The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as MONUC, announced today that it has freed nearly two dozen children from the ranks of the country's armed forces this week.
For a mission that is catching some flak right now for allegedly working with an indicted war criminal, it's worth remembering that these peacekeepers do all sorts of good stuff. Such as rescuing child soldiers. Rescuing a lot of child soldiers.
Roger Cohen praises Barack Obama's "mellow doctrine" -- but don't call him Mello Yello; he's a "Kansan-Kenyan cat."
The Wall Street Journalreports a positive "starting over" for Haiti -- optimism tempered with problems, though I'm not as convinced that Bill Clinton is one of them.
And some in Senegal are using a creative building material -- trash -- to ward off flooding. Wonder if they're getting any of it from Ghana's "illicit trade" in the stuff.
UPDATE: Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger (a book recently read by me), has a great piece about the Tamil Tigers in The Daily Beast. Adiga gives a coherent summary of the evolution of Sri Lanka's anti-terrorist/anti-Tiger campaign, and identifies an overlooked victim in the country's military onslaught -- journalists.
The big news out of central Asia this morning -- on what probably counts as a big news day for central Asia -- was the resignation of the prime minister of the Himalayan monarchy-turned-republic of Nepal. The prime minister, a former Maoist guerilla who's stylized himself Prachanda, or "the fierce one," had faced some rather fierce protests of his own after he attempted to dismiss the country's army chief. Prachanda wanted former Maoist fighters incorporated into the national army, a move that went too far for Nepal's president, a non-Maoist opposition leader.
Attention has rightly focused on what this political development means for Nepal's young democracy and the peace deal that ended a decade of civil war (not to mention 240 years of monarchy). But equally significant is the military side: what will happen to the 19,000 Maoist fighters ostensibly allied with Prachanda? They were in fact supposed to be incorporated into the Nepalese army, eventually at least, according the the UN-brokered peace deal. The question, though, was when to do so without either prompting fears of a Maoist resurgency or undermining the reconciliation process. For now, the fighters remain in barracks overseen by UN civilian and military observers, in a system that has worked relatively smoothly for the two years since the peace deal.
It certainly seems a dangerous situation to have 19,000 former Maoist insurgents, with access to weapons and a command structure that is "still intact," hanging out in barracks when their former leader has just quit the government. A commander of the militia forces, however, has said they "have no plans to bring them out from the UN-monitored camps," so hopefully caution will prevail here.
Might a parliamentary delay in Australia's carbon emissions regulation plan presage the American experience?
Lacking the political backing to implement the world's most sweeping cap-and-trade scheme outside Europe, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the regime would be delayed until mid-2011, but he still aimed to push laws through parliament this year.
[snip]
"Starting slower because of the global economic recession and finishing stronger, with the prospect of a bigger outcome for greenhouse gas reductions... we believe gets the balance right," Rudd told reporters.
Rudd's assessment makes sense, but it's nonetheless troubling -- tighter emissions standards will never be more popular with industry, recession or not. Kicking the can down the road in hopes of doubling down later seems viable only inasmuch as the plan is actually able to be followed through on.
Potentially even more discouraging for the U.S. case, though, is the fact that Australia's emissions reduction plan was already far more ambitious than the United States' at the outset, so a parallel weakening, in a larger emitter, would arguably be more damaging to global efforts. The U.S. Congress, too, might be more hostile to stringent regulations than the Australian parliament. And, of course, there's no American Green Party pushing hard against opponents of tough legislation.
Somalia is sick and tired of Eritrean arms being funneled to al-Shabaab terrorists. Eritrea is sick and tired "tired and sick" of being accused of funneling arms to al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia. Somalis are probably sick and tired of being caught between arms smuggling in a country already awash with guns.
Eritrea certainly had made a practice of arming Somali insurgent groups to fight the Ethiopian forces occupying Somalia. This was not out of sympathy with the Somalis who detested this occupation, but rather to tie up the hands of the Ethiopian military, with whom Eritrea remains on tense terms over a border dispute. The Ethiopians, of course, have since departed Somalia, but it might still be in Eritrea's interests to keep things roiling there.
As for Eritrea's claims, that "ulterior motives" are behind Somalia's accusations of Eritrean arms trafficking and that "western powers" are the ones responsible for Somalia's internal problems, they sound pretty similar to the counter-attacks one might expect of a government accused of illegal arms shipments. Yes, Western countries have also been guilty of "meddling" in Somalia, but that does not make Eritrea's influence -- which, as a regional actor, could be considered much greater -- any less damaging, "ulterior motives" or not.
Eritrea's information minister probably did not help his cause when he said that his country supports everyoneexcept the legally recognized government in Somalia.
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor's defense lawyers had requested that the Special Court for Sierra Leone drop war crimes' charges. And, today the Court responded, "uh...no":
"The prosecution has produced evidence capable of supporting a conviction of the accused ... based on his participation in a joint criminal enterprise," judge Richard Lussick said.
Taylor, if you'll recall, is charged with 11 counts of "murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery" during the Second Liberian Civil War in which more than 250,000 people were killed.
Readers, anyone see any other interesting tracking models?
The Northwestern Institute model was pretty close with its prediction of 150 to 170 cases by yesterday (the CDC has confirmed 226). Both models see 2,000 to 2,500 cases four weeks out, not exactly a sky is falling scenario. Still, I think WHO head Margeret Chan was prudent to say, "I'm not predicting the pandemic will blow up, but if I miss it and we don't prepare, I fail. I'd rather over-prepare than not prepare."
I'm a little late on this, but UNOSAT, the UN's satellite image provider, has released a report detailing the destruction of civilian buildings in Sri Lanka's no-fly zone, likely by the Sri Lankan military. The defense ministry denies that the images reflect building destruction. Except, that, well, the images appear to show building destruction.
The red arrows point to craters caused by shelling or bombardment. Instead of denying that the craters were caused by bombardment, the Sri Lankan military would be much better off stopping the bombarment. It's an indicator of their confidence in their anti-terrorist (and yes, the Tigers are terrorists, but civilians are not) rationale that they can refute what appears to be shown in plain black and white. More images below the jump.