WP: Obama to combine DHS and NSC
[NSA James] Jones and [Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security John] Brennan, whom Obama tapped Feb. 23 to lead a 60-day organizational review, said the changes will strengthen the White House security staff, which includes aides detailed from other departments.
Among other things, Obama is establishing a new global engagement directorate to coordinate U.S. communications with other countries and to streamline U.S. diplomatic, aid, environment and energy policies in support of security objectives, officials said.
WSJ: public support for Afghanistan war weak, resolve and upholding "American values" necessary
American public support for the Afghan war will dissipate in less than a year unless the Obama administration achieves "a perceptible shift in momentum," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview...
The interview comes as Mr. Gates is trying to fundamentally change how the military prepares for and fights its wars. Mr. Bush brought him in to calm the waters in late 2006 after Donald Rumsfeld's contentious reign. Some predicted an unremarkable and fairly short tenure, but three years later, Mr. Gates has become one of the most powerful defense chiefs in decades. He has cut billions of dollars in high-tech weapons systems and fired a raft of high-ranking generals and senior Pentagon officials.
BBC: large Lahore attack aimed at ISI offices kills dozens, wounds hundreds; blamed on Taliban
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters: "Enemies of Pakistan who want to destabilise the country are coming here after their defeat in Swat. There is a war, and this is a war for our survival."
CSM: women threatened amid " Talibanization" of Karachi
The warnings have caused a panic among upper- and middle-class women who have long enjoyed the liberal environment of Pakistan's most cosmopolitan city, where the fashion industry is thriving, female employment is on the rise, and the literacy rate of 65 percent far exceeds the national average of 46 percent.
While no physical attacks have been reported, some women have been threatened at gunpoint. Others, like prominent activist Attiya Dawood, have had eggs thrown at them while walking through residential parks.
Female students have also been targeted. Private, coed institutions have reportedly received letters signed by the Taliban warning them to close down or segregate their students, or face the consequences, which might include the kidnapping of students. When approached, school administration officials refuse to discuss the situation, with some arguing that it is better for their students' safety to be kept out of the media.
CSM: minors tried under harsh anti-terrorism law in Turkey
"I never thought I could go to prison for throwing a stone," says Hebun, who spent 10 months in an adult prison awaiting his initial trial. "I become really angry when I think that just for throwing a stone they were asking to put me away for 28 years. It's unjust." Now out on bail pending an appeal, he faces an amended sentence of seven years.
Hebun is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the past few years under strict new antiterrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults and even be accused of "committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization" for participating in demonstrations. Critics and rights defenders say the amended antiterrorism laws are deeply flawed and also violate international conventions on the detention of children.
BBC: Somalia conflict creates surge in victims, some 60,000 displaced
It comes as a radical cleric on the US terror list, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, formally became leader of the Somali Islamist rebel group Hisbul-Islam.
The militia, and an allied hardline group, al-Shabab, have been locked in fierce battles with pro-government forces that have displaced more than 60,000 civilians since 7 May.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which funds and runs two of Mogadishu's three hospitals, Medina and Keysaney, told the BBC more than 650 patients have sought treatment since the clashes began and that many more were trapped in conflict zones.
BBC: "Daddy Ken," Nigerian militant leader, arrested after being turned in by locals
It is unusual for people to turn in militants as they are often feared or pay Delta communities to keep quiet. But residents of Odi said they feared a repeat of an army operation 10 years ago which devastated the town...
A military operation is currently under way in the swamps of neighbouring Delta State. The military Joint Task Force (JTF) are hunting militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend). It has been impossible to verify any casualty figures as travel to the region has been restricted by the military.
BBC: former Ivorian rebels (belatedly) transfer control of territory, in move toward elections
Former rebel forces in Ivory Coast have relinquished territory in the north to civilian administrators appointed by President Laurent Gbagbo... He signed a peace deal with the New Forces rebels in 2007. Presidential elections - repeatedly postponed - are due to be held in November.
The former French colony was torn apart by a brief civil war in 2002 when the New Forces seized control of the mainly Muslim north of the country... The transfer of power, due in January under the latest United Nations-backed peace pact signed at the end of 2008, was twice postponed.
BBC: Rwandan parliament approves solitary confinement for cases of genocide, as well as rape and gang-related crimes
CSM: continued conflict in northern Darfur
The past fortnight has seen an upsurge in clashes as rebels try to claim a "liberated" zone ahead of rains due to begin within a couple of weeks.
In return, government Antonov planes have pounded targets every morning and evening, while rebels seek out whatever cover they can find in Darfur's empty desert.
Peace talks between the two sides are set to resume in Qatar on Wednesday. But with fighting on the increase and trust at rock bottom, few experts hold out hope for any major breakthroughs...
In the past year, the war has settled into a low-intensity phase, in sharp contrast to the early days, when government-backed janjaweed militias launched a scorched-earth campaign to deprive rebels of civilian support.
These days, death comes in ones and twos, with bombs dropped from Antonov warplanes. Or it comes day after day in the aid camps, as fragile children succumb to diseases of malnutrition and want.
At the same time, Sudan and Chad have stepped up their proxy war. Chadian war planes have been operating deep into Darfur seeking out bases of Khartoum-backed rebels who launched attacks inside Chad earlier this month.
JEM's offensive brings the risk of Sudanese reprisal against its own bases across the border, turning a war by proxy into a real front line.
WSJ: refugees trapped in Sri Lanka now being sorted into guerrilla and non-guerrilla
After Sri Lanka's army finished off the Tamil Tigers as a fighting force last week, the Sri Lankan government turned its attention to rooting out those who may have served in the separatist guerrilla movement -- willingly or unwillingly. Though the government says the screening is necessary to squeeze the last breaths from a 26-year insurgency, the process is proving wrenching for families who survived the war only to be separated in peace.
So far, say army officials, the screening process has netted more than 9,000 Tamil Tigers. Most came forward voluntarily, army officials say. They are expected to spend about six months at rehabilitation camps, where they will be taught vocational skills and monitored to make sure they don't harbor allegiance to the Tigers and their violent separatist movement. A few hundred hard-core insurgents will be kept longer, army officials say.
