all too common tragedies [can we talk?]

NYT: in defense of diplomacy: Martti Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize
Slate: Petraeus is pro
"In Iraq, the general recalled in his Heritage speech, "we sat down with some of those who were shooting at us"—a painful task but "an explicit part of our campaign." These talks formed the basis for the Anbar Awakening—in which Sunni insurgents allied themselves with U.S. forces to beat back the common foe of al-Qaida in Iraq—and for the tactical success of the "surge" itself."

new plans for Afghanistan include a little of this, a little of that:
BBC: talks with the Taliban and the other insurgencies: who will engage?
"And there's the question of who you speak to within the movement. Is it possible to speak to the senior leaders? In order to get an agreement that would stick, you would need to have these men on board.
And do the Taleban even want to hold peace talks?
From their point of view, it could be argued that things are going quite well.
The insurgency is spreading and the government is regarded as weak, corrupt and ineffective by many Afghans. Some of these people would prefer a Taleban alternative."
WP: NATO to begin interdiction in Afghanistan
"The vast majority of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan occurs in seven southern provinces, areas patrolled by U.S., British, Canadian and Dutch forces.
The compromise allows NATO troops to act after receiving a request from the Afghans and does not require any change in the alliance's operational plan in Afghanistan."
BBC: UK to launch anti-Taliban propaganda plan
LAT: US to train Afghan tribal militias
"Under that approach, U.S. forces would scale back combat operations to focus more on training Afghan government forces and tribal militias. The plan is controversial because it could extend the influence of warlords while undermining the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, the capital.
The strategy also could set up a hair-trigger rivalry between national security units and the improved tribal forces, proponents acknowledge."

LAT: hopefully protection is part of the package - across the border, suicide bombers target anti-Taliban tribal elders in Pakistan

"Hundreds of people had gathered for the outdoor meeting in the remote village of Ghiljo, at which elders of the Alizai tribe were making plans to raise a fighting force and attack a base belonging to the militants.

Pakistani authorities have been providing tribal leaders in such villages with financial and logistical support to raise lashkars, or local militias, in a bid to counter the tightening grip of Islamic militant groups in the tribal areas along the Afghan border.

The tribe had already organized some smaller attacks against the Taliban in recent days, including the burning of two compounds occupied by insurgents...

It was the second attack in recent days on anti-Taliban tribal leaders. Authorities on Thursday recovered the decapitated bodies of four men from the Bajaur tribal agency who were believed to have been abducted by militants. The four were helping organize a tribal militia."

WP: expect Iraq coverage to continue to decrease as Western bureaus pull out journalists
"It remains important and it remains interesting," said Alissa J. Rubin, the New York Times' acting bureau chief in Baghdad. "But what's in front of us now is almost a static situation. There's not a clear narrative line. The stories are more complex."
NYT: ...and more personal: one journalist remembers the victim of a Sept 28 bomb
WP: "sticky" IEDs used more frequently, seen as shift in insurgent tactics
"These assassination attempts mark a shift from mass-casualty attacks that triggered a backlash against insurgent groups and militias, U.S. military officials said, and come as the Iraqi government is asserting more control over security matters in the country and as the United States starts to reduce troop levels.

The bombs have been used against Iraqi government officials, particularly those who work in the army and police. Local leaders, judges, journalists and members of U.S.-backed Sunni armed groups have also been attacked."
BBC: as troops draw down, challenges range from rebuilding to revenge
"There are scores to be settled. As American forces begin to draw down, not everyone will be restrained. Grief and anger cannot just be wiped away.

And there is a new danger now from the Awakening movement - the fighters who used to support al-Qaeda in Iraq but who switched sides.

They are uneasy about the plan to absorb only 20,000 of their men into the armed forces.

The rest - about 80,000 - will be paid until they have found other work, but they risk losing their status in the community and, as one of their leaders said to me, they could become "bad people again" and re-join al-Qaeda."

