China is getting ready for the games. It can't guarantee clean air, but it's giving new meaning to the adage that 'heads will roll'. A plot to disrupt the Olympics is supposed to have been detected, so it executed some of the purported plotters.

CHINA has reverted to public executions on the eve of the Olympics as part of a massive security operation mounted to protect the Beijing Games from what Communist Party authorities describe as an urgent threat of violence and anti-government protest.

The Washington Post reported at the weekend that three young men were shot shortly after dawn in the city of Yengishahar in Xinjiang - the mainly Muslim region of northwestern China.

"The local government bused several thousand students and office workers into a public square and lined them up in front of a vocational school," the Post reported. "As the spectators watched, witnesses said, three prisoners were brought out.

"Then an execution squad fired rifles at the three point-blank, killing them on the spot."

The men were among 17 people convicted in nearby Kashgar of being members of the outlawed East Turkestan Islamic Movement.

The cretin in chief will fit right in at those opening ceremonies. Next we'll be hearing of rendition as the new event, perhaps, a propos memos from Prof. Yoo and trials to be held at Gitmo. The Torture Olympics it is.

I expect the White House will have No Comment on these preparatory events as it plows new depths in conduct of foreign affairs as well as in conduct, generally.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

The results:

Mugabe won 85.5 percent of the presidential runoff vote, against 9.3 percent cast for Tsvangirai, Chief Election Officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said in a telephone interview from Harare today. He didn't say how many of the ballots were spoilt.

Tsvangirai, 56, won more votes than Mugabe in the first round on March 29, without gaining the 50 percent needed to avoid a rerun, according to state-appointed electoral officials. The MDC gained majorities in most of the nation's city and district councils and forced the ruling Zimbabwe Africa National Union- Patriotic Front into a minority in parliament for the first time since 1980.

What, if anything, should the international community do about Zimbabwe? It's hard to say. Military intervention should always be the option of last resort, and there are still a lot of other leverage points to try first. The UN has barely issued a statement against Mugabe, much less implemented sanctions or other pressures.

The trouble is, with the election over, the political will to do anything about the situation might evaporate until Mugabe's term is up. Then again, perhaps if Zimbabweans continue to speak out, the issue will stay at the forefront of world affairs.

What is the right course of action for the international community? How should we solve situations like this? Is it even out business?

North Korea turned over its nuclear secrets and demolished its reactor cooling tower and in exchange, George Bush has moved to normalize relations with the isolated country by taking it off the infamous "axis of evil" list and lifting some sanctions. All this, as Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times points out, is very un-Bush-like:

North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear activities is a triumph of the sort of diplomacy — complicated, plodding, often frustrating — that President Bush and his aides once eschewed as American weakness.

In more than two years of negotiations, the man who once declared North Korea part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq, angrily vowing to confront, not negotiate with, its despotic leader, in fact demonstrated a flexibility that his critics at home and abroad once considered impossible.

There is now only one country left in Bush's "axis of evil:" Iran. The question is, will we have to go down the same road with Iran that we went down with North Korea?

George Bush has characteristically refused to "negotiate with terrorists," putting any kind of high-level talks with the North Korean regime off for years. Under Bush's watch, North Korea bought nuclear technology from Pakistan's A.Q. Kahn, developed a nuclear weapons program which resulted in a successful nuclear test, and used this nuclear capability as leverage to bring Bush reluctantly to the negotiating table.

It's a classic example of what I call the nuclear cycle:

Are you a small, under-respected nation? Do you want to get the attention of the "big boys" and be taken seriously on the world stage? All you need to do is obtain a nuclear weapon and you'll be rolling in cash, favors, and prestige.

This seems to be the message the U.S. and others in the so-called "first world" are sending. Get a nuke and we'll take you seriously. Until then, we can and will ignore you.

North Korea, above all, wants what any nation wants - respect, prosperity, and security. While it may be run by an oppressive regime, its general foreign policy goals are quite similar to any other nation. When Bush unilaterally moved to cut off relations with North Korea, the nation saw not only its hopes of world acceptance but its very security threatened. In that atmosphere, with an American leader who doesn't believe in "negotiating with terrorists," the path to respect and security was to prove you shouldn't be messed with. George Bush, with his with-us-or-against-us philosophy, created a strong incentive for countries like North Korea to build nuclear weapons.