CSM: new politics, and competition, among Tamils
Tamil activists say that the end of the 26-year war for a separate state for the island's ethnic Tamil minority should allow more moderate voices to emerge. But it could also spark instability as rivals duke it out in electoral battlegrounds in Tamil areas like Jaffna and among the population displaced by war. The presence of armed groups loyal to Tamil politicians and often in league with security forces adds to the combustible mix.
"The LTTE has always said it was the sole representative of the Tamil people. So who speaks for Tamils now?" asks a social activist in Colombo...
On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan officials said the government will continue its state of emergency, which includes police powers such as searches of private homes and 18-month detention of suspects without a trial. It said the restrictions are necessary to prevent a resurgence of the rebel movement. Sri Lankan officials also say they are holding some 9,100 rebel prisoners and will release many for "rehabilitation."
WP: UNHCHR calls for probe into government and rebel abuses
WP: North Korea sees South Korean decision to inspect ships suspected of nuclear activity as "declaration of war"
LAT: sweep of mayors and security officials for drug corruption in Michoacán, Mexico
Those detained include a key advisor to [state governor] Godoy, a judge and several top regional public security officials, the attorney general's office said. Most were taken to Mexico City for questioning after being rounded up during the morning from their homes, offices and city halls...
Although Mexican authorities have frequently arrested corrupt security agents in drug-related cases, this is the first time they have gone after such a large number of elected officials. The sweep was significant because it represents an effort to hit the political cover that the traffickers enjoy, though it may not make much of a dent in the smuggling network, analysts said... At least 83 of Michoacan's 113 municipalities are mixed up at some level with narcos, a Mexican intelligence source told The Times this month. The source, not authorized to talk to the press, spoke on condition of anonymity...
La Familia has been doing battle with the so-called Gulf cartel, which moved into Michoacan a few years ago in what was initially a strategic partnership. The arrangement ruptured last year, with the two groups struggling over control of land to produce drugs and over transport routes, including Michoacan's valued Lazaro Cardenas seaport. La Familia specializes in marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine. In the last year it has set up shop in 20 to 30 cities and towns across the United States, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said Tuesday.
PCB: Adam Isacson on Colombia's new "Integrated Action" security plan
It is a set of new Colombian government programs that have gone under many names in the past few years. These include Plan Colombia 2, Plan Colombia Consolidation Phase, Social Recovery of Territory (or Social Control of Territory), the National Consolidation Plan, the Center for the Coordination of Integrated Action (CCAI), or the “Strategic Leap.”
Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s defense minister until last week, offered this definition: “It means state institutions’ entry or return to zones affected by violence to satisfy the population’s basic needs, like health, education and public services, as well as justice, culture, recreation and infrastructure projects.”
The underlying idea is that Colombia’s historically neglected rural areas will only be taken back from illegal armed groups if the entire government is involved in “recovering” or “consolidating” its presence in these territories. While the military and police must handle security, the doctrine contends that the rest of the government must be brought into these zones in a quick, coordinated way.
WSJ: predicting gang involvement in LA's youth: as easy as ABC
The multiple-choice screening, some 70 questions long, shows how closely Los Angeles has begun to examine the work of social scientists to tackle complex policy issues like gang violence. Last year, city officials turned to Dr. Klein and his colleagues at USC to design a test that they hope will empirically identify which children are headed toward a life on the street. This year, the test will help decide the direction of the millions of dollars the city spends annually on gang-prevention efforts.
The screening, intended for children between 10 and 15 years old, asks a range of questions on issues ranging from past relationships to drug use to attitudes toward violence. One question asks test takers if they recently had a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend; another asks test takers if they are kind to younger children.
In order to avoid stigmatizing children with the label of potential criminal, Dr. Klein says test takers aren't told that the questions are intended to screen for future gang involvement.
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FP: what (those sneaky) human rights advocates don't say about the use of child soldiers
WR: Angelina Jolie knows all about it
Jolie stopped by [the ICC] on her way to Cannes to observe the trial of Thomas Lubanga. As we've discussed previously, Lubanga is charged with using child soldiers during Congo's Ituri conflict. Prosecution of the use of child soldiers is of tremendous personal importance to Jolie, who is slowly assembling her own child army. Or she was there in her capacity as UNHCR goodwill ambassador. Whichever.
MSNBC: Rachel Maddow on Guantánamo, prolonged detention and "precrime"
Daily Show: dispose of them!
Showing posts with label Child soldiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child soldiers. Show all posts
27 January 2009
engagement [just listening]
BBC: first ICC trial begins, against militia leader for use of child soldiers in DR Congo conflict...
"[T]he case is the first in history to focus exclusively on the use of child soldiers as a war crime and the first time victims will have been allowed to participate fully in an international trial...
The prosecution says children were snatched as they walked to school and suffered beatings and other abuses. Many were plied with marijuana and told they were protected by witchcraft, according to human rights groups."
NYT: ...a trial that almost didn't happen
"Turf wars within the court, bitter legal squabbles and irritation among the trial judges had almost torpedoed the case. Last July, as the trial was about to start, judges put a halt to the proceedings, citing legal and strategic errors by the prosecution, and said Mr. Lubanga should be set free, though he was ultimately kept in custody. The judges said the prosecution’s handling of evidence amounted to “wholesale and serious abuse” of the process and ruled that a fair trial was not possible at that point...
One question now being asked in The Hague is whether the Obama administration will re-establish links with the court. The Clinton administration signed the 1998 treaty establishing the court on its last days in office, but President Bush ordered the signature withdrawn, leaving the United States as the only major Western power not to join.
In his opening statement on Monday, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the court, said Mr. Lubanga’s militia included children, some as young as 9 years old, who were used as cooks, cleaners, spies, scouts and sex slaves. They were ordered to kill, pillage and rape, he said, and they were often killed and raped themselves.
