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

a promise is a promise [dangerous if not outright deadly]

NYT: Sri Lankan government says it will stop using heavy weapons, artillery and air strikes in order to protect civilians...
In what appeared to be a concession to the visiting United Nations humanitarian coordinator, John Holmes, and foreign governments critical of the continued military offensive, a statement from President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s office said “combat operations have reached their conclusion.” The statement said military forces would “confine their attempts to rescuing civilians who are held hostage.”

But there was no sign on Monday that the government was backing away from its demand for a full surrender, after dismissing a unilateral cease-fire declared Sunday by the rebels... With only several hundred Tiger fighters remaining in a four-square-mile strip of territory, the government says it is close to ending the 25-year-old conflict. But Sri Lanka is coming under enormous international pressure to stop the fighting for the sake of the estimated 50,000 trapped civilians.
Gdn: ...but doesn't follow through
LAT: Q + A: how are conditions for those still trapped?
Dangerous if not outright deadly. The Red Cross has said the situation is "nothing short of catastrophic" for those in the tiny enclave. Food, water and medical care are in short supply, the agency says. That is to say nothing of the fighting.

Reuters: Egyptian efforts target Gaza tunnels
"Tunnel business has dropped to 20 percent of what it was before the war on Gaza because of Israeli destruction and the stepped-up security campaign by Egypt," said Abu Abdallah. The Egyptian effort was "more effective" than Israeli bombs, he said. They not only blow up the tunnels but also stop contraband goods reaching Egyptian cities near Gaza.

Accused in the past of turning a blind eye to the smuggling operations, Egypt is cooperating along with United States help in a bid to stop the contraband, which Israel says includes rockets that Gaza militants use against Israel. Since the Islamists seized control of Gaza in 2007, ousting forces of the Fatah movement of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel has completely blocked the entry of cement and steel, which it says Hamas will use for military purposes.
LAT: Obama plan to allow aid for a unified Palestinian government which includes Hamas
But the administration has asked Congress for minor changes in U.S. law that would permit aid to continue flowing to Palestinians in the event Hamas-backed officials become part of a unified Palestinian government.

The aid measures may never come into play. Power-sharing negotiations between Hamas and its rival, the U.S.-backed Fatah faction, appear deadlocked. The two have been bitterly divided since 2007, when Hamas drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip. Fatah controls only the West Bank...

U.S. officials insist that the new proposal doesn't amount to recognizing or aiding Hamas. Under law, any U.S. aid would require that the Palestinian government meet three long-standing criteria: recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and agreeing to follow past Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

Hamas as an organization doesn't meet those criteria. However, if the rival Palestinian factions manage to reach a power-sharing deal, the Obama administration wants to be able to provide aid as long as the Hamas-backed members of the government -- if not Hamas itself -- meet the three criteria.

NYT: torture and accountability: lessons from Israel
Until the court’s decision, Israel, like the Bush administration, had insisted that its methods of torment permitted in interrogating detainees were not “torture,” and therefore were not in violation of international and national law prohibiting the use of torture. Those methods included violent shaking, shackling prisoners to a low and tilted stool, covering their heads with urine-drenched hoods, and sleep deprivation... Israel’s official euphemism, “a moderate measure of physical pressure,” was a touch more honest than the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But the intent was the same.

Israel’s other line of defense, equally familiar, was that the country was embroiled in a “war on terrorism” (that was years before President George W. Bush used the term) and therefore could not deal gently with a Palestinian who may know of a — literally — ticking bomb.
FP: timeline of US torture, since 9/11
EmptyWheel(via Andrew Sullivan): and docs released in the last few weeks

LAT: the birth and slow death of the Sons of Iraq
The divergent fates of these two former Sunni insurgents highlight the major unknown about the intentions of Iraq's Shiite-led government: Is it reaching out to former Sunni insurgents such as Abu Azzam in the true spirit of "national reconciliation," or in hopes of splintering the movement?

And will the government's campaign against men such as Abu Maarouf succeed in snuffing out potential rivals? Or is it planting seeds for a long-term Sunni revolt?

The crackdown also points to a significant change in the U.S. forces' onetime policy of nurturing and protecting the Sons of Iraq. As the Iraqi government has arrested some of the movement's leaders, forced others into exile and failed to deliver jobs for rank-and-file fighters, the Americans have regularly deferred to Baghdad's wishes as they hand over responsibility for the country's security.
LAT: Iraqi government claims raid violated security pact with US

CSM: British court acquits only suspects ever tried in connection with 7/7 London bombings
The investigation into the July 7 plot is the largest criminal investigation in British history. Over the course of tens of thousands of man-hours, officers have taken 18,450 statements and produced 37,000 exhibits and 19,400 documents.

But, Mr. Gohel says: "What we are seeing repeatedly now is that the threshold for quality and quantity of evidence acquired is set so high it is almost impossible to obtain successful prosecutions unless there is irrefutable evidence, including a smoking gun and dead bodies, and the perpetrators being filmed in the act."

Gdn: Pakistani air strikes, troops fight Taliban expansion near Swat Valley
Fighter jets and helicopter gunships launched attacks on Taliban positions in Buner today in a dramatic expansion of a military operation to halt the march of extremists out of the Taliban-controlled Swat valley... Buner, a small mountainous district tucked into north-western Pakistan, was the centre of world concerns last week when Taliban militants overran the district, ransacking foreign aid agency offices and occupying government buildings.

Although the offensive posed no direct danger to Islamabad, the proximity of the advance to the capital stoked American worries that, as Hillary Clinton put it, Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to world security. Under immense domestic and international pressure the military launched an operation in Lower Dir district on Sunday, attacking Taliban positions with gunships and artillery.
NYT: leading Taliban's main negotiator to break off talks with the government...
Under the February peace agreement, the government agreed to the imposition of Shariah courts and both sides agreed to stop fighting. The military has ceased operations in the Swat Valley, but Taliban militants have insisted they will remain armed until the Islamic courts are set up and functioning.

Government officials said they would continue to try to hold the Swat peace agreement together, but have demanded that militants cease their activities in several districts adjoining Swat and lay down their weapons. Several provincial officials have expressed growing frustration with Mr. Muhammad and his failure to make the militants abide by the agreement.
AJE: ...and flight of up to 50,000 civilians
LAT: Swat Valley conflict as demonstrative of Pakistan's identity crisis?
Although they have different reasons for leaving, those who have lived through the last few years in Swat say they have experienced firsthand what passes for peace, Taliban-style, and fear the worst as militants gain more influence across the region.

