Anyone who's ever lived in London, New York, Chicago, or any one of 20 other cities around the world knows that Time Out is an indispensable guide to going out on the town. The arts and entertainment magazine lists events and reviews of museum exhibitions, theater performances, movies, clubs, restaurants, and anything else you can think of as a way to spend your free time. It's all in good fun, and totally apolitical, right?

Not according to China. The country's General Administration of Press and Publications, which is in charge of censoring media it deems threatening to the government, has banned the June issue of Time Out Beijing. The agency's offical reason for banning the distribution of the English-language magazine is that it lacks a proper license. But the publisher of Time Out, which is headquartered in London, has implied that it's all part of Beijing's crackdown on foreign influences in the runup to this summer's Olympics. The real test will be whether the magazine is allowed to go to press in August, when foreigners are flooding the city for the games. In the meantime, Internet users can still access the Web site to get their fix on what to do in Beijing.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

With airfares continuing to skyrocket and all the bad news about airlines going bankrupt, there's actually one potential bright spot in the world of air travel: China and Taiwan are holding official talks about the possibility of charter flights across the Taiwan Strait. Led by Chiang Pin-kung (right), chairman of the quasi-governmental Straits Exchange Foundation, a 19-member delegation from Taiwan arrived in Beijing Wednesday for four days of discussions. Relations between the two sides have warmed considerably since Ma Ying-jeou, who favors closer ties with the mainland, was elected president of Taiwan in March.

This week's talks are the first time in nearly a decade that there have been formal negotiations between China and Taiwan. It's not Chiang's first visit to Beijing, though. Three years ago, I interviewed him in Taipei shortly after he returned from Beijing, where he was visiting as a member of Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) party (but not as an official from Taiwan's government -- a fine distinction that's all too important in delicate cross-Strait relations). His visit was frowned upon by then-President Chen Shui-bian, who was in favor of the island's independence. Chiang told me that his goal was to develop relations with the mainland in a way that would benefit Taiwan's economy, and not to get overly bogged down in politics. But now with a KMT president in office, he's free to engage in both politics and economics.

This week's talks will probably focus exclusively on economic ties, however. Polls show that Taiwanese prefer to maintain the status quo of de facto independence, but want the economic opportunities that closer ties with China will provide. And the Chinese are not about to do anything drastic politically -- not with all international eyes on them after the earthquake and ahead of the Olympics in August. So, for this round, just expect lots of handshakes, photo ops, and quite possibly, a little more friendliness in the skies.

Fans of the NBC show "The Office" know that the TV show is based on a British series of the same name that first aired on BBC back in 2001. What they might not know is that similar to telenovelas, reality shows like "Big Brother," and other TV genres, it's truly gone global.  The French have "Le Bureau," the Quebecois have "Le Job," the Germans have "Stromberg," and Chileans are about to air their own version of the show too.

What viewers might not realize is that the show is actually, well, "Japanese" in origin. On "Saturday Night Live" this past weekend, series creator Ricky Gervais talked about how the Asian version first inspired him. Then he presented the following clip. Enjoy!

While reading an article yesterday in the Washington Post about the cost of caring for sick pets, I stumbled across this:

Americans spend an enormous sum on health care for their dogs, cats, birds, fish, ferrets, gerbils, lizards, potbelly pigs and other assorted pets: more than $24.5 billion in 2006 alone, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. (If you're into comparing vast amounts of money, that's greater than the gross domestic product of more than half of the world's countries.)

Well, I am into comparing vast amounts of money, so chew on this: The U.S. pet healthcare economy is about the size of Bahrain or Botswana's GDP.

Matt Groening © 20th Century Fox

"The Simpsons" is inappropriate for children, but "Baywatch Hawaii" is alright. At least that's what the government of Venezuela says. The National Telecommunications Commission opened an inquiry last week, saying that viewers had complained about "The Simpsons" and that the network airing it could be held responsible for violating the country's Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television. On Friday, channel Televen said it was yanking the yellow cartoon family from its 11 a.m. slot, and replacing it with the babes in bikinis of Baywatch. 

