unconventional priorities [tweet]

LAT: US Defense Sec Gates proposes shifting priorities in the Defense budget
Under his plan, 50% of the budget would be used to counter conventional threats, with about 10% going to go irregular warfare and 40% to weapons useful to both types of conflicts.
Slate: the key points
Foreign Affairs: Gates's rationale behind it
The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States' existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done.
Abu Muquwama: some people have strong opinions about it
Abu Muquwama: and some have wrong ones
James Inhofe should be ashamed of himself -- not for saying the new budget is "gutting" our military and "disarming America" but for traveling all the way to Afghanistan on the tax-payer's dime and failing to discover that the kinds of weapons systems and skillsets needed for Afghanistan are exactly the kinds of weapons systems and skillsets privileged in the budget. Don't use the war in Afghanistan a cheap prop, Senator, if you're not even going to study the nature of the war itself.
WP: Pentagon dedicating resources to studying the Israel-Hezbollah 2006 war in Lebanon
A big reason that the 34-day war is drawing such fevered attention is that it highlights a rift among military leaders: Some want to change the U.S. military so that it is better prepared for wars like the ones it is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others worry that such a shift would leave the United States vulnerable to a more conventional foe.

irregular threats
WP: bombings kill 34 across Baghdad, in worst violence in months
"Nobody knows," said Hussan Fadhil Aziz, 29, as he watched American soldiers cordon the area in Um al-Maalif. "We don't know who controls the area anymore."
He still ventured an explanation for the violence: Last week's bitter clashes between members of the Awakening, a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary force, and the mostly Shiite security forces had triggered a new wave of animosity.
NPR: conflict emerges among Anbar province's Sunni tribes
Stars & Stripes: doctor rejoins US Army after 37 years (via Tom Ricks)
WP: shoe-thrower/icon's sentence reduced to 1 year

AJE: apparent revenge attack against village in West Bank by Israeli settlers wounds several
The settlers from Bat Ayin, where a Palestinian killed a young settler last week, attacked cars and homes in the village of Safa on Wednesday.

The Israeli account is that the settlers, who were armed, came under attack when they entered Safa to pray, Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the West Bank, said.

The Palestinians were injured when the Israeli troops fired tear gas and live ammunition to break up the disturbance, medics said.

NYT: Sri Lankan military, Tamil Tigers ignore calls for a ceasefire, step up the fighting
The government said on its Defense Ministry Web site that it had killed more than 250 Tamil Tigers during weekend fighting and 420 more in foiling an ambush Monday morning. A pro-rebel site said that Sri Lankan shelling of the no-fire zone had killed at least 71 civilians and wounded 143 over the weekend...

The government said its troops had taken control of the Puthukkudiyiruppu area, the rebels’ last remaining stronghold at the edge of the safety zone. A general said Sunday that the rebels had been driven into the safety zone, a small strip of beachfront jungle in the country’s northeast.
BBC: interviews with civilians escaping the area
Gdn: Tamil supporters arrested in London protest

AJE: 2 bombings in Assam kill several
Police said they suspected both attacks to have been carried out by the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).

Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister from the ruling Congress party, was set to campaign in Assam on Tuesday...

The latest incidents occurred a day before the 30th anniversary of ULFA, which has previously carried out attacks around their anniversary and has been blamed for violence in Assam before.

ULFA is fighting for secession for the Assamese people in the northeast and is one of dozens of armed groups operating in the region.

WP: Somali pirates seize Dutch ship; US crew regains control

Reuters: Zetas training camp raided in Guatemala (via Tom Ricks)
Security forces were tipped off about suspicious activity at a ranch in Quiche, in the central highlands, by residents who said men in ski masks were asking villagers to join their ranks, police chief Marlene Blanco said at a news conference.

Two commanders of the Zetas, the armed wing of Mexico's Gulf cartel, and 37 recruits fled the camp before the police and army arrived, leaving behind 500 grenades, six rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Blanco said.

protests
NYT: Twitter, texting help mobilize post-election protests in Moldova
A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police...

There was no sign that the authorities would cede to any of the protesters’ demands, and President Vladimir Voronin denounced the organizers as “fascists intoxicated with hatred.”

But Mihai Fusu, 48, a theater director who spent much of the day on the edges of the crowd, said he believed that a reservoir of political energy had found its way into public life.

