You didn't think that just because of our fancy new Web site, we'd slack off on the print edition did you? The latest issue of Foreign Policy is on newsstands now and it's packed full of exciting content.

As you can tell from the cover, the big theme of this issue is the monumental challenges facing President-elect Barack Obama. First up is Afghanistan: Nathaniel C. Fick and John A. Nagl, co-authors of the Army's influential counterinsurgency manual, write an updated edition tailored to the Afghan front. For the same package, FP Executive Editor Susan Glasser interviewed Gen. David Petraeus shortly after he took command of CENTCOM about the challenges of Afghanistan.

Then there's the economy. Five economists who predicted the financial crisis -- including Nouriel Roubini who called it in FP last March -- explain what we're in for next. Their take: "The Worst is Yet to Come." William Easterly also explains the implications of the crisis for the world's poor in "The Poor Man's Burden" and journalist Carla Power explains how the new field of Islamic finance is coping with the crash.

Why can't Israel and the Palestinians make peace? According to Gershom Gorenberg, it's the settlements, stupid. And if you thought that there was anything the new administration could do to stop climate change, Bill McKibben explains why you should think again.

How's Obama going to confront all these problems? According to FP editor Chris Brose, he's going to preserve more of the Bush administration's approach than you might think. New ideas are certainly needed though, and the new Think Tank Index ranks the institutions that will provide them.

Of course, check out old favorites, Prime Numbers, Inbox, and Net Effect, as well as the new books feature, Early Read.

And if you're a fan of Foreign Policy, you should definitely consider subscribing. A full year of the print edition plus full access to digital archives is only $19.95.

As part of our expansion, Foreign Policy is now hiring for positions working on both the print edition and Website.

We're currently accepting applications for the jobs of entry-level editor, Web development director, and editorial researcher. If you've got a passion for international affairs journalism, the requisite skills for any of these positions, and fresh ideas about how to improve the magazine, you should definitely get in touch.

Hope you've all enjoyed the first day of the new ForeignPolicy.com. This is still very much a work in progress and we're only just beginning to figure out how to take advantage of the new format. In particular, it looks like the interaction between our all-star lineup of bloggers is going to be fun.

I also wanted to take this chance to heap much-deserved praise on two of the unsung heroes of this endeavor, Web Developer Blaine Sheldon and Webmaster Tom Stec. Even under normal circumstances there's no way we could function without these guys and in the runup to the relaunch, they worked ridiculous hours to get the site running smoothly and looking fantastic.

Thanks also to everyone who wrote in or blogged with feedback, both positive and (constructively) negative. Keep it coming!

Yes, it looks different.

Starting today, the main site is transforming into a vibrant, daily online magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas. You'll be able to read the entire January/February issue -- with contributions from Nouriel Roubini, Gen. David Petraeus, and others. We'll continue to bring you popular items like The List each week, but we'll now have daily opinion and commentary at The Argument and a regular, online version of our provocative "Think Again" feature -- plus more to come over the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, Passport will be joined by a host of new blogs. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and Fiasco author Tom Ricks will comment on military matters at The Best Defense. Harvard's Stephen Walt, coauthor of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, will inject a dose of realism into the online political debate. Superclass author David Rothkopf will give readers an inside look at the global powerbrokers who really run the world. FP senior editor Carolyn O'Hara and a crack team of Clinton-watchers will be obsessively following all things Hillary at Madam Secretary. And a coterie of conservative foreign-policy heavyweights, including Peter Feaver, Philip Zelikow, and FP's newest editor -- and Condoleeza Rice's longtime speechwriter -- Christian Brose, will be on hand to critique the Obama presidency at Shadow Government: Notes from the loyal opposition.

Some blogging veterans are also adding their names to our digital masthead. Daniel Drezner's readers already know that he has brought his must-read blog on foreign policy, international economics (and occasionally the Red Sox) over to FP. Marc Lynch's essential Middle East politics blog Abu Aardvark has also come aboard. And investigative journalist Laura Rozen will be writing The Cable, featuring original coverage, scoops, and behind-the-scenes reporting about the making of Washington's foreign policy in the age of Obama.

