How missions squandered $2.8 million
Uganda’s 28 missions spent an extra $2.8 million that was not authorized to them by parliament, according to a financial report by the Auditor General. Such missions have been bleeding administratively. The officials that spent this money were never punished, as Ugandan law requires. (The East African via AllAfrica, 07/06/08)

How Mugabe stole the elections
With the laughable elections now over (Reuters, 07/07/08), Zimbabwean opposition parties are accusing President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party of increasing attacks against them (Yahoo! News, 07/08/08). The Zanu-PF goons have even taken to attacking camps for displaced persons (SW Radio Africa, 07/07/08). With reports coming out of the nation that Mugabe’s militia even holds women who favor opposition parties as sex slaves, the world is getting wearier of President Mugabe by the day (UPI, 07/07/08). The following video by a Zimbabwean citizen, smuggled out and given to The Guardian, outlines how election fraud took place:

Trafficking of girls, abuse worsening in Nigeria
The state is as powerless as ever to stop the increased trafficking of young girls from villages and cities all over the country, according to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP). Girls as young as 12 work as maids in cities for around $13 a month which they send home to their parents. The girls are often the victims of physical abuse that goes as far as rape. (IRIN News, 07/08/08)

A prisoner swap amid business as usual
Israel began the process of an until-now unheard-of prisoner swap with Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas (The Economist, 07/03/08). The Israelis have promised to hand over five Hezbollah members as well as the remains of some others, and an unspecified number of Hamas militants later on. This is to be done in exchange for the two Israeli soldiers whose kidnappings sparked the engagement between Lebanon and Israel two years ago, as well as the disclosure of the fate of an air force officer whose flight was shot down in 1986. As Israelis bemoan the old-guard attitude that promised never to trade with terrorists, Israeli Defense Forces continued their rampage in the West Bank by raiding a charity (Al Jazeera, 07/07/08). Israeli forces also enforced a curfew in the West Bank town on Nilin this week after dozens of people were wounded as they protested an extension to Israel’s infamous security barrier being built to guard the country against terrorist attacks (Al Arabiya, 07/06/08). A report by The Palestinian Center for Human Rights showed that a total of 348 Palestinians have been extra-judicially executed since September 2000 by Israeli forces (Electronic Intifada, 07/04/08). Settlers are also getting out of hand as a group of them were caught of film this week taping a Palestinian to a pole and beating him almost to death as Israeli soldiers did nothing (Al Arabiya, 07/07/08). Israelis have in the meantime :sued a number of Lebanese banks”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0744128820080707?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews for financing Hezbollah attacks on the country – Palestinians should begin to learn from this (Reuters, 07/07/08).

Female suicide bomber kills nine in Iraq
A further 12 people were injured this week in the shocking attack at a market in the northern city of Baquba. (The Guardian, 07/07/08)

All not quiet at the Afghan center
A suicide attack against the Indian embassy in Kabul this week killed 41 and wounded almost 150 (AFP, 07/07/08). Since India is notedly friendly with the United States, such an attack does not come as a surprise, especially if radical Islamic elements were behind it. Afghanistan’s interior ministry accused a foreign intelligence agency of being involved in the attack (The Guardian, 07/07/08). A U.S. missile strike this week in the Deh Bala district in Nangarhar Province killed at least 27 people at a wedding party, most of whom were women and children (IHT, 07/07/08).

The war president
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse may have made the destruction of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam a top priority, but this does not mean that the latter are done for yet. With their firebrand leader still alive, the Tamil Tigers are just as likely to melt back into the villages they came from, only to pounce back once the government drops its guard. (The Economist, 07/03/08)

Islamists increase the pressure in Pakistan
Things began this week with a suicide bomb blast in Islamabad that killed 20 people (Al Jazeera, 07/07/08). Carried out just hundreds of meters away from the scene of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) invasion last year against holed-up Islamists, the bombing was a grim reminder of the presence of such forces in the nation. The next day saw a string of small explosions going off in Karachi, killing 37 (The New York Times, 07/07/08). The danger may be far bigger than most think: the Taliban are fiercely fighting government forces in areas like Peshawar, and doing a good job of it (Der Speigel, 07/07/08). The Taliban have already set up parallel courts (The Times of India, 07/08/08) in places like the Bajaur tribal region, which are now more popular than conventional courts. The group is getting increasingly daring.

Land and blood
Muslims in Kashmir are celebrating the state rescinding of a parcel of land that was gifted to Hindu pilgrims. The land, which contains what is believed to be an incarnation of the god Shiva, was taken back after news of several planned protests arrived at the ears of the state government. The quick fix did not help – the chief minister of Kashmir resigned this week signaling the collapse of the state government as a whole (Al Jazeera, 07/07/08). (The Economist, 07/03/08)

Glad to be gay (but a bit shy about it)
Make no mistake – conservative India holds a stern view about homosexuality to this day. Recent national gay parades held in cities like Calcutta and Delhi were meant to support a campaign trying to repeal Section 377 of India’s penal code – a throwback to British rule that deems homosexuality an “unnatural sexual offense.” (The Economist, 07/03/08)

Russian blogger sentenced for ‘extremist’ post
Free speech seems to be increasingly forced into extinction in Russia. This week musician Savva Terentiev, a 28-year-old musician who wrote a blog last year recommending that police officers should be burned ceremonially twice a day in an effort to clean up the force, was given a suspended one-year sentence. Free speech campaigners voiced fears of the dangerous precedent this count of “inciting hatred or enmity” could create. (Yahoo! News, 07/07/08)

Steppe change
The June 29 elections in Mongolia brought with them a new side to national politics – violence. When the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party won 45 of the 76 seats, other parties were quick to declare accusations of fraud, despite passing marks being given to the whole affair by international observers. Riots with the police, arson and various clashes have prompted the president to declare a four-day state of emergency. (The Economist, 07/03/08)

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For more exclusive GNN’ exclusive columnists, read Nathan Coe’s Labor News Roundup and NAtterJack’s Prison News Roundup.