Starting Monday, Passport will be back in the hands of its rightful owners--Blake and rest of the FP editors. But, before I go, here's your Friday photo:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right) walks hand in hand with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (left) during their meeting in Tehran, 08 August 2007. Maliki met Iranian leaders Thursday for talks aimed at winning Tehran's unequivocal support for restoring security to his war-torn country. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

What if instead of airline miles, cash back or hotel stays, your credit card paid you back in carbon offsets?

That's exactly what GE's new "Earth Rewards" card will do. One percent of your purchases go directly toward buying carbon offsets, which supposedly finance eco-friendly projects around the world designed to limit greenhouse gases and stop climate change.

It's a nice idea, but part of the problem with climate change is that we will never be able to buy our way out of it. Encouraging consumption in order to offset just one percent of that consumption is a futile effort at mitigating environmental issues. Using the GE Earth Rewards card is probably better for the environment than redeeming rewards for carbon-emitting airline flights. Still, the whole concept remains a bit ironic.

Getty Images

Piracy of intellectual property--including software, music and movies--is a huge point of contention between the US and less IP-sensitive countries. Last year, for instance, a Russian website accused of illegally distributing music files fueled a dispute between Russian authorities and the US Trade Representative's office.

Enforcement of IP laws is lax but getting better in many parts of the developing world, especially in countries that are cleaning up their act in hopes of gaining WTO membership (Ukraine, China). Beyond poor enforcement, another reason why piracy is so rampant is because the price of software in developing countries is just too high for the local market. It's easier for many to just buy priated copies at reasonable prices and take the gamble of breaking the law. Even if they are caught, the legal consequences are usually minimal.

Microsoft's South African division is hoping to gain market share and combat piracy at the same time with the introduction of a pay-as-you-go software subscription. Instead of forking over $700 for a legal copy of Microsoft Office, users can subscribe to Office for as little as $10 per month. Microsoft will also open up the subscription service to users in Romania.

Beyond just combatting piracy, Microsoft's move could also be a first strike to prevent the developing world from embracing Google Apps, a $50/year web-based software package offering many features similar to Microsoft Office.

JAY DIRECTO/AFP/Getty Images

Asia

Pakistan's President Musharraf almost declared a state of emergency, but a 2 AM phone call from Condi may have stopped him. Meanwhile, President Bush calls for free and fair elections in Pakistan, which could be a big mistake.

While the rest of the world is busy fixing an economic crisis, China's trade surplus gets bigger, reaching its second-highest level to date.

At least 57 are dead after clashes between suspected militants and military forces in the Philippines.

Middle East

The Bush administration wants the UN's help with a series of talks in Baghdad between the US and Iraq's neighboring countries.

Gaddafi's son admits that the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor held in Libya for eight years were tortured.

The UN warns that Gaza will face a severe economic meltdown and "disastrous consequences" if border crossing are not reopened.

Europe

The US sub-prime lending debacle went global. France's largest bank suspended three of its investment funds and the European Central Bank injected $130 billion into the economy to keep rates in check. Other central banks around the world followed suit.

Russia resumed Cold War-style air patrols over NATO and US Territory.

Sarkozy goes globe-hopping, while the Pope tries to get as far away from an anti-Semitic priest as possible.

Elsewhere

Uncertainty about the global economy tops the news. Before he heads off to Kennebunkport, President Bush says that everything should be just fine, but not everyone agrees. Paul Krugman writes there is nothing policymakers can do about this. If, like me, you are wondering just how we got into this mess in the first place, you can learn more about the liquidity crisis here.

South Africa fires its health minister, but she says it's because she criticized hosptial conditions.

Today's Agenda

• The UN's mandate in Iraq is set to expire. The security council is expected to vote today to continue and expand the Iraq mandate. 
• Discussions on the fate of Western Sahara continue today.
• Fresh talks over Kosovo's status between US, EU, Russian, and Serbian officials are planned.

