Those hoping for an Iran-Israel Judo showdown will be disappointed after a "critical digestive system infection" prevented Jahvaad Majoob -- the only Iranian athlete scheduled to compete alongside an Israeli -- from boarding the plane to London. Yet, from the North Korean flag mix up to the ongoing controversy over a Saudi Arabian judo fighter's headscarf, those itching for some geopolitical proxy battles will have their fill. Here are another seven matches to watch:

Table Tennis: North Korea vs. South Korea

August 3, 2:00 pm EST

For big tension on a very small court, viewers should tune in to the first found of men's team table tennis where North Korea will face off against its archenemy South Korea. The nations remain technically at war despite a July 27, 1953 armistice, and the demilitarized zone remains one of the most dangerous borders in the world with Pyongyang threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames." In this match at least, paddles are certain to fly.

Lightweight Double Sculls: South China smackdown

July 29 5:40 am EST

Poor Germany is stuck in the middle of China, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea in the women's lightweight double sculls. As the Asian nations squabble over islands in the East and South China Seas  and the potential for naval war looms, the title of best rower may mean more than just a medal.

Handball: Britain vs. Argentina

August 2, 11:15 am EST      

Despite insisting in February that her country would not boycott the games, Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced this week she will not attend the opening ceremony. Her absence is a protest against Britain's claims to the Falklands, which Argentine maintains at their rightful territory despite their military defeat in 1982. As the island nears a referendum to determine its political status, Argentinean and British Olympic teams will have the chance to fight it out on men's handball court. If the losing country isn't satisfied, it will get another chance -- they're scheduled to play in field hockey too.

Pair Rowing: Greece vs. Germany

July 28, 7:00 am EST

Blood pressure will be high as Greece's Nikolaos Gkountoulas and Apostolos Gkountoulas race Germany's Anton Braun and Felix Drahotta in the men's pair rowing race. As debtor faces creditor, viewers should hope it'll be a repeat of the 2012 Euro Cup. Team loyalty got political when creative German fans mocked the Greeks "Without Angie, you wouldn't be here." Not to be beat, the Greeks struck low: "We'll never pay you back. We'll never pay you back." The question remains-if Greece wins, who gets the gold?

Soccer: U.S. vs. North Korea

July 31, 12:15 pm EST

Opponents on every issue ranging from human rights to nuclear weapons, the United States and North Korea will face off in match 15 of the women's group G. Though the United States won the FIFA 2008 Championship title after defeating North Korea in the final round, their 2010 quarterfinal losses prevented a rematch. It remains to be seen if young leader Kim Jong Un is as harsh as his dad when it comes to international soccer failure.

Fencing: China vs. Japan

August 5, 5:30 am EST

While Beijing and Tokyo diplomats have so far limited themselves to lobbing rhetorical barbs over the latest territorial row, fencers Kenta Chida, Ryo Miyake, Lei Sheng and Jianfei Ma will face off in the men's team foil. Though fencing is lauded as a game of strategy, not force, the fighters' long history is certainly bloody. 

Basketball: U.S. vs. China

August 5, 11:45 am EST

The U.S. women's basketball team faces China in game 52. U.S. - Sino relations have begun to sour as the United States pivots its forces to Asia and populist rhetoric has  entered the U.S. presidential race. Bruised by an embarrassing 62-100 loss to the U.S. in May, seventh-ranked China is thirsty for revenge.

The first six months of this year have been the hottest on record since 1895. In June alone, we smashed more than 3,000 temperature records across the United States. It was the 328th consecutive month in which the average global temperature exceeded the 20th century mean. As Bill McKibben put it, "the odds of [that] occurring by simple chance were [one in] 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

But if that much is obvious to most people who don't harbor deep suspicions about the value of science, the rate at which global warming is changing life on this planet may still come as a shock. Not only are the 3.7 million Americans living within a few feet of the coastline already experiencing more frequent flooding -- the result of rising sea levels -- but unusual weather patterns are likely to make food more expensive, and fast.

