But there were nonetheless more scuffles as Palestinians tried to enter Jerusalem’s Old City to attend Friday prayers.

The recent upswing in violence was sparked by Israel’s decision to include two West Bank shrines on a list of national heritage sites.

This week, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited the region, meeting with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to push the peace process forward.

To discuss the issues, Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with James Rubin, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a former assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, and Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, in our weekly roundtable.

The drug war there kills an average of 8 people per day and has residents living in fear.

Thursday night, Mexican President Felipe Calderon was in the city, hearing criticism that the government was not doing enough to quell the violence.

Mariana Sanchez of Al Jazeera English reports from Mexico’s murder capital.

Can Ciudad Juarez be saved from the drug violence?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please be respectful and on-point. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned.

The group is called Boko Haram and the fighting was sparked by the arrest of several of its leaders. An estimated 700 people were killed.

Ever since, there has been concern that the security forces may have killed many innocent civilians.

This report from Mike Hanna of Al Jazeera English shows new video purportedly showing such attacks.  Some of the images are graphic.

Daljit Dhaliwal spoke with Eric Guttschuss, a researcher with Human Rights Watch about the allegations. He says that the international community, including the United States, should be doing more to pressure the Nigerian government to ensure justice.

The attacks were apparently triggered by a recent court decision that lifted a ban on the use of “Allah” for God in a Catholic newspaper.

The ruling had also permitted the use of “Allah” in the Bible. The government argues that “Allah” is only for Muslims and says it will appeal the ruling.

Jamie Metzl, executive vice president of the Asia Society, speaks to Daljit Dhaliwal about the rising religious tensions in Malaysia. They discuss Malaysia’s ethnic mix and how the conflict might be resolved.

Those concerns are also tied to the coming elections in Iraq, which Iraqi authorities announced today would be postponed until the beginning of March. More attacks between now and then could destabilize the pro-western government. Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss the possible ramifications of the violence.

Al Jazeera English’s Tareq Bazley reports from Baghdad.

Reid, who has been based in Afghanistan, explains the difficulties and stigma women face in in reporting domestic cases of abuse. She also talks about why the laws and police don’t adequately protect women.

David Chater reports for Al Jazeera English from Herat, Afghanistan, on how women are burning themselves to escape abusive and unwanted marriages.

Angry football fans converge on the Algerian embassy in Cairo. Photo: madmonk

Hoda Osman, a special correspondent for Worldfocus and an Egyptian-American, writes about the diplomatic crisis that followed a World Cup match between Egypt and Algeria on Saturday. She explains the intense emotions surrounding the sport and how the rivalry reflects the strains in pan-Arab relations.

It’s hard to believe, but yes a soccer match is straining relationships between Egypt and Algeria. Unfortunately, I believe this time around the animosity and hostility between the countries’ 115 million people are here to stay.

A bitter history

Egypt and Algeria have a history of soccer-related violence. In 1989, Egypt qualified for the World Cup after winning over Algeria. Riots erupted. The Egyptian team’s doctor lost an eye after being attacked with a bottle by an Algerian player.

Fast forward to 2009. Keywords: the Internet and satellite television channels.

The two countries were preparing for a crucial match in Cairo. Egypt had to win by a three-goal difference to qualify for the 2010 World Cup next summer in South Africa — and by a two-goal difference to secure a rematch.

Emotions were running high ahead of the match. Special songs and commercials were produced specifically for the game. The media in both counties was obsessed. There were some who even blamed the media for inciting hatred.

The Internet also played a big role. It was used intensively by fans of the two teams to attack each other. Edited videos and altered pictures were posted on several websites with the intention of humiliating the other team.

Upon the arrival of the Algerian team to Cairo, Egyptian fans allegedly threw stones at their bus and injured a number of players. FIFA opened an investigation into the incident.

The U.S. warned its citizens in Cairo against being on the streets on the evening of the match.

To calm things down, an Egyptian and an Algerian pop star organized a joint concert.

Egypt won the Nov. 14 match 2-0, thereby securing a rematch with Algeria in Sudan a few days later.

