Morning Ducks! Here’s your Monday morning round-up:

South Asia:

• The US has informed the UN, in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the US military detained more than 200 teens for about a year at a time on average in a military prison next to Bagram Airfield.  Most of the children were around age 16 but some were as young as 11.  The youth were kept in the general facility for “enemy combatants” population.  Under the Bush administration, 2,500 youth were detained by the US military in Iraq.
• In related troubling news, a US military official contended that “Some Afghan kids aren’t bystanders.”  So you know… logically, the courageous thing to do when you can’t tell whether children aged 12, 10, and 8 are gathering dung for fuel or emplacing IEDs is to blow them to smithereens with an air strike.

West Asia/North Africa:

• A photo essay about the last days of a rebel-held hospital in Syria before it was leveled by Assad forces.  Eighty percent of those treated in this hospital were  civilians – many of whom were children.  The death toll in the multi-sided Syrian civil war is now approaching 40,000 with over 400,000 refugees.  John Lee and Dexter Filkins discuss (podcast) President Obama’s options and whether the US will intervene at the New Yorker.
• A must read piece by Jack Shenker in Cairo, “In Egypt the Elite may have changed but the Revolution Continues,” that tries to move readers beyond the narrative cliches about what is happening in Egypt.

East Asia

• Yan Xuetong on Chinese Realism and the Tsinghua School of Realism at Theory Talks. (h/t C. Xavier)
• China has passed new maritime rules for ships entering the disputed Paracel Islands area which may violate UNCLOS.  India has recently vowed to protect its interests in the South China Sea.  Notably, India is acquiring six more submarines….

Americas:

• Mexico: Sixty thousand killed in six years, including 30 mayors (h/t B. Phillips).  Good luck President Nieto.

Global:

• The latest round of climate change talks being held (without any trace of irony) in Qatar, the country with the highest per capita carbon footprint in the world has extended the Kyoto Protocol to 2020.  Not surprisingly, the final agreement will not make any significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions or provide new financing to developing countries struggling to deal with the consequences of climate change.

And of course:

• In case you were morbidly curious about a film in which teenagers are the combatants: Notes After Viewing Red Dawn (2012). (h/t Chapati Mystery)
• Speaking of bad teens(?), what exactly do George Washington, Mao, and Snooki have in common? Professor Holmes at the US Naval War College tells us.
• Maz Jobrani’s mother muses on the lack of Middle Easter role models in the US: “You should’ve killed Jack Bauer. You pussy!” (h/t R. Doherty)
• International Relations Depicted as Cats is back after a hiatus! Yay!
• Finally, is your country emo?