negotiations with segments of the Taliban
AP: US airstrikes kill 47 in southern Afghanistan

BBC: Al-Qaeda assessment

NPR: Christian self-defense forces form in Iraq
"Qaraqosh is a peaceful town of 50,000 people. But because it's just a few miles east of the northern city of Mosul, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, security is high.

Every vehicle is stopped, most drivers are questioned, and many cars are searched by members of the Qaraqosh Protection Committee, an all-Christian security force that is spreading to Christian villages across the north.

Father Daoud Suleiman says the once-Christian village [nearby Bartulla] is now evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, and that tensions are getting worse. He says if the church hadn't stepped in and helped create these protection committees, Bartulla would be just another formerly-Christian village...

[The groups are bankrolled by] Sarkis Aghajan Mamendu, and while his supporters may portray him as a wealthy independent benefactor, he does have a day job that suggests to some where the money may be coming from. He is the finance minister for the Kurdish regional government, and he is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Party believed to be close to Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani...

This is where the stories of the tiny Assyrian minority and the much larger Kurdish minority begin to converge — perhaps a bit too closely for some Assyrian nationalists...

Many Christians, as well as Turkmen, Yazidis and other minorities recall bitterly how the Kurdish Peshmerga forces prevented thousands of non-Kurds from voting in 2005, and Christians have no desire to see Assyrian autonomy reduced to a footnote in a Kurdish drive for independence."

BBC: Kenya apparently co-signed for the tanks on board the Ukrainian ship held for ransom by Somali pirates - destined for Southern Sudan
AP: gun-runners on trial for organizing over $700 million in weapons shipments to Angola

AP: suicide bomber kills 27 in Sri Lanka

BBC: deadly rioting continues in Assam
Gdn (op-ed): India apparently unwilling to target Hindu fundamentalists

WP: Thai army and police move in on protesters
"The trouble started Monday night when some 8,000 protesters gathered outside parliament, vowing to prevent the lawmakers' from convening Tuesday morning. Police moved in shortly after dawn with a volley of tear gas canisters and stun grenades, sending the crowd running."

BBC: 20 die in Mogadishu market shelling

BBC: Yemen arrest suspected militants, links them to Israeli intelligence forces

WP: Venezuelan government criticized for failing to provide health care to Amazonian indigenous tribe
"Some leaders of the Yanomami, one of South America’s largest forest-dwelling tribes, say that 50 people in their communities in the southern rain forest have died since the expulsion of the missionaries in 2005 because of recurring shortages of medicine and fuel, and unreliable transportation out of the jungle to medical facilities...There are about 26,000 Yanomami in the Amazon rain forest, in Venezuela and Brazil, where they subsist as seminomadic hunters and cultivators of crops like manioc and bananas...They remain susceptible to ailments for which they have weak defenses, including respiratory diseases and drug-resistant strains of malaria."

++
Gdn: let's litigate: Lebanon to sue Israel for claiming hummus as its own

dubya's decisions, 7 years later [fatal flaws]

NYT: Bush approved Special Forces missions in Pakistan, without permission
"It is unclear precisely what legal authorities the United States has invoked to conduct even limited ground raids in a friendly country."
BBC: Pakistan's dilemma
"There's no doubt Pakistan is facing a huge problem of Islamic militancy. But many are convinced it can't tackle this if it's seen to be acting at America's behest."
Slate: Woodward's take on the decider's decision-making (as expected, it's a faulty process when undertaken at all)
"[General George] Casey later summarized Bush's approach as: "If you're not out there hooking and jabbing with American forces every day, you're not fighting the right fight."...[Bush would] ask about kills and captures to "find out whether or not we're fighting back. Because the perception is that our guys are dying and [the insurgents are] not. Because we don't put out our numbers. We don't have a tally. … [I]f I'm sitting here watching the casualties come in, I'd at least like to know whether or not our soldiers are fighting."

WP: by that token, Admiral Mullen, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, might be at odds with the president given his testimony in Congress yesterday on Afghanistan
"Yet even if the Pentagon could achieve a better coordinated regional strategy, Mullen stressed that military forces can do only so much to pacify the area. "No amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek," he said, adding later: "We can't kill our way to victory."

Greater efforts by U.S. civilian agencies and the international community are essential, he said. For example, he criticized the shortage of civilian personnel in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, saying that without more experts in agriculture, education, commerce and jurisprudence, the PRTs "will remain but empty shells."

