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Here's a little-noticed story suggesting that, despite the Russo-Georgian war, the international system is alive and well.

Claimed by both Nigeria and Cameroon, the Bakassi peninsula has a local population that considers itself Nigerian, but is believed to hold rich oil and gas deposits. You might think such a situtation is a recipe for disaster.

Not so. Nigeria has just officially ceded Bakassi to Cameroon, honoring a 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and bringing a peaceful close to a decades-long despute. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the transfer as "a model for negotiated settlements of border disputes," and Nigerian officials cited the importance of international law in reaching the settlement:

The gains made in adhering to the rule of law may outweigh the painful losses of ancestral homes," said the head of the Nigerian delegation, Attorney General Mike Aondoakaa.

The agreement isn't perfect. Some analysts expressed concern that armed groups opposed to the handover will sow violence to further delay the deal.

Still, in an age when nationalism and natural resources seem to trump all, it's an encouraging sign. Hopefully, Nigeria's move will further legitimize the international legal system, which has seen its rulings recently ignored by the United States and Sudan. Now Georgia, too, is seeking the ICJ's assistance to remedy its conflict with Russia. Unfortunately, I'd expect it to be easier for Russia to ignore the ICJ than it was for Nigeria.

As hopes fade for a fair power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe, this should come as the world's smallest surprise:

President Robert Mugabe has awarded a medal to Zimbabwe's election chief during a third day of talks to resolve the country's political crisis. He honoured George Chiweshe, head of the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC), who has been criticised for his handling of the country's recent polls.

But wait, there's more:

The beneficiaries included Happyton Bonyongwe, head of the Central Intelligence Organisation which is accused of seizing, torturing and killing many MDC activists before the second vote in June; and Paradzai Zimondi, the prison service chief who said he would never recognise a Tsvangirai victory.

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Because we were all waiting to see how the international terror organization would react: Al Qaeda has now joined a chorus of condemnation from the international community by calling for a jihad in Mauritania in the wake of last week's military coup:

"Raise the banner of jihad and let us bleed and have our limbs severed until we bring back a caliphate styled along the lines of The Prophet's way," the leader of the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Mus'ab Abd el-Wadoud, said in a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

Abd el-Wadoud said the soldiers who toppled President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in the northwest African state last week were probably acting upon a green light from "infidel states; America, France and Israel".

Abd el-Wadoud must have missed the memo that the "infidel states" aren't happy with the coup either: Both France and the United States have suspended non-humanitarian aid. Israel, too, had ties with the previous government in Mauritania, one of the few Arab nations with whom it had diplomatic relations.

While coup leaders tried to assuage critics by releasing the prime minister and three other high-ranking leaders Monday and promising new elections "as soon as possible," overthrowing a democratically-elected leader in the name of democracy isn't going to jive with international opinion.

Still, the fact that Al Qaeda isn't happy about the new leadership, and the promise by new military ruler Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to clamp down harder on Islamic militants may give some Western leaders pause. It's not like we've supported convenient coup leaders with so-so democratic credentials before.

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Officers in Mauritania's military have overthrown the government of President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and established a ruling military junta led by the former chief guard to the president. Abdallahi had been the first democratically elected leader in 20 years, but has come under fire recently for catering to hard-line Islamists. The coup comes after two weeks of political turmoil, which included a vote of no-confidence in the cabinet, a walk-out by 48 members of parliament and the dismissal of several top military officials. The president's daughter called it "a textbook coup d'etat."

Mauritania is an oil-rich country, one that scientists in 2006 predicted could churn out 300,000 barrels of oil a day. While this is just a drop in the barrel relative to the global oil market (Saudi Arabia alone provides over 10 million barrels a day), the volatile mixture of oil and political instability is never good for a country or for a region, as the Nigerian example clearly shows. It is also noteworthy that Mauritania is an Islamic republic that recognizes Israel, and that it has its own terrorism problem, with four French tourists murdered last December by al Qaeda affiliates.

Although these factors might make you think that Mauritania is a nation of strategic interest for the U.S., it shouldn't exactly shock you that this isn't making headline news in American newspapers. You almost need a shovel to find it on the websites of The New York Times or The Washington Post. A state department spokesman condemned the illegal seizure of power, but that's likely to be the extent of it.

With Darfur still the atrocity du jour, it may be hard for many Westerners to pay attention to more than one crisis in Africa.

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Rwanda's government ruffled some French feathers yesterday with the release of a 500-page report alleging that senior French military and political leaders had prior knowledge of the country's 1994 genocide and that French peacekeeping troops actively participated in the killings. Among those accused are the late former President François Mitterand and former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. The French foreign ministry described the accusations as "unacceptable."