Millions of Egyptian celebrated on the streets across Egypt till the early hours of the following morning. If you saw the pictures you would think the whole country won some global lottery that would solve all their problems.

Violence in Khartoum

Violence was expected in Sudan. Security was intensive. Egyptian interests had already come under attack in Algiers after the first match and the Egyptian government summoned the Algerian ambassador in Cairo over it.

Algeria won 1-0 and secured its place in the coming World Cup. Life goes on, right? It’s just a game.

Unfortunately not. Algerian fans attacked their Egyptian counterparts in Sudan following the game. Some of the Egyptian fans and celebrities who were attending the match called into television programs and said they were trapped and hiding in Sudanese houses. I also got first-hand reports of the violence from people who were in Khartoum.

The Egyptian government reported 21 were injured and recalled its ambassador to Algeria for “consultations.” The Egyptian media also pointed the finger at Sudan, claiming it was unable to protect the Egyptians after the match. Sudan summoned the Egyptian ambassador in Khartoum to object.

In Cairo, security forces clashed with Egyptians who rioted and burned Algerian flags in front the Algerian embassy there.

Arab unity – an unrealistic dream

The events are unfortunate but also interesting on several levels. They elucidated the fragile relations between the two countries on the popular and the state level.

The head of the Egyptian Artists Union announced on television that he would call for canceling Algeria’s membership in the union because its artists were silent about the offenses. Numerous Egyptian celebrities called into a television show Wednesday evening calling for cutting cultural relations with Algeria, announcing they were giving back prizes they won in Algerian festivals and asking that their work not be aired in Algeria. Some media personalities were even suggesting stopping Egyptian investments in the country.

The animosity runs so deep now, that I can’t see how this can be repaired.

Arabs have always dreamed of Arab unity. Although the match was between only two of the 22 Arab countries (Sudan also got caught in the middle), to me, it’s still proof of how difficult accomplishing that goal is. Egypt and Algeria may have been frail to begin with, but relations between most other countries are not that much better.

The power of soccer

If you saw the pictures of the celebrations by the fans of the two countries you’d be amazed. Soccer is big in the Arab world.

I’ve read a lot about the game and found that nobody explained the role soccer plays in the Arab world better than the manager of a Cairo restaurant interviewed by Time Magazine. “Soccer provides an outlet for emotion, both positive and negative, that so many Egyptians so desperately crave, says Maher Gamel, manager of one of Cairo’s most popular restaurants, al-Omda.”

I remember a sociology class I took at the American University in Cairo years back. We were discussing patriotism and agreed it becomes most vivid during soccer matches.

When seeing the pictures of the Egyptian celebrations following the first match and the Algerian celebrations following the second, you might wonder why the people of those countries don’t do the same to remove their dictators or gain more rights. Is it fear? Is it lack of hope? I don’t really have an answer.

But as I was watching the story develop, I wondered about something else. How can this enormous energy be used positively. The people of the two countries are at this moment united around one issue. What if this energy was used to produce something, to build, to educate or to clean the cities? How can they be mobilized that same way, with the same enthusiasm? If we find the answer, we may find the solution to problems many countries around the world.

- Hoda Osman

Martin Savidge hosts David Rayside and Rachel Tiven on LGBT politics and gay asylum. We begin the conversation with Jamaica, which makes up 17 of the 55 U.S. asylum cases won by Immigration Equality last year alone. We examine the metastasizing colonial and slave culture, entrenched poverty and rampant violence in Jamaica.

In 1994, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expanded asylum law to include persecution based on sexual orientation. Sexual orientation has been increasingly used as grounds for asylum. We also discuss how to begin the process of applying for gay asylum in the U.S.

From human rights abuses to political progress, the gay rights movement is at different stages throughout the world. We take a comparative look at the progress of LGBT politics and the gay rights movement in different countries, including the best and worst places to be gay.