BBC: this more balanced approach favored by allies like Indonesia
"[Indonesia's head of counter-terrorism] said each country faced a unique situation in its fight against terrorism, and that there was no one-size-fits-all.

But he said that there needed to be a balance between force and negotiation, and that war - as pursued by America in Iraq and Afghanistan - was not an effective strategy against terrorism."

BBC: Petraeus will 'never declare victory' in Iraq; (sv would like to note that Palin ridiculed Obama for the same)

Gdn: female suicide bombing on the rise in Iraq

LAT: as separatist tensions rise in Bolivia, Morales expels US Ambassador
"Violent protests have convulsed Bolivia in recent days. Demonstrators on Tuesday sacked and burned government offices in the city of Santa Cruz, the epicenter of opposition to Morales.

The governors of five of Bolivia's nine states are aligned against Morales and his agenda of nationalization and empowering the poor Indian masses.

Morales has accused the rebellious states of plotting against him with the U.S. ambassador. Goldberg has repeatedly denied any interference in Bolivian affairs."

BBC: Nigeria creates ministry for Niger Delta

LAT: elections in Angola may entrench MPLA
"The MPLA has ruled Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, whose wife and daughter won seats in parliament, is widely expected to run in presidential elections planned for next year, despite a previous statement that he would not enter the race.

Members of the president's family and top government officials have shares in the country's top oil, diamond, banking and telecommunications firms. No foreign company can do business in Angola unless it teams up with an influential local company."

BBC: Zimbabwe reportedly close to a power-sharing deal

BBC: Cyprus leaders discuss unification

Gdn: Lebanese politician killed in car bomb blast

Econ: people trickle back to Gori

BBC: imprisoned LA gang leader reveals insights into incarceration, violence in US
"Enriquez's rise from low-level street hoodlum to major player in the Mexican Mafia came about as his reputation for violence grew. While doing time in infamous Californian prisons such as San Quentin and Folsom, the young Enriquez impressed mafia bosses.

On their request, he carried out a series of brazen attacks on other inmates, and in 1984, he was secretly inducted into the Mexican Mafia...

In the early 1990s, the Mexican street gangs in Los Angeles were out of control, with daily drive-by shootings between rival gangs bringing unwanted attention from the city's police.

Heavy police surveillance meant it was nigh on impossible for the gangs to carry on with the lucrative drug trade on which they depended.

The Mexican Mafia infiltrated the street gangs, brought some discipline into the organisations and, crucially, began creaming "taxes" from every Mexican gang in LA.

This generated huge profits for the gang leaders pulling the strings from their prison cells. Cheques and money orders were sent regularly, and Enriquez even began investing in high interest accounts and government bonds.

But this lucrative scheme began to unravel, as greed and paranoia infected the Mexican Mafia leadership, who began to plot against each other. Thye even put hits on their rivals' wives and children - a huge violation of the gang's code.

This erosion of "honour" that had governed the gang had an effect on Enriquez, too, and he began to have doubts about his commitment.

"They call it 'mob fatigue'. Everybody goes through it," he says...

He turned informant and decided to confess to everything...

"I had this surreal experience that I was mourning my own death. That's how I felt. I had depression during the first few weeks, and felt like I was mourning my own death."

**
Slate: the Big Lebowski's Walter and the rise of the neocons

dark matter [when things collide]

NYT magazine: the Taliban (and Al Qaeda) unchallenged in Pakistan
"Pulling into Namdar’s compound, I felt transported back in time to the Kabul of the 1990s, when the Taliban were at their zenith. A group of men and boys — jittery, clutching rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — sat in the bed of a Toyota Hi-Lux, the same model of truck the Taliban used to ride to victory in Afghanistan. A flag nearly identical to that of the Afghan movement — a pair of swords crossed against a white background — fluttered in the heavy air. Even the name of Namdar’s group, the Vice and Virtue brigade, came straight from the Taliban playbook: in the 1990s, bands of young men under the same name terrorized Afghanistan, flogging men for shaving their beards, caning women for walking alone and thrashing children for flying kites.
The young fighters were chattering excitedly about a missile that had recently destroyed one of their ammunition dumps. An American missile, the kids said. “It was a plane without a pilot,” one of the boys explained through an interpreter. His eyes darted back and forth among his fellows. “We saw a flash. And then the building exploded.”
WP: US to deploy predator drones along Afghan-Pakistani border more frequently
In interviews, the officials attributed their failure to find bin Laden to an overreliance on military force, disruptions posed by the war in Iraq and a pattern of underestimating the enemy. Above all, they said, the search has been handicapped by an inability to develop informants in Pakistan's isolated tribal regions, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
BBC: here's a handy map of the region, where the Taliban is taking the long view

