course of treatment [stuck on band-aids]

NYT: riots continue in Greece
"A march through downtown Athens on Monday night turned violent, as demonstrators threw concrete slabs, rocks and flaming gasoline bombs at the officers and smashed storefronts. A government Christmas tree along their path was set on fire.

Rioting also intensified in the country’s second largest city, Salonika, and spread to Trikala, a city in the agricultural heartland.

Schools were shut in Athens, the capital, and high school and university students spilled onto the streets, leading to scattered violence throughout the day.

But the evening demonstration, which had attracted thousands and was organized by the Communist Party, was accompanied by some of the worst of the violence of the past several days."
Gdn: timeline
Gdn: photos
BBC: more photos
BBC: cultural context

New Yorker: policing Pashmul with outsiders
Khan and his police officers are members of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, identifiable among Afghans because of their Asiatic features; the population they patrol is Pashtun. Hazaras are mostly Shia, with a history of ties to Iran, whereas most Pashtuns are Sunni and have turned to Pakistan for support. Over the past century, the two peoples have fought periodically, and the Hazaras, who are thought to make up between nine and nineteen per cent of Afghanistan’s population—the Pashtuns make up nearly half—have usually lost...

Units like Khan’s, made up of a despised minority with an unsparing attitude toward those they police, embody many of the paradoxes involved in trying to bring order to Afghanistan’s ethnically fissured society...

In July, I visited Pashmul’s police base, a small installation about twice as large as a tennis court and surrounded by ditches and razor wire. Nearby are crumbling Pashtun villages of mud-brick homes, sprinkled with trash and unexploded ordnance. Pashmul is ideal terrain for an insurgency. The main sources of livelihood, other than hemp and poppies, are grapes and pomegranates, and, during the summer fighting season, foliage in fields and orchards provides cover for insurgents. Because farmers are too poor to use wooden frames in their vineyards, their grapevines are supported by deep furrows cut in the earth; thus in an apparently empty field hundreds of Taliban may be hidden. Grape huts, scattered around the fields, have mud walls thick enough to stop bullets, and narrow ventilation slits that can accommodate rifle barrels. Fighting has caused many Pashmul residents to flee to a temporary camp in the desert, from which they trek several miles each morning to cultivate the fields.

Khan’s police unit patrols a war zone, and the men often do the work of soldiers rather than of normal beat police officers. Although the Army lends support when the police encounter armed resistance, the soldiers then retreat to a base outside Pashmul. On most days, the police patrol the alleys alone, except for a few Canadian soldiers whom NATO has assigned to train and mentor them...

At the command level, the decision to exploit one of Afghanistan’s least noted and most bitter ethnic rivalries seems to have been improvised rather than planned. I asked Brigadier-General Denis Thompson, the top Canadian commander, about Khan’s unit, and he emphasized the similarity between Hazaras and Pashtuns, rather than the differences. “The advantage of any Afghan, regardless of their ethnicity, is that they get a better measure of what’s going on on the ground than we could ever get,” he said. “They know when something is amiss in this district.” No NATO officer I met seemed to appreciate the full significance of the Hazara-Pashtun rivalry...

Two days earlier, NATO artillery strikes had destroyed a Taliban position. Footage from a Predator drone suggested that Taliban soldiers had suffered serious injuries and that, more interestingly, villagers had surrounded and stoned wounded Talibs as they tried to crawl away. Cox’s mission was to lead soldiers to the village to find out what had happened, and to see whether they could harness any anti-Taliban feeling. Some areas haven’t seen a patrol in years, so even farmers who might sympathize with the government lack any guarantee that the government will protect them if they oppose the Taliban. “How are these people supposed to know about their government and support it when there’s no police there?” Cox asked.

The men on duty were not inattentive, but they seemed fundamentally unserious. They lacked initiative, and sat back and murmured to one another while the Canadians interviewed a local farmer. The Canadians barely spoke with their A.N.A. contingent at all, and the Afghan soldiers seemed to regard it as their principal duty to stand in place while the Canadians conducted their search.

The team cornered a farmer, who confirmed that some villagers had persuaded the Taliban to set up their heavy machine gun in another area, in case the Canadians sent in artillery to destroy the position. The team seized on the disclosure as a sign that the villagers could rise up against the Taliban. The farmer shook his head. “No,” he said. “We can argue with you. Not with them. If we say just one thing against the insurgents, they will come and kill us.”

“Have the insurgents come back to say that to you?” the Canadian asked.

The farmer leaned in and looked around. “They always come here.”

Soon afterward, Cox received word that some insurgents were just a few hundred yards away. An unmanned aerial vehicle had spotted men clustering south of us, across a vineyard and near a suspected weapons cache. Cox summoned an A.N.A. quick-reaction force, to support an assault against the position. Half an hour later, no one had arrived, and Cox was furious. He yelled at his counterpart in the Afghan forces, stabbing his finger at the soldier, who was suppressing a laugh: “I’m asking you if they’re ready to come here and help us fight. If you want to take this job half-assed, then fucking get out of the Army.”

When the Afghan quick-response force arrived, its soldiers stood looking dazed. We started to move toward the insurgents’ position by fanning in two directions—one of the most basic tactical maneuvers an infantry unit can attempt. The Afghans now looked slightly frightened—less of the Taliban ambush than of their officer, an Afghan captain trained by Green Berets. As he issued commands through a radio, the soldiers moved down the road and into the vineyard, correctly enough but with uneasy attention to detail, like a troupe of dancers staring at their feet. When we had closed half the distance, I crouched in a furrow, amid grapevines, until a soldier ahead of me—a stubbly, spindly man with a backpack full of rocket-propelled grenade warheads—yelped “Gun!” and pointed at the ambush point.

Seeing a weapon triggered the rules of engagement, and we ran toward the position. I kept my head low, looking at the ground a few steps ahead of me to avoid I.E.D.s. We leaped over an irrigation ditch, and, when I looked up to make sure I was still running in the right direction, I saw the soldier again. He had his grenade-launcher in one hand and, in the other, a colossal bunch of grapes, which he had started to eat. By the time we arrived at the place where the surveillance had spotted the insurgents, the Taliban had long since vanished back into the surrounding villages. As we stood in the empty Taliban position, I noticed that most of the Afghan soldiers carried grapes that they had picked up during the maneuver, and that they looked pleased...