I guess it doesn't sound totally crazy if you think about it from a cultural perspective. After all, Bart is constantly disrespecting his parents, and I suppose one might not want young kids to get that message.  But beauty on the beach... is that a universal Venezuelan value, no matter the age? At any rate, don't have a cow, man! Televen still might still choose to air "The Simpsons" in a different time slot.

iStockPhoto

Q: Who was Adolf Hitler?

• A German kaiser
• A munitions maker
• The chancellor of Germany during WWII
• An Austrian premier

If you answered "C," congratulations! You are now as smart as one quarter of 17-year-olds in the United States.

A new survey released by the non-profit group Common Core found that teenagers in the United States live in "stunning ignorance" about history and literature. That's something we could have told you awhile ago. In "Lost in America," a feature story in the May/June 2006 issue of FP, Douglas McGray wrote:

[S]urrounded by foreign languages, cultures, and goods, [young Americans] remain hopelessly uninformed, and misinformed, about the world beyond U.S. borders."

In his piece, he writes that we hear all the time about how America's youth lags behind in science and math tests. But they lag equally, if not more, in the liberal arts and social sciences. And it's just as dangerous. As the world becomes more and more globalized, it's crucial that our citizens today and tomorrow have a deeper understanding of history and culture.

Thankfully, Common Core has taken on this cause. The organization is composed of both Democrats and Republicans, who may not agree with each other about education reform policy. But they do agree on one thing: America's schools need to teach more about the liberal arts. Right on.

With the race for the Democratic presidential nomination entering the homestretch, more and more people are talking about superdelegates, who may be crucial in determining whether the party's choice will be Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But what are these superdelegates? Who gets to be one? Are you as confused about them as I am?

Rick Klau, an employee at Google, took on a personal project to help clarify things. He set up SuperDelegates.org, a wiki-style Web site that not only tells you how the Democratic Party's superdelegate system was developed, but also lists who all 795 of them are and whether or not they've pledged their vote to Clinton or Obama. Even cooler, Klau has done an overlay on Google Maps, so you can see where they're from and whether they're still undecided or are leaning toward one of the candidates. Check it out here.

The Public Policy Institute of California has just issued a surprising new report finding that immigrants to the Golden State are far less likely to commit serious crimes than those who are native-born. The study finds that even though foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of California's population, they make up only 17 percent of those incarcerated. Among men aged 18-40, the most likely to commit crimes, immigrants make up an even lower percentage. Native-born Americans in that age group who were born in the Untied States are 10 times more likely to be in county or state prison than immigrants. Hopefully, the study will put some xenophobia to rest.

The world's best-selling board game is finally going global. Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly, are creating a version wherein instead of snatching up the deeds to Atlantic Avenue or Park Place, players can build up property in global cities such as Moscow or Tokyo.

The company is letting people vote online through Feb. 28 on what cities to include. Originally, the cities listed on the game's Web site included the countries where they are located -- "Dublin, Ireland," for example.

An early version of the site listed "Jerusalem, Israel" as a potential place on the board. But then pro-Palestinians wrote in to complain, because Jerusalem, they hope, will be the capital of a future Palestinian state. So, a mid-level employee dropped the word "Israel" from Jerusalem's place name. Then pro-Israelis complained because of the inconsistency, since other country names were still there.

In a truly Solomonic feat, Hasbro decided to drop all country names (though the company claims they were only there in the first place "as a geographic reference to help with city selection"). And now capitalism is free to run amok without any borders. At least in Monopoly.

Ben Sklar/Getty Images

We've finally gotten to the point where it's entirely plausible that the next U.S. president will have had a black father, a white mother, and a half-Asian sister. America has finally moved beyond race, right?

