Or at least that's what Beijing is hoping to do ahead of the September 28 election in the copper-rich African country. China, which has invested hundreds of millions in Zambia in recent years, has threatened to cut diplomatic ties and put investments on hold if citizens elect Michael Sata, the opposition leader gaining ground on the incumbent president. Sata has met with Taiwanese businessmen and once called Taiwan a sovereign state, angering the country's Chinese investors. And it isn't just Taiwan that has irritated the Chinese. Sata has had the courage to come out against worker exploitation in Chinese-owned mines:

They ill-treat our people (and) that is unacceptable. We are not going to condone exploiting investors because this country belongs to Zambians," Sata said in the radio interview.

Be sure to watch that election later this month. 

Graham Lees over at World Politics Watch thinks so. He's been tracking the high-stakes poker game that the country's ruling military junta has been playing with its 10 trillion cubic foot natural gas reserve (probably the largest in Southeast Asia). If you're not up to speed, China and India both want the gas in order to feed their insatiable energy appetites. And Burma is playing one off the other, which is throwing a wrench in the Year of India-China Friendship. Whichever country wins out, it's sad to watch democracies such as India coddle illiberal regimes in order to gain access to their resources. Of course, that's one democratic tradition that's hardly new.

Putin doesn't think the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which dominates the Duma, is rubber-stamping his legislation with enough gusto. In fact, Kremlin aides think United Russia may be losing support among the electorate. So what's a leader in need of some unwavering support to do? Create a new pro-Putin opposition party to compete with the existing pro-Putin party. Per the Guardian:

Analysts predicted the new political force - which could unite several embryonic parties - would be entirely Kremlin controlled, but presented to voters as an opponent or alternative to United Russia.

Nothing like a choice between Putin and more Putin.

On Sunday, the Democratic Republic of the Congo will hold its first free elections in more than 40 years. International donors have chipped in nearly half a billion dollars to finance the vote - this in a country with only a few hundred miles of paved roads, crippling poverty, little access to health care, and the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping force. But I'm all in favor of freedom, and there's good news out of the country's war-torn east today: three of the main warring militias there have agreed to lay down their arms. Still, the election is a huge logistical challenge: thousands of candidates, rampant intimidation, and the very real possibility of fraud (5 million extra ballots have been printed).

That's just the election. There's the other small matter of rebuilding the country's infrastructure after a devastating civil war that ended in 2002, after killing 4 million people. That war sucked in not just neighboring countries, but tens of thousands of child soldiers, who are now slowly being demobilized. But how do you integrate kids who extorted, murdered, and raped, most because they were forced by elder soldiers, but some because they wanted to?

In a new ForeignPolicy.com exclusive, Paule Bouvier and Pierre Englebert examine the incredible challenges the DRC faces, not just in pulling off this weekend's election, but in making the democratic experiment stick by securing the country and pulling its devastated population out of poverty. Despite all the international investment and the domestic enthusiasm, it's unlikely this weekend's election will deliver a miracle.

What happens when a Cougar tangles with a Quayle? Well, it's not pretty, if the recent run-in between John (no longer Cougar) Mellencamp and former Vice President Dan Quayle is any indication. Quayle attended Mellencamp's concert at Harvey's Casino in Nevada last Friday. But when Mellencamp dedicated a version of "Walk Tall" to people hurt by policies of the current Bush administration, Quayle walked out. Quayle later commented:

Well, I think Mellencamp's performance was not very good to begin with, and the comment put it over the top.''

For the record, the Quayle is taller than the Cougar.

Iran is a country divided, according to a new Zogby International poll of Iranians out today. Nearly a third of those polled want Iran to become more secular and liberal, whereas just over a third want the country to more religious and conservative.

Nearly as many Iranians believe the government should expand freedoms (23%) as think the country's top priority should be developing an arsenal of nuclear weapons (27%). Unsurprisingly, many divisions are generational. But you may be surprised to learn that older Iranians are more likely to admire American society than younger Iranians. Just as interesting: Iranians with access to the Internet and satellite TV are much more likely to identify the United States as the country they admire most. And more than a third disagreed with the suggestion that Iranian nuclear weapons would make the Middle East a safer place. 

