experimenting with order [try a little tenderness]

WP: US changing tactics in Iraq
"With violence down sharply this year, the U.S. military is broadening its efforts to reconcile Sunnis and Shiites, reintegrate former insurgents into society and repair the rift between residents and their government...The U.S. reconciliation campaign includes some major projects, but much of the American effort is decentralized, consisting of reconstruction programs, peace marches and meetings with rival tribal leaders over platters of rice and lamb. In many cases, soldiers are making up the details as they go along...

Lt. Col. Monty Willoughby, 42, has had to figure out how to keep the peace in an area of northwestern Baghdad that was previously a hotbed of Sunni insurgents. He became worried last spring when U.S. commanders announced a plan to release thousands of Iraqis detained for alleged ties to insurgents.

"We're like, man, how are we going to keep these guys from falling back into it?" asked Willoughby, an earnest, freckled officer from Clever, Mo., who commands the 4th Squadron of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, which is attached to the 101st Airborne.

Willoughby decided he needed someone to help the detainees reenter society. And that is how a squadron of macho U.S. infantrymen and gung-ho tankers came to hire their first professional nurturer...

[nuturer] Kashmoola and his fellow managers line up housing as well as jobs or training programs. Then the managers check up on the men to ensure they stay out of trouble.

On a recent sunny Thursday, Kashmoola and Willoughby attended a detainee release ceremony on the lawn of a blue-domed mosque. The U.S. military has made these into gala affairs, with flag-waving crowds and speeches from Muslim leaders and Iraqi army officers. The 48 newly freed men were handed gift-wrapped bags of chocolates by U.S. soldiers who a year ago might have flex-cuffed them...

The Army issued a field manual last month on "stability operations" to guide its troops in facilitating reconciliation and providing essential services. It was produced after the Department of Defense in 2005 elevated "stability operations" to the same level in its doctrine as offensive and defensive operations...

Building support for government institutions is a key part of the U.S. military's pacification effort in Iraq. In Willoughby's area of northwestern Baghdad, for example, American troops have cleaned out sewers, rebuilt schools and put in a swimming pool.

"As you, as a citizen, are looking on, you've got to say, 'It's nice to live here,' " Willoughby said. If insurgents return, the U.S. officers hope, Iraqis will consider what they have to lose.

It can be difficult to assess the effectiveness of some of the American programs. Hickman's soldiers, for example, have helped organize soccer games between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, providing the young players with T-shirts or uniforms.

The matches aren't billed as peace events, he said, but the parents mingle, re-creating an atmosphere that existed before the invasion. The games draw them from neighborhoods divided by giant blast walls and painful memories of sectarian warfare."

NYT: 10,000 Sadr supporters protest US-Iraqi troop agreement in Baghdad
"A spokesman for Mr. Sadr in Baghdad said his followers opposed the security agreement because they did not believe assurances that the Americans would leave."

NYT: historical headlines on troop agreements past
"In a treaty signed on Oct. 10, 1922, Britain agreed to prepare the country for independence. But the treaty postponed discussion of exactly how this would happen, and effectively prolonged Britain’s mandate under another form for at least 20 years (a period later reduced)."

NYT: photos from the Congo, Iraq, and Afghanistan

WP: UN security council approves immediate deployment of 3,100 peacekeepers to the Congo
"The 15-nation council urged the leadership of the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping mission -- which has faced criticism for failing to defend civilians -- to forcefully implement its mandate. But the council has ignored appeals by the U.N.'s special representative in Congo, Alan Doss, to send a heavily armed multinational force to help restore stability.

Doss cautioned this week that U.N. reinforcements, while welcome, would not be sufficient to restore peace in a region the size of France. He said any durable peace would have to be reached in political talks led by the U.N.'s special envoy, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, between the rebels and the Congolese government."

NYT: Mai Mai militias complicate the conflict
"The Mai Mai are the third piece to eastern Congo’s violent puzzle, with the rebels on one side, the government forces on the other and the Mai Mai often terrorizing the uncontrolled areas in between. With their guns, leaf headdresses and special potions that many fighters believe make bullets bounce off them, they are a surreal — but still deadly — dimension to Congo’s civil wars.

The Mai Mai insist that they are Congo’s true patriots, but it is questionable how much influence they wield — most villagers call them crooks and they tend to lose their battles. In the past few weeks, they have emerged as spoilers, fighting on when the other armed groups have agreed to stop. The Mai Mai now seem to have a beef with just about everybody: the rebels (whom they clashed with on Thursday); United Nations peacekeepers (whom they clashed with on Wednesday); and Congolese government troops (whom they clashed with on Tuesday)...

There are thousands of Mai Mai fighters in dozens of loosely connected Mai Mai groups scattered across Congo. The movement started decades ago when Congolese communities formed militias to protect themselves and tapped into local customs as a way to inspire the fighters. The term “mai mai” refers to maji, the Kiswahili word for water, because many of the Mai Mai fighters grease themselves up with a mixture of palm oil and holy water before stepping on the battlefield. Often the emollient — and some homemade necklaces — is all they wear...

Many of the Mai Mai militias in other parts of Congo have agreed to disarm. But in eastern Congo, the Mai Mai seem increasingly restless."

LAT: brief respite in Goma in history of hard times
"In a sign of how bad things are, Goma's residents now say that life under brutal Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko is seen as the "good old days."

