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. 

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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.

 

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Asia

• 21 people were killed in the Philippines over an election dispute. 
• Pakistani authorities released a list showing high-ranking government officials who had been granted amnesty for corruption charges by Pervez Musharraf. 
• Four U.S. military personnel were killed in Afghanistan on Sunday and Monday. 

Middle East

• Iraq's parliament passed a new law to streamline foreign investment. 
• Israeli jets fired on what were said to be militant targets in Gaza.  
• Egyptian President Hosni Mubarrak criticized Israeli settlement construction at a meeting with Shimon Peres.

Americas

• Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is making his first visit to Brazil. 
  President Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelans to join government-organized militias to prepare for foreign invasion.
  Ousted president Manuel Zelaya and his supporters are nowhere to be seen as Honduras prepares for a new presidential election next week. 

Europe

• Romania's presidential election is headed for a runoff of Dec. 6. 
• Armenia and Azerbaijan reported making good progress in talks over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. 
• Dissident Northern Ireland separatists unsuccessfully attempted a car bomb attack on a police headquarters in Belfast. 

Africa

• South Africa has created special courts to deal with crime during the 2010 World Cup.
• Algerian courts acquitted two men who were held in Guantanamo for seven years. 
• More than 50,000 people have fled ethnic fighting over fishing rights in northwestern Congo. 

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Georgetown University's Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, like any good institution, knows that the way to steer publicity toward their work is to make a list. This is the only possible explanation I can conjure up for their report on the world's top 500 most influential Muslims.

Somewhere, Prince Al-Waleed must be pleased that he's getting his money's worth from the $20 million donation he made to establish the Center. Headlining the list is his uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. One can, of course, legitimately argue that Abdullah is the world's most influential Muslim -- he is the custodian of Mecca and Medina and Saudi Arabia has done more to spread its version of Islam than any other state. However, it's hard to read the description of King Abdullah's reforms as anything other than a press release. The report lauds Abdullah for "his ability to enact multiple landmark reforms to fight corruption, balance the Saudi budget, tailor the education system, [and] address women's and minority rights." This, in a country where women cannot drive.

Looking at the list more broadly, there is also a clear bias towards the Middle East (using a broad definition including Iran and Turkey). The top 14 Muslims all hail from the Middle East, and only six out of the top 40 are from outside of the region. Perhaps only a third of the world's Muslims live in this area, giving them an outsized influence on what it means to be "Islamic" in today's world.

The list is also weighted very heavily toward invidividuals who represent more conservative forms of Islam. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah clocks in at number 17 and Hamas's Khaled Mashaal is included at number 34, but PA President Mahmoud Abbas and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei -- who no doubt consider themselves good Muslims -- are nowhere to be found in the top 50. Even Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an adherent of the Alawi sect, is considered too heterodox for this list. That's without mentioning hugely influential figures outside politics such as Mohamed El-Erian, Fareed Zakaria, and Muhammad Yunus, who didn't make the cut.

To be fair, these figures are mentioned later in the report -- a list of 500 names gives room to cover all the bases. The report's title is something of a misnomer; it provides a ranking ofthe top 50 influential Muslims, and then organizes the remaining 450 by subject field without attempting to impose a hierarchy. Nevertheless, it is instructive that the individuals headlining the report are filled almost exclusively with rulers and conservative theologians from the Middle East. In the end, this report tells us very little about the world's most influential Muslims, and a great deal about what Georgetown's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding believes constitutes a good Muslim.

(Above: German free style motocross champion Hannes Ackermann performs in front of Istanbul's Blue Mosque in 2008)

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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.

Via Mideast Wire, here's a translation of what the Sudan People's Liberation Movement ambassador to Washington, Akec Khoc, told the Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat about Gration:

Q: “How do you see the current American-Sudanese relations?

A: “For more than ten years, i.e. during the term of the administration of President Clinton then the administration of George Bush, the relationship has been very tense. And there have been many differences and clashes. But of course and thanks to the efforts of General Gration and after president Barack Obama has declared his new Sudan policy, it has became clear that the relationship developed greatly. We are very optimistic. For many years now, the relationship has not improved that much and it is not the best relation. But things are on the right track."

Q: "But many American NGOs are criticizing Obama's policies towards Sudan?"

A: "In the United States as in other countries, there are some parties that want our relations with Washington to deteriorate and wish to give a negative image of Sudan around the world, not only in regard to the Darfur issue but also in other cases. They think that Sudan is an easy target. But we in Sudan will always welcome anyone who wants to work with us peacefully and away from any media commotion. And now under Obama who has decided to open up to everybody and deal with many countries among which is Sudan, I sincerely hope that his efforts will be successful."

Update: This post has been updated to reflect a correction. A wise commenter has pointed out that our Arabic transcript was incomplete. The ambassador, Akec Khoc (not John Akweg) is a member of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- not the Khartoum government. We regret the error and thank our commentor for pointing this out! 

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The brunt of yesterday's hearing in the House committee about lifting the U.S. travel ban on Cuba came down the following: will allowing American visitors spread word of democracy, or will tourist dollars will just prop up the Castro regime? That is the wrong question according to a a Human Rights Watch report out this week, which documents how the Cuban government uses Orwellian laws to silence dissent and has become more abusive in recent years.

Other governments must also revise their stance towards Cuba with the aim of fomenting human rights, said the report.

Not only have all of these policies -- US, European, Canadian, and Latin American -- failed individually to improve human rights in Cuba, but their divided and even contradictory nature has allowed the Cuban government to evade effective pressure and deflect criticism of its practices."

The report lambasts the United States for allowing Cuba to play David to its Goliath, but it also critiques the ineffective Candian and European policies, and the pedestal/blind eye attitude of Latin American countries, whose silence:

[C]ondones Cuba's abusive behavior, and perpetuates a climate of impunity that allows repression to continue. This is particularly troubling coming from a region in which many countries have learned firsthand the high cost of international indifference to state-sponsored repression."

The ambivalence and outright support for Castro coming from Latin America speaks to the curious distinction people in the region often make between undemocratic regimes of the right and those of the left: those who support the coup in Honduras are the same ones who scream about Castro, whereas those who tolerate Castro are apoplectic about Honduras. 

The idea then, as a European Union official said earlier this month, should not be regime change, but rather human rights. Jorge Castañeda, former Mexican foreign minister, urges a similar policy, calling on the U.S., Europe and Canada to work together. In short: the United States must back down and lift the embargo not only to help Cubans directly, but also to uncouple support of human rights from regime change, thus enabling the strong multilateral approach called for by Human Rights Watch.

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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

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