Question: How do you discipline bad cops who litter, arrive late, park where they aren't supposed to, and commit other misdemeanors?

Answer: Make them wear Hello Kitty armbands as punishment.

In Thailand, police officers who behave badly will now have to wear a hot pink armband—picturing Hello Kitty sitting on two hearts—as a mark of shame. A police official explained the rationale by saying: "[Hello] Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps."

The only concession is that officers receiving the armband punishment will have to stay in the division office all day. They won't have to wear Hello Kitty in public.

If non-Koreans know the name of one Korean food, it's kimchi. Every year, South Korea exports some 35,000 tons of the traditional Korean dish, which is made of fermented vegetables—usually cabbage or radishes. You can buy it by the truckload at Korean-American megastores like Super H-Mart.

iStockPhoto.com

Yet, concerned that foreigners just aren't eating enough kimchi, the Korean government made like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and created a kimchi alert system to make it easier for consumers to tell what kind of kimchi—mild, slightly hot, moderately hot, very hot, or extremely hot—is right for them.

Ian Waldie/Getty Images

Imagine that First Lady Laura Bush had died in the fall of 2005. (I realize this is morbid, but stick with me.) Now imagine that U.S. President George W. Bush, a scant 19 months later, announced to the nation that he would be getting remarried—not to just anybody, but to the ex-wife of Laura's younger brother. How would that play in the red states? Probably not well.

For the citizens of Malaysia, no imagination is necessary. The country's widower prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has fallen in love again. He'll soon wed Jeanne Abdullah, a longtime friend and, incidentally, the ex-wife of his late wife's brother.

By all accounts, the Malaysian people are elated. Malaysian Minister of Works S. Samy Vellu has gone so far as to pen a poem in celebration of the happy couple. An excerpt follows:

A mountain needs a valley to be complete;
the valley does not make
the mountain less, but more;
and the valley is more a valley because
it has a mountain towering over it.

JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images

Reporting on the Russia-Burma nuclear deal Christine covered yesterday has been somewhat inconsistent, so I'd like to clarify some details for Passport readers.

First, it is unclear what sort of uranium fuel the facility will require. Some reports say 20 percent enriched; others say under 20 percent (civilian reactors generally use 3-5 percent). Since any level of enrichment above 20 percent is usable in a weapon, this is a crucial distinction.

Second, the size of the reactor doesn't matter if Burma wants a uranium bomb—it could only serve to justify purchases of highly enriched uranium. IAEA safeguards and Russian controls on the fuel supply will be the real barriers to a Burmese nuclear weapons program.

One thing to keep in mind: Talks over the reactor are "only preliminary." As Christine said: Watch closely.

ELIZABETH GLASSANOS/FP Original

Cambodia is finally taking a baby step to address its ugly history. A new book by Khamboly Dy, an expert on Cambodia's genocide, came out on Wednesday. Dy's A History of Democratic Kampuchea is significant because it's the first history book written by a Cambodian on the period from 1975 to 1979, when the Khmer Rouge terrorized the population and caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people. However, it was only approved for use a "reference text" in schools, so Cambodia's government—which is led by people with Khmer Rouge pasts—isn't exactly embracing truth and reconciliation with open arms. But it's a start.

You can download a PDF of the book here from the Documentation Center of Cambodia's website. Eighty-four pages are in English, with the other 125 pages in Khmer.

It begins eloquently:

Many Cambodians have tried to put their memories of the regime behind them and move on. But we cannot progress—much less reconcile with ourselves and others—until we have confronted the past and understand both what happened and why it happened. Only with this understanding can we truly begin to heal.

ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

China is the latest country to be hoarding its bird flu samples, according to a Reuters report today. China has not shared any human H5N1 samples of bird flu with World Health Organization-accredited laboratories since April 2006—even though it has seen five more human infections—leading to fears that the country may be obstructing global efforts to track changes in the virus and fight it. Indonesia has also been refusing to share its bird flu samples with the WHO (opting for a private deal instead), and only consented to resume sample-sharing after reaching an agreement with the WHO after a two-day crisis meeting last month in Jakarta. The meeting concluded with the WHO promising to develop a new mechanism for sample-sharing that would be fairer to poorer countries.

