The smaller the renegade province, the bigger the pawn -- at least so it seems in the world of post-communist geostrategic positioning.  Just as the dust has begun to settle around the Kosovo independence issue, Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia now find themselves front and center in the separatist question lime light.

In recent months, the U.S. has pushed for Georgian memebership in NATO, rebel pockets and all; while Russia has upped its ties with both of Georgia's de facto independent states. And just this week, the EU threw in its two cents, declaring support for Georgian territorial integrity.

With Moscow-Tbilisi tensions running high, let’s take a look at what Abkhazia and South Ossetia really have to offer...beyond their mad drone-downing skills:

Map by Phillipe Rekacewicz - UNEP/GRID-ARENDAL

According to this week’s Tuesday Map of Georgia’s environmental and security issues from the IDMC (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre), the two rebel provinces come complete with two refugee camps (orange triangles), two nuclear waste sites (yellow markers), and one “large aging Soviet industrial complex still generating pollution” (red circle).

Abkhazia does have a beautiful coast -- so beautiful, in fact, that the most famous Georgian of them all incorporated it into Georgia proper back in 1931, setting the province on course for decades of ethnic tension and the economic isolation. Beautiful or not though, this week's map shows that much of Abkhazia's shore line is actually chock full of “pesticides and/or heavy metals (mainly inherited from the Soviet period)” (yellow patches).

All in all, I can see why neither Georgia nor Russia will give up their influence over this diamond in the rough -- what country wouldn't forsake regional stability for a few more nuclear waste sites?

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Speaking in Jerusalem today, George Bush was uncharacteristically modest about his expectations for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process during the rest of his term:

"I'm not running for the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm just trying to be a guy to use the influence of the United States to move the process along," Bush said.

Being that guy may force a president desperate for a foreign policy victory to back away from one of his administration's central stated principles: the refusal to negotiate with regimes hostile to the U.S. and Israel. In a new web-exclusive argument for FP, journalist Laura Rozen explores the possibility of Bush overhauling his diplomatic posture in the Middle East this late in the game:

Though the Bush administration seems unlikely to do a “Nixon goes to China” with Iran at this late date, in some isolated cases it does appear to be at least flirting with a different approach. Recent weeks have seen numerous reports of indirect proximity talks and back-channel diplomacy between Israel and Syria, on the one hand, and between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, on the other. In both cases, Washington’s role is curious, officially condemning calls for any sort of dialogue with Hamas while at the same time, seemingly tacitly endorsing Egypt’s role as a cease-fire broker between Israel and Hamas.

 Read the full piece here.

It's getting harder for the Burmese state to hide the truly profound level of its own dysfunction:

The Burmese generals were visible all right. State television showed them handing out boxes of the small amount of aid allowed in from neighbouring Thailand. Unwittingly, it also showed that the Burmese leadership had plastered their own names over the true origins of the food aid to fool their own people into believing that the emergency relief supplies had come from them.

You know things are bad when a military dictatorship can't even get its own propaganda right.

(Hat tip: Reason's Kerry Howley)

sudantribune.com

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is not pleased about last weekend's brazen attack by Darfur rebels. It was the first time fighting has reached the outskirts of Khartoum not just in the bloody five years of fighting in Darfur, but in  the decades of conflict in Sudan.

Bashir is so peeved that he's put an astonishing $250 million reward on the head of rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim (pictured). For reference, that's 10 times the reward for Osama bin Laden.

Why the enormous bounty? Perhaps Ibrahim's fighting words have Bashir concerned. Here's Ibrahim in an interview yesterday, according to the IHT:

This is just the start of a process, and the end is the termination of this regime...Don't expect just one more attack. This is just the beginning."

Bashir also cut diplomatic ties with Chad on Sunday, accusing Chadian President Idriss Deby, who is from the same tribe as Ibrahim, of backing the attack. This is going to get worse before it gets better. 

Invoking the United Nations' "Responsibility to Protect" clause, the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana joined French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in calling for the international community to aid the population of Burma, even without the consent of their government.

"We have to use all the means to help those people," Javier Solana said before an emergency meeting of EU ministers in Brussels. "The United Nations charter opens some avenues if things cannot be resolved in order to get the humanitarian aid to arrive."

