U.S. Navy/Getty Images

Kudos to the Washington Post for looking into the mysterious behavior of the Yemeni government toward the guys implicated in the USS Cole bombing. As Newsweek reported last fall, Yemen even briefly let Jamal al-Badawi, the al Qaeda planner in charge of the operation, out of prison. All told, "all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials," according to the Post.

The Yemenis defend their actions, saying they have their own special approach to fighting terrorism. A few years, ago, some in the West were even seeing it as a model. But the Post article calls Yemen's terrorist rehabilitation program into question with this devastating quote:

Hamoud al-Hitar, a former Supreme Court justice... suggested that the government had turned lenient because the Cole defendants had participated in a "dialogue and reconciliation program" designed to de-radicalize al-Qaeda members.

Hitar, who oversees the program, claimed that 98 percent of graduates have remained nonviolent. Asked about two Cole suspects who escaped and went to Iraq to become suicide bombers, Hitar shrugged. "Iraq was not part of the dialogue program," he said.

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Malaysia's former prime minister of 22 years, Mahathir Mohamad, has a blog in English. It's named "Chedet" after his pen name, "Che Det" or "Mr. Det," from his days as a journalist. "Det" is short for "Mahadet," another way to pronounce his name.

Most new bloggers start out by welcoming their readers, explaining why they are blogging, and giving an overview of the subjects they plan to write about. Not so Mahathir, who gives the impression of a man who doesn't think he has to explain himself to anyone. (He was probably motivated by the blogging success of opposition politicians and the fact that the media has been ignoring his escalating criticisms of the current prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.)

If you're hoping for some of Mahathir's signature anti-Western rants, you'll be sorely disappointed. His first and so far only post is a rather boring critique of Abdullah's judicial reforms, though this is some quality armchair quarterbacking:

Is the Government proposing to work with the opposition on this issue, and so display its weakness? Will there be a quid pro quo, a bargain with the opposition? It would be interesting to see how the PM proposes to deal with this.

My humble blogging advice for you, Dr. Mahathir? Respond to FP's interview with your estranged protégé Anwar Ibrahim, who says you "underestimated" him and wrongly thought you could break him in prison. Blog readers always love a good controversy, and I promise we will link to you.

I am not making this up. Some people from the Greek island of Lesbos are suing to prevent a gay rights group from using the word "lesbian":

The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.

He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos's inhabitants.

TARIQ MAHMOOD/AFP/Getty Images

A Pakistani local Taliban shoots a kidnapper in Rahim Kor village near the Mammad agency, some 60 kilometers from Peshawar on April 27, 2008, a day after they captured him with three kidnapped persons during an operation in the area. Pakistani tribal Taliban executed a person under the Islamic principle of Qisas on the charges of killing one of their comrades.

MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images

Almost any American who has taken Chinese in the past decade should know the phrase "Meiguo ren hen xihuan da guansi" (Americans really like to sue people). It is usually presented as a point of difference between our two cultures, and McDonald's coffee inevitably comes up.

Well, the tables sure are turning. Reuters reports that a primary schoolteacher and a beautician have filed suit against CNN for the allegedly slanderous comments against the Chinese people made by Jack Cafferty. (The crotchety CNN anchor called Chinese products "junk" and the country's leaders "goons.")

The suit asks for $1.3 billion dollars -- $1 per person in China -- for "violat[ing]the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people." Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu called the suit "spontaneous action" on the part of the Chinese people.

It certainly brings new meaning to the title of Cafferty's book, It's Getting Ugly Out There.

"Only one country in the world has eliminated the shortage of transplant kidneys," Tyler Cowen Alex Tabarrok reports. "Only one country in the world has legalized financial payments to kidney donors."

What country is that? You'll never guess. Click the link to find out.

DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/Getty Images

As many of you know, I have been blogging this week from the Salzburg Global Seminar’s session on Russia: The 2020 Perspective.

Most of what I've written so far has been focused on U.S. policy toward Russia. But the United States can only influence Russian domestic developments on the margins. So, what does Russia itself need to do over the next 12 years?

If I were president of Russia, my absolute top priority would be to strengthen property rights, which will make it possible for Russia to diversify its economy away from oil and gas, build a real middle class, and bring in much-needed foreign investment and advanced technology. There is much work to do. Exhibit A: the case of Hermitage Capital Management Limited, which until recently was the top portfolio investment fund working in Russia.