And guess what; it worked!

North Korea immediately gave up its nuclear secrets once negotiations started moving, signaling their true intent was never to build a nuke for its own sake but to use it as a bargaining chip. Relations between the U.S. and North Korea have been steadily warming since it detonated a nuclear weapon. Its basic security is no longer in peril. And hey, it gets to sell its nuclear technology on the side for a tidy profit.

As anyone can plainly see, this is an awful cycle Bush has set up. Nearly every country that goes down this road, from Pakistan to North Korea, ends up selling their nuclear expertise to other countries hoping for the same outcome. This cycle is guaranteed to accelerate nuclear proliferation - a terrible outcome.

With that in mind, can't we figure out a way to short circuit this cycle and not repeat history with Iran?

Iran clearly wants - like North Korea, India, and Pakistan before it - normalized relations with the United States. The fact that it helped us prosecute the war in Afghanistan after September 11th and offered to put everything on the negotiating table in exchange for normal relations - even the issue of Israel - makes this clear. But Bush won't let normalization happen without confrontation first. Instead, Iran is painted as pure evil, beyond the reach of diplomats. The only option left for either country is conflict.

Let's not do this again. We could continue down this dangerous road, with Iran racing to build the bomb that will make them untouchable and force negotiations before Bush decides to attack. We could let another country develop nuclear technology that will find its way into other hands. Or we could cut off this process by talking to Iran, taking them up on their offer to put everything on the table and showing them some respect by doing the same on our end.

Let's talk about Iran's stance towards Israel. Its nuclear secrets. Its sponsorship of terrorism. But let's also talk about Iran's membership in the World Trade Organization. And foreign aid and expertise to rebuild its crumbling infrastructure. And equal respect as an ally in the Middle East.

There are plenty of carrots we can offer Iran to get them to give up the worst of their current practices. They may never be our buddy, but we don't have to force them to build a nuke before we can talk to them. The North Korean situation has proved diplomacy works. Let's see if this time, we can make it work without proliferation.

The writing is on the wall. In Turkey, a storm is brewing that may plunge the country into its worst political crisis since the turbulent 1970s that were ended by a military coup in 1980. In an unexpectedly unrelenting and confrontational move the Turkish Constitutional Court yesterday ruled a law easing the ban on headscarves at universities unconstitutional. But what may remind American readers of the recent controversy about the ten commandments being displayed in public buildings only constitutes the tip of the iceberg. The faultlines go much deeper. With its verdict to annul a constitutional amendment passed by the ruling AKP in February, the high court has taken sides as plain as can be in the political confrontation that has paralyzed the country's political system for months.

Chris in Paris at AMERICAblog gives us a not-so-small wrinkle in the continuing Zimbabwe election story, which has been covered at great length by Alex Thurston for The Seminal:

The US ambassador in Harare accused government officials yesterday of blackmailing opposition supporters, by denying them food unless they surrendered their national identity card and thus gave up their right to vote.

Vote for me or you starve…quite a choice. I'm with Hannah; perhaps the Italians should just arrest Mugabe.

Finally, Siun at FDL has the rundown on the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq, which will govern on what terms America leaves the country and what permanent infrastructure, if any, we leave behind:

There are signals that the Maliki Green Zone “government” is starting to get the message that the Status of Forces Agreement the US is pushing is not likely to win them friends at home. Aswat Al Iraq reported that Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh tried to head off criticism by saying: 

“the Iraqi government has a vision of the agreement different from the one speculated by the U.S,” and he went on to insist that the Mailiki “vision” will “stress preservation of Iraq’s territorial, maritime and aerial sovereignty…”

While Maliki tries to head off opposition until he can manipulate faux approval of the SOFA, CTuttle of Main and Central points us to key information on just one of the claims both Mailiki and Crocker/Bush are making – that there will be no U.S. permanent bases.

There's always a lot going on in the world. I rely on the blogs to keep me informed. Any interesting international news you've been reading today?

