atonement [holy something]

WP: US finally, "urgently" reviews strategy in Afghanistan
"...seven months would pass before the administration, distracted by issues as serious as the Iraq war and as far afield as the Olympics, was seized with the urgency to put a new strategy in place. Although stopgap measures were taken during the spring and summer -- the temporary deployment of 3,500 more Marines, an appeal for more NATO troops and presidential authorization for U.S. commando raids into Pakistan -- the downward spiral continued...

Officials described the Pakistan-based extremist network, which the Pentagon calls "the syndicate," as a loose alliance of three elements. Kashmiri militants, constrained by recent agreements between Pakistan and India, have "leaned over" to assist a domestic terrorist campaign launched by homegrown extremists often referred to as the "Pakistani Taliban," one official said. The Afghan Taliban -- itself divided into several groups -- is based in Pakistan but focused on Afghanistan, as are the forces led by warlords Jalauddin Haqqani and his son Siraj, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, among others. Traditional tribal groups in Pakistan's western, Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- FATA -- are a third element. Those groups are said to be focused primarily on keeping the Pakistani military and government out of their areas, and assisting the Afghan-oriented parts of the network.

Al-Qaeda, composed largely of Arabs and, increasingly, Uzbeks, Chechens and other Central Asians, is described as sitting atop the structure, providing money and training to the others in exchange for sanctuary."
WP: Gates wants Europe to send more troops to the 'crisis'
NYT: US revises statement, acknowledges that raid killed more than 30 civilians
"The revised American estimate for civilian deaths in the operation remains far below the 90 that Afghan and United Nations officials have claimed, a figure that the Afghan government and the United Nations said was supported by cellphone photos, freshly dug grave sites and the accounts of witnesses who saw the dead bodies."

BBC: account from an administrator in Swat
"People think the army does not do enough. In a village called Kabal the Taleban checks vehicles and stops women who are not wearing the burqa. One man told me how just the other day he had been travelling with friends. The women in the car were asked to dismount. When she dismounted the Taleban slapped her in the face and asked why she didn't put on the veil. The thing is, the army was just 25-30 yards away. They did nothing. When they act like that, people start to think they are responsible for things."
BBC: Pakistan parliament briefed by security chief
"The parliamentarians are expected to seek information on a wide range of issues pertaining to the proliferation of militancy in the country despite the heavy military deployment in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) since 2002.
Questions are also expected on the sources of Taleban funds and arms."

NYT: legal status of US troops in Iraq near agreement
"The United States has argued for the same legal protections that apply in other countries where American troops are based. The Iraqi government has been adamant that any crime committed outside of a military operation should be subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts.

In negotiating the pact, the United States has already agreed to withdraw combat troops from Iraqi cities by next June and from the rest of Iraq by the end of 2011, assuming that conditions in the country remain stable."
CSM: some tribes seek reconciliation
"The tribal talks are the result of a nationwide call from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and senior religious leaders earlier this year to bridge differences between tribes to prevent future bloodshed.

This push has been enabled by improved security and a dramatic fall in violent attacks over the past year due to several factors: the US military surge, the decision by Sunni militants to join the US in fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and a stand down of the Mahdi Army, the main anti-American Shiite militia.

"When we start this tribal reconciliation, it should be the seed of reconciliation for all of Iraq," says Taiee, who began his efforts five months ago. "The Shiite and the Sunni people, each one stole the rights of the others, and now must solve that in a peaceful way. They should return to their senses; they found that killing is not a good way."
LAT: in Baghdad, an actual theater of the absurd
"The two-act cabaret-style show, written by playwright Ali Hussein, portrays Iraqi politicians as petty, corrupt and detached from the people they govern. A scene in parliament shows legislators discussing the ozone layer, importing garlic seeds (there is no garlic in the play's Iraq) and increasing their salaries -- everything but how to end bloodshed and rebuild a broken state. So out of touch is one politician that he proposes (just like a real-life legislator) erecting a huge Ferris wheel "so people can cool off in the summer heat."

BBC: Yom Kippur riots in Acre, Israel
"The Arab man was reportedly attacked by youths who said he was making noise intentionally [by driving his car], Haaretz said."

Gdn: Dubai's exploited labor force

WP: ANC looks closer to split

WP: cabinet talks stalled in Zimbabwe

BBC: Nkunda forces take base in Eastern DRC; Rwandan troops apparently amassing at border "The UN peacekeeping force Monuc said rebels seized weapons and supplies after overrunning the strategically important camp of Rumangabo overnight.