Then, this eastern Congolese border town [of 600,000] was looked at as the Switzerland of Africa, envied for its natural beauty, stability and prosperity. A vast agricultural industry of coffee, tea, potatoes, beans and cheese fed not only Congo, but the entire region. Gold and tin mines pumped the local economy. Tourism flourished thanks to lush parks and a nearby population of several hundred mountain gorillas.

The relative idyll began unraveling with the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, when bodies clogged Lake Kivu and millions of refugees fled here, trampling Congolese farmland, depleting resources and bringing cholera and other epidemics.

Then Goma became a launching pad for two civil wars, one of which escalated into a regional conflict known as Africa's First World War. The most recent estimates put the war's death toll at 5 million, mostly due to disease and malnutrition, with many of the fatalities in Goma.

Finally, when peace seemed around the corner, Mt. Nyiragongo exploded in 2002, engulfing half the town in ash and lava and killing as many as 100 people.

Today farms lie fallow and 1 in 10 people rely on international food aid. Mines still thrive, but three-fourths of the profits line the pockets of rival militias and illicit foreign-owned businesses. Tourism long ago disappeared.

Surviving in Goma, residents say, requires a combination of fatalism and pragmatism, accepting that their future is largely out of their hands but keeping a suitcase packed...

An explosion in rapes is another side effect, Butsitsi said. Thousands of women have been sexually attacked in eastern Congo over the last five years, one of the worst records worldwide."

Ind: carving out a parallel state
"Inside General Nkunda's territory the markets are starting to operate again, there are uniformed police and there are plans for an anthem and a flag. There are also – officials insist – no refugees or displaced people. Around the town of Rutshuru that recently sheltered nearly 15,000 refugees, there is little or no sign that they were ever there. Dumes camp which housed 4,000 people last month has been razed, its clinics dismantled."

Econ: options for negotiation
"The simplest way forward would appear to be the reintegration of Mr Nkunda and his National Congress for the Defence of the People into Congo’s security structures. But the price would almost certainly be too high. Mr Nkunda wants the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, to grant him a principality in eastern Congo, a sinecure in Kinshasa and the disarming of the Hutu militias he accuses of attacking Tutsis."

WP: ICC seeking warrants for 3 rebels in Darfur, accused of war crimes for killing AU peacekeepers in September


WP: NIC predicts rise of state-run capitalism in multipolar world
"It is not a prediction," [Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis] Fingar said. "Nothing that we have identified in this report is determinative. Nothing in it is inevitable or immutable. These are trends and developments and drivers that are subject to policy intervention and manipulation."

LAT: judge orders release of 5 Guantanamo prisoners
"A federal judge ruled here for the first time Thursday that the Bush administration had no basis for holding several of its long-term prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he ordered that five of the Algerian natives go free."


Gdn: tensions still high in Nicaragua over disputed election
"Sandinista supporters armed with machetes, rocks and home-made mortars snuffed out opposition protests earlier this week, leaving dozens injured. For much of the trouble police were notably absent.

A tense calm descended on the capital when the opposition withdrew from the fray and vowed to challenge the results in the national assembly, setting the scene for weeks of political wrangling and fears of renewed flare-ups."

LAT: drug violence flares in Sinaloa
"Sinaloa, a fertile state on the Pacific coast, has long been at the center of Mexico's drug trade. It has become a hub of violence since President Felipe Calderon dispatched an army of soldiers and federal police to take on some of the biggest drug lords.

The alarming level of violence -- shootouts and kidnappings almost every day -- has sown panic and fear among a normally resilient citizenry."

BBC: Syrian weapons dealer convicted of trafficking arms to the FARC

BBC: "Hindu terrorism" debate in India

WP: grenade kills protester in Bangkok; demonstrations continue
"The dispute between the predominantly urban, middle-class demonstrators and the government, which was voted into power last year with the backing of millions of Thailand's rural poor, has paralyzed the country's political process and gouged deep political divisions between the rural and urban populations.
The demonstrators have ruled out any compromise, vowing to maintain their protest until the government is forced out of office."


Econ: new UK law to punish johns attempts to tackle trafficking
"Most prostitution [in the UK], which is legal, is consensual. But worries about abuse are rising. Performed behind closed curtains and often by people who fear to seek help, prostitution has always been a job in which exploitation is possible. Now, like most unappealing, low-paid occupations, it is increasingly carried out by immigrants: eight out of ten London prostitutes are foreigners, police think. Isolated, lacking knowledge of English or the law and sometimes trafficked by criminal gangs, the new arrivals are especially vulnerable. In the past two years police have rescued 251 women whom they believe were trafficked to Britain for sexual slavery.

The situation is shameful, but the proposal the government unveiled this week—to make those buying sex liable to criminal charges if it subsequently emerges that the prostitute was controlled for another person’s gain—is no way to remedy it. This newspaper tends toward a liberal view of these matters, but even those who do not will find this amber light a waste of space. Better by far either to criminalise outright the purchase of sex or to legalise it and regulate what ensues."

BBC: testifying against the Camorra
"The Camorra kills someone on average every three days, so I only have to stop a random person on the street to find someone who has witnessed a murder first hand and ask if they gave their testimony to the police.

"No, no, no," one woman tells me, "I would be afraid, no-one talks about this."

She tells me the murder she saw took place at nine in the morning in a crowded square, and no-one talked to the police."

