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

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.

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 government
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."

border crossing [brief encounters of the worst kind]

WP: by way of explanation for lack of posts this week, SV temporarily overwhelmed by hope
Slate: - at least she wasn't alone -
Slate: and is still breaking out in occasional goosebumps
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

WP: Obama issues orders to close Gitmo and secret prisons, speed withdrawal of troops from Iraq
WP: outgoing ambassador to Iraq warns against pulling out too quickly
WP: ...as the country, and Basra, prepares for provincial elections this month
"Though the Supreme Council has matured, it still exudes the air of the clandestine organization it was in exile. While Sadr's men are often confident in a street-savvy way, and Dawa's are sometimes cerebral, even aloof, the Supreme Council's officials tend to look at any question with squinting suspicion. They still push an unabashedly Shiite message, even as Iraq haltingly recovers from sectarian war."

WP: atrocities coming to light, now that Israel out of Gaza (but article very short on details)
"Early Wednesday, Israel completed its pullout from the Gaza Strip after a military offensive that began Dec. 27. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed and the operation caused an estimated $2 billion in property damage to the already impoverished territory. Thirteen Israelis died during the offensive.

'We don't have any illusion. We know they will come back. But thank God they are finally gone,' said Adel Hamed, 34, of Gaza City. 'If they were trying to destroy us, they failed.' "
LAT: one family's horrific experience of being gunned down trying to escape, and left to die
" 'It was so terrifying,' Shurrab said the next day from his hospital bed in Khan Yunis. 'I shouted at the soldiers to help us, but no answer.'

With the body of [his son] Kassab lying in the street, Shurrab said, he and [his other son] Ibrahim sat bleeding in their car for 20 hours.

Shurrab called the local ambulance service and was told that they were waiting for coordination with the Israeli army so they could come safely to the scene. He phoned his relatives, who called the Red Cross and gave his number to local journalists.

As night approached and his bleeding son grew weaker, he spoke with Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic and several local radio stations, pleading to be rescued.

Ibrahim complained to his father that he felt cold.

"I could not do anything for my son," Shurrab said.

Around midnight, the cellphone battery died. Soon afterward, Ibrahim stopped responding.

"I waited for my fate," Shurrab said, crying.

Israeli troops allowed an ambulance through at 11 a.m. Saturday. Ambulance driver Mahmoud Heikal said he saw Israeli troops watching from a nearby house as he approached the red Land Rover. Kassab Shurrab lay dead in the street. Ibrahim had bled to death in the car."
Gdn: and this family lost 48 members
AJE: Amnesty Int'l joins other groups in denouncing Israeli gov't for white phosphorous weapon use in Gaza

NYT: Taliban rules everywhere NATO doesn't
"The commanders here call the current situation “stalemate,” meaning they can hold what they have but cannot do much else. Of the 20,000 British, American and other troops here, only roughly 300 — a group of British Royal Marines — can be moved around the region to strike the Taliban. All the other units must stay where they are, lest the area they hold slip from their grasp."
Gdn: US accused of killing 25 civilians after bombing called in

AJE: civilians trapped between LTTE and gov't forces in Sri Lanka
AJE: gov't trying to get 250,000 into a "safety zone"
"The Sri Lankan air force on Wednesday dropped leaflets in the region telling civilians to move to the 35sq km zone until the army can transport them to safer locations."

WP: Rwanda deploys troops into Congo
"On Tuesday morning, U.N. soldiers reported that 1,500 to 2,000 Rwandan troops entered eastern Congo around the village of Kibati, which is just north of the main eastern city of Goma, Dietrich said. They were headed north toward the town of Rutshuru, a stronghold of Nkunda's rebels."
wronging rights: there is cause for pessimism

WP: with Ethiopians out of Somalia, Islamists are in but fractured
"After the deaths of at least 10,000 people and the displacement of 1 million, Ethiopia and the United States are now supporting a political compromise that stands to return to power some of the same moderate Islamist leaders they originally ousted.