Econ: Khatami might challenge Ahmadinejad
"Mr Khatami, who served as president between 1997 and 2005, after winning successive landslide election victories, could emerge as the most potent challenger to the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has given every indication that he intends to seek a second term and who enjoys the support of both the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)...Mr Ahmadinejad has succeeded in redefining the role of the presidency, accumulating extensive powers in his office, but largely at the expense of the institutions that Mr Khatami had been trying to build up as autonomous bastions of civil society and economic management—notably parliament, the media and the Central Bank of Iran."

Econ: Saudi Arabia's role in the region
"In recent years, as an ailing Egyptian government has faded from its former role as the Arab world’s chief broker, the Saudis have tried interceding in regional troubles ranging from Lebanon to Israel-Palestine, Somalia and Iraq. Yet for all the pious ritual and lavish banqueting enjoyed by their guests, and for all the moral authority carried by King Abdullah, who styles himself the Servant of the Holy Places, the Saudis have an uneven record of success."

Slate: the lawlessness of Guantanamo
LAT: whistle-blower started out as true believer

LAT: North Korea shuts down a reactor, leaves 'axis of evil'

NYT: China might allow farmers to sell land-use rights
"The Chinese leadership has long insisted that the country must remain self-sufficient in the production of staple foods, and is highly unlikely to allow farmers to sell land-use rights for nonagricultural development. But if a market for trading farmland developed as expected, peasants could gain a new source of cash income that could help revitalize the stagnant rural economy."

CSM: intervention in Georgia exposes cracks in Russia's military, prompts proposed increase in spending

Econ: as Sri Lankan army closes in on LTTE stronghold, end of war seems near to some

Econ: sectarian, or settler/indigenous violence in Assam
"The Bodos, among the earliest settlers in the Assamese plains, resent any outsider who encroaches on their tribal homelands. They do not make subtle legal distinctions between them."

BBC: founder of the Free Aceh Movement returns after 30 years in exile
"Gam signed a peace-deal in 2005 to end a 29-year conflict that killed 15,000.
The peace deal with Indonesia's government - which resulted in Aceh's autonomy - followed the devastation of the 2004 Asian tsunami."

LAT: cabinet in Peru resigns over bribery charges
"Many Peruvians are fed up with what they view as endemic corruption and the failure of the country's rapid economic growth to stem poverty, surveys show. Strikes and marches by teachers, farmers and doctors, among others, regularly paralyze public services and roads."
BBC: military convoy ambushed by Shining Path rebels; 12 die
"It came amid reports that Peru's army had launched an operation to remove some 300 Shining Path rebels who work closely with cocaine traffickers in [Huancavelica province]."

Econ: Chavez faces challenges in local elections
"It remains to be seen whether the government’s attempt to paint the opposition as unpatriotic and undemocratic and present itself as the main defence against US “imperialism” will bring significant benefits on the electoral front. At the end of September the opposition agreed to support a single, unity candidate for governor in every state except for Bolívar, and most pollsters concur that most of the urban electorate is pro-opposition, while the reverse is true in rural areas.Given Venezuela’s highly urbanised population, the danger for the government is that it loses big and significant states like Carabobo and Miranda, retaining rural backwaters like Apure and Delta Amacuro."
BBC: unclear if shutting down McDonald's (for 48 hours) will help or hurt

BBC: US court sentences 2 former Colombian paramilitaries to 20 years in prison, on drug trafficking charges
"Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe said any international assets seized by US authorities from the paramilitary leaders would go to compensating their victims.
But some Colombians feared their extradition meant the militia leaders would not disclose alleged links to many government figures."
AP: Colombian defense ministry links FARC to Mexican cartels
AP: cartel violence claims 11 in Mexico

BBC: Videla imprisoned in Argentina
"Jorge Videla, 83, was convicted in 1985 of the murder of 66 people, the torture of 93 others, and the illegal detention of more than 300.
Videla, who ruled from 1976 to 1983, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
He was pardoned by President Carlos Menem in 1990 but a court cancelled that order last year."