Hermitage CEO Bill Browder, you may recall, made news in 2005 when he was suddenly barred from reentering Russia. Browder had been making too much noise about "shareholder rights," and in doing so he apparently stepped on some powerful toes. The fund has since pulled its $4 billion worth of investments in Russia, but new details are emerging that paint a disturbing picture of the business environment in the country. Last week, Hermitage updated its investors on a campaign of "administrative harrassment" in Moscow that could have ended with corrupt local officials absconding with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the fund's assets.

According to Hermitage, the story goes like this. In summer 2007, its offices were raided by the Moscow Interior Ministry, supposedly as part of an investigation into Kameya, a company owned by one of Hermitage's clients. The allegation was that Kameya owed $48 million in taxes. When Kameya's people went to clear things up with the Tax Ministry, officials there confirmed in writing that in fact, the company was eligible for a refund and owed no back taxes. Meanwhile, when one of Hermitage's lawyers complained about the raid's questionable relevance to Kameya, he was beaten by Interior Ministry goons, arrested, and fined 15,000 rubles for his insolence.

So, what was going on? Hermitage alleges that "a more sinister agenda" was at work. The real purpose of the Kameya raid was for Moscow Interior Ministry officials to get their hands on documents that could be used to seize the fund's assets.

Here's how the attempted scam worked. The Moscow Interior Ministry official in charge of the "investigation" launched what Hermitage calls a "fishing expedition" to locate the fund's assets -- demanding all records from four foreign banks that might lead him to the prize. At the same time, somebody used the captured documents to fraudulently change the ownership of three investment vehicles owned by British bank HSBC, a Hermitage trustee. From there, it gets complicated, but the bottom line is that a mysterious team of lawyers representing "their" companies then assented to a fake court ruling that would have put the three HSBC entities on the hook for $380 million. Luckily for Hermitage, the vehicles were "dormant" and held no assets, so the would-be millionaires came up empty.

"The more we learned, the more unbelieveable it became," Hermitage says. The fund's management passed along their findings to Russia's finance minister in Davos, which were then put in front of President-elect Dmitry Medvedev and a pair of investigations has begun. The year before, though, Medvedev had personally assued Browder in Davos that his visa troubles would be cleared up, and he couldn't deliver. Now, Hermitage says the officials involved in the attempted theft are making "spurious claims" and feeding misinformation about the fund to the press -- so the fund is going public with the story.

This case will be a key test for Medvedev,  a lawyer by training who has vowed to tackle Russia's property rights and corruption problems when he takes office in May. But as European Commissioner for External Relations Bentia Ferrero-Waldner put it to us in Salzburg this week, "Ultimately the world will assess Mr. Medvedev on his deeds, not just on his words." It's showtime, Dmitry.

Blake Hounshell is Web Editor of ForeignPolicy.com. He has been blogging this week from the Salzburg Global Seminar session on Russia: The 2020 Perspective.

Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images

Kosovo is one step closer to full statehood. Today, its assembly officially adopted a new constitution declaring Kosovo a democratic, secular, multiethnic state. Right from the start, the constitution makes clear that Kosovo will not be partitioned nor will it be joining a Greater Albania.  From Article 1:

The Republic of Kosovo is an independent, sovereign, democratic, unique and indivisible state . . . The Republic of Kosovo shall have no territorial claims against, and shall seek no union with, any State or part of any State."

Per recommendations from U.N. Special Envoy to Kosovo Marti Ahtisaari, the constitution also includes an entire chapter spelling out the rights of and provisions for Kosovo’s minority groups, including parliamentary seat allotment. Twenty of the assembly’s 120 seats shall be reserved for minorities, each of whom are guaranteed a respective minimum number of seats as follows:

the Roma community, one (1) seat; the Ashkali community, one (1) seat; the Egyptian community, one (1) seat; and one (1) additional seat will be awarded to either the Roma, the Ashkali or the Egyptian community with the highest overall votes; the Bosnian community, three (3) seats; the Turkish community, two (2) seats; and the Gorani community, one (1) seat. . ."

Bet you didn’t know that Kosovo even had an ethnic Egyptian community.

Pieter Feith, head of the EU-led supervisory office in Kosovo, has already approved of the new constitution, but Kosovo's U.N. mission (UNMIK) has been less than eager to react. In 1999, U.N. resolution 1244 granted UNMIK the authority to administer Kosovo until the Security Council could agree on a more lasting solution. But because Russia has blocked all efforts to pass a new Kosovo resolution, UNMIK now lacks the mandate to actually hand over their authority to Kosovo’s fledgling government, new constitution or not.

ED OUDENAARDEN/AFP/Getty Images

The former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, was acquitted Friday on charges of murder, torture, rape, and the cruel treatment of prisoners during his years as a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army. At the end of the war in Kosovo, Haradinaj turned his military following into a political party but was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia just a hundred days after becoming prime minister.