Those leaders...face an even worse version of the same problem they had when they first tried to govern: how to control the Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist group. After fighting a two-year-long insurgency, the Shabab has split off from the core movement and become more radical and battle-hardened, with various factions controlling much of southern Somalia.

Militarily, the Shabab is now the biggest threat to the fragile transitional government and the moderate Islamists seeking to become part of it.

At the same time, the Shabab is showing signs of internal divisions. And with the Ethiopians' exit, it is facing an array of new challengers, including local militias and warlords with such nicknames as White-Eyed and Greasy who are restyling themselves as Islamists...

In the south, for instance, a group known as the Juba Valley Resistance Movement is marketing itself as an anti-Shabab militia allied with moderate Islamists. "The international community needs to support us," said Mohamed Amin Abdullahi Osman, its leader. "We are against Shabab and want to defeat it."

In the same region, a warlord named Barre Hiiraale who was ousted by the Shabab in October is attempting to revamp his image by associating himself with an old and widely respected moderate Muslim group, al-Sunna wal Gama'a. Hiiraale's militia has successfully fought the Shabab in several towns in southern Somalia in recent weeks...

Though Somalia's fundamental social structure is based on clan, Islamic scholars and charities representing a spectrum of beliefs have long played a respected and, until recently, apolitical role in society.

A more political version of Islam began to take hold after Somalia's last central government collapsed in 1991 and peaked with the Islamic Courts' brief takeover of Mogadishu.

The movement's leaders never settled on what version of Islam they represented -- some militiamen shut cinemas and frowned on music, for instance -- but the group still managed to open ports and get business going and to establish a measure of security in the capital for the first time in 15 years.

It also accomplished the minor miracle of uniting clans under a shared religious order, an idea that endures.

But the Ethiopian invasion fragmented the movement, scattering its leaders to Djibouti and Eritrea. The Shabab remained, gaining a kind of popularity by default among Somalis who did not necessarily care for its radical ideology but were glad someone was fighting Ethiopia."
LAT: militias may be recruiting as far away as Minnesota
"The youths, who have U.S. passports, followed a well-trod trail from Minneapolis to Mogadishu. Another group took off in August. The FBI believes that over the last two years, 12 to 20 Minnesotans have gone to Somalia.

As a result, a joint terrorism task force led by the FBI is scrambling to determine if extremist Islamic groups are seeking recruits here in the nation's largest Somali community -- as well as in San Diego, Seattle, Boston and other cities."

Gdn: talks fail in Zimbabwe
Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, described the failure of 12 hours of talks brokered by regional leaders as "probably the darkest day of our lives" for his Movement for Democratic Change and for the nation, which is hit by mass hunger, cholera and hyperinflation.

LAT: desertions up from the FARC
"Added patrols and checkpoints also created supply problems for the rebels, who depended on sympathetic farmers or rebel family members to bring food and clothing to drop points in the zone.

At the same time, the army stepped up its campaign to urge rebels to lay down their arms and join the demobilization program, promising cash for intelligence. The message was written on thousands of leaflets thrown from helicopters over the rugged mountains ringing this town, and read out regularly over the 6th Army Brigade's radio station in Ibague. The army says it even knows the decimated 25th Front's remaining soldiers and unit commanders: Accumulated intelligence has enabled it to re-create an organizational chart...

Ernesto was reluctant to dial the phone number given out over the radio, fearing that he could end up being killed in the process, a fear heightened by the recent scandal of "false positives," in which the Colombian army killed civilians and later claimed them as battle casualties.

But he called and agreed to meet an army patrol at a predetermined location. He later surrendered his machine gun and was promised a $500 reward. For providing intelligence that led to the capture of an extortion specialist known as Chucho, he was promised a second sum of $25,000. He said, smiling, that he was still "patiently waiting" for the government to pay up.