Given that the Rwandan government began work on the report just a few months after President Paul Kagame was accused by a French judge of assasinating the Rwanda's former president -- the event that precipitated the genocide -- the report is going to be read with a pretty large grain of salt. Rwanda broke off diplomatic ties with France after that indictment. Even Rwanda's own minister of justice seemed a bit wishy-washy about what the report actually means:

This is a report of inquiry; it is not a criminal file. It is not a statement of guilt but on the basis of this report, other things can follow."

As the accusations between the countries continue to fly, it will be interesting to see what these "other things" entail.

Speaking of the United Nations, what's up with IRIN News? The normally staid news service, a site run by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that covers important stories that don't usually see the light of day elsewhere, seems to really be spicing up its coverage of late.

Check out this spate of recent stories...

ZIMBABWE: Wives playing seductress for food:

Dereck Gurupira, 50, was bathing in the river near his home in Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province late one afternoon when he saw a woman on the opposite bank begin to undress, apparently oblivious of his presence.

Usually the women in Manicaland's Odzi district, about 55km northwest of the border town of Mutare, wash downstream in a more secluded part of the river, but after undressing completely the woman greeted him by name and then suggested to Gurupira that he should join her.

BENIN: Power cuts and risky sex:

With selective power cuts regularly plunging Benin's largest city, Cotonou, into darkness, Alain*, a young taxi driver, no longer has to worry about paying for a hotel room to have casual sex – a quiet corner on a dark street will do.

MALAWI: High hopes for female condom:

Malawian women have little say when it comes to condom use, but the government hopes that the recent launch of the female condom in the country could go some way in solving this age-old dilemma.

Not that we here at Passport mind, of course. When it comes to humanitarian news, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Throw the word "sex" into a post, and Google traffic is bound to follow. Still, one can't help but wonder whether someone over at IRIN is taking a mandate to "sex up" its coverage just a little too literally...

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Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide for atrocities committed in the ongoing Darfur conflict. Proclaiming his innocence, Bashir responded in the way that any peace-loving leader concerned over his citizens would -- by threatening to murder even more people.

The ICC's announcement was by no means binding. The United Nations Security Council has split over a proposal by Libya and South Africa to prevent Bashir's indictment. The United States, Britain and France appeared to be quite skeptical of this plan, but South Africa has argued that prosecuting Bashir would jeopardize African Union efforts at peacekeeping in the region. South African President Thabo Mbeki explained that the peace process "require[s] very serious input by Bashir" and said "it doesn't help at this time to be considering these indictments."

The only thing less surprising than South Africa's president trying to give a free ride to someone who has committed war crimes against his own people is that they're joined on this mission by the humanitarians in Beijing. China's envoy to Sudan warned last week that the ICC's steps and Bashir's indictment could imperil the peace process in Darfur.

This logic actually makes sense. Bashir, China, and passive African leaders have been instrumental in the implementation of Darfur's genocide, so it follows that they play an active role in solving it, and it's even more important that they avoid repercussions for their actions.

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Finally, a political indicator I can get behind. Coca-Cola sales are a key signal of peace and prosperity in Africa, according to an intriguing theory from Jonathan Ledgard, The Economist's Africa correspondent.

Africans buy more than 36 billion bottles of Coca-Cola each year, and the price is low enough that many even in the most impoverished villages can afford a bottle now and then. Folks love their Coca-Cola: As the largest private employer on the continent, Coca-Cola is so entrenched in hearts that people go to the grave with the stuff. And since Coca-Cola tracks its sales and distribution in Africa down to the most minute details, any swift drops in sales or problems in the distribution chain can point to real-time economic hardship and instability.

In other words, if Coke sales drop off swiftly and suddently in parts of, say, Kenya, there is a good chance that either the area has become too dangerous for deliverymen to make their rounds or that something catastrophic is happening to people's incomes. Either way, bad news.

Having been raised on Coca-Cola myself, this seems intuitive. In the O'Hara household, drinking the last Coke without picking up another 12-pack was tantamount to a declaration of war.

Zimbabwe's plan to combat the hyperinflation that has reached more than 2.2 million percent? Knock off the zeroes:

This time, we will make sure that those zeroes that would come knocking on the governor's window will not return,” [Reserve Bank Governor Gideon] Gono was quoted as saying on Saturday in a speech to farmers. [...] Even state media reported Mr Gono's comments "drew laughter" from his audience.

The governor is expected to chop three or six zeroes from the currency, following a three-zero cut in 2006.

How poorly supported is the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur? According to a report by the Darfur Consortium, this poorly:

Some of the soldiers from the former African force were so badly supplied that they were reduced to putting blue plastic bags over their helmets to indicate that they now worked for the UN, the report says.

Only about a third of the promised troops have been deployed. No wonder Bashir is sitting pretty.

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Even as a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai's Opposition for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe seems to be moving forward, deep doubts still remain.