When the patrol encountered residents, [Hazara] Khan and [Canadian] Vollick asked them about Taliban in the area, and received jittery and unhelpful answers. Neither spoke Pashto, but through a translator they managed to perform a kind of good-cop, bad-cop act. Vollick approached two old men sitting outside a house, and asked about Taliban. The response was cordial but evasive. Vollick repeated a line, familiar by now to the villagers, about NATO’s desire to make sure the government could meet their needs for schools and wells. While the men spoke, Khan rolled his eyes in operatic boredom and instructed his men to search the building and to frisk every passerby. The villagers obviously regarded Khan and Vollick as equally foreign. They denied any knowledge of Taliban activity, but, as Khan’s aggressiveness and suspicion grew, they gave Vollick more and more desperate excuses for not coöperating—they were afraid, they said, and hadn’t seen any insurgents anyway. Two other men and a teen-ager looked at us over the walls, perhaps close enough to report back to insurgents on what was said."

LAT: sectarian polarization intense as violence subsides in Baqubah, Diyala
LAT: Tonga troops end deployment as 'coalition of the willing' members

WP (Eugene Robinson): the trial of Blackwater contractors is a whitewash by the White House et al
"There is a huge difference between self-defense and the kind of indiscriminate fusillade that the Blackwater team allegedly unleashed. Proper training and supervision -- which was the Blackwater firm's responsibility -- would have made it more likely for the guards to make the right split-second decisions amid the chaos of Nisoor Square. Rather than give Blackwater a free pass, the Justice Department ought to investigate the preparation these men were given before being sent onto Baghdad's dangerous streets...

But a real attempt to establish blame for this massacre should go beyond Blackwater. It was the Bush administration that decided to police the occupation of Iraq largely with private rather than regular troops.

There are an estimated 30,000 security "contractors" in Iraq, many of them there to protect U.S. State Department personnel. The presence of these heavily armed private soldiers has become a sore point between the U.S. and Iraqi governments. Until now, the mercenaries -- they object to that label, but it fits -- have been immune from prosecution by the Iraqi courts for any alleged crimes. This will change on Jan. 1, when the new U.S.-Iraqi security pact places them under the jurisdiction of Iraqi law. Blackwater and other firms are likely to have a harder time retaining and recruiting personnel, given the possibility of spending time in an Iraqi prison. Yet it is presumed that more private soldiers, rather than fewer, will be needed as the United States reduces troop levels...

Putting national security in the hands of private companies and private soldiers was bad practice from the start, and incidents such as what happened at Nisoor Square are the foreseeable result. The five Blackwater guards may have fired the weapons, but they were locked and loaded in Washington."
Slate: Gates should follow his own advice to change the Pentagon
WP: report offers recommendations to intervene and prevent genocide

Gdn: short list of 9/11 suspects
Slate: how to close Guantanamo

LAT: Pakistan raids Lakshar-e-Taiba; unclear if leader in custody
Ind: former militants describe schooling/ indoctrination
Gdn: tracking down the captured attacker's home in Punjab
NYT: in op-ed, Ali Zardari says that Mumbai terror attacks meant to target Pakistan too
WP: apparently no one told him that whole thing was just a prank

NYT: tribe in Brazil asks for state intervention as drug war encroaches
"For the Tikunas, these traumas represent the latest threat in a fight for tribal survival. With high unemployment and new challenges to its subsistence livelihood, the community is struggling to keep young people from losing themselves in the vices of the white man’s world and from destroying what is left of traditional Tikuna culture.

Like other Indian communities tucked close to growing urban areas, Tikunas are tempted by the consumerism on display and frustrated that it is beyond their means. To the youth especially, alcohol, drugs and drug money seem to offer a way out. They have also unleashed a surge of violence and disobedience.

Alarmed by these trends, Mariaçu’s two chiefs recently made an unusual and desperate appeal for help: they asked the Brazilian police, who generally do not have jurisdiction in Indian towns, to enter their community and crack down on traffickers and substance abusers, even if that would mean putting the Indians at the mercy of Brazilian laws.

“We want government officials to help us save our children, so they don’t take part in these ruinous practices,” said Oswaldo Honorato Mendes, a deep-voiced Mariaçu chief. “Every day the situation gets worse. The younger generation does not obey. They do not show respect for our authority as chiefs. They need to learn respect.”

Respect and obedience to the chiefs are the pillars of tribal law, which usually holds sway in Indian communities but has proved insufficient to cope with new challenges...

[The chiefs] pleaded for the police to do more to control drug traffickers and arrest lawbreakers in their communities. The police officials listened politely but walked away unconvinced they could help.

“It is a desperate request, but not one that we can legally respond to,” said Sergio Fontes, the superintendent of the federal police in the northern city of Manaus, which oversees Tabatinga. “The chiefs want to resolve a social problem with the police, and that is wrong.”

The police generally may not enter an Indian community to carry out investigations, and Indians generally enjoy immunity from Brazilian laws, Mr. Fontes said. In addition, Brazil treats drug users as victims who require treatment, not as criminals. They are usually sentenced to receiving drug-addiction treatment and performing community service in lieu of serving prison time...

But with the police rejecting the Indians’ plea, for now, at least, the Tikunas will have to find ways to cope with their own social problems and the swirling new influences."

LAT: slaying in Monterrey jewelry shop offers gruesome window into expanding drug war
CSM: the military has replaced the police in Tijuana

LAT: paramilitaries, new drug trafficking groups, and guerrillas fighting for control on Colombia's Pacific coast
"The reemerging armed gangs are wreaking havoc in Nariño state. They are vying with guerrillas and drug traffickers for control of a zone that boasts ideal coca growing conditions as well as a labyrinthine coastline offering hundreds of concealed, mangrove-studded inlets from which to ship drugs to U.S. markets.

The new paramilitary groups, like the rebels and traffickers, often force people such as Antonio from their homes and farms to take possession of land as war booty and to clear the area of potential enemy sympathizers. With an estimated 3 million people having been displaced, Colombia is second only to Sudan in the number of its internal refugees."