“Moldova is like a sealed jar, and youth want more access to Europe,” he said. “Everyone knows that Moldova is the smallest, poorest and the most disgraceful country. And youth are talking about how they want freedom, Europe and a different life.”...

The immediate cause of the protests were parliamentary elections held on Sunday, in which Communists won 50 percent of the vote, enough to allow them to select a new president and amend the Constitution. Though the Communists were expected to win, their showing was stronger than expected, and opposition leaders accused the government of vote-rigging...

Behind the confrontation is a split in Moldova’s population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought benefits to much of Eastern Europe, but in Moldova it ushered in economic decline and instability. In 2001, angry citizens backed the return of the Communists and their social programs...

The participants at that first gathering, on Monday, dispersed peacefully. But demonstrations on Tuesday spun out of control. News coverage showed protesters throwing stones at the windows of Parliament and the presidential palace, removing furniture and lighting it on fire. Riot police officers shielded their heads as demonstrators pelted them with stones. The police then used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Fires continued to burn late into the night.
Reuters: police take control of president's office
Ind: president: the Romanians are to blame
After riot police retook the smoking and wrecked buildings overnight and rounded up the protesters, Voronin said he was expelling Romania's ambassador and introducing visa regulations for Romanians wanting to enter Moldova.

"When the flag of Romania was raised on state buildings, the attempts of the opposition to carry out a coup became clear," the 67-year-old Communist leader said. He vowed "strict punishment" for the ringleaders.

Most of Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic, was part of Romania until World War Two and retains close cultural ties with its larger neighbour. Moldovans are split between those wanting reunification with Romania and those keen to stay independent.

The Romanian Foreign Ministry said it was unacceptable that "the Communist power in Chisinau transfers responsibility for the Moldovan Republic's domestic problems on to Romania".

Voronin won strong backing from Russia which said the riots were aimed at undermining Moldova's sovereignty.

NYT: former prime minister's supporters protest in Bangkok
Wearing the red shirts of Thaksin loyalists, the demonstrators streamed into Bangkok throughout the day from his political strongholds in the rural north and northeast and by early evening the police estimated the crowds at 100,000.

The demonstrations were the biggest challenge to the four-month-old government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who took office after a pro-Thaksin government was dissolved when a court ruled that the governing party had engaged in electoral fraud.

BBC: police prevent protest in Egypt

trials
WP: Fujimori convicted of crimes against humanity; sentenced to 25 years
The verdict, delivered by a three-judge panel on a police base outside Lima where Fujimori has been held throughout the trial, marked the first time that an elected head of state has been extradited back to his home country, tried and convicted of human rights violations...

Many people in Peru admire Fujimori for largely defeating the Shining Path insurgency and ending a two-decade war that left about 70,000 people dead. But the tribunal found that Fujimori was guilty of creating and authorizing a military intelligence death squad that killed innocent people...

Fujimori's trial focused on two episodes of killings: a 1991 raid in which 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, were killed at a barbecue in Lima where the military intelligence unit was looking for Shining Path suspects. This raid, which became known as the Barrios Altos massacre, was followed by the 1992 abduction and killing of nine students and a teacher from La Cantuta University, also by the Colina Group...

One of the arguments Fujimori partisans sometimes offered was that the dead had been terrorists and that their deaths were, therefore, justified. But the tribunal wrote in the summary of the 711-page sentencing document that none of the 25 people killed in the two massacres had been members of the Shining Path.

AJE: former RUF leaders sentenced by Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal
The Freetown-based court handed down its highest ever sentence to Issa Sesay, the leader of the RUF, on Wednesday.

Sesay was sentenced to a total of 693 years, but the judges ordered the 16 sentences be served consecutively, meaning he will spend a maximum of 52 years in prison.

Alongside Sesay, Morris Kallon, a former RUF commander, received a total of 340 years in prison, but will spend a maximum of 39 years in jail under the judges' ruling.

Augustine Gbao, whom the court said was the RUF's ideology trainer, will spend 25 years in prison.