BBC: the delicate issues surrounding justice and the LRA
"Accounting for war crimes in Africa is always going to involve tough choices...If everyone is pursued, peace may remain a mirage - but if no one is hunted down, the rule of law may never recover."
BBC: Joseph Kony, LRA leader, still at large in the DRC
BBC: LRA spokesman denounces Congolese military mobilization to protect civilians
BBC: but maybe they can broker a deal with the military: elsewhere in the DRC, the army is working with FDLR rebels to extract profits
"Our researchers visited areas where the FARDC [DR Congo army] and the FDLR were operating side by side, each controlling their own territories, trading in minerals from 'their' respective mines without interfering with each other's activities. They depend on this mutual support to continue their trade," [a Global Witness official] said.
BBC: meanwhile, 12 goats spared humiliation of standing trial in Kinshasa

BBC: Russia has pulled out of Georgia; here's a map of other potential 'flash points'

WP: Kim Jong, Ill?
(credit for the witticism goes to Slate.com)

Gdn: Sri Lanka attacks kill 20; gov't shoots down LTTE plane

WP: devastation in Haiti

Econ: Beirut in the balance

Econ: El Salvador gearing up for elections in 2009
BBC: former Angola rebels accept election outcome

LAT: Zimbabwe bloggers important source of information
BBC: Morocco's king just shut one down

LAT: Thai prime minister booted for gaining income on a cooking show. he didn't get the memo that stock dividends from oil companies would've been a-ok.

Gdn: win a trip to Iraq this winter!

Slate: what will happen if the Large Hadron Collider generates a big black hole? it's highly unlikely, but still. (ps, SV likes the modesty of the name for the massive device that will help physicists discover the foundations of the universe)

chucky on trial [not enough hugging]

Rolling Stone: Chucky Taylor - son of Charles - on trial in Miami for torturing in Liberia
"In the midst of this reign of terror, Chucky was among the most feared men in the country. Only 25, he created and commanded the Anti-Terrorist Unit, the president's personal security force — a source of such pride that Chucky had the group's emblem, a crest of a hissing cobra and a scorpion, tattooed on his chest...Only a decade earlier, Chucky had been an American teenager growing up in a modest, two-story brick house with his mother and stepfather in a parched subdivision of Orlando, a short drive from Disney World. He had come of age in a strip-mall landscape of payday loan shops and an endless parade of fast-food joints...Today, as his father stands trial for war crimes at the U.N.'s court in The Hague, Chucky Taylor sits in the Federal Detention Center in Miami. On September 15th, he will face trial as the first civilian in American history to be charged with committing torture abroad."

Gdn: mutiny in the air: Mugabe's aids hold secret meeting with South African delegation to discuss defecting
"Some of President Robert Mugabe's senior aides have had secret negotiations with South African mediators in an effort to secure amnesties from any future prosecution in return for supporting regime change in Zimbabwe."

BBC: Angola's elections criticized; MPLA looks to win landslide

WP: Kenya's delicate stability
"Nearly eight months after a wave of post-election violence brought one of East Africa's most stable democracies to the brink of collapse, it is almost as if there had been no crisis. And that is what troubles some Kenyans the most."

NYT: Swaziland's king too ostentatious for some (but at least there aren't any messy elections)
"His countrymen wanted His Majesty to be happy, but some also thought so many spouses were an extravagance for a poor, tiny nation. After all, the king, Mswati III, often provided these wives a retinue, a palace and a new BMW."

