dark matter [when things collide]

NYT magazine: the Taliban (and Al Qaeda) unchallenged in Pakistan
"Pulling into Namdar’s compound, I felt transported back in time to the Kabul of the 1990s, when the Taliban were at their zenith. A group of men and boys — jittery, clutching rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — sat in the bed of a Toyota Hi-Lux, the same model of truck the Taliban used to ride to victory in Afghanistan. A flag nearly identical to that of the Afghan movement — a pair of swords crossed against a white background — fluttered in the heavy air. Even the name of Namdar’s group, the Vice and Virtue brigade, came straight from the Taliban playbook: in the 1990s, bands of young men under the same name terrorized Afghanistan, flogging men for shaving their beards, caning women for walking alone and thrashing children for flying kites.
The young fighters were chattering excitedly about a missile that had recently destroyed one of their ammunition dumps. An American missile, the kids said. “It was a plane without a pilot,” one of the boys explained through an interpreter. His eyes darted back and forth among his fellows. “We saw a flash. And then the building exploded.”
WP: US to deploy predator drones along Afghan-Pakistani border more frequently
In interviews, the officials attributed their failure to find bin Laden to an overreliance on military force, disruptions posed by the war in Iraq and a pattern of underestimating the enemy. Above all, they said, the search has been handicapped by an inability to develop informants in Pakistan's isolated tribal regions, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
BBC: here's a handy map of the region, where the Taliban is taking the long view

BBC: the delicate issues surrounding justice and the LRA
"Accounting for war crimes in Africa is always going to involve tough choices...If everyone is pursued, peace may remain a mirage - but if no one is hunted down, the rule of law may never recover."
BBC: Joseph Kony, LRA leader, still at large in the DRC
BBC: LRA spokesman denounces Congolese military mobilization to protect civilians
BBC: but maybe they can broker a deal with the military: elsewhere in the DRC, the army is working with FDLR rebels to extract profits
"Our researchers visited areas where the FARDC [DR Congo army] and the FDLR were operating side by side, each controlling their own territories, trading in minerals from 'their' respective mines without interfering with each other's activities. They depend on this mutual support to continue their trade," [a Global Witness official] said.
BBC: meanwhile, 12 goats spared humiliation of standing trial in Kinshasa

BBC: Russia has pulled out of Georgia; here's a map of other potential 'flash points'

WP: Kim Jong, Ill?
(credit for the witticism goes to Slate.com)

Gdn: Sri Lanka attacks kill 20; gov't shoots down LTTE plane

WP: devastation in Haiti

Econ: Beirut in the balance

Econ: El Salvador gearing up for elections in 2009
BBC: former Angola rebels accept election outcome

LAT: Zimbabwe bloggers important source of information
BBC: Morocco's king just shut one down

LAT: Thai prime minister booted for gaining income on a cooking show. he didn't get the memo that stock dividends from oil companies would've been a-ok.

Gdn: win a trip to Iraq this winter!

Slate: what will happen if the Large Hadron Collider generates a big black hole? it's highly unlikely, but still. (ps, SV likes the modesty of the name for the massive device that will help physicists discover the foundations of the universe)

three cheers for cricket

NYT: US military commanders want more attacks in the tribal region of Pakistan
"Pakistan’s government has given the Central Intelligence Agency limited authority to kill Arab and other foreign operatives in the tribal areas, using remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But administration officials say the Pakistani government has put far greater restrictions on American operations against indigenous Pakistani militant groups...Administration officials say the risk of angering the new government in Pakistan and stirring increased anti-American sentiment in the tribal areas outweighs the benefits of dismantling militant networks in the region."
WP: across the border, Afghan forces trained by US Special Forces seem to be improving

NYT: Iraqi Army reclaims last Mahdi Army stronghold in Basra
LAT: in Najaf, residents fear coming intra-Shiite clash
Ind: in Anbar, the intra-Sunni split seems to deepen

WP: Israeli soldier documented the 2006 war in Lebanon
Gdn: it's almost the 60th anniversary of Israel
WP: Carter meets with Hamas leaders

BBC: Druze in Syria remember uprising against the French

BBC: instability in Yemen

BBC: fighting again in Somalia

BBC: one Moroccan dissident's story

AP: recount begins in Zimbabwe
Ind: opposition leader Tsvangirai waits it out in exile
NYT: Chinese arms shipment destined for Zimbabwe waylaid in Durban
"Dock workers at the port, backed by South Africa’s powerful unions, refused to unload the ammunition and weapons on Friday, vowing protests and threatening violence if the government tried to do it without them."