EU leaders don't seem impressed by the negotiations. Yesterday, they slapped an additional 37 people and four companies, all of whom are now blacklisted, with new sanctions including restrictions on banking and travel. This brings Zimbabwe's blacklist total -- which already included Mugabe and several members of his cabinet from earlier sanctions in 2002 -- up to 172 people.

Meanwhile, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga -- who was in a similar position as Tsvangirai during Kenya's disputed election last December -- has said that a "peaceful, decent exit" would be appropriate for Mugabe.

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There's heavy speculation that today's agreement between Zimbabwe's government and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) could be setting the stage for a power-sharing arrangement between two sides. South African President Thabo Mbeki as well as mediators from the African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) are all pushing the idea of a "government of national unity" along the lines of the one that was formed during Kenya's election crisis earlier this year.

It's understandable that the African community likes this solution. It's a quick way to stop the bloodshed while giving some concessions to the opposition who, after all, won the original election. But it's a rather feeble solution nonetheless. Although the deal in Kenya may have put an end to the violence, the divided government in Nairobi remains highly dysfunctional.

In Zimbabwe, there's even less reason to believe that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, who openly hate each other's guts, could ever form a workable partnership. Any sort of power-sharing deal is little more than a fantasy while MDC leaders still fear for their lives.

But what's most worrying is the precedent this sets for elections in Africa. From now on, if a strongman leader loses an election, all he needs to do is ignore the result and provoke violent unrest. Before long, AU or SADC mediators will swoop in to propose a "government of national unity" in order to defuse tensions. In most places, when you lose an election, you have to step down. In Africa, it's just a starting point for negotiations.

The MDC may have no other choice but to accept such a deal, but African leaders are heading down a very dangerous path by pushing for it.

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As dreams of a gas-tax holiday died in Congress amid concerns of lost jobs for transport and construction, lawmakers in the Ivory Coast are paying for a reduction in fuel costs out of their own pockets. Both government ministers and managers of state-owned companies will see their paychecks halved to pay for a 10-percent cut in fuel prices, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro says:

Having heard the people's cry from the heart, the government has decided to cut the price of fuel," Mr Soro said.

A noble effort on its face, yes, this political stunt could actually be double trouble for the people of Ivory Coast. We've expressed our skepticism toward "gas-tax holidays" before, but lowering government officials' pay can also prove problematic, making ministers more susceptible to the ubiquitous temptation of corruption.

Having apparently run out of farms to subsidize, the EU is sending some spare 1 billion Euros to Africa to help farmers there cope with food shortages and rising prices. The funds were an unused portion of the EU's agriculture budget, which is worth about 120 billion euros -- more than 40 percent of the EU's annual expenditures.

European Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberge says the "crisis" in food supply helped spur the EU into action:

There's a fairly broad consensus on the need to act here, given the crisis which is taking place," he said. "In the Commission's opinion, this is the most efficient and most rapid instrument that could be used."

Pardon my cynicsm, but wouldn't the best thing for African farmers be for the EU to eliminate its 120 billion in farm subsidies altogether?

UPDATE: My colleague Preeti reminds me that at least the EU is finally spending more on economic growth and employment programs than farm subsidies:

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South Africa might be giving its all to prepare for the 2010 World Cup, but some think it has stepped out of bounds. A proposal to legalize prostitution there before the tournamount starts has several opposition parties and religious groups in the country crying foul, both for fear that the practice could become permanent and because, in the words of one critic, it "defies the word of God."

The hullabaloo started back in January when George Lekgetho, a member of Parliament, made a pitch for legalization at a committee meeting. He pointed out that prostitution is legal in Germany, the 2006 World Cup Host, to bolster his argument, adding that legalization would mean less rape and "added tax revenue."

Though most of the other MPs laughed off the proposal, the idea has gained major ground with Durban's local government. South Africa's third largest city boasts a sizeable prostitute population, which legalization advocates claim would be better protected if the trade was allowed.

That's questionable. Legalization isn't likely to make things any better for the thousands of young girls in the trade, who are typically at the mercy of pimps and dismal working conditions in the widely impoverished country. Even in comparatively well-off Germany, legalization brought its own share of problems during the cup, including how to handle reported increases of sex-trafficking from Eastern Europe.

Nor does South Africa's astronomical AIDS rate help the argument much, since legalization probably won't be accompanied by widespread promotion of "safer-sex practices." This, after all, is a country where the likely future president "took a shower" after having sex with an HIV-positive woman to prevent infection.

In any case, South Africa has plenty of other battles to wage before 2010. The skyrocketing costs of stadium construction, constant power outages, and consistently high petty and violent crime rates in major cities are sure to keep the South African government occupied until the tournament kicks off. Or else thousands of tourists and millions of TV-watchers worldwide could get a dismal view of a country that has held so much hope.

