Peter Wehner, formerly the head of the White House office of strategery, blogs for Commentary on his recent trip to a conference in Europe:

I came away from the gathering (portions of which I missed) with several broad impressions. One was that multilateralism has become virtually an end in itself. What matters to many Europeans and liberal-leaning Americans is the process rather than the results. What almost never gets discussed is what happens when one's desire for multilateralism collides with achieving a worthy end (for example, trying to stop genocide in Darfur or prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb). The child-like faith in multilateralism as the solution to all that ails the world would be touchingly innocent if it weren't so terribly dangerous.

Do Europeans really have a "child-like faith in multilateralism"? Discuss.

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Scott Olson/Getty Images

Barack Obama carried North Carolina by 14 points and lost narrowly to Hillary Clinton in Indiana, by 23,000 votes. "If anything, Mrs. Clinton's hopes for overtaking Senator Barack Obama dwindled further on Tuesday night," writes Adam Nagourney for the New York Times. "We now know who the nominee is going to be," NBC's Tim Russert proclaimed (video), noting that Clinton had canceled most of her Wednesday public appearances.

Publicly, she vowed to fight on, saying, "It's full speed on to the White House." But it would appear that she didn't pick up enough votes or delegates to remain viable, and her campaign is running out of money.

Europe

Dmitry Medvedev formally took power in Russia, vowing to "protect civil and economic freedoms" as the new president.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't want Tony Blair as EU president.

The European Commission is suing Italy over the trash problem in Naples.

Asia

The death toll in Burma could climb to 80,000, according to one estimate. The junta is now allowing the U.N. to deliver some aid supplies.

The Olympic torch could reach the top of Mt. Everest soon.

Chinese President Hu Jintao wants the Dalai Lama to show "sincerity."

China and Japan reached a major deal promising a "new starting point" between the two countries.

Global Economy

Oil prices could hit $200 a barrel by year's end, Goldman Sachs predicts.

The global food crisis is the product of "human greed," according to the head of South Africa's development bank.

Middle East and Africa

Tensions are flaring in Beirut, where Hezbollah supporters blockaded streets across the city Wednesday and rival youths threw rocks at one another.

The LA Times looks at the problem of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is in big political trouble.

Today's Agenda

U.S. President George W. Bush gives the keynote address at the Council of the Americas' Washington conference.

Nicaragua is hosting a regional summit on high food prices.

Yesterday on Passport

• Tuesday Map: Burma’s cyclone aftermath
• Khatami: We are terrorists
• Georgia and Russia ‘very close’ to war?

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

Former Iranian president and leading moderate Mohamad Khatami is taking some heat from the hardliners over some intriguing comments he made last week:

What did the imam (Khomeini) mean by exporting the revolution?" he asked in the speech Friday to university students in the northern province of Gilan, according to the Kargozaran newspaper.

"Did he mean that we take up arms, that we blow up places in other nations and we create groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? The imam was vehemently against this and was confronting it," he added.

As you might expect, Khatami is being branded as a traitor for these remarks, notwithstanding his (dubious) claims about Khomenei's views:

It is obvious that Mr Khatami must answer for his anti-patriotic comments and explain why he has taken such a stance," said [hardline Iranian newspaper] Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. [...]

"Mr Khatami has to make it clear whether using fervent martyrdom-seeking young men to combat occupiers is an ugly and violent act or a fully human and admirable one?" demanded [one conservative] MP.

No word yet on whether the former president has been regularly sporting the flag of the Islamic Republic on his tunic.

Dana Milbank on the twilight of the Bush presidency:

Eight months before the end of his second term, President Bush is forgotten but not gone. Power has shifted to Congress, attention has moved to the campaign trail, and the White House seems at times to be just going through the motions. For many reporters who remain on the White House beat, it has become a time to phone it in -- literally.

Four minutes after the scheduled start time for yesterday's White House briefing, only 14 of the 49 seats were occupied -- and the 14 included flamboyant radio host Lester Kinsolving, who sat in the Bloomberg News seat; Raghubir Goyal of an obscure Indian American publication, who occupied the New York Times chair; and a foreign journalist in the back row, perusing the White House's Cinco de Mayo dinner menu. Though attendance eventually swelled to 28, many of the nation's leading news outlets left their chairs empty, among them National Public Radio, the Washington Times, the New York Daily News, the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune and the Politico.