Econ: experimenting with disorder and behavior
"The tendency for people to behave in a particular way can be strengthened or weakened depending on what they observe others to be doing. This does not necessarily mean that people will copy bad behaviour exactly, reaching for a spray can when they see graffiti. Rather, says Dr Keizer, it can foster the “violation” of other norms of behaviour...The researchers’ conclusion is that one example of disorder, like graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage another, like stealing."

++
Slate: a new translation of the Quran
"The new crop of Quran translators are brushing aside centuries of traditionalist, male-dominated, and often misogynistic clerical interpretations in favor of a more contemporary, more individualized, and often more gender-friendly approach to the Quran. In the process, they are not only reshaping the way Islam's holy book is read; they are reinterpreting the way Islam itself is being understood in the modern world."

++
NYT (Brooks): Brooks tips off terrorists, Sarah Palin
"If a foreign enemy attacks the United States during the Harvard-Yale game any time over the next four years, we’re screwed." (ht: steve shewfelt)

off-shore accounts [a matter of magnitude]

Once a famous pirate prisoner was brought in front of Alexander the Great. Alexander asked him:’Why do you infest the seas with so much audacity and freedom?’ The pirate answered: For the same reason because you infest the earth; but because I do it with a little ship, I’m called pirate; because you do it with a great fleet you’re called emperor.’
-St Augustine, referring to Cicero's anecdote in City of God (4.4)

LAT: Indian warship destroys alleged pirate ship
"The U.S. military said it could take only limited steps to intervene and thwart pirates. Maritime experts say international law on jurisdiction regarding pirates is murky, with naval forces clearly permitted to attack pirates only when a commercial ship is under assault.

But New Delhi has apparently taken a different approach. Last week, Indian marine commandos on a helicopter swooped in on the scene of a hijacking to fend off pirates assailing an Indian commercial ship. Two suspected pirates were killed in a shootout with British commandos defending a Danish vessel this month.

In the latest incident, New Delhi said the Tabar tried to stop a suspected pirate vessel about 300 miles southwest of the Omani city of Salalah on Tuesday evening. Instead of allowing the sailors to inspect the ship, the alleged pirates threatened to "blow up the naval warship if it closed on her," the statement said."

AP: Saudis in talks with pirates about ransom
Gdn: how ransoms are transferred
"Jason Alderwick, a maritime security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "There is usually a coordinator onshore who deals with the dynamics. Money is brought to a prearranged location, which could be in Somalia or Yemen. There is basically a transfer of money bags. The money goes down the line through a series of intermediaries, with the local government, the mayor or chiefs having a direct hand...

Often the intermediaries have been Somalis nationals living in Europe, the Middle East or Africa, and the money disappears into the traditional banking system, hawala, which operates through trust and personal relationships, and is very hard to monitor...

But in recent months security experts say there is a trend towards direct deliveries, to Somalia or to the captured ship, as intermediaries in third countries with functioning legal systems have become wary of handling the transaction...

A certain amount of trust involved. The shipowners have to be sure that once they have paid they will get their crew and ship back. The pirates have to trust the shipowners to guarantee them safe passage after they have left the hijacked ship."

Gdn: Eyl, pirate capital
"The entire village now depends on the criminal economy. Hastily built hotels provide basic lodging for the pirates, new restaurants serve meals and send food to the ships, while traders provide fuel for the skiffs flitting between the captured vessels...

In the region's bigger towns, such as Garowe and Bosasso on the Gulf of Aden coast, a successful hijack is often celebrated with a meal and qat [narcotic leaf]-chewing session at an expensive hotel.

One successful pirate based in Garowe, Abshir Salad, said: "First we look to buy a nice house and car. Then we buy guns and other weapons. The rest of the money we use to relax."

The pirates appear to have little fear of arrest by the weak administration, who many suspect of involvement in the trade. By spreading the money to local officials, chiefs, relatives and friends, the pirates have created strong logistical and intelligence networks, and avoided the clan-based fighting that affects so much of the rest of the country."

Gdn: amazing photos of the modern buccaneers
one group photographed calls itself the Central Regional Coast Guard

Gdn: Q&A on modern piracy
Ind: and a bullet-point general background
"Roman emperor Julius Caesar is said to have been an early victim of pirates - captured on a voyage across the Aegean Sea. It is said that he demanded they double his ransom from 20 talents of gold to reflect his worth."

Gdn: the evolution of Somali piracy
"In the past most piracy was centred on the coastal towns of Harardheere and Hobyo in central Somalia and targeted the Mogadishu port area to the south. But in the past 10 years the focus has moved to the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the north-east, abutting the Gulf of Aden. The reason for the shift is the richer pickings to be found in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, said author Roger Middleton. About 16,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year...

It is widely believed that Somalia's warring faction leaders and Islamist groups such as the hardline al-Shabaab take a cut of the ransom money in return for allowing the pirate gangs to operate."

WP: Mexico deals with its own corruption networks: Interpol liaison arrested
"That the cartels may have penetrated Interpol is an indication of how hard the fight against the traffickers will be -- and of the level of corruption within Mexican law enforcement. The United States recently committed $400 million to aid in that battle, but many U.S. law enforcement officials remain wary of their Mexican counterparts, fearing that shared information flows quickly to cartel leaders."
LAT: 500 officers replaced in Tijuana
"Despite past purges, the 2,200-member police department is still viewed by many as an arm of the drug cartels.