New Yorker: the British law professor who helped launch the investigation of Bush's 'torture team'
NPR: ICRC report found that CIA medics were involved in torture
The ICRC report was based on statements from 14 prisoners who were held in CIA prisons overseas before being sent to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006. The prisoners said that medical personnel were on hand when they were stripped naked, beaten, shackled for days in "stress positions" and subjected to the practice of controlled drowning, commonly known as waterboarding.

wronging rights: international justice round-up

the politics of history
AJE: commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide

LAT: no such acknowledgment of (what some call) the Armenian genocide during Obama's trip to Turkey
By refraining from calling the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians beginning in 1915 a genocide, Obama for the moment avoided offending a country whose help U.S. officials need in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. At the same time, he avoided infuriating his Armenian American supporters.

But Obama also contributed to the suspense surrounding a likely presidential proclamation expected in time for April 24, the annual Armenian remembrance day.

U.S. presidents usually issue statements deploring the mass killings without calling them genocide. Armenian American organizations are urging Obama to make good on his campaign pledge...

Turkish President Abdullah Gul emphasized that Turkey was willing to open its archives to historians investigating the subject and allow a joint commission to draw conclusions.

"It is not a political but an historic issue," he said. "That's why we should let historians discuss the matter." Obama administration officials said delicate talks are continuing between Turkey and Armenia over normalizing relations.

BBC: Bangladesh to investigate war crimes during its war of independence
The government says those suspected of collaborating with the Pakistani army in the killing and rape of thousands of civilians will be put on trial.

The party which fought for independence in 1971, the Awami League, has recently been returned to power.

The plan is opposed by one of the main opposition parties, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Its leaders are among those accused of alleged war crimes.

elections
Econ: 'election' campaigning in Algeria
Abdelaziz Bouteflika has conducted a vigorous campaign to be re-elected for a third term on April 9th. There is little doubt that he will emerge with a commanding majority in the first round, against largely token opposition from five rivals who have been widely derided as "rabbits" in the local press. However, the main focus of his campaign has been on emphasising the need for a respectable turnout to accord legitimacy to his new mandate....

Mr Bouteflika had also been constrained to lower his public profile owing to a resurgence of Islamist terrorist attacks during 2007 and 2008, including a suicide bombing in Batna, a town in the east of the country, which appeared to have been intended as an assassination attempt. His recent re-emergence at public meetings has come amid reports of setbacks suffered by the armed Islamist movement, which regrouped under the banner of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) at the end of 2006. Four former "emirs" (commanders) of the Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat (GSPC; the precursor of AQIM) have issued a public appeal to Islamist fighters to lay down their arms and take advantage of Mr Bouteflika's reconciliation plan, which offers the chance of an amnesty from prosecution, and the security services reported at the end of March that they had killed several AQIM members in raids on the their hideouts in the mountainous region to the east of Algiers.
Gdn: Bouteflika promises referendum on amnesty for militants

WP: opposition presidential candidate in Iran calls for more freedoms
New Yorker: in-depth coverage of the campaign

governance and policing
LAT: South African tribe wins rights to natural resources revenue, provides public goods

New Haven Advocate: urban informants and police corruption
NYT: gangs of New York
It was mostly battles over turf. “They were like all these street gangs — ‘Don’t bother my territory, don’t get in my way’ — fighting for land or space,” he said. “In other words, ‘This is my territory, stay out of it,’ and so forth.”

From a law enforcement perspective, the motivation for joining a gang was apparent.

“They formed the gangs because they had close-knit living quarters in the tenements, and they formed gangs going to school, to protect themselves,” said Eric C. Schneider, who wrote “Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York.”...

“You have a transformation of gangs from social entities organized around turf or ethnicity or around projecting honor and learning what it is like to be a male to becoming, in the 1970s, more economic entities that are increasingly, over time, organized as means of entry into the underground economy,” Mr. Schneider said. “And kids then went from fighting with things like switchblades and car aerials to fighting with weapons that were supplied by returning veterans during the Vietnam era and eventually the surplus production of all our arms manufacturers.”

daily show: the turnover of power tastes like...

++
Slate: faith no more: the scientific explanation of Biblical miracles

LAT: hip-hop in the Arab world
Iranians rhyme about stifled lives and street-level viciousness born of economic hardship. Lebanese rap subtly about sectarian blood feuds. Palestinians sling verses about misery in refugee camps and humiliation at Israeli checkpoints. Egyptians lament the fragmentation of the Arab world.