A Greek gay rights parade. Photo: Megan Thompson

• Read about one gay Jamaican’s story of asylum: Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives
• Watch signature videos from Jamaica: Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide and Gays in Jamaica worship in underground church
• Watch our signature video from Greece: Ancient Greek values clash with modern treatment of gays

GUESTS:

David Rayside is a political science professor at the University of Toronto. His latest book “Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions” is a comparative analysis of Canadian and  American political recognition of same-sex relationships, the extension of parenting rights to same-sex couples and the response to sexual diversity in public schooling. For over thirty years, he has also been an activist on issues related to sexual diversity and gender within academic institutions and beyond.

Rachel B. Tiven is the executive director of Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equal immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive community. Under her leadership, Immigration Equality has doubled in size, quadrupled client services and opened a policy office in Washington, D.C.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven
Researcher: Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report on the secret underground church that is welcoming gay men and women to practice their faith. Reverend Robert Griffin, an American priest, leads the secret church.  He believes religion is at the heart of Jamaica culture of homophobia, and the time has come to reinterpret the Bible for modern times.

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

See more Worldfocus coverage on Homosexuality Around the World.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report on the dark side of Jamaica’s anti-gay violence and attitudes and explore the ideological beliefs that perpetuate a culture of homophobia.

• Read Protecting our gay Jamaican sources and their confessions
• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

See more Worldfocus coverage on Homosexuality Around the World.

Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Gideon Lichfield, deputy editor of The Economist online in New York, about British public sentiment and the reaction of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Approximately 150 miles away In the northwestern city of Peshawar, a car bomb tore through a busy market. The death toll from today’s terror attacks in Pakistan has risen to some 100 people. The bombing is thought to be the work of militants allied with the Taliban.

Ahmad Kamal, a Pakistani diplomat for 40 years - 10 of them as Pakistan’s UN ambassador - speaks with Daljit Dhaliwal about the relationship between the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the escalation of attacks. He also examines what it will take to end the violence in both countries.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss examine the public debate that erupted earlier this year when graphic Dancehall music lyrics and images were banned from Jamaica’s airwaves. The public responses reveal the legacy of two Jamaicas dating back to the country’s slave history.

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• Read about the controversy over music and dance related to daggerin’ and the variety of Dancehall music here: No daggerin’ on Jamaican TV and on Worldfocus.
• Watch Jamaican Dancehall artist Spice talk and sing about her life story: Dancehall artist sings of poverty plaguing Jamaica’s ghettos.
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Conakry residents load a minibus. Flickr photo: martapiqs under a Creative Commons license.

Almost one year after a bloodless coup in December 2008 — during which Captain Moussa Dadis Camara took power several hours after the death of Guinea’s 24-year leader — violence has begun to rock the West African nation’s capital city of Conakry.

The regime’s forces stormed a political rally held on Monday at a football stadium and dispersed the crowd of some 50,000 using tear gas and gunshots. Human rights groups have called for security forces to halt its violent crackdown on political dissidents.

The authoritarian military ruler had pledged to restore civilian rule 60 days after seizing power, but elections have been delayed until 2010.

Protesters are demonstrating against Captain Camara’s presumed candidacy in the elections. A recent announcement proclaimed that the current ruling military council also intends to run.

Human Rights Watch quotes one witness describing the actions of security personnel:

I saw the Red Berets [an elite unit within the military] catch some of the women who were trying to flee, rip off their clothes, and stick their hands in their private parts. Others beat the women, including on their genitals. It was pathetic –- the women were crying out.

Blogger Konngol Afirik (translated here from the original French) also blames the elite Red Beret units for the violence:

Though the junta banned all demonstrations, the “Forces Vives” decided to have it anyway…The Red Berets are known for blind cruelty. Most of the dead and wounded fell at the hands of this elite unit better equipped and paid than the regular army…

Two of the main opposition leaders, Cellou Dalein Diallo and Sydia Toure, are among the wounded. Once again, the African Union and CEDEAO and their international partners are revealed as ineffective against this putsch leader, who is ready to walk on corpses to remain in power.