Officers have been accused of working as lookouts, informants, hit men or bodyguards for drug smugglers, and scores of them have been killed over the years.

The 500 officers who were replaced will be sent to a police academy for training and background checks and could return in a few months, authorities said.

Their removal appears to be aimed at weakening Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as El Teo, a suspected crime boss who is believed to control the police in the city's east."

Ind: additional negative externalities of cocaine
"The United Nations says that 150kg of solid chemicals and 250 litres of liquid chemicals are used to develop just one hectare of coca plant. Coca leaves must also be soaked in solvents, such as acetone, to release their psychotropic qualities and each year 20 million litres of acetone, 13 million litres of gasoline and 81,000 litres of sulphuric acid are disposed of untreated in Colombia's rainforest, which produces 15 per cent of the world's oxygen."

WP: soaring crime rates in Venezuela could hurt Chávez
"Those slayings have exposed the government's inability to formulate a response to the sharply rising crime rate, a central theme of opposition politicians vying for governorships and mayoral posts in Sunday's regional elections...
As Chávez completes a tumultuous decade in power, polls show that Venezuelans are most concerned about rampant crime in this oil-rich country. Homicides have soared from fewer than 6,000 in Chávez's first year in office to 13,156 last year, according to official government statistics collected and released by private research organizations. That amounts to a homicide rate of 48 killings per 100,000 people, among the highest in the world and more than in neighboring Colombia, which suffers from a slow-burning internal conflict."
Gdn: he's airing wiretaps of rivals
"President Hugo Chávez has filled the airwaves with tapped conversations of his political foes to embarrass and apparently intimidate them in the run-up to regional elections. State TV has broadcast the recordings, enhanced with comic sound effects, in a barrage of attack adverts that would make even Karl Rove blush...Much of the information is believed to be intercepted by the Cuban-backed intelligence services. The government passes selected excerpts to state networks."

AP: Congo rebels claim that they'll pull back for talks with army
Reuters: if they happen, it'll be with a new army chief
NYT: front lines blurred and confusing
"A group of rebel soldiers lounged nearby, most with assault rifles, one incongruously carrying a spear. Just up the road, a captain from the Congolese Army, with whom the rebels have declared a tenuous cease-fire, sat atop a mound of biscuit wrappers and cigarette butts, studiously reading a paperback titled “The Way to Happiness.”

A certain sense of desperation — and weirdness — seems to be creeping across eastern Congo as more territory slips into a jumbled world between government and rebel control.

Most of the fighting has stopped, and on Tuesday the rebels agreed to vacate certain areas to allow aid workers unfettered access to the thousands of needy Congolese. But it seems that the longer the instability continues — it has been about three weeks since the rebels began a major offensive, casting this whole region into crisis mode — the more dysfunctional and confusing life here gets.

The front line, as people here call it, is basically a blurry edge, where the government and rebel zones peter out. There are no checkpoints or fortified positions. No troops eyeballing each other through carefully calibrated rifle scopes. Definitely no formal demilitarized zone."

LAT: reprisals on the horizon in Zimbabwe as Mugabe's power slips
"Samson Bopoto also spent months hiding in the countryside. Every night, he and other MDC activists expected to be killed.

"Now the tables have turned. It's now ZANU-PF are panicking," said Bopoto, 34, an MDC youth organizer who lives in a Harare township. He and his comrades have taken back the local bar. They sit for hours singing MDC songs, and the former ZANU-PF thugs are nowhere to be seen.

Sometimes the ex-thugs come to his house secretly at night, trying to buy forgiveness or at least protection.

Bopoto says it isn't easy to stop the MDC members from taking revenge. Many are waiting until Cabinet posts are settled and the MDC takes its share of power.

"Still, our wounds are open. . . . Just imagine seeing somebody who's the guy who beat up your mom. They say, 'Sorry guys, I was forced to do that.' But we still have a lot of pain."

The power-sharing deal leaves the way open for prosecutions. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says Mugabe should not be held responsible for past crimes, but the question of immunity or prosecution for others hangs unanswered, poisoning the talks.

But without justice, Bopoto said, there could be violence.

"Those people should be brought to book, rather than a relative taking revenge. If that person killed my brother, you should allow justice to take its course. If that doesn't happen, then a person will take it into their own hands. It will cause a sort of uprising because I can't be happy if I see you, who killed my brother, still at the beer hall, living your daily life whilst I'm missing my loved relative."

Ind: Israeli mob boss killed; others brace for revenge
"It was after leaving the Tel Aviv District Court where his son Dror was being indicted on extortion and other charges on Monday that Yaakov Alperon, probably Israel's most famous crime boss, was killed. His rented car was blown up by a remote-control explosive device which also injured two bystanders, including a 13-year-old boy.

Police are bracing themselves for vengeance after the dead man's sister said at his grave: "These are murderers, bad people. The ones who did this will have the same done to their kids."...

But much of the clan's money-making activities were in deadly earnest. They reportedly included a protection racket in Netanya, in which restaurateurs paid in bottles which the Alperons sent for recycling and then pocketed the profits: no paper trail, no tell-tale cash handovers, and reputedly a $5m (£3.3m) business. There have also been struggles for control of betting rings; gambling is illegal in Israel.