Figures released on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture predict substantial increases in food prices as a result of weather patterns in the Midwest -- the worst drought in nearly half a century.

The prices of chicken, beef, dairy, and eggs are all supposed to rise between three and five percentage points this year. Corn futures have already spiked nearly 50 percent over the last month to roughly $8.00 a bushel on fears that crops will be ruined. (The Department of Agriculture estimated that 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop is in poor or very poor condition as a result of the drought.)

And it's not just the U.S. market that will be affected. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of corn -- exporting millions of tons every year to countries like Japan, Egypt, and China. In 2000, for example, Egypt imported 76 percent of its corn from the United States.

In 2011, revolutions erupted across the Arab world at least in part because of rising food prices. Recall that protesters in Tunisia wielded loaves of bread and Egypt suffered a spate of "bread riots" when grain prices spiked between 2007 and 2008. Now, more than a year after the uprisings, many Arab economies are struggling to get back on their feet. Significant increases in global food prices might well plunge them back into chaos.

But bad weather and worse crop yields in the U.S. are not the only forces driving grain prices skyward. Southern Europe, which typically supplies 16 percent of global corn exports, is having its own ecological disaster. Temperatures in the band that runs from eastern Italy to the Black Sea averaged about five degrees higher than normal last month, according to Bloomberg, baking corn crops that are in the critical pollination phase. Cedic Weber, whose company advises about 5,000 farmers in Europe, told Bloomberg, "in Europe we'll need to import a lot of wheat and corn...That's just adding to the problems we've got everywhere."

That doesn't bode well for the Egypts and the Tunisias of the world -- or for any other net importer of food, for that matter. As it happens, that's practically all of the Middle East and Africa, and much of Southeast Asia.

Spain's King Juan Carlos is showing solidarity with his financially-distressed country by announcing salary cuts for the royal family today. As civil servants protest pay cuts and the government struggles to stabilize the precarious economy, the royals have decided that the king and prince will take a 7-percent reduction in their salary, according to Spanish news sources. This year, King Juan Carlos and his son Prince Felipe will have to live on approximately $350,000 and $160,000 respectively.

With nearly one-quarter of the workforce currently unemployed, Spain's austerity measures are hitting the public hard. But while Madrid burned (figuratively, thankfully) under peril of financial collapse, the royal family drew ire this spring when the King was injured on an elephant hunt in Botswana.

Calls for the end of the monarchy and return of the republic ensued. Of course, with an annual budget of only $10 million, doing away with the entire monarchy would amount to savings of about .008 percent of the cost of the deal to bail out Spain's banks.

According to El Pais, the cuts to the royal budget, which were decided upon in April, will affect only the protocol budget and 11 senior officials of the monarchy. Frustration with the royals had already compelled the government to release information about the King's finances in December of 2011.

The royal family's self-imposed austerity measure will also include a 7-percent cut to protocol funds, which cover the royal party costs, for the entire royal family. How the news will play among the financially distressed Spanish public remains unclear.

The International Criminal Court handed down its first sentence on Tuesday to Congolese war criminal Thomas Lubanga for the use of child soldiers.  After over three years at trial, and following his conviction in March of this year, the court issued a 14-year sentence, with one judge dissenting on the grounds that the nature of the crimes warranted a longer sentence.  The court has not yet decided where Lubanga will serve out his term.

This is the court's first conviction and sentencing after nearly a decade in existence. But others are in the works, including the first head of state to be tried, Cote D'Ivoire's former president, Laurent Gbagbo, who was transferred to the ICC for trial in November 2011.  (Sudan's current president Omar al-Bashir has also been indicted but has yet to be arrested). Gbagbo is charged with crimes against humanity, including murder and rape, for acts committed after the 2010 election when electoral disputes erupted into violence as Gbagbo refused to relinquish the presidency. The next step in his trial, the confirmation of charges, is expected  in August 2012.