We'll also feature partnerships with the Small Wars Journal and a new column, The Call, with political forecasting by Ian Bremmer and the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group.

So where does Passport fit in with this illustrious company? In a better position than ever to bring you the latest news and opinion from around the world. We'll continue posting every day on topics both serious and absurd. And we're looking forward to having the chance to interact with our new blog-mates.

We expect to learn a lot about what works and what doesn't during this transition. As always, we invite feedback from you. We can't imagine a better time to launch a project like this and hope that all of you will help us make the new ForeignPolicy.com a must-read.

Generally speaking, nonsensical spam comments are the bane of a blogger's existence and we try to delete them as quickly as possible. Every once in a while, however, a gem shines through.

This masterful subject transition from a comment on our original shoe-throwing post was worth highlighting:

People from around the region have been hailing the actions of al-Zeidi as heroic, even though Bush laughed it off as a "sign of a free society" – kind of like having a bevy of financial options, such as payday loans.

Freedom ain't free, but rates may vary.

D.C.-based research analyst, blogger, and former McCain campaign advisor David Adesnik writes:

Thank you for bringing accountability to the predictions game. May I suggest, however, that you passed over one of the most strategically significant predictions falsified in 2008? In early 2007, Barack Obama stated clearly, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there; in fact, I think it'll do the reverse." This September, Sen. Obama acknowledged that the surge "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams." Thankfully, the president-elect's decision to keep Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense suggests that he has learned from his mistake.

Dr. Walter Wagner writes in response to his placement on the worst predictions list:

What kind of idiot do you have working for you, with respect to your #7 'prediction' about the Large Hadron Collider [LHC]? The LHC was not turned on; the LHC was tested in preparation for collisions and it self-destructed before collisions could be undertaken. CERN is currently engaged in a repair effort, estimated at about $30,000,000, and pronounce that they will undertake collisions next year [2009], sometime in the summer, if they can fix the damage that was caused. The machine is far from operational, and many more scientists are now also concerned about CERN's ability to properly predict safety. Of course we're still here - the experiment hasn't been tried yet. You should fire the idiot who wrote that analysis.

The Economist's Democracy in America blog defends the editorial on Kenya's election that earned the magazine a spot on our worst predictions list, saying it was "not a prediction nor was it a conclusion."

You can read it here to judge for yourself.

This week's map comes from our benevolent overlords at WashingtonPost.com. The TimeSpace map, which you can find on the Post's "World" page, is an interesting new way to visualize the day's news from the post's reporters around the globe. You can adjust the timeframe of the stories you see on the slider at the bottom of the map:

If you zoom in on Washington D.C, you can see the latest Passport posts. You may even be able to find the post you're reading right now, though that risks opening up an Escher-like metaphysical vortex with Large Hadron Collider-like destructive powers. If this happens, the Washington Post Company will not be held responsible for the consequences.

What seems like conventional wisdom one day, can be turned on its head pretty quickly. A first-term senator with an exotic-sounding name can defeat the biggest brand in Democratic politics. Decades of unprecedented economic growth can end with a bang. A multi-billion dollar industry can find itself at the mercy of a ragtag group of pirates on inflatable rafts. The 10 wannabe Nostradamuses on our list of the “Ten Worst Predictions for 2008” went out on a limb by forecasting the events of a dramatic year, and came crashing dramatically down to Earth.

And if you haven't checked it out yet, our list of the "Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008" is also live.

There was more to the monumental changes of 2008 than meets the eye.

As the world debated a new president's foreign policy vision, a key component of his platform was already being implemented.

As the United States watched to see how an emerging China would react under the spotlight of the Olympic Games, a U.S. company was selling its authoritarian government the tools it would need to crush dissent.