A former tourist destination, the Swat Valley is now ground zero in Pakistan's identity crisis... Many here and abroad fear the rising tide of extremism in Swat could foretell changes in an overwhelmingly Muslim society that has been largely secular and open.

CSM: new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan: "cash and jobs instead of guns"
Others say agencies such as the Peace and Reconciliation Commission are part of the problem. Since 2005, the commission claims to have reconciled with nearly 4,000 fighters. It has lost track of most of these, however. Some critics charge that many of the surrendered were never with the insurgency or lied about surrendering to get a payment...

In many cases, the commission is unable to provide the jobs it promised to those fighters who genuinely want to reconcile, analysts say. Mr. Muzdja believes the government and the Americans must revamp the reconciliation program by making it more transparent and accountable.
LAT: Karzai to amend Afghani law basically permitting rape
The law, which sparked an international outcry after it was signed last month, says a husband can demand sex with his wife every four days unless she is ill or would be harmed by intercourse. It also regulates when and for what reasons a wife may leave her home alone...

Though the law would apply only to the country's Shiite Muslims, who make up about 20% of Afghanistan's 30 million people, many fear its passage marks a return to Taliban-style oppression of women.

LAT: 7 police officers dead in Tijuana drug violence
NYT: intrigue of assassination plot highlights tensions in Bolivia
But the episode, with its dash of Balkan intrigue, remains far from an open-and-shut case of right versus left. Instead, it falls somewhere in that gray area of Bolivian politics, in which Mr. Morales’s claims of destabilization plots, now a regular feature of his government, and his opponents’ counterclaims that such plots are shams contribute to growing tensions between the central government and the rebellious lowlands...

Indeed, the mystery of the case revolves largely around this enigmatic figure, believed to be the group’s leader... Mr. [Eduardo] Rozsa Flores went further in the interview, saying his goal was not toppling Mr. Morales, but achieving autonomy for Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s wealthiest department, or province. Envisioning a clash with La Paz over this issue, he nonchalantly described his goal as “declaring independence and creating a new country.”

NYT: thousands imprisoned and hundreds dead as China seeks to weed out Falun Gong

CSM: vigilantes fight back against pirates in Somalia

south asian srebrenica [contested]

BBC: Sri Lanka rejects UN truce, despite incomplete evacuation of civilians
Between 50,000 and 100,000 civilians are still thought to be trapped in the zone - about 20 sq km (8 sq miles) of coastal area in Mullaitivu district.
Gdn: trapped Tamil civilians killed, wounded as Sri Lankan army shells no-fire zone
The casualties' graphic accounts of a fierce onslaught on the no-fire zone, supported by the evidence of their severe wounds, have been reported by doctors who have treated them at a field hospital at Pulmoddai, inside the military area, where thousands of evacuees have been taken by ship. According to the senior doctor handling the casualties for the Sri Lankan government as they arrive at Pulmoddai, shells are falling among the tightly packed tents and shelters that are home to tens of thousands of civilians, killing and wounding dozens every day...

And last night the Sri Lankan military sources said 2,857 civilians had broken through Tamil Tiger lines and made their way to safety during the day. They added that 5,000 people had tried to escape and had come under fire from the rebels. But it was not possible to verify the reports because the military has denied access to the area surrounding the no fire zone.

Until last month the government allowed civilians injured in the no-fire zone to be taken to the larger hospital in Trincomalee, but then decreed that they must be kept inside the military area...

Most of the Tamil Tiger fighters were on the front line, he said, but some were moving among the civilians, visiting family members or moving casualties. He said Tamil Tiger police were still operating, attempting to control the crowds.
NYT: can it be compared to Srebrenica?

BBC: Madagascar coup leader issues warrant for former president's arrest
BBC: others arrested in Turkish coup conspiracy, now involving nearly 150
BBC: Togo also on the trail: police allegedly preempt coup attempt by president's brother
Our correspondent says relations between the two went cold when the president sacked his brother as defence minister during a cabinet reshuffle without explanation in 2007.

He adds that the family feud risks introducing an ethnic dimension between the two half-brothers as the president's mother is from the Ewe group in southern Togo, while his sibling's mother is from the Kabye people in the north.
BBC: motley crew of mercenaries allegedly plot to assasinate Morales
Three died and two were arrested in the eastern city of Santa Cruz after police fought a gunbattle with the group.

Bolivian police officials said two of the five fought for Croatian independence. The three others are said to be Irish, Romanian and Hungarian.
CSM: violence between 'yellow' and 'red' shirts in Thailand
Econ: Fiji's fun with constitutions
Fleetingly, on April 10th, Fiji’s armed forces commander, Frank Bainimarama, seemed to lose his other job as prime minister. President Ratu Josefa Iloilo announced the abrogation of the country’s constitution, the sacking of the judiciary and the postponement of elections until 2014. Calling the president’s decision deeply regrettable, Mr Bainimarama resigned and said he was heading back to barracks. Yet the next day, he and his cabinet were back in their offices, as if nothing had happened. Belying the pretence of normalcy, however, soldiers were sent into the newsrooms of the country’s newspapers, and television and radio stations to prevent “negative” publicity; several foreign journalists were booted out of the country...

The trigger for the jettisoning of Fiji’s constitution was a ruling by the Court of Appeal declaring illegal Mr Bainimarama’s interim regime, which took power in a coup in 2006. The court demanded that a neutral caretaker be appointed prime minister, pending the dissolution of parliament and a general election.

WP: violence as India votes; Maoists kill 17
The staggered, five-phase national election, which ends May 13, will cost an estimated $2 billion, with about 714 million voters. Vote-counting is scheduled for May 16, with 543 lawmakers being chosen for the lower house of Parliament. More than 6 million security and civil officials are responsible for helping to oversee the elections, and 1.3 million voting machines will be used.

The government deployed hundreds of thousands of police and paramilitary forces to guard polling stations, especially along thickly forested areas that security officials call India's "red corridor" because of the Maoist presence...