Under the tenure of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo -- who was replaced earlier this month by new Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda -- the court has issued open (public) indictments against 28 individuals from seven countries -- all in Africa.  The list is a who's who of notorious political leaders, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Saif al-Qaddafi, and military officials. The Court relies on national law enforcement, Interpol and the UN to arrest those charged, and only five of those indicted are currently in custody.  15 cases are currently before the Court, though trials are only scheduled for those in the Court's custody (some pre-trial proceedings are underway in absentia).

The Court's summer schedule shows proceedings will continue against the Central African Republic's Jean Pierre Bemba accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes; Sudan's Abdallah Banda and Saleh Jerbo for war crimes, including attacks on peacekeepers, and Gbagbo. Nearly a decade elapsed between Lubanga's crimes and his sentencing by the court, so don't expect speedy proceedings for any of them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't choose his foreign visits lightly. On May 31, Putin makes his first trip abroad since being inaugurated for a third term as president on May 7, to neighboring Belarus. The visit is highly symbolic of Russia's desire to be the leader in the post-Soviet space, as well as Putin's continued support for the authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko (also known as "Europe's Last Dictator"). Afterwards, Putin will head to Germany and France, Russia's major trading partners in the EU. After the European visits, Putin will fly to speak with Uzbek ruler Islam Karimov in Tashkent, to Beijing, and finally to Astana, Kazakhstan, to meet with long-time ruler Nursultan Kazarbayev; countries central to Putin's vision of a Eurasian Union.

Earlier in the month, Putin suddenly declined to attend the G8 Summit in Camp David, under pretext that he was too busy forming a new Cabinet of Ministers, sending instead Prime Minister Medvedev. The move was widely seen as a snub to President Obama, as Putin avoided a meeting with the president, and sidestepped making the U.S. his first foreign visit. A few days later, Obama announced he would not be able to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Vladivostok this September, because it conflicted with the Democratic Party convention.

Putin has now also taken the opportunity to snub the UK, by announcing he will not attend the opening of the London 2012 Olympics, even though the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held on Russian territory in Sochi. Likely, Medvedev will once again be sent in his stead. Russian-British relations have been tense since the 2006 poisoning of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. Moreover the West has been pressuring Russian officials over the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while he was detained in prison. Putin's foreign trip destinations are by no means accidental.

Meanwhile, not everyone in Belarus is enthusiastic for Putin's visit to their country. (More here in Russian.)

Members of Turkey's Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) proposed a more decentralized Turkish government at a Brookings Institution panel on Tuesday.

"We don't believe that a centralized system of government that manages all of these different ethnic groups and communities is viable and productive," said BDP chairman Selahattin Demirtas. "We see this [decentralized government] as the most viable alternative."

Demirtas also emphasized that he is not calling for a completely independent Kurdish entity:

"We are not talking about the Kurdish people [living] in a region called Kurdistan."

Though he stressed that the BDP has no "organic relationship" with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which the Turkish government classifies as a terrorist organization,  Demirtas noted that the PKK is not the problem, but a result of the problem:

"We believe the PKK is part of the reality of this conflic, and we believe that they should be communicated with.... We don't see the PKK as a problem, we see it as a result of the problem."

Ahmet Türk of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) agreed, and urged the audience to consider that the Turkish government's longstanding policy of denying its Kurdish citizens their civil rights might be the root of the problem.

"You don't provide Kurds an opportunity to express themselves, so the PKK emerged."

While Demirtas made sure to explain that his party does not condone violence, he did take issue with the Turkish government's definition of terrorism:

"This means of violence that is being used has to be understood correctly. The simple, traditional [definition of] terrorism cannot be used here. This is a 100-year-old conflict.... As long as you are unable to define it correctly, the wrong definition will cause misunderstanding."

BDP member and Turkish parliamentarian Gülten Kisanak argued that the PKK's numbers are evidence that the government must rethink its position toward the organization:

"According to data provided by the Turkish chief of staff, since 1978 40,000 Kurds have participated in the PKK and lost their life in fighting the struggle. I believe these numbers cannot be seen as terrorism in that sense."