LAT: Brookings rept says US drug war has failed, should turn focus to treatment
Brookings: full rept here

NYT mag: the evolution of the revolution - change and stasis in Cuba
"The confining shadow of Fidel’s tropical curtain, on the 50th anniversary of the revolution, was captured in the emptiness before me — of the Malecón, but even more so of the sea. I noticed over subsequent days that Cubans perched on the seafront wall rarely looked outward. When I asked Yoani Sánchez, a dissident blogger (www.desdecuba.com/generaciony), about this, she told me: “We live turned away from the sea because it does not connect us, it encloses us. There is no movement on it. People are not allowed to buy boats because if they had boats, they would go to Florida. We are left, as one of our poets put it, with the unhappy circumstance of water at every turn.”

WP: speaking of unending terms, Chávez tries to extend his again


WP: turnout high in Ghana presidential election

LAT: Islamists poised to take control when Ethiopia withdraws from Mogadishu
"Although the movement is divided by competing ideologies and goals, it has nonetheless made many gains recently through a combination of brutal force and political dialogue.

The militant wing, Shabab, which claims affiliation to Al Qaeda, now controls 90% of southern Somalia, including parts of the capital, Mogadishu. The moderate faction signed a peace deal with Somalia's transitional government that could hand it half the seats in parliament.

Islamists who fled two years ago after their defeat by Ethiopian troops who had crossed the border to prop up Somalia's government are reemerging to assert their authority in several cities, often imposing strict Islamic laws against dancing, drinking or conducting business during prayer time. They're even starting to flex their muscles again to halt piracy offshore...

The other main faction, led by former Islamic Courts chairman Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, is working to reconcile with the transitional government in a power-sharing agreement. Ahmed is viewed as a possible new prime minister, but Shabab commanders accused him of betrayal.

A third Islamist faction falls somewhere between the other two. Rivalries are so bitter that fighting among groups recently broke out south of Mogadishu."

CSM: discontent in the Zimbabwe army leads to looting in Harare
LAT: Zimbabwe has bloody diamonds too
"The prison official said the real aim of the recent crackdown was to give the syndicates operated by top ruling party figures free rein.

"In effect, these operations are not to restore order but to make sure [the syndicates] can take the diamonds," the official says. "But what is devastating us is that they're actually killing people. They're shooting to kill."

Political violence and power struggles in Manicaland province, where the Marange diamonds are found, suggest how important the area is to Mugabe and ZANU-PF. Manicaland was one of the areas most severely hit by political violence after the elections in March, which saw ZANU-PF lose the Mutare council, the mayoral post and 20 parliamentary seats there to the Movement for Democratic Change.

Although Zimbabwe's diamonds are not technically "blood diamonds," or ones that fuel wars, they are bloody in nature."

CSM: talks to end violence in eastern Congo began Monday, already in jeopardy
"A last-minute glitch in the talks between General Nkunda's representatives and the Congolese government still could bring the talks to a precipitous halt. Congo's government announced this weekend that it had invited more than 20 other rebel groups to the talks, a move that Nkunda's spokesman called "impossible" and likely to scupper the talks altogether."
Econ: mapping the wars in the Congo over the last 15 years
Gdn: gendered violence: women and girls are raped, while men are killed
Gdn: people taking on risks to shelter the displaced
"The people who had set up home in the open fields of Nyabirehe had fled fighting between government troops and the rebels in their village of Kiwanja, some 15 miles (24km) north, where more than 50 people had been killed.

'The rebel captain came to Nyabirehe and told everyone to leave, that it was shameful to live in camps,' said Nyanzira Vitwaiki, 14. 'He said they are places where spies and enemies hide. They opened fire because people didn't run fast enough. Five people were hurt.'

With her mother and crippled brother, she was taken in by a family of strangers in Kalengera, a sprawling village that sits midway along what is now a rebel-controlled stretch of line that leans out into a semi-circle from a point just outside Goma in the south, up to Ishasa, some 100 miles north, on the Ugandan border. Hundreds of people displaced by the violence of the past month have been taken in by people here."

Ind: albinos hunted in Tanzania
"There is similar violence throughout east and central Africa. And even in west and southern Africa, albinos face persecution and discrimination. The campaign is being orchestrated by witch doctors who claim they can make people rich using limbs and blood from their white-skinned neighbours. In some areas, albino children go to school with bodyguards, others hide at home, and distraught relatives pile rocks on their dead loved ones to deter grave-robbers."

Slate: Canada's constitutional crisis?!


NYT: Chinese officials sending detractors to mental hospitals
"In an investigative report published Monday by a state-owned newspaper, public security officials in the city of Xintai in Shandong Province were said to have been institutionalizing residents who persist in their personal campaigns to expose corruption or the unfair seizure of their property. Some people said they were committed for up to two years, and several of those interviewed said they were forcibly medicated."

++
history lessons
Gdn: genes reveal forced conversions of Sephardic Jews in 15th and 16th century Spain and Portugal
LAT: Museum of the War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea
Slate: inside the Stalin archives
"All of this gave a new lease on life to the incestuous world of Soviet studies, which had been divided for decades into historians who preferred the triumphant version of Soviet history, accessible in official documents like newspapers, and those who listened to the very different story told by witnesses, refugees, and dissidents. This essentially ideological argument ended forever with the publication of archival information by Yale and others, replacing it, for the first time, with real history—and proving, among other things, that the witnesses, refugees, and dissidents had largely been right.

Although he discusses some of the academic issues that lay at the heart of the Yale project, the point of Inside the Stalin Archives is somewhat different: Brent is less interested in what his series meant for Western academics and more interested in explaining the strange atmosphere of post-Soviet Moscow, and in particular the ways in which Russia's twisted past continued to shape its present."

++
NYT: praying for a bailout at the auto altar

learning about the past [doomed anyhow]

CSM: aware of dangers, NATO looks to ally with Afghan tribes
"As recently as the 1980s, America was arming and training local fighters in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviet Army. The result was four years of civil war after the Soviets withdrew, as the new warlords fought each other, killing thousands. The chaos led to the rise of the Taliban.