The attack came as DR Congo accused Rwanda of sending troops across the border to threaten the city of Goma."

BBC: land conflict in Uganda
"The bill [introduced last year], the government says, will stop the evictions and regulate the relationship between land owners and tenants.

But the amendment has drawn criticism from land-owners, local leaders and rights groups around the country, and become a political issue that threatens to divide the country.

Some of the harshest criticism has come from the Buganda kingdom, which says that some of the proposals in the amendment are designed to grab its land.

The Buganda king, Kabaka Ronald Mutesa, is said to be one of the country's biggest land-owners.

The kingdom has been rallying the Baganda against what it says are attempts to put its lands in the hands of "outsiders" and hurt the kingdom's political influence...

Leaders from northern Uganda, where land is owned communally, have opposed a proposal to allow courts to arbitrate in disputes on communal land...

"Northern Uganda has been under a state of conflict. This has been interpreted as a fertile ground for the state to grab people's land, people who have been in the [IDP] camps," [a human rights advocate] says."

Econ: Mauritius comes out on top in governance report on African states
"The index ranks 48 sub-Saharan African countries by five criteria: safety and security, the rule of law, transparency and corruption, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development. Size matters: most of the ten best-run countries have small populations; big, often resource-rich countries fill the bottom of the table. One notable anomaly suggests that open democracy is given less weight in the index than might be expected. Gabon, which is placed eighth, has been governed for over four decades by its president Omar Bongo, who has faced allegations of serious corruption."

Gdn: violence in Latin America "epidemic"
"Some studies suggest Latin America"s income could be 25% higher if its crime rate, which began soaring in the 1980s, was similar to the rest of the world."
BBC: Peruvians protest corruption
"The demonstrations, organised by the biggest trade union, were called to demand a change in the government's free market policies, which opponents say have failed to improve living standards for many Peruvians.

But just days after a scandal allegedly involving kickbacks in return for oil contracts emerged, the protesters also took up the theme of corruption.

In the capital, Lima, thousands of workers, including teachers, builders and doctors marched on Congress on Tuesday, calling for the cabinet to step down."
BBC: Mexico extradites ex-Guatemalan president Portillo to face corruption charges

BBC: Belgium begins negotiations between Flemish and French factions
"Bloody ethnic strife is not about to break out in Brussels' leafy suburbs - but the war of words can get nasty.

Militant groups, such as the Taal Aktie Komitee (TAK), specialise in vandalising non-Dutch billboards and facilities."

NYT: snap elections called in Ukraine

BBC: Maldives' first election heads to run-off

LAT: treason charges dropped, Thai protest leaders to turn themselves in
WP: but the conflict is still unstable

NYT: US states illegally purging voter rolls - can we get some int'l monitors up in here?
looks like it's incompetence, not malfeasance:
"The six states seem to be in violation of federal law in two ways. Some are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.

Some of the states are improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters."

BBC: the foo fighters are not McCain's friends

sideshows [good for managing people]

WP: Taliban runs "parallel state" in Afghanistan
"The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage...Today's Taliban also has a much greater degree of formal organization. The old Taliban was disastrous at governing, and ministries were run by barefoot mullahs who scribbled orders on scraps of paper. The new Taliban structure has councils for each area of governance, appoints officials in controlled areas and confers swift justice for crimes and disputes."

Slate: but a 'surge' won't work there
"...any tactical advantage reaped from killing jihadists across the border is far outweighed by the strategic disaster unleashed as a result of intensifying anti-American sentiment, radicalizing the Pakistani population, and further alienating—possibly destabilizing—its new civilian government...Pakistan is not a sideshow to Afghanistan. It is the main show, dwarfing every other problem in the region. To deal with it, we can do one of two things. We can declare war on Pakistan—an option for which we lack the will, the allies, the resources, the troops, and (let's hope) the sheer suicidal idiocy. Or we can coordinate a region-wide campaign of pressures and incentives—political, economic, diplomatic, and military—with as many concerned powers as possible, including, yes, the Shiite leaders of Iran, who must have less interest than even we do in seeing radical Sunni jihadists take over huge chunks, if not all, of Pakistan...
The ultimate military goal [in Afghanistan]—one lesson from Petraeus' strategy in Iraq that is worth learning and might be applicable—is to protect the Afghan population, and that requires putting a lot of troops in the neighborhoods of towns and villages, to provide security and build trust. It might be possible to do this in Afghanistan, just as it was done in many Iraqi neighborhoods with one important difference—it has to be done by the Afghan National Army, not by us."