The BDP may support President Abdullah Gül's call for a new "flexible and freedom-based" constitution, but its forward-thinking notions about the PKK isn't going to win it many points with Ankara.

With Greece's national parliamentary election set for May  6, the crisis-ridden country may have a new threat to worry about: the extremist fringe vote. Due to popular frustration with the country's current economic situation, it is "thought likely" that left- and right-wing political fringe parties will make gains among voters at the expense of mainstream political parties like the conservative New Democracy party and the socialist Pasok party.

But as the New York Times reported yesterday, the Greek ultranationalist group Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi group that has broadened its appeal by "capitalizing on fears that illegal immigration has grown out of control at a time when the economy is bleeding jobs," may very well receive more than the 3 percent of votes needed to enter Parliament. This is bad news for Greek society, which University of Athens political scientist Nicos Demertzis calls a "a laboratory of extreme-right-wing evolution." Though no Golden Party member has ever held national office, party leader Nikos Michaloliakos was elected to the Athens City Council in 2010.

Golden Dawn joins the ranks of dozens of nationalist-populist fringe parties all over Europe whose enflamed euroskeptic reactions to the "cuts to wages and pensions imposed in order to secure aid from the EU and the IMF" have resulted in political shakeups. The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) , led by Geert Wilders, won 24 of the 150 parliamentary seats in the 2010 general election, and came in second in the Netherlands in the 2009 European Parliament elections.

Golden Dawn also espouses a particularly anti-German sentiment:

''It's right to hate Germany, because it is still the leader of the banksters and the European Union,'' Mr. Michaloliakos, the group's leader, said, using a derogatory term for bankers.

Of course, Golden Dawn is still transitioning from a street-fighting group  into a political party, but it remains to be seen whether it can  become a well-oiled machine like France's National Front, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is still campaigning for the presidency. Even so, its increasing popularity is evidence of a dangerous trend that only promises to worsen. At least we have Greek left-wing anarchist groups like the Cosnpiracy of Fire Nuclei, Nikola Tesla Commandos, and Immediate Intervention Hood-wearers to keep us properly entertained.

Above, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will give the keynote address at Davos tomorrow, receives an effigy of a golden goose during Germany's annual carnival season. What you can't see is the crowd of Greek pensioners hovering in the background, plotting to steal the goose in the hopes of extracting magical golden eggs from within it.

Italian fashion house United Colours of Benetton has launched a shock and awe advertising campaign called Unhate to boost its lagging brand recognition. Not a huge deal, just a bunch of unauthorized doctored photos of world leaders kissing each other on the lips. Obama smooching Hugo Chávez, for example.

In another photo he kisses Hu Jintao. Last year, the White House called foul when Weatherproof featured their jacket-clad Commander in Chief without permission in one of the company's New York billboards. But I'm sure they'll be fine with this.

Another photo shows presidents Kim Jong-Il and Lee Myung-bak kissing. In Benetton's world, the fact that they preside over one of the most contentious borders on the planet just adds to their latent steaming affection for one other.

Here's the mission statement for the Unhate campaign from the Benetton website: 

Object: the aim of contrasting the culture of hatred and promoting closeness between peoples, faiths, cultures, and the peaceful understanding of each other's motivations... The central theme is the kiss, the most universal symbol of love, between world political and religious leaders  

Someone over there must have picked up on our Merkozy story, too, as France and Germany's leading man and lady lock lips in another Unhate photograph. Also of note is the Prime Minister of Israel rounding first base with the President of the Palestinian Authority.

Will it sell more scarfs and clutches? Maybe. But it most definitely will incite a response from the catholic church whose pope is shown cozying up to the mustache of the sheikh of the al-Alzhar mosque.

(Update: prediction confirmed. But we've still got the Pope photo below... for now.)

Here are more:

The protestors of London's "Occupy" chapter have chosen to camp out in the forecourt of St. Paul's cathedral. The site of the tent city was originally to be further down the road at the home of the London Stock Exchange and rightful equivalent to Wall Street, but Paternoster Square is privately owned property and, right now, it's heavily guarded. But the cathedral locale has become a flashpoint of a larger, unexpected controversy: a schism in the Anglican Church.