On Friday, a panel of judges found Haradinaj not guilty, but on the basis of insufficient evidence. Before announcing the final verdict, the panel noted:

The Chamber encountered significant difficulties in securing the testimony of a large number of witnesses. Many cited fear as a prominent reason for not wishing to appear before the Chamber to give evidence. In this regard, the Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe, due to a number of factors.”

And by “a number of factors,” they mean death threats, the suspicious killing of the prosecution’s lead witness (and his son and nephew), and a general sense among Kosovars that the international community is more than happy to turn a blind eye to the grimmer actions of a man it sees as a key partner in regional peace.

The Haradinaj trial and verdict point to the precarious nature of any foray into international justice. Once again it seems politics has stood in the way of justice and has done so, per usual, at the expense of those whom the court should serve: the victims.

Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov hopes he has made an offer the women of his country can't refuse. For the simple task of birthing eight or more children (yes, eight or more), women will receive a one-time bonus of $250.

But wait! There's more: They'll also receive free dental care, free utilities, and free public transportation for life. With eight kids, free diapers or, better yet, a free vacation might be more appropriate.

Berdymukhammedov is partly correcting for the mistakes of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who, during his 15-year reign of insanity, renamed the months of the year, banned beards, and forced schools to exclusively teach the "spiritual guide" -- the Ruhnama -- that he'd written for citizens. Among Niyazov's many other bright ideas were abolishing free healthcare, firing thousands of healthcare workers, and closing all hospitals outside of the country's capital. As a result, child mortality in Turkmenistan has spiked dramatically in recent years, leaving the new president to offer what incentives he can to keep new generations of Turkmen coming.

Here's a quirky story: The Economist sued Jason Rose, who owns the domain name theeconomist.com, for infringing on its trade name (the magazine is housed at economist.com). The centerpiece of Rose's site is a picture of Alan Greenspan below the title, "The Economist." Below the photograph is this text:

Alan Greenspan, Ex-Chairman of Federal Reserve Board is The Economist of the Century
President Reagan called Alan Greenspan "the most powerful man in the world."
Other Notable Economists.
Submit your candidate for The Economist of the Century.

Other than some legal language, that's pretty much it. Rose insists he had never heard of the magazine when he registered his site in 1996, a claim grudgingly accepted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation panel that adjudicated the case. The panel ruled that Rose can keep the site because it could not determine that he had obtained it in bad faith.

What's particularly odd is that Rose appears to make no money from theeconomist.com. There are none of the usual ads or misleading links typical of domain-name squatters. It would appear Rose either really likes Alan Greenspan or really hates The Economist and wants to lead its readers astray.

For those Saudi officials who wonder why their country gets so much bad press, here is a hint: Stop doing stupid things like banning the color red in flower and gift shops for Valentine's Day.

The best part? There's an underground market for red roses:

Because of the ban on red roses, a black market has flowered ahead of Valentine's Day. Roses that normally go for five Saudi riyal ($1.30) fetch up to 30 riyal ($8) on February 14, the Saudi Gazette said.

"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist told the paper.

Since 2002, more than $676 million worth of art has been stolen from European museums. Maybe it's just me, but this account of yesterday's art heist in Zurich makes it sound too easy:

Three thieves, wearing dark clothes and ski masks, walked into the Emile Bührle Foundation, a private collection housed a couple of miles outside of Zurich's city center on the shore of Lake Zurich, around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.... While one held a pistol and ordered visitors and staff members to lie on the floor in the main room of the museum, the two other men removed the four paintings from the wall.... Their total worth is estimated at $163 million.... After the theft, the men fled in a white car, with the trunk open and the paintings visible."

These guys didn't crack a 16-digit pin code or jerry-rig a pully system using shoelaces and chewing gum, mind you. They walked into a museum in central Zurich, in broad daylight, took four paintings off the wall, put them in their trunk, and drove away. I've seen stick-ups at my local DC-area 7-Eleven that were more elaborate. Shouldn't it be a tad more difficult to steal several hundred-million dollars worth of Van Goghs and Monets than it is to jack a Twinkie from the Quickie Mart?

Following Mitt Romney's withdrawal speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain had this to say about the topic that has gotten him into such hot water with conservative activists and voters:

On the issue of illegal immigration, a position which provoked the outspoken opposition of many conservatives, I stood my ground aware that my position would imperil my campaign. I respect your opposition for I know that the vast majority of critics to the bill based their opposition in a principled defense of the rule of law. And while I and other Republican supporters of the bill were genuine in our intention to restore control of our borders, we failed, for various and understandable reasons, to convince Americans that we were. I accept that, and have pledged that it would be among my highest priorities to secure our borders first, and only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure, would we address other aspects of the problem in a way that defends the rule of law and does not encourage another wave of illegal immigration. [UPDATE: Watch McCain getting booed here.]