BBC: villages "discovered" in the Congo, mapped with GPS

BBC: heavy fighting in the capital of Burundi, apparently between army and rebel group FNL
AP: ...it continued through the weekend

Gdn: Bhutan expelling ethnic Nepalese, again
"Now a combination of divisions among the refugees, renewed tension inside Bhutan and the surprise election victory by Maoists in Nepal, is threatening a plan that finally gives hope to 107,000 refugees who have been languishing in camps in eastern Nepal for the last 17 years. Tens of thousands of unregistered refugees are living stateless and in abject poverty in Nepal and India."

BBC: president of Nauru, "tiny" South Pacific Republic, calls snap elections

BBC: martial law in Thailand to be relaxed

Gdn: gangs fighting turf battle on outskirts of Paris

BBC: vigilante justice reportedly on the rise in Bolivia

NYT: food shortages causing crises
Chris Blattman: but the story's analysis less than stellar

WP: Mozambican singer recognized for addressing taboo subjects

WP: um, cultural exchange: the Redskins cheerleaders and cricket

failure to integrate

LAT: Iraq wants the US to stop Turkey's assault on Kurdistan
NYT magazine: microcosm of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
"This miniaturist culture war and the fighting in the mountains are related because they both reflect the inability of Turkish society to integrate Kurds — about 20 percent of the country’s total population and the majority in the southeast — in a way that doesn’t insist on assimilation down to the last W, X or Q. For decades, Turkish law has not allowed acknowledgment of Kurds as a distinct ethnic group; from 1983 to 1991 it was even illegal to speak Kurdish in public. Until 2002, broadcasting in Kurdish was essentially banned, and only in 2003 could parents give their children Kurdish names (except, again, for names using W, X or Q). But even these small advances suggest that while the military fight has been a stalemate, the deeper cultural conflict can, with relative ease, be resolved. Such at least is the vision of Abdullah Demirbas. His may not be the effort that makes headlines, but it is probably the one that matters most."

BBC: Odinga calls off protests planned for tomorrow
LAT: more on the potentially lasting ethnic segregation the violence has spurred
"Tens of thousands of people like Kamau are making cross-country treks to resettle in their ancestral homelands. The nationwide population reshuffle is threatening to spur a permanent ethnic remapping of Kenya, worsening the East African nation's political divisions and creating regional fiefdoms.
Some worry that Kenya's sudden shift from ethnic integration to self-imposed segregation is reminiscent of what happened in Somalia after the government collapsed in 1991 and millions of people reorganized into clan-based factions that have engaged in a 17-year civil war."
Gdn: calling in the military delicate, because of its own potential ethnic divisions
AP: Annan begins mediation efforts again

BBC: violence from Kenya doesn't dissuade Zimbabwe from issuing shoot-to-kill orders to police in event of election protests Mar 29

CSM: Brazilian mayor reduces violence

AP: Guatemalan crowd releases 29 police officers held hostage

BBC: rescue mission underway to free 4 kidnapping victims in Colombia
LAT: coca destroying ecosystems in Colombia
BBC: new anti-drug policies proposed in Britain

BBC: ethnic conflict in Nepal
Madhesis break off talks with the gov't, plan strike in the south of the country.

NYT: the underclass in Yemen
"They are known as “Al Akhdam” — the servants. Set apart by their African features, they form a kind of hereditary caste at the very bottom of Yemen’s social ladder...There are more than a million of them among Yemen’s fast-growing population of 22 million, concentrated in segregated slums in the major cities."

LAT: recently arrested terrorism suspects in Morocco have distinct profiles

Gdn: former Khmer Rouge leader on trial visits the killing fields

Slate: the biological basis of aggression?
"A study says brain differences may cause differences in aggression among teenage boys. Sample: 137 12-year-old boys, observed while interacting with parents. Findings: 1) 1) "A significant positive association between volume of the amygdala [a brain area related to fear and arousal] and the duration of adolescent aggressive behavior during these interactions." 2) "Male-specific associations between the volume of prefrontal structures and affective behavior." Researchers' conclusions: 1) "Brain structure is associated with affective behavior and its regulation" in such interactions. 2) "There may be gender differences in the neural mechanisms underlying affective and behavioral regulation" during these years. Crude translation: 1) My amygdala made me do it. 2) "These boys may … be unable to control their emotions because … parts of the brain that normally control strong emotions don't mature till the early 20s." Critique: Correlation doesn't prove causal direction, or even causation. (Related: Rethinking the age of consent.)"