Moreover, Afghanistan is an enormously complex web of intersecting tribal and ethnic allegiances that must be negotiated with great delicacy. Bolstering one Pashtun tribe in eastern Afghanistan, for example, could upset Tajiks and Hazaras in the north – who feel that their old foes are being strengthened – as well as rival Pashtun clans in the south.

For this reason, a consensus is emerging here and in Washington that whatever program emerges must be run by the Afghan government itself – perhaps by the police or Army."
CSM: Taliban's "shadow government"
"The [Taliban] militants' parallel government here in Logar Province – less than 40 miles from Kabul, the capital – tried and convicted the [local thieves], tarred their faces, paraded them around, and threatened to chop off their hands if they were caught stealing in the future. The thieves never bothered the locals again.

In several provinces close to Kabul, the government's presence is vanishing or already nonexistent, residents say. In its place, a more effective – and brutal – Taliban shadow government is spreading and winning local support.

"The police are just for show," one local says. "The Taliban are the real power here."

Widespread disillusionment with rampant crime, corrupt government, and lack of jobs has fueled the Taliban's rise to de facto power – though mainly in areas dominated by fellow ethnic Pashtuns. Still, the existence of Taliban power structures so close to Kabul shows the extent to which the Afghan government has lost control of the country."
WP: NATO commanders told to restrict air strikes in Afghanistan
"Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, NATO's chief spokesman in Afghanistan, said commanders are now under orders to consider a "tactical withdrawal" when faced with the choice of calling in air support during clashes in areas where civilians are believed to be present. The goal of the order is to minimize civilian casualties, encourage better coordination with Afghan troops and discourage overreliance on air power to repel insurgent attacks, Blanchette said."
NYT: more civilians apparently killed on Thursday nonetheless
NYT: foreign insurgent recruits redirecting to Afghanistan rather than Iraq
Slate: Petraeus to review overall strategy
"The strategic review, which involves more than 100 advisers working in six task forces, will focus on two issues in particular, the Post reports: reconciliation of moderate Taliban insurgents with the Afghan government (or at least with the fight against al-Qaida) and diplomatic initiatives with neighboring countries toward the ultimate goal of weakening jihadist forces in Pakistan."

NYT: prisoners describe Iran's training program for Iraqi insurgents
"Such is a typical day at a dusty military base outside Tehran, where for the past several years members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force and Lebanese Hezbollah operatives have trained Iraqi Shiites to launch attacks against American forces in Iraq, according to accounts given to American interrogators by captured Iraqi fighters...The prisoners’ accounts cannot be independently verified. Yet the detainees gave strikingly similar details about training compounds in Iran, a clandestine network of safe houses in Iran and Iraq they used to reach the camps and intra-Shiite tensions at the camps between the Arab Iraqis and their Persian Iranian trainers."
LAT: Shiite groups in Iraq tries to hasten saint's return by spreading violence
"The Shiite faithful believe that in the world's darkest hour, Imam Mahdi will return and bring justice and calm. But where mainstream Shiite believers wait patiently for that day, groups such as the one that tried to enlist Iman are convinced that they can hasten his reappearance by spreading chaos...

Abu Jassem said the group preyed upon him when he was unemployed.

His recruiter was a good friend who knew of his religious fervor, and of his need for money. The friend sweetened the deal with the promise of a stipend for joining the cult. But then he told Abu Jassem of the one catch: He had to let his fellow believers sleep with his wife, daughter and sister."
CSM: upcoming elections might upset security gains

LAT: new evidence that the Nixon and Ford administrations undercut the Shah
"The report, after two years of research by scholar Andrew Scott Cooper, zeros in on the role of White House policymakers -- including Donald H. Rumsfeld, then a top aide to President Ford -- hoping to roll back oil prices and curb the shah's ambitions, despite warnings by then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that such a move might precipitate the rise of a "radical regime" in Iran."

CSM: Colombia begins process of documenting war before it's over
"When La Violencia ended, Colombia turned the page and looked forward, leaving victims' families bitter and angry and demanding justice.

"This is a country that was accustomed to ending its conflicts with wide-sweeping amnesties and pardons," says [historian Gonzalo] Sánchez. "The idea of victims barely existed, the dead were dead and that was it."

That's now changing. The Historic Memory Group has tallied 2,505 massacres in which 14,000 victims died between 1982 and 2007. The government has registered more then 145,000 deaths and disappearances, as well as more than 3 million internal refugees.

Under the so-called 2005 Justice and Peace Law, hundreds of demobilized paramilitary fighters and rebel deserters are confessing to thousands of those crimes in exchange for reduced sentences. This, observers say, is working as a catalyst for victims who are reporting their version of events for the first time...

But the way victims and victimizers remember history often differs greatly. Sometimes, because of the official setting of the confessions, the former fighters are given more credence than to those who survived their crimes."
WP: Human Rights Watch says Uribe obstructing justice in paramilitary demobilization process
HRW: here's the full report
CNN: indigenous protesters killed by police
"[The commander of the police riot squad] also said leftist guerrilla fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had infiltrated the demonstration and were motivating the protest. Indian organizations deny the accusation, which law enforcement officials frequently level at social protests across the country."

Chris Blattman: pirate wars on the horizon

WP: an estimated 100,000 displaced by ongoing violence in Eastern Congo
"The fighting has mainly been in the hilly, forested eastern province of North Kivu, where Laurent Nkunda has over the years established a kind of fiefdom, flying the flag of his party, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, taking over villages, levying taxes and broadcasting his own radio programs.

Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi who maintains close ties to neighboring Rwanda, has said he is protecting the region's Tutsi minority from ethnic Hutu militias led by a core group that fled to eastern Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

In recent weeks, Nkunda has expanded his ambitions, vowing to "liberate" the entire Central African nation of 65 million people as the government of President Joseph Kabila struggles to assert control.