Not so fast. All you have to do is look to my hometown, "liberal" Boulder, Colorado, as this week's Exhibit A of how screwed up the United States still is when it comes to race. At the University of Colorado, a columnist for a student newspaper wrote that Asians should be rounded up with an "extra-large butterfly net," "hog-tied," forced to drink and eat sushi with a fork, and ordered to dance until their spirits are broken. Lovely, eh?

The university has issued an apology. So have the editors of the paper. They claim the column was meant to be a satire and a commentary on racism. But the column was never clearly labelled as a satire, and the columnist's writing skills are so poor, that... well, let's just say he will be getting employment at neither a reputable paper nor at The Onion. He may not even be really racist. But he's a total and complete idiot. I hesitate to bring his column to your attention because he's pulled immature, stupid, controversial stunts like this before.

But the bottom line is, there's a very real danger that readers of his column will take him seriously. It wasn't that long ago that 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps in this country. The Jena Six incident, where nooses were hung on trees at a high school in Louisiana, took place only a few months ago. There are no excuses: Racial violence is not something to be taken lightly, whether you're a college student or not.

First, he accused her of not being American. Now, he's trying to recruit her to run for president!

Comedian Stephen Colbert has long had a (fake) antagonistic relationship with Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, DC's representative in Congress. Last year, he accused her of not being a citizen of the United States, because she was born and lives in the District of Columbia. He accused her of being ineffectual because as the representative of D.C., she's not allowed to vote on the final passage of legislation in Congress. You can watch the hilarious segment here:

But Colbert has changed his tune. Last night, he interviewed Norton on his show and suggested that she run for president. After all, she's black AND she's a woman AND she doesn't have a voting record that anyone can hold against her. But here's the rub: If she wasn't born in the United States, since she was born in a district, then she's not eligible. Sorry, Colbert. You're going to have to find another candidate to support.

I love a good bowl of noodles as much as the next gal. But a couple hundred of them? Check out this video of Japan's National Wanko Soba Eating Competition, which was held earlier this week. The winner downed 223 bowls in 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in other food news in Japan, Crown Princess Masako is under fire for eating too well. The princess, a Harvard-educated former diplomat who dropped out of the public eye after marrying Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993, has been rumored to be battling depression in recent years, partially as a result of public pressure for not producing a male heir. Evidently, people think the lavish meals she's enjoyed recently are a sign that the imperial family is not as austere as it should be. Yet Japan reveres people like former hot-dog champion Kobayashi. Mixed messages, anyone?

JIHAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images

We're in the midst of the most exciting presidential race in decades here in the United States. Pakistan's legislative elections are coming up on Feb. 18. And within the next two months, we'll also see elections in Russia, Spain, and Taiwan. But there's one more upcoming election that you probably haven't heard much about: the presidential race in Cyprus that takes place in two rounds on Feb. 17 and 24. Right now, there's a virtual dead heat between the top three candidates. Check out this poll here. It's in Greek, but the colors on the chart show it all: 30.0 percent to 30.1 percent to 30.5 percent.

You might be asking: Why should you care about a presidential election taking place on a tiny island that's home to fewer than one million people? We'll get there, but first, a little background.

Cyprus has been split into two entities ever since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island in response to a military coup that was backed by Athens. The northern part is currently recognized as a state by only Turkey. Everyone else recognizes the southern Greek-speaking part as the official government. As the EU expanded, there were hopes that Cyprus could enter as a united island, but unification talks sponsored by the U.N. were unsuccessful. Cyprus joined the EU, still divided, in May 2004. Current Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, who is running for re-election, is considered by many to be a hardliner when it comes to Greek-Turkish rapprochement. One of his opponents, Communist Dimitris Kristofias, was previously in a ruling coalition with Papadopoulos, but decided to run on his own this time. The other front-runner is Ioannis Kasoulides, a member of the European Parliament and someone who is largely in favor of unification. The winner will be tasked with determining how unification talks move forward. 

