Emily Wax, reporting in today's Washington Post, thinks so. Considering the longtime rivalry between the two neighbors, this seems counterintuitive at first. But Musharraf, at the very least, was a known quantity for India. Despite his imperfections, the general-turned-president was a source of stability, and his resignation marks an uncertain future for India-Pakistan relations:

He was India's best bet in Pakistan. We will miss Musharraf," said A.G. Noorani, a constitutional lawyer and Kashmir expert. "If he had not fired his judges and gotten bogged down in domestic dramas, I believe we would have been able to make a significant breakthrough in a peace deal in Kashmir today."

Unfortunately, those "domestic dramas" took a decidedly undemocratic turn, and firing the judges was a desperate move to cling to power. The question now for the two countries is whether recent tensions had more to do with Musharraf's waning influence, or his undermining the civilian government by refusing to bow out. Hopefully it's the latter, but I'm not convinced.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Baseball may be on the way out as an Olympic sport, but observers anticipating the eventual clash of civilizations between the United States and China may have seen a sneak preview on the diamond Monday:

The U.S. beat China 9-1 in the Olympics Monday night, and it was awful. China’s pitchers hit five U.S. batters, sending one to the hospital. U.S. baserunners plowed over two China catchers, likely knocking one out of the Games.

While some reporters at the scene think "Our relations with China were nearly broken at the plate," I wouldn't go that far. After all, the manager of the Chinese team -- who was ejected from Monday's game -- is an American who has been helping establish the national pastime in China since 2003. Personally, I'm still more outraged about the Chinese gymnasts.

NASA/Newsmakers

With the space shuttle set to retire in 2010, and its replacement not ready until 2015, the United States had been planning on hitchhiking to the International Space Station for a few years. That may be a bit of a problem now, as the one country with the ability to transport to and from the station turns out to be -- you guessed it -- Russia.

Beyond the rising rhetorical showdown between the two sides, there's also a legal roadblock that may prevent further space cooperation with Russia. The United States needs to negotiate a new contract with the Russian space program, which may be difficult because Congress must first pass a waiver to a 2000 law banning government contracts with states who supported nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. That includes -- you guessed it -- Russia.

In an election year with an increasingly bellicose Moscow, that's "almost impossible," says Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a supporter of the waiver who admits America is stuck between a rock and a hard place:

It is a lose-lose situation," Nelson said.

"If our relationship with Russia is strained, who knows if Russia will give us rides in the future?" Nelson asked. "Or if they give us rides, will they charge such an exorbitant price that it becomes blackmail?"

Still, who knows what relations with Russia will be like in 2010? Even if the Cold War is truly back, that doesn't necessarily spell the end of U.S.-Soviet -- er, Russian -- space cooperation. A lot could change in the next few years.

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images

Here's a little-noticed story suggesting that, despite the Russo-Georgian war, the international system is alive and well.

Claimed by both Nigeria and Cameroon, the Bakassi peninsula has a local population that considers itself Nigerian, but is believed to hold rich oil and gas deposits. You might think such a situtation is a recipe for disaster.

Not so. Nigeria has just officially ceded Bakassi to Cameroon, honoring a 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and bringing a peaceful close to a decades-long despute. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the transfer as "a model for negotiated settlements of border disputes," and Nigerian officials cited the importance of international law in reaching the settlement:

The gains made in adhering to the rule of law may outweigh the painful losses of ancestral homes," said the head of the Nigerian delegation, Attorney General Mike Aondoakaa.

The agreement isn't perfect. Some analysts expressed concern that armed groups opposed to the handover will sow violence to further delay the deal.

Still, in an age when nationalism and natural resources seem to trump all, it's an encouraging sign. Hopefully, Nigeria's move will further legitimize the international legal system, which has seen its rulings recently ignored by the United States and Sudan. Now Georgia, too, is seeking the ICJ's assistance to remedy its conflict with Russia. Unfortunately, I'd expect it to be easier for Russia to ignore the ICJ than it was for Nigeria.