NYT: Mugabe disregarding the terms of power-sharing agreement
"An opposition spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, said Mr. Mugabe’s allocation of ministries was a strategy meant to pre-empt Mr. Mbeki’s mediation and called on African leaders and the international community to intervene. In a statement, he called Mr. Mugabe’s division of the ministries “a giant act of madness which puts the whole deal into jeopardy.”

BBC: new rebel group emerges in Congo's northeast
"The new rebel coalition, the Popular Front for Justice in Congo - known by its French acronym, FPJC, had earlier taken a village close to Bunia, killing soldiers and sending thousands fleeing for their lives into the bush.

Mayhem broke out in Bunia on Friday after government troops clashed with the rebels less than 10km (6 miles) south of the town...

The area around Bunia suffered almost a decade of war, which ended with a peace deal in 2006.

But the rebels say they represent a new coalition, formed to force the implementation of that deal, which included an amnesty for all those who participated in the previous fighting.

Tension in the region has been growing over the past two weeks, with fighting between Congolese troops and the rebels moving closer to Bunia."

BBC: DRC's president issues 'call to arms' to fight other rebel group, led by renegade General
"Over and above any political divide, we must mobilise as one behind our armed forces and our elected representatives to preserve peace and the unity and (territorial) integrity of the country," he said.

++
NYT: extending equal rights to gays in CT
"Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities."

++
the tragedy of the commons, on a global scale

BBC: yikes, forest crisis
"The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion."

Gdn: aligning incentives to protect rainforest in Ecuador
"The Ecuadorian government has said it is prepared to keep hundreds of millions of barrels of heavy crude oil in the ground, but in return it wants the international community to compensate it at the level of $350m (£202m) a year for a decade...

The Yasuni national park in Ecuador lies at the intersection of the Amazon, the Andes and the equator and spans almost a million hectares of primary rainforest. It is home to indigenous tribes, who wish to be left in isolation, and an extraordinary array of wildlife and plants, much of it endangered. Avoiding the oil extraction would also prevent the release of an estimated 100m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere."

BBC: and Indonesia
"As well as protecting and restoring forest, the authorities have pledged to make development on Sumatra obey principles of "ecosystem-based planning", where any projects detrimental to the island's ecological health would be banned.

However, the vice-governor of the province of West Sumatra, Marlis Rahman, said help from the west would be needed to help meet the commitments. "We are calling on the international community to support us in implementing this commitment on the ground and help us to find extra livelihoods by protecting our forests," he said."

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history lessons

Gdn: Brits honored for fighting Franco in Int'l Brigades; offered Spanish citizenship
"Seventy years have passed since they marched out of Barcelona amid crowds of weeping, cheering Spaniards, but it is only now that the last few British volunteers who fought in Spain against General Franco's fascist-backed rebels are finally to be rewarded by the Spanish state...

While Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and troops to help Franco, Britain and Europe's other democracies stood on the sidelines as tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world travelled to Spain to help the Republic."

New Yorker: evolution of voting through 18th and 19th century US
“'To vacate an election,' an election-law textbook subsequently advised, “it must clearly appear that there was such a display of force as ought to have intimidated men of ordinary firmness.'...Americans used to vote with their voices—viva voce—or with their hands or with their feet. Yea or nay. Raise your hand. All in favor of Jones, stand on this side of the town common; if you support Smith, line up over there. In the colonies, as in the mother country, casting a vote rarely required paper and pen. The word “ballot” comes from the Italian ballotta, or little ball, and a ballot often was a ball, or at least something ballish, like a pea or a pebble, or, not uncommonly, a bullet. Colonial Pennsylvanians commonly voted by tossing beans into a hat. Paper voting wasn’t meant to conceal anyone’s vote; it was just easier than counting beans. Our forebears considered casting a “secret ballot” cowardly, underhanded, and despicable; as one South Carolinian put it, voting secretly would 'destroy that noble generous openness that is characteristick of an Englishman.'”