Maybe we don't have to worry that Americans are too dumb to read the Economist after all.

A teenage rap duo in Chicago has recorded a track, aptly called "The Economist," that extols the British publication's breadth and brevity and samples podcast commentary by correspondents Edward Lucas and Anthony Gottlieb.

"The style in which they write is simple and concise, how do they get their sentences so precise?" the rappers wonder. [UPDATE: Matt Yglesias quips, "The answer, of course, is 'heavy-handed editing' facilitated by lack of bylines."]

And the chorus is a gem, too: "He reads the Economist so he can get the gist, its solid competence gives him confidence that his intelligence is correct."

The rappers also weigh in on accusations that the Economist pushes a particular line: "Yes, they have a bias; it's pro-democratic. And pro-free trade; they are very emphatic."

Jay-Z it is not. But it is funny stuff.

(Hat tip: Gawker, Guardian)

Wow, South Koreans are really upset about the resumption of U.S. beef imports. Here's a shot of a recent candlelight vigil protesting the move:

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

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ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Voters in Indiana and North Carolina will choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama today. According to the latest polls, Clinton leads in Indiana and Obama is ahead in North Carolina. Adam Nagourney explains what today's contests mean and lays out three scenarios for how they might play out.

The last polls close at 7 p.m. ET in Indiana and at 7:30 p.m. ET in North Carolina.

Global Economy

Oil prices surged past $120 a barrel Tuesday for a second straight day.

Google both caused and helped kill Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. But Jerry Yang says Yahoo is still open to a deal.

Are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac vulnerable? Government officials are getting nervous.

Asia

The cyclone in Burma may have killed as many as 15,000 people or, by another estimate, as many as 50,000.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is stepping in to help Asian countries with the food crisis. India's finance minister wants to ban the trading of food futures, a proposal the ADB dismisses as a "political gimmick."

A virus known as hand-foot-mouth disease has killed 26 children in China and infected nearly 12,000.

Middle East and Africa

Kenya is struggling to recover from its post-election ethnic strife.

Somalia is not recovering.

Iran is suspending talks with the United States over Iraq. Time says the evidence that Iran is supplying Shiite militias is thin.

Kuwaitis are losing confidence in democracy.

Europe

Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, plans to cut some 5,500 jobs.

Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, is warming faster than anyone expected.

With Dmitry Medvedev set to take over as Russia's president, NPR reviews Vladimir Putin's record.

Today's Agenda

Russia and the United States are expected to sign a civilian nuclear cooperation accord today.

Chinese President Hu Jintao heads to Japan for a highly anticipated state visit.

It's Irish PM Bertie Ahern's last day on the job.

Yesterday on Passport

• An open letter to Stephen Colbert
• Eddie Izzard for EU president
• Baghdad rocks Cinco de Mayo

Scott Wintrow/Getty Images

Dear Dr. Colbert,

We must regretfully inform you that, after careful consideration and intense deliberation, we have not included you on the Foreign Policy/Prospect list of the world's Top 100 Public Intellectuals in our May/June issue.

Although your high public profile and loyal following make you a strong candidate for this honor, we have concluded that the lack of empirical evidence and logical coherence in your arguments disqualifies you for consideration as an "intellectual." While all of us here greatly enjoy your work, we simply did not feel that it contained sufficient analytical rigor to place you in the company of such luminaries as Noam Chomsky, Richard Dawkins, or the pope.

This was not an easy decision to make. It has provoked intense bitterness and division among our staff. Therefore, we feel obligated to inform you that there is another way of gaining a spot on the list. Until Thursday, May 15, members of the public can visit ForeignPolicy.com/intellectuals and vote for the world’s top public intellectuals. The e-ballot will include a write-in option for intellectuals that FP did not initially include. We will publish the public's top 20 choices in our July/August issue, in addition to the top five write-in nominees. If you can convince the people of the world that you are not only an entertainer, but a major thinker as well, you just may have a chance of making the final cut.

Given the high caliber of this year's list, we expect that the competition will be tough, but we invite you to make your case nonetheless.

We wish you the best of luck and commend you on your service to America.

Sincerely,
Blake Hounshell
Web Editor, ForeignPolicy.com

Georges DeKeerle/Getty Images

British comedian Eddie Izzard made a stop in Washington last week, and I got a chance to see his show at, ironically, the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall. (Ironic because Izzard is famous for doing shows in drag.)

Having seen Dress to Kill, his HBO special, I was psyched to hear some quality jokes about the European Union. Izzard is a big fan of EU integration, and he often weaves pro-EU commentary into his act. As he puts it in Dress to Kill, the EU is "the cutting edge of politics in an extraordinarily boring way." Or in 2006 for the Guardian, "The EU is like a huge rock festival: everyone has colour-coded passes and there are no wars." He even told Newsweek recently that he eventually wants to go into European politics on a platform of "logical governance." In his view, the stakes could not be higher:

We've got to make it work in Europe. People are very worried about sovereignty and the loss of sovereignty. I think the stakes are if we don't make the European Union work, then the world is screwed. End of story.

Instead of EU wisecracks, though, Izzard treated us to a long and extremely funny disquisition on Wikipedia, prehistory, and religion. In his encore, he did work in a quick plug for the European Space Agency, but that was about it.

Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

OK, not really:

Iraqi students of the University of Technology, Baghdad, pretend to drink alcohol as they drink soft drinks during a celebration of their university day on May 4, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq.

U.S. Navy/Getty Images

Kudos to the Washington Post for looking into the mysterious behavior of the Yemeni government toward the guys implicated in the USS Cole bombing. As Newsweek reported last fall, Yemen even briefly let Jamal al-Badawi, the al Qaeda planner in charge of the operation, out of prison. All told, "all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials," according to the Post.

The Yemenis defend their actions, saying they have their own special approach to fighting terrorism. A few years, ago, some in the West were even seeing it as a model. But the Post article calls Yemen's terrorist rehabilitation program into question with this devastating quote:

Hamoud al-Hitar, a former Supreme Court justice... suggested that the government had turned lenient because the Cole defendants had participated in a "dialogue and reconciliation program" designed to de-radicalize al-Qaeda members.

Hitar, who oversees the program, claimed that 98 percent of graduates have remained nonviolent. Asked about two Cole suspects who escaped and went to Iraq to become suicide bombers, Hitar shrugged. "Iraq was not part of the dialogue program," he said.

When Hillary Clinton signed on to John McCain's proposal to suspend the 18.4-cent federal gas tax this summer and Barack Obama didn't, the Democratic candidates suddenly had a real substantive difference to debate.

The trouble is, there's not much to argue about. Everyone who's looked at this knows that a gas-tax holiday is a silly idea. With gasoline supplies pretty much fixed in the short term, demand will increase and the price will go back up. But instead of the U.S. government capturing that revenue, the oil companies will pocket it. Factcheck.org tried and failed to find a single economist who thought gas prices would drop as a result of the holiday. PBS couldn't find a supporter, either.

Asked about this by ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday, Hillary sniffed, "I'm not going to put in my lot with economists." What's it going to be then, prayer circles?

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Now, you might say: There's almost zero chance this proposal will go anywhere, so what's the harm? Well, it makes no sense to say you're for "energy independence" while vowing to cut gas taxes. If anything, the U.S. government should raise the federal gas tax to at least 50 cents a gallon, not cut it. Or better yet, tax carbon and bring coal emissions into the mix, too. But above all, don't mislead voters about the choices before them.

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AJ Mast/Getty Images

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama dueled each other on Iran and gas taxes on the Sunday morning talk shows. With big primaries coming up Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana, Obama is reportedly trying hard not to let his frustration with the campaign boil over.

The candidates are reconsidering ethanol, which they have supported.

Asia

Hundreds of thousands of Burmese people are homeless after a deadly cyclone struck the Irawadday delta. But the junta is vowing to push ahead with next Saturday's national referendum on a new constitution.

Thailand wants to form an OPEC-style cartel for rice. Asian governments fear rising food prices could wipe out the anti-poverty gains of the last 10 years.

China and envoys of the Dalai Lama agreed to another round of talks, even as the Chinese state press accused the Dalai Lama of "monstrous crimes."

Americas

Brazil is having trouble exporting its ethanol.

The first (legal) personal computers have gone on sale in Cuba. The Internet is still largely off-limits, though.

In an unofficial vote, one Bolivian province opted overwhelmingly for autonomy.

Middle East and Africa

Iraq's first lady was nearly killed in a bombing attack in Baghdad.

Iraq's government claims to have "concrete evidence" that Iran is stoking violence in Iraq. The United States also accuses Lebanon's Hezbollah of training Shiite militants.

Iran's supreme leader appeared to reject the latest package of Western incentives designed to convince the Islamic republic to end its nuclear program.

The U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization ought to be scrapped, according to the president of Senegal.

Europe

Rome's new mayor was elected thanks to an unlikely coaltion of fascists and Jews, the Financial Times reports.

A remotely detonated bomb in Chechnya killed five police.

Global Economy

A top White House official warns of growing restrictions on foreign investment in G8 countries.

Microsoft walked away from its bid for Yahoo.

Today's Agenda

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Israel for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders that have been overshadowed by Israeli PM Ehud Olmert's corruption scandal. President Bush visits next week.

The last group of domestic Olympics tickets are on sale in China.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

I think it's safe to say this joke by Mark Halperin was in poor taste:

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the favorite, Big Brown. Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

David Silverman/Getty Images

KIBBUTZ BE'ERI, ISRAEL - APRIL 30: Seen from the cab of a combine harvester, an Israeli army armored personnel carrier (APC) secures the border with the Gaza Strip as Israeli farmers bring in the wheat crop near Kibbutz Be'eri in southern Israel. As grain prices reach record levels, Israeli farmers are expanding the area under wheat cultivation, right up to the border fence with the Hamas-controlled territory.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad refuses to take the bait:

I shall also not respond, unless absolutely necessary, to issues that have been raised and answered by me in other forums, especially those pertaining to unsubstantiated allegations.

I find it interesting, by the way, that the pro-Western Anwar Ibrahim blogs in Malay and the generally anti-Western Mahathir blogs in English.

Graphic: DARPA

The latest issue of IEEE Spectrum has a fascinating article about the possibility that cylons Chinese or Russian bad guys might build a "backdoor" or a "kill switch" on chips exported to the United States:

Three years ago, the prestigious Defense Science Board, which advises the DOD on science and technology developments, warned in a report that the continuing shift to overseas chip fabrication would expose the Pentagon's most mission-critical integrated circuits to sabotage. The board was especially alarmed that no existing tests could detect such compromised chips, which led to the formation of the DARPA Trust in IC program.

Where might such an attack originate? U.S. officials invariably mention China and Russia. Kenneth Flamm, a technology expert at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration who is now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, wouldn't get that specific but did offer some clues. Each year, secure government computer networks weather thousands of attacks over the Internet. "Some of that probing has come from places where a lot of our electronics are being manufactured," Flamm says. "And if you're a responsible defense person, you would be stupid not to look at some of the stuff they're assembling, to see how else they might try to enter the network."

John Randall, a semiconductor expert at Zyvex Corp., in Richardson, Texas, elaborates that any malefactor who can penetrate government security can find out what chips are being ordered by the Defense Department and then target them for sabotage. "If they can access the chip designs and add the modifications," Randall says, "then the chips could be manufactured correctly anywhere and still contain the unwanted circuitry."

How real is this threat? DARPA thinks the U.S. military could be vulnerable:

Dean Collins, deputy director of DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office and program manager for the Trust in IC initiative... notes that many defense contractors rely heavily on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)—a kind of generic chip that can be customized through software... "If you make a mistake on an FPGA, hey, you just reprogram it," says Collins. "That's the good news. The bad news is that if you put the FPGA in a military system, someone else can reprogram it."

Almost all FPGAs are now made at foundries outside the United States, about 80 percent of them in Taiwan. Defense contractors have no good way of guaranteeing that these economical chips haven't been tampered with. Building a kill switch into an FPGA could mean embedding as few as 1000 transistors within its many hundreds of millions. "You could do a lot of very interesting things with those extra transistors," Collins says.

The folks at Cuban Transition Project at the University of Miami have a handy chart on the shocking extent of Castro family involvement in the Cuban regime. Raúl is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends:

During the past few years family members of both Fidel and Raúl Castro have come to occupy important positions in Cuba's government. This Castro clan represents in addition to the military, the security apparatus and the Communist Party, a significant force in Cuba's political and economic structures.

Here's the list:

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart

Relationship: Fidel Castro's son

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Basic Industry

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Col. Alejandro Raúl Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's son

Position: Chief, Intelligence Information Services, Ministry of the Interior; Coordinator, Intelligence Exchange with China

 

Jorge Rey/Getty Images

Ramón Castro Ruz

Position: Fidel and Raúl's oldest brother

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Sugar

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Dr. Antonio Castro Soto

Position: Fidel Castro's son

Position: Investment Chief, Frank Pais Hospital. Doctor for Cuba's baseball team

 

ALEJANDRO ERNESTO/AFP/Getty Images

Major Raúl Alejandro Rodríguez Castro

Position: Raúl Castro's grandson

Position: Raúl Castro's military guard in charge of his personal security

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Deborah Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's daughter

Position: Advisor, Ministry of Education

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Mariela Castro Espin

Position: Raúl Castro's daughter

Position: Head, Center for Sexual Education

 

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Marcos Portal León

Position: Married to Raúl Castro's niece

Position: In charge of nickel industry, member of the Central Committee of Cuba's Communist Party

 

No pictures available:

Col. Luís Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, Raúl Castro's son-in-law

Chief Executive Officer of Grupo GAESA (Grupo de Administración de Empresas, S.A.) which supervises military enterprises

Alfonsito Fraga, Related to Raúl Castro

Ministry of Foreign Relations

The New America Foundation's Steve Coll and Peter Bergen were on CNN the other day, and they made some encouraging comments to Wolf Blitzer:

WOLF BLITZER (Host): [...] What's the latest in terms of the hunt for bin Laden? Is the U.S. and the West any closer to finding him?

STEVE COLL (President, CEO of New America Foundation): Well, I'm not aware of any specific intelligence that has lit up the trail in the last six months or so, but the circumstances in which he's hiding have changed. And he's probably in Pakistan and there his popularity has declined considerably, and also you've got a new government in power, so the motivations on the Pakistani side are changing very quickly.

BLITZER: What do you think, Peter?

PETER BERGEN (New America's Schwartz Senior Fellow): Yes, I think the hunt for bin Laden is going very poorly. As Steve said, bin Laden's support is evaporating in the North-West Frontier Province, where he's almost certainly hiding. A recent poll showed he had dropped from 70 percent favorable in August of 2007 to 4 percent.

BLITZER: So wouldn't that make it easier for Pakistani or other -- or the U.S., Afghan troops, somebody to find him?

PETER BERGEN: Yes. And I think the short answer is yes. Also a very sharp decline in support for suicide bombings amongst Pakistanis. Unfortunately, on the other hand, you have got a Pakistani government which is doing a deal with some of the militants in the North-West Frontier Province at the same time. So as always, sort of a mixed message here with the Pakistanis.

If the Pakistanis can convince those militants to dime out their special guest, it might all be worth it.

(Hat tip: Sameer Lalwani)

Fortune has an interesting interview with Google cofounder Larry Page. Here he is pontificating about alternative energy, one of his company's eclectic new research areas:

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

You can be a bit of a detective and ask, What are the industries where things haven't changed much in 50 years? We've been looking a little at geothermal power. And you start thinking about it, and you say, Well, a couple of miles under this spot or almost any other place in the world, it's pretty darn hot. How hard should it be to dig a really deep hole? We've been drilling for a long time, mostly for oil - and oil's expensive. If you want to move heat around, you need bigger holes. The technology just hasn't been developed for extracting heat. I imagine there's pretty good odds that's possible.

Solar thermal's another area we've been working on; the numbers there are just astounding. In Southern California or Nevada, on a day with an average amount of sun, you can generate 800 megawatts on one square mile. And 800 megawatts is actually a lot. A nuclear plant is about 2,000 megawatts.

The amount of land that's required to power the entire U.S. with electricity is something like 100 miles by 100 miles. So you say, "What do I need to do to generate that power?" You could buy solar cells. The problem is, at today's solar prices you'd need trillions of dollars to generate all the electricity in the U.S. Then you say, "Well, how much do mirrors cost?" And it turns out you can buy pieces of glass and a mirror and you can cover those areas for not that much money. Somehow the world is not doing a good job of making this stuff available. As a society, on the larger questions we have, we're not making reasonable progress.

And yet, Page is optimistic that this progress can accelerate:

Look at the things we worry about - poverty, global warming, people dying in accidents. And look at the things that drive people's basic level of happiness - safety and opportunity for their kids, plus basic things like health and shelter. I think our ability to achieve these things on a large scale for many people in the world is improving.