Nkunda and Rwandan officials have accused the Congolese army of collaborating with the Hutu militias instead of disarming them, as Congolese and Rwandan diplomats agreed to do in an accord signed last year."
NYT: victim speaking out on sexual violence
"In Bunia, a town farther north, rape prosecutions are up 600 percent compared to five years ago. Congolese investigators have even been flown to Europe to learn “CSI”-style forensic techniques. The police have arrested some of the most violent offenders, often young militia men, most likely psychologically traumatized themselves, who have thrust sticks, rocks, knives and assault rifles inside women...

Poverty, chaos, disease and war. These are the constants of eastern Congo. Many people believe that the rape problem will not be solved until the area tastes peace. But that might not be anytime soon.

Laurent Nkunda, a well-armed Tutsi warlord, or a savior of his people, depending on whom you ask, recently threatened to wage war across the country. Clashes between his troops, many of them child soldiers, and government forces have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in the past few months. His forces, along with those from the dozens of other rebel groups hiding out in the hills, are thought to be mainly responsible for the epidemic of brutal rapes."

AP: protesters beaten in Zimbabwe
"The Bulawayo demonstrators were carrying a statement from the civil rights group Women of Zimbabwe Arise, accusing politicians of offering empty promises in their Sept. 15 agreement."

Econ: delays in Khmer Rouge trials
"The tribunal, based in the outskirts of the capital, is an unwieldy compromise. The original proposal was for it to be entirely under the UN’s control, like the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. But China threatened to veto this, perhaps fearing that such an independent international body would unearth embarrassing evidence of its close support for the Khmer Rouge.

The Cambodian government, led by Hun Sen (a former Khmer Rouge officer, though not himself implicated in the regime’s enormities), was also keen to ensure the UN did not have too much control over the tribunal. So what was agreed in the end was an “Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia”, with a majority of local judges. The result has been constant tensions between the international and Cambodian staff."

LAT: China abandons land reform

NYT: debt bondage and cotton in Tajikistan

WSJ: intrigue surrounding murder of Tbilisi CIA station chief in 1993
"Those who don't buy the official explanation suspect that the answer lies in the spy games that played out on Russia's frontier following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Woodruff was an early actor in a dangerous drama. American spies were moving into newborn nations previously dominated by Soviet intelligence. Russia's security apparatus, resentful and demoralized, was in turmoil, its nominal loyalty to a pro-Western course set by President Boris Yeltsin shredded by hard-line spooks and generals who viewed the Americans as a menace."

NYT: the mob and politics in Bulgaria
"By almost any measure, Bulgaria is the most corrupt country in the 27-member European Union. Since it joined last year, it has emerged as a cautionary tale for Western nations confronting the stark reality and heavy costs of drawing fragile post-Communist nations into their orbit, away from Russia’s influence...

As in Russia and some other Balkan nations, corruption has seeped into the fabric of life. Sofia has a thriving black market for blood outside hospitals, where patients’ families haggle over purchases with dealers, according to Bulgarian news reports that track the prices.

The roots of this organized crime date to the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s. Thousands of secret agents and athletes, including wrestlers once supported and coddled by the state, were cast onto the street. During the United Nations embargo of warring Serbia in the 1990s, they seized smuggling opportunities and solidified their networks."

Slate: special series on immigration in Europe

WP: Canadian conservatives hold on to power

WP: Whitehouse gave the go-ahead to CIA torture

Slate: code language in American politics - from Wallace to Palin
Slate: the US patchwork system is inefficient at handling voter registration and voting; plus, why vote on Tuesdays?
"(Tuesday voting, for the record, is entirely vestigial. In 1845, Congress fixed upon Tuesday because getting to and from polling places used to be a two-day ordeal, and voting on the weekend or Monday would have meant traveling on the Sabbath.)"
Slate: how did Qpac become a polling machine?
Slate: speaking of the 19th century - mobilizing voters resembled civil war military tactics
LAT: Kenyans following the race
"Despite Sen. Barack Obama's strong lead in the polls and his huge popularity here in his father's homeland, some Kenyans can't shake a sense of doubt about whether Americans are ready to put a black man in the White House."

overdue [please do not harrass the ducks]

WP: town on North-South border of Sudan desolate in anticipation of renewed fighting
"...southern officials are accusing Bashir of using a minor street scuffle this month as an excuse to unleash a brutal military campaign that they say is aimed at clearing the area of its pro-southern population ahead of the referendum."
WP: Sudan's president, army celebrates victory over rebels in attack in "macabre" affair

LAT: ongoing catastrophe in Somalia
"Few dare use cellphones lest they fall victim to thieves or be accused of spying. There's no socializing because it's too risky to stop for chitchat and no one knows whom to trust...Somalia's social breakdown has hit the young the hardest. They have rarely known peace, stability or even a semblance of order. In one desolate neighborhood, shabbily dressed children played away a recent afternoon. As usual, it was a war game. They carried guns carved from wood and tossed plastic bags filled with ash to mimic the smoke of exploding grenades.

There are three sides in their game: transitional government soldiers, Ethiopian troops and insurgents. Insurgents usually trounce the soldiers, who then run to Ethiopians for help. Ethiopians chase away the insurgents as they sweep through neighborhoods, terrorizing civilians.

None of the boys seek the role of government soldier. 'No one wants to play the ones who are defeated,' said Ahmed Ali, 13, who played the role of insurgent leader."

Ind: Ethiopia supreme court sentences former dictator Mengistu to death

WP: South Africa marshals troops to protect immigrants
"At least 13,000 people have been chased from their homes, often a step ahead of mobs demanding that foreigners return to their native countries. News reports put the death toll at 42, with hundreds injured."
Ind: context of the violence
BBC: which continues
Gdn: attacks against migrants in Rome too

LAT: chances that Mugabe's party will recognize results of an unfavorable run-off election are, er, slim
FP blog: what happened to those Chinese weapons destined for Zimbabwe? (HT: Chris Blattman)

WP: touch-and-go in Bangladesh due to food prices

WP: Burma finally agrees to allow in aid workers
AP: renews detention of Suu Kyi

WP: FARC vows to continue war despite leader's death
ideologue Alfonso Cano chosen as new leader over military strategist Mono Jo Joy
Gdn: obituary for Pedro Marín, aka "Tirofijo" and Manuel Marulanda, oldest guerrilla leader
WP: will extradition of paramilitary leaders be good for Colombian victims in the end?