Econ: and expanding the front into Pakistan's FATA won't help
"Yet it is true that Afghanistan will never know peace while the tribal areas provide a haven for insurgents. Force will be part of the solution. But, as Mr Zardari knows, there also needs to be a comprehensive plan to develop the region—building roads and providing buses, schools and hospitals, but also dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and, eventually, integrating the FATA fully into Pakistan proper. America’s cross-border pressure may have been intended in part to impress upon Pakistan’s leaders the urgency of the military aspect."

NYT: fallout from deadly bombing in Islamabad
BBC: playing both sides: Pakistan says it will continue push into the FATA
BBC: and against US troops near border

WP: Karzai to meet Palin
"Palin, governor of Alaska for two years, has had limited experience abroad. She took one trip to Germany, Kuwait and Iraq in 2007, but barely crossed the Iraq border. She has also traveled to Canada. Democrats have mocked Palin for citing knowledge of Russia because she can see the nation from her home state."

NYT: delicate equilibrium in Iraq
"But if this is not peace, it is not war, either — at least not the war I knew. When I left Iraq in the summer of 2006, after living three and a half years here following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, I believed that evil had triumphed, and that it would be many years before it might be stopped. Iraq, filled with so many people living so close together, nurturing dark and unknowable grievances, seemed destined for a ghastly unraveling.

And now, in the late summer of 2008, comes the calm. Violence has dropped by as much as 90 percent. A handful of the five million Iraqis who fled their homes — one-sixth of all Iraqis — are beginning to return. The mornings, once punctuated by the sounds of exploding bombs, are still. Is it possible that the rage, the thirst for revenge, the sectarian furies, have begun to fade? That Iraqis have been exhausted and frightened by what they have seen?"

LAT: regional paramilitary groups cropping up in Bolivia
"Bolivia's polarization has reached the point where "defense" bands -- some call them militias -- are popping up here in the defiant lowlands and in the pro-government high plains to the west.

...Mob violence has been the inevitable outcome of the jump in the number of Bolivians aligned with one faction or another.

Both sides in the conflict insist that they are defending their regions, and their very identities, in a nation split by social, geographic and ethnic rifts.

In Santa Cruz, a semitropical city of 1.2 million that is the epicenter of the opposition to Morales, Ruiz has become the posthumous inspiration for the youthful militants of the right. His slaying is seen as a call to the barricades against the collas (pronounced COY-yas), as Indians from the mountainous west are disparagingly called by Santa Cruz natives, known as cambas."

WP: settling Tibetan nomads in China
"Settlement policies vary, and their effect on the social fabric of nomadic communities is complex. In many places, nomads have been encouraged to give up their animals, leading to reduced incomes, a rise in alcoholism and other social costs. A lack of planning has resulted in some settlements lacking water or power, officials admit. In many cases, nomads are ill-equipped to compete with Chinese migrant workers for jobs in nearby cities, and there has been insufficient retraining, experts said. The government has relocated hundreds of thousands of nomads in towns and cities in recent years, drawing them with government-subsidized housing and other incentives...[One settled nomad said,] 'It's also good for managing people. In the past, if government officials wanted to hold a meeting, it would take a long time to inform nomads who are scattered all over. And of course, if the government senses a bad thing is going to happen, it's quite easy to mobilize forces to surround a settlement. Then nothing will happen.'"

BBC: Sri Lanka begins census of displaced Tamils in Colombo
"The government says the rebel Tamil Tigers are using the influx of people to infiltrate the city and plant bombs."

Gdn: ETA bombing claims life of Spanish soldier
Gdn: Spain to open graves from the civil war

CSM: monks taking the long view: preparing children for dissent in Burma

WP: Mbeki resigns
"Mbeki, a top government leader since the end of apartheid in 1994, had faced increasing pressure to resign after a judge's ruling suggested his administration had schemed to charge his rival, Jacob Zuma, with corruption. Mbeki was due to step down after next year's national elections, and Zuma is expected to win his job."
LAT: Olmert resigns

WP: modern art in Tehran
"'Many people think I'm insane. Why would one man spend his money on students? Why is the entrance free of charge? But when they come here and see the museum, they tell me there should be much more of these places in Iran,' Motamedi said."

NYT: work, play, and religion in Dubai

Slate: attention witches: go underground until Wall St. sorts it all out

AP: Dick can't destroy the documents