The attacks targeted security forces and polling officials, not voters. Helicopters were flown into some areas to evacuate soldiers who had come under fire. Maoists also destroyed electronic voting machines. The Maoist rebels are active in 17 of India's 28 states, and for four decades, they have been waging a low-grade insurgency that they say is intended to promote the rights of landless farmers and tribal people...

The election features three primary political alliances: the ruling, left-of-center coalition led by the Congress party; the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led group; and a third bloc consisting of smaller, regional and communist parties.
BBC: Muslim parties also contesting elections
More than two dozen Muslim political parties, big and small, are contesting these elections - almost double the figure of the last election...

Since India's independence from British rule, Congress has been getting a sizeable chunk of Muslim votes at national level, largely because Muslims felt they had to prove their loyalty to India in early post-partition days, experts say.

AJE: $5 billion in aid pledged for Pakistan at summit in Japan
Gdn: as Islamabad is targeting by the Taliban
CSM: breakdown of the umbrella organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan
NYT: Pakistan branches exploit class cleavage
In Swat, accounts from those who have fled now make clear that the Taliban seized control by pushing out about four dozen landlords who held the most power.

To do so, the militants organized peasants into armed gangs that became their shock troops, the residents, government officials and analysts said.

The approach allowed the Taliban to offer economic spoils to people frustrated with lax and corrupt government even as the militants imposed a strict form of Islam through terror and intimidation.
BBC: thousands have been displaced in the process

NYT: Afghan women protest harsh new law despite risks
About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times larger than their own, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal a new law that introduces a range of Taliban-like restrictions on women, and permits, among other things, marital rape.

It was an extraordinary scene. Women are mostly illiterate in this impoverished country, and they do not, generally speaking, enjoy anything near the freedom accorded to men. But there they were, most of them young, many in jeans, defying a threatening crowd and calling out slogans heavy with meaning.

With the Afghan police keeping the mob at bay, the women walked two miles to Parliament, where they delivered a petition calling for the law’s repeal.
BBC: Afghanistan to recruit thousands more police ahead of August elections

Gdn: special series on Baghdad
Gdn: and Basra
Gdn: evaluating Britain's performance there
NYT: cobbling together provincial councils
BBC: sexual violence in the US military
According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% are sexually harassed.

The Department of Defense acknowledges the problem, estimating in its 2009 annual report on sexual assault (issued last month) that some 90% of military sexual assaults are never reported.

AP: captives of Islamist rebels in Phillippinnes freed
The Abu Sayyaf, which has about 400 fighters, has been blamed for numerous kidnappings, bombings and beheadings. It is believed to have received funds from Al Qaeda and is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

AJE: 60,000 displaced Somalis have returned to Mogadishu
AJE: Somali parliament unanimously approves adoption of Sharia law; unclear how it will be enforced
Analysts say that the move to implement sharia is an attempt by political leaders to re-assert government control over southern and central parts of the country. [ceding the north to the pirates, apparently]
Slate: how to get a grip on the pirates
BBC: ...which have incredible reach
Reuters: how about sending more Dutch sailors to the scene?
random: hey, at least there's a bright side if it doesn't happen
(NYT: this can't be coincidence)

AJE: 10 JEM rebels sentenced to death by hanging for launching attack on Khartoum
Under Sudanese law, any death sentence must be ratified by both an appeals' court and the country's highest court. Then all death warrants must be signed and approved by Omar al-Bashir, the president.

"God is Great! Jem is strong! Revolution, revolution until victory!" the defendants shouted after hearing the verdict...

More than 220 people were killed when Jem fighters reached Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, more than 1,000km from the western Darfur region where it has been fighting government forces and allied Arab militias...

At least 50 other Jem fighters are already awaiting execution over the attack.

BBC: Ethiopians mobilize for release of opposition leader
[Birtukan] was among more than 100 people jailed for political offences after Ethiopia's election in 2005, most of whom have since been pardoned...

Ms Birtukan is a former judge and was one of the younger and more charismatic leaders of the coalition which did well against the ruling party in the 2005 elections.

Gdn: Human Rights Watch calls Eritrea a "giant prison"
There is no freedom of speech, worship or movement in Eritrea, while many adults are forced into national service at token wages until up to 55 years of age.

WP: Zuma, ANC expected winners in South African election

AP: Mugabe calls for reconciliation on independence day
NYT: while his thugs appear to have other ideas
...Mr. Mugabe’s lieutenants, part of an inner circle called the Joint Operations Command, know that their 85-year-old leader may not be around much longer to shield them, and they fear losing not just their power and ill-gotten wealth, but also their freedom, officials in the party said.

Their fixation on getting amnesty was described by four senior ruling party officials, all Mugabe confidants, who spoke to a Zimbabwean journalist working for The New York Times. But some opposition officials say Mr. Mugabe’s loyalists are less interested in reaching a deal than in simply forcing them out of the new government through violence and intimidation. Others suspect a push for amnesty is being sought by a broad contingent of Mr. Mugabe’s party worried about accounting for the past...

The recent abductions of dozens of opposition and human rights activists began in October. Many were held for weeks or months in hidden locations. Most were eventually produced in court and many have provided sworn accounts, corroborated by doctors, of being tortured to elicit confessions that they were recruiting militants to overthrow Mr. Mugabe or were involved in bombing plots.

BBC: rebel leader in Burundi demobilizes
Agathon Rwasa, of the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), gave his arms to African Union troops overseeing the peace process.

Up to 20,000 FNL rebels are due to be disarmed next week and some will be integrated into the security forces.

Econ: the aid to the DRC is as messy as the country

AP: Colombian capo, Don Mario, arrested
Rendón Herrera's organization is responsible for 3,000 killings in the past 18 months alone, said Gen. Oscar Naranjo, who directs the national police. Police said Rendón Herrera had offered his assassins $1,000 for each officer they killed, in hopes of evading arrest...

Rendón Herrera and his brother Freddy Rendón controlled an area near the border with Panama known as a major corridor for drug and arms traffickers. Before the arrival of their far-right militia, the area was dominated by leftist rebels.

The brothers were among the last paramilitary leaders to demobilize in 2006, under a 2003 peace deal that promised fighters reduced sentences and protection from extradition to the United States in exchange for pledges to renounce violence. But while his brother and other paramilitaries agreed to await justice in jail, Don Mario fled back to the jungle and rearmed, police say.