A lawsuit has been filed by the City of London Corporation (CLC) to evict the protestors on the grounds that they are blocking traffic. While the demonstrators aren't actually occupying the streets or, more specifically, the highways which are the jurisdiction of the CLC's Planning and Transportation Committee responsible for the suit, committee member Michael Wellbank explained that "encampment on a busy thoroughfare clearly impacts the rights of others."

In fact, the iconic St. Paul's Cathedral closed its doors to worshippers and tourists last week due to safety concerns for the first time since WWII and joined the CLC's lawsuit last Friday. But since the court action could lead to the forceful removal of protesters, and ultimately violence, the cathedral proceeds without three of its clergymen who have already resigned in protest. One of them, Canon Chancellor Giles Frase, explained his decision to the Guardian:

St. Paul was a tentmaker. If you looked around and you tried to recreate where Jesus would be born -- for me, I could imagine Jesus being born in the camp. It is not about my sympathies or what I believe about the camp. I support the right to protest and in a perfect world we could have negotiated. But our legal advice was that this would have implied consent. The church cannot answer peaceful protest with violence.

Church leaders seem divided between general sympathy for the protesters' goals, and a desire to have them advocate those goals somewhere else. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams addressed the controversy for the first time today,  saying, "The urgent larger issues raised by the protesters at St. Paul's remain very much on the table and we need -- as a Church and as society as a whole -- to work to make sure that they are properly addressed."

Meanwhile, the bishop of London, Rev. Richard Chartres, was called a hypocrite by angry protestors as he tried to walk a fine line with his remarks supporting both their causes and their peacefully disbanding. On Sunday, he told the crowd, "You have a notice saying, ‘What would Jesus do? That is a question for me as well." 

This past weekend's (already delayed) summit to prevent the European debt crisis from spiraling out of control and plunging Europe into recession proved divisive and inconclusive. French and German officials scolded Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for not doing enough to reduce his country's debt, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy effectively told British Prime Minister David Cameron to either adopt the euro (a rather shaky proposition at the moment) or "shut up" about Europe's economic woes.

Given all that, EU leaders seem surprisingly optimistic about their ability to strike a deal by their next summit on Wednesday -- an agreement that will likely involve measures to cut Greece's debt as the country continues to flounder, recapitalize European banks as they struggle with exposure to Greek debt, and beef up the eurozone bailout fund as Spain and Italy waver.

"Progress has been made," Sarkozy proclaimed on Saturday. "Between now and Wednesday a solution must be found, a structural solution, an ambitious solution, a definitive solution." Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, added, "We all have a sense that the crisis in the euro zone is reaching very worrisome levels. We have to be happy that the decision-making progress has gained some momentum, although we can't say we have reached the finish line today."

Markets are responding positively to these glimmers of hope. But the words -- however heartening -- are hard to believe. After all, we've heard these back-against-the-wall, do-or-die pledges of a comprehensive and decisive solution to the debt crisis before. Let's take a look at some of the other statements that have come out of what seems like a perpetual procession of emergency Brussels summits:

Date: May 9, 2010

Action: Shortly after bailing out Greece, European officials create a €440 billion European Financial Stability Facility (ESFS) that can lend money to troubled eurozone countries by selling bonds (this is the fund that European officials now say needs more firepower).

Assurances: "The Council and the Member States have decided today on a comprehensive package of measures to preserve financial stability in Europe," European finance ministers crow in a statement. A month later, the European Investment Bank's Philippe Maystadt says the creation of the fund "constitutes evidence that, when the stakes are high, member states -- together with the European Commission and the E.I.B. -- can sit down together and work for the common interest, within a tight deadline."

Date: December 16, 2010

Action: European leaders agree to create a permanent European bailout fund called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to replace the ESFS in 2013.

