Posted by
mgraves on Saturday, May 16, 2009 9:51:00 PM
Iran is sending
warships to the East African coast to confront the pirates there. The two ships will safeguard Iranian commercial shipping and Iranian oil tankers. There is no word on whether or not the Iranian vessels will be kidnapping any westerners to embarrass weak-willed western governments.
Rwandan Hutu
rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have gone on a killing spree. This comes just several months after a joint Rwandan-DRC military operation to crack down on the militias.
The Rwandan rebels, Forces démocratiques pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), are led by many of the same people behind the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The FDLR are engaging in many of the same atrocities of the genocide of 1994. The UN is responding with a peacekeeping force, which will likely engage in many of the same atrocities as those committed by the FDLR.
Oil companies must
leave the Niger Delta region, or face attack, according to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). A Nigerian military spokesman, Colonel Rabe Abubakar, has told the companies to go about their business without fear of attack.
Eritrea is allegedly supplying
arms to foreign fighters and Islamist hardliners in Somalia. Lovely.
Pakistan is continuing its
fight against Taliban fighters in Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people have fled the conflict areas, which is spreading the Salafist/Wahabbi/Deobandi teachings to wherever the displaced persons camps are: "...we believe in purdah for women and stopping singing and music -- that's good because that's our way of Islam".
The Taliban continues to hold sway in most of the areas bordering Afghanistan.
The Congress party has retained
power after a vote by the people of India. Security for the elections was successful, although 60 people lost their lives to violence, mostly committed by Maoists.