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

+++
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."

war crimes [on the hook]

Al Jazeera (English): Israel destroys hospital, UN outpost in Gaza
"Officials said that a building of the UN relief agency in Gaza had been hit by Israeli shells and set ablaze.

"They are phosphorus fires so they are extremely difficult to put out because if you put water on it, it will just generate toxic fumes and do nothing to stop the burning," John Ging, the director of UN relief operations, said...

About 500 people were inside the hospital in Tal al-Hawa when it came under attack. Many had taken shelter in the hope of escaping the onslaught."
AJE: death toll has reached 1,000; civilians have nowhere to go
"More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip as Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into densely-populated urban areas.

Thousands of civilians fled their homes on Thursday as tank shells and missiles exploded causing black smoke to rise above the neighbourhoods of Tal al-Hawa, Zeitoun and Shujaiyeh in Gaza City.

Battles raged in the northern town of Jabaliya and Israeli ground troops backed by dozens of tanks pushed at least 1km into the southern town of Khan Yunis."

WP: civilians account for estimated half of deaths; almost any target is 'legitimate' for Israel, while Hamas fighters hide among civilians
"The Israeli military blames Hamas for using Gazans as human shields and for retreating to densely populated areas to fight the war. But Palestinians and human rights groups say that Israel has been reckless and that in pursuing Hamas, it has employed tactics that unnecessarily drive up the civilian toll...

Later in the week, Harb stood in the street of the southern town of Rafah with his wife and six children and looked on as his neighborhood was systematically turned to rubble. His family had been warned to leave, he said, but in Gaza there is nowhere to go. The street seemed the safest place to ride out the airstrikes that landed like an earthquake every five minutes, each one sending a thick black plume into the sky from the spot of ground where a house once stood.

Some of the houses, Harb acknowledged, had concealed tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons from Egypt. But most, he said, did not...

The Geneva Conventions, an international agreement on a code of war, say civilians must be permitted to escape from fighting, but "the Gazans are not allowed to flee," Myers said. "That's a big problem." None of the border crossings is open. And no part of the strip -- which is about 25 miles long and five miles wide -- has been insulated from the fighting."
NYT: Israeli rights groups issue call for war crimes investigation
"Nine Israeli human rights groups called on Wednesday for an investigation into whether Israeli officials had committed war crimes in Gaza since tens of thousands of civilians there have nowhere to flee, the health system has collapsed, many are without electricity and running water, and some are beyond the reach of rescue teams."

NYT: the effect of the bombing on Palestinian cleavages
"The more bombs in Gaza, the more Hamas’s support seems to be growing at the expense of the Palestinian Authority, already considered corrupt and distant from average Palestinians."
WP: polarization seems to favor Hamas
"Men who say they have never fought before or were not Hamas loyalists now vow to join the struggle against Israel when they return to Gaza. They include policemen and other professionals who form part of the backbone of Gazan society."
CSM: Fatah's (in)action drawing scrutiny
"Fatah is keeping a lid on protests, not letting West Bankers draw it into Israel's war on Hamas. Senior voices in the secular party that runs the Palestinian Authority (PA) see restraint as key to its quest for statehood. Getting entangled in Gaza, they say, would only embolden Hamas.

Others say Fatah is making a fatal mistake. Its inaction will irreparably damage its standing in the eyes of Palestinians and erode support for the group that both America and Israel view as peace partners."

CSM: violence down, but some Iraqis can't return home
"...after the US-led invasion, his Sunni neighbor began threatening Mr. Mohamed, a Shiite. When the neighbor killed four of Mohamed's cousins, Mohamed and his family fled, selling his home of more than 20 years for $126,000 – just half its market rate.

Now, with relative calm returning, Mohamed is trying to reconstruct his former life. But while he's happy about the greater security, he's confronting a troubling reality that underscores that recovery will take more than an end to fighting. Like many Iraqis, he can't afford his old neighborhood."
NYT blog: a peek at the (very confusing) ballots for next month's election

Slate: military lawyer says suspect was tortured; someone will have to stand trial
"What Crawford has done here is astounding. She has repudiated the formalistic (and perennially shifting) definitions of torture as whatever-it-is-we-don't-do. She has admitted that there is a medical and legal definition for torture and also that we have crossed the line into it.