LAT: the war on drugs in Tijuana
The military also appears to be targeting symbols of narco culture. Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos said the military was behind the destruction late last month of five shrines in Tijuana and Rosarito Beach dedicated to folk saints such as La Santa Muerte (Saint Death), whose followers include drug traffickers.

No one is claiming victory over organized crime in the key drug-trafficking corridors of northern Baja California; the recent tranquillity may merely reflect a temporary truce between Garcia and his rival, Fernando Sanchez Arellano, nicknamed El Ingeniero, the reputed leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel...

The military's arrival in Tijuana two years ago was less than auspicious. Soldiers disarmed the city's 2,300-strong police force, long thought to be compromised by the cartels, and began rumbling down busy streets in public displays of force.

But the toll of killings and kidnappings only accelerated, as rival factions of the Arellano Felix drug cartel clashed, leaving behind scrawled threats to each other beside decapitated bodies or barrels of lye with liquefied human remains...

In November, a captured cartel lieutenant began giving up names of police officers on the payroll of organized crime. Duarte's soldiers swept down on high-ranking commanders across the city...

The police departments in Tijuana and Rosarito Beach, as well as the state police, are now run by current or former army officers.

Gone are many of the police informants, or "antennas," that supplied organized crime with intelligence and cleared the streets before cartel kidnappings and raids, U.S. and Mexican authorities say.

LAT: mayors catching the brunt of the risk
Vergara, 34, a member of the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is among at least 11 Mexican mayors and ex-mayors who have been killed or have disappeared during the last 15 months. Many more have received extortion demands. Others, such as Jose Reyes Ferriz, the mayor of beleaguered Ciudad Juarez, received public death threats.

Mexico's 2,400 mayors occupy a dicey spot on the front line of the country's war on drug traffickers. They are prime targets for bribe offers because they oversee local police. And well-meaning mayors are hard pressed: Most municipal governments have skimpy tax bases from which to equip and pay police well enough to break long-standing graft...

Analysts say the rise in violence at the municipal level reflects political changes in Mexico, where the former ruling party, the PRI, has ceded the top-to-bottom control it once wielded, including over the drug trade.

Under PRI mayors, governors and presidents, traffickers largely went about their business with little trouble as long as they kept killings down and maintained payoffs to the right politicians.

But the rise of a multiparty system in Mexico during the last 20 years has upended that tacit pact.
BBC: map of the cartels' strongholds
NYT: cocaine street price up, but indicator of drug war success doubtful

BBC: Afro-Bolivians create new kingdom
King Julio is one of the many poverty-stricken Afro-Bolivians. But a few years ago he discovered that he was a direct descendant of Bonifaz, a tribal king from central Africa.

Almost two years ago he was crowned at a lavish ceremony as the first Afro-Bolivian king - a move intended to further the group's cause and gain recognition in the country's new constitution.

The original Bonifaz was brought to Bolivia as a slave in the 16th Century to work in the silver mines of Potosi.
WP: race an issue at the Summit of the Americas

AJE: Haitian senate elections upcoming; Aristide's party excluded
WP: as the country, reliant on remittances and aid, struggles to get by

Econ: Correa likely to win re-election

BBC: 20 years on: Poland's evolution, as represented by Lodz
BBC: memories of Solidarity and betrayal
Natalia's father is 67 years old now. He won a presidential award for his contribution to Polish democracy.

"From time to time he puts on a suit and goes to meetings. He is very proud of his contribution. He jokes that he even wears his medal in bed."

But this recognition came with a bitter aftertaste. When his personal file was declassified, he discovered that close friends he had trusted had betrayed him.

Econ: political leadership (or lack of it) in post-communist states

CSM: Russia ends emergency rule in Chechnya, will withdraw half of troops
"Chechnya exists today as a kind of enclave, completely outside the framework of Russian or international law," says Tatiana Lokshina, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Russia, who was reached by phone in Grozny. "This decision to lift the state of emergency has purely symbolic significance for the population of Chechnya. Today, the human rights abuses are committed by [pro-Moscow] Chechens rather than Russian security forces, but the atmosphere of impunity is the same," she says.

BBC: crime in Croatia

NYT: suspected ETA leader arrested in France

++

BBC: guernica

Army of Dude (via AM): game theory

the Onion: 'cost of living now outweighs benefits'

selection and mutations [but the nation died]

AJE: campaigning in Israel
About 20 per cent of Israelis remain undecided on who they will vote for, polling organisations say, and the leading candidates in the election are focusing their efforts on winning them over.
Gdn: in Umm al-Fahm, conflict between far-right and Arab-Israelis
If Lieberman [head of the far-right Israel Our Homeland Party] has his way - and his party has surged ahead of Labour to push it to a humiliating fourth place - Umm al-Fahm may be transferred out of Israel into the Palestinian Authority, something its residents forcefully oppose in exchange for Israeli "villages", or settlements.

Its young people may be required to serve in the army, which they currently resist as they consider that army is fighting their own people in the Palestinian Territories. They would, all in all, be required to demonstrate - in Lieberman's own words - their loyalty to the state, both ordinary people and politicians, in exchange for citizenship.
LAT: Livni works women, leftists for their vote
Gdn: and everyone goes clubbing for the youth vote in Tel Aviv
BBC: where a new party has emerged, advocating reform of the closed-list PR electoral system
"Every day he changes his dirty underwear... This is the way also he votes in elections - when there is a dirty government, he replaces it with a clean one.

"And when the second government is more dirty than the first, we swap them back."

With this sales pitch, Haisraelim, a new, single issue party has entered the political fray ahead of Israel's 10 February elections, pushing for a change in the electoral system...

While rockets from Gaza and potential nuclear bombs from Iran are looming large in the minds of Israeli voters, the party's leader, political science Professor Gideon Doron, says the voting system itself is a "threat to Israel's existence".

"We can't make peace and we can barely make war," he says, as he fields phone calls about election billboards.