A contingent of American and British diplomats investigating the political situation in Zimbabwe were stopped at a roadblock and detained by the police on Thursday, American officials said…

During a car chase of over 6 miles, the police tried to force the American diplomats off the road. When they were finally stopped, all four tires of their white S.U.V. were slashed and a local security official was punched….

The diplomats refused [to accompany police to a nearby station] and, after a phone call to the American embassy back in Harare, set off in their vehicles in different directions. One car, containing American diplomats, took back roads and reached Harare safely. The second American car took the main road back to Harare before it was stopped at the roadblock north of the capital, near Mazoe. The British car was stopped at the same roadblock, the ambassador said.

The article goes on to report how this is a fairly obvious indication that the Zimbabwean police are trying to stop Western officials from witnessing state-sponsored violence. Apparently, Mugabe has been threatening to evict U.S. Ambassador William McGee for weeks now, for speaking out against the attacks.

As Alex Thurston reported earlier this week the police have also been detaining, attacking, and murdering opposition leaders throughout the country, as well as blocking the humanitarian organization Care from delivering aid. On Wednesday, Zimbabwean police detained Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, (for the bazillionth time) for absolutely no reason.

Here is what Mugabe's Zanu-PF does to activists who support Tsvangirai's democratic opposition movement in Zimbabwe (apologies for the graphic nature of this excerpt):

The body of Tonderai Ndira was found this week, the 43rd Zimbabwean opposition activist to die in violence since elections in March…This new body was badly decomposed; a pair of bloody shorts was plastered to a face clearly broken and shattered.

"We only knew it was my brother by his distinctive ring, his bangles, and his unmistakable height," said Cosmas Ndira, as family and friends filled his small home to mourn his passing before his funeral, which is yet to be finalized. "His jaw was shattered, his knuckles broken, a bullet hole below his heart, many many stab wounds and a large hole at the back of his head which seemed to have been caused by a hammer."

The rest of the world notwithstanding, certain American leaders have zero right justifying our invasion of Iraq on the grounds that we were liberating Iraqis from a brutally oppressive leader, while continuing their inaction in Zimbabwe. Anyone who can read can see where this is going, but our government has the power to stop it. We have an obligation to intervene on behalf of the Zimbabwean opposition movement, right now.

We are derelict, and we are complicit in this brutality, each and every day that we do not.

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested a senior opposition leader after he criticised the president in a newspaper article.

A splinter group of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said its leader, Arthur Mutambara, was jailed on Sunday after questioning Robert Mugabe's right to stay in office.

Harrison Nkomo, Mutambara's lawyer, said he was "arrested for publishing falsehoods and for contempt of court for an opinion article he wrote in April".

The article accused Mugabe of destroying the Zimbabwean economy and his security forces of abuses.

The editor of The Standard newspaper was arrested last month over the piece written by Mutambara.

Mutambara recently pledged to support Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main MDC group, in the run-off poll against Mugabe.

Police also arrested a lawyer for Tsvangirai and the opposition says at least 50 of its activists have been killed, hundreds injured and at least 25,000 displaced in attacks in the run up to the country's presidential run-off on June 27.

Mugabe's army chief has also threatened soldiers with dismissal if they don't vote Mugabe, and troops are fanning out across the country in anticipation of the next round of elections. To say the least, that doesn't bode well. Those soldiers may get caught between a rock and a hard place come crisis time, and clearly Mugabe's people aren't entirely confident in their loyalty.

Finally, Mugabe is turning some hostility on the outside world as well, targeting the international aid group Care in what may be an attempt to deny food and aid to the opposition.

All in all it seems that foul play is in the works. The main question is how everyone, from the opposition to the regime to the international community and the people of Zimbabwe themselves, will react to a tense and potentially explosive situation.

The human interest story du jour coming out of Southern China has been the immense number of Chinese psychiatrists that descended on the province to provide counseling to the tens of thousands of traumatized quake victims whose friends and family have died or gone missing in the quake and its aftermath. Media outlets from the BBC to ABC picked up on this curious story.