'The FARC treated its people well. They taught me how to read,' Ernesto said. 'But it was time to start a new life. I want to be an engineer.' "
LAT: but they seem to be doing well just over the Venezuelan borde
"Although the border area has long absorbed Colombian refugees fleeing decades of war, members of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have become visible as never before in the last two or three years, buying supplies, looking for medical assistance and forging relationships with indigenous women, said Venezuelan Congressman Arcadio Montiel, a Wayuu Indian.

Leaders of several Indian communities clustered around this town in a wild rain forest area that forms the border with Colombia told The Times over the weekend that the FARC's presence is harming their culture and youth.

"They have replaced the caciques, or chiefs, as authority figures and so who do the youths now want to emulate? The rebels," said Javier Armato, a Yupa Indian who is a former Zulia state deputy and onetime Chavez supporter...

Montiel and several community leaders say the FARC operates camps in the Perija Mountains to the west, where they say the rebels rest and recruit and train Venezuelan Indian youths...

But Indian leaders here say the rebels are slowly corrupting their cultures with arms, drugs and values that are anathema to their ways. They are also slowly taking control of Indian lands by squatting and by marrying indigenous women

On many Saturdays, rebel mule trains descend from the rugged Perija Mountains through the two dozen Indian communities that surround this town, indigenous leaders said.

After parking their mules in foothill pastures, the rebels continue on by bus into Machiques, the nearest big city, to make telephone calls, run business errands and go to a market, they said. The supplies are taken back up into the mountains.

At other times, they suddenly appear at doorways, seeking food, clothing or medicines.

"They don't pay for anything, it's always for 'solidarity.' But you can't say no to them. Nor can you complain about them to others, because someone might inform on you," said one indigenous leader, who requested anonymity because of security concerns."

LAT: violence, tension surround approaching referendum for Chavez
"The fiery Chavez has at times used violent rhetoric, including the threat of "civil war," to warn of chaos if he loses the vote next month. In a speech Saturday in Carabobo state, he vowed to break up student protests with tear gas."

Gdn: protests in Iceland rattle coalition

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Gdn: travel recommendation - next time you're in Mexico, don't miss the narco bling museum

The Onion: SV has an extra ticket for this show if you're interested

tight in the eyes [lines, peaceful and violent]

LAT: wall still stands in Belfast, 10 years after peace deal
"...for dozens of front-line communities of Belfast, fences still make the best neighbors...In this city of 650,000, roughly half Catholic and half Protestant, only the university district and upper-class streets, chiefly on the south side, bear no clear-cut tribal identity...

[One Protestant] says his varied work experiences since -- as security guard, construction worker and now grocery store deliveryman -- mellowed him through regular social contact with Catholics...But he says that some neighborhoods, those most notorious for Irish Republican Army sympathies, give him the creeps...Catholic colleagues on occasion have invited him across the wall for an after-hours pint at their pub. He won't go.
'You'd be afraid that they might recognize you're from the other side. Am I too tight in the eyes?' he said, referring to a stereotype of Protestant eyes supposedly being closer together...

There are striking similarities between the experiences of the [Catholic] Quinns and the [Protestant] Youngs. Both feel safe living beside a peace line. Both say their problems come from hell-raisers within their own communities, not the other side. Both feel powerless to stop them.

Quinn said her previous neighborhood -- barely half a mile away in a sprawling, low-rise housing project -- was increasingly overrun by glue-sniffing, car-stealing teens. Such behavior was once brutally suppressed by IRA "kneecapping" squads. But the group has been keeping its 2005 promise to renounce bloodshed, and that means no more vigilante violence.

'The hoods have taken over. There's no telling them what to do. It's the Wild West,' she said.

Quinn says she has never called the cops to prevent a crime and doesn't think she ever will. Her attitude illustrates the other daunting task of peacemaking -- to build Catholic trust in what was once an overwhelmingly Protestant police force.

A sweeping reform program with affirmative-action recruitment over the last seven years has dramatically reshaped the police, with the goal of a 30% Catholic force. But many Catholics remain hostile to the police -- or fearful of being labeled collaborators.

