Shitao/war

COLOMBIA

Mónica Paola Ojeda was on her way home from school when a landmine exploded. She was eight years old at the time. She was blinded and lost one arm. "I tried to open my eyes, but they were burning," she remembers. "It was as though they'd been filled with earth."

More than 40 years of internal conflict have left Colombia with a deadly legacy of landmines and Explosive Remnants of War (ERW). Colombia signed the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997 and will host the treaty's Second Review Conference in Cartagena in 2009 -- but the country still has one of the highest rates of landmine-related casualties in the world.

From the best foreign correspondent working today...

This week John Burns, the chief foreign correspondent for The New York Times, will answer questions about an article in Wednesday's paper about the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Times reporters Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen write that the brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in southern Afghanistan and who is accused of having ties to the nation's huge opium trade, has been on the C.I.A. payroll since 2001. Ahmed Wali Karzai denies involvement in the drug trade and receiving direct payments from the C.I.A., but the issue is deeply dividing officials in the Obama administration. In the early days of the Afghan war, immediately after the Taliban fell, United States commanders saw little need for a large American military presence in the country and sought control and stability by paying local warlords. John Fisher BurnsLars Klove for The New York Times But many critics say that policy has become counter-productive as the Taliban has regained strength, in part with money from the opium trade, and a strong central government is increasingly viewed as crucial for United States' success and troops returning home. Does U.S. support of President Karzai's brother undermine the credibility of both the central government and the American military effort there? Or is support and intelligence from Ahmed Wali Karzai essential for a difficult fight in the south against the Taliban? Mr. Burns has reported extensively from Afghanistan, from the period of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 through to the American-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and its aftermath.

Fort Hood, Texas, hosts tens of thousands of men who are trained to fight for their country. But none of them stopped Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as he blew away 13 of their colleagues Thursday afternoon. It was a civilian police officer, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who confronted and shot him in an exchange of gunfire. For her trouble, Munley took bullets in both legs and an arm. Maybe the president will pin a medal on her.

Earlier this year Matthew Cook was sitting in a water-filled ditch in Helmand province trying to shield himself from a surprise Taliban attack. Faced with such danger, Matt did what he was sent there to do: He flipped open his sketch pad and started drawing.

Matt, 45, a professional illustrator, completed two tours of Afghanistan with the Territorial Army (TA) in 2006 and 2009.

His two worlds will be coming together in a forthcoming exhibition at the Ministry of Defence featuring his sketches and paintings.

Now, safely ensconced in his north London home, he talks about his experiences in Afghanistan, being a war artist and how Prince Charles became an admirer of his work

They met on a sunny day this spring at Mr. Hobbs's home in Chestnut Hill, then decamped to a luncheon at a nearby country club with their children, Boston's Japanese consul general and some foreign reporters. Until then, Mr. Hobbs had fixated on the search for the Japanese soldier's family. But when he saw Yoko Takegawa, her face told an achingly personal story.

CIA Mistaken on 'High-Value' Detainee, Document Shows

An al-Qaeda associate captured by the CIA and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques said his jailers later told him they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization's hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden, according to newly released excerpts from a 2007 hearing.

"They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,' " said Abu Zubaida, speaking in broken English, according to the new transcript of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President George W. Bush described Abu Zubaida in 2002 as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations." Intelligence, military and law enforcement sources told The Washington Post this year that officials later concluded he was a Pakistan-based "fixer" for radical Islamist ideologues, but not a formal member of al-Qaeda, much less one of its leaders.

Alone With Everybody

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

--Charles Bukowski

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression. Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia's inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.