So, the Cypriot elections mean a lot for the future Europe as a whole, and not just for the island itself. Turkey will never be able to accede to the EU so long as Cyprus is opposed, and Cyprus will continue to oppose it so long as Turkey still recognizes the north as legitimate. Cyprus also plays a major role in how the EU approaches prospective independence for Kosovo. Cyprus is opposed to independence for Kosovo because it's viewed as a vote against U.N. legitimacy. Greek Cypriots are also worried that Kosovar independence would be a rubber stamp for Turkish Cypriots to gain legal recognition. The most powerful states in the EU are in favor of independence for Kosovo. But as long as Cyprus remains opposed, the EU's goal for a common foreign policy remains stymied. The elections in Cyprus may seem like small peanuts compared to other happenings in the world, but there are a lot of people who are watching closely.

Rejoice, for Michael Eisner is the bearer of glad tidings. This morning on CNBC, the former Walt Disney chief said that major media companies and the Writers Guild of America had reached an agreement:

It's over," Eisner said. "They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It's going on Saturday to the writers in general."

Eisner, speaking live on CNBC's "Fast Money," seemed to hesitate initially about whether it was possible that the writers could still reject the agreement, but finally suggested the deal's acceptance was inevitable.

"A deal has been made, and they'll be back to work very soon," Eisner said, adding, "I know a deal's been made. I know it's over."

Woo hoo! Not sure what I'm most excited about: no longer having to resort to watching "The Real Housewives of Orange County," or welcoming back my beloved writers from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" or "The Colbert Report." Can't wait to see those zingers aimed at all the presidential candidates. That's the only thing that's been missing this campaign season.

HENGHAMEH FAHIMI/AFP/Getty Images

A couple years ago, FP published an article about an Iranian magazine called Zanan ("Women," in Farsi). Written by Haleh Esfandiari of the Wilson Center, who was imprisoned in Tehran for several months last year, "Iranian Women, Please Stand Up" told the tale of Shahla Sherkat, who bravely courted controversy as the founder of a glossy women's magazine that covered topics both political and personal. Esfandiari wrote:

Zanan has run articles on the latest theories of feminism in the West, the unjust treatment of women in Islamic societies, and the significance for Iranians of international conventions on human rights and the rights of women and children. ... Not all articles in Zanan incite such strong reactions. The glossy has [also] published stories about Iran's first woman pilot, its first female cab driver, and the country’s first woman racing car ace.

Despite harassment from government officials, periodic censorship, and budget woes, Sherkat managed to keep the magazine open for 16 years. But last week the government shut down Zanan, this time for good. Iranian authorities, according to an editorial in the New York Times, claim "the magazine was a 'threat to the psychological security of the society' because it showed Iranian women in a 'black light.'"

A "black light"? Give me a break! Zanan was one of the very few media outlets in Iran dedicated to women's issues, and one of the only places where women could actually be heard. Because of numerous run-ins with the government in the past (past contributors to Zanan had been jailed at various times for their writing) Sherkat was always very careful to toe the line with the magazine's editorial content. The shuttering of the magazine is an outrage, it's a tragedy, and most of all, it's a crime against Iranian women. Tehran should realize that by closing down Zanan, it's only displaying its own weakness and fear.

William Easterly

If there is a "bad boy of development studies," it's NYU economist Bill Easterly. When he spoke recently on a Davos panel with Bill Gates, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Paul Wolfowitz about the usefulness of foreign aid, moderator Fareed Zakaria gently poked fun at Easterly by calling him the "devil." He may not be the devil, but he's certainly the devil's advocate, constantly questioning whether traditional conceptions of foreign aid are actually helpful to poor countries. He's done it in the pages of FP, in "The Utopian Nightmare" a couple years ago, and more recently in "The Ideology of Development."