That's pretty much what he's been saying on the campaign trail thus far, and it's been a good enough fudge to net him the nomination. Will conservatives be satisfied with this answer? Probably not, but it seems McCain may have smoothed over some rough patches today. David Freddoso of the National Review writes, "I think the proper reaction to McCain's victory is: Don't Panic. The world has not been destroyed just yet." Mission accomplished?

UPDATE: Ramesh Ponnuru chimes in— 

I'd prefer it if McCain took one more small step. It isn't enough that the border be secure; the illegal population has to start shrinking. (A lot of illegal immigrants came here legally and overstayed their visas, so securing the borders doesn't solve the problem.)

Personally, I think it's wrong to look at illegal immigration as a law-enforcement problem rather than a black-market problem. You can build all the walls you want, but you won't dry up illegal immigration until you drastically raise the number of legal immigrants you let in. But that is for another post and another day.

Last week, Australia's government announced that it will formally apologize for its decades-long practice of stealing Aboriginal children and giving them to white families to raise. The practice, intented to destroy "Aboriginality" and force racial assimilation, was official government policy from 1915 to 1969. During these years, many children were raised in poor conditions in institutions, received little to no education, and suffered abuse at the hands of caretakers. Apologizing for it is an admirable step by the new Australian administration to move forward from a dark past. Australia aside, though, there has been a real lack of sincerity on the international apology front lately.

Over the past year, some in the U.S. Congress have attempted to force apologies from other nations on two occasions. First, the House of Representatives passed a resolution urging Japan to apologize for forcing thousands of women into sex-slavery during WWII. More recently, the House attempted a vote condemning Turkey for its treatment of Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century. And while I by no means wish to diminish these atrocities, I wonder: Would an apology elicited under pressure really contribute to the healing process?

Tareq al Hashemi (ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images)

Consider the case of Iraq. This past Sunday, controversial legislation to reintegrate former Baathists back into Iraqi government became law. It was one of the key "benchmarks" the U.S. Congress has been using to judge the Iraqis' progress. As Feisel al-Istrabadi, Iraq's former deputy ambassador to the U.N., pointed out in a recent Seven Questions interview, de-Baathification had gone horribly awry. The question, though, is not whether reconciliation is warranted, but whether it is real and sustainable given how the bill came about—under U.S. pressure. Can reconciliation be treated like just another benchmark? Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a top Sunni leader and influential member of the Presidential Council, certainly doesn't think so.

PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images

When you hear the word "Canadian," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Someone who is hockey-crazed? Someone who says "eh" at the end of every sentence? Someone who is, dare I say it, nice? 

How about someone who is black?  

Now, naturally there are plenty of black Canadians. There are black Canadians who like hockey, say "eh", and are nice. But this blog post isn't really about black Canadians or white Canadians or any kind of Canadian at all. It's about certain people in the United States who have appropriated the word "Canadian" as code for someone who is black.

Earlier this month, an e-mail that had been circulating since 2003, written by a Houston assistant district attorney Mike Trent, resurfaced. The e-mail was short, only about 100 words, and was sent to the entire office. It started out by praising a junior prosecutor for a job well done. Then the message continued:

He overcame a subversively good defense by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing."

If you're wondering why Canadians were on a Texas jury when only U.S. citizens are allowed to serve, well, there weren't any. Other members of the D.A.'s office who got the memo were wondering the same thing themselves. They looked at an online database of racial slurs and found that "Canadian" was a term used to mask more openly racist terms. Trent claims that he was unaware of the meaning, overheard someone saying that there were Canadians on the jury, took that literally, and just repeated it in his e-mail. 

There is just so much wrong with this situation on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. So, you be the judge.

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Someone please explain to me how this is supposed to be justice. A 23-year-old journalism student named Sayad Parwez Kambaksh supposedly goes online, finds an interesting paper, and prints it out. He supposedly brings it to class at Balkh University, discusses it with a teacher and some fellow students. The paper gets copied and distributed. Some students find it objectionable; they say it is offensive and that it insults Islam. They complain to the government.

Kambaksh is arrested in October and put in jail. He says he had nothing to do with the paper. His case goes to trial, but he has no lawyer. In fact, his family is not even aware that he's put on trial. A panel of three judges decides that he should be put to death because the paper he supposedly distributed "humiliates Islam." The Afghan Independent Journalists' Association reports that any paper in question may have downloaded from an Iranian blog, which contained articles questioning the origins of the Koran, among other controversial things.