The consequences go further. Crawford also told Woodward that the charges against al-Qahtani were dropped because he was tortured. This has devastating consequences for the Bush administration's entire rationale for the new techniques of interrogation: that they would make the United States safer by producing intelligence and keeping dangerous individuals off the streets. We now know they do neither. The torture produced no useful information from al-Qahtani, and the cruelty heaped upon him will make it more difficult, if not impossible, to justify his long-term incarceration.

There is a third major consequence to the Crawford interview: Her principle objection to detainee abuse is not ephemeral or spiritual, but a damning indictment of the impact it will have on American troops and the prospects for America's authority abroad: "If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."...

Under the 1984 Torture Convention, its 146 state parties (including the United States) are under an obligation to "ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law." These states must take any person alleged to have committed torture (or been complicit or participated in an act of torture) who is present in their territories into custody. The convention allows no exceptions, as Gen. Pinochet discovered in 1998. The state party to the Torture Convention must then submit the case to its competent authorities for prosecution or extradition for prosecution in another country.

The former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and general counsel for the Department of the Army has spoken. Her clear words have been picked up around the world. And that takes the prospects of accountability and criminal investigation onto another level. For the Obama administration, the door to the do-nothing option is now closed. That is why today may come to be seen as the turning point."
WP: 'trials' against Guantanamo inmates also undermined by basic incompetence
"[Former military prosecutor] Vandeveld said in a phone interview that the 'complete lack of organization' has affected nearly all cases at Guantanamo Bay. The evidence is often so disorganized, he said, 'it was like a stash of documents found in a village in a raid and just put on a plane to the U.S. Not even rudimentary organization by date or name.' ...

Military defense lawyers also said yesterday that the Office of Military Commissions may have accidentally withdrawn the charges against all defendants at Guantanamo Bay facing trial, including Jawad and even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the operational mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Defense lawyers said the Office of Military Commissions, while creating new jury panels, took the additional step of re-referring all charges, which, they said, would return all cases to square one and require new arraignments."
NYT blog: closing Gitmo is gonna be tough

CSM: discovered arms cache raises suspicion of secular coup plot in Turkey

NYT: riots in Latvia over economy
"In the wake of the demonstrations, President Valdis Zatlers threatened Wednesday to call for a referendum that would allow voters to dissolve Parliament, saying trust in the government, including in its ability to deal with growing economic problems, had “collapsed catastrophically.”

For years, Latvia boasted of double-digit economic growth rates, but it has been shaken by the global economic downturn. Its central bank has spent a fifth of its reserves to guard against a steep devaluation of its currency, the lat, and experts expect a 5 percent contraction of the country’s gross domestic product in 2009. Salaries are expected to fall substantially, and unemployment is expected to rise"

AP: fighting in Mogadishu: al-Shabab attacks presidential palace, says African Union forces next
"There are currently about 2,400 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers in Mogadishu whose mandate is restricted to guarding key government installations such as the port and airport. To date, they have rarely been the target of insurgent attacks...

The Ethiopian army, one of Africa's largest, was viewed by many Somalis as abusive and heavy-handed. But few expect the Somali government now can ensure security. It controls only pockets of the capital, Mogadishu, and Baidoa, where parliament sits -- and has tried to rule without a president for weeks.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in fighting in the past year, particularly in the capital, and hundreds of thousands have fled the violence...

Rival Islamic groups control other areas of southern and central Somalia, with the al-Shabab making the most dramatic gains in recent months. Al-Shabab, which denies it is a terrorist organization, says its goal is to establish an Islamic state in Somalia.

Also today, officials said gunmen had abducted an Egyptian teacher in Somalia's relatively peaceful northwestern breakaway republic where such kidnappings are rare...it is rare for abductions to take place in northwestern region of Somaliland, which declared its independence from Somalia in 1991 and has its own regularly elected government, parliament and judiciary. The breakaway republic has avoided much of the chaos and anarchy that exists in the rest of the country."

BBC: UN says Eritrea must pull out of Djibouti

AJE: Guinea names new gov't
"The 29-member government would comprise both civilians and military, coup leaders said in a statement aired on national radio and television on Thursday.

Members of the military were appointed to defence, security, justice and finance ministries.