BBC: Chavez preparing for elections with huge pay outs

Reuters: judge orders 100 from Pinochet's regime arrested

NYT: drug war in Mexico taking its toll on police
Gdn: main drug cartels
LAT: simulating illegal border crossings from Mexico
"Dubbed the Caminata Nocturna (Night Hike), the three-hour simulation is a combination obstacle course, sociology lesson and PG-rated family outing. Founded in 2004, it's run by members of a local village of Hñahñu Indians, an indigenous people of south-central Mexico. The village's former population of about 2,500 has been decimated by migration to the United States.
Every Saturday night, dozens of the several hundred remaining villagers take part in the Caminata. Many work as costumed performers impersonating Border Patrol agents, fellow migrants and masked coyotes and polleros, the Mexican guides who escort migrants for a fee.
The 7 1/2 -mile hike, which involves quite a bit of running, costs about $10 per person."

BBC: peacekeepers sexually assaulting children

Gdn: Kabul's heroin problem isn't only on the production side

WP: Lebanon reaches belated accord
Gdn: new president sworn in

Gdn: administrators of British prison system concerned about "Muslim gangs" in jails

Chris Blattman: terrorism, civil wars declining?
WP: military spending on the rise everywhere, but especially by the US - nearly 10 times larger than next highest spender (the UK)
WP: an increase of air strikes in Iraq is among the expenditures

LAT: Iraqis growing impatient with militias in continued fighting
LAT: but the US says violence is at 4-year low

Gdn: soccer wars: FIFA suspends Iraqi Soccer Association

WP: US is irrelevant on the peace side of things in the Middle East

USAT: only 20% of detainees in Iraq belong to extremist groups; US military says rest can be reintegrated into society
"The assessment reflects a new approach to detainees, which emphasizes isolating al-Qaeda and Shiite extremists and increasing the release of many average men caught up in the fighting...
U.S. commanders are not suggesting that U.S. forces captured innocent men, but some defense analysts say it is difficult to make distinctions in unconventional warfare, where insurgents don't wear uniforms and most troops don't speak the local language...
The more aggressive release strategy appears to be working, statistics show. Of 8,000 released over the past 10 months only 28 have returned to the main detention facilities, a recidivism rate of less than 1%. Prior to the new program, the rate was 6.4%, Stone said.
The detainee population hasn't decreased by 8,000 because new detainees continue to enter the system. However, the average number of daily releases is about 53 now and the average daily intake of detainees has held steady at about 30 since December."

NYT: the FBI dissented on tactics used against detainees and kept records in "war crimes" file, says DOJ report
"The report describes what one official called “trench warfare” between the F.B.I. and the military over the rough methods being used on detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq...Many of the abuses the report describes have previously been disclosed, but it was not known that F.B.I. agents had gone so far as to document accusations of abuse in a “war crimes file” at Guantánamo. The report does not say how many incidents were included in the file after it was started in 2002, but the “war crimes” label showed just how seriously F.B.I. agents took the accusations. Sometime in 2003, however, an F.B.I. official ordered the file closed because 'investigating detainee allegations of abuse was not the F.B.I.’s mission,' the report said."

not your onion
WP: if you're going to crush insurgencies and manage British soccer hooligans, it best be in style

BBC: Peruvian MP in trouble for shooting another legislator's dog

BBC: Canadian foreign minister resigns for leaving classified documents in "unsecured location," i.e., hot ex-girlfriend's house

protests that would make st. pat proud

LAT: Tibetan protests, Chinese repression like whack-a-mole
"The Chinese have deployed thousands of troops from the paramilitary People's Armed Police and the People's Liberation Army. But just as soon as the troops stamp out one protest, another pops up...The violence was seeping outside Tibet proper into parts of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces with large ethnic Tibetan minorities."
WP: Chinese actions appear to have popular support
"The Dalai Lama, now 72, led a violent uprising with help from the Central Intelligence Agency after Chinese troops reimposed rule from Beijing in 1950. The subversion campaign failed, and he was forced in 1959 to flee on horseback to India, where he has lived in exile for half a century. It was to mark the anniversary of his dramatic flight over the Himalayas that anti-China demonstrations in Lhasa got started last Monday...
Tibet, a 750,000-square-mile territory sitting between the Himalayan and Kun Lun mountain ranges, was more or less part of various Chinese empires over the centuries, paying fealty but often too remote to be totally controlled. With the Dalai Lama as its leader, however, Tibet governed itself as an independent nation while China was torn by the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century. So for Beijing officials and the public they have educated through propaganda, the Dalai Lama is less a devout Buddhist than a secessionist rebel."

Gdn: Serbs take court in Kosovo, clash with UN forces
"Mitrovica's 40,000 Serbs are militantly opposed to Kosovan independence and, backed by Belgrade, they are bent on partitioning the province and taking over the police and judicial institutions in the north."

NYT: decision to disband military taken by Bremer and Bush without consultation
NYT: (op-ed) Bremer doesn't think that's his biggest mistake
NYT: (op-ed) it wasn't Perle's fault either
WP: at Congressional hearing, representatives debate the obligations of the US gov't to Iraqi refugees and IDPs
WP: Dick "the Liberator" Cheney goes to collect long-overdue flowers in person
Gdn: soldiers speaking at Iraq Veterans against the War forum know better

IHT: Shariah and (Western) rule of law

BBC: new parliament opens in Pakistan

WP: violence in Kenya's Rift Valley organized by opposition, says HRW report
"'This was not done by ordinary citizens, it was arranged by people with money,' said one young man who took part in the attacks, according to the report. 'They brought the jobless like me. We need something to eat each day.'"

Ind: ivory funds warlords in the DRC, Sudan and Chad, Somalia
BBC: violence in usually (relatively) stable western DRC
Bundu Dia Kongo challenges central state authority; police are trying to disband its militia

Gdn: (book excerpt) marijuana trade in Canada
BBC: coca and cocaine labs discovered in Brazilian Amazon for first time

IHT: families sue Chiquita over 1993 deaths of loved ones in Urabá, Colombia
"The 63-page complaint asserts that Chiquita provided 'numerous and substantial hidden payments' to [the FARC] in addition to weapons and supplies. That financing, the plaintiffs say, contributed to the deaths of the five men because Chiquita had in fact supported 'acts of terrorism.'"