New Yorker: maybe the king has a modern Machiavelli

WP: excerpts from Woodward's 'The War Within': debating the surge, and its effects
"At least three other factors were as important as, or even more important than, the surge. These factors either have not been reported publicly or have received less attention than the influx of troops. Beginning in the late spring of 2007, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of top-secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups... A second important factor in the lessening of violence was the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had made a strategic mistake in the province, overplaying its hand... A third significant break came Aug. 29, when militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his powerful Mahdi Army to suspend operations, including attacks against U.S. troops. Petraeus and others knew it was not an act of charity."
WP: inside an operation against an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader
"By the time he was captured last month, the man known among Iraqi insurgents as "the Tiger" had lost much of his bite. Abu Uthman, whose fierce attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians in Fallujah had earned him a top spot on Iraq's most-wanted list, had been reduced to shuttling between hideouts in a Baghdad slum, hiding by day for fear neighbors might recognize him."

NYT: reporter says evidence backs Afghan claims of enormous civilian death toll in US attack

IndiaExpress: Pakistan's new president...and the elusive balancing of institutions
"Last but not least, where would the centre of gravity lie? This is Pakistan’s g-spot. There’s much talk about it but it is difficult to locate. Here’s an attempt." (HT: ps)

BBC: peace process in the Philippines off the rails
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao launches attacks after Court blocks peace agreement:
"With perhaps half a million people displaced and some hundreds killed, observers now concur that two MILF commanders - Kato and Bravo - did launch attacks in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato.
The MILF leadership has blamed the attacks on what it calls these two "renegade" commanders, but refuses to hand them over."

LAT: (former) paramilitary groups in Colombia still control commerce in northern border with Venezuela
"The Black Eagles and other gangs now control much of the cross-border trade that was once the exclusive province of the Wayuu [indigenous group], including incoming Venezuelan gasoline, groceries and dry goods and outgoing Colombian sugar and dairy products."
NYT: Colombia's (wealthy sections of) cities become more cosmopolitan as rural development lags, violence lingers

LAT: brutal revenge in Mexico's war on drugs

LAT: rifts in Bolivia extend to former allies
"[indigenous activitist] Cuellar, an ardent advocate of the capital switch [from La Paz to Sucre], broke with the government. The opposition turned to her as an alternative to head Chuquisaca province, of which Sucre is the capital. She won the governor's seat handily against a Morales surrogate, getting overwhelming backing from the urban, educated middle class and elite, mostly of mixed-race and European origins."

Gdn: the real-life wire
"It seems that in Baltimore, one of the most violent cities in America, jurors are far more reluctant to convict criminal defendants than in the suburban enclaves that ring the city."

BBC: maybe we should just hug it out

the grand old party (i'll cry if i want to)

New Yorker: General Petraeus on exiting Iraq
“One of the keys with counter-insurgency is that every province is a unique case,” Petraeus told me. “What you’re trying to figure out is what works—right here, right now.” In defense of his approach in Iraq, the General and his staff argue, essentially, that they inherited a war of many fronts and managed to stop it, or at least pause it—an achievement that they regard as necessary and remarkable but also insufficient."
WP: how it's playing out in Anbar province
"The Shiite-led government has recently stepped up a campaign to arrest leaders of the Awakening and dismantle parts of the program, whose members receive $300 a month from the U.S. military. Many fighters have abandoned their posts and fled their homes to avoid detention, stoking fears that some will rejoin the insurgency."
NYT: Baghdad's enduring new neighborhoods
"Out of the more than 151,000 families who had fled their houses in Baghdad, just 7,112 had returned to them by mid-July, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration. Many of the displaced remain in Baghdad, just in different areas. In one neighborhood alone, Amiriya, in western Baghdad, there are 8,350 displaced families, more than the total number of families who have returned to their houses in all of Baghdad."

IHT: Angola set to vote

"Democracy is a process, not a destination, and this is part of that process," [former rebel-turned opposition movement Unita leader] said.

BBC: a profile of Qaddafi in honor of Secretary Rice's visit to (formerly evil) Libya

"Known for his flamboyant dress-sense and gun-toting female body guards..." makes you want to read on, doesn't it?