Yesterday on Passport

• China threatens the "nuclear" option
• Private equity: "It's kind of like sex"
• No carbon here: Abu Dhabi's carbon-free city

WATHIQ KHUAZIE/Getty Images

If you were curious about what kind of thoughts run through the mind of an Iraqi living in Baghdad, read this:

When will I die? That's the question circling in my head when I awake on Wednesday. I'm sweating, as usual. My muscles ache from another long night of no electricity in weather only slightly cooler than hell. As I dress for work, other questions assail me: How will I die? Will it be a shot in the head? Will I be blown to pieces? Or be seized at a police checkpoint because of my sect, then tortured and killed and thrown out on the sidewalk?

That's the opening paragraph of a piece posted by "Dr. Mohammed" in last Sunday's WaPo. Dr. Mohammed, who runs the Last of Iraqis blog, goes on to write:

In the end, we all agree: The only losers are honest, patriotic Iraqi people. For them, democracy, liberation and freedom are just myths. All we want is to live a normal life.

Of course, these words do not represent the views of all Iraqis, and Dr. Mohammed hints in his writings that he is wealthier than most other Iraqis. Still, the piece provides an interesting look into a week in Iraq from an often-ignored perspective.

loan Barbulescu/Flickr

Although it would seem a more natural fit for an eco-conscious country like Norway, whose government pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2050, the world's first carbon-free city will actually be built in Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich Gulf emirate.

By 2009, Abu Dhabi hopes to complete construction of Masdar, a 3.7 mile enclosed city devoid of cars and carbon. To produce energy, Masdar will rely on a combination of wind, solar power and geothermal energy. The city—whose name means “source” in Arabic—is slated to be the centerpiece of The Masdar Initiative, which, according to their website, is “a global cooperative platform for open engagement in the search for solutions to some of mankind's most pressing issues: energy security, climate change and truly sustainable human development.”

According to this, some of Masdar’s main investors are automobile manufacturers and oil companies. British Petroleum, Fiat, and Mitsubishi are all involved. Why? Masdar is guaranteed to produce an excess of carbon credits traded on international markets either for profit or for the right to produce more emissions during other activities, such as oil production or auto manufacturing.

While their intentions might not be completely altruistic, the fact that oil and car companies are investing heavily in a project whose very mission is to consume no oil and use no cars means that carbon trading schemes might be having their desired effect. That is, incentivizing investments in carbon-reducing initiatives. Although, not everyone is playing by the rules. There is some evidence that Chinese companies are actually polluting more in order to make a buck (or about 7.5 Renminbi) off carbon credits.

The cover of the latest U.S. News and World Report features a story chronicling the life and death of Army Staff Sgt. Darrell Ray Griffin, Jr. The writer met Griffin during an embed assignment in March, only to find out that a sniper's bullet took Griffin's life a few days later in Sadr City.

Using interviews, photographs and his personal diary entries, the story rebuilds Griffin's own internal battle about the war and his own sense of purpose. It's a striking contrast to the political rhetoric coming from both sides of the spectrum, with Republicans and Democrats alike claiming to know how the troops feel. The real story is much more complex. 

In one diary entry, Griffin reveals his conflicted feelings about the war:

My heart finally broke for the Iraqi people. I wanted to just sit down and cry while saying I'm so, so sorry for what we had done. I had the acute sense that we had failed these people. It was at this time, and after an entire year of being deployed and well into the next deployment that I realized something. We burst into homes, frighten the hell out of families, and destroy their homes looking for an elusive enemy. We do this out of fear of the unseen and attempt to compensate for our inability to capture insurgents by swatting mosquitoes with a sledge-hammer in glass houses.

More diary entries and pictures are linked from the main story.

At a discussion yesterday featuring U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on the global economy, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank had this to say:

The most influential economic spokesman in America today is Lou Dobbs, who regards the rest of the world somewhat suspiciously in terms of the negative impact he believes it has on America's middle class and working Americans.

Granted, Frank was only trying to make the point that Americans are starting to feel like the global economy is a losing proposition for U.S. workers and therefore are now taking on a more protectionist stance. Though Frank admitted he doesn't agree with most of Dobbs' positions, it's still a stretch to think that one CNN anchor holds so much sway over the American public.

That's Thomas Friedman's take as well:

I would greatly dispute Barney Frank's statement that Lou Dobbs is the most important economic voice in this country … People aren’t stupid. They want the truth. They understand the world they are living in.

Who's right? 