China's veto pretty much precludes a Security Council resolution which is why some, like journalist (and top public intellectual) Anne Applebaum are calling for a new "coalition of the willing" to deliver aid without the junta's cooperation. Applebaum acknowledges that the phrase has been "tainted forever" by its association with the war in Iraq, but she isn't the only one drawing that parrallel. The Christian Science Monitor quoted one Burmese merchant who wondered why his country didn't meet the criteria for humanitarian intervention:

"I want to talk to Mr. George Bush. What are you doing? United Nations, what are you doing? We have no food, no water. This is the worst government in the world. Same as Saddam Hussein. Why you cannot help us?"

Apparently, Chinese President Hu Jintao totally dominates at the ping pong table and put on quite a show while visiting Japan last week.

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

An interesting bit of political theater from Moscow:

When Putin came to his old office in the Kremlin on Monday to propose the names of ministers for his government, the former president made for his customary seat on the left of the desk.

"But he paused before sitting down and told President Medvedev: "Now this is your place," Russia's Kommersant daily reported.

"Oh, what's the difference?" Medvedev answered and immediately sat on the right of the desk, where Putin's guests traditionally perched for the eight years of his presidency.

Get the message?

MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

Top Story

The estimated number of deaths from yesterday's earthquake in Sichuan province is nearing 12,000. Thousands are still buried but severe storms are making the rescue effort difficult. As many as 900 children may have been killed in one school collapse

Middle East and Africa

The U.S. has offered the Lebanese government military aid to fight Hezbollah. The army may be readying for a confrontation with the militants.

Hamas has rejected calls to release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Israeli police raided Jerusalem's city hall as part of the ongoing corruption investigation of PM Ehud Olmert.

The situation is quickly degenerating on the Chad-Sudan border.

Asia

Heavy rains have complicated the relief efforts in Burma as well.

Rising food prices are leading to record inflation in China.

East Timor's President asked U.N. peacekeepers to stay for another four years.

2008 U.S. Election

Hillary Clinton has a big lead headed into the West Virginia primary.

Barack Obama's campaign is seeing a growing racist backlash to his candidacy.

Former congressman Bob Barr will run for president on the Libertarian ticket.

South America

Bolivian president Evo Morales has set Aug. 10 as the date for a planned recall election.

Hugo Chavez ordered the nationalization of Venenezuela's largest steel mill.

Europe

Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko tried to make a spech to parliament but was blocked from taking the podium by MPs loyal to PM Yulia Tymoshenko.

A car bomb exploded in Northern Ireland injuring one police officer.

Today's Agenda

• West Virginia will hold its presidential primary.
• President Bush will arrive in Israel.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel will kick off a tour of Latin America.

Yesterday on Passport

• Serbia: new election, same results
  
• The world's responsibility to Burma
• China quake will test Beijing's transparency, crisis management

Samuel Aranda/Getty Images

Boris Tadic, Serbian president and leader of the coalition “For a European Serbia,” declared victory after elections Sunday in which his party took an estimated 103 of the national assembly’s 250 seats.

True, yesterday’s large pro-Europe voting turnout did come as a pleasant surprise to Serbia’s EU supporters. In light of Kosovo’s recent, and polarizing, declaration of independence, analysts were predicting a slight lead for Serbia’s ultra nationalist Radical Party (SRS), despite some pretty serious efforts on the part of the EU to win over Serbian voters.

But “victory,” this election was not. If anything, Sunday has shown just how little has changed in Serbia this year -- despite Kosovo and despite the EU.

Once again, the SRS, whose founder currently stands trial at the Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, garnered its standard 29 percent of the vote, while the democratic bloc again proved too uninspiring to pull Serbia out of its muck of power hungry political personalities. Just as in Serbia's elections in January of last year (a vote that produced a strained government lasting less than ten months), its two dominant parties again find themselves courting strange bed fellows to form a majority coalition.  And ironically, this year, it’s a small coalition of Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and a party of stodgy retirees (PUPS) that will play the role of kingmaker.

But the take away message from Sunday's results is not one of Milosevic’s inescapable legacy or of inevitable stagnation. Rather, it’s the recognition that Serbia’s future will not be determined from the outside -– by break away provinces or EU promises -- but will be decided by Serbia itself. 

Inner change was the message of Serbia’s magnetic former prime minister Zoran Djindjic, a leader with tremendous potential, cut short by his tragic assassination in 2003. But if inspiring leadership in Serbia could happen once, it can happen again –- just probably not from today’s batch of leaders.