Worldfocus contributing blogger Ethan Zuckerman writes in his blog, My heart’s in Accra, that the African Union, which refuses to recognize military governments, should encourage Guinea to hold elections as soon as possible:

What’s been interesting for me, in the short term, is watching the few comments mentioning #Guinea on Twitter are focusing on media coverage. Nasser Weddady, outreach director for HAMSA [Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance], offered this tweet a couple of hours ago: “In plain English: screw #Polanski, I am more interested in what’s happening in #Guinea than that fugitive pervert.” It’s been retweeted several times, reflecting either a frustration at media coverage, or simply that lack of any other news out of Guinea at this point…

How Guinea could have emerged as a major power based on its (bauxite) mineral wealth is a sad, familiar, important and insufficiently understood story.

- Ben Piven

Violence and hatred lurk close to the social surface in Jamaica.

Producer Micah Fink of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting produced the Worldfocus signature story “Jamaica’s battle against AIDS fought in the shadows.” He reflects on Jamaican culture and the homophobia that has contributed to the country’s HIV/AIDS crisis.

Jamaica, to me, is a land of deep contradictions.

On one hand, it’s a lovely, lush tropical country, blessed with sandy beaches, fantastic flowering shrubs, ripe mango and coconut trees, and inhabited by a strong, proud people who clearly share a basic sense of personal dignity and a deep-seated hospitality towards strangers. I found this to be true regardless of whom I was speaking with, be they rich or poor, educated or illiterate, straight or gay.

At the same time, I also encountered an intensity of violence and hatred lurking close to the social surface that shocked me. I was amazed at how easily people expressed their disregard for the human rights of gay people. Or how the same individual could argue that most violence against gays is carried out by other homosexuals while also acknowledging how “understandable” it is that gay people would be beaten by a mob, perhaps even killed, if they “flaunt” their sexual identity in a public space.

I was also surprised by the homophobic venom expressed, openly and on-camera, by the political leaders we met. Perhaps it was to be expected from Representative Ernest Smith, an outspoken opponent of gay rights, but I felt side-swiped to hear similar views expressed by the Reverend Bishop Herro Blair, who is Jamaica’s Political Ombudsman and widely credited with reducing political violence in Jamaica’s inner cities. And I was stunned when their most inflammatory remarks were repeated by leading public health officials, teen-aged school children, and, sometimes, even by members of Jamaica’s gay community.

The ideology of homophobia is as deep as it is pernicious in Jamaica.

It is widely held that homosexuality is a mortal sin, which the Bible (and by extension God) has ruled should be punished by death. And if that wasn’t inflammatory enough, there is a wide-spread perception that gayness is transmitted by homosexual contact (gays are made, not born) and that gay men and women are out actively raping young Jamaican children to “recruit” them into a new generation of homosexuals. Many people also seem to believe in the existence of an “international gay lobby” that is conspiring to undermine and destroy the nation’s moral values and political sovereignty.

In the context of HIV and AIDS, of course, these attitudes are deadly. So it wasn’t surprising for me to meet a young gay man who rejected every safe sex message ever created. “It’s not AIDS that is killing us,” he told me. “If it were, I would use a condom. But it’s people, not AIDS, that is killing us. AIDS has nothing to do with it.”

Jamaica, it seems, needs to be reminded of another old biblical adage, expressed succinctly in Galatians: “You shall reap what you sow.”

- Micah Fink

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

See more Worldfocus coverage on Homosexuality Around the World.

By Monday, security forces had restored order and Kampala was relatively calm — but the turmoil points to mounting tensions ahead of the Uganda’s 2011 election.

Several radio stations were shut down following the outbreak of violence. Watch a video exploring the riots from Kenyan television channel NTV:

Twitter users in Uganda — including UgInsomniac and solomonking –  have been providing updates on the situation using the hashtag #kampala.

Zehra Rizvi — Twitter user zehrarizvi — describes her experience using the micro-blogging service during the riots:

The real power of tweeting came to me during the last few days of rioting we’ve had in Kampala. [...]