ABRICE COFFRINI/AFP

Did you think Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop stretched the limits of economic practicality? Then you might have hard time wrapping your head around this one: The government of India wants to produce a $10 laptop. The amazing part is that they are, apparently, on their way to achieving that goal despite some early skepticism.

Including labor, the current cost of producing one of these laptops is only $47, but the Times of India reports that the government expects costs to come down due to the massive potential demand from a billion Indians.

The Indian government is keeping the technical details of their laptop a secret, so the chances of the project succeeding are still unknown. India is not exactly known for its  technical manufacturing prowess. But even a viable $50 Indian laptop could pose a serious challenge to Negroponte's machine, the costs of which have already ballooned to $175 per unit. It's unclear, though, whether the Indian government would make the technology available beyond its domestic market.

lunchoverip.com

Last week, I blogged about how the lack of robust power grids in the rural areas of developing countries spurred some cell providers to experiment with solar, wind and biofuels to independently power individual cell phone towers.

Of course, this solves the problem of power for the cellular network, but—as Passport reader Bradley Loomis asked via email—if there isn't an electrical grid to power the cell towers, how do cell phone users in these areas charge their cell phones?

The answer lies in a business model that is quickly emerging across the globe, from China to Uganda: charging the cell phone batteries of rural customers in bigger cities for a fee. Check out LunchOverIP’s report on how Chinese businessmen are transforming their charge-for-a-fee service into a potentially charge-for-free ad-supported model (kind of like Google but without the whole Internet part). Jan Chipchase also has a great piece on the subject and some good photos of charging stations in Uganda.

Bradley, thanks for the question! More good comments on Slashdot.

As China's Internet-savvy population grows larger each day, government officials there are worried about the detrimental effects of the Internet on both society and the economy.

One Chinese website, tencent.com (and its subsidiary QQ.com), is especially troubling for the Chinese leadership. Tencent’s messaging service, which boasts usage by over two-thirds of China’s Internet users, has its own virtual economy with currency counted in "QQcoins". The online currency is so ubiquitous that it is now accepted by some other Chinese companies as legal tender. Fearing that the QQcoins are being used to circumvent China's strict anti-gambling laws and the potential for the virtual economy to negatively affect the real Chinese economy, the government banned the use of virtual currency for anything other than virtual services.

Meanwhile, the Internet has become such a terrible social ill that China has indefinitely postponed approval for any new Internet cafes, according to a notice issued by 14 different government entities.

China is in the throes of a campaign to "purify" the Internet, and most of the content of the notice was aimed at tightening controls over the country's estimated 113,000 Internet cafes. It blamed the cafes for fostering "internet addiction," banned approval of new ones this year, and toughened penalties for those that admit minors.

If you still aren't convinced of the Chinese government’s proposition that the Internet is harmful, check this out:

An obese 26-year-old man in northeastern China died after a "marathon" online gaming session over the Lunar New Year holiday, state media said on Wednesday.

iStockphoto.com

Mobile phones are the lifeblood of economic and social networks in developing countries precisely because they don't require the vast infrastructure of wires, cables and stations that traditional landline phones need to operate. They do, however, require cellular towers, which run on electricity—a scarce commodity in the more rural areas of developing nations.

JACOB SILBERBERG/Getty

To compensate, at least two countries have developed novel, eco-friendly alternatives to a standard power grid for their cellular networks. In Namibia, a cell phone service provider is experimenting with hybrid wind/solar power cellular base stations to roll out service where a power grid doesn't exist. While the effort won't save any money, the key aim of cell companies is to beat the roll-out of traditional power grids by one to two years. It helps that, once they are set up, the stations run themselves:

In Namibia the turbine and solar panels will also be running the base station with traffic on it, the peripheral communications, vsat (satellite transmitter/receiver) and even the protective fencing around the site." 

An experimental program in India, where the number of mobile subscribers is exploding but power is scarce, uses an interesting choice of feedstock for biofuel production instead of the wind/solar combination:

The scheme in India will use oil derived from plants such as cotton, a mahogany-like tree called neem and jatropha. Jatropha trees are already widely grown across India, specifically as a biofuel crop. The seeds of the plant are a traditional remedy for constipation.

And a parallel program is already underway in Lagos, Nigeria. But does all this work toward creating reliable mobile networks in the rural villages of Africa and South Asia really have an impact? Just ask the health workers in Rwanda—mobile networks there reduced the average response time between patient and health care worker from one month to a matter of seconds.