Congolese rights groups say that Mr. Lubanga is by no means the most senior commander responsible for the widespread killing in Congo’s ethnic conflicts, but that he became available to the court after he was arrested in 2005 during an investigation into the killing of United Nations peacekeepers in Congo... The case is making use of a new step in international law, namely allowing victims to play a direct role in the trial and to be represented by their own lawyers."
BBC: profile of Lubanga
Open Society Institute: daily coverage of Lubanga's trial
LAT: UNHCR says Congolese refugees fleeing to South Sudan to escape LRA; more than 600 civilians killed in last month
NYT: Gen. Laurent Nkunda captured by Rwandan army
"General Nkunda was one of Congo’s most powerful and unpredictable rebel leaders, a megalomaniac with proven military skill who, until his arrest along the Congo-Rwanda border, had single-handedly destabilized a large chunk of central Africa... Congo is now urging Rwanda to extradite him to stand trial for war crimes and treason charges.
A few weeks ago, top rebel commanders suddenly split off from General Nkunda, a charismatic figure who until then had appeared to engender fierce loyalty. Thousands of Rwandan troops then stormed across the border as part of a joint mission with the Congolese Army to flush out Hutu militants left over from Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.
The latest twist came Thursday, when instead of attacking the Hutu militants, the Rwandans marched straight into General Nkunda’s territory and bundled him away.
At least that is what the Rwandans say, though some of General Nkunda’s former fighters say he was lured into Rwanda for a meeting and then either captured or told to go underground."
WPost: in Zimbabwe, unclear if power-sharing agreement dead or not
"Leaders of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community met Monday in Pretoria, South Africa, in what was depicted as a last-ditch effort to salvage a deal between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition. After 14 hours of negotiations that ended at dawn, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe told reporters that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would be sworn in as prime minister Feb. 11, after Zimbabwe's parliament passes a constitutional amendment creating the position.
But Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change, swiftly issued a statement indicating that was not the case. While a communique issued by SADC addressed some of the opposition party's demands -- including, for example, a call for the parties to discuss the assignment of provincial governors -- the MDC said it had not gone far enough."
NYT: Islamist insurgents in Somalia take Baidoa...
"Islamist insurgents took over the city that houses Somalia’s Parliament on Monday, just hours after Ethiopian troops withdrew and formally ended a failed two-year effort to defeat Islamist militants in the country... Parliament is supposed to select a new president to replace Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who resigned in late December. Many Somalis, Western diplomats and aid officials have crossed their fingers in the hope that moderate Islamists and transitional government figures would work together to pick a new, unifying leader.
Mr. Yusuf, a former warlord, had been widely criticized for trying to thwart peace negotiations. One of the leading contenders to replace him is a moderate Islamic cleric."
NYT: ...and impose Sharia law
"The Shabab, one of the most militant Islamist militias fighting for control of the country, captured the town, Baidoa, on Monday, hours after the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops who had been protecting it... In addition to Baidoa, a market town that has served as the seat of Somalia’s transitional government, the Shabab controls most of Mogadishu, the main city and official capital, and much of the southern part of the country. The Shabab, listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, seeks to turn Somalia into an Islamic state under its particularly strict brand of Islamic law...
Several moderate factions have sent delegations to Djibouti, where they are working with the Parliament to establish a unity government based on a power-sharing deal made in October.
That process moved forward on Monday when the Parliament voted to expand its membership to add 200 legislators from the ranks of the moderate Islamists. The new members are to be sworn in on Wednesday, bringing the total number of seats to 550.
The Parliament also hopes to elect a new president within five days, according to local radio reports..."
LAT: Japan dispatches ships to Somalian seas
AJE: 25 dead in Madagascar riots
NYT: "rehabilitated" jihadists at it again
"Nine graduates of an influential Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists, including some who had been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, have been arrested for rejoining terrorist groups since the program started in 2004, Saudi officials said Monday...
If doubts are raised about the Saudi program, they could complicate President Obama’s plan to close the Guantánamo detention center within a year, as required by one of his first executive orders after taking office last week. Almost half of the remaining prisoners there are Yemeni, and their return home depends in part on Yemen’s creation of a rehabilitation program, paid for partly by the United States, that is modeled on the Saudi one.
Pentagon officials have said that 61 of the more than 525 Guantánamo detainees who have been released have returned to terrorism. That claim has generated some skepticism, and the Pentagon is expected to declassify portions of a report on the subject in the coming days."
LAT: violent protests against Bahrain government after coup charge
"The riots continued Tuesday after the prosecutor's office announced that the three had been charged with promoting a coup "through terrorism," according to a statement by the office.
The statement said they also were charged with joining an outlawed group, violating other citizens' liberties and inciting hatred against the ruling regime. One activist was released but banned from traveling, and the two others were in custody, the statement said."
NYT: politics of rebuilding in Gaza...
"Aid agencies expect several hundred million dollars to be pledged at a conference next week for items like food, medicine and spare parts for electrical grids. But that does not touch the broader question of rebuilding, which will require large quantities of cement, metal and glass, all of which Gaza lacks.
The task is enormous: An estimated 4,000 homes were destroyed and 17,000 damaged in the three-week war that began Dec. 27, Palestinian authorities said.
Israel said that letting such supplies in freely would be risky. Hamas militants have built rockets from pipes imported for a sanitation plant last year, Israeli officials said, and while Israel is attending to humanitarian aid — the number of trucks with food and other urgent supplies that now pass through Israeli crossings into Gaza has tripled — the Israeli authorities have yet to decide what else they will permit into Gaza."
AJE: ...complicated, as Hamas says it will give victims reconstruction money
"We are a government that is in charge of all of Gaza," [Ahmed al-Kurd, the Hamas-appointed minister of social affairs] said. "The ministries have budgets, they have funds, just like in the rest of the countries of the world."
Gdn: 1 Israeli soldier and 1 Palestinian killed today post-ceasefire
"Israel also closed its crossings into Gaza, through which all humanitarian aid and other supplies have to pass. "The crossings have been closed due to the attack," Peter Lerner, an Israeli defence official, said. "This is another example of terrorist activities against the crossings, the same crossings that serve the Palestinian people for humanitarian aid."