Worryingly, one point of consensus emerged: 

When the SARS virus hit China three years ago, Beijing responded with a massive coverup. In our March/April 2006 issue, Karl Taro Greenfeld explained how two brave journalists and one courageous doctor broke the silence before the virus had a chance to kill thousands more.

You would think that experience would have taught China a thing or two. Apparently not. A Chinese court has just jailed a goose farmer from the eastern province of Jiangsu who blew the whistle on China's bird flu cases. Here we go again.

Britney Spears, in the wake of her weepy interview with Matt Lauer, wants to take a page out of Brangelina's book and give birth to her second child in Namibia. Namibian officials announced today that she may be introducing her little bundle of joy to the world via Namibia because officials there were so good at keeping reporters and photographers at bay during Brangelina's stay. In fact, the Namibians were so good at protecting the golden couple's privacy during Shiloh's eagerly-anticipated arrival that I wouldn't be surprised if the country's press freedoms rating gets a knock next year. After all, don't jailed reporters and condemnations from regional press boards land one in a little hot water with Freedom House? The organization says that "no serious abuses against journalists have been reported for several years" in Namibia. That was, however, before Mr. and Mrs. Smith arrived and set up a no-press zone. With Britney's due date approaching, let's hope Namibia doesn't decide to trade its "free" rating in order to be the next celebrity birthing It-locale.

Winners

 Human intel: Nabbed the most wanted man in Iraq.

Germany: May not get a huge economic bump from the Cup, but at least they won their first match.

Maliki: Sure, his cabinet is complete and Zarqawi is gone. But will he take the opportunity and run with it?

Diplomacy: Iran is given "weeks, not months" to consider the incentives offered. Still better than the drum beat of war.

Losers

Zarqawi: Whether he was a master terrorist or a marginalized wanna-be, this is his last appearance on the Winners & Losers.

Journalistic restraint: Was the text bubble really necessary?

Civility at the UN: Apparently, one shouldn't cross John Bolton.

China's environment: Government white paper says pollution could cost the country 10 percent of its GDP.

More on the continuing saga of Google and China. On Tuesday, Google founder Sergey Brin appeared to express some regret about Google's self-censorship on its Chinese search engine. Then Wired magazine's blog reported yesterday that Google is the target of a U.S. federal lawsuit for rejecting an online advertisement for the website ChinaIsEvil.com. Activist Chris Langdon alleges that the company stonewalled him when he submitted an ad for his bare-bones site (which decries China's policies and claims that Google, AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft are practicing censorship by refusing to let him advertise). In a nice twist, I was alerted to the Wired blog posting by a news alert in my Gmail account.

It's a little surprising that these information technology companies haven't been more prepared for all the complications that come from doing business in China. I mean, they trade in information. In China. It's not soft drinks or hamburgers, folks.

In the West, there is growing pessimism about anyone's ability to stop Vladimir Putin from turning Russia into the world's most stage-managed democracy. John McCain's call for the United States to boycott next month's G8 in St. Petersburg has gone nowhere fast. But, as Tom Friedman has argued in FP, soaring oil prices are making Putin more troublesome domestically and internationally. So, could a party girl be about to do what no political party can - seriously challenge Putin’s ever-growing power?

The glamorous 24-year-old reality TV hostess Ksenia Sobchak has launched a youth movement with the provocative name "All are Free." Its aim: Teach Russian youth "how to be free." The group is in direct competition with the Kremlin-endorsed clubs set up to stymie the emergence of an Orange revolution-style movement. She told the St. Petersburg Times, "We have a lot of political youth movements, but I think they are kind of fake."

Welcome to the World Economic Forum on the Middle East! Wait, hold on a sec, let me beat and arrest some protesters first, and uphold Ayman Nour's jail sentence real quick. OK, thanks, ready to go.

Does Condi have a visit to Cairo coming anytime soon? I'd say cancel it, but it obviously didn't work last time.

Iraq 

"The main thing now is to just get out of Iraq." No, that's not MoveOn.org speaking. Just a middle class Iraqi who can't handle it anymore. Some melancholy photos to supplement that sentiment. 