AP: Thai PM offers to resign

Slate: dispatches from Somalia
"An ad hoc council of five educated young men tell me there are 13 Somali clans. They warn me not to listen to confused officials who claim otherwise. Hawiye, Darood, Rahanweyne, Issa, Gadabursi, Sheikhal, Isaaq, Biyomal, Gaadsan, Yibro, Midgan, Tumal, and Gaboye are the clans. They make up one tribe and speak one language, Somali. The young men tell me that the father's lineage decides their clan. This genealogy isn't written down. It's an oral society. The clans might as well be like tribes—in fact, the people here call them that—and you can go to town with your Rwanda and Kenya comparisons, because warfare between rival clans destroyed south Somalia after 1991...One day in the middle of this chaos, the elders of Dihoud's subclan invited him to a brainstorming conference. One of their boys had killed three men from another subclan, and the elders from that subclan demanded justice. How would these elders prevent such things in the future, and how could they convince their violent young men to give up their arms? "I am a psychiatrist," Dihoud remembers telling them. "And as I am a psychiatrist, I know we are all paranoid after the war. We are all traumatized. We had blood on our hands. We fought against a dictator, and we killed each other. So everybody is paranoid that somebody is following him. And we think that if we give up the arms, other tribes will attack us. Let us disarm ourselves and give the arms to the government."

IHT: Mugabe might scuttle power-sharing deal if Tsvangirai doesn't sign on
WP: meanwhile, Kenyan leaders working out resource-sharing with family members

WP: IRA no longer a threat

NYT: Brits causing mayhem in Greece
“It’s because of British culture — no one can relax, so they become inebriated to be the people they want to be,” he said...Local officials say the blame lies not just with the tourists themselves, but also with the operators of package tours promising drinking-and-partying vacations, and clubs offering industrial-strength alcohol at rock-bottom prices."

Slate: she stopped a Russian invasion! (or would have anyhow)

shaking the tree

NYT: targeting the Mahdi army in Basra
"The dominant Shiite groups in Mr. Maliki’s government are political and military rivals of Mr. Sadr, and Mr. Maliki is freer now to move against him because Mr. Sadr’s party is no longer a crucial part of his coalition...
Though American and Iraqi officials have insisted that the operation was not singling out a particular group, fighting appeared to focus on Mahdi-controlled neighborhoods. In fact, some witnesses said, neighborhoods controlled by rival political groups seemed to be giving government forces safe passage, as if they were helping them to strike at the Mahdi Army. Even so, the Mahdi fighters seemed to hold their ground."
USAT: Sadr orders strike, effectively shutting down health system
"...the more immediate threat to Iraq's stability may stem not from al-Sadr's military might, but his political power to shut down the ministries and services essential to day-to-day life."
CSM: residents gearing up for violence in Sadr City

LAT: "odd couple" partnership between US Marine and Iraqi general

Slate: Iraqi refugees remain in Damascus

Gdn: new coalition gov't in Pakistan charts different path with US; Sharif says it will no longer be US "killing field"
WP: naturally, US continues to "shake the tree," launch attacks in tribal region until further notice

WP: meanwhile, militants in western Afghanistan target those accused of defection more precisely
"Extremists in the area rely on 'a strong network of informants in every village and town' to find suspected spies, said Malik Mumtaz, a tribal elder in Miram Shah, adding that the Taliban usually releases a DVD of the person being killed."
NYT: US contractor, headed by 22-year-old, supplying degraded ammunitions to Afghans
largest supplier to Afghanistan caught in almost unbelievable web of arms trafficking, incompetence and corruption

ICG: report on drug trade and "drug war" policies in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala flags dire effects on law and order, violence

NYT: North Korea expels South's diplomats

Gdn: weighing jurisdiction in Uganda: who will try Kony? who will capture him or make him surrender?
"...recent developments indicate that the Ugandan government is not, at present, pursuing the arrest and surrender obligation [it has as a signatory to the ICC]. Instead, as part of ongoing peace talks in Juba, the Uganda government signed an agreement with the representatives of the LRA on February 19 2008 to establish a national court to try those alleged to have committed 'serious crimes' during the conflict."
Gdn: UN court prepares to try alleged Hakiri assassins in the Hague
"Lebanon has been paralysed politically since Syria's allies, led by the Shia organisation Hizbullah, quit the Beirut government when it voted to establish the tribunal: one consequence is that the Lebanese presidency has been vacant for months and Fuad Siniora, the western-backed Sunni prime minister, will not attend the weekend Arab summit. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are also demonstratively staying away."

Salon: interview with modern slavery researcher
BBC: Indian men protest enslavement in US

BBC: a beauty pageant for landmine victims in Angola
"Perhaps the "Miss Landmine Survivor" contest will remind the rich and powerful in central Luanda that there is still a lot of work to be done, both in terms of ridding the country of landmines and of improving the lives of their victims."