I went out to the office and was driving in eerily quiet streets (it’s just a ten minute drive) and was standing in the office and all of a sudden heard a rat ta tat tat. No one else really blinked, so I was like, hmm, OK, my imagination. Second time I heard the sound, I was like, umm, guys, what’s that? Answer: Police firing live rounds into crowds to disperse them. [...]

I came home and tweeted about it. Just one message. And all of a sudden, got a response from someone I didn’t know. How @UgInsomniac found my tweet, was a mystery to me but then I saw the hash tag. I did a search on Kampala on twitter and was plugged in BIG time to everything. I spent the next day and a half glued to twitter and watched as the Kampala stories came flooding in.

It was incredible. There has been a media blackout and the only way for me and lots of others, including major newspapers to follow what was going on was through twitter. [...] And it’s not that it was just news flowing in. It was about the community of news and the support I felt from everyone who was tweeting. We were all in it together.

Blogger “Sarah” at “The Malans in Uganda” described the scene on Friday:

I was at the office this morning. I had an interview scheduled so I had to go. While I was interviewing the guy, shots were ringing out and police cars were hurtling up and down the roads, sirens blaring. The poor guy was terrified!!!! Not sure if it was the interview or the fact that he had to make his way back home through all the problem areas.

View photos taken by riot observers and an interactive map aggregating reports of rioting and violence at the Web site Uganda Witness.

A blogger at “Paradox Uganda” explores the background of the violence and muses about the future:

My reading of the president is that he has been decidedly anti-tribal, making every effort to unify the sense of identity of his people. But he’s also accused of favoring his own people, the Banyankole.

The reaction of these few uncertain days has revealed that the latent tribalism is close to the surface, ready to blow. There are some disturbing parallels to Kenya in 2008, or Rwanda in 1994, though nothing here has happened on those scales yet. One big difference is that Uganda has an intact and functional government and military who are acting to stop rather than increase violence. The root issue seems to be the insecurity of living too close to the edge of survival, the nagging doubt that the world just may require that one kill or be killed, grab or go without.

President Museveni has been accused of interfering in Buganda kingdom matters. Photo: IRIN

Blogger “Rhino” expresses concern for the country’s future, asking fellow citizens to “wake up to reality”:

[O]ur greatest enemy is apathy. There is a lot of it out there and it saddens me. When the riots were underway, I took a breather from my duties as a citizen journalist and had a chat with my friends. I could not believe how unconcerned they all were. It seemed as if the chaos did not have anything to do with them. I told them that this violence represented far bigger concerns that just Mengo and the government. I told them that there is a lot of bitterness out there and any self respecting citizen should pay attention. There were reports that some people were being targeted because they had “long noses” which meant that they hailed from lands other than Buganda. The tribal and religious divisions among us threaten to lead to chaotic times not dissimilar to those of ages past and there is no doubt that the government has enacted policies that have greatly exacerbated this problem. It has become clear that fragmentation of the country has served little else than prop up the ruling party and benefit the well connected while the ordinary Ugandan slips further into poverty and desperation. We must all wake up to reality; we can no longer afford to be indifferent. Even those of you who have no desire to engage in partisan politics should realise that it is up to us the people to fix our nation. Our leaders can only do so much if each one of us does not give to the other the very rights we reserve for ourselves. People have died, let their lives not go unnoticed; let us learn from these things. Let us remember the dead.

A blogger at “Gay Uganda” writes that though peace has returned, tensions remain:

Peace, calm has returned to Kampala.

Oh, I dont doubt that the armoured personell carriers (mambas) are still patrolling the city. I dont doubt that there are thousands of plain clothes intelligence people mingling with the cautious crowds. They are there. And we know it, and so we have to be cautious. [...]

And the Baganda? Bitterness. Angered, bitter.

Blogger “Rogue King” writes that the peace is much too fragile:

I also believe that it is too early to say life is back to normal. It’s a very delicate standoff, and any wrong move by either side could spark off fresh (and possibly worse) violence.

As always, we can only hold our breath and wait.

Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and former U.S. State Department analyst on Afghanistan, discusses civilian casualties and the setbacks to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

As Afghanistan prepared for this highly anticipated election last week, former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah emerged as a legitimate threat to incumbent President Hamid Karzai – who has fallen out of favor with many Afghans, as well as Western leaders — and news media portrayed a run-off election as plausible.