An effort by the Israeli government to mitigate the concerns of Muslims around the world might also spark the interest of web-surfing archaeology buffs.

Muslims from Gaza to Kashmir are protesting excavations to repair an entry way at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary, because of concern about damage to Islamic Archaeological remains and fears that Israeli excavators are trying to weaken the structural foundation of Islam’s third holiest site. In response, Israel’s Antiquities Authority set up a live web video stream from the dig site to allay fears about the nature of the dig. You can watch the excavation for yourself here.

Having been to the area as recently as December, I can assuredly say that any construction work is an extremely delicate endeavor. Thousands of years of Jewish, Islamic and Christian history are, quite literally, sitting on top of each other. The entry way in question, which leads to the area containing the Dome of the Rock (where the prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven), is adjacent to and above the Western Wall (the area Jews consider the holiest on the planet). Certainly, any work in this area has the potential to arouse tensions, but Israel is hoping that their webcams have the opposite effect. The odds, however, don’t look good: three webcams versus worldwide outrage.

The Washington Post's scathing reporting on the lousy conditions for veterans' outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital has put the spotlight, however briefly, on a subject that often takes a backseat to more immediate concerns when waging war. Namely, how should the United States care for veterans returning from combat? The transition from the mean streets of Baghdad back to Anytown, USA is hardly easy, to say the least.

With that in mind, researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a system to treat post-traumatic stress disorder using virtual reality. The system allows PTSD sufferers to relive trauma-inducing experiences, such as roadside bomb attacks and urban warfare in Baghdad, in a controlled environment where doctors can help patients confront their trauma and work through it. The researchers originally announced their intention to pursue virtual treatment about two years ago, but now clinical trials are proving the method viable.

With some therapies for PTSD treatment already available, the hardest part of the effort might have been recreating a virtual Iraq and Afghanistan from scratch. Fortunately, someone else had already laid the groundwork: The VR simulations used to treat PTSD are modified scenarios from Full Spectrum Warrior—a video game developed for the Xbox.

Continuing in its quest to be everything for everyone, Google has added color-coded live road traffic information for 30 U.S. cities to its Google Maps service.

Will the traffic information be truly useful or just sit idly on Google's servers as a fun novelty item? It probably depends on how detailed the data gets in future months. A quick check of two areas I know well—my current location in Washington, DC and my hometown outside of Orlando, FL—didn't reveal much.

So far, the traffic info looks as if it is only for major highways. As you can see above, in Washington, it showed heavy traffic for the beltway and the highways leading into the city center. For Orlando, it showed heavy traffic on the only highway leading into downtown. No surprises there, but if the data gets more detailed, Google Maps could change the way drivers view the road ahead. I imagine the service could be very useful on web-enabled mobile phones, as Google is already claiming it is.

As venture capital reporter John Cook notes, Google is being coy about its data sources. The likely reason? Microsoft is working some mapping initiatives of its own, and the company could get into the traffic business to compete with Google.

Editor's note: Kyle Spector is a former researcher for FP. He's now finishing his undergraduate degree at the George Washington University, where he serves as the senior opinions editor for The GW Hatchet. Kyle will be guest-blogging for Passport as time allows.

So you've already heard of GPS satellites, telecommunications satellites, and spy satellites. Now China is adding another moniker to the mix - a "seed satellite." In an effort to feed its ever-growing population, Chinese officials are launching over 2,000 seeds into orbit for a two-week trip designed to force the seeds to mutate.

Exposed to special environment such as cosmic radiation and micro-gravity, it is hoped that some seeds will mutate to such an extent that they may produce much higher yields and improved quality.

Apparently, China has been experimenting with space seeds for years with much success, but this will be the first satelite solely dedicated to producing the mutations necessary for an improved crop yield. The launch of the seed satellite should immediately bring one question to the mind of any avid follower of the Chinese space program - what ever happened to China's super space pig sperm?

As the shape of the Internet continues to evolve, the key players on the Web seem to change with each passing quarter. Just a few years ago, MySpace.com was the realm of recluse teenagers posting their personal information in hopes of garnering some new online "friends." Now, it is the recipient of a $900 million deal with Google.