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

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Beijing's opening ceremonies lifted off without a hitch Friday, bringing awe to spectators in China and around the world -- or so it seemed. The squeaky-clean ceremonies, however, were too good to be true in some respects, as reports emerged of lip-syncing and computer-generated fake fireworks.

Violence, too, interrupted the first few days of competition. Attacks continued in the western region of Xinjiang, while a Chinese man attacked an American couple with a knife at a popular tourist destination on Saturday, killing the man and wounding his wife before killing himself. The couple was related to an American Olympic volleyball coach.

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China’s strategy for focusing on events that award more medals appears to paying off. As of 3:30 pm Wednesday afternoon, China led the gold medal count with 17, while the United States had the most medals overall at 29. Check out Google's nifty map for updates.

Seats at the Olympics are surprisingly empty.

Less surprisingly, so are the "protest pens."

A British journalist was detained Wednesday, covering a protest led by eight U.S. pro-Tibet activists.

The first U.S. president to attend an Olympics on foreign soil, President Bush used his presidential-record fourth visit to prod China on religious freedom, inaugurate a new U.S. embassy in Beijing, and cheer on America's athletes.

Politics

Religous leaders describe a government crackdown. One religious dissident, detained on his way to visit a service with President Bush, has escaped, however.

The Dalai Lama is in France, but will not meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Economy

Thanks to a rapidly weakening U.S. economy, China is set to become the world's largest manufacturer, four years earlier than predicted.

China's trade surplus grew in July to $25.3 billion, its highest level in eight months and a 4 percent increase from July 2007.

Wholesale prices, however, rose even more, up 10 percent from July 2007.

Overall, inflation is down and growth is "set to stabilize."

Environment

Is China's Olympic cleanup actually bad for global warming?

Taiwan

Taiwan plans to seek "participation," but not a "return" or membership, in the United Nations this fall.

Taiwan's coast guard is holding a former Chinese soldier who swam eight hours across the Taiwan Strait to defect.

THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images

This is what makes the Olympics great: With their two countries embroiled in conflict, Russia and Georgia took to the sand Wednesday to settle the score in beach volleyball. And Georgia, also the underdog in sport, won the match in three sets.

But the Russians were not about to concede defeat, pointing out that the two Georgians are, in fact, Brazilian:

Cristine Santanna and Andrezza Chagas go by the nicknames of Saka and Rtvelo, which put together spell the Georgian word for Georgia. Cute, perhaps, but not if you've just lost to them at the Olympic Games.

"We were not playing against the Georgian team today," sniffed Natalia Uryadova after losing 12-15 in the third and deciding set. "We were playing against the Brazilian team. If they are Georgian, they would have been influenced [by the war], but certainly they are not."

To be fair, the "Georgian" pair have passports from both Brazil and Georgia, and had trained for two years after receiving personal invitations from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose wife also happens to play beach volleyball. But the two admitted they had only visited the country twice before representing it in the Olympics -- an increasingly common phenomenon, it seems, but one counter to the Olympic spirit.

Georgian Volleyball Federation President Levan Akhvlediani, however, would have none of it, calling the Russians "bad losers" and hailing the victory as "wonderful for the Georgian people."

It's better to make a war... on the sporting fields," Akhvlediani said.

It surely doesn't hurt that on the sporting fields, for this match at least, Georgia won.

GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images

Because we were all waiting to see how the international terror organization would react: Al Qaeda has now joined a chorus of condemnation from the international community by calling for a jihad in Mauritania in the wake of last week's military coup:

"Raise the banner of jihad and let us bleed and have our limbs severed until we bring back a caliphate styled along the lines of The Prophet's way," the leader of the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Mus'ab Abd el-Wadoud, said in a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

Abd el-Wadoud said the soldiers who toppled President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in the northwest African state last week were probably acting upon a green light from "infidel states; America, France and Israel".

Abd el-Wadoud must have missed the memo that the "infidel states" aren't happy with the coup either: Both France and the United States have suspended non-humanitarian aid. Israel, too, had ties with the previous government in Mauritania, one of the few Arab nations with whