According to a number of blogs, for a brief period today there was an app/game available in Apple's iTunes store illustrating some of the more controversial aspects of the iPhone's supply chain. Here a description from the website of producer MolleIndustria:

Phone Story is a game for smartphone devices that attempts to provoke a critical reflection on its own technological platform. Under the shiny surface of our electronic gadgets, behind its polished interface, hides the product of a troubling supply chain that stretches across the globe. Phone Story represents this process with four educational games that make the player symbolically complicit in coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labor in China, e-waste in Pakistan and gadget consumerism in the West.

Keep Phone Story on your device as a reminder of your impact. All of the revenues raised go directly to workers' organizations and other non-profits that are working to stop the horrors represented in the game.

Remarkably, the game made it past Apple's initial review, but was removed today. Kyle Orland at Gamasutra writes:  

But shortly after the game was announced and made available for purchase on the App Store earlier this morning, MolleIndustria tweeted that it had been removed for violating four separate app store review guidelines (as noticed by sister site IndieGames.com).

The cited guidelines prohibit apps that "depict violence or child abuse," "present objectionable or crude content," "contain false, fraudulent of misleading representations" or fail to "comply with all legal requirements."

Maybe they could produce a spin-off for Android market, where the requirements are less stringent? It's not like Apple's the only company using African coltan and FoxConn labor to make its phones. 

Hat Tip: Several folks via Twitter

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead

Aside from being about the most effective advertisement for Purell ever devised, Steven Soderbergh's very good new film Contagion can also be read as an argument for the necessity of strong states and government intervention in an era of global threats.

The film begins with an American businesswoman played by Gwyneth Paltrow returning home from a business trip to China, bringing along a deadly new strain of bat-pig flu that quickly becomes an out-of-control epidemic, killing millions around the globe. It's subtly suggested later in the film that Paltrow's company may have inadvertantly played a role in the virus' creation. ( Robin Cook's November 2009 FP cover story sketches out a similar scenario.)

Soderbergh shifts genres in his career almost as quickly as the virus in the film mutates into ever-more-deadly forms, but Contagion could function as a companion piece to his drug war epic Traffic as entries in a form that could be called the globalization thriller -- sprawling multi-character, multi-country examinations of a topical theme.

But the two movies, while structually similar, have a very different sensibility. Whereas the 2000 film took a skeptical view of the ability of the U.S. government to combata problem driven by economic necessity and human weakness -- a failure personified by the hypocritical right-wing judge played by Michael Douglas -- Contagion continually drills home the message that trained government officials are the only thing standing between us and the very scary things in the world. 

In her review of the film for the New York Times, Manhola Dargis  compares Contagion with paranoid 70s thrillers like All the President's Men and the Parallax View, noting that "in the 1970s it was the government that played the villain while this time it’s on the side of right."

Indeed the depiction of the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization in the film is strikingly positive. When the strong arm of the state is represented by the photogenic trio of Marillon Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, and Kate Winslet selflessly putting their lives on the line to save others, who could say no? To the extent that these characters have any flaws, it's that they're too compassionate -- Lawrence Fishburnce's CDC director violates an information embargo to warn a loved one. 

When the officials in the film confine citizens or restrict their movements, it's for their own good. When they conceal information, it's completely understandable. (Though a good portion of the film takes place in China, there's no discussion of the role that Beijing's authoritarian secrecy played in worsening the 2003 SARS outbreak.)

In films like Traffic and Erin Brockovich, Soderbergh celebrated characters who stood up to state and corporate power. In the world of Contagion, the dangers posed by a world of unrestricted trade, travel, and environmental devastation, make state power a necessity. 

The only character in the film who questions whether the government really has people's best interests at heart is the blogger portrayed by Jude Law. But rather than a Brockovichian hero, Law is a paranoid creep, raising nagging questions about the selfless officials who know best and putting people at risk. (Fishburne, at one point, suggests he may be a bigger threat than the virus itself.)

Stretch out Law's English vowels into Australian ones and it's not hard to picture Law's character as a medical Julian Assange, disrupting the legitimate functioning of government by indiscriminately disseminating classified information. Indeed, the film suggests, the unfiltered nature of the Internet itself may make it unacceptably dangerous during a time of crisis. ("On the Internet? And you believe it?" Cotillard scoffs in one scene.)

As Dargis suggests, it's hard not to see the film as a liberal Hollywood response to the anti-government rhetoric of the Tea Party and this election cycle's iteration of the Republican Party. It also may be pertinant that the word "contagion," in recent political rhetoric, has referred less often to medical disease than to the spread of financial chaos from the U.S. housing market to the global economy. At a time when the role of government in regulating the economy is a major topic of debate, the film packs a metaphorical punch. 

Coming out of the weekend of 9/11, it's also probably safe to say that this is a film that would not have been made under the Bush administration. Contagion may be very much the vision of a left-wing Hollywood director, but as a film that makes the case for granting the state extraordinary powers to  in order to combat an unseen, little understood, and highly-dangerous threat from abroad, it's also a film Dick Cheney could love. 

As expected, last night's GOP debate focused mostly on domestic policy and the big headline was the argument over Rick Perry's description of the Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme." But there were some notable exchanges on the subjects of foreign policy and national security (as usual, Ron Paul had all the best lines.) Here were a few highlights:

JON HUNTSMAN: Did you know I speak Chinese?

[Romney] doesn't get the part that what will fix the U.S- China relationship, realistically, is fixing our core right here at home, because our core is weak, and it is broken, and we have no leverage at the negotiating table.

And I'd have to say, Mitt, now is not the time in a recession to enter a trade war. Ronald Reagan flew this plane. I was in China during the trip in 1984. He went on TV, he spoke to the Chinese people -- I'd love to do that too, in Chinese itself -- and he talked in optimistic, glowing terms.

[...]We've got to remember, that to beat President Obama, we have to have somebody who's been in the private sector, understands the fragility of the free market system, has been a successful governor as it relates to job creation, and knows something about this world.

I've lived overseas four times, I've been an ambassador to my country three times, I think I understand that.

RON PAUL: Sex, lies, and 9/11

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Congressman Paul, this same line. You want to demolish the TSA. What would exist in its place?

PAUL: With the airlines that are responsible for carrying their cargo and their passengers. I mean, why -- why should we assume that a bureaucracy can do better? And look at the monstrosity we have at the airports. These TSA agents are abusive. Sometimes they're accused of all kinds of sexual activities on the way they maul people at the airport. So the airlines could do that. [...]

Just remember, 9/11 came about because there was too much government. Government was more or less in charge. They told the pilots they couldn't have guns, and they were told never to resist. They set up the stage for all this. So, no, private -- private markets do a good job in protecting -- much better than this bureaucracy called the TSA, let me tell you.

PAUL: Turn down the AC, turn off the war

But I'll tell you how we should do it. We're spending -- believe it or not, this blew my mind when I read this -- $20 billion a year for air conditioning in Afghanistan and Iraq in the tents over there and all the air conditioning. Cut that $20 billion out, bring in -- take $10 off the debt, and put $10 into FEMA or whoever else needs it, child health care or whatever. But I'll tell you what, if we did that and took the air conditioning out of the Green Zone, our troops would come home, and that would make me happy.

RICK PERRY: Drone war in El Paso

Well, the first thing you need to do is have boots on the ground. We've had a request in to this administration since June -- or January of 2009 for 1,000 border patrol agents or National Guard troops, and working towards 3,000 border patrol. That's just on the Texas border.

There's another 50 percent more for the entire Mexican border. So you can secure the border, but it requires a commitment of the federal government of putting those boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air.

We think predator drones could be flown, that real-time information coming down to the local and the state and the federal law enforcement. And you can secure the border. And at that particular point in time, then you can have an intellectually appropriate discussion about immigration reform.

For the President of the United States to go to El Paso, Texas, and say that the border is safer than it's ever been, either he has some of the poorest intel of a president in the history of this country, or he was an abject liar to the American people. It is not safe on that border.

MITT ROMNEY: Turn off the magnet

ROMNEY: Well, first, we ought to have a fence. Secondly...

DIAZ-BALART: The whole fence, 2,600 miles?

ROMNEY: Yes. We got to -- we got to have a fence, or the technologically approved system to make sure that we know who's coming into the country, number one. Number two, we ought to have enough agents to secure that fence and to make sure that people are coming over are caught.

But the third thing, and I learned this when I was with border patrol agents in San Diego, and they said, look, they can always get a ladder to go over the fence. And people will always run to the country. The reason they come in such great numbers is because we've left the magnet on.

And I said, what do you mean, the magnet? And they said, when employers are willing to hire people who are here illegally, that's a magnet, and it draws them in. And we went in and talked about sanctuary cities, giving tuition breaks to the kids of illegal aliens, employers that, employers that knowingly hire people who are here illegally. Those things also have to be stopped.

NEWT GINGRICH: Outsource immigration to the credit card companies:

I think we have to find a way to get to a country in which everybody who's here is here legally. But you started by referencing President Reagan.

In 1986, I voted for the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which in fact did grant some amnesty in return for promises. President Reagan wrote in his diary that year that he signed the act because we were going to control the border and we were going to have an employer program where it was a legal guest worker program. That's in his diary.

I'm with President Reagan. We ought to control the border, we ought to have a legal guest worker program. We ought to outsource it, frankly, to American Express, Visa, and MasterCard, so there's no counterfeiting, which there will be with the federal government. We should be very tough on employers once you have that legal program.

We should make English the official language of government. We should insist -- (APPLAUSE) --We should insist that first-generation immigrants who come here learn American history in order to become citizens. We should also insist that American children learn American history.

And then find a way to deal with folks who are already here, some of whom, frankly, have been here 25 years, are married with kids, live in our local neighborhood, go to our church. It's got to be done in a much more humane way than thinking that to automatically deport millions of people.

RICK SANTORUM: Immigration ain't what it used to be

Look, I'm the son of an Italian immigrant. I think immigration is one of the great things that has made this country the dynamic country that it continues to be, people who are drawn because of the ideals of this country. And so we should not have a debate talking about how we don't want people to come to this country, but we want them to come here like my grandfather and my father came here. They made sacrifices. They came in the 1920s. There were no promises. There were no government benefits.

They came because they wanted to be free and they wanted to be good law-abiding citizens. So we have to have a program in place that sets that parameter that says, you're going to come to this country, come here according to the rules. It's a very good first step that the first thing you do here is a legal act, not an illegal act.

MICHELE BACHMANN: The real problem with childern of immigrants is narcoterrorists. (Also, old Cuban Bay of Pigs vets in Miami speak for all Hispanic Americans.)

HARRIS: Congresswoman, you said the fence -- that you believe the fence is fundamental as an integral part of controlling the border. Let's say that in 2012 or 2013, there's a fence, the border is secure, gasoline is $2 a gallon. What do you do then with 11 million people, as the Speaker says, many of whom have U.S.-born children here? What do you do?

BACHMANN: Well, again, understand the context and the problem that we're dealing with.

In Mexico right now, we're dealing with narco terrorists. This is a very serious problem. To not build a border or a fence on every part of that border would be, in effect, to yield United States sovereignty not only to our nation anymore, but to yield it to another nation. That we cannot do.

One thing that the American people have said to me over and over again -- and I was just last week down in Miami. I was visiting the Bay of Pigs Museum with Cuban-Americans. I was down at the Versailles Cafe. I met with a number of people, and it's very interesting. The Hispanic-American community wants us to stop giving taxpayer- subsidized benefits to illegal aliens and benefits, and they want us to stop giving taxpayer-subsidized benefits to their children as well.

HERMAN CAIN: I am also in this debate

Let's make sure -- let's solve all of the problems. It's not one problem.

I do believe we can secure the border with a combination of boots on the ground, technology, and a fence, but we've got three other problems. And to get to it, we've got to secure the border.

Secondly, let's promote the path to citizenship that's already there. We don't need a new one, we just need to clean up the bureaucracy that's slowing the process down and discouraging people.

The third thing we need to do, enforce the laws that are there, and the way we do it, empower the states. I believe that the people closest to the problem are the best ones to be able to solve that problem. Empower the states to do what the federal government hasn't done, can't do, and won't do. This is how we solve the entire problem.

HUNTSMAN: Watch what you say about immigrants

I would just have to say that I disagree with so much of what has been said here today. President Reagan, when he made his decision back in 1987, he saw this as a human issue. And I hope that all of us, as we deal with this immigration issue, will always see it as an issue that resolves around real human beings.

Yes, they came here in an illegal fashion. And yes, they should be punished in some form or fashion. I have two daughters that came to this country, one from China, one from India, legally. I see this issue through their eyes.

We can find a solution. If President Reagan were here, he would speak to the American people and he would lay out in hopeful, optimistic terms how we can get there, remembering full well that we're dealing with human beings here. We have to agree.

But let me just say one thing about legal immigration. Let's not lose sight of the fact that our legal immigration system is broken. And if we want to do something about attracting brain power to this country, if we want to lift real estate values.

For example, why is it that Vancouver is the fastest-growing real estate market in the world today? They allow immigrants in legally, and it lifts all votes (ph). And we need to focus as much on legal immigration.

PAUL: Dude...what if WE'RE the ones behind the fence?

But there is a mess down there, and it's a big mess. And it's the drug war that's going on there. And our drug laws are driving this. So now we're killing thousands and thousands of people. That makes it much more complicated. But the people who want big fences and guns, sure, we can secure the borders -- a barbed-wire fence with machine guns, that would do the trick.

I don't believe that's what America is all about. I just really don't.

We can enforce our law. If we had a healthy economy, this wouldn't be such a bad deal. People are worrying about jobs. But every time you think about this toughness on the border and I.D. cards and real IDs, think that it's a penalty against the American people, too.

I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people want to lead (ph) with their capital. And there's capital controls and there's people control. So, every time you think of fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us, keeping us in.

HUNTSMAN channels John Kerry

I think we've lost our confidence as a country. I think we have had our innocence shattered. I think, 10 years later, we look at the situation and we say, we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. This is not about nation-building in Afghanistan. This is about nation-building at home.

Our core is broken. We are weak. We have got to strengthen ourselves. I say we've got to bring those troops home. (APPLAUSE) In Afghanistan -- in Afghanistan, the reality is it is an asymmetrical counterterror effort. We need intelligence. We need special forces. And we need some training on the ground. But I think one way to commemorate our 10-year anniversary of 9/11, remembering the 3,000-plus people who died in New York and in Pennsylvania and in Washington, is to say it's time for this country to set a goal for ourselves: We're going to get our core fixed. We're going to do some nation-building right here at home.

PERRY gets philosophical, gives props 

HARRIS: Governor Perry, as we approach the 9/11 anniversary, I'd like to stick with national security for a moment. You recently said, quote, "I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism." Looking back, do you think President George W. Bush was too quick to launch military intervention without thinking through the risks?

PERRY: I was making a comment about a philosophy; I don't think America needs to be in the business of adventurism.

But let me just say something about the president of the United States. And I know he's -- he's taken lots of slings and arrows here today. But one thing that I want to say that he did do that I agree with is that he maintained the -- the chase and -- and we took out a very bad man in the form of bin Laden, and I -- and I tip my hat to him.

I give more props to those Navy SEALs that did the job, but -- and the other thing this president's done, he has proven for once and for all that government spending will not create one job. Keynesian policy and Keynesian theory is now done. We'll never have to have that experiment on America again.

And I might add that he kept Gitmo open against the will of his base, and I'm glad he did that. America's safer for it.

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: Sir, just if I could quickly follow on that, you said you were making a philosophical comment, but it's hard to understand philosophy without understanding specifics. Where are some of the places where you think we've seen military adventurism?

PERRY: As I said, that is -- that was a philosophical statement that Americans don't want to see their young men and women going into foreign countries without a clear reason that American interests are at stake. And they want to see not only a clear entrance; they want to see a clear exit strategy, as well.

We should never put our young men and women's lives at risk when American interests are not clearly defined by the president of the United States, and that's one of the problems this president is doing today.

BACHMANN is on the Select Committee on Intelligence. No, really, she is.

Well, I want to say, as devastating as our economy is with the policies of Barack Obama, I think that he has actually weakened us militarily and with the United States presence globally. We have, for many years, maintained global order in the world with our United States military. We have the finest military. But in this last debt ceiling debate, one of the alternatives that came forward that we're going to be looking at with this new super committee of 12 different members of Congress is to see that our military could be hit with a huge reduction in resources.

The president has not done what he needs to do to keep the United States safe. If you look at the biggest issue in the Middle East, it's a nuclear Iran, and the president has taken his eyes off that prize.

As a matter of fact, what he's done is he's said, in fact, to Israel that, they need to shrink back to their indefensible 1967 borders. I sit on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We deal with the nation's classified secrets. And I firmly believe that the president of the United States has weakened us militarily and put us more at risk than at any time.

BACHMANN: A matter of caliphate

Well, I believe that it was wrong for the president to go into Libya. Number one, his own secretary of defense, Gates, said that there was no American vital interest in Libya. If there is no vital interest, that doesn't even meet the threshold of the first test for military involvement. The other thing is, we didn't know who the rebel forces were in Libya. Take a look at where we're at in Libya today.

Take a look at the oil revenues. We don't know if they will get in the hands of people who will have designs on radical Islam and the implication of a global caliphate. These are very serious issues, and I think it was wrong for the president of the United States to go into Libya.

SANTORUM makes us picture Ronald Reagan as a witch

Well, we're in the Reagan Library, and I'm hearing from at least a couple of people on this panel a very isolationist view of where the Republican Party should be headed about pulling troops out with Governor Huntsman and with Ron Paul.

The bottom line is, Ronald Reagan was committed to America being a force for good around the world. We were a society that believed in ourselves and believed that we can spread our vision to the rest of the world and make this country a safer country as a result of it.

We didn't have missions where we put exit strategies saying this date is when we're going to leave. We didn't say that we are the problem and the cause of the problems that confront us around the world.

We were -- we are a source for good. We could have been a source for good from the very get-go in Libya, but this president was indecisive and confused from the very beginning. He only went along with the Libyan mission because the United Nations told him to, which is something that Ronald Reagan would have melted like the old Wicked Witch of the West before he would have allowed that to happen.

The Moscow Times reports on a diplomatic cable obtained by the Russian newspaper Kommersant featuring a bit of amateur psychology on why the prime minister seems so ill-disposed toward Estonia: 

A cable dating back to December 2009 cites the Estonian Foreign Ministry's undersecretary and ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Harri Tiido, as saying that "Estonia seeks pragmatic relations with Russia and has managed a number of productive working level meetings over 2008."

But relations remained "difficult at the political level" because of Putin, who alone decides the policy toward Estonia even after trading the presidency for the prime minister's post in 2008, Tiido said.

"Putin has a personal gripe with Estonia," Tiido is quoted as saying.

Putin's father, also Vladimir, fought in the Red Army during the war and parachuted into Estonia for an unspecified operation. But locals, still disgruntled with the country's occupation by the Soviet Union in 1940 — a year before the Germans invaded Estonia — handed him over to the Nazi forces, Tiido said. Putin's father later managed to flee but was injured as he left, he said.

Eh...maybe. Putin has never seemed particularly fond of any former Soviet republic that actively seeks to escape Russian influence. Does he have particular emnity toward Estonia? At least he's never threatened to hang any of the country's leaders by the balls.

Russian-Estonian relations hit a low point in 2007 following the removal of a controversial Soviet war memorial in Tallinn. The move prompted an official rebuke from Moscow and was followed shortly after by a massive cyberattack, allegedly orchestrated by Russian nationalists. 

Think Progress and the Dallas Morning News flag a 2001 speech from Gov. Rick Perry at a border summit which contains an idea likely to anger multiple segments of the Republican base:

There are other challenges that require a unified approach, especially in the area of health care. A lack of preventative medicine means conditions that could have been eliminated through childhood immunizations show up in disturbing numbers later in life. Limited availability of medical specialists means conditions like heart disease and diabetes go untreated at alarming rates. In Texas, we recently placed a strong emphasis on preventative care when we expanded access to Medicaid for more low-income children by making the Medicaid enrollment process simpler. We allocated an additional $4 billion to the Medicaid program, and more than $900 million to the Children's Health Insurance Program. I urged legislators to pass a telemedicine pilot program that will enable, through technology, a sick border resident of limited financial means to receive care from a specialist hundreds of miles away. But the effort to combat disease and illness requires greater cooperative efforts between our two nations. It is a simple truth that disease knows no boundaries. An outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis, for example, endangers citizens of both our nations. We have much to gain if we work together to expand preventative care, and treat maladies unique to this region.

Legislation authored by border legislators Pat Haggerty and Eddie Lucio establishes an important study that will look at the feasibility of bi-national health insurance. This study recognizes that the Mexican and U.S. sides of the border compose one region, and we must address health care problems throughout that region. That's why I am also excited that Texas Secretary of State Henry Cuellar is working on an initiative that could extend the benefits of telemedicine to individuals living on the Mexican side of the border.

Perry also touted a DREAM Act-like initiative:

We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, “we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.” And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.

As far as the cross-border healthcare initiative goes, Perry's spokespeople can brush it off, pointing out that the idea never went past the study phase. But this isn't certainly a long way from the Rick Perry of today, who's better known for his proposal to send U.S. troops into Mexico.

Will this hurt Perry's conservative credentials? One Tea Party activist tells the Dallas Morning News that "More checking under the hood needed before we buy the car." Then again, this is a race where a former Utah governor whose signature achievements in office were the state's largest ever tax cut, a ban on second trimester abortions, and expanding gun rights is considered a moderate than a former Massachusetts governor whose signature achievement was the precursor to Obamacare. Once a candidate's ideological identity gets established, it's pretty hard to shake. 

HT: Marginal Revolution

On Sunday, Baburam Bhattarai of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal -- generally referred to as the Maoists -- was elected prime minister. The Maoists gave up their decade-long armed rebellion after a 2006 peace deal that Bhattarai helped negotiate. But the integration of 19,000 former fighters back into society and the details of a new constitution remain sticking points in the efforts to create permanent democratic institutions. The Maoists are also, it turns out, still considered a terrorist group by the United States.

The State Department has sent out a clarifying email on the issue in response to a question at today's press briefing:

QUESTION: With the inclusion of Maoists in the newly-formed government in Nepal, is the U.S. considering lifting the FTO designation from these Maoist groups?

ANSWER: The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is not included on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, but remains a designated Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 and is included on the Terrorism Exclusion List, pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act. While the Party has taken some positive steps, we continue to have areas of concern which must be addressed before the Party could be de-listed.

What does that mean exactly? According to the State Department website:

Individual aliens providing support to or associated with TEL-designated organizations may be found “inadmissable” to the U.S., i.e., such aliens may be prevented from entering the U.S. or, if already in U.S. territory, may in certain circumstances be deported.

So I'm guessing there'll be no Oval Office meet-and-greet for Bhattarai.

The Maoists are in pretty odd company on the list, which includes several obscure European leftist groups like Italy's Revolutionary Proletarian Nucleus, now-defunct rebel armies like Sierra Leone's RUF, and a Yemeni honey company once associated with Osama bin Laden.

Delisting may be a useful carrot to hold onto with regards to the Maoists, but generally speaking, it may be time for an audit of the list.

Over the weekend, Marc Lynch explored how Jay-Z and Kanye West's rap alliance on their album Watch the Throne represents a blueprint for U.S. hegemony in a changing world. But left unexamined was the line from their recent album that most directly relates to foreign policy: On the track Murder to Excellence, Kanye raps, "It's a war going on outside we ain't safe from / I feel the pain in my city wherever I go / 314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago."

Kanye's numbers, which are from 2008, are broadly accurate. The Chicago Police Department reported that there were 510 homicides in the city, while the casualty count website iCasualties confirmed that 314 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq that year (why Kanye discounts the eight fatalities from other U.S. coalition partners is a conversation for another day). But to paraphrase a popular saying: There are lies, damned lies, and Kanye West's statistics.

The real problem with Kanye's math is that he ignores the deaths of Iraqis, who would presumably still be alive if the United States hadn't decided to invade the country. The Brookings Institution's Iraq Index estimates that 6,400 Iraqi civilians lost their lives in war-related violence in 2008.

That figure still underestimates the violence in Iraq, because it only counts civilian deaths related to the Iraqi insurgency. "Earlier in the war, we did tend to count individual acts of criminal murder, as they reflected a deterioration of law and order which had implications for the insurgency," said Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon, the author of the Iraq Index. However, by 2008, the main sources of information regarding Iraq discounted non-insurgency related homicides.

But Kanye wasn't entirely wrong to compare the violence in Iraq and Chicago. If one compares war-related deaths in Iraq and Chicago homicides in 2008, there is a remarkable similarity between the rates of violence. According to the U.S. census, Chicago's population was 2.7 million in 2010 -- down from 2.9 million in 2000, as residents continued to relocate to the suburbs. With 510 homicides in the city, that means one Chicagoan was killed for every 5,294 people living in the city.

Now, let's compare that to the civilian casualties in Iraq. The World Bank reports that Iraq had a population of approximately 31 million in 2008. With 6,400 Iraqi civilians killed in war-related violence, that means one Iraqi was killed for every 4,844 citizens of the country - a more dangerous environment than Chicago, but not by much.

It should come as no surprise that it was dramatically more dangerous to be a U.S. soldier in Iraq than a Chicago resident or an Iraqi civilian in 2008. According to the Iraq Index, U.S. troop strength in the country averaged approximately 150,000 for the year. If the United States suffered 314 casualties in 2008, that means one soldier was killed for every 478 soldiers in Iraq.

Kanye, of course, is arguing on Murder to Excellence that Americans should be less concerned with political developments in Mesopotamia and more concerned with the deterioration of their own cities -- a fairly conventional point in today's political environment. But if he can fit the statistics above into verse, he'll truly deserve the rap throne that he's so keen on claiming.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il traveled to Russia this week, his first visit to his country's former Cold War ally in nine years. Kim rode an armored train to eastern Siberia to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, crossing the Russian border on Sunday, Aug. 21, touring the Bureyskaya hydroelectric power station, and meeting with Medvedev on Wednesday. Medvedev flew 3,500 miles across Russia to a Siberian military base for the meeting.

Kim promised Medvedev a moratorium on the production and testing of nuclear weapons, a move that could help restart nuclear disarmament talks, stalled in 2009. North Korea has been isolated both economically and diplomatically since March 2009, when it conducted a second nuclear weapons test. Both the United States and South Korea demand concrete action from North Korea before they return to the six-party talks.

Kim's weeklong trip to Russia is also expected to focus on trade talks and gaining economic and political support from Russia. North Korea is facing chronic food shortages and factory closures thanks to punishing international sanctions. Russia pledged 50,000 tons of wheat to North Korea and also discussed energy and infrastructure projects, including a pipeline carrying Russian gas to South Korea through the North.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Kim is also concerned about the downfall of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and Middle East unrest in general. While North Korean media has not been reporting on the Arab Spring, news of the uprisings has been spread through radios and word of mouth from people who have illegally crossed into China and back. "That dynamic is probably much more alarming to Kim Jong Il than anything else," Lee Jong-min, dean of international studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, told the Monitor. "He's prompted by the need to bolster his power."

Kim has visited China five times since 2002, the year of his last trip to Russia, when he met with then-President Vladimir Putin.

More photos below the jump:

Read on

Ever since Libyans seemingly wrested control of Tripoli from Muammar al-Qaddafi on Aug. 21, most observers seemed content to give Libyans some time to savor their victory before getting down to the hard questions of reestablishing the rule of law in the country. That grace period officially ended at 7:28 pm on Aug. 22, when Sultan Al Qassemi tweeted, "Breaking Al Arabiya: AFP: Saif Al Islam Gaddafi wasn't captured and is now in Tripoli."

The AFP report rebutted rebel claims that Saif al-Islam, Qaddafi's second-eldest son and former heir apparent, had been captured. It described seeing him inside Qaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli, which was later confirmed by video. Saif would then make a surprise appearance at the Rixos Hotel in central Tripoli, saying that his father was still in the capital and that the government had lured the rebels into a trap by entering the city.

The revelation that Saif remains free is not only a wakeup call that the rebels' control over the capital may be more tenuous than it first appeared - it is a bad omen for the Transitional National Council's reliability going forward. TNC chairman Mustafa Abdeljalil had personally confirmed that Saif was captured, saying that the rebel leadership had "given instructions to treat him well." It's not only the TNC with egg on its face: The International Criminal Court also announced that Saif had been captured, and was reportedly negotiating his transfer to The Hague.

To make matters worse, Saif isn't the only Qaddafi son that the rebels have had difficulty holding on to. Mohammad Qaddafi, who gave a phone interview to al Jazeera after being captured by the rebels that was interrupted by gunfire, would later escape with the help of Qaddafi loyalists.

Like the ending of any good horror movie, it appears the Qaddafi regime has resurrected itself for one last lunge at the rebels. In all likelihood, however, Saif and his cohort have lost too much territory and too many resources to pose a long-term threat to the TNC. The question of how the TNC could get such a crucial issue so wrong, however, will be with us for some time.

With the Libyan rebels now largely in control of Tripoli, and two of Muammar al-Qaddafi's sons in custody after a stunning final assault of the capital, the answer seems clear: absolutely.

Many have criticized U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy of "leading from behind" in Libya, but that strategy now seems utterly vindicated. It was Libyans themselves, with significant help from NATO, Qatar, and the UAE, who liberated their country from Qaddafi's grip -- a fact about which they are fiercely and justly proud. It required little from American taxpayers: As of Thursday, NATO operations had cost the United States around $1.1 billion, according to CFR's Micah Zenko -- a rounding error.

Of course, there will be problems. Not only is Tripoli not yet fully secure, but two regime strongholds -- Sirte and Sabha -- appear to remain in regime hands. Libyan state TV is still, incredibly, on the air. The "brother leader" remains at large, as do his sons Muatassim and Khamis Qaddafi, as well as his intelligence chief and brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi. They may try, Saddam-style, to mount an insurgency (though the speed of Qaddafi's collapse in Tripoli suggest they will find few takers).

The National Transitional Council won't have an easy time of governing, either. Not only is it not clear how much loyalty it commands among the fighters, but Libya has effectively no institutions: It was a state run for the benefit of the Qaddafi family and its shrinking circle of friends and allies. There is little history of political pluralism in Libya, and no doubt many grievances and cleavages lurk below the surface. (Reuters journalist Michael Georgy raises some important concerns to this effect here.) There will likely be intense disagreements over how to distribute Libya's oil wealth, how to account for the last 42 years of despotic rule, how to incorporate Islam into the state, and how to disarm and integrate the disparate fighting brigades that overthrew Qaddafi. There will be a temptation to overly centralize power, fueled by oil receipts concentrated in a few hands. Hopefully, any conflicts that arise will be resolved peacefully.

But these problems seem manageable over time, and it is in any case hard to imagine any Libyan government worse than Qaddafi, whose rule was not only deeply repressive and arbitrary at home but also destabilizing abroad. I disagree strongly with those, like CFR's Richard Haass, who would like to see some kind of foreign stabilization force -- not only is it not going to happen, but it's best if Libyans handle their own affairs as much as possible. They will make mistakes, but these will be their own mistakes. It's now their country once again.

And that's the best news about the fall of Qaddafi. It is the only case so far in which Arab revolutionaries themselves will get the chance to overhaul the old order. In Tunisia and Egypt, the old regimes are still very much in power -- at least until new elections are held and new constitutions are written. And even then, gaining full civilian control over the military and the security apparatus will be a years-long struggle. Libya has the chance to wipe the slate clean, and given what a terrible system is being overthrown, that alone seems like reason enough to celebrate.

Tehran responds to the ongoing violence in London:

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people, IRNA reported in the early hours of Tuesday.

Mehmanparast asked the British government to start dialogue with the protesters and to listen to their demands in order to calm the situation down.

The Iranian official also asked independent human rights organizations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.  

Well played, guys. 

The trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister and onetime Orange Revolution folk hero Yulia Tymoshenko took a dramatic turn today when she was taken into custody for contempt of court.  Her crime? Tweeting the witness:

According to the court decision, the reason for the arrest was "systematic violations by the accused, including impeding the questioning of witnesses."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Energy Minister Yuriy Boiko earlier made unexpected appearances as witnesses to back the prosecution's case at the trial.

She had exasperated the court by repeatedly mocking on Twitter the youthful judge in the trial. But the immediate cause of the arrest appeared to be her description of Azarov as "an old, fully-certified, corrupt man."

"Let's go now to the motion on execution by shooting," joked Tymoshenko in response to the request by the prosecution for her arrest. "Give her (the prosecutor) the revolver."

If convicted of the charges against her -- which involve the improper use of a stamp on a document addressed to the country's energy minister to indicate her decision had been approved by the entire cabinet -- she could be sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison, or at the very least, barred from contesting next year's parliamentary elections. 

One might be tempted to add her to the list of public figures who have recently found themselves in political hot water for ill-advised twitter activity, but it seems like she knew exactly what she was doing. 

Israel's Mossad intelligence agency carried out the assassinations of several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent months, which has led to "the virtual decimation of the Islamic republic's elite physicists," according to Germany's Der Spiegel. The latest victim -- 35-year-old physicist Darioush Rezaei -- was shot in the throat in front of his daughter's kindergarten in Tehran on July 23. The attackers fled on motorcycle. Iran said Rezaei was a student, not a nuclear weapons expert, but the Associated Press reported last week that international sources confirmed he was indeed involved with the country's nuclear weapons program, working specifically on a key component for detonating a nuclear bomb -- high-voltage switches.

According to Der Spiegel, Rezaei is the third scientist to die in the past year and a half (and the fourth to be targeted). The others were:

• In January 2010, the nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Mohammadi died when a remotely detonated bomb rigged to a motorcycle exploded next to his car. Western experts considered Mohammadi to be one of Iran's top nuclear scientists.
• On Nov. 29, 2010, unknown perpetrators committed two attacks which involved motorcyclists attaching explosive devices to their victims' cars while driving. Majid Shahriari, a professor of nuclear physics who specialized in neutron transport, which is relevant for making bombs, was killed when his car exploded. His wife was seriously injured in the attack.
• Fereidoun Abbasi was targeted in a simultaneous attack. Abbasi, an expert in nuclear isotope separation, noticed the suspicious motorcyclist, however, and he and his wife jumped out of the car. They were both injured in the explosion. After Abbasi recovered, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed him as one of Iran's vice presidents as well as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.

Iran's reaction to the deaths has been somewhat confused, say analysts. Perhaps due to embarrassment, some leaders have downplayed the accusations of outside countries being involved in past deaths. But after Rezaei's murder, Iran squarely blamed Israel, the United States, and their allies. The United States has denied any involvement. Israel has been somewhat coyer, according to Der Spiegel.

‘Israel is not responding,' Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said earlier this week when asked if his country had been involved in the latest slaying of an Iranian nuclear scientist. It didn't exactly sound like a denial, and the smile on his face suggested Israel isn't too bothered by suspicions that it is responsible...

Der Spiegel based its report on "sources in Israeli intelligence," who told the German magazine that the deaths are part of a campaign to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. In the past, analysts have speculated that the Stuxnet computer virus, which harmed computer systems that were part of Iran's nuclear program, was developed and deployed by Israel (and possibly the United States). The virus reportedly shut down the country's main nuclear reactor at Bushehr last year, before Iran was able to get the damage under control.

He drives sweet cars. He tranquilizes tigers. He rides horses bare-chested.

Yes, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is a man's man, and it's driving the ladies crazy, if two pro-Putin stunts from the last week are any guide. The first came from Putin's Army, a group of young, female Putin supporters who formed on VKontakte, Russia's version of Facebook. They released a professionally-made video calling on "young, smart, and beautiful" girls to tear off their shirts and back a Putin campaign for the presidency. (After all, how else would you show your support? Elections?) But they may have been one-upped by a similar group called I Really Do Like Putin, who staged a bikini car wash in downtown Moscow. The women gave free car washes for Russian-made cars to show their support for Russia's domestic car industry.

Russia Today presents the footage, followed by an attempt at banter from the anchors that almost upstages the car wash footage:

With elections a year away in Russia, the campaign wing of Putin's establishment are relying on an unorthodox PR strategy to rebrand the party and win more (non-rigged) votes. Posters up now in central Moscow depict President Dmitri Medvedev as an armor-clad superhero, spoofing the new movie Captain America by calling Medvedev "Captain Russia: First Ruler." But it's not clear who's behind the Putin's Army video. Though speculation abounds, Putin has not declared his candidacy for the presidency yet, and Kremlin authorities have strongly denied involvement.

Of course, if women tearing off their shirts doesn't work, there's always Putin's chest. What a stud.