Econ: parsing the election results in Iraq
If confirmed—the final results are not expected for several weeks—Mr Maliki will be well placed to run for a second term in the general election due within a year. His success, though, did not reflect a trend towards voting along religious lines. Quite the opposite. The prime minister, who leads the Dawa Party, a Shia religious movement, seems to have benefited from his party’s decision to join with others to form the State of Law Coalition, which campaigned, in a non-religious way, on themes of national unity, law and order. Mr Maliki thus managed to profit from an apparent shift to secularism.
IHT: unlikely candidate, former Baathist, wins in Karbala
WP: how General Odierno shaped the surge
Sent back to Iraq in 2006 as second in command of U.S. forces, under orders to begin the withdrawal of American troops and shift fighting responsibilities to the Iraqis, Odierno found a situation that he recalled as "fairly desperate, frankly."

So that fall, he became the lone senior officer in the active-duty military to advocate a buildup of American troops in Iraq, a strategy rejected by the full chain of command above him, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then the top commander in Iraq and Odierno's immediate superior.

Communicating almost daily by phone with retired Gen. Jack Keane, an influential former Army vice chief of staff and his most important ally in Washington, Odierno launched a guerrilla campaign for a change in direction in Iraq, conducting his own strategic review and bypassing his superiors to talk through Keane to White House staff members and key figures in the military. It would prove one of the most audacious moves of the Iraq war, and one that eventually reversed almost every tenet of U.S. strategy.
NYT: the state of Iraq, after the invasion, surge and elections (not so enlightening analysis)
WP: unclear why presence of mani/pedi salon for soldiers in Mosul not considered, for example
TAL: Americans talk to an Iraqi (part 1; part 2)
"I think people here want me to say yes, that things will get better, so you will feel better."
Reuters: Bush shoe-thrower trial set; if convicted, faces 15 years in prison

WSJ: the tedious and dangerous work sniffing out roadside bombs in Afghanistan

LAT: state courts in Mexico opening trials to public
Perhaps the most basic change is that suspects are presumed innocent, reversing the inquisitional system brought by Spanish colonizers. The arrested are no longer tossed straight into jail, but can remain free while prosecutors present evidence in hopes of winning an indictment.

Many residents question whether the reforms that include more rights for the accused may be to blame for a yearlong wave of killings in Chihuahua, especially in Ciudad Juarez. A little less than a year after the reforms debuted in the capital, lawmakers responded to public pressure and made more suspects subject to incarceration before appearing in court.

But killings tied to drug trafficking are federal offenses. Robberies, assaults and murders not linked to organized crime are handled in state courts.

LAT: witnesses are being killed in Colombian trial linked to former governor
Diaz, the reform-minded mayor of El Roble in northern Sucre state, had received death threats from paramilitary groups, and told [President] Uribe during a community meeting in February 2003 that he feared for his life.

The 47-year-old doctor had resisted the right-wing militias' efforts to take control of El Roble's treasury and health system for fear they would loot them, according to his son, Juan David.

Diaz had also denounced Arana at the 2003 meeting before Uribe, saying the then-governor backed paramilitary fighters.

Despite his warnings, two months later, in April, Diaz was kidnapped, tortured for five days and killed. The mayor had been on his way to a meeting supposedly to reconcile with Arana.
PCB: meanwhile, Uribe decries left-leaning leaders the 'intellectual bloc' of the FARC
CNN: ...as Colombians for Peace (the NGO organized by said leaders) negotiates release of politician kidnapped in 2002 by the FARC; he was the last politician held, though police officers and soldiers are still in captivity, as well as hundreds of civilians

BBC: reforms in Bolivia reveal regional divisions
There are two main areas where the opposition is likely to continue its fight.
The first is in Congress, where the ruling Movement to Socialism party (MAS) does not have a majority in the upper house.

It is likely that more than 100 new laws will need to be passed to make the constitution operational. Some members of Podemos, the main opposition party in Congress, are bound to try to block them.

The second area is how the various levels of autonomy will work.

AJE: opposition mounts massive demonstration against Chavez's proposed constitutional reforms
WP: Jews raise concerns about anti-Semitic attacks and rhetoric

Econ: contemporary clan politics in Brazil
Dominance by a single man or family was not uncommon in Brazil’s north-east. But it is fading away. The Sarney clan is becoming unusual. Mr Sarney’s daughter, Roseana, has been Maranhão’s governor and currently represents it in the Senate. His son was a minister in Brazil’s previous government. Other relatives are scattered in positions of authority in Maranhão’s courts and the civil service. One of his lieutenants, Edison Lobão, is Lula’s minister for mines and energy. When he took the job, Mr Lobão’s seat in the national Senate went to his son; his wife sits in the lower house. All three of Maranhão’s senators answer to Mr Sarney, as do his fellow senators from Amapá.
This control is aided by the Sarney family’s ownership of Maranhão’s biggest media company.

WP: economic downturn in Russia endangers immigrant laborers
Econ: the problem is likely under-reported, given the targeting of journalists
Both [human rights lawyer] Mr Markelov and [journalist] Ms Baburova were killed in broad daylight in the centre of Moscow. The next day, a party of Russian nationalists brought champagne to the murder scene to celebrate the “elimination” of their enemies. Her death was part of a continuing battle between fascists and anti-fascists in Russia, which is seldom so plainly revealed to the outside world...

[Baburova] and her friends rightly identified fascism as the biggest and most pressing threat to her country. She swore to fight it. She sensed accurately the social kinship between Stalinism and fascism: the link between attempts to portray Stalin as a “successful manager”, and the current upsurge of nationalism.

BBC: Poland, the Round Table Talks and communism's fall
Twenty years ago, Poland's communist government did something without precedent - it sat down with the banned Solidarity trade union to try to defuse growing social unrest.

What became known as the Round Table Talks led to the first multi-party elections in the Soviet bloc and a stunning victory by Solidarity, led by Lech Walesa, which heralded the collapse of communism across the eastern half of Europe.

NYT: the legacy of war in Bosnia
Today, the country known as Bosnia and Herzegovina has a new class of young entrepreneurs, a growing influx of tourists and new shopping malls selling everything from luxury ski equipment to mango bathing gel. But the country remains weighed down not just by a bloated bureaucracy, but also by a national brand inextricably linked with ethnic violence and an economy overly dependent on foreign aid.

BBC: technology and warfare: using cell phones to fight Maoists in India
The government in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has given free mobile phones to more than 200 village leaders to help fight Maoist rebels.

Police say the aim is to receive swift tip-offs about rebel movements...

Jharkhnd is under presidential rule, which ensures Delhi's direct control over its administration.