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conflict resolution
BBC: in some cases, partition could be the best option
"An estranged couple in Cambodia have sawn their house in half to avoid the country's convoluted divorce process."

mayday, mayday: slavery still exists

New Yorker: fighting trafficking (of people)
NYT: slavery in China

WP: CIA head claims that global demographic changes, immigration threaten stability
LAT: 3 Uzbek immigrants killed in Moscow, part of "ultra-nationalist" trend
"This year has seen a dramatic increase in skinhead and neo-Nazi attacks, human rights groups say, many of them aimed at Caucasian and Central Asian immigrants from hardscrabble former Soviet republics who flock to Russia to eke out a living. The bodies turn up beaten, bruised and stabbed, sometimes mutilated or bearing signs of torture."

WP: US deepens role in Sadr City, where 500 were killed last month
LAT: civilian deaths in April - 969 - reach highest level since August
"The number of civilian deaths reported by the Iraqi government for April was 969, the highest since August, when 1,773 were recorded killed. At least 28 Iraqi soldiers and 69 policemen also were reported killed. Officials at two hospitals in Sadr City alone said they had received 321 bodies in the last month."

WP: army medic who earned silver star - the 2nd woman since WWII - removed from her post because women can't serve in combat
"Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle...'We weren't supposed to take her out' on missions 'but we had to because there was no other medic,' said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved...Military personnel experts say that...the 1992 rules are vague, ill defined, and based on an outmoded concept of wars with clear front lines that rarely exist in today's counterinsurgencies."
Gdn: embedded journalist reports from Afghanistan
CSM: an Afghan officer leads NATO forces
"'The [Afghan National Army] has potential to face the challenges of face-to-face war if the spring offensive happens to have the form of conventional war,' says Ahmad Idrees Rahmani, a cofounder of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul. 'The problem of the war against the Taliban is that [conventional warfare] is not their fighting strategy. Each time they take over a district, the ANA and other forces can easily take them out in a few days.'
Trouble begins, he adds, 'when they retreat and attack in the form of guerrilla fighters. Then it becomes hard to find a fish in the sea of people.'"
LAT: attack on drug eradication forces kills 19, wounds 40
CSM: insurgency moving north

LAT: Mexico deploys troops to Tijuana

BBC: Algeria and terrorism

Gdn: US kills "top Al-Qaeda militant" in Somalia

LAT: Mugabe concedes election, calls for run-off
Chris Blattman: summary of coverage
"It's a matter of hours before the South African government says something disappointingly conciliatory, and the Brits and Americans make ridiculous and empty threats."

LAT: El Fasher, Darfur "humanitarian boomtown"
"In stark contrast to the burned-out villages and squalid displacement camps that characterize much of Darfur, this dust-choked city is booming, thanks largely to an influx of scores of United Nations agencies and private charities, as well as the newly deployed U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission...Retail sales are soaring thanks to the comparatively high salaries paid to international staffers, though foreign demand is also driving up prices on everything from real estate to bottled water. 'It's a war economy,' said Abduljabber Abdellah Fadul, rural planning professor at El Fasher University."
WP: refugees unable to return to southern Sudan

BBC: the high cost of peace deals and coalition politics in Kenya
"Finance Minister Amos Kimunya says he may be forced to shift funding from vital programmes like resettling the displaced to pay for new ministries...Kenyan politicians are among the world's best paid MPs - each taking home about $17,000 in salaries and allowances each month."

