"In Africa, a five-year, $500 million partnership between the State and Defense Departments includes Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, and Libya is on the verge of joining.
American efforts to fight terrorism in the region also include nonmilitary programs, like instruction for teachers and job training for young Muslim men who could be singled out by militants’ recruiting campaigns...
With only 10,000 people in its military and other security forces, and just two working helicopters and a few airplanes, Mali acknowledges how daunting a task it is to try to drive out the militants.
The biggest potential threat comes from as many as 200 fighters from an offshoot of Al Qaeda called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which uses the northern Malian desert as a staging area and support base, American and Malian officials say."
The Congolese government has pledged to disarm the FDLR and enable the return of its members to Rwanda, where many would probably by prosecuted for their role in the genocide. But the U.N. panel said it had obtained "strong evidence" showing that the Congolese army has "collaborated extensively" with the FDLR since 2007.
Congo stands accused of supplying the Rwandan militia with large shipments of ammunition in exchange for participating in joint military operations against Nkunda's forces, according to the panel."
Gdn: illicit gains fuel the conflict
"The FDLR, a Hutu force whose original members are linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, relies on the illegal mineral trade to raise most of its funds. It earns profits "possibly worth millions of dollars a year" through the trade of cassiterite and coltan, which are used in consumer electronics products and gold, and wolframite, which is used to make tungsten...
For Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi rebel group, the CNDP, land and cows provide key revenue and external financing. Land records showed that six local businessmen with close links to the CNDP had recently purchased ranches in areas under its control. The rebels are paid protection money.
Grazing restrictions imposed by the Rwandan government have caused many cattle to be moved across the border into Congo. Official agricultural documents show that, in just one small part of their territory, CNDP officers own more than 1,500 cows, worth up to £500,000.
Nkunda's rebels were also reported to have earned about £470,000 in the last year by controlling the Bunagana customs post on the Congo-Uganda border."
BBC: election protester shot by police as voting begins in Kashmir
Protesters who are occupying high schools and universities are demanding a reversal of public spending cuts, the resignation of the country's interior minister and the release of arrested riot suspects.
About 200 people have been arrested during the riots and 70 injured.
As unrest spilled over into other European cities, concerns have been raised that the clashes could be a trigger for opponents of globalization, disaffected youth and others outraged by the continent's economic turmoil and soaring unemployment...
"In Mexico's chaotic drug war, attacks are no longer the work of desperate amateurs with bad aim. Increasingly, the killings are being carried out by professionals, often hooded and gloved, who trap their targets in coordinated ambushes, strike with overwhelming firepower, and then vanish into the afternoon rush hour -- just as they did in the Huerta killing.
The paid assassins, known as sicarios, are rarely apprehended. Mexican officials say the commando squads probably travel from state to state, across a country where the government and its security forces are drawing alarming conclusions about the scope and skill of an enemy supported by billions of dollars in drug profits."
LAT: Central American migrants targeted by organized crime (to add to the list of border crossing perils)
"Tens of thousands of Central Americans traverse Mexico illegally each year on their way to the U.S. border. The trek, which can involve perilous journeys by boat and through isolated countryside and mean city streets, often ends unhappily.
Migrants have been maimed or killed hopping aboard freight trains. Others are robbed or raped. Often, they are arrested, and held in squalid cells or denied medical care. In hundreds of cases, Central American families never hear from their relatives again."
AP: Colombia extradites 'Don Diego' - last head of Norte de Valle cartel - to US
Montoya, 47, was indicted in two U.S. courts -- southern Florida and District of Columbia. He sent tons of cocaine to the United States and is responsible for at least 1,500 killing in a two-decade career, Colombian officials say."
The word came just after lunch on Dec. 2 in the cafeteria of Republic Windows and Doors. A company official told assembled workers that their plant on this city’s North Side, which had operated for more than four decades, would be closed in just three days...
There was a murmur of shock, then anger, in the drab room lined with snack machines. Some women cried. But a few of the factory’s union leaders had been anticipating this moment. Several weeks before, they had noticed that equipment had disappeared from the plant, and they began tracing it to a nearby rail yard.
And so, in secret, they had been discussing a bold but potentially dangerous plan: occupying the factory if it closed...
all the workers wanted, they said, was what they deserved under the law: 60 days of severance pay and earned vacation time.
And to their surprise, their drastic action worked. Late Wednesday, two major banks agreed to lend the company enough money to give the workers what they asked for...
In many ways, however, Republic was an unlikely setting for a worker uprising. Many workers interviewed, including some who had been at the plant for more than three decades, said they considered it a decent place to work. It was a mostly Hispanic work force, with some blacks. Some earned over $40,000 a year, including overtime, pulling them into the middle class and enabling them to set up 401(k) retirement accounts and buy modest homes."
"Who is the only source of authority in the Russian Federation?" the announcer asked.
Organized by the government and the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, or Ours, the pageant was aimed at whipping up public enthusiasm for the constitution. The 15th anniversary of the post-Soviet constitution has come at a sensitive moment, as President Dmitry Medvedev, backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is pushing for the first-ever amendments."