Assurances: "We are ready to do everything that is necessary to ensure the financial stability of the euro area," European Commission President José Manuel Barroso declares. European officials promise to unveil a "comprehensive package" to resolve the eurozone debt crisis once and for all in March.

Date: March 25, 2011

Action: A political crisis in Portugal prevents European officials from unveiling a package that meets market expectations. Officials delay increasing the European rescue fund but do strike deals on how to fund the ESM and better coordinate economic policy.

Assurances: "We adopted today a comprehensive package of measures which should allow us to turn the corner of the financial crisis and continue our path towards sustainable growth," the European Council says in a statement.

Date: July 21, 2011

Action: European leaders agree to reduce Greece's debt burden and grant new powers to the region's rescue fund. 

Assurances: "We improved Greek debt sustainability, we took measures to stop the risk of contagion and finally we committed to improve the eurozone's crisis management" European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announces after the meeting. "When European leaders say that we will do ‘everything what is required' to save the eurozone, it is very simple: We mean it," he adds.

Given the political and logistical obstacles, we wonder if we'll be adding October 26, 2011 to the list of failed attempts to arrive at a workable solution.

It is perhaps inevitable, given the facts of the case, that Norway's worst massacre in recent memory will lead to soul-searching questions about immigration. A blond-haired, blue-eyed sociopath -- who has railed against "Islamic colonization" -- bombed government buildings and gunned down young people at a summer retreat (officials have yet to release information about how many of the victims were Muslim and whether they were specifically targeted by the gunman). But will his actions change anything politically?

Norway's Muslim population has been growing in recent years -- estimates say there are about 100,000 Muslims in the country -- and with that growth has come the kind of backlash many of its European neighbors have seen. Immigration and asylum rules have been tightened. And the anti-immigrant Progress Party has risen to become the second largest in parliament. Its leader, Siv Jensen, has spoken of "a form of sneak-Islamization in this society and we must put a stop to that." (Last week's mass killer, Anders Behring Breivik, was once a member of the party, though he has also criticized it for not going far enough).

Analysts say politicians are going to be careful talking about immigration in the wake of the attack. "In the short term, the parties are not going to touch the immigration issue.… I think it's going to make politicians quite cautious in their wording, their rhetoric," Hanne Marthe Narud, a political science professor at Oslo University, told Reuters.

Some Muslim leaders have said the violent outburst could help bring Muslims and Christians closer together. "I think minorities will think of themselves as more Norwegian.… Religion, ethnicity, color will go into the background. The Norwegian identity will be strengthened," Mehtab Afsar, the Islamic Council of Norway's general-secretary, told Reuters. "We are standing shoulder to shoulder with our Christian brothers and sisters in Norway."

Politically, it's less clear what the outcome of the attack will be. Raymond Johansen, the ruling Labor Party's general secretary, said yesterday that the shooting "will impact Norway and the political debate in Norway for many years." Does that mean bad news for the anti-immigrant Progress Party? Not necessarily, say political analysts. Local elections are set for September, and the Progress Party will "have to keep a low profile on the immigration issue in the upcoming election campaign simply to avoid being associated with the terrorist attack," Todal Jenssen, a Norwegian analyst, told Bloomberg News. But, the party is unlikely to see a major loss of political support since national traumas like last week's rampage "tend to breed cultural fears, which project onto immigrants or the unknown," Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Center for International Political Economy in Brussels, told Bloomberg. "The fantastic show of support for open society and the values of democracy will inevitably fade away and be overshadowed by suspicion of the unknown." As shocking as it is to believe, the Progress Party could actually benefit from Breivik's attack.

One Eritrean immigrant said he wasn't worried about any negative consequences: "The most important thing is what the majority thinks. And the majority is fine with us."

Among the many questions that remain over why and how a gunman was able to kill at least 76 people in Norway on Friday, perhaps nothing is more infuriating than the cushy fate that seems to await Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect. If you're going to go on a maniacal murder rampage and then not have the decency to include yourself in the body count -- Norway is the place to do it.