But as results trickle in from last Thursday’s vote, in which some 7 million ballots were cast, the outcome remains unclear. Images of inked Afghan fingers gave way to claims of widespread fraud and intimidation. As the vote count continues, reports on the results have been contradictory.

For the full results of last week’s News Hunt, read their blog summarizing media coverage, check out the top rated stories and browse a full listing of all stories posted on the topic.

Explore our complete coverage of the election and war in Afghanistan.

Read more about his experience overseas in his blog, Embedded in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s election is coming up on Thursday. Here in the northeastern part of the country, conducting an orderly election will be a difficult task, to say the least. This region, due to the high mountains and its shared border with Pakistan, is a well-known insurgent haven. Our enemies inhabit the high ground and getting up there to deal with them is tough.

Nearly every engagement here involves the insurgents shooting down at us from above. When that hasn’t been the case, the enemy has been shooting at us from inside a village on the other side of a valley. Fighting an enemy while he’s inside a village presents its own set of concerns.

Conducting day-to-day operations here is difficult. Holding an election here against the wishes of our numerous enemies will certainly be interesting. Not only are we sure to see more attacks, but we’re also sure to have less support in the form of air since those air assets are likely to be needed everywhere else as well.

Coalition forces just don’t have the numbers to control much of the vast hinterland in this northeastern part of the country. Those air assets in the form of attack and reconnaissance helicopters and fighter aircraft are a vital part of how we get things turned in our favor once the shooting begins, but we’ll make do with or without them.

Generally speaking, if we don’t have a paved road leading to an area, we don’t control it. Geographically, the province sits in the middle of a mountain range. The mountains are interspersed with valleys carved by streams fed by melting snow runoff. The only flat areas you’ll see around here are the areas around the streams. Those flat areas vary in width from a kilometer to maybe 10 meters across. Given the challenging topography, road building is a difficult task. Where roads have been put in, bases and security have followed. Without a paved road, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are regular, which prevents a strong U.S. presence.

We focus on the larger population centers, which are not surprisingly generally located in the larger valleys. Of the many small valleys branching off from the larger ones, we control the terrain at most a couple of kilometers in. Far down into some of these valleys, we haven’t had Americans go in years. This fact hasn’t stopped the unnamed, unseen planners on high from deciding to put election polling sites in some of these places. Exactly how we’re supposed to secure a place we don’t ever go, in addition to all the other sites in our normal area of operations, is a question which has occurred to many of us in recent weeks.

Thankfully, as the election creeps closer, reality is beginning to set in, and numerous planned polling stations are not going to be opened. We’ll consolidate some, and others will just not be available, necessitating the local people taking a longer trip to vote. It will be the courageous family that decides to take a trip down an unsecured road while bearing voter registration cards. The insurgents aren’t always in the mountains…they do come down to the roads to conduct checkpoints, often with an IED in the road between us and them to prevent our arrival in a timely manner to deal with them.

For an election you need ballots. It’s Afghanistan’s election, so U.S. forces aren’t supposed to escort or handle the ballots. As embedded trainers with the Afghan National Army (ANA), my unit is exempt from this guidance. And so, on our way to pick up the ballots yesterday, we got in a nice little enemy engagement, which resulted in one of our trucks getting a tire shot out, two antennas blasted off and a round of indeterminate caliber (we’re still debating what size it had to have been) cracking up our windshield. Armor is a good thing to have when the element of surprise is not on your side. The firefight was a nice way to welcome our recently-arrived replacements to the joys and adventures of life in Afghanistan.

We should have good security for most of the ballots and polling sites, but a few of those ballots are going to be headed a little further up the road into country we don’t venture…and are not going to venture for this election. The Afghan National Police (ANP) refuses to escort the ballots around here without our help, and in this case we’re not helping.