No representatives of political parties, however, have been included in the new government."

AJE: reemergence of Shining Path, self defense forces in Peru

AP: Chávez wins constitutional amendment vote allowing him to run for office indefinitely; referendum to be held

Gdn: Rio police say City of God no longer ruled by gangs
"Until the success of Meirelles' film, which was nominated for four Oscars, City of God, or Cidade de Deus, was a little-known slum on the western outskirts of Rio. Based on a book of the same name published in 1997, the film documented the bloody struggle between cocaine traffickers that ravaged the community during the 1970s and 1980s, with many of the actors recruited from Rio's favelas.

Attempts to evict the real traffickers from the City of God, which is home to about 50,000 people, are part of a police initiative that authorities hope will help them regain control of the slums and serve as a blueprint for fighting urban crime across South America. "The state is going back to occupy territories from which it was absent, both in terms of public security and in terms of social investment," Rio's governor, Sérgio Cabral, said.

In their battle against the city's three drug factions, police have traditionally launched "hit and run" attacks on the favelas. The police kill more than 1,000 people each year, according to official figures, many during such raids.

Now the authorities plan to permanently station hundreds of military policemen inside three favelas as part of a pilot project to combat organised crime.

The police, who will spend 24 hours a day in the communities, aim to build trust, gather intelligence and help rebuild the slums. Millions of dollars will be invested in infrastructure and housing. City of God, where about 700 troops will be deployed, is the second favela in which the new "hearts and minds" policy will be tried...

The community policing scheme has not pleased everyone. Many predict the authorities will soon withdraw from places such as City of God and Dona Marta, allowing the traffickers to return. The government has also admitted its "policy of confrontation" will not end as a result of the community policing project.

Others view the initiative as little more than a marketing stunt by a media-savvy government, arguing that the City of God was only chosen because of its notoriety."

CSM: targeting gangs' assets in LA
"The city of Los Angeles, plagued by 23,000 violent gang crimes since 2004, including 784 murders and 12,000 felony assaults, announced Tuesday that it had won its first civil judgment, for $5 million, against a criminal gang that had dominated the heroin trade downtown for decades.

The verdict could bode well for another first-of-its-kind lawsuit the city filed last month that goes after all assets of gang leaders, not just those associated with their criminal activity. Both suits seek to plow the money back into improving the neighborhoods affected by the gangs through a fund..

The tactic of trying to cripple organizations by taking away their assets has been commonly used against the mafia. More recently, it has been used against white supremacist organizations. In 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations that forced the organization to give up its 20-acre compound in Idaho...

The City Attorney's office says it is moving against the 18th Street gang on behalf of residents who can't file suit themselves because they can't afford the expenses and they fear retaliation. Gangs control certain neighborhoods by exacting so-called "street taxes" on home and business owners as well as street vendors.

The suit seeks compensation for property damage, emotional distress, personal injury, and intangibles such as residents not being able to use public parks because of gang activity...

The city currently has 463 known gangs with 26,000 members, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

But the use of injunctions has been controversial, Mr. Parrish says, because of "perceived selective enforcement and various civil rights issues."

The new law, too, "may raise significant civil rights issues depending on how it's used," Mr Parrish adds.

Unlike with organized groups, street gang members may be hard to identify."

++
more on the transition:
The Onion: luring Cheney out of his lair
NYT blog: while Bush declares national emergency

mixing it up [don't call it a comeback]

WP: young men fleeing to avoid forced recruitment by rebels in East Congo
"I ran away with about 20 others my age," said Christophe Maombi, 27, who fled his rebel-held village of Rugari when he said rebels tried to march him into the bush. "There are so many weapons there. If they see a young boy, they just give him a weapon and tell him to fight."
AP: UN reports that army troops are raping women
WP: displaced also dispossessed
"As panicked thousands have abandoned villages across eastern Congo in recent months, the scale of looting that has followed has been massive, a crime reflecting the predatory culture pervading Congo since the Belgian colonizers perfected it decades ago.
The millions of minor thefts may pale in comparison to the more professional looting of eastern Congo's vast mineral wealth, which is helping to finance the conflict. Collectively, though, the thieving soldiers have set back an already economically marginal population by years, if not decades, making it even harder to reverse the effects of a conflict that threatens to destabilize the entire Central African region."
CSM: Nkunda's goals
BBC: Rwanda agrees to send troops to fight Hutu militias
BBC: Obasanjo to mediate on UN behalf