As renewed tension between Russia and the West provoked fears of a new Cold War, some of Russia's most aggressive international moves were taking place far from the Caucasus or Eastern Europe in the oil fields of Central Africa.

And as "green" became the year’s biggest buzzword, scientists discovered that environmentalists' favorite power source might be even more harmful than the fossil fuels it was designed to replace.

FP's "Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2008" features the page A14 stories that reveal as much about what happened in 2008 as those on page A1. More importantly, they may be clues to what the lead headlines will be in 2009.

Check it out.

If you haven't yet had a chance to read E.J. Graff's superb piece "The Lie We Love" from our November/December issue, it's now available for free on ForeignPolicy.com. The piece is an exploration of the dark side of global adoption and the myth that millions of healthy babies are waiting for adoption in the developing world. Too often, Graff argues, these infants are "manufactured" to meet Western demand.

To accompany the piece, Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism has put together this online map showing the countries where the most serious adoption irregularities occur. Click through for in depth country data and check back as more countries are added:

Preeti Aroon

"Anti-Terror Law Requires God Be Acknowledged," by John Cheves in the Lexington Herald-Leader (it's not online, but a related AP story is here). In my home state of Kentucky, state law requires that annual reports from the state's Office of Homeland Security credit God for Kentucky's security. No joke: The Emergency Operations Center must post a plaque that begins, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth [of Kentucky] cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images

Jerome Chen

"The United States of Africa." Newsweek's Jason McLure interviews Jean Ping, chairman of the African Union Commission, an administrative branch of the African Union. Ping remains optimistic that promoting democracy in individual countries across Africa can eventually lead to some form of centralized governence of the continent. "We are 53 countries, and if your image of the continent is that of Zimbabwe or Somalia, it's not fair," he writes.

Elizabeth Dickinson

AIDS Accountability Country Scorecard Report. The world's richest countries tend to be strong advocates for treating and monitoring the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the developing world. But as this report by AIDS Accountability International finds, the same wealthy nations rarely meet their reporting standards at home. Released today on World AIDS Day, the report offers a frank assessment of how much we don't know about progress in the fight against this deadly disease.

Rebecca Frankel

"A Teflon Putin for Your Grandkids to Admire." In this Moscow Times op-ed, Yevgeny Kiselyov envisions an "entirely plausible" scenario in which Vladimir Putin -- who still has an 86 percent approval rating -- could be president until 2024. Even then, Putin "would still be younger than former U.S. President Ronald Reagan was when he left the White House." 

Blake Hounshell

"The Hugo Chávez Show" on Frontline. The best documentary show on TV strikes again with an in-depth look at the caudillo of Caracas and his weekly television spectacle, Aló Presidente. Believe it or not, this buffoon is in charge of one of the world’s most important oil suppliers.

Joshua Keating

The Power Vertical. The blogosphere has been badly in need of an obsessive Kremlinology blog. This new one by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Brian Whitmore and Robert Coalson is off to a promising start, offering exhaustive analysis of Russian politics. Check out Coalson's analysis of how the newly extended parliamentary terms will enhance the Kremlin's credibility by requiring it to stage-manage "elections" less often.

David Kenner

"Rockland Man Allegedly Posed As Agent to Board Plane." Boston's Logan Airport, the hub from which the 9/11 terrorists departed, still doesn't have its act together. The Boston Herald reports how a medical supply salesman, who told airport personnel he was an armed federal agent, got around security checkpoints by flashing an assistant harbormaster's badge. Logan security even brought him onto multiple planes and, on one occasion, let him into the cockpit.

When we printed the FP list, Five Physics Lessons for Obama, we anticipated that Berkeley Professor Richard Muller's counterintuitive arguments about global warming and alternative energy would provoke some discussion out on the Internets. But interestingly, his thoughts on manned space flight seem to have generated the most controversy. Muller argues that "putting humans in space is not only very dangerous; it usually slows the advance of science." A good number of Reddit users seem to disagree.