BBC: contesting Obasanjo's legacy

BBC: ICC indicts Congo's warlord "the Terminator"

BBC: report says Mozambique police kill with impunity

BBC: Spain denies extradition request for Isabel Peron, accused of crimes during her 1974-76 rule of Argentina

Gdn: photos from a prison in Northern Ireland

LAT: the 33rd anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam, remembered in Little Saigon, Orange County

The Hoya: Georgetown exhibits shame, does not renew Feith's contract

in the balance

NYT magazine: COIN operations in an Afghan valley
"By now, seven years of air strikes and civilian casualties, humiliating house searches and arbitrary detentions have pushed many families and tribes to revenge. The Americans then see every Afghan in those pockets of recalcitrance as an enemy. If you peel back the layers, however, there’s always a local political story at the root of the killing and dying. That original misunderstanding and grievance fertilizes the land for the Islamists. Whom do you want to side with: your brothers in God’s world or the infidel thieves?...

Just before I left, Kearney told me his biggest struggle would be holding his guys in check. 'I’ve got too many geeking out, wanting to go off the deep end and kill people,' he said. One of his lieutenants wanted to shoot every Afghan in the face. Kearney shook his head. He wished he could buy 20 goats and let the boys beat and burn them and let loose their rage. He tried to tell them the restraints were a product of their success — that there was an Afghan government with its own rules. 'I’m balancing plates on my goddamn nose is what I’m doing,' he said. 'All it’s gonna take is for one of these guys to snap.'"

WP: trying to govern Mosul
NYT: and Basra
WP: Sadr extends militia cease-fire for 6 months
"But Sadr's ability to enforce the truce hinges on his control over the unruly, decentralized militia. Many senior Mahdi Army leaders and politicians loyal to Sadr have called for the cease-fire to be lifted because they said it was being exploited by Iraqi and U.S. forces, and Sadr's political rivals, to arrest his followers. In some areas of Baghdad, militiamen have ignored Sadr's orders and continued to commit atrocities."

Atlantic: the intensifying religious cleavage in Nigeria
"No one knows what happened first. Someone shouted arna—infidel—at the Christians. Someone spat the word jihadi at the Muslims. Someone picked up a stone. 'That was the day ethnicity disappeared entirely, and the conflict became just about religion,' Abdullahi said. Chaos broke out, as young people on each side began to throw rocks. The candidates ran for their lives, and mobs set fire to the surrounding houses."

LAT: the FARC increases its presence in border towns -- on the Venezuelan side
"'The rebels live and move clandestinely but are very present in the countryside,' [Jesuit priest Father Belandria] said. 'There is no court or prosecutor here, so the rebels serve that judicial function, intervening in family problems, settling property and business disputes.'

They recruit Venezuelan youths, whom they "seduce with promises," and check on what schoolteachers are telling the children, Belandria said.

Rebels extort a "war tax" on farmers and business owners, typically demanding a cow or $20 a month. Those who don't pay are killed, said Belandria, who estimated that there was a killing a month in his parish, with the victims usually local people who hadn't paid up.

'The level of violence is very strong. The rebel groups fight among themselves over ideology and turf,' Belandria said.

'Every day there are more dead. So people are selling everything they own and leaving.'"

NYT: paco, a crack-like new form of cocaine, reeking havoc in Argentina and Brazil

Slate: the (ir)relevance of the (il)legality of torture

WP: tough times in Toledo
WP: and even tougher times in Zimbabwe with 100,000% inflation
NYT: no good for the opposition in Russia either

Slate: discovering and describing ancient civilizations

sparks and spirals

africa
LAT: violence in Kenya along ethnic lines spreads to Naivasha
"The violence in Naivasha appeared to be in response to clashes last week in the nearby city of Nakuru, where as many as 50 Kikuyus were killed and hundreds of homes burned."
Gdn: death toll reaches 800; violence in Kisumu as well
NYT: Kenyan military deployed for first time to stop the fighting, but don't succeed

BBC: EU will deploy in Chad, Central African Republic to protect Darfur refugees, relieve UN forces
"Known as Eufor Chad/CAR, the force will be deployed in four areas - three in Chad and one in the Central African Republic. The mission is among the hardest undertaken by the European Union and will involve at least 11 member states."