Talabani is trying to get rival Shiite factions in Basra to settle down. 

Iran 

Click on it, it's good for you: Ignatius on what to say to Iran. The NYT gets into the Iran intel problem: 

[T]he world is losing much of its ability to answer pressing questions about Iran's nuclear ambitions: how fast Tehran could make an atom bomb, and whether it harbors a program to do so. Diplomats and nuclear experts say the diminished view increases the risks of miscalculation, and possibly armed confrontation, just as the atomic impasse with the West is reaching a volatile new stage.

In the piece, David Kay echoes Michael Scheuer who told us earlier this week that the lack of good intel is going to lead Washington to rely on dubious opposition and dissident sources.

The Iranian uranium last month may have been derived from an old 1991 Chinese import. 

Elsewhere

In Darfur, another problem: the anti-Khartoum rebels are now fighting each other and the civilians they were supposedly protecting are suffering. 

The UN says Gitmo should be shut down, basically ensuring that the Bush administration won't do it. Defending Venezuela in the LAT. Ian Buruma on Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Life at an Army hospital in Iraq.

Hayden coverage: NYT, WaPo, LAT.

FP hosted a fascinating discussion this morning between Sen. Richard Lugar and Tom Friedman on the "First Law of Petropolitics," hosted by our editor, Moisés Naím. Friedman expanded on the thesis of his FP cover story (that as the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom declines in petrolist states) by declaring the advent of a post-post Cold War world (if you are a regular reader of his NYT columns, you know where he's going with this). In short, the post-Cold War world and the freedoms it bore had everything to do with a decade of low oil prices in the 1980s. Today's $70 barrel is creating a multipolar world. In addition to a rising China, there's Russia, Iran, and Venezuela awash in oil cash. In a twist on the adage that defined the American Revolution, Friedman says these states live by the code "no representation without taxation." With huge oil windfalls and little need to tax heavily, Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Chavez have little corresponding need to provide representation, and it is dramatically altering security in our age.

Hoosier Sen. Lugar spoke at length about alternative energies, especially those being developed and tested in his home state of Indiana. Who knew Lugar drives a Prius? He also remarked that energy can spark wars without any shots being fired, using Ukraine's capitulation to Russia this last winter over natural gas as an example of things to come. 

Lugar has declared energy "the albatross of U.S. National Security." His efforts on energy include: the Vehicle and Fuel Choices American Security Act, the Energy Diplomacy and Security Act, and the American Fuels Act co-sponsored with rockstar/Senator Barack Obama, and the Fuel Security and Consumer Choice Act.  

And Friedman, always ready with excellent soundbites, trumpeted a green and patriotic future, declaring that "green is the new red, white, and blue." He says green technology will be the growth industry of the 21st century, most likely led by Chinese innovation if the U.S. government doesn't stop coddling Detroit.

The full transcript and links to more video are available here.

Here's a video clip of Friedman explaining The First Law of Petropolitics at the beginning of the event.

Bill Clinton's "Class Day" talk to graduating seniors at Princeton looked all set to be this year's hottest commencement-related ticket, it being all surrounded by political irony and what not. Until now. Sorry to disappoint, Prinetonians, but this year's must-have ticket is for the commencement address at Nova Southeastern University in Florida on May 7. The speaker? Salman Rusdie, whose selection has started a firestorm of controversy both at NSU and within the academy. Muslim students are threatening to skip the ceremony, while Stanley Fish, a New York Times blogger and law professor, has a post that, as I read it, argues for banning Rushdie from ever giving a commencement address in America. It's behind the Times Select firewall, but here's how Fish sides with Farheen Parvez, a student who plans to boycott her graduation because Rushdie is the speaker:

Ms. Parvez had it exactly right when she said, “If he was here for any other event, that would have been fine, because that’s optional. But having him at graduation, it’s not appropriate because that’s for the families and the students.” When you’re the proud parent of a graduating son or daughter, the last thing you want to hear is something that will make you think. You want to hear something that will make you feel good. Professor Smith asserted, “The choice of Rushdie as speaker inspires questions, invites challenges and embodies larger issues… .” That’s precisely the problem.