More than 6,000 people have died during the Maoists' 20-year fight for a communist state in parts of India.

The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor peasants and landless workers.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said the Maoist insurgency is the "single biggest threat" to India's security.

The rebels operate in 182 districts in India, mainly in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Ind: Burmese seeking opportunities risk enslavement
It appears that the businesswoman's potential customers are middlemen, probably Chinese. Through a translator, they discuss placing the men on boats in the South China Sea, trawling for tuna. First, they will be flown to a Chinese city. In echoes of the slave trade, she describes a selection process worthy of a livestock market. In a 21st-century twist, she does so with the aid of pictures on her laptop.

"We make them stand in the sun for one hour," she says. "In the middle of the day when it is very hot. We see how they manage, if they look uncomfortable." The group leans in to see the pictures on her computer. "We make them carry 20 kilos, like this," she continues, showing them photographs I cannot see. "For deep-sea fishing, they may need to carry very big fish for long distances across the ship."

Then comes the seasickness test. "We put them in here," the woman says, but I can't see the picture. I think it must be an enclosed truck or some sort of container on water. "Then we start to move them around. If they are sick or find it hard to breathe we don't select them. This is how we select the best bodies."

The group nods. The images of Burma's Rohingya boat people, fleeing oppression only to be allegedly abused and cast adrift by the Thai military, has drawn international attention to the plight of one of the world's most downtrodden people. The Muslim Rohingyas face particular persecution in military-ruled Burma, but throughout the country, impoverished men and women who see no future at home are embarking on risky journeys abroad in search of an income for their families.

Econ: HRW accuses Ethiopia of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ogaden
[Human Rights Watch] says that Ethiopian troops burned down villages and killed, raped and tortured civilians in a counter-insurgency campaign against the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front after its fighters had killed 74 Ethiopian and Chinese oil-exploration workers in 2007. Ethiopia’s government was so incensed by the description of “systematic atrocities” in the Ogaden that it commissioned a report of its own that dismissed Human Rights Watch’s allegations as hearsay and its methods as slapdash.

AJE: opposition in Madagascar undeterred by state violence

LAT: the accord in Zimbabwe and power sharing in general
Critics argue that African-brokered power-sharing deals such as those signed after Kenya's violent 2007 elections and Zimbabwe's disputed vote last year have set a precedent that leaders in Africa can cling to power when voted out, just by refusing to leave office.

They say bodies such as SADC [the Southern African Development Community] and the African Union have done little to protect democracy or stop violence and human rights abuses, tending to side with incumbent leaders such as the long-ruling Mugabe, whose regime has been accused of unleashing violence to stay in power and denying food to opposition villagers.

BBC: water vendors in Abuja
The urban poor in developing world cities including Abuja pay much more for their water than citizens of rich cities such as New York or Tokyo, precisely because the poor have to depend on private providers rather a piped municipal supply.

++
NYT: satirizing politics in Lebanon
Although direct political satire is virtually impossible in most of the Arab world, the impulse has long thrived in more oblique and private forms. “Basmat Watan” draws on the live comedy and song performances known as chansonières, which started in Beirut theaters in the early 1960s and continue today. For centuries before that, villagers here would gather to sing “zajal” — an indigenous form of poetry that is partly improvisatory, a kind of ancient Levantine rap.

The actors in “Basmat Watan” often break into zajals, which by tradition often include satire and plays on words. The name “Basmat Watan” is itself a play on words, with the sounds meaning both “The Smile of the Nation” and “But the Nation Died.”...

Mr. Bou-Gedeon becomes grim when asked about the role of comedy, and dramatic art in general, in Lebanon. Only shallow work is possible, he said, because the Lebanese are always trying to escape themselves.

“Shakespeare said, ‘Show a mirror to the people,’ ” he said. “But people do not want to see themselves here. They want an image that is false, not the truth.”

Mr. Khalil, who cites Woody Allen and Mel Brooks as two of his chief influences, concedes that satire is not a very powerful weapon in a country where politics is still largely a matter of feudal allegiance. But he seems willing to settle for making people laugh.

LAT: celebrating Darwin, evolving faster than ever
As it happens, the pace of evolution has been speeding up -- not slowing down -- in the 40,000 years since our ancestors fanned out from Ethiopia to populate the globe.

And in the 5,000 to 10,000 years since agriculture triggered the growth of large societies, the pace has accelerated to 100 times historical levels.

"When there's more people, there are more mutations," [paleoanthropologist] Wolpoff said. "And when there are more mutations, there's more selection."

ballots and bullets [paper planes]

AJE: Sri Lanka rejects call for ceasefire
The military said it would not cease all combat operations, but would stop shooting to allow civilians to get out as it did for a UN convoy on Thursday that carried out 226 seriously wounded people...

Following months of heavy fighting, government troops have captured the Tiger's political capital of Kilinochchi and, later, the Tamil Tiger bastion of Mullaittivu on the northeast coast.

Government forces say they have confined the Tamil Tigers into a 300 square kilometres pocket of territory in Mullaittivu district.

Humanitarian relief organisations say that about 250,000 civilians are still trapped in the rebel-held area...

'The military are saying they're are not coming because the Tamil Tigers are refusing to allow them out, they are using them as a human shield. There are even stories of mines being put around their settlements to stop them from leaving,' [AJE correspondent Tony] Birtley reported.

'Of course, the Tigers say that people are scared to come because they may be abused by the army, they may be killed by the army and they'll almost certainly go into a camp to be interrogated by the army.

'It's very unclear why [civilians are not leaving], but these people have spent a long long time living under the Tamil Tigers ... and there's a lot of distrust.' "
Gdn: ...but the president urges civilians to move towards gov't forces, promising safety
Daily Beast: M.I.A. is upset about Sri Lanka's offensive
youtube: but then, one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist (via Sheely)

Iraq holds elections tomorrow
WP: elections in Iraq: 3 Sunni candidates killed
"Hazam Salim Ahmad, a candidate for the National Unity list, was killed as he left his house in the city of Mosul, where Sunni Arabs and Kurds are vying for control amid attacks by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq...

In Diyala province, gunmen kidnapped Abbas Farhan al-Jubouri, a candidate for the secular National Movement of Reform and Development, after a campaign rally in Mandali...[his body was found 3 hours later]...

In Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood, gunmen killed Omar Faruq al-Ani, a candidate with the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political bloc..

The spate of assaults raised to five the number of candidates killed in the run-up to Saturday's voting. Four were Sunnis. "
Gdn: reports of corruption widespread as well
"Voters across the country have reported receiving visitors bearing food baskets and toys which they dispensed in return for signed commitments to vote for them, sometimes alongside an Islamic oath.

The vote is being seen as a tussle between the incumbents – largely a group of returned exiles backed into office by the US and Britain, and rebellious regions that want to drain power from the central government and divide it among themselves...

This time 400 political blocs will stand, representing 14 of the 18 provinces. Only the disputed province of Kirkuk and the three Kurdish provinces will be exempt from the election, which will see all the Sunni interest groups take part. A total of 440 provincial council seats are up for grabs and up to 75% of Iraqis of voting age are expected to cast ballots...

'These people stay in the Green Zone protected by the tanks they came in on,' added the sheikh, a co-leader of the 7 million-strong Damini tribe, and a key figure in Anbar province, which comprises almost one-third of Iraq. 'This is nonsense. Democracy, American style, came from another world and is not part of our culture.

'As tribes, we don't trust the central government. We don't feel they have the ability to take the country forward. We are the most influential group in the country, yet all the decisions are made inside the green zone and we know nothing about them.

'We are not al-Qaida, but we, the tribes, say that if after eight months there is no change we will demolish everything. We cannot stand this situation anymore. We will withdraw from the political process and we will not stand in the way of any militia groups who send their armed fighters back to the streets.'...

Violence has steadily increased in the fortnight before the poll, with attacks on Iraqi police patrols, in particular, higher than they have been for months.

However Baghdad's police chief yesterday predicted the militias that ruled the capital for more than two bloody years could not rise again. The city will be in lockdown over the weekend with nearly all cars banned from streets and most residents effectively housebound."

NYT: the fight for control in Mosul
"This is the test of the provincial elections in Mosul, a last bastion of the Sunni and jihadi insurgency: whether a political system that more closely reflects local ethnic and sectarian splits will be a first step toward stability. The issue is the same in places around Iraq where calm is still fragile: whether democracy can trump violence.

There are some encouraging signs here in Mosul, even if many people fear the elections are simply another means for Arabs and Kurds to continue their bloody struggle over land, oil and sovereignty. Certainly there is no progress on the more threatening issue of Kirkuk, a city to the southeast so full of oil and ethnic tension that elections there were postponed.

But politics are changing here. In the last provincial elections, in 2005, most Arabs boycotted. As a result, Kurdish groups, who make up at most a third of the city, hold 31 out of 41 seats on the provincial council in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh Province. The provinces have broad local authority to spend and govern.

Now the council has 37 seats, and Arabs, represented by two main parties, are expected to win, and Kurds largely accept that — one reason, many here say, that the violence, while still much higher than in most of Iraq, has not flared more...

After the Kurds ruled the city for four years — a time of extreme violence, with the latest killings last fall forcing thousands of Christians to flee Mosul — Kurdish groups readily concede that Arabs should control the city itself...

But [Goran, deputy governor] is equally frank that their real goal is winning rural areas outside the city — places where Kurds say they have a majority and that, they argue, should ultimately belong to the nearby autonomous enclave of Kurdistan. The Kurds have long been frustrated by the failure of international promises for a census and referendum to settle Kurdish claims, particularly in Kirkuk.

So Mr. Goran said the elections would serve as their own census, he hoped, to further the Kurds’ agenda.

'We are looking not only to know our political size but our ethnic size,' he said. 'How can we know the truth? By democratic means. We don’t want to force any identity on anyone. Voters will choose what identity they want.'...

More and more, the roads out of Mosul feel like an international boundary, with checkpoints and virtual customs stops before the Kurdish cities of Dohuk and Erbil. While Mosul is battened down and tense, Kurdistan is safe and lively, full of construction, car dealerships and nice Turkish washing machines for sale. Arabs say that, despite their holding Iraqi passports, Kurdish pesh merga troops harass them and admit them only grudgingly."
BBC: ...and Najaf, where Shiite parties compete

BBC: Iraqi troops, prisoners, and hospitalized have started to vote
NYT: thousands of Shiite pilgrims may miss the polls

NYT: women are running for office
"Of the estimated 14,400 candidates, close to 4,000 are women. Some female candidates have had their posters splattered with mud, defaced with beards or torn up, but most have been spared the violence that has claimed the lives of two male candidates and a coalition leader since the start of the year. But on Wednesday, a woman working for the Iraqi Islamic Party was killed when gunmen burst into her house in Baghdad and shot her 10 times in the chest, according to an Interior Ministry official."
LAT: ...as are Communists
Gdn: and Black Iraqis
"In Iraq's deep south another American-led revolution is stirring. But this time it is being sparked by popular voice, not bombs.

The country's 1m-plus black citizens have tapped into Obama-mania like few other groups across the Arab world. For them Obama's inauguration was the dawn of a civil rights movement that they never had the impetus to strive for.

Black Iraqis will this week stand for the first time as an electoral bloc in provincial polls that will help shape Iraq in its slow transition to full sovereignty and possibly help shake off the stereotype that places them near the top of the heap in a nation of persecuted minorities.

Like the marsh Arabs to the north of their relative stronghold in Basra, black Iraqis are an underclass who find it near impossible to rise above their time-worn status of hard-labourers and peasants. Up to 50% of black Iraqis migrated to the Arabian Peninsula after the birth of Islam 1,500 years ago.

The rest have come steadily in the centuries since, some trafficked as slaves and others lured by broken promises of riches."

Ind: Blackwater brings Iraqis together: the firm is banned from operations
CSM: Iraqi courts to gradually assume jurisdiction over 15,100 detainees in Iraq

NYT: Obama administration likely to quiet down the democracy talk
NYT: and take harder line towards Karzai
"[Administration officials] said that the Obama administration would work with provincial leaders as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave economic development and nation-building increasingly to European allies, so that American forces could focus on the fight against insurgents."
AJE: ...who also tampers democracy talk - postpones elections until August

Gdn: more reports of reprisal violence in Gaza
"Among the dead are Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Israeli military. Others include criminals who were among the 600 prisoners to escape from Gaza City's main jail when it was bombed as the war began. Their attackers are thought to be their victims' relatives...