middle east
LAT: Pakistani forces clash with militants near Peshawar
Gdn: militants take over 200 children hostage at a school in northwest

Salon: the border breach in Gaza: beneficial to Israel?
"In Jerusalem the opening of the border with Egypt is even being greeted with some relief. 'Cairo now has to solve the humanitarian problem that we have been dealing with until now,' said an Israeli official."
BBC: Egypt trying to seal off the border
Gdn: Fatah wants Hamas out of border regulating role

NYT: seven shot by Lebanese Army during Sunday opposition protest/riots; worst violence in a year
Econ: the bombings in Beirut: contextualizing the assassination

NYT: Yemen deals with Islamists differently, "worries" US

LAT: recruiting contractors in Latin America
"About 1,200 Peruvians are in Iraq, mostly guarding sites in Baghdad's Green Zone. Chileans, Colombians, Salvadorans and Hondurans have also served as part of the polyglot assemblage providing "conflict labor" in U.S. war zones."
WP: gov't officials testify that the US can't 'manage' contractors in Iraq

SWJ: new topics at the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute
SWJ: new intelligence units in the Marines
"Today’s irregular warfare, with its lack of a uniformed enemy, makes intelligence gathering vital for enemy identification. To adapt to the emerging threat, infantry companies often create their own versions of ad hoc intelligence cells, said Vince Goulding, director of experimentation plans at the Warfighting Laboratory. But those individual efforts have been piecemeal, because the Corps had no standard training or equipment available, he said.
The new initiative for pushing intelligence analysis know-how down to the lower echelons, however, is about to change all that. Rifle companies will now be able to assess, analyze and disseminate information that they typically had relied on battalion or regimental command to produce…"

SWJ: essays on lessons learned in Iraq from the American Security Project
SWJ: interview with Brigadier General Edward Cardon, on progress in Iraq
Ind: key US ally threatens to defect with his 13,000 men if jobs aren't provided in 3 months
Ind: check-up on Fallujah

americas
BBC: killings in Guyana gang-related, raise concerns of ethnic conflict; villagers protest for more police aid

BBC: Chávez calls for anti-US security block

NYT: real estate on the black market in Havana

NYT: closing prisons in rural NY, shifting priorities in the penal system
"Closing those prisons, [the state's corrections commissioner] said, would save the state millions of dollars, free up money for the treatment of sex offenders and mentally ill inmates, and finance programs like anger management and vocational training, meant to prepare prisoners for their release."

asia
BBC: tens killed in Sri Lanka fighting over the weekend

BBC: clashes continue in Assam between separatists (ULFA) and Indian forces

NYT: Thailand chooses new prime minister, moves away from military control

NYT: Indonesians mourn Suharto

misc
Gdn: Australia will apologize for its treatment of Aborigines, especially taking children
Gdn: children also stolen, given to different families in Argentina; DNA testing linking families
BBC: French NGO workers sentenced to 8 years in prison for attempting to kidnap 103 Chadian children

Ind: hip-hop in Iran, where rap is illegal

New Yorker: God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe 570 to 1215 (book review)

WP: is this thing on? Bush to give State of the Union tonight (his last one!)

New Yorker: "Boxing Rebellion" in China

no protection

NYT: massive death persist even during "peace" in the Congo
"The survey, released Tuesday, estimated that 45,000 people continue to die every month, about the same pace as in 2004, when the international push to rebuild the country had scarcely begun. Almost all the deaths come from hunger and disease, signs that the country is still grappling with the aftermath of a war that gutted its infrastructure, forced millions to flee and flattened its economy."
Chris Blattman: assesses the utility of the survey and its estimate (conducted by the IRC)

LAT: instability persists in Kenya
Ind: weighs in, deems election of Kibaki fradulent
WP: Kenya elite avoid the clashes, but not the ethnic conflict

