Six In The Morning

On Sunday

A decade after Iraq invasion, America’s voice in Baghdad has gone from a boom to a whimper


By Ernesto Londoño, Sunday, March 24, 7:35 AM
BAGHDAD — The United States set the tone for its new relationship with Iraq a decade ago with a bombing campaign dubbed “shock and awe,” and spoke with a booming voice during the ensuing years as it shaped the country’s future. Today, America’s voice here has been reduced to a whimper. With no troops on the ground to project force and little money to throw around, the United States has become an increasingly powerless stakeholder in the new Iraq. It has failed to substantively rein in what it sees as government abuses that have the potential to spark a new sectarian war. It also has had little success in persuading Baghdad to stop tacitly supporting Iran’s lethal aid to Damascus, an important accelerant in the neighboring conflict.

Cyprus bankruptcy crisis talks set to go to the wire with new deal including 20% levy on large deposits at main bank
Savers at the Bank of Cyprus will pay one-off tax of 20 per cent on deposits of over €100,000

CHARLOTTE MCDONALD-GIBSON BRUSSELS SUNDAY 24 MARCH 2013
The government of Cyprus agreed last night to impose a one-off 20 per cent tax on savers with deposits of more than €100,000 (£85,000) as part of an emergency measure aimed at securing a European bailout. The move will affect users of the Bank of Cyprus, the country's largest bank. A levy of 4 per cent is due to be demanded of savers with similar sized deposits at other banks on the island. The money-raising plan is to be presented to eurozone finance ministers tonight. The "troika" of the European Union, International Monetary Fund and ECB needs to be convinced that the measures are enough to raise €5.8bn and transform the economy. Otherwise the island will not get a €10bn bailout and the ECB will pull funding for the nation's crippled banks.

France confirms death of North African warlord Abou Zeid
The al-Qaeda-linked Abou Zeid was killed in combat with French troops in February, France has said, ending weeks of uncertainty about his death.

23 MAR 2013 16:11 - GREG KELLER
In a statement Saturday the office of French President Francois Hollande said the death was "definitively confirmed" and that Abou Zeid's death "marks an important step in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel." Chad's president had said earlier this month that Chadian troops had killed Abou Zeid while fighting to dislodge an al-Qaeda affiliate in northern Mali. French officials have maintained for weeks that Abou Zeid was "probably" dead but waited to conduct DNA tests to verify. Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, thought to be 47, was a pillar of the southern realm of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, responsible for the death of at least two European hostages and a leader of the extremist takeover of northern Mali.

Will Mexico see a new narco reality under President Peña Nieto?
Is Mexican President Peña Nieto going to decriminalize the drug war? He promised lower levels of violence when he took office, and this week appealed to the public to judge his policies after one year has passed.

By Steven Dudley, InSight Crime
After just over 100 days in office, two story lines are emerging about Enrique Peña Nieto: one says that the new Mexican president is subtly continuing his predecessor’s "war on drugs;" the other that he is backing off, creating the conditions for a more "peaceful" underworld. Statistically, there has been no significant change in homicides. In fact, according to Reforma's homicide count, released in mid-March, there has been a slight uptick in organized crime related murders around the country.

Sri Lanka's anti-Muslim campaign fuels discord


By Munza Mushtaq
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's minority Muslim community is coming under intense pressure from a hard-line Buddhist monk organization allegedly linked to certain powerful individuals in the President Mahinda Rajapaksa-led administration. The Buddhist Power Force, more commonly known as the "Bodu Bala Sena" (BBS) in the native Sinhala language has lashed out at the country's second-largest minority, which makes up 9.2% of the population, demanding an outright ban on several Muslim practices including the traditional dress code of women and halal dietary guidelines.

A Point of View: Chess and 18th Century artificial intelligence
An 18th Century automaton that could beat human chess opponents seemingly marked the arrival of artificial intelligence. But what turned out to be an elaborate hoax had its own sense of genius, says Adam Gopnik.

The BBC
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the Turk. That sounds, I know, like a very 19th Century remark. "Have you been thinking about the Turk?" one bearded British statesman might have asked another in the 1860s, with an eye to the Sublime Port and Russian designs on it, and all the rest. No, The Turk I have in mind is both older and newer than that - I mean the famous 18th Century chess-playing automaton, recently and brilliantly reconstructed in California. And the reason I have been thinking about it is that - well, there are several reasons, one folded into the next, beginning with the candidates' tournament for the world chess championship, being held in London this week, and enclosing, at the end, my own 18-year-old son's departure for college