AJE: ...prompting Israel to bomb Gaza-Egypt tunnels, again
"Israel has confirmed that it carried out the raids. It says the strikes on the Rafah tunnels are aimed at stopping alleged weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip by Hamas fighters.
The tunnels are also used to smuggle food, fuel and consumer goods from Egypt and are considered a life-line for thousands of ordinary Gazans.
The latest attack came despite fragile ceasefires declared by Israel and Hamas last week, ending a 22-day Israeli military campaign on Gaza in which 1,300 people were killed.
Israeli warplanes had targetted scores of cross-border tunnels during the recent war, but many tunnels resumed work shortly after the ceasefire."
NYT: just as Obama's Middle East envoy is on tour
"Mr. Obama has moved swiftly to engage in the Middle East, phoning Arab and Israeli leaders on his first full day in office and announcing [George] Mitchell’s appointment the next day.
Mr. Mitchell, a seasoned negotiator, helped broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland and led a commission investigating the causes of violence between Israelis and Palestinians."
NYT: closed crossings mean humanitarian aid sits, waiting
AJE: photos reveal Israeli white phosphorus use on UN compound
"White phosphorus - a high-incendiary substance that burns brightly and for long periods on contact with the air - is often used to produce smoke screens.
But it can also be used as a weapon producing extreme burns when it makes contact with human skin.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported a brigade of paratroop reservists fired about 20 white phosphorus shells into the built-up area of Beit Lahiya on January 17, which landed in the UN-run compound where the two Palestinian children were killed and severe burns were inflicted on 14 other people.
Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, has accused Israel of war crimes over its use of the munitions in heavily populated areas."
NYT: move to the right in Israel post-Gaza invasion
"That is not because Israelis have regrets or have become faint-hearted about the casualties and destruction in Gaza. To the contrary, there appears to have been a shift further to the right, reflecting a feeling among many voters that an even tougher approach may now be required.
Recent polls indicate that Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing opposition party, has retained and even increased its lead. The other party that appears to have gained the most ground is the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman."
LAT: postwar boom for Gazan businesses... selling posters of martyrs
Gdn: Britain's security and counter-terrorism minister says Gaza attacks will fuel extremism
"In an outspoken assessment of the terror risk facing Britain, Gordon Brown's security adviser was scathing about the assertion, made by Tony Blair when prime minister, that foreign policy did not alter the UK's risk of a terror attack. "We never used to accept that our foreign policy ever had any effect on terrorism," he said. "Well, that was clearly bollocks."...
West, meanwhile, described the threat of international terrorism as a severe one... "Vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices are now, today, the greatest threat to us. If you put one near an old building the whole thing will collapse."
Gdn: British gov minutes discussing legality of Iraq war invasion to be released
"Secret government discussions about the Iraq war are to be disclosed after an information tribunal today ordered the release of cabinet minutes from 2003... The meetings considered the highly controversial issue of whether the invasion was allowed under international law. Lord Goldsmith, who was attorney general at the time, initially suggested that the legality of the invasion was legally questionable before subsequently issuing legal advice saying that it would be compatible with international law."
NYT: US helicopters down in Kirkuk; Iraqi budget also down as oil prices fall
"An Iraqi security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was forbidden to speak to the news media, said the helicopters had crashed in an open field in an area known as Chalak, about 10 miles south of Kirkuk... [A]fter the American military retrieved the wreckage, the Sunni Arab insurgent group known as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, sometimes referred to as the Naqshbandi Army, distributed leaflets in the area claiming it had downed the two helicopters with makeshift rockets...
The group, named after a Muslim Sufi order, is linked to Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was one of Saddam Hussein’s top aides, and members of his family, according to American military intelligence officers. Mr. Douri, who is ailing but whose whereabouts remain a mystery, is an ardent follower and patron of the Naqshbandi order in Iraq...
The squeeze in Iraq’s finances comes as the government seeks to solidify fragile security gains by improving basic services, spurring job creation and rehabilitating the country’s battered infrastructure. In the past week, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been on a whirlwind campaign tour of impoverished southern Iraq, drumming up support for his slate of candidates in provincial elections this Saturday.
He promised rapt audiences everywhere to provide jobs and housing.
“We have set our sight on rebuilding Iraq, providing an honorable life for its citizens, supporting agriculture, resuscitating our factories and plants, and building our armed forces,” Mr. Maliki told crowds during a rally on Monday in Babil Province.
But given the country’s immense investment needs, fulfilling some of these promises, at least in the short term, hinges on stable oil prices and higher production."
AJE: Abu Ghraib to be reopened under different name
LAT: hmm, any other signs of "normalcy" in Iraq?
NYT: Shiites on pilgrimage during provincial elections could bring unexpected surprises
LAT: Secretary of Defense Gates advises limited mission in Afghanistan
"Rather than the pursuit of democracy, Gates said the primary U.S. mission should be ensuring that Afghanistan did not again become a haven for Al Qaeda...
One new unit, the Ft. Drum, N.Y.-based 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, has arrived in Afghanistan, bringing the total number of U.S. troops to 36,000. The unit was originally scheduled to go to Iraq.
By spring, two additional brigades will be sent to Afghanistan, to be joined by a third in midsummer, Gates said.
Gates said it would be difficult to send troops to Afghanistan much faster than is currently planned because of a lack of infrastructure -- dining halls, bases, hospitals and logistics hubs -- there."
NYT: ...and wants to decrease delays for treatment of wounded soldiers there...
LAT: ...while Biden expects higher casualties and the Army pays for civilian casualties
"U.S. commanders on Tuesday traveled to a poor Afghan village and distributed $40,000 to relatives of 15 people killed in a U.S. raid, including a known militant commander. The Americans also apologized for any civilians killed in the operation... [Karzai] told the villagers he has given the U.S. and NATO one month to respond to a draft agreement calling for increased Afghan participation in military operations.
Karzai said if he does not receive a response within that time, he would ask Afghans what he should do about international military operations. The statement from the presidential palace describing the meeting did not elaborate...
