The Security Council met in an extraordinary Sunday session called by France and the three African members of the council -- South Africa, Burkina Faso and Libya -- and considered a letter from Chad appealing to U.N. members for help. After 3 1/2 hours of discussions on a proposed statement condemning the rebel attack, the council adjourned debate until Monday because Russia's delegation needed more time to consult Moscow over the text, diplomats said They said Russia had objected to the first French draft that called on U.N. members to support the Deby government "by all necessary means" -- a veiled reference to military aid. A later draft urged members to "provide support as requested by the government of Chad." In his handwritten letter to the council, Chadian Ambassador Mahamat Adoum requested "all aid and assistance needed to help (Chad) end this aggression."Meanwhile, the proposed French-led European Union force to protect refugee camps in eastern Chad (along the Darfur border) has been postponed.
>>Kenya, DRC, and Rwanda - Kofi Annan brokered a deal on Friday to set up a framework for negotiations between Kenya's ruling party and the opposition led by Raila Odinga. However, violence continued over the weekend (NY Times in pictures), and Mr. Odinga has called for AU peacekeepers. Meanwhile, in the Western Rift Valley, at least 40 were killed by two magnitude 6 earthquakes.
>>Serbia - Serbia's President Boris Thadic, generally considered pro-western, was reelected on Sunday, defeating nationalist Tomislav Nikolic, an ally of Slobodan Milosevic. Tadic has said that he will not use force should Kosovo choose to succede, which it may do at any time.
- CEDAW V. Saudi Arabia - by Mark Leon Goldberg
A United Nations human rights body called on Saudi Arabia on Friday to immediately end its system of male guardianship which it said severely limits the basic freedoms of women in the kingdom. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, in its first scrutiny of Saudi Arabia's gender equality record, said Islamic Sharia law should not trump an international women's rights treaty that Riyadh signed in 2000. The committee's 23 independent experts urged Saudi Arabia to "amend its legislation to confirm that international treaties have precedence over domestic laws," and "enact a comprehensive gender equality law." They also said that Riyadh should "take immediate steps to end the practice of male guardianship over women" and work to eliminate "negative cultural practices and stereotypes" which discriminate against women.Read more about CEDAW. As with all of these sorts of treaties, there is no mechanism to force Riyadh to abide by its protocols. Still, invoking international treaties in domestic human rights disputes can have the effect of building up domestic and international support for the aggrieved population. (See: Apartheid South Africa, or more recently, attempts by the United Nations Human Rights Council to chastise Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.) This resolution can certainly has the potential to be a rallying cry for activists agitating for greater rights of women in the Kingdom of Saud.
>>Chad - Rebels representing the Union of Forces for Democracy from eastern Chad and seeking to drive the president from power, are advancing on N'Djamena. Government troops have been dispatched to confront the 300 vehicle column less than 50 miles from the capital. Five UNHCR vehicles have been hijacked and their offices to the east have twice been entered by armed gunmen. France is deploying 150 additional troops to provide additional protection for French nationals. Rebel groups believe that French troops helped thwart their assault on N'Djamena in 2006. A 3,700-strong EU peacekeeping force, which the rebels also oppose, is set to deploy to the refugee camps in eastern Chad in the next few weeks.
>>Afghanistan - Senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan and star of several al-Qaeda videos, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Northern Waziristan. Sources indicate that the missle was fired by a drone. Following Canada's declaration that it would withdraw its 2,500 troops from Afghanistan if NATO doesn't deploy 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan, US Sec. of Defense Robert Gates pushed Germany to do so, in what is being reported as an "unusually blunt" exchange. Reportedly, German Minister of Defense Franz Jung plans to announce at NATO defense ministers at the next meeting in Vilnius next Thursday that Germany plans to send a 250-strong "Quick Reaction Force." Germany's rules of engagement, out of step with the rest of the NATO mission, will also alledgedly be part of the discussion.
>>The Internet - Apparently a distressed ship attempting to moor off the coast of Egypt cut the line that has left 75 million with diminished internet services, mainly in the Middle East and India. If you're interested in the cable network that crisscrosses the ocean floor, this is a really cool map.
>>Kenya - Ban Ki-moon is in Kenya to help revitalize the fledgling peace process initiated by Kofi Annan. Four, accused of looting and burning residences and businesses, were killed by police in Eldoret in western Kenya in the wake of the murder of opposition MP David Too. Although the opposition claims that it was a political assasination, evidence points more convincingly to a love triangle
>>Whaling - Japanese ships have resumed whaling in antarctic waters as anti-whaling activists were forced to leave to refuel.
