Joshua Keating's blog

Guido Westerwelle is currently visiting Israel for his first official trip as Foreign Minister. His last visit, in 2002, didn't go so well:

Westerwelle's trip follows another he made to the region in May 2002 when he was criticized by top Israeli politicians for failing to condemn anti-Israeli comments by his FDP party deputy, Juergen Moellemann.

Moellemann had sympathized openly with Palestinian suicide bombers and had invited Green party member Jamal Karsli, who had expressed anti-Israeli sentiments, to join the FDP.

Moelleman had angered Germany's the Jewish community -- a taboo if there ever was one, for German politicians -- by voicing support for Palestinian suicide bombers and accusing German Jewish leader Michel Friedman of contributing to anti-Semitism. Westerwelle's response to the controversy didn't exactly help:

Westerwelle said that Friedmann had "no higher moral authority" in the debate. When asked about his position on Germany's Nazi past during a visit to Israel, Westerwelle said: "We want to ask questions in a different way and answer them differently." He neglected to explain what he meant.

In response, Westerwelle endured the public criticism of Sharon during a joint press conference. 

Westerwelle has changed his tune since then, emphasizing Germany's "special responsibility" to Israel as he tured Jerusalem's Yad Vashem this week. Hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was also the first of Westerwelle's counterparts to call to congratulate him on his appointment. It seems possible that Westerwelle's visit was a way for Angela Merkel's new foreign minister to bury the hatchet with the Israel's before she meets with Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin next week. 

David Silverman/Getty Images

If all goes according to plan this weekend, the Honduran leaders who ousted President Manuel Zelaya in the face of nearly unanimous international opposition, will hand power to a new government:

The months of turmoil as Zelaya pressed for his reinstatement, the negotiation and U.S. shuttle diplomacy are about to be overtaken by business as usual — Honduran style.

Even many of the poor who supported Zelaya as he aligned himself with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Latin America's new left say they will vote for conservative front-runner Porfirio Lobo, a 61-year-old wealthy businessman who is ahead by double digits in the polls.

"I will vote for the one who can fix this and give us work right now, because those suffering are the poor," said Reina Gomez, 53, a single mother who washes clothes for a living and who supported Zelaya in 2005.

Time's Tim Padgett writes that "the international community is poised to brand the vote illegitimate," but, with the possible exception of Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega, the outrage is likely to be pretty short lived. With a (somewhat) democratically elected leader back in power, most of the countries that condemned Zelaya's removal (and got stuck in the position of advocating for the increasingly erratic leader) will likely quietly resume relations with Honduras's new government after a cooling-off period. 

So what did we learn from all of this? Padgett says the affair shows "how little progress Central America has made since the coups, civil wars, and corruption of the past." This seems a little unfair. During the Cold War era, U.S. or Soviet backing allowed coup governments to simply remain in power, becoming military dictatorships. The international condemnation of the Honduran coup forced the government to quickly hold elections to hand off control to a more legitimate leader. This has been a consistent pattern in recent coups. 

If anything, the Honduras crisisis a demonstration that the United States and international organizations simply don't have as much power to influence a country's internal politics as they commonly assume.

 

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently attended a rap battle sponsored by the Russian government to combat drug use. Vladimir Vladimirovich shared his thoughts on hip-hop culture and clapped awkwardly, but unfortunately chose not to drop a verse.

The France-Ireland dispute over Thierry Henry's handball is getting all the international press, but the three-way diplomatic dispute between Egypt, Algeria, and Sudan over violence at a recent World Cup qualifying match looks more serious:

Egypt has recalled its ambassador to Algeria after World Cup qualifying football matches between the two countries resulted in a number of outbreaks of violence..

Egypt says a number of its fans who travelled to Sudan for a match on Wednesday to decide which of the sides would go to next year's World Cup finals in South Africa were assaulted by Algerians.

Algeria beat Egypt 1-0 with local police saying that there was little violence due to the massive security operation mounted.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese government summoned the Egyptian ambassador in Khartoum to complain about the insinuation that Sudanese security personnel were to blame for the violence. Egyptian authorities claim that Algerian fans throwing rocks wounded 21 Egyptian fans. This was in retaliation for an earlier game in Cairo in which Algerian players were wounded by Egyptian fans throwing rocks at their bus. 

Some are comparing the dispute to the famous 1969 "football war" fought between El Salvador and Honduras. That's probably a stretch -- relations between Egypt and Algeria are, for the most part, pretty good -- but here's hoping that this dispute, and the Henry spat, aren't a preview of what to expect in South Africa this summer. 