Now, Easterly is turning his contrarian guns on the United Nations, asking, "Are the Millennium Development Goals Unfair to Africa?" At a luncheon I attended today at Brookings, his answer was, unequivocally, yes. Virtually everyone agrees, he began, that by the time we hit the MDGs' deadline in 2015, Africa will have failed all of them. Africa will not have reduced its poverty rate by half; it will attain neither universal primary education nor gender equality in schools; child mortality will not be reduced by two thirds, and so on. Easterly then went down the list of goals, claiming they were all unfair and biased to begin with. Africans, he said, never had a chance of attaining them. His argument was pretty wonky—with lots of charts and graphs showing how the U.N. should be measuring rates of change and growth in Africa, rather than absolute figures, and how the MDGs were arbitrarily designed and made Africa look worse than it really is. I found it quite convincing. Eventually you'll be able to download a transcript here to judge for yourself, or you can download the original paper (pdf).

What Easterly said made sense, and yet I couldn't help thinking, "So what?" Easterly says the MDGs paint Africa unfairly. But does that really matter if more attention leads to more investment in Africa? And even if you think the MDGs are just another meaningless U.N. project, the fact that people pay attention to them must stand for something.

JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

Easterly is famous for opposing much of the research of anti-poverty crusader Jeffrey Sachs (in his talk, he even joked that he's mandated to take potshots at Sachs at least once in each speech), and for being highly skeptical of the efforts of celebrities like Bono, Madonna, and Angelina Jolie. He thinks they give off a neocolonial air, the sense that Africa needs the West for salvation. Asked if all the attention brought by such celebrities was helping, Easterly said he didn't think so. Quite the opposite: He thought the kind of attention Africa gets because of celebrities, or because of failing the MDGs, does more harm than good because it reinforces stereotypes that Africa needs to be dependent on the West to be lifted out of poverty.

What do you think? Do celebrities help or hurt? Is the U.N. setting unfair, arbitrary goals? Share your thoughts at passportblog@ceip.org.

There's a sad new chapter in the sad story of the state of the U.S. military's mental health care, as I've been writing about here at Passport. Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, the 25-year-old Army reservist who was facing a court martial for pointing a gun at a superior, then shooting herself last year in Iraq, attempted suicide again on Monday, as reported by the Washington Post Thursday. Her mental health had been in better condition lately, as she went public with her story, but she began to deteriorate as her case dragged on. Ironically, she learned on Wednesday, as she was recovering in the hospital, that all the charges against her were dismissed.

Record numbers of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have committed suicide. Last year, 121 cases were recorded—20 percent more than 2006.  Thankfully, Whiteside has not been added to those numbers. Let's hope she never is. And let's hope that any soldier who needs quality one-on-one care gets exactly what America owes him or her.

CHRIS HONDROS/Getty Images

In previous posts, I've lamented the lack of proper health care (particularly mental health) for veterans returning from Iraq in Afghanistan, lauding both the Washington Post for its "Walter Reed and Beyond" series, and the New York Times for its "War Torn" series. The Post chose to tackle the story of vets from the beds of one hospital, whereas the NYT chose to report on veterans who had been charged with killing after returning home.

Now the NYT is under attack for its approach to the story. It is accused of more or less painting veterans as murderers and sensationalizing the plight of those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Lt. Col. Bob Bateman, normally a staunch defender of journalists, says that the NYT is playing a dangerous game with statistics, overstating the 121 cases that the newspaper uncovered as a "quiet phenomenon," when there is a population of 700,000 returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, of those 121 cases, 22 were DUIs, two were speeding accidents, and five cases resulted in exonerations of the accused killers. Hardly a trend. Bateman parses more numbers and says one could make an equally faulty argument: that veterans of active combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are, in fact, less likely to commit homicide than the population at large. (With the likely reasoning being that military training teaches young men and women to become more responsible citizens.) Bateman accuses the Times of "sloppy thinking... that does not help anyone." 