Indonesia had stopped sharing samples because, the country's officials argued, the samples led to expensive vaccinations, which Indonesia then found difficult to afford. China's decision, however, has less to do with drug access than with protecting the samples for its own homegrown laboratories. But China also resents the way scientists and health experts in the developed world monopolize drug production and knowledge. Chinese scientists were particularly irked when, after sending samples to the WHO in 2004, their analyses and work were published in a journal by foreigners—with no credit given to the Chinese scientists. The foreign researchers have since apologized, but the experience has clearly impacted China's views about collaborating with international experts. Even so, Henk Bekedam, the WHO's representative in China, is confident that China will soon resume its sample-sharing. But without guarantees of the same nature as Indonesia's, there's good reason to be skeptical.

Paul Bronstein/Getty Images

The march of democracy has hit yet another road bump. Hopes had been that presidential elections in tiny Timor-Leste would help the country move on from widespread violence and disorder that had broken out last year. Sadly, that looks not to be the case. Five opposition parties are disputing the results and the party leading at the polls has made accusations of "manipulation"—before any results have even been announced. Heavy United Nations support and the sign-off of the EU on the fairness of the process have not put these concerns to rest. More violence before a likely run-off election is possible.

The importance of the elections go far beyond the well-being of the country's estimated one million inhabitants, most of them desperately poor. In 1999, when the territory then known as East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia, it was seen as a test case for the ability of the international community to help along political and economic development. The U.N. ran the place as a fiefdom for three years and maintained a peacekeeping contingent there through 2005. Whatever lessons it tried to teach obviously didn't take. Now, the U.N. is back, albeit in a supporting role and with the help of Australian troops. And still, there seems to be no obvious path to political stability or even the beginnings of economic development.

It's a sobering thought that the best of intentions and the support of the entire international community have not been enough to help a country with a population roughly the same size as San Diego's. 

 In 2001, atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen theorized that particles suspended in the atmosphere (dust and soot) were blocking up to 15 percent of the sunlight meant to reach the ground in many parts of Asia. Back then, this was considered to be a bad thing—but today, aerosols are hailed as a potential foil to global warming. The map above is a NASA image generated by two of their Earth-imaging satellites, Terra and Aqua. The dark orange areas represent high concentrations of airborne particles, while the lighter areas depict clearer atmosphere. The grey areas have not been mapped. 

NASA notes:

The global aerosol patterns in 2006 were similar to previous years. High aerosol concentrations were observed over western and central Africa (a mixture of dust from the Sahara and smoke from agricultural fires), northern India (where urban and industrial  pollution concentrates against the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains), and northeastern China (urban and industrial pollution). Aerosol optical depth appeared unusually high in 2006 over Indonesia, probably as a result of increased fire activity there. The image also shows the impact of fires in Russia’s boreal forest, which spread aerosols into the Arctic.

The high res version is splendid.

A Michigan couple got a macabre surprise recently when they received two packages that they thought contained the table they'd just bought on eBay. Instead, inside the bubble wrap, they found a human liver and ear that had been culled from corpses in China and plasticized. As the New York Times reported last August, Chinese companies are churning out body parts, mostly for museums:

Inside a series of unmarked buildings, hundreds of Chinese workers, some seated in assembly line formations, are cleaning, cutting, dissecting, preserving and re-engineering human corpses, preparing them for the international museum exhibition market.

Thankfully, it sounds as if the delivery service DHL is to blame for the mistake and that eBay is still refusing to allow the sale of body parts. The liver and ear were bound for a medical research lab nearby. Police think another two dozen plasticized body parts from China are on their way to wrong addresses across Michigan. So, if you're expecting a parcel, you may want to double check the return address before opening.

TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP

The United Nations-sponsored international tribunal charged with bringing the remnants of the Khmer Rouge to justice looks set to collapse, following the latest round of dithering by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Despite near universal support for the tribunal in Cambodia and in the international community, Hun Sen has trotted out the old red herring that has doomed so many similar efforts: concern over the tribunal's threat to national sovereignty.