Hat tip: Nightwatch

CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP/Getty Images

A new study from the University of Haifa finds that animals on either side of the Israel-Jordanian border exhibit different characteristics and behaviors:

The first study inspected the reptile population and revealed that the number of reptiles is similar on both sides, but the variety of species in the sandy areas of Jordan is significantly higher than the variety found in the sands of Israel. A second study revealed that Israeli gerbils are more cautious than their Jordanian friends, while a third study showed that the funnel-digging ant lion population in Israel is unmistakably larger than in Jordan.

According to the researchers, the differences between Israel and Jordan are primarily in the higher level of agriculture and the higher number of agricultural farms in Israel as opposed to Jordan's agriculture that is primarily based on nomadic shepherding and traditional farming. The agricultural fields on the Israeli side of the border not only create a gulf between habitats and thereby cause an increase in the number of species in the region, but they also hail one of the most problematic of intruders in the world: the red fox. On the Jordanian side, the red fox is far less common, so that Jordanian gerbils can allow themselves to be more carefree.

This follows an amazing Wall Street Journal story from two weeks ago describing how red deer still refuse to cross the German-Czech border, 20 years after an electric fence was taken down. The U.S.-Mexico border fence is also proving disruptive to migration patterns several species. 

Arbitrary political constructions though they may be, national borders are becoming natural ones as well. 

Looks like Blackwater/Xe has joined the list of Al Qaeda's favorite boogeymen. Mustafa Abu Yazid, the terror group's chief of operations in Afghanistan, is blaming the contractor for the recent violence in Peshawar:

The Mujahedeen, as Yazid called the militants, target only security forces who are far from civilian gathering places, he said.

"Today, everyone knows what Blackwater and the criminal security contractors are doing after they came to Pakistan with the support of the criminal, corrupt government and its intelligence and security apparatus," Yazid said.

"They are the ones who commit these heinous acts, then accuse the Mujahedeen of their crimes."

A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images

With President Obama scheduled to visit Beijing on Monday, city authorities have banned souvenir vendors from selling a popular t-shirt depicting the president as a Mao-era red guard:

Since he was elected the US president last year, the T-shirt has had a ready market. According to some business owners, they got calls last week from Beijing Municipal Government demanding them to stop the sale of this kind of T-shirt immediately. And inspection officers even came to stores to make sure the T-shirts are off the shelf.

Business owners have been notified that after Obama ends his visit to China, they can resume the sale.

Posters and shirts depicting the president as a communist aren't uncommon at anti-Obama rallies in the U.S., but I'm confused about what exactly this shirt means when a Chinese person wears it. Are they pro-Obama, anti-Obama, or just all about the LOLz?

Also, while I understand that the authorities are anxious not to offend Obama on his high-profile visit, I have a feeling that the president's seen way more ridiculous images of himself if he's ever looked out the window of his limo on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Thankfully, beyond a few muggings, last night's massive Brazilian blackout seems to have caused little lasting damage. But the international coverage of the event is probably a good preview for the Olympic host country's next six years:

Questions remained about what happened and what the fallout would be in Brazil, a nation seen as an ascending economic and political power.

"The image of Brazil, of Rio, is bad enough with all the violence," said 35-year-old graphic designer Paulo Viera, as he sat in a restaurant a block from the sandy arc of Copacabana.

Standing in an open-air restaurant where patrons were drinking quickly warming beer, Viera said he worried about how the outage might look for a city that last month was picked to host the Olympics and will be the showcase city for soccer's World Cup in 2014. "We don't need this to happen. I don't know how it could get worse."

The blackout comes on the heels of a wave of gang fighting in Rio's slums that led to violence fears ahead of the games.

"It's sad to see such a beautiful city with such a precarious infrastructure," 22-year-old law student Igor Fernandes said. "This shouldn't happen in a city that is going to host the Olympic Games."

This is a little unfair. Even Rio's mayor acknowledges that the city has a long way to go in terms of safety and infrastructure before the games, but they do have another six years, and the IOC knew what they were getting when they awarded Brazil the games. 

The problem with developing coutries hosting events like the Olympics is that while the intention is to highlight the enormous progress they've made, they're just as likely to highlight the shortcomings. . Every crime wave or infrastructure failure, or corruption scandal Rio suffers in the next six years will now be covered in the context of whether the city is ready for the games.

Just ask South Africa or Russia.