100 years ago, the emergence of a psychoanalytic literati in the coffee houses of Vienna found its match in the 19th century's rise of a "desperate housewives" class. This was an urban bourgeoisie that became known for its ennui-driven introspection and tendency to pose for Gustav Klimt paintings. This class also ushered in the modern era.

Is Beijing today's Vienna?

Fast forward to today and look at China. China currently has 19,000 registered psychiatrists. That is half the number of American psychiatrists but the number is rising rapidly. Treating mental distress is an essential element of compressive disaster relief but the surplus of so many well-qualified mental health professionals in China is also a sign that the Chinese coastal bourgeoisie is rapidly developing, leaving China's rural peasantry behind. And nowhere is this more obvious than in today's Sichuan province, where Beijing and Shanghai's psychoanalysts are confronting a social mismatch between this modern coastal elite and a pre-modern inland plebeian class. 

Tyson Barker works on transatlantic issues at a think tank in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Columbia University in History and German Studies in 2004 and his MA from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, in 2007. Tyson is a former Fulbright Scholar and has received research fellowships to Taiwan and China. While Tyson knows that crooked obsession with reality TV will one day get him into trouble, he just can’t turn off an ANTM marathon.  

On Monday, May 26, Foreign Ministers Radoslaw Sikorski of Poland and Carl Bildt of Sweden jointly presented a grand proposal for a so-called "Eastern Initiative" aimed at improving the EU's relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and particularly Ukraine.

This has left Euro-observers (particularly this one) scratching their heads. Why would the Poles and the Swedes deliberately try to take the wind from the sails of the French presidency? Is this pay-back for having been initially left out of the equation of countries that would be included in the Mediterranean Union? What could have inspired such a direct affront to the French grand strategy of turning Europe's attention southward?

The answer might lie in Berlin.

In this grand strategy tug-of-war, Germany finds itself in a somewhat odd position. On the one hand, the Germans will be the unofficial king-makers between the two competing visions and their blessing will be the key factor for the success of either grand initiative. On the other hand, Germany has ceased to be a foreign policy innovator-rather it has become a kind of "ratifier" of more sweeping foreign policy schemes from the West and the East/North.

Germany was none too happy about the original plans for the MU from which Berlin was initially to be excluded and which would duplicate many of the functions already sourced to Brussels. But the demurring stance of the German government of Angela Merkel toward Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union has had broader implications. A breakdown of the Franco-German core of the EU in European foreign policy could lead to a proliferation of grand initiatives on behalf of any number of European coalitions.

The so-called "Eastern Initiative" could be just the beginning. 

Tsvangirai, currently in South Africa, also said that Zimbabwe's problems were causing regional violence.

The economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe has led to an exodus from the country.

More than three million Zimbabweans are said to be living in neighbouring South Africa.

Resentment that foreigners are competing for scarce jobs and houses has led to a wave of anti-foreigner attacks in South Africa in the past 10 days. Zimbabweans bore the brunt of the violence.

Tsvangirai told a crowd of Zimbabweans outside the police station in the Alexandra township, where the violence started, that Zimbabwe's crisis had spilled over into South Africa.

Tsvangirai will need to be extremely careful; 43 opposition activists have been killed in election-related violence. I'm worried that Tsvangirai's death could set off further waves of violence.

The run-off will theoretically take place on June 27.

Twenty-one Sudanese army soldiers have been killed in fierce fighting with southern forces in the contested oil-rich town of Abyei, army sources said on Wednesday.

The army accused the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), from semi-autonomous South Sudan, of attacking its positions in the town on Tuesday — while a southern minister accused a northern officer of sparking the conflict.

Last week observers put the displaced persons count at 30,000, but now the UN is citing a figure twice that.

The dispute between the central government, based in the north, and the government of the autonomous south centers on the issue of who will control Abyei's oil. And China looms in the background.

An international analyst, who asked not to be named, said the nearby Heglig oil fields, run by Chinese-led consortium Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, produced about 250,000 barrels a day, roughly half of Sudan's entire output.

There are many interlocking pieces here, but as I've said before the weakness of international institutions is one of the most frustrating aspects of the whole situation. A beefed-up UN, in my opinion, could make a real difference in situations like these.