Lt. Col. Steven Weir, a military lawyer who helped oversee the payments, said the payments were not an admission by the U.S. that innocents were killed. "It's a condolence payment," he said. "The villagers said none of them were in the Taliban, just peaceful individuals from the village. So by this payment they will understand it's not our goal to kill innocent people. This may help them understand we're here to build a safer and more secure Afghanistan."
NYT: Iranian terrorist group (says Iran) not a terrorist group (according to EU)
"The European Union removed a prominent Iranian opposition group from its list of banned terrorist organizations on Monday, a step that could worsen its relations with Tehran, which strongly opposed the move.
The decision, by the foreign ministers of the 27-nation bloc, ended a long battle by the group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, to be removed from Europe’s list of proscribed organizations. It was placed on the list in 2002... The group advocates the overthrow of Iran’s religious leaders and the creation of a democratic, secular government. After the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini turned against the group, executing many of its members. The group has claimed responsibility for bombings that killed hundreds of officials and civilians in the 1980s...
Several thousand of the group’s members live in a camp north of Baghdad, where they have had American military protection since 2003. Iraq has been under pressure from Iran to expel the group, but if its members are sent back to Iran they will probably be accused of treason and almost certainly be executed."
NYT: Sri Lankan army takes Mullaittivu, last major rebel-held town
"The army’s taking of the rebel garrison town of Mullaittivu on Sunday may signal the end of conventional battles but not of suicide attacks and other deadly tactics that the guerrillas have used for decades in their campaign for an independent state in the northeast...
The army said it took the de facto rebel capital, Kilinochchi, three weeks ago, and Elephant Pass, a key corridor, a week later.
It is impossible to verify the government’s accounts because the authorities deny journalists access to anywhere near the front lines and because those who question the official version of events in the war are rebuked as traitors.
A journalist, a publisher and his wife have been held under antiterrorism laws for 10 months. A leading newspaper editor was killed this month, another was beaten on his way to work and a television station was attacked. Several journalists have fled the country recently."
AJE: looking for Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran
"Officials said they were using spy planes that monitored satellite phone transmissions and took photographs of the jungle region to try to pin-point Prabhakaran's location... MR Narayan Swamy, an Indian journalist who wrote a biography of the LTTE leader, said the loss of Prabhakaran would be devastating to the group. "He is their brain. He is their heart. He is their god. He is their soul, and the whole organisation runs around him," he said."
NYT: no safe zone for civilians or UN staff
"First, the team of mostly Sri Lankan aid workers and their families were prevented by the guerrillas, also known by the initials L.T.T.E., from leaving the war zone. Then, on Saturday, they took shelter in what the government described as a no-fire zone, erecting a temporary compound, around which many civilians had also gathered.
A shell landed near the compound on Saturday evening, and then another early Sunday morning, killing 9 civilians and wounding more than 20, according to a memo sent by United Nations officials in Sri Lanka to their headquarters in New York."
AJE: Philippine rebel group to rejoin peace talks, on one condition: a separate Muslim state in the south
"The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government are trying to revive peace negotiations after a proposed deal broke down last year when the supreme court stopped the government from signing the deal... Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas, reporting from Talayan in Mindanao, says thousands of people, mostly farmers, have been living in evacuation centres since last August, surviving on handouts under harsh conditions.
WPost: "Stew Maker" is captured, admits to burning bodies of 300 narco-rivals in acid
LAT: two former members of Peruvian military freed after courts fail to convict them for Barrios Altos massacre--after 6 years
"The former military officers are on trial on charges of murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy in the 1991 massacre of 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, at Lima's Barrios Altos tenement, court clerk Daniel Luna told The Associated Press.
Barrios Altos is one of two massacres that ex-President Alberto Fujimori is charged with authorizing."
LAT: Obama has "constructive and cordial" conversation with Colombian president; they discuss security and Plan Colombia, among other issues
NYT: Iceland's government collapses
"Last week, [Prime Minister Geir] Haarde called elections for May, bringing forward a vote originally scheduled for 2011, after weeks of protests by Icelanders angered by soaring unemployment and rising prices. But Mr. Haarde said he would not lead his Independence Party into the new elections because he needed treatment for cancer.
Iceland has been in crisis since the collapse of its banks because of large debt in September and October, with its currency, the krona, plummeting. The government has negotiated $10 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund and other countries, but the standard of living for the average person has sunk along with the currency, and the economy is expected to contract by nearly 10 percent this year."
LAT: Medvedev to alter Russian treason bill (in a challenge to Putin?)
AJE: former Serb general, Vlastimir Djordjevic, on trial at The Hague for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo
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NYT blog/Errol Morris: the Bush years in pictures
Gdn: on "responsible sovereignty"
"A new phrase has rolled off the production line of foreign policy analysts: responsible sovereignty. In a world where the threats are transnational - climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, the banking crisis - states not only have a responsibility to their own citizens, but to their neighbours and to the international community as well. States need to take responsibility for the international implications of their domestic actions. Responsible sovereignty underpins current attempts by a distinguished group of US experts to create a new world order based on revitalised international institutions, diplomacy and negotiation. They call it a project to manage global insecurity."
"[T]he case is the first in history to focus exclusively on the use of child soldiers as a war crime and the first time victims will have been allowed to participate fully in an international trial...
The prosecution says children were snatched as they walked to school and suffered beatings and other abuses. Many were plied with marijuana and told they were protected by witchcraft, according to human rights groups."
NYT: ...a trial that almost didn't happen
"Turf wars within the court, bitter legal squabbles and irritation among the trial judges had almost torpedoed the case. Last July, as the trial was about to start, judges put a halt to the proceedings, citing legal and strategic errors by the prosecution, and said Mr. Lubanga should be set free, though he was ultimately kept in custody. The judges said the prosecution’s handling of evidence amounted to “wholesale and serious abuse” of the process and ruled that a fair trial was not possible at that point...