Dr. Evan M. Zuesse of Melbourne, Australia also wrote in with a very spirited and lengthy rebuttal. Zuesse feels that following Muller's advice could lead to the demise of humanity itself. Here's an excerpt:

Preeti Aroon

Physics for Future Presidents. Physics Professor Richard A. Muller writes that everyone expects the U.S. president to know the difference between Sunni and Shiite. But knowing physics will lead them to understand that a nuclear attack isn't the greatest danger posed by terrorists and that getting the United States to "go green" shouldn't be the focus in halting global warming. If you don't have time to read the book, check out the List that Muller wrote for FP: "Five Physics Lessons for Obama."

Jerome Chen

"The End." In Portfolio, Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker, retraces the path of a brave hedge fund manager, Steve Eisman, who bet against the subprime mortgage mania. Eisman, as Lewis tells it, was a voice of reason that fought the delusions of Wall Street. And though his warnings fell on deaf ears, he profited handsomely from the industry's downfall.

Elizabeth Dickinson

Michel Agier's On the Margins of the World, recently translated from the original French, takes an anthropological look at what it means to be a refugee today. While noting there is literally a nation of refugees (nearly 50 million people), Agier's most profound conclusion is about all humans: that how we "quarantine" the world's victims exposes our own alarming insecurity.

Rebecca Frankel

"End of an Aura." In The Economist, Ann Wroe reminisces about George W. Bush's most telling attribute -- his nostrils. While able to "sniff out WMD in Iraq as snappily as hot dogs at a football game" they could not "smell the putrid mud that covered the ninth ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina passed." Alas, the nose did not know very much at all.

Joshua Keating

Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy by Michael Soussan. A dark and surprisingly funny insider's account of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.

David Kenner

The Times Online reports that U.S. Army is testing a "throwable robot," named Dragon Runner, designed to be thrown into caves or buildings for reconnaissance before soldiers enter. The robots, which are controlled with a laptop at distances of up to 800 meters, transmit back video and audio recordings of their journey.

Preeti Aroon

The Antelope's Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide. How would you feel if the men who killed your family moved back to your town? Jean Hatzfeld interviews Rwanda's genocide survivors and killers released from prison in the early 2000s in an exploration of the difficulty of reconciliation. (Note: The book will be out in March 2009; I'm reading a review copy.)

Jerome Chen

"The New York Times' Lonely War." In Vanity Fair's December issue, Seth Mnookin looks at one of the few U.S. media outlets to maintain a presence in Iraq -- the Times' Baghdad bureau. Remarking that "135 journalists have been killed there since 2003," the Iraq War, he says, "has been, by any measure, one of the most dangerous conflicts to cover in the history of modern journalism."

Elizabeth Dickinson

Closing Guantánamo is on the short list of top priorities for the incoming Obama administration. In Harper's "Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration," lawyer Scott Horton imagines Bush officials standing trial and suggests a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would trade confessions for amnesty.

Rebecca Frankel

"All Options Are on the Table." Der Spiegel talks to Israeli Air Force Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan about his country's biggest military challenges and what Israel would be willing to do should Iran manage to develop nuclear weapons. "The Air Force is a very robust and flexible force," Nehushtan says. "We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us."

Blake Hounshell

Four active-duty officers -- Lt. Col. Robert A. Downey, Lt. Col Lee K. Grubbs, Cdr. Brian J. Malloy, and Lt. Col. Craig R. Wonson -- explain how a surge in Afghanistan might work for the Small Wars Journal (pdf). The bad news? It's going to require eight brigades, or up to 40,000 additional troops.

David Kenner

"Disney Set to Entertain Middle East." The Financial Times reports that Walt Disney is making its first film marketed towards the Middle East. Because of the large number of young people in the region, and the limited number of films made targeting an Arab audience, Disney is hoping to produce a family movie that "will play to families from North Africa to the Gulf states."