After much outcry, Clark Hoyt, the NYT public editor, basically agrees with the newspaper's critics in his Sunday column:

[T]he questionable statistics muddy the message. A handful of killings caused by the stresses of war would be too many and cause for action. Sometimes, trying to turn such stories into data — with implications of statistical proof and that old journalistic convention, the trend — harms rather than helps."

Both Bateman and Hoyt acknowledge that PTSD is a serious problem. But, Bateman concludes, "fear-mongering and drawing specious conclusions from incomplete data is no help."

Indeed, it's unfortunate that the the NYT's "creative" use of statistics opened the story up to valid criticism such as Bateman's. In effect, it undermines the point that most people will draw from its series: that seeing combat has very real effects on the mental health of veterans, and that there simply needs to be more effort put into their care. Witness the State of the Union address on Monday. President Bush got the most sustained applause from both sides of Congress when he mentioned honoring veterans. A new study released today finds that PTSD, depression, and stress (but not brain injuries, as previously thought) are drivers behind symptoms afflicting returning vets. The stigma needs to be removed. The real health problems need to be addressed. And there needs to be no more sensationalizing about what it all means.

PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images

When you hear the word "Canadian," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Someone who is hockey-crazed? Someone who says "eh" at the end of every sentence? Someone who is, dare I say it, nice? 

How about someone who is black?  

Now, naturally there are plenty of black Canadians. There are black Canadians who like hockey, say "eh", and are nice. But this blog post isn't really about black Canadians or white Canadians or any kind of Canadian at all. It's about certain people in the United States who have appropriated the word "Canadian" as code for someone who is black.

Earlier this month, an e-mail that had been circulating since 2003, written by a Houston assistant district attorney Mike Trent, resurfaced. The e-mail was short, only about 100 words, and was sent to the entire office. It started out by praising a junior prosecutor for a job well done. Then the message continued:

He overcame a subversively good defense by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing."

If you're wondering why Canadians were on a Texas jury when only U.S. citizens are allowed to serve, well, there weren't any. Other members of the D.A.'s office who got the memo were wondering the same thing themselves. They looked at an online database of racial slurs and found that "Canadian" was a term used to mask more openly racist terms. Trent claims that he was unaware of the meaning, overheard someone saying that there were Canadians on the jury, took that literally, and just repeated it in his e-mail. 

There is just so much wrong with this situation on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. So, you be the judge.

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Someone please explain to me how this is supposed to be justice. A 23-year-old journalism student named Sayad Parwez Kambaksh supposedly goes online, finds an interesting paper, and prints it out. He supposedly brings it to class at Balkh University, discusses it with a teacher and some fellow students. The paper gets copied and distributed. Some students find it objectionable; they say it is offensive and that it insults Islam. They complain to the government.

Kambaksh is arrested in October and put in jail. He says he had nothing to do with the paper. His case goes to trial, but he has no lawyer. In fact, his family is not even aware that he's put on trial. A panel of three judges decides that he should be put to death because the paper he supposedly distributed "humiliates Islam." The Afghan Independent Journalists' Association reports that any paper in question may have downloaded from an Iranian blog, which contained articles questioning the origins of the Koran, among other controversial things.

Now, his case goes to the first of two appeal courts. But Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the province where the trial took place, says that only President Hamid Karzai can pardon the student, since Kambaksh supposedly confessed to having violated tenets of Islam. Incidentally, Wahab has never read the paper (to be fair, he was also not on the panel that convicted Kambaksh). 

Kambaksh isn't the only Afghan journalist who's gotten into trouble with the law. Ghows Zalmai was also arrested three months ago, charged with distributing a translation of the Koran that clerics did not accept. Religious scholars have also called for him to be put to death.

At any rate, all of this raises the question: Why did the U.S. go into Afghanistan and topple the Taliban, only to have it be replaced with a system like this? So far, no comment from Karzai, who is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. But he'd better step up.