Word is that Google beat out Microsoft to get this deal - surely causing a massive deja vu effect for Microsoft execs. Last December, Google stole a $1 billion contract with AOL away from Gates & Co.

But as Google continues to go global, it may become too universal to serve the needs of international users. Internet usage around the world is not uniform. Russians, Chinese, Indians, and Arabs all surf in different ways; more and more, savvy internet companies are recognizing this. In this week's List, FP takes a look at homegrown search engines designed to counter Google's dominance overseas.

Israel's defense minister, Amir Peretz, might soon face another challenge in addition to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. This week, a team of three Morrocan lawyers filed a lawsuit against Peretz for war crimes.

The lawsuit charges Peretz with a long series of crimes, including the destruction of communication sites, undermining general health and the environment, deliberate attacks on women and children, and crimes against humanity.

The lawyers claim Peretz, who still holds Moroccan citizenship after emigrating to Israel in 1956, is subject to Morrocan law. The team may ask Interpol to aid in bringing Peretz to justice in Morroco. Because most of Israel's population is a mixture of immigrants, many from Arab states, this move could set a precedent for more war crimes lawsuits against Israelis with dual citizenship.

Some of Israel's brightest computer engineers were able to succeed where bombs and missiles failed. Last Sunday, the IDF's Intelligence unit managed to hack into Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station and several Hezbollah websites.

Israeli airstrikes at communications facilities in Lebanon have been largely unsuccessful in stopping Hezbollah broadcasts, but the IDF hackers were able to air defaced images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The image is punctuated by the sound of three gunshots and framed on the top with the words, "Your day is coming, coming, coming." On the bottom of the image of Sheik Nasrallah are the words: "The state of Israel." For the next 90 seconds, the message is clear: Give up. Resistance is futile.

The broadcasts include images of dead Hezbollah militants, an apparent effort to counter Nasrallah's refusal to admit any IDF successes in southern Lebanon. The Israeli technicians were also able to erase some Hezbollah websites.

Speaking on background, one former senior Israel Defense Force official familiar with the operation said, "The aim of this is to disassociate the innocent civilian from the terrorist, who is using them and abusing them, by operating in the midst of a heavily populated area."

You would think that a repressive regime with a drive to develop nuclear weapons, a propensity to deny the Holocaust, and a very real desire to wipe Israel off the map might have a poor track record in dealing with its minority populations of Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. In Iran, however, reports are piecing together a slightly different, and unexpected, reality.

Last month, the Guardian ran a piece about the 25,000 Jews who live among Iran's 70 million Muslims. The one Jewish member of the 290-member Majlis, Iran's parliament, was interviewed for the article. He is described as having "one of the loneliest jobs in the Middle East." He said that Iran is "relatively tolerant" of its Jewish population and that "I am an Iranian first and a Jew second," suggesting that he supports his president on the nuclear standoff with the U.S. and Israel. His reaction to Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial?

When our president spoke about the Holocaust, I considered it my duty as a Jew to speak about this issue," Mr Motamed said in his office in central Tehran. "The biggest disaster in human history is based on tens of thousands of films and documents. I said these remarks are a big insult to the whole Jewish society in Iran and the whole world."

And, while it won't win any points with Freedom House, the recent banning of The Da Vinci Code in Iran shows at least a respect for the wishes of the small Christian minority's leaders (less than one percent), if not a respect for the free-flow of information and ideas. Iran's Ministry of Culture is banning the book after eight Farsi editions - around 30,000 copies - have been sold. Of course, interviews with officials and book bans can't paint an accurate picture of the administration's attitude toward Persian minorities. Maybe this is more telling:

I asked [Ahmadinejad], 'Are you anti-Jew?' He said, 'I am not.' I said, 'Why not go to a synagogue to express regret for what Iranians have done to Jews?' ... He said, 'I have another idea, a better idea.' He will do something to show he is not anti-Jewish. I hope he will do it soon. He will make a gesture to the Jews in Iran and that has implications for Jews elsewhere. What he will say is very important and will remove the idea that he is anti-Semite.

That, from the same June 27 Guardian piece. Maybe Ahmadinejad is trying to dispel widespread beliefs about his anti-Semitism with the same speed that he is responding to that package of nuclear incentives.