LAT: reflecting on the situation in Anbar, early mistakes in Iraq
"Gaskin, who commands 35,000 Marines and soldiers, credits the turnaround [in Anbar] to an alliance between U.S.-led forces and tribal sheiks who have turned against the insurgency.
'Nothing happens out here without tribal approval,' he said. 'They were tribal before they were Muslims.'"
LAT: negotiating with tribes in border region with Syria

NYT: in Iraq, Awakening Council members, or Concerned Local Citizens, increasingly targets of violence
"Officials say that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has a two-pronged strategy: directing strikes against Awakening members to intimidate and punish them for cooperating with the Americans, and infiltrating the groups to glean intelligence and discredit the movement in the eyes of an already wary Shiite-led government...Both Sunni and Shiite officials in Baghdad blame two government-linked Shiite paramilitary forces for some of the attacks: the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization. Sunni officials charge that militia leaders are involved, while Shiite officials believe that the attackers are renegade members of the groups...Killings of guardsmen are mounting even as Awakening members are becoming increasingly frustrated with the Iraqi government, which has yet to fulfill its promise to integrate 20 percent of the volunteers into the Ministries of Interior and Defense and give nonsecurity jobs to the rest — a process that American officials say could take until the end of the year."
BBC: Iraqi police chief dies in suicide attack in Mosul

LAT: not at war, but militants would be ready for violence in Lebanon

LAT: in Mexico, soldiers disarm police in 3 border cities
"'There are municipal police forces that have collapsed and that function more as support staff to organized crime rather than as guardians of public safety,'" [Atty Gen] Medina Mora said."
Reuters: which may not be a good sign for the civilian population
"The army and navy, which play a leading role in President Felipe Calderon's campaign against organized crime, should be withdrawn to their barracks, said Jose Luis Soberanes, head of the country's human rights commission. 'Individuals belonging to the armed forces committed grave abuses,' he told Mexico's Congress. 'In 2007, we widely documented cases of torture, rape and homicide.'"
Econ: summarizes increasing violence in last two weeks, highlights open fighting in Tijuana
WP: sting on Sinaloa cartel in Mexico City
NYT: Gov Spitzer proposes a $200/gram tax on cocaine (like 29 other states have already enacted)

BBC: in other news on the failed drug war front: eradication of poppy in Afghanistan, um, failing.
Gdn: young Afghan journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy, being brother of reporter who exposed northern warlords' human rights abuses

Gdn: Burmese poet arrested for criticizing general in verse
"The eight-line poem appeared to be an innocent verse about Valentine's day, by Saw Wai. But when read vertically the first word of each line describes Burma's leader, General Than Shwe, as 'power-crazed'."
Econ: depressingly, junta has tremendous power that seems unaffected by protests

Gdn: speaking of power-crazed generals, Musharraf claims Pakistan on track for March elections
LAT: but we'll see how long that lasts, as critics increasingly vocal
LAT: US moves ahead with plans to train security forces, with new army chief

BBC: Putin bans critic from elections because he doesn't have 2 million signatures

NYT: move over anti-Castro constituents, make room for anti-Chavistas
"According to census data, the Venezuelan community in the United States has grown more than 94 percent this decade, from 91,507 in 2000, the year after Mr. Chávez took office, to 177,866 in 2006."

LAT: cyanide kills witness, dirty secrets of Argentina's dirty war

LAT: Paraguay Colorado party nominates woman as presidential candidate
in case you haven't heard of it, Paraguay is "a landlocked tropical nation of almost 7 million people in an area nearly the size of California..."

Gdn: Beijing face-lift before Olympics to include a "'social cleansing' operation to clear the city of beggars, hawkers and prostitutes."

NYT: remembering the children's rights pioneer and orphanage martyr
"[Janusz Korczak's] work at the orphanage was interrupted in 1940 when the Nazis forced him and his orphans into the Warsaw Ghetto."
Gdn: German railway acknowledges role in holocaust

BBC: Alaskan language dies with its last speaker

The Onion: as usual, they have the story first: Clinton's in