Norway takes the mantra of rehabilitation to an extreme. Not only are there no death sentences, there aren't life sentences. The maximum Breivik can face is 21 years (not per murder, but in total). Yes, there is a caveat that says a prisoner deemed to still be a threat can have his sentence expanded in five year blocks -- but in a very real sense, that means he will come up for parole every five years for the rest of his life -- or until he is no longer seen as a threat. Few killers in Norway serve more than 14 years.

The Norwegian prison system takes seriously the philosophy that inmates should be treated as humanely as possible and that jail sentences should be seen less as punishment than as an opportunity to reintegrate troubled people back into society. According to the numbers, this approach has some benefits -- only 20 percent of prisoners there eventually return to prison, as opposed to 50 - 60 percent in the United States and Britain. Violent crime is much lower than in other societies.

"Both society and the individual simply have to put aside their desire for revenge, and stop focusing on prisons as places of punishment and pain," one prison official said last year. "Depriving a person of their freedom for a period of time is sufficient punishment in itself without any need whatsoever for harsh prison conditions."

That's a fair point, but can the theory hold in a case like this? Will Breivik be seen as a person who can be rehabilitated and returned to society? And if not, what does the soft Norwegian prison system mean for him?

Wifi and Rock climbing walls

Norway doesn't have many jails to choose from (there are only 3,300 incarcerated prisoners in the whole country, compared to 2.5 million in the United States). Last year, Norway inaugurated its newest prison -- a campus that embodies its principles of rehabbing the worst of society.

With prisoners that include rapists and murderers, Halden Prison -- the second largest in the country and the most secure facility -- looks more like a sleepaway camp than a traditional prison -- architects say they purposely tried to avoid an "institutional feel." When it opened, some news accounts called it the "most humane" prison in the world. According to a Time magazine story last year:

Halden is spread over 75 acres (30 hectares) of gently sloping forest in southeastern Norway. The facility boasts amenities like a sound studio, jogging trails and a freestanding two-bedroom house where inmates can host their families during overnight visits. Unlike many American prisons, the air isn't tinged with the smell of sweat and urine. Instead, the scent of orange sorbet emanates from the "kitchen laboratory" where inmates take cooking courses.... To avoid an institutional feel, exteriors are not concrete but made of bricks, galvanized steel and larch; the buildings seem to have grown organically from the woodlands. And while there is one obvious symbol of incarceration -- a 20-ft. (6 m) concrete security wall along the prison's perimeter -- trees obscure it, and its top has been rounded off.

Prisoners' cells include flat screen TVs, minifridges, and long windows that let in more sunlight. Prisoners share kitchens and living rooms with sofas and coffee tables. There's a state-of-the-art gym with a climbing wall and expensive artwork commissioned for the prison. At other maximum security prisons, inmates have access to the internet, even in their jail cells.

Prison guards don't carry guns. And they are encouraged to be outgoing and friendly toward the inmates -- eating together and playing sports to "create a sense of family," one official said.

Other lower-security prisons in Norway (where violent criminals tend to end up after a few years) are even cushier -- with tennis courts, horseback riding, beaches, and ski trails (prisoners can participate in ski-jumping competitions in the winter at one facility). At an island prison (which includes murders and rapists as well) inmates work on a farm and live in "comfortable wooden houses shared between four to six inmates."

Societal criticism of prison life is somewhat faint (most of the criticism in the past has had to do with the fear that cushy jails could lure more organized crime to the country (one politician argued that some of the nicer prisons should "only be for Norwegian criminals.")

Time noted last summer that: "Norway's cultural values and attitudes toward crime mean the public sees no need to push for tougher penalties or harsher prisons."

The article also noted, "In Norway, acts of extreme violence are seen as aberrant events, not symptoms of national decay."

This unprecedented case could make Norwegians reexamine their thoughts on incarceration. For now, Breivik has been remanded to custody for eight weeks (he'll be held in isolation for the first month -- meaning no outside communication with anyone besides his lawyers). After that, if convicted, the alleged mass killer of at least 76 people may end up in a prison with a lovely rock-climbing wall to keep himself occupied.