>>Trash - The EU ordered Italy to take out the garbage in Naples. Nearly 250,000 tons of garbage has piled up on the streats. Collectors have stopped because there is no more room at the regional dumps.
- Somalia's Crisis Continues In the Shadow of Darfur - Matthew Cordell
- Secretary General to Visit Kenya - Mark Leon Goldberg
Warning that violence in Kenya could spiral out of control, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced plans to visit the country, where more than 800 people have already lost their lives in intensifying ethnic clashes triggered by the aftermath of recent elections. Speaking to reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Mr. Ban called on the Kenyan people to "stop the killings and end the violence now, before it is too late." More than a quarter of a million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the violence, which began late last year after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition leader Raila Odinga in December elections.Read more.
High levels of malnutrition and the difficulties of delivering aid make Somalia the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis, the U.N. refugee agency's representative there said on Tuesday. More than 1 million people have fled their homes in Somalia, which is convulsed by fighting between Ethiopian-backed government forces, Islamist insurgents and an assortment of warlords. "I've never seen anything like Somalia before," Guillermo Bettocchi, representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said during a visit to London. "The situation is very severe. It is the most pressing humanitarian emergency in the world today -- even worse than Darfur," he told reporters, referring to the war in western Sudan, which has driven 2.5 million from their homes. A bomb attack which killed three foreign aid workers in Somalia on Monday underlined the difficulty in delivering aid in the anarchic country that has been wracked by clan violence for 17 years, he said. Fifteen percent of the population suffer acute malnutrition while health services are very limited and sanitation, water and shelters are extremely poor, Bettocchi said.While a remarkably broad grass-roots constituency has propelled Darfur to the forefront of US media attention -- at least relative to other enduring African conflicts -- the ongoing chaos in Somalia has been relatively ignored. Lacking the moral impetus of "the g-word," Somalia's humanitarian disaster has not galvanized US activists as has Darfur, which can be easily oversimplified and digested as genocidal "Arab" militias attacking black "African" civilian victims. Somalia's diverse array of armed groups and history of instability foster an impression that this conflict is particularly intractable.
The last Republican debate before Super Tuesday was held last night at the Reagan Library in California as Guiliani and Edwards drop out. Serbia also held it's last televised debate before the presidential run-off on Sunday between incumbent and supporter of EU membership Boris Tadic and nationalist Tomislav Nikolic, who supports closer ties with Russia. Both oppose Kosovo's independence.
>>Kenyan violence continues - A second opposition leader, David Kimutai Too, has been shot dead in Eldoret, overshadowing a second day of talks led by Kofi Annan. A local police chief, claims that Too was shot because of the discovery of his affair with the girlfriend of a local police officer and not connected to the ongoing violence, which top U.S. diplomat Jendayi Frazer has called "ethnic cleansing." Either way, angry crowds have stormed the police station and Kikuyu are fleeing the Rift Valley town. At an AU summit in Ethiopia, commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare urged African leaders to help difuse the crisis, as Rwanda's leader Paul Kagame has suggested that army intervention may be the only way forward.
>>Canada troops in Afghanistan - Canadian PM Stephen Harper has demanded another 1,000 NATO troops be dispatched to the Kandahar region, or else the 2,500 Canadian troops already there will be pulled out. Meanwhile, a report by the former supreme allied commander of NATO, Lt. Col. James Jone, concluded that NATO forces in Afghanistan are in a "strategic stalemate." And, a thousand Afghan infantry troops will be rushed to the battlefield half trained.
>>PM Olmert survives report - The Winograd Commission's report (full text) on the conduct of Israel's leadership during the 2006 war in Lebanon was less damaging than expected, noting "serious failures" but also not blaming PM Olmert directly and even praising some of his key decisions. The brunt of the blame for what the report stated was a "great and grave missed opportunity" to decisively defeat Hezbollah was reserved for Israel's military leadership, which the report suggests were too reliant on air power.
>>North Korean nuclear deal - NK leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese official that he remains committed to the six party talks and implementing existing agreements. Meanwhile, capitalism trumps detente, as the first regular freight train service in a half century between North and South Korea has been cut because there simply isn't enough cargo to ship.
>>Iran: Lower or higher profile? - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran will produce nuclear energy by 2009. Ayatollah Shahrudi, the head of Iran's judiciary, has announced a ban on public executions without his prior consent. Taking photos or film of an execution is also now verboten. Meanwhile, five convicts were hanged at Evin prison in near Tehran.
>>Mr. Rose Apple Nose - Sign language interpreters are holding their noses to refer to Thailand's new PM, Samak Sundaravej, but probably not for the reason you think.
- About those helicopters... - Mark Goldberg