If not the Americans or the ANA or the ANP, who’s going to take the ballots up there and provide security for the election, you ask? Well, in Afghanistan, when the official government representatives aren’t doing the job, the responsibility falls to the traditional power brokers, i.e. the local elders. Turning over official election ballots to citizens who hold no official capacity may not be how things were drawn up by the 10-pound heads who wanted to hold an election in a war-torn country in the midst of raging insurgency, but as someone in the news stated recently, we shouldn’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.

If even the elders can’t guarantee the security of the ballots and the ballots end up getting burned in a bonfire in the square next to the village mosque — well, at least in that case, the insurgents have clearly shown themselves to be destructive agents and enemies of their peoples’ freedom of choice. In the past, just to make a point, we’ve dropped off humanitarian aid like schoolbooks in places where we thought it would get burned by the insurgents before the local people could get their hands on it. Something similar may end up happening with a small portion of the ballots.

However imperfect, Afghanistan will have an election on August 20 and new elected officials will take up their posts sometime shortly thereafter. Undoubtedly, some of our enemies will abuse the election process and the general lack of security in this region to get themselves elected. But I reckon we’re on the right track if they’re playing by our rules and participating in the process, whatever their ultimate motives may be.

I’m just thankful I get to be here to see how this thing turns out.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Clinton visited a clinic and a large refugee camp in the eastern town of Goma, where she pledged $17 million to deal with sexual abuse.

Severinne Autesserre, an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the conflict in Congo and how the country’s government and people will respond to Clinton’s message.

Watch the Worldfocus signature video “Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo” and see our extended coverage of the crisis in Congo.

Read what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say about Clinton’s mission: Clinton must call for an end to Congo’s media censorship

A blogger at “Texas in Africa” writes an open letter to Hillary Clinton:

I think it’s great that you’re headed [to Goma]. You have to get out of Kinshasa to understand the country and its governance problems, and you will not understand the conflict in full — or how pitiful and inadequate the international response to it is — without going to the east and meeting some of the victims. [...] You will meet little girls who’ve been gang raped by soldiers and who can no longer talk or feed themselves. You’ll see mothers and their children who live in a kind of poverty that does not compare with what you see in Kenya or South Africa or Ghana or any of the places you’ve previously visited on the continent.

Remind yourself that this is the norm in eastern Congo. [...] You will not be the same after hearing their stories. But the people of the Congo don’t need you to see and be shocked by their situation. They need you to do something. They need you to go beyond the rhetoric. So I am begging you: please make this trip different.

Blogger “Marcel,” with Oxfam’s operations in Congo, gives Clinton some advice based on experience with rape victims:

This afternoon I’m supposed to be attending a meeting with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who flew into Congo last night.

She couldn’t have picked a more appropriate time. Rape is widespread here, and cases have increased dramatically in the past few months.

I remember a woman I met in the remote Lubero territory of North Kivu Province. She told me she witnessed a gang rape of another woman by three armed men. It is almost impossible to describe the scenes she told me, but she was so brutally raped that she later died of internal bleeding. The witness, the woman I talked to, fled the area in terror. So did thousands of other unnamed victims in the past few months.

[...] If Hillary Clinton asks me what she can do to reduce rape in eastern Congo, I will tell her first of all that the US government, and the rest of the international community, needs to urgently rethink its support for an offensive that has - according to UN figures - forced more than 800,000 people to flee their homes, and has resulted in rape cases spiralling out of control. The military option must not be the only strategy. It is always the civilians - the women, children and men of Eastern Congo - who pay the highest price for any military operation.

The “Wide Angle View” blog examines different approaches to combating rape:

I was encouraged to read about both the top-down and a bottom-up approaches underway in the area to address sexual violence, which I think are equally important for effective change. Having legal structures in place regarding all forms of sexual violence against women is vital for preventing aggressors from acting with impunity, and may provide some preventative dissuasion. And public services are essential for dealing with the aftermath. On the other hand, changing attitudes is a slower process, and immensely difficult, but it offers the only hope of clipping sexual violence in the early stages before it can grow and take root.

Doctors Without Borders shares a video of Congolese refugees in neighboring Sudan:

The