I don't think I'm alone in considering "Obama girl" and her imitators the most annoying Internet meme of the 2008 U.S. election (including the entire Ron Paul campaign). But I suppose it was only inevitable that the phenomenon would go global. Anonymous Russian Internet jokers have redubbed the entire "I've Got a Crush on Obama" video into Russian to make it about new president Dmitry Medvedev.

Apparently, many Russians feel that Medvedev can come across as a bit of a nerd compared with his macho, judo-practicing, shirtless-fishing predecessor. If that's the case, the derivative "Medvedev girl" is going to have to up her game to top girl group Poyushchiye Vmeste's 2002 classic, "Someone like Putin," which had the memorable chorus: "I want someone like Putin, full of strength / Someone like Putin, who doesn't drink / Someone like Putin, who doesn't hurt me / Someone like Putin, who won't run away."

Just try to get it out of your head:

KHIN MAUNG WIN/AFP/Getty Images

Since last week's deadly cyclone in Burma, the nation's ruling military junta has been reluctant to allow aid to enter the country. Since then, trickles of food, water and medicines have been allowed to enter the country, but international aid workers have not. Citing a government that failed to even warn its citizens of the impending disaster, international observers believe that the regime in Burma has neither the will nor the capacity to distribute aid fairly, that corrupt officials are profiting from aid packages, and that the situation created by these conditions threatens to outpace the humanitarian devastation of the 2004 tsunami.

Last week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner--the founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)--suggested that the international community and the UN are obligated to intervene in Burma, regardless of the wishes of the military junta, in accordance with the "Responsibility to Protect", or R2P, as outlined by the UN at the General Assembly in 2005. The concept asserts that the international community is obligated to intervene in cases where states fail to protect their populations from "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."

There are widely varying opinions (pdf) on the legality of the Responibility to Protect. Some argue that it violates the basic concept of sovereignty, while others like the Washington Post's Fred Hiatt, believe as Kouchner does, that the UN is abdicating its responsibility in Burma. Garreth Evans, of the International Crisis Group, offers a more nuanced interpretation in an editorial for The Guardian:

If it comes to be thought that R2P, and in particular the sharp military end of the doctrine, is capable of being invoked in anything other than a context of mass atrocity crimes, then such consensus as there is in favour of the new norm will simply evaporate in the global south. And that means that when the next case of genocide or ethnic cleansing comes along we will be back to the same old depressing arguments about the primacy of sovereignty that led us into the horrors of inaction in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the 1990s."

He admits that if the inaction and neglect of the Burmese government is widely interpreted as a crime against humanity, then there might be room for the principle's application.

But there is no disagreement that the people of Burma can't wait for these issues to be bandied about at the Security Council or across editorial pages. Frustrated nations have a choice to make: either they must defy the wishes of the Burmese junta and send aid workers or airlifts to the Irrawaddy Delta, or they must submit to the regime and send whatever they have in the hopes that it will reach those in need. Regardless, it is clear that moralizing and posturing on the issue is not going to influence many, either in Rangoon or at the UN.

AFP/AFP/Getty Images

It seems hard to imagine a scenario in which the massive earthquake that rocked China's western Sichuan Province at 2:28pm local time today has not killed tens of thousands -- possibly more. Beijing originally put the death toll at 61. Hours later, the figure was increased to "up to 8,500." With rescuers, including thousands of Chinese soldiers, still unable to reach the epicenter of the quake, one can only assume this figure is tragically optimistic.

Officials at the U.S. Geological Survey have said that the magnitude 7.9 quake was relatively shallow. Shallow earthquakes do more damage near their epicenters than ones which occur deeper in the Earth. Just over 30 years ago, in 1976, a similarly shallow quake, measuring magnitude 7.5, hit the northern Chinese city of Tangshan. It killed more than 250,000 people.

It's worth watching Beijing's response to the crisis, for a couple of reasons (in addition to any worst-case Olympic scenarios).The first will be to see how real recent transformations in Beijing's disaster response policies are, including a new network of emergency management offices and provisions which give local leaders more autonomy in times of crisis. So far, the speed with which Beijing has responded has been impressive. Can it be sustained and intensified?

The second will be to gauge Beijing's commitment to transparency with regard to the scale and scope of the quake's impact. So far, information seems to have flowed relatively freely to the Western media. As the scale of the disaster increases, and with it the death toll, in all likelihood revealing deficiencies in engineering and infrastructure, it will be interesting to see if these channels of communication remain as open.