Exactly whom is Hun Sen protecting? Himself? He was, after all, a mid-level soldier for the regime. But he ultimately defected. Old Khmer Rouge cronies? Quite possibly, given that Sen's ruling party, the CPP, is a notorious haven for former members of the Pol Pot regime. Der Spiegel offers another plausible explanation: 

[Hun Sen's] delay tactics may not just be a function of his powerful friends. The Khmer Rouge had support from China, and current Chinese leaders have made it clear to their tiny neighbor that Beijing's role in the 1970s bloodbath shouldn't be revisited.

If the tribunal does collapse and Chinese pressure on Hun Sen is seen as the culprit, international outrage will probably be minimal. After all, amid breathless reports on the country's GDP and the occasional bit about urban-rural stratification, China's ghastly human rights record doesn't get nearly as much play in the press as it did in the 1990s.

Although neither as famous nor as cuddly as the koala (yes, koala, not koala bear), Australia's tasmanian devils are a national icon, even inspiring the Warner Brothers cartoon character Taz.

But for at least a decade, a deadly cancer has been killing off these native creatures to the point where the tassie devil is now officially set to become an endangered species. The cancer, Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), causes lesions usually around the mouth of the devils, which then develop into tumors that make it impossible for the animals to eat. Eventually they die of starvation. DFTD is killing almost three out of four of the animals, such that the total population of wild tasmanian devils has declined from 200,000 ten years ago to around 50,000 today.

Scientists still don't know what causes DFTD, or how to detect it before it strikes. While there is some hope that isolated populations may be able to escape the tumors, many researchers fear that this might be the end of the natural population of tasmanian devils on the island of Tasmania. This is because even if they do survive, their dwindled numbers mean that other foreign predators, such as foxes or feral cats, could end up dominating areas once occupied by the devils. This would be a tragic end for the voracious Taz, but Tasmanians aren't giving up just yet.

Dimas Ardian/Getty Images

Indonesia, the country with the highest number of human bird flu victims, has decided to share samples of its H5N1 virus with drug manufacturer Baxter International instead of the World Health Organization. In return, Indonesia will gain full access to any vaccine Baxter develops, according to the agreement. The move comes as the WHO is striving to extend international sharing arrangements for seasonal flu strains and potential pandemics, so the global health body is very concerned about the deal.

Baxter has made it clear, though, that Indonesia's decision not to share with the WHO has nothing to do with its agreement. So why is Indonesia refusing to collaborate now? Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari explains:

[Specimens sent to the WHO] have been forwarded to their collaborating centre. There they have been used for various reasons such as vaccine development or research.

Later they sold the discovery to us… This is not fair. We are the ones who got sick, they took the sample through WHO and with WHO consent and they tried to produce it for their own use.”

The WHO fears that everyone will lose out if other countries follow suit. Drugs would likely become more expensive for those countries not party to a private deal with a drug company. Ironically, through its arrangement with Baxter, Indonesia could actually be making its problems worse in the long run.

Back in 2000, I sat in on our interview with anti-globalization activist Lori Wallach. (I was the guy running the tape recorder). Wallach had this great line, which she has often repeated, about two ships passing in the night. One ship is loaded with chopsticks cut from wood in the Pacific Northwest and being shipped to Japan. The other ship is loaded with toothpicks cut from trees in Malaysia and packaged in Japan on their way to California. How could these two companies possibly be profitable?

Wallach's illustration comes to mind when I read sustainability engineer Pablo Päster's latest column. Producing and shipping one bottle of Fiji bottled water around the globe consumes nearly 27 liters of water,  nearly a kilogram of fossil fuels, and generates more than a pound of carbon dioxide emissions. No wonder that stuff is so overpriced.

A 2-meter-high baby diaper made out of police uniforms has been banned by communist authorities in Vietnam. The artwork is the same light brown color as the uniforms of Vietnam's traffic police, and the inside of the giant diaper is lined with pockets—each fastened by a police button.

The artist, Truong Tan, was merely trying to make a coy statement on official corruption by comparing the absorbent capacities of diapers with the pockets of police officers. But he wasn't coy enough. All cultural events in Vietnam need to be approved in advance, and organizers must submit photos of artwork along with descriptions. In this case, the photo was submitted sans description, so authorities were a bit slow in picking up on the sculpture's hidden meaning. But after one member of the police department saw it up close, he got the joke—and the giant diaper was duly banned from the exhibition.