Although Alperon was said to be in a turf war with another clan, the Abergils, over the recycling business, it is not clear that police are pursuing that line of inquiry. Reports suggest Alp-eron had other enemies, including the drug baron Zeev Rosenstein, who survived seven assassination attempts before being put away. And Alperon was widely blamed,fairly or not, for the stabbing of another gangster, Amir Mulner, after both men attended an interfamily arbitration summit in 2006 which went badly wrong."

WP / CFR: background on security agreements between the US and Iraq

Salon (Juan Cole): should Obama target bin Laden?

BBC: riot violence in Czech town directed towards Roma community

WP: UN official says economic downturn could lead to "social strife" in Asia
LAT: 2,000 riot in Gansu province, China
"The violence 700 miles southwest of Beijing was one of the most marked instances of social unrest to grip China in recent months. It was sparked by government plans to relocate the city of Longnan's administrative center after May's devastating earthquake, according to the New China News Agency."

NYT: Islamic justice in Britain
"Despite a raucous national debate over the limits of religious tolerance and the pre-eminence of British law, the tenets of Shariah, or Islamic law, are increasingly being applied to everyday life in cities across the country."
BBC: overturning it in France
"A French court of appeal has overruled the decision to annul the marriage of two Muslims because the bride had lied about being a virgin.

They are now effectively married again - even though both partners said they accepted the original judgement."

NYT: Garzón drops inquiry into Spanish Civil War crimes

this announcement will self-destruct

WP: the 5-year anniversary of the accomplished mission (for some sailors on a ship at that moment not really the war in general and the whole thing has been taken out of context and the president really was aware that a strategy for occupying Iraq and preventing insurgency and sectarian warfare was essential, so when he said "end of combat operations," he meant for a small group of people on that particular deployment. on that day. sheesh.)
"Now, after half a trillion dollars and the deaths of 4,000 troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the president's spin doctors have waved the white flag of surrender over the USS Abraham Lincoln episode. "President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific, and said mission accomplished for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters this week."
WP: The problem, sources tell us, is that White House planners couldn't figure out how to get all that on the sign in letters large enough for people to read on television.
Gdn: British don't think mission is accomplished yet in Basra, or will be anytime soon
Gdn: Turkey bombs Kurdish targets in Iraq

New Yorker: wire-tapping gone haywire

BBC: press freedom in the world, touch and go
Gdn: freedom gained for one Al-Jazeera camerman, after imprisonment for 6 years without charges in Guantánamo

CSM: building the police force in Afghanistan
"Unlike the Army, in which the public has much confidence, the police have been seen as weak, ineffectual, and corrupt."

Ind: Gaza in the line of fire
Gdn: and under blockade; Israel pressured to ease up

Ind: car bomber in Yemen kills 6 outside mosque in Saada
"It was not known who planted the bomb near the door of the mosque, but the northwestern province has been rocked by sporadic violence since a conflict broke out in 2004 between government forces and rebels loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands have fled their homes in Saada since the conflict began.
Seven Yemeni troops were killed late on Tuesday in an ambush by the rebels, who often clash with troops of the U.S.-allied Yemeni government and tribes loyal to it.
Yemeni officials say the rebels, from the Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam, want to return to a form of clerical rule prevalent in the country until the 1960s. The rebels say they are defending their villages against what they call government aggression.
Sunni Muslims form a majority of Yemen's 19 million population, while most of the rest, including Houthi and his supporters, are Zaydis."

LAT: Ecuador overhauls military
"Correa is expected to appoint a seven-member commission in the next several days to look into what he says is possible CIA infiltration of his military's intelligence.
The military's exalted status under Ecuadorean law is expected to change with the new constitution that Correa's legislative allies are drafting in a special assembly, which will be put to a national vote...
After Ecuador emerged from military dictatorships in 1979, defense ministers were either active-duty or retired military commanders. That changed under Correa; since taking office last year, he has named only civilian defense ministers."

BBC: Santa Cruz moving forward with referendum on autonomy from Bolivia

BBC: Taylor had $5 billion in US banks during rule

BBC: US announces new sanctions against Burma

BBC: sex workers in Calcutta get life insurance

LAT: gay rights in Nepal
"In less than a decade, [activist] Pant's Blue Diamond Society has scaled massive heights in a nation known mostly as the home of Mt. Everest. Despite deep-seated social conservatism, the group has won a landmark Supreme Court anti-discrimination ruling, chalked up support for gay rights from two of the biggest political parties and garnered international accolades...An extraordinary week in 2004 catapulted his cause to the center of public attention. Even conservative Nepalese who don't approve of homosexuality were horrified by the actions of a policeman who slit the throat of a transgendered person after forcing her to perform oral sex. When 39 members of the Blue Diamond Society were arrested at a protest a few days later, sympathetic media coverage and international outrage stung the government."
BBC: residents of Lesbos, in Greece, take gay rights group to court over word lesbian
"The islanders say that if they are successful they may then start to fight the word lesbian internationally.
The issue boils down to who has the right to call themselves Lesbians. Is it gay women, or the 100,000 people living on Greece's third biggest island - plus another 250,000 expatriates who originate from Lesbos?"