ALEX KOLOMOISKY/AFP/Getty Images Images

Today, Israeli police raided the offices of the Jerusalem municipality looking for evidence of bribes given to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by New York businessman Morris Talansky.

With Israel's media gag order lifted, more details are starting to come out about the investigation. It now appears that the investigators are looking into money Olmert received while he was a minister in Ariel Sharon's government, not when he was running for mayor of Jerusalem as previously reported:

"At present, the investigation is clearly focusing on the period when Olmert served as the minister of industry, trade and labor," the official said, adding that investigators may yet expand their probe to cover the period during which Talansky raised funds for Olmert's various election campaigns. "The investigators have solid information regarding envelopes of cash that were handed over to Olmert, and there is no information regarding the fate of that money."

In an interview on Israeli television, Talansky denied bribing Olmert and said that he had donated to Olmert's campaigns but had no idea how the money was spent. However, according to the New York Times, a minibar company started by Talansky picked up a $4,717 one-night Washington hotel tab for Olmert in 2005. Even at the Ritz-Carton, that's a lot of cashews.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush will arrive in Israel tomorrow and plans to meet with Olmert. Asked about the investigation today, he described the Israeli prime minister as "an honest man, an open man, a guy easy to talk to and somebody who understands the vision necessary for Israelis' security."

Fifty-nine percent of Israelis, on the other hand, don't really see it that way.

PAL PILLAI/AFP/Getty Images

Forbes reported recently that the world's first billion-dollar home is currently under construction in India. Mukesh Ambani, the CEO of the petrochemical company Reliance Industries Limited and India's wealthiest man (5th richest in the world) is building a 27-story skyscraper on 4,500 sqare meters of land his company purchased 6 years ago. Apparently, the 22-story tower where the family currently lives was beginnning to feel a little cramped. The new digs will soon house the Ambani family and nearly 600 staff members in a space the size of nearly seven football fields.

The Ambanis' dream home, which they are calling "Antilla," has sparked some controversy in Mumbai. Reliance Industries purchased the land -- the site of a former orphanage -- at an auction in 2002 for just over 5 percent of its market value. That sale is now in dispute because the land was donated as a Waqf, an Islamic religious endowment (much like a trust) set aside to house Muslim orphans in perpetuity. The Waqf's board has petitoned to stay the construction of the building, but the courts have ruled that construction can go on. 

Antilla, which is expected to be completed in September, boasts some of the most luxurious accomodations in the world, including a movie theater, six floors dedicated to parking, a replica of the gardens at Babylon, an 'entourage room' where security staff can relax, and an ice room with man-made snow for seeking relief from the Mumbai heat. I wonder what the orphans did without an ice room?

The full extent extent of the damage caused by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit China's Sichuan Province on Monday afternoon is just starting to become clear. It is estimated that about 9,000 people were killed. The quake was felt in Beijing and Shanghai, and in places as far reaching as Taipei, Hanoi and Bangkok.

In order to reassure people and to squelch false rumors, the Chinese government is using SMS text messaging (translated) to mobile phones as well as internet postings to inform people that the areas where they live are not in the seismic zone. Over a million such messages were sent in nearby Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Guizhou Province.

The government plans to use text messaging not only for emergencies, but for various situations relating to the public interest. The plan is part of the government's new openness in information regulations which it says will promote "openness as principle, being closed off as the exception" in an effort to provide timely and accurate information to the public.

The hand of the government doesn't seem so far away when it's reaching you through a device clutched in yours.

Looks like I may have spoken too soon. Nawaz Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, has pulled out of Pakistan's ruling coalition after failing to come to an agreement with the majority Pakistan People's Party on legislation to reinstate judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf.

The two parties agreed on May 2 to submit legislation to the parliament today reinstating the judges who were fired by Musharraf after he declared a state of emergency in November. This is the second self-imposed deadline that the coalition has missed since coming to power in February. Sharif, who hopes to lay the groundwork for Musharraf's impeachment, made reinstating the judges the major issue in his campaign. PPP leader Asif Zardari is less enthusiastic but bringing the judges back, possibly because of his own questionable legal status.

Sharif says he has no intention of playing spoiler in the parliament and will work with the PPP on a case-by-case basis. All the same, it looks like Musharraf may have squeaked out of another tight spot. 