One question now being asked in The Hague is whether the Obama administration will re-establish links with the court. The Clinton administration signed the 1998 treaty establishing the court on its last days in office, but President Bush ordered the signature withdrawn, leaving the United States as the only major Western power not to join.
In his opening statement on Monday, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the court, said Mr. Lubanga’s militia included children, some as young as 9 years old, who were used as cooks, cleaners, spies, scouts and sex slaves. They were ordered to kill, pillage and rape, he said, and they were often killed and raped themselves.
Congolese rights groups say that Mr. Lubanga is by no means the most senior commander responsible for the widespread killing in Congo’s ethnic conflicts, but that he became available to the court after he was arrested in 2005 during an investigation into the killing of United Nations peacekeepers in Congo... The case is making use of a new step in international law, namely allowing victims to play a direct role in the trial and to be represented by their own lawyers."
BBC: profile of Lubanga
Open Society Institute: daily coverage of Lubanga's trial
LAT: UNHCR says Congolese refugees fleeing to South Sudan to escape LRA; more than 600 civilians killed in last month
NYT: Gen. Laurent Nkunda captured by Rwandan army
"General Nkunda was one of Congo’s most powerful and unpredictable rebel leaders, a megalomaniac with proven military skill who, until his arrest along the Congo-Rwanda border, had single-handedly destabilized a large chunk of central Africa... Congo is now urging Rwanda to extradite him to stand trial for war crimes and treason charges.
A few weeks ago, top rebel commanders suddenly split off from General Nkunda, a charismatic figure who until then had appeared to engender fierce loyalty. Thousands of Rwandan troops then stormed across the border as part of a joint mission with the Congolese Army to flush out Hutu militants left over from Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.
The latest twist came Thursday, when instead of attacking the Hutu militants, the Rwandans marched straight into General Nkunda’s territory and bundled him away.
At least that is what the Rwandans say, though some of General Nkunda’s former fighters say he was lured into Rwanda for a meeting and then either captured or told to go underground."
WPost: in Zimbabwe, unclear if power-sharing agreement dead or not
"Leaders of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community met Monday in Pretoria, South Africa, in what was depicted as a last-ditch effort to salvage a deal between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition. After 14 hours of negotiations that ended at dawn, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe told reporters that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would be sworn in as prime minister Feb. 11, after Zimbabwe's parliament passes a constitutional amendment creating the position.
But Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change, swiftly issued a statement indicating that was not the case. While a communique issued by SADC addressed some of the opposition party's demands -- including, for example, a call for the parties to discuss the assignment of provincial governors -- the MDC said it had not gone far enough."
NYT: Islamist insurgents in Somalia take Baidoa...
"Islamist insurgents took over the city that houses Somalia’s Parliament on Monday, just hours after Ethiopian troops withdrew and formally ended a failed two-year effort to defeat Islamist militants in the country... Parliament is supposed to select a new president to replace Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who resigned in late December. Many Somalis, Western diplomats and aid officials have crossed their fingers in the hope that moderate Islamists and transitional government figures would work together to pick a new, unifying leader.
Mr. Yusuf, a former warlord, had been widely criticized for trying to thwart peace negotiations. One of the leading contenders to replace him is a moderate Islamic cleric."
NYT: ...and impose Sharia law
"The Shabab, one of the most militant Islamist militias fighting for control of the country, captured the town, Baidoa, on Monday, hours after the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops who had been protecting it... In addition to Baidoa, a market town that has served as the seat of Somalia’s transitional government, the Shabab controls most of Mogadishu, the main city and official capital, and much of the southern part of the country. The Shabab, listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, seeks to turn Somalia into an Islamic state under its particularly strict brand of Islamic law...
Several moderate factions have sent delegations to Djibouti, where they are working with the Parliament to establish a unity government based on a power-sharing deal made in October.
That process moved forward on Monday when the Parliament voted to expand its membership to add 200 legislators from the ranks of the moderate Islamists. The new members are to be sworn in on Wednesday, bringing the total number of seats to 550.
The Parliament also hopes to elect a new president within five days, according to local radio reports..."
LAT: Japan dispatches ships to Somalian seas
AJE: 25 dead in Madagascar riots
NYT: "rehabilitated" jihadists at it again
"Nine graduates of an influential Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists, including some who had been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, have been arrested for rejoining terrorist groups since the program started in 2004, Saudi officials said Monday...
If doubts are raised about the Saudi program, they could complicate President Obama’s plan to close the Guantánamo detention center within a year, as required by one of his first executive orders after taking office last week. Almost half of the remaining prisoners there are Yemeni, and their return home depends in part on Yemen’s creation of a rehabilitation program, paid for partly by the United States, that is modeled on the Saudi one.
Pentagon officials have said that 61 of the more than 525 Guantánamo detainees who have been released have returned to terrorism. That claim has generated some skepticism, and the Pentagon is expected to declassify portions of a report on the subject in the coming days."
LAT: violent protests against Bahrain government after coup charge
"The riots continued Tuesday after the prosecutor's office announced that the three had been charged with promoting a coup "through terrorism," according to a statement by the office.
The statement said they also were charged with joining an outlawed group, violating other citizens' liberties and inciting hatred against the ruling regime. One activist was released but banned from traveling, and the two others were in custody, the statement said."
NYT: politics of rebuilding in Gaza...
"Aid agencies expect several hundred million dollars to be pledged at a conference next week for items like food, medicine and spare parts for electrical grids. But that does not touch the broader question of rebuilding, which will require large quantities of cement, metal and glass, all of which Gaza lacks.
The task is enormous: An estimated 4,000 homes were destroyed and 17,000 damaged in the three-week war that began Dec. 27, Palestinian authorities said.
Israel said that letting such supplies in freely would be risky. Hamas militants have built rockets from pipes imported for a sanitation plant last year, Israeli officials said, and while Israel is attending to humanitarian aid — the number of trucks with food and other urgent supplies that now pass through Israeli crossings into Gaza has tripled — the Israeli authorities have yet to decide what else they will permit into Gaza."