the nerve

NYT: Iran in Iraq: stunningly, it's more complicated than the US administration acknowledges
"The United States has identified an unspecified number of Quds camps, warehouses and safe houses near the border with Iraq, according to other officials. Those sites are dispersed in Iranian cities, making them difficult to strike without risking killing civilians, the officials said...'Iran has hedged its bets,' said Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute, who has written extensively about Iran’s role in Iraq. 'It doesn’t know which Shiite faction is going to come out on top.'"
NYT: at Friday prayers, Sadr instructs militia not to attack Iraqis
Ind: UK troops still fighting the Mahdi Army in Basra
Ind: they will turn over three towns in Helmand to Afghan army within months
Although the ferocity of fighting has diminished, Brigadier Carleton-Smith admitted there was still a long way to go. 'When you are growing an army the currency is years,' he said. 'Think five to 10 years. We have only had a British battle group here since October 2006. Progress here is evolution, not revolution. People need to keep their nerve.'
Part of that progress will include giving more responsibility to local communities for their own security, instead of relying on soldiers or police, he said.
Ultimately, Brigadier Carleton-Smith said, the solution in Helmand hinges on negotiation and finding "Afghan solutions to Afghan problems".
'How do wars end?' he asked. 'It's not about military solutions, it is about political solutions. The solution here is about governance and rule of law and not the barrel of a gun.'"
Gdn: UK will also deploy to Kosovo soon
"Nato commanders expect increased ethnic tension in Kosovo over the coming months. Serb parliamentary and local elections are due to take place on May 11. On June 15, a new constitution establishing Kosovo independence - in defiance of Serb opposition - comes into effect."

Slate: long-term implications of the personnel changes at the top of the US army in Iraq and at the Pentagon
in brief: Odierno to continue what Petraeus started in Iraq, Petraeus moves on to Afghanistan from Central Command, and Chiarelli as Army vice chief of staff to implement systemic changes. "...Chiarelli is widely known as one of the Army's smartest, most creative senior officers. Many of Gates' boldest speeches and actions can be traced to Chiarelli. For instance, on several occasions, Gates has said that future wars are likely to be "asymmetrical" conflicts waged against insurgents or terrorists, not high-intensity, head-on set pieces against foes of comparable strength—more like Iraq or Afghanistan, not World War II or Korea. Therefore, Gates concludes, the military—especially the Army—must change its doctrine, training, promotion policies, and weapons-procurement plans to meet these new challenges."

Gdn: US attempting to tone down the 'war on terror' rhetoric
"And now from the people who brought you the phrase "axis of evil", a guide to non-inflammatory language for the Middle East."

BBC: Israel rejects truce offer from Hamas; girl killed in recent raid

LAT: Maoists have largest share of seats in Nepal parliament; pledge to end monarchy

AP: at least 24 killed in bus bomb outside Colombo, Sri Lanka

BBC: East Timor rebels to turn themselves in

BBC: world's smallest republic, Nauru, population 13,000, holds elections

Gdn: Cambodia for sale
"Shortly after Hun Sen, Cambodia's prime minister, came to power in 1985, frenzied landgrabbing began: influential political allies and wealthy business associates raced to claim land that the Khmer Rouge had seized, gobbling up such large chunks of the cities, forests and paddy fields that Cambodians used to say the rich were eating the country. By 2006, the World Bank estimated that 40,000 had been made homeless in Phnom Penh alone...Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) have, in effect, put the country up for sale. Crucially, they permit investors to form 100% foreign-owned companies in Cambodia that can buy land and real estate outright - or at least on 99-year plus 99-year leases. No other country in the world countenances such a deal. Even in Thailand and Vietnam, where similar land speculation and profiteering are under way, foreigners can be only minority shareholders."

BBC: armed groups in the Niger Delta continue attacks on oil companies
"The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta promised further violence.
'Our candid advice to the oil majors is that they should not waste their time repairing any lines, as we will continue to sabotage them', the militants said in a statement."

WP: plot to kill witness in the Colombian para-politics scandal, living in Canada
"As part of special judicial proceedings against former commanders, Colombian investigators have uncovered intimate details about the close links lawmakers had with paramilitary commanders. The attorney general's office and Supreme Court, which are carrying out the investigations, have found important witnesses, such as Castillo, from within the paramilitary movement." [plans discovered the week that President Uribe's cousin was arrested; Castillo has testified against him.]

Gdn: NYC detectives not guilty of crime after killing unarmed man with 50 bullets

a terrible thing to say

LAT: Sunni militants launch coordinated attacks in Iraq, while fighting in Sadr City continues
WP: Iraqi Christians targeted
"[A reverend in Baghdad] said every Christian business executive he knows has been threatened, kidnapped or attacked. 'The Christian is weak. He has no tribe,' he said."
BBC: doubts over Iraqi security forces' capacity, willingness to fight
"There were also many desertions from the Iraqi security forces. About 1,000 personnel - including a full infantry battalion - refused to fight or joined the militias during last month's offensive.
More than 900 police and soldiers have been sacked in Basra, including nearly 40 senior police officers, where the fiercest clashes took place. A further 400 police officers were dismissed in Kut."

LAT: Afghan insurgents targeting cell phone towers, angering civilians
"For the last two months, Taliban fighters have been blowing up telecommunications towers, with the aim of preventing NATO-led forces from hunting them down via cellphone signals. It could hardly have been a worse public-relations move for the insurgency."