AP: Islamist rebels seize port city in Somalia
"On Wednesday, al-Shabab added the town of Merka, 56 miles (90 kilometers) from the capital, to its list of conquests after poorly paid government fighters simply ran away.
The group now controls most of the country's south, with the crucial exceptions of Mogadishu and Baidoa, where the parliament sits...
Al-Shabab was part of the Islamic militia that controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months in 2006 before Ethiopian troops arrived to drive them out with the tacit support of the United States.
The group quickly fractured into hardline and more moderate factions. Al-Shabab's hard-liners are at the heart of the insurgency, which has killed thousands of civilians caught up in roadside bombs, grenade attacks and mortar fire."

WP: Shining Path reemerges, reformed, in Peru
"After years in relative obscurity, the Shining Path, one of Latin America's most notorious guerrilla groups, is fighting the Peruvian military with renewed vigor, feeding on the profits of the cocaine trade and trying to win support from the Andean villagers it once terrorized, according to residents and Peruvian officials....
Experts said the guerrillas have renounced the brutal tactics espoused by their original leader, Abimael Guzmán, who was captured in 1992. Unlike Guzmán, who said 10 percent of the Peruvian population had to be assassinated for the Shining Path to take power, the new leaders tell their followers they must protect the villagers and instead target the military and anti-drug authorities.
In numbers, the guerrillas' ranks remain a fraction of their former size: 400 to 700 full-time fighters in the branch that insists on armed struggle, according to various estimates; in the low thousands if offshoots that call for more-peaceful political revolution are included. In ideology, they appear to have abandoned the strict Maoism that Guzmán preached and to have adopted a muddled form of communism that welcomes foreign investment and large international mining companies, among others, provided they treat their workers well."
WP: interesting side-report by the journalist looking for them
"The purpose of this excursion was to explore the territory of the Shining Path, the communist rebel group whose guerrillas have resumed fighting the Peruvian military. We would not find them. Neither, it seems, does anyone else who goes looking. Perhaps the most basic reason the Shining Path has been able to survive for 28 years and counting is that they are so hard to get to. Forget the mines and booby traps and tunnels, or the dense jungle or constant cloud-cover, there seems no better defense than these roads.
Road is not the right word. A few minutes outside of the Andean cities of central Peru, tires roll onto something closer to goat trails, shoulderless single-lane ruts of dirt and rock fragments hacked and blasted out of the near vertical mountain slopes...
Our ultimate destination was a place called Pukatoro, a copper mining camp of unknown size somewhere in the mountains. The maps we could find did not care to mark this settlement. But the Shining Path had found it, why couldn't we? At each cross-rut, or as close to it as we could find a shepherd or avocado farmer, we would stop and Willy would ask if we were on the right path. Most of them hadn't heard of Pukatoro."

LAT: fighting amnesty for those who killed priests in El Salvador in 1989

CSM: Brazil's anti-poverty program a success
"The world's first conditional cash transfer programs were introduced in Brazil in 1995 at the municipal level, and were implemented at a national level in Mexico the following year."

WP: tribal militias in Pakistan "between the devil and the deep sea"
"But, so far at least, the tribal militias have been no panacea. Instead, the use of the militias, known as lashkars, has set off a debate over whether such a strategy will contribute to a civil war in the northwest that could engulf all of Pakistan. Yet some tribal leaders say they have little choice but to fight their brothers, cousins and neighbors: The Pakistani military, they say, has threatened to bomb their villages if they do not battle the Taliban."

WP: more US troops requested for Afghanistan

CSM: changes in a Diyala town that switched sides from Al-Qaeda in Iraq to the US/Iraqi coalition
"In 2006 and 2007, no US or Iraqi troops made it along roads laced with bombs to this remote village of 300 Sunnis. AQI operated with impunity, publicly killing one man who opposed them, imposing strict new social rules, and forcing villagers into a pact to reject any US or Iraqi military presence.
When Sheikh Thamir returned with US and Iraqi forces in January, his neighbors at first rejected them, saying that AQI had warned days before that "collaborators" would die. After days of pushing – sometimes with tears in his eyes from fear – Sheikh Thamir prevailed, joyfully declaring that the "power [of the people] is bigger than what Al Qaeda was expecting."