AJE: ...complicated, as Hamas says it will give victims reconstruction money
"We are a government that is in charge of all of Gaza," [Ahmed al-Kurd, the Hamas-appointed minister of social affairs] said. "The ministries have budgets, they have funds, just like in the rest of the countries of the world."
Gdn: 1 Israeli soldier and 1 Palestinian killed today post-ceasefire
"Israel also closed its crossings into Gaza, through which all humanitarian aid and other supplies have to pass. "The crossings have been closed due to the attack," Peter Lerner, an Israeli defence official, said. "This is another example of terrorist activities against the crossings, the same crossings that serve the Palestinian people for humanitarian aid."
AJE: ...prompting Israel to bomb Gaza-Egypt tunnels, again
"Israel has confirmed that it carried out the raids. It says the strikes on the Rafah tunnels are aimed at stopping alleged weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip by Hamas fighters.
The tunnels are also used to smuggle food, fuel and consumer goods from Egypt and are considered a life-line for thousands of ordinary Gazans.
The latest attack came despite fragile ceasefires declared by Israel and Hamas last week, ending a 22-day Israeli military campaign on Gaza in which 1,300 people were killed.
Israeli warplanes had targetted scores of cross-border tunnels during the recent war, but many tunnels resumed work shortly after the ceasefire."
NYT: just as Obama's Middle East envoy is on tour
"Mr. Obama has moved swiftly to engage in the Middle East, phoning Arab and Israeli leaders on his first full day in office and announcing [George] Mitchell’s appointment the next day.
Mr. Mitchell, a seasoned negotiator, helped broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland and led a commission investigating the causes of violence between Israelis and Palestinians."
NYT: closed crossings mean humanitarian aid sits, waiting
AJE: photos reveal Israeli white phosphorus use on UN compound
"White phosphorus - a high-incendiary substance that burns brightly and for long periods on contact with the air - is often used to produce smoke screens.
But it can also be used as a weapon producing extreme burns when it makes contact with human skin.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported a brigade of paratroop reservists fired about 20 white phosphorus shells into the built-up area of Beit Lahiya on January 17, which landed in the UN-run compound where the two Palestinian children were killed and severe burns were inflicted on 14 other people.
Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, has accused Israel of war crimes over its use of the munitions in heavily populated areas."
NYT: move to the right in Israel post-Gaza invasion
"That is not because Israelis have regrets or have become faint-hearted about the casualties and destruction in Gaza. To the contrary, there appears to have been a shift further to the right, reflecting a feeling among many voters that an even tougher approach may now be required.
Recent polls indicate that Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing opposition party, has retained and even increased its lead. The other party that appears to have gained the most ground is the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman."
LAT: postwar boom for Gazan businesses... selling posters of martyrs
Gdn: Britain's security and counter-terrorism minister says Gaza attacks will fuel extremism
"In an outspoken assessment of the terror risk facing Britain, Gordon Brown's security adviser was scathing about the assertion, made by Tony Blair when prime minister, that foreign policy did not alter the UK's risk of a terror attack. "We never used to accept that our foreign policy ever had any effect on terrorism," he said. "Well, that was clearly bollocks."...
West, meanwhile, described the threat of international terrorism as a severe one... "Vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices are now, today, the greatest threat to us. If you put one near an old building the whole thing will collapse."
Gdn: British gov minutes discussing legality of Iraq war invasion to be released
"Secret government discussions about the Iraq war are to be disclosed after an information tribunal today ordered the release of cabinet minutes from 2003... The meetings considered the highly controversial issue of whether the invasion was allowed under international law. Lord Goldsmith, who was attorney general at the time, initially suggested that the legality of the invasion was legally questionable before subsequently issuing legal advice saying that it would be compatible with international law."
NYT: US helicopters down in Kirkuk; Iraqi budget also down as oil prices fall
"An Iraqi security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was forbidden to speak to the news media, said the helicopters had crashed in an open field in an area known as Chalak, about 10 miles south of Kirkuk... [A]fter the American military retrieved the wreckage, the Sunni Arab insurgent group known as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, sometimes referred to as the Naqshbandi Army, distributed leaflets in the area claiming it had downed the two helicopters with makeshift rockets...
The group, named after a Muslim Sufi order, is linked to Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was one of Saddam Hussein’s top aides, and members of his family, according to American military intelligence officers. Mr. Douri, who is ailing but whose whereabouts remain a mystery, is an ardent follower and patron of the Naqshbandi order in Iraq...
The squeeze in Iraq’s finances comes as the government seeks to solidify fragile security gains by improving basic services, spurring job creation and rehabilitating the country’s battered infrastructure. In the past week, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been on a whirlwind campaign tour of impoverished southern Iraq, drumming up support for his slate of candidates in provincial elections this Saturday.
He promised rapt audiences everywhere to provide jobs and housing.
“We have set our sight on rebuilding Iraq, providing an honorable life for its citizens, supporting agriculture, resuscitating our factories and plants, and building our armed forces,” Mr. Maliki told crowds during a rally on Monday in Babil Province.
But given the country’s immense investment needs, fulfilling some of these promises, at least in the short term, hinges on stable oil prices and higher production."
AJE: Abu Ghraib to be reopened under different name
LAT: hmm, any other signs of "normalcy" in Iraq?
NYT: Shiites on pilgrimage during provincial elections could bring unexpected surprises
LAT: Secretary of Defense Gates advises limited mission in Afghanistan
"Rather than the pursuit of democracy, Gates said the primary U.S. mission should be ensuring that Afghanistan did not again become a haven for Al Qaeda...
One new unit, the Ft. Drum, N.Y.-based 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, has arrived in Afghanistan, bringing the total number of U.S. troops to 36,000. The unit was originally scheduled to go to Iraq.
By spring, two additional brigades will be sent to Afghanistan, to be joined by a third in midsummer, Gates said.
Gates said it would be difficult to send troops to Afghanistan much faster than is currently planned because of a lack of infrastructure -- dining halls, bases, hospitals and logistics hubs -- there."
NYT: ...and wants to decrease delays for treatment of wounded soldiers there...