BBC: history of a village destroyed (nearly 60 years ago) in Israel

WP: Uribe's cousin and confidante arrested on charges of collusion with paramilitaries
Also, "With the legitimacy of Congress at rock bottom, lawmakers have been locked in a series of heated debates over how to reform the 268-member body and punish those parties whose members have been linked to paramilitary groups." [32 members have been arrested, 30 others are being investigated, and dozens more implicated, with investigations to begin soon.]

Ind: Cuban authorities break up 'Women in White' protest, calling for release of their imprisoned husbands

NYT: Zimbabwe state newspaper calls for unity gov't
BBC: which may change, now that Mugabe's party is announced winner of first recount
Econ: while repression, violence continue
"Human Rights Watch, an international group, says that ZANU-PF, the ruling party of President Robert Mugabe, has set up torture camps across the country as part of a systematic campaign to intimidate the opposition, which won the parliamentary elections and, it claims, the presidential vote too. Victims are taken to the camps at night and beaten for hours with thick sticks, bars and army batons. Huts and houses have been torched. An unofficial curfew is in force in the poor suburbs of Harare, the capital. The MDC says that ten of its supporters have been killed, some shot dead. The opposition also says that some 3,000 families have had to flee their homes, 500 people have been put in hospital and over 400 opposition activists have been arrested."
Ind: Church leaders call for intervention to "avert genocide"
arms shipment refused in South Africa, then in Mozambique, now in Angola

Gdn: estimate of dead in Darfur reaches 300,000

BBC: Bosnian Serbs convicted of war crimes for massacre in 1992

BBC: unmanned Georgian drone shot down; Russia claims it was work of Abkhaz rebels

BBC: nearly 100 die in Sri Lanka, in battles between the LTTE and gov't forces

LAT: rice prices straining families in the Philippines, largest rice importer in world
"'Rice is something you need every day,' [a resident of Manila] said. 'When it gets to the point that families can't afford to buy 2 kilos a day, that's when people will get really mad.'"

Gdn: Clinton issues threat to Iran
"In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America, she was asked what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. She said: 'In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.'"

CSM: new organization of former Jihadis to work for tolerance in UK
"The Quilliam Foundation – named for a 19th-century British convert to Islam – aims to propagate a tolerant and pluralistic view of Islam among young Muslims who are the most vulnerable to radicalism."

BBC: the noble donkey, Facebook unite Cypriots

hindsight (doesn't improve everyone's vision)

the 5th anniversary: reflections on the invasion of and war in Iraq
RAND: (HT to new Insurgency Group Blog at King's College)
Slate: an ex-Army captain
Slate: Fred Kaplan
"The disastrous consequences that have been unfolding plainly over the past five years are not "side effects" of this war but rather the direct, head-on results."
Newsweek: the debate over what kind of future wars to prepare for
Salon: Juan Cole
Ind: the British legacy in Basra
"a dark and forbidding place of militias"
Gdn: Bush
shocker: "President George Bush showed no sign of regret today when he marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by declaring that the costs in terms of lives and upheaval had been worth it and that retreat would threaten both security and the world economy...In words addressed to Clinton and Obama, he said: 'The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable – yet some in Washington still call for retreat. War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq – so now they argue the war costs too much. In recent months we have heard exaggerated estimates of the costs of this war.'" !!!
Gdn: what are the estimated "costs" in terms of lives?
"There is no shortage of estimates, but they vary enormously. The Iraqi ministry of health initially tried to keep a count based on morgue records but then stopped releasing figures under pressure from the US-supported government in the Green Zone."
Gdn: stolen antiquities funding Al-Qaeda

Gdn: McCain thinks that Iran is funding Al-Qaeda; if it weren't so remarkably off-base, SV would be reminded of bogus claims linking Al-Qaeda and Hussein to justify war

BBC: US Marine tried for murder of unarmed detainnee

SWJ: (video) President Kennedy's speech to 1962 West Point class

other news
LAT: first woman speaker nominated in Pakistan
BBC: UN peace force considered for Somalia
BBC: Gurkas protest for citizenship rights in Britain
BBC: UN suggests riots in Kosovo organized by Serbia
Newsweek: slavery in Malaysia

Slate: US Supreme Court on its way to affirming Americans' (individual) right to bear arms

NYT: Obama's speech

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.)"

building nations

middle east (and the US)
NYT: Rand study on post-invasion Iraq planning buried by the Army
"A review of the lengthy report — a draft of which was obtained by The New York Times — shows that it identified problems with nearly every organization that had a role in planning the war."
IHT: new field manual stresses nation building
"The manual states: 'Army doctrine now equally weights tasks dealing with the population - stability or civil support - with those related to offensive and defensive operations. Winning battles and engagements is important but alone is not sufficient. Shaping the civil situation is just as important to success.'"