When the men of Dulaim finally agreed to don fluorescent green reflective belts and man checkpoints, much of AQI's weapons and money traffic from the unruly east side of the Diyala River dried up.

It also turned Al Qaeda fully against the village.

"If we quit, Al Qaeda will kill us," says Talib Ali Hussein, an SOI guard with a rifle and sun-bleached sash at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Dulaim. The recent AQI ambush was "a message from Al Qaeda that 'We are still here.' The key thing is they want to kill us."
WP: draft terms of troop agreement between Iraq and US unacceptable to Sadr; he threatens to defect if approved

BBC: ceasefire hangs in the balance in Gaza

BBC: Burma imprisons more protesters from last year, total rises to 60

BBC: village remains contested in Georgia; after Russians pull out, South Ossetian militia enters

BBC: inmate in German jail mails himself to freedom; manhunt underway

retrospective
The Onion: 'Nation finally shitty enough to make social progress'
"Another contributing factor to Obama's victory, political experts said, may have been the growing number of Americans who, faced with the complete collapse of their country, were at last able to abandon their preconceptions and cast their vote for a progressive African-American."

The Onion (2001): Bush's visionary leadership paved the way [comedy becomes tragedy]
"Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."...

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further."

not very neighborly [maybe it's just the milky way]

NYT: sectarian cleansing in Orissa, India: Hindus force Christians to convert or leave
"The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring. The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped...

India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India’s Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.

It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area’s people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.

The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami’s killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible...

Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country’s indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.

It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence."

WP: betrayal, mistrust, and new communities in Iraq

AP: Afghans intervene in a Taliban prison break plot
"Afghanistan's intelligence service said Saturday that it had broken up a Taliban plot to attack the country's most notorious prison with a wave of suicide bombers, while the government named a new interior minister to lead the country's fledgling police."
Gdn: about 60 Taliban fighters killed in attempted attack on Lakshar Gar, the capital of Helmand province
Reuters: apparently undaunted, they tried again
"Massed Taliban attacks on major towns are rare, but an attempted assault on a provincial capital only four days after some 65 militants tried to do the same thing is an indication the Islamist movement has no shortage of recruits."
Gdn: photos and audio from an attack on an Afghan outpost near the Pakistan border
BBC: Kuchis, Afghan nomads, struggling
"The Kuchis comprise approximately six million of Afghanistan's 25 million citizens, and they primarily consist of Pashtun and Baloch nomads. Kuchis are also estimated to make up half of Afghanistan's Pashtun population."

BBC: protests in Montenegro against recognizing Kosovo's independence

WP: immigrant camps dismantled in South Africa
"Five months have passed since more than 60 people were killed in anti-foreigner beatings and burnings that shocked a nation that touts diversity. Thousands of immigrants moved to about 10 refugee-style camps that seemed incongruous in Africa's most developed country. In recent weeks, the government has torn most down, saying the neighborhoods are safe again.

But aid workers and immigrants who fled to this spot north of Pretoria -- mostly Somalis, Ethiopians and Congolese -- disagree. They say the camps' endurance and continued reports of violence underscore how little the South African government has done to tackle a long-standing hostility toward immigrants that reached a tipping point in the spring."

WP: Israeli parties close to forging ruling coalition; Livni may become PM
BBC: tension ongoing in Acre

BBC: background on the returned GAM founder, and speculation on his future role in Aceh

WP: Guantanamo trials lost in translation; just when you thought they couldn't get any worse

AP: China and Russia settles territory dispute

BBC: president appoints leftist new prime minister in Peru

LAT: meth trade, violence moves to Argentina
Mexican traffickers have become the main suppliers of methamphetamine to the United States. But a crackdown in Mexico has squeezed supplies of ephedrine from Asia, leading the gangs to seek their raw material in Argentina, a nation with a robust pharmaceutical industry, relatively few controls and a reputation for corrupt cops and customs inspectors.

LAT: SV wonders what combination of order, conflict, and violence they have in other galaxies?

all too common tragedies [can we talk?]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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the tragedy of the commons, on a global scale

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

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

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

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

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

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history lessons

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

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

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

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