Top Story

More than 100 9,000 people may have been killed by an earthquake in China's Sichuan province. Around 900 are still trapped underground.

Middle East and Africa

Hezbollah gunmen are attacking villages in Eastern Lebanon as fighting worsens.

A ceasefire between the government and Shiite militias in Sadr city appears to be holding.

Israel resumed fuel deliveries to the Gaza strip.

Sudan's government is blaming Chad for a rebel attack on Khatoum.

Asia

The U.S. is set to begin flying food aid to Burma.

Nepal arrested hundreds of Tibetan women, including Buddhist nuns, protesting Chinese rule in Tibet.

South Korea has killed the entire chicken population of Seoul to curb the spread of bird flu.

Europe

Pro-Europe parties had the slight edge in Serbia's parliamentary elections.

Vladimir Putin is bringing most of his team with him to the prime minister's office.

Germany is pushing the EU to adopt higher standards for food imports.

South America

Responding to criticism from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called her a descendent of Adolf Hitler.

A Chilean hacker posted the personal data of 6 million people on the Internet.

2008 U.S. Election

John McCain wants to make the environment a campaign issue.

John Edwards expressed doubts about Hillary Clinton's chances.

Barack Obama may attack McCain over his involvement in the 1980s "Keating five" scandal.

Today's Agenda

• A new UN task force will meet in New York to discuss the global food crisis.
•  The EU will hold trade talks with South Korea.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

The U.S. needs the UN according to a new report by Alistair Millar and Eric Rosand, of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation titled, Building Global Alliances in the Fight Against Terrorism. Both authors spoke on Friday afternoon at the New America Foundation along with Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens. The speakers point out that if we can stress the common security interests of all nations, the UN will once again function as an effective international body. Fighting terrorism is one issue that requires nothing less than the whole world's attention, but it is also a divisive issue. The UN has so far failed to even agree on a definition of terrorism, though Eric Rosand had a good working one: "Politically motivated violence against civilians."

The main argument is that the United States is missing an opportunity to work with the United Nations in its global fight against terrorism. The speakers were careful to stress they are not suggesting the fight be handed over to the UN. Instead, the U.S. should use the platform as underlying support for its existing efforts while maintaining sovereignty over U.S. interests. They believe that many bi-lateral negotiations are perceived as American sledgehammering and may be better received through the lens of third party. Policy recommendations include the appointment of a counterterrorism czar in the White House (non-military in nature), and the formation of a global counterterrorism body.

While I agree that the U.S. cannot "go it alone" in the war on terror, the bottom line is that unilateralism is a direct result of international lack of will. The United States has gone it alone in part because of the inaction of the UN and its member states. Hezbollah is a prime example of this inaction. Under UN resolutions enacted in 2004 and 2006, Lebanese militias were to be disarmed. In April of this year, the security council adopted a presidential statement reiterating this. Instead, over the past few days Hezbollah has taken over half of Beirut.

While I like the idea of a future with international cooperation and committment to fighting terrorism, I think we need to first make sure the international community is interested in bearing the costs to achieve results. And state-sponsored terror is going to be a big obstacle in this process.

ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/AFP/Getty Images

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said today that the Russian military is "gaining in strength and power like all of Russia."

To prove it, he marched troops, tanks, and Topol-M nuclear missiles around Red Square today. The event was reportedly planned as early as January, and Medvedev was so intent on making the Soviet-style show of prowess a success that he ordered Russia's air force to make sure no clouds rained on the festivities. So they carried out a cloud seeding operation in advance of the parade. Meant to mark the 63rd anniversary of the victory of Nazi Germany, it was the first parade of its kind in Red Square since 1990.

It is right to consider the images coming out of the parade as a bit disconcerting. But press reports from the scene seem a bit over the top, with stories of "glamorous" troops and "mixed messages." This ignores the realities of today's Russian military. Moscow-based defense analyst Pavel Falgenhauer provides a good reality check:

Russia still has large stocks of Soviet-made military hardware; most of it fully or partially out of order. Only a handful of ships, tanks, and jets are truly operational at any given time.... The task of reviving defense hardware parades on Red Square will face grave technical and logistical problems and in any event will most likely produce only a pathetic imitation of Soviet military grandeur.... One can only hope that ...  no ancient building will collapse as tanks and ICBMs roll into central Moscow to serve the vanity of Russia’s leaders."

Let's not get carried away with the Cold War nostalgia just yet.