WP: several bombings kill across northern Iraq yesterday
WP: US finds the diary of an insurgent
"Over 16 pages, the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader detailed the organization's demise in his sector. He once had 600 men, but now his force was down to 20 or fewer, he wrote. They had lost weapons and allies. Abu Tariq focused his anger in particular on the Sunni fighters and tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the U.S.-backed Sunni Sahwa, or "Awakening," forces."
IHT: diary with other 39-page memo basis for Army's claim that Al-Qaeda is losing strength
LAT: targeting of Iraqi volunteers on the rise; military suggests it's because Al-Qaeda on defensive

NYT: US seeks death penalty for 6 suspects linked to 9/11
"Even if the detainees are convicted on capital charges, any execution would be many months or, perhaps years, from being carried out, lawyers said, in part because a death sentence would have to be scrutinized by civilian appeals courts.
Federal officials have said in recent months that there is no death chamber at the detention camp at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that they knew of no specific plans for how a death sentence would be carried out.
The military justice system, which does not govern the Guantánamo cases, provides for execution by lethal injection in death sentence convictions. But the United States military has rarely executed a prisoner in recent times." [the last was in 1961]

WP: 25 die in political party rally in northwest Pakistan
The explosion in the city of Charsadda ripped through a crowd of supporters of the secular Awami National Party moments before the party's provincial president arrived, witnesses said...'The ANP is a liberal party. It's a secular party,' [party official] Afridi said. 'We have condemned extremism and terrorism, so now we are under threat.'"
NYT: Bhutto's widower leads rally in Sindh, her home province
LAT: regional rivalries
WP: composition of militant groups changing, US intelligence suggests
"Compared with previous insurgent groups, the newcomers are well-armed, ideological and difficult to control, with fewer allegiances to local religious and tribal leaders and structures."

Econ: possibilities for reform in Iran look bleak; elections next month

africa
AP: new strikes in Darfur lead to 12,000 displaced to Chad, where an estimated 400,000 refugees are already living, not including those recently displaced by fighting within Chad
Econ: war in Chad. again.
Econ: Déby survives with the support of France
WP: UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan has squandered "tens of millions" in last 3 years

WP: inflation in Zimbabwe: 10 million dollars for an 18-mile bus ride
Econ: the opposition's chances

WP: gov't dissolved in Tanzania over corruption

europe
Reuters: meanwhile, the Greek PM hangs on so far in sex and corruption scandal

Islam, secularism, and integration
Econ: different laws for practicing Muslims in the UK? the Archbishop of Canterbury sets off a debate
NYT: Turkish parliament votes to lift headscarf ban for university students
Econ: Dutch brace for more backlash as legislator to release anti-Islamic film
WP: Sarkozy proposes plan to integrate immigrants, provide more public services in Parisian suburbs
"'We will no longer have young people who are foreigners in their own country,' he declared."

asia
WP: East Timor president wounded in shooting

americas
WP: Chávez threatens to cut off oil sales to the US, in retaliation for recent, successful Exxon-Mobile bids to freeze Venezuelan assets
"While a cut in Venezuelan oil exports would drive up oil prices sharply, oil analysts believe it is unlikely that Chavez would carry out his threat. Venezuela, beleaguered by food shortages, depends heavily on oil exports for about 90 percent of its export earnings and about half of government revenue. The United States is its main market."
Econ: el comandante also launches cabinet-level investigation into Bolivar's death -- apparently he's trying to claim that the Liberator was poisoned, while also alleging that he is the target of assassination attempts and conspiracies.

Wonkette: Georgia and Tennessee in border dispute

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]

evolution

with mild reluctance, i'm moving specialists in violence to the blogosphere. (and look what's happened - i'm already using terms like blogosphere.) it seems like this format will be more convenient than the group email.

Ind (and everyone else): Bhutto's back. Pakistan's court will rule in 10-12 days on whether or not Musharraf's re-election was legal.

LAT: Turkey voted to authorize force in Iraq; already has an estimated 1500 troops in 3 battalions in Iraq.

Ind: Somali gov't troops arrested the head of the UN's World Food Program for unclear reasons 3 days after the program started; "Since Ethiopian troops drove out the Union of Islamic Courts at the end of December, violence in the capital has increased dramatically with insurgents engaging Ethiopian and Somali government troops almost daily." Islamic Courts members formed a new party in Asmara, Eritrea; appear to be biding time for stand-off between Somalia's president and prime minister to blow up.

So to sum up the web of issues smoldering in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: Eritrea is mobilizing residents into military for potential clash with Ethiopia, which has reportedly moved troops to the border because Eritrea is allowing Islamists to operate from the country. Ethiopia-backed gov't on edge of collapse in Somalia; Eritrea at least passively backing exiled rivals. Finally, Ethiopia fighting a separatist insurgency in region of Ogaden by targeting civilians. uf.

Ind: looking for relief? try Mauritius

Ind: burmese junta acknowledges 3,000 have been arrested, 468 still held. observers suspect it's an underestimate. but the generals are steadfast, rebuking calls for democratization: "We will go ahead. We will not deviate from our path...We will get rid of the barriers and obstacles on the way."

Ind: gang violence in the UK

Slate: taking the principle out of principle-agent: an update on the CIA investigation of its own investigator general.

Slate: law and order: how mormon fundamentalists and the amish get to break so many laws. "Such group rights are a challenge for a legal system centered on the individual;" does the US gov't allow groups to regulate themselves on the condition that no members can live under both systems? the amish give 18-year-olds a year to work out if they'll commit to the community, if not, they're banished. mormon fundamentalist boys, among others, are kicked out for transgressions from group rules (or to increase the supply of women available to older men to marry). both are extreme in the sense that community members can't even maintain contact with the outsiders. contact Ryan for a comparison with nomads and pastoralists in Kenya. (note: the entire series is an interesting look at how law flexibly keeps order.)

USAT: armed group recruitment sometimes misfires

New Yorker non sequitur: race in the indie rock scene