Now, his case goes to the first of two appeal courts. But Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the province where the trial took place, says that only President Hamid Karzai can pardon the student, since Kambaksh supposedly confessed to having violated tenets of Islam. Incidentally, Wahab has never read the paper (to be fair, he was also not on the panel that convicted Kambaksh). 

Kambaksh isn't the only Afghan journalist who's gotten into trouble with the law. Ghows Zalmai was also arrested three months ago, charged with distributing a translation of the Koran that clerics did not accept. Religious scholars have also called for him to be put to death.

At any rate, all of this raises the question: Why did the U.S. go into Afghanistan and topple the Taliban, only to have it be replaced with a system like this? So far, no comment from Karzai, who is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. But he'd better step up.

Nearly a year ago, Passport noted that Finnish PM Matti VanHanen, ever the classy guy, dumped his girlfriend via a text message. Ha, ha. But in the Muslim world, apparently there's a serious debate going on as to whether divorce by SMS is valid, and some countries have even had to explicitly ban the practice. In Egypt, however, the law remains unclear:

An Egyptian woman is seeking clarification from a court on whether her husband's declaration of divorce by text message is legally valid, a state-run newspaper reported on Thursday.

After missing a call from her husband on her mobile phone, Iqbal Abul Nasr received a text message from him saying "I divorce you because you didn't answer your husband," Al-Akhbar said.

In line with sharia (Islamic law) men do not need to go to court to file for divorce. A unilateral declaration of divorce by a man, repeated three times, formally ends a marriage.

Egypt actually has a hybrid legal system, meaning that contrary to what most people seem to think, sharia law is already in place in many areas of jurisprudence (though Christians have their own religious courts). A return of the caliphate is not nigh, but if you're a woman in a place like Egypt, the growing Islamicization of the country is bad news indeed. Let's hope the judge rejects this divorce-by-SMS nonsense, if he hasn't already.

Last June, during an evening newscast in Prague, a shot of the Krkonose Mountains in Bohemia was suddenly filled with a bright yellow light. When the light faded, a mushroom cloud was visible. A nuclear weapon had been detonated in the Czech countryside. Panicked viewers phoned state-owned CT2, the station which aired the image, asking if nuclear war had begun.

The shot was, of course, a fake. It was a prank, planted into the shot by Ztohoven, a Prague-based artists collective. The group wanted to show how easily images can be manipulated. And they succeeded. Take a look at the video:

The Czech government didn't find the prank funny. Six members of the group are now on trial and face up to three years in prison for spreading false information.

AFP/Getty Images

So, British teacher Gillian Gibbons is going to a Sudanese jail for 15 days for insulting religion by allowing her class of primary school children to name a teddy bear "Mohammed." (Since she has already served five days, she only has 10 left.) Gibbons escaped a far harsher potential punishment. If she had been found guilty of all three charges levied against her (the others were inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs), she could have faced 40 lashes and six months in prison.  

British Foreign Secretary David Milband has already hauled the Sudanese ambassador into his office to express "in the strongest terms" his concern about her arrest. During their meeting, he also spoke on the phone to Sudan's acting foreign minister.

Will Prime Minister Gordon Brown also get involved? This case reminds me of the infamous Singapore case of 1994, when American teenager Michael Fay was sentenced to a fine and six lashes with a cane for vandalizing cars and stealing road signs. Two dozen U.S. senators wrote letters to Singapore asking for clemency. But it wasn't until after President Clinton complained to his counterpart in Singapore that Fay's sentence was reduced to four lashes. 

At the time, Singapore protested that the United States shouldn't get involved with its domestic affairs. So far, the case of the British schoolteacher hasn't touched on the always-touchy issue of sovereignty, but will it? And should it?

It seems to me that in both cases, there's been a fair, but not necessarily satisfactory, result. In the case of Michael Fay, the laws were clearly laid out, the punishment was defined, and the sentence enforced, albeit at a softer level due to diplomacy. In the case of Gillian Gibbons, the laws may not have been laid out as clearly, but given the tensions between Islam and the West, Gibbons should have perhaps been more sensitive about what can be given the name "Mohammed" and acted more cautiously. Forty lashes and six months in prison—to say nothing of being shot, which is what some in Khartoum are calling for—would have been outrageous for an innocent mistake. But the fact that the Sudanese courts sentenced her to a few days in jail, given the alternative, seems to be an acceptable compromise that shows a modicum of respect for Sudanese sovereignty. Better yet would be if they would just release her right now and end this farce.