IHT: the changing patterns of sex work
Slate: Venkatesh outlines the new tiers

New Yorker: washboarding is not torture. it's just really really irritating

Slate: raise a glass today for St Patrick today, even if you're not sure why

rain rain go away

africa
BBC: another opposition MP in Kenya shot
But the killing seems unrelated to politics: "A local police chief says Mr Too was having an affair with the girlfriend of the policeman, who shot them both." The killing has prompted Kikuyus to flee town, Eldoret, nonetheless.
Econ: talks so far inching along, as violence continues

BBC: rebels capture town in Chad
"'We are moving towards N'Djamena,' rebel spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah confirmed to AFP. Meanwhile, army units have stepped up patrols on the streets of the capital, Reuters news agency says."

BBC: UN peacekeepers in Western Sahara deface ancient rock paintings

middle east
BBC: former supreme court chief in Pakistan denounces Musharraf
"He described his treatment at the hands of President Musharraf as an 'incredible outrage' committed by an 'extremist general' who is supported by the West. "
WP: the US "urges" fair elections, after surprising allegations of intimidation
SWJ: analysis of possible US military operations in Waziristan, featuring some shaky generalizations related to "tribal" and "western" logics

BBC: Fatah militant killed near Gaza border gap; Mubarak meets with Abbas
WP: Israeli Supreme Court oks reduced energy supply to Gaza, enough to meet "basic humanitarian needs"
IHT: Israeli report faults leadership in 2006 Lebanon war, but Olmert likely to retain power
Ind: text of (unclassified) Winograd Report
"•We found serious failings and shortcomings in the decision-making processes and staff-work in the political and the military echelons and their interface.

•We found serious failings and flaws in the quality of preparedness, decision-making and performance in the IDF high command, especially in the Army.

•We found serious failings and flaws in the lack of strategic thinking and planning, in both the political and the military echelons.

•We found severe failings and flaws in the defence of the civilian population and in coping with its being attacked by rockets.

•These weaknesses resulted in part from inadequacies of preparedness and strategic and operative planning which go back long before the 2nd Lebanon war."

BBC: bomb in Helmand mosque kills deputy governor; suicide bomber in Kabul kills one.

IHT: developments in Mosul
AP: US commanders warn that the campaign there will be long
"Lieutenant Colonel Michael Simmering, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry, based near Mosul, described the insurgent force in the city as a patchwork of groups, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other factions, 'all vying for different things at this point.'

'The thing about the insurgency in Mosul is that there are many different facets,' he said.

'This is going to be a long, protracted push by coalition forces and more importantly by Iraqi security forces to re-establish security,' Simmering said. 'If you're looking for one big culminating event, you'll never quite see it. I call this the 'campaign for Mosul.' "
WP: speaking of long, US commanders in favor of freezing troop reductions at 15 brigades
SWJ: has round-up of Iraq updates

asia
BBC: four separatists killed in Indian Kashmir, from group Hizb-ul Mujahideen

BBC: extortion trial of former Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheik Hasina, begins

Gdn: China suffering in cold spell; food shortages severe
Ind: soldiers called in to clear roads
LAT: in bizarre timing, China announces that it's working to control the weather - for the Olympics (imagine! a regime so powerful it can control the weather. nevermind about those pesky citizens starving in the snow)
"Cloud-seeding is a relatively well-known practice that involves shooting various substances into clouds, such as silver iodide, salts and dry ice, that bring on the formation of larger raindrops, triggering a downpour. But Chinese scientists believe they have perfected a technique that reduces the size of the raindrops, delaying the rain until the clouds move on.
The weather modification would be used only on a small area, opening what would be in effect a meteorological umbrella over the 91,000-seat Olympic stadium."

Econ: North Korea's (violations of) human rights record

americas
BBC: 43 Rio policemen offer mass resignation days before Carnival, after chief sacked for allowing protest about low pay.
IHT: police kill at least 6 anti-drug trafficking operation in Rio slums

LAT: Mexican city a safe-haven for illegal immigrants
Ecatepec is the place where Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and others begin the long, final stage of their journey across Mexico, northward to the U.S. border aboard a freight train known as 'the beast.'"

BBC: Canada says it will pull out of Afghanistan unless more NATO troops are sent

IHT: "election" outcome in Cuba: shocker, Castros retain power

Slate: Mukasey to Congress: torture, smorture
"Unless someone were to actually be water-boarded before Mukasey's eyes at the witness table in the Hart Senate Building, America's lawyer cannot hazard an opinion as to its legality."
WP: more on the volley
"At one point, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked: 'Would waterboarding be torture if it was done to you?'
'I would feel that it was,' Mukasey replied.
But Mukasey said that does not mean it would be illegal."
Also, he *might* investigate the conduct of CIA officers shown on the tapes, rather than just the destruction of them.
The Onion: the CIA has a plan to make this whole conversation irrelevant

NYT: concussions, stress linked to PTSD in soldiers

NYT: police shoot woman and baby in Lima, Ohio, sparking protests of racism and brutality

europe
BBC: Slovakia delays EU reform vote

WP: linguistic, ethnic conflict in Belgium

misc
Wonkette: here's another news round-up. of sorts.
"If Americans know one thing about the Foreigns (and sometimes that’s a near thing), it’s that they live in Foreign countries, which, obviously, are hellholes of awfulness and despair."

possible deployments for an ex-president

middle east
NYT: Pakistan's Taliban problem
"'The police are scared,' Mr. Sherpao [former head of law enforcement in Pakistan] said. 'They don’t want to get involved.' The Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that could help in tracking down leads on suicide bombers, was 'too stressed, fighting all over,' he said. The Pakistan Army has forces in the tribal areas where the militants have built their sanctuaries but the soldiers have remained in their headquarters. 'They are not moving around,' he said. 'That’s their strategy.'"
NYT: on secret mission, CIA's offer to jump in is rejected
"Instead, Pakistan and the United States are discussing a series of other joint efforts, including increasing the number and scope of missions by armed Predator surveillance aircraft over the tribal areas, and identifying ways that the United States can speed information about people suspected of being militants to Pakistani security forces, officials said."
(it's interesting that the Pentagon and CIA keep talking to the press about their efforts -- scroll down for previous postings (too lazy to link))
LAT: more assurances from Musharraf: nuclear weapons are secure