Photo: JOSE CENDON/AFP/Getty Images

A quick follow-up to yesterday's post on the inaccurate reports in the Pakistani media claiming that FP had named Karachi's mayor "the second best mayor in the world":

The Dawn newspaper, which gave prominent placement to the original inaccurate story, have now run a second story that quotes FP's Media Coordinator Jina Hassan setting the record straight.

According to Dawn's site, the story is the newspaper's most read and most e-mailed item today, so hopefully this clarification should put an end to the whole mess. Although the amusing headline, "Magazine denies declaring Kamal 2nd best mayor," kind of makes it sound like this is a matter of opinion.

We invite anyone who's still confused to just read the original piece.

One of my responsibilities here at Foreign Policy is manning the "FP Editor" e-mail account. It's always fun to come in in the morning and see how readers around the world are reacting to what we print. Sometimes, the reactions can be a bit strange, though.

Yesterday, we started receiving e-mails from readers and journalists in Pakistan asking for comment on reports that we had named Karachi's mayor, Mustafa Kamal, "the second best mayor in the world." This would be an understandable query if we had actually said anything of the sort.

At issue is a sidebar from FP's recent Global Cities Index that names Kamal, Berlin's Klaus Wowereit, and Chongqing's Wang Hongju as "mayors of the moment" who have found innovative ways to globalize their cities. The mayors are not ranked, nor are we implying that they are objectively "better" than any other mayors, but that didn't stop the Karachi city government from issuing a press release on its Web site (they've changed the text since being contacted by FP) congratulating Kamal for being the No. 2 mayor in the world. For the record, the three names are not listed in any particular order.

Pakistan's biggest English-language newspaper, Dawn, then printed a glorified transcription of the mayor's press release by the government-controlled Associated Press of Pakistan as a front-page story without ever checking with us to see if it was accurate.

According to the e-mails we've received, the inaccurate story has been widely reported on Pakistani TV, radio, and blogs. Most absurdly, Karachi's city council apparently held a heated debate over whether to pass a resolution congratulating Kamal for the honor we allegedly bestowed on him. Judging by today's e-mails, the efforts of some blogs to correct the story only seem to have confused readers more.

According to one reporter, who unlike Dawn contacted us for comment, "Karachi is riddled with banners by the local government, congratulating Mr. Kamal for being declared as second best mayor of the world by the Foreign Policy."

We hate to rain on Kamal's parade, and certainly intend him and his city no disrespect, but we simply never ranked him in any way. This entire mess could have been avoided with some very basic fact-checking.

I had fun on NPR's Talk of the Nation this afternoon discussing "The Dream Team" -- fantasy picks for the incoming U.S. president's administration chosen by foreign-policy experts from around the world.

My favorite moment of the segment was when a caller suggested that John McCain would win and put Rush Limbaugh in charge of the White House communications team but make Joe Biden secretary of state.

Give a listen here, and if you haven't chosen your own "Dream Team" picks yet, you can do so here.

There are more slaves on the planet today than at any time in human history. But a landmark case in West Africa this week should give thousands of them a rare dose of hope. A court in Niger found the country's government guilty of failing to protect the rights of Hadijatou Mani, a 24-year-old woman sold into slavery at the age of 12.

Mani says she was sold as a young girl to a man for $500 and forced into domestic and agricultural work for a decade. Her master raped her repeatedly, and she bore him three children. She was freed in 2005 and, with the help of Anti-Slavery International, brought the case against the government for failing to protect her. In the judge's decision, he ordered the government to pay Mani about $20,000.

Niger officially abolished slavery in 1960, but the practice persists throughout the country, with an estimated 43,000 people enslaved. There are believed to be tens of thousands more in bondage across West Africa. Niger's government repeatedly contends that it does all it can to eradicate the practice, but this is the first time a court has held it responsible for looking the other way. There's little chance of thousands more slaves being so lucky as to be freed and rewarded, but if this compels the government to enact (or enforce) more stringent laws, all the better.

Photo: Boureima HAMA/AFP/Getty Images