LAT: ...while Biden expects higher casualties and the Army pays for civilian casualties
"U.S. commanders on Tuesday traveled to a poor Afghan village and distributed $40,000 to relatives of 15 people killed in a U.S. raid, including a known militant commander. The Americans also apologized for any civilians killed in the operation... [Karzai] told the villagers he has given the U.S. and NATO one month to respond to a draft agreement calling for increased Afghan participation in military operations.
Karzai said if he does not receive a response within that time, he would ask Afghans what he should do about international military operations. The statement from the presidential palace describing the meeting did not elaborate...
Lt. Col. Steven Weir, a military lawyer who helped oversee the payments, said the payments were not an admission by the U.S. that innocents were killed. "It's a condolence payment," he said. "The villagers said none of them were in the Taliban, just peaceful individuals from the village. So by this payment they will understand it's not our goal to kill innocent people. This may help them understand we're here to build a safer and more secure Afghanistan."
NYT: Iranian terrorist group (says Iran) not a terrorist group (according to EU)
"The European Union removed a prominent Iranian opposition group from its list of banned terrorist organizations on Monday, a step that could worsen its relations with Tehran, which strongly opposed the move.
The decision, by the foreign ministers of the 27-nation bloc, ended a long battle by the group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, to be removed from Europe’s list of proscribed organizations. It was placed on the list in 2002... The group advocates the overthrow of Iran’s religious leaders and the creation of a democratic, secular government. After the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini turned against the group, executing many of its members. The group has claimed responsibility for bombings that killed hundreds of officials and civilians in the 1980s...
Several thousand of the group’s members live in a camp north of Baghdad, where they have had American military protection since 2003. Iraq has been under pressure from Iran to expel the group, but if its members are sent back to Iran they will probably be accused of treason and almost certainly be executed."
NYT: Sri Lankan army takes Mullaittivu, last major rebel-held town
"The army’s taking of the rebel garrison town of Mullaittivu on Sunday may signal the end of conventional battles but not of suicide attacks and other deadly tactics that the guerrillas have used for decades in their campaign for an independent state in the northeast...
The army said it took the de facto rebel capital, Kilinochchi, three weeks ago, and Elephant Pass, a key corridor, a week later.
It is impossible to verify the government’s accounts because the authorities deny journalists access to anywhere near the front lines and because those who question the official version of events in the war are rebuked as traitors.
A journalist, a publisher and his wife have been held under antiterrorism laws for 10 months. A leading newspaper editor was killed this month, another was beaten on his way to work and a television station was attacked. Several journalists have fled the country recently."
AJE: looking for Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran
"Officials said they were using spy planes that monitored satellite phone transmissions and took photographs of the jungle region to try to pin-point Prabhakaran's location... MR Narayan Swamy, an Indian journalist who wrote a biography of the LTTE leader, said the loss of Prabhakaran would be devastating to the group. "He is their brain. He is their heart. He is their god. He is their soul, and the whole organisation runs around him," he said."
NYT: no safe zone for civilians or UN staff
"First, the team of mostly Sri Lankan aid workers and their families were prevented by the guerrillas, also known by the initials L.T.T.E., from leaving the war zone. Then, on Saturday, they took shelter in what the government described as a no-fire zone, erecting a temporary compound, around which many civilians had also gathered.
A shell landed near the compound on Saturday evening, and then another early Sunday morning, killing 9 civilians and wounding more than 20, according to a memo sent by United Nations officials in Sri Lanka to their headquarters in New York."
AJE: Philippine rebel group to rejoin peace talks, on one condition: a separate Muslim state in the south
"The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government are trying to revive peace negotiations after a proposed deal broke down last year when the supreme court stopped the government from signing the deal... Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas, reporting from Talayan in Mindanao, says thousands of people, mostly farmers, have been living in evacuation centres since last August, surviving on handouts under harsh conditions.
The MILF formed as a breakaway group in 1977 after splitting from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The MNLF subsequently entered into negotiations with the government in Manila and signed an agreement a decade later relinquishing its stated goal of independence.
The 12,000-strong MILF has, however, continued the struggle for political autonomy, becoming one of four groups that are fighting for a separate Muslim state in the southern Philippines."
LAT: Mexico a failed state? No way, says Mexican governmentWPost: "Stew Maker" is captured, admits to burning bodies of 300 narco-rivals in acid
LAT: two former members of Peruvian military freed after courts fail to convict them for Barrios Altos massacre--after 6 years
"The former military officers are on trial on charges of murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy in the 1991 massacre of 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, at Lima's Barrios Altos tenement, court clerk Daniel Luna told The Associated Press.
Barrios Altos is one of two massacres that ex-President Alberto Fujimori is charged with authorizing."
LAT: Obama has "constructive and cordial" conversation with Colombian president; they discuss security and Plan Colombia, among other issues
NYT: Iceland's government collapses
"Last week, [Prime Minister Geir] Haarde called elections for May, bringing forward a vote originally scheduled for 2011, after weeks of protests by Icelanders angered by soaring unemployment and rising prices. But Mr. Haarde said he would not lead his Independence Party into the new elections because he needed treatment for cancer.
Iceland has been in crisis since the collapse of its banks because of large debt in September and October, with its currency, the krona, plummeting. The government has negotiated $10 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund and other countries, but the standard of living for the average person has sunk along with the currency, and the economy is expected to contract by nearly 10 percent this year."
LAT: Medvedev to alter Russian treason bill (in a challenge to Putin?)
AJE: former Serb general, Vlastimir Djordjevic, on trial at The Hague for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo
+++
NYT blog/Errol Morris: the Bush years in pictures
Gdn: on "responsible sovereignty"
"A new phrase has rolled off the production line of foreign policy analysts: responsible sovereignty. In a world where the threats are transnational - climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, the banking crisis - states not only have a responsibility to their own citizens, but to their neighbours and to the international community as well. States need to take responsibility for the international implications of their domestic actions. Responsible sovereignty underpins current attempts by a distinguished group of US experts to create a new world order based on revitalised international institutions, diplomacy and negotiation. They call it a project to manage global insecurity."
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