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The BBC has a pair of interesting stories today about an awful practice in Nigeria and other African countries where conmen pose as sports agents and dupe young, would-be soccer players out of thousands of dollars. These fraudsters tell youths -- many of whom live in the slums of Lagos, Accra and other cities and see soccer as a way to escape poverty -- that they can guarantee them a trial with a club in the English Premiership, the most competitve soccer league in the world.

Trafficking in African youths has become a growing concern for soccer's governing body, Fifa, as middlemen can bypass work permit restrictions and bring teenage Africans into European countries, where they are then sold to clubs for large sums of money, or simply discarded on the streets of major European cities.

In an accompanying video, an undercover reporter from the BBC -- posing as the parent of a talented teenaged soccer player -- can be seen negotiating with one of the swindlers in a Lagos hotel. After promising the undercover reporter that his son will be given a trial with Manchester United, the man is confronted with a television crew before being carted off by Nigerian police.

Nigeria is not the only country affected. Just over a year ago, 34 young boys from Ivory Coast were promised trials in Europe, borrowed the money to pay their bogus agents, and were then robbed and held against their will in neighboring Mali.

Sepp Blatter, the President of Fifa, has accused Europe's wealthy soccer clubs, who often turn a blind eye to this despicable practice, as commiting "social and economic rape" of Africa.

He's right. European clubs are often the subjects of the wildest dreams of young African soccer players. They have a responsibility to see that these dreams are not abused by criminals.

"Expressing concern" is one of the more weasly examples of diplo-speak. It informs the world that a government does not approve of something that is going on while making it explicitly clear that they don't actually plan to do anything about it. Various countries have been "expressing concern" for years over the ongoing massacre in Darfur without much in the way of action to back it up.

This statement from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao in response to the International Criminal court's indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide sets a shocking new standard for chutzpah though:

"China expresses grave concern and misgivings about the International Criminal Court prosecutor's indictment of the Sudanese leader. The ICC's actions must be beneficial to the stability of the Darfur region and the appropriate settlement of the issue, not the contrary."

With the Olympics less than a month away, China is unlikely to take any actual action to block the indictment; hence the "grave concern."

Isam Al-Haj/AFP/Getty Images

If the International Criminal Court is about to issue an arrest warrant for you on charges of genocide, what might be the worst way to project an air of innocence to the world? Cue Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, whose strategy of choice in the face of international criminal charges is to threaten more violence.

Yesterday, Bashir's party issued a statement on state TV declaring that any indictment against the president -- which was issued this morning -- would cause "more violence and blood" in Darfur. Funny, since I could have sworn that Bashir has always claimed that he has no control over the atrocities there.

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A funny thing happened on the way home from the G-8 summit. Somebody seems to have changed Russia's position on U.N. sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Last Tuesday, President Dmitry Medvedev signed on to a statement expressing "grave concern" about the situation in Zimbabwe. But on Friday, Russia vetoed a proposed U.N. sanctions resolution, citing the need to protect the principle of sovereignty.

What happened? The charitable explanation, proferred by the AP's Steve Gutterman, is that Medveded never intended to sign on to sanctions, but merely "met the West halfway." By Wednesday, he was already suggesting that Moscow wouldn't sign on to sanctions, but did not say so directly.

Why couldn't he be explicit? Perhaps it's because he needed to consult with the man who is still his boss: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Zalmay Khalilizad, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said that Russia's apparent reversal "raises questions about its reliability as a G-8 partner." What he left unsaid is that it also raises new questions about whether Dmitry Medvedev is really the man to speak with if you want to get anything done in Moscow.

AFP PHOTO/Aamir QURESHI

While the G8 leaders met today and agreed on targeted sanctions against the illegitimate government of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, some folks in the United Kingdom have finally started to take action in a supremely British way.

Two weeks ago, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) severed ties with Zimbabwe's cricket team in late June following a request from Gordon Brown that Zimbabwean cricketers be banned because of the country's human rights violations. Replacing Zimbabwe as England's first opponents next summer will be Sri Lanka, which isn't exactly a beacon of stability or nonviolence either. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe will not be banned from the International Cricket Council (ICC), which is currently holding its annual meeting in Dubai, despite Zimbabwe Cricket's close ties with Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

On a related note, Steve James, a former cricketer and coach who is now a columnist for The Telegraph in London, (so he may may know more about cricket than I do) writes that Zimbabwe should not be competing with cricket powerhouses like India, England or the West Indies, not for political reasons, but because the team is plain awful.

As a big sports fan, it's great to see athletes and athletic organizations doing the right thing, even when world leaders and politicians turn a blind eye to tragedy. Particularly given that the Olympic games this summer are an example of the exact opposite effect: an athletic organization ignoring obvious human rights violations for its own personal gain. (Read John Hoberman's provocative piece on athletics, politics and the International Olympic Committee in the current issue of FP).

Then again, there's also times when politics and athletics are mirror images of one another (think Alex Rodriguez and Eliot Spitzer).