So does she think the IRA should resume shooting teens in the legs? An uncomfortable silence follows.

'Well, I don't know. But the current situation is out of control,' she says finally...

"'I've really no problems with Roman Catholics,' Young said with a wry smile. 'It's my own kind that cause me the headaches. Maybe I need another peace line!'"

NYT: Lebanon faces sectarian violence
"He returned to this northern village only after family members won his release just over a week ago by threatening the kidnappers with retaliation. By that time Mr. Obaid, a Sunni Muslim, had gained a whole new way of seeing his Shiite countrymen and his native land.
'We cannot go back to how we lived with them before,' he said as he sat with relatives and friends at home here. 'The blood is boiling here. Every boy here, his blood is boiling. They push us, they push us, they push us.'"

LAT: rumors in China fuel panic
"Rumors are an integral part of Chinese folk history, songs and poetry. Last year, authorities drained a reservoir in central Sichuan province to dispel rumors that a growling water beast lived there. In 2006 a rumor spread in Anhui province that the virus that causes AIDS was being injected into watermelons, devastating sales.
Chinese emperors long sought to halt the spread across their far-flung empire, with the first recorded anti-hearsay campaign launched by King Li nearly 3,000 years ago, despite a proverb: 'Trying to stop people's mouths is like trying to stop a flood.'"

NYT: meanwhile, US downturn in economy means boon in denunciations for reward money
"Some coordinators suggest that rising crime rates might be driving up the number of tips. But in Jackson, Tenn., Sgt. Mike Johnson said his call volume had gone from two or three a day to eight or nine. He theorized that rising crime there was not a factor because the program advertises steadily regardless of trends. “People just need money,” Sergeant Johnson said...In some cases, the quality of the tips is lagging as people grasp for any shred of information that might result in an arrest. A woman in Macon, for example, recently called to report that a family member — who was wanted for burglary and whose name and address were already known to the police — was at home. His home. Such a tip might seem worthless on its face, said Jean Davis, who took the call. But many police departments do not have the personnel to watch a suspect’s comings and going. In that case, the young man was arrested."
(SV wonders if hotlines will disrupt the relationship between economic downturns and increased crime. Or if the denunciations are mostly useless.)

LAT: food prices offer opportunity for Islamic groups to give gifts, gain support

WP: pro-democracy protest organized on facebook in Egypt falls apart

WP: hundreds captured in Mosul sweep, just after Maliki offered amnesty
"[Al-Qaeda spokesman for Anbar] Janabi said that most fighters were warned in advance of the operation because the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government had trumpeted its plans for the offensive for weeks. The fighters, Janabi added, had moved their heavy weapons, along with "our explosives experts" and "engineers of our missile attacks," to other areas, while a small group of volunteers stayed behind to fight "a war of exhaustion" against Iraqi and U.S. forces."
LAT: US sniper uses the Koran for target practice; commanders pull him from duty, apologize

NYT: Chávez consolidates power, nationalizing private enterprises
McClatchy: meanwhile, his relationship with the FARC indicated by the guerrillas' communications, may not be enough to warrant sanctions

LAT: the crackdown on cartels in Mexico continues
"Pressured by the government, they say, the Sinaloa cartel is in retreat and disarray, split into factions that have turned on each other. Several mid- and high-ranking members of the gang have been arrested, and army troops already deployed in the region have seized drug shipments, destroyed opium poppy fields and seized more than 100 airplanes believed to be used by traffickers...The Sinaloa cartel is one of the oldest in Mexico. Founded by a few close-knit families and once dominant in Mexico's drug trade, it has been challenged over the last decade by the so-called Gulf cartel, based in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas. But the Sinaloa traffickers still control Pacific smuggling routes that U.S. officials say have become the most popular for shipment of Colombian cocaine to the United States."

Gdn: Icelanders curiously happy
"Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world."