LAT: Iraq resists US pressure to have free reign; in particular, US cannot use Iraq as platform to attack any of its neighbors
IHT: so far, US still participating in diplomacy: UN Security Council drafts new terms of Iran sanctions

Gdn: Gaza breach into Egypt reshapes regional demographics; background and accounts of crossings
AP: Egypt trying to close border for fifth straight day
BBC: Israel to allow fuel shipments to Gaza, ending 2 week embargo

africa
LAT: "tit-for-tat" violence, looting between Kenyan tribes in Nakuru
"Kenyan police spokesman Eric Kiraithe tried to assure the public Saturday that security would be restored, blaming the violence on gangs and 'advantage-takers.' Police in Nakuru have been criticized for allowing the violence to get out of control before intervening. 'What is causing the chaos is gangs of youths, forming on ethnic lines,' Kiraithe said in an interview on local television. 'But looting does not solve the political problems.'"
Gdn: has specific, terrible examples of victimization
"Morris Ouma, a 25-year-old trader, said he had taken part in the fighting. 'I didn't feel good about it, but they are killing our people. What shall we do?'"

Econ: Nigeria elections on trial

Econ: rebellions in the "phantom state" Central African Republic
"The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based lobby, says that the CAR has dropped below the level even of a failed state. 'It has become virtually a phantom state, lacking any meaningful institutional capacity at least since the fall of Emperor [Jean-Bédel] Bokassa in 1979,' it says...
When the French, who ran the place until 1960, decided that their long-time protégé had become a liability, they helped to oust him. That did not bring stability. The CAR has suffered no fewer than 11 mutinies or attempted coups in the past decade alone...
Since then, however, two more rebellions have erupted. One, in the north-west, pits supporters of Mr Patassé, who is in exile, against the government's feeble forces. Another, in the north-east, has its origins in a combination of ethnic tension and regional neglect made worse by some disgruntled Bozizé men who complain they have not been paid for liberating the country. Thrown into the mix are bandits known as Zaraguina, who are mostly from Chad; they loot, kidnap and demand thousands of dollars in ransom for local cattle-herders from the Peuhl tribe...
At least the government is trying to talk to its opponents. 'Rebels or Zaraguinas, they're just bandits,' says Dieudonné-Stanislas M'Bangot, a presidential adviser. 'But we have to negotiate with them, as we don't have the means to fight them. Do you have any better ideas?'"

asia
Econ: Thailand's war on meth, violence by security forces

Econ: ethnic Indians in Malaysia demanding more from government
"In the 50 years of peninsular Malaysia's independence from Britain, the ethnic Indians have been more quiescent than the richer, better educated and more assertive ethnic Chinese, who make up about one-quarter of the population. Under an implicit “social contract”, the two minorities, mostly descended from migrant workers, were given citizenship in return for accepting that ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups, together known as bumiputras (sons of the soil), would enjoy privileged access to state jobs and education. All the races have done well from strong economic growth since independence. The Indians and Chinese suffer even lower poverty rates than the bumiputras. But whereas the majority population have, with official help, started catching up with the Chinese in the property and shares they own, the Indians still have few assets (see chart). Often they are stuck in rented homes and low-skilled urban jobs. The Indians' sense of missing out on the good life has helped to feed their mood of grievance. But what has most fuelled their anger in the past few years is a feeling that “creeping Islamisation” threatens their religious freedom."

Econ: sex work and tourism in Nepal
"During the recently-ended civil war, Nepal's Himalayan tourism industry collapsed. Some activists think that sex tourism is replacing it."

europe
Econ: Serbia should court the EU
"...politicians in Belgrade should not imagine that they have a plausible long-term alternative—least of all one of Slav solidarity with Russia."

BBC: police and protesters clash in Ingushetia region of Russia
"Muslim Ingushetia borders Chechnya and has suffered from overflowing unrest. There is a low-level insurgency, with regular small-scale ambushes against police and soldiers."

BBC: former prime minister Kasyanov, main opponent in Russian presidential elections, barred from participating
LAT: but former KGB operative and suspect in poisoning case, is a member of parliament
LAT scores an interview: "'I don't agree that the Cold War is back. It has never ended,' he said. 'Any normal Russian person in the 1990s didn't see anything from the West except insults and humiliation.'
So is this payback time? Lugovoy laughed a little, then spoke deliberately.
'I don't agree with this biblical saying that if they hit you on one cheek you should turn the other cheek,' he said. 'If they hit you on one cheek, you hit them back with a fist.'"

NYT mag: maybe in a "multipolar" world, the Cold War will be put to rest?
"The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an 'East-West' struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe. What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle."

Econ: outlaw lawmaker isn't only area of strain between UK and Russia
Econ: cutbacks for bobbies: weighing decrease in funding and crime fighting
LAT: football diplomacy: UK denies work permit to Iraqi star

Gdn: gang fighting in Dublin

LAT: ethnic politics in Germany

americas
IHT: Canada stopped sending prisoners to Afghanistan after finding abuse
Econ: Ottawa government stable, boring

IHT: mass killing in Guyana

IHT: Venezuelan pleads guilty in Miami to trying to cover up scheme to transfer $800k in cash from Chávez to Cristina Kirchner

Econ: nepotism in Brazil

Slate: Obama crushes Clinton(s) in SC
"...after South Carolina we might see Bill Clinton suddenly dispatched to solve some new crisis in a country with no satellite trucks and no cell towers. The South Carolina result suggests that he wasn't effective and raises the question of whether his antics during the past week reminded voters that the whole Clinton circus is one that they just don't want coming to town." [perhaps he could organize a humanitarian mission to the CAR? or - sorry, can't resist the bait - maybe investigating the sex tourism in Nepal would be more up his alley]