Palestinians in human rights organisations are reluctant to speak publicly about what is a sensitive issue, but one respected human rights worker in Gaza said he believed between 40 and 50 people had been killed in reprisal attacks since the start of the war. But there was not yet enough evidence to suggest this was an organised campaign by Hamas, he said."
Gdn: Spanish judge launches investigation into alleged Israeli war crime in Gaza, in 2002

AJE: judge rejects motion to delay Guantanamo trial of alleged planner of USS Cole attack

Slate: ex-Marine advoctes end to torture training
"...a review of the experiences of American servicemen captured in Iraq and Somalia shows that our enemies don't water-board their captives. Nor do they have the resources to mount a program of systematic sensory deprivation and humiliation, as we did in Guantanamo and in the American prison at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base. In fact, our soldiers need training from SERE based on an entirely different premise, as illustrated by the experience of Michael Durant, the helicopter pilot who spent several weeks in captivity when he was captured by Somali fighters during the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" raid. Durant survived by befriending his captors and forcing them to see him as a fellow human being. SERE conditions servicemen to expect nothing but the worst from their captors; Durant's life depended on his ability to understand his captors and find ways to manipulate them psychologically.

At the same time, the problem with SERE extends far beyond its questionable relevance to the threats that the war on terrorism pose to American soldiers. The school, which all pilots and special-forces soldiers attend, unintentionally serves to legitimize the use of torture by U.S. personnel in the field."

CSM: Pakistan military launches offensive in Swat
"Within 100 miles of the capital Islamabad, Swat was until recent yearsa thriving tourist venue renowned for its lush forests, clear rivers, and ski resorts. But since their resurgence last September, militias led by Maulana Fazlullah have conducted brutal killings of political foes and those deemed "immoral." On Sunday, 43 people – including former and present ministers – were added to the hit list, which is read on the radio. Almost all of the politicians named have since fled.

Headless bodies are strung up daily in a public area residents now call Khooni Chowk ("bloody intersection"), for sins ranging from non-adherence to dress codes to defiance of the militants' regime, says Niaz Ali Khan, a student from Mingora who studies in Swat."
NYT: Taliban targeting police
"Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province.

The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill them."

LAT: opposition agrees to join another attempt at unity government in Zimbabwe
"Under severe pressure from Southern African leaders, Zimbabwe's opposition voted Friday to join a unity government under President Robert Mugabe, despite failing to win its key demand for control of the police."

AJE: Somalia's transitional (non-functional) gov't to elect new (powerless) president
"Parliament is meeting in neighbouring Djibouti because of the security situation in Somalia, where armed opposition groups are battling government forces and each other...

The election on Friday comes two days after 200 members of the opposition ARS were sworn into parliament as part of an agreement brokered by the UN.

Another 75 seats are still to be filled by other opposition and civil society groups, as part of an effort to bring former opponents into the government."

BBC: the effects of recent sectarian riots in Nigeria
"Jos is at a crossroads between the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria and the mainly Christian south.

The latest violence followed a disputed local election in which a Christian candidate defeated a Muslim.

Most of the clashes have been between members of the Hausa-Fulani community – the biggest ethnic group in northern Nigeria - and local ethnic groups, that are mainly Christian.

However, many feel that the conflict is not about religion but about who should be seen as the rightful owners of the city.

Members of the Hausa-Fulani community say they are discriminated against because the government of Plateau State sees them as 'settlers'...

Many local governments in Nigeria operate policies that give preferential rights to communities that are judged to be the original inhabitants of an area.

In Jos, there are three ethnic groups - all predominantly Christian - which are recognised as indigenous...

Tensions between indigenes and settlers occur across Nigeria and as the population has grown, competition between them for land, jobs and education has intensified.

However in Jos, the friction between settlers and indigenes coincides with religious and ethnic divisions."

BBC: Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar, remains empty after violence

BBC: first trial at the ICC hits snag as witness recants testimony

NYT: North Korea abandons accord with South Korea on border

WP: grassroots online organizing in China

BBC: FARC to release high-profile captives Sunday
Bloomberg: ...may have detonated bomb in busy Bogota sector that killed 2

Plan Colombia and Beyond: jailed paramilitary leader explains the cocaine trade from Colombia
LAT: Mexican capos might have arrived at a truce
LAT: the DEA is out of Bolivia
Ind: maybe they can just use Google Earth, like the Swiss
"Swiss police said they stumbled across a large marijuana plantation while using Google Earth, the search engine company's satellite mapping software."

Gdn: separtists, the mafia, and ecologists in Corsica
Fighting to defend the law is not easy on a Mediterranean island where clans, mafia godfathers and armed separatists crisscross in a nebulous atmosphere of omertà (code of silence), clientelism and protection rackets, and where property speculation is the fast money earner...

Corsica, 100 miles south of the French coast, is one of the last remaining unspoiled corner of the western Mediterranean. Due to France's stringent coastal protection measures and the spectre of violent separatism, the mountainous island still boasts large expanses of coastline that have been spared mass construction. Now the Corsican executive, headed by a member of Sarkozy's ruling centre-right party, has proposed a new 20-year development plan to boost the island's economy, which will declassify stretches of protected land to allow for more building. Environmental groups warn that Corsica risks repeating the concrete nightmare of Majorca or France's Côte d'Azur.

The plan, known by its acronym Padduc, has spawned a movement called the anti-Padduc front, made up of 80 different groups including trade unions and ecologists. The row has also boosted the island's nationalist and separatist cause. This weekend, Corsican hardline nationalists will launch their new political party, Corsica Libera. They oppose building developments which, they say, threatens the island's national identity.

This month, one of Corsica's main armed separatist groups, the FLNC-UC, issued its strongest statement in which it made death threats against the island's ruling political class, warned against the building plans and laid claim to 14 bomb attacks over the last six months.

In the low-level separatist violence that has simmered on the island for 30 years, empty holiday homes have been sporadically targeted with homemade bombs. While tourists are welcome, mainland French "foreigners" acquiring land are not."

Gdn: Iceland on fast-track to joining EU
Ind: with the world's first gay premier

Slate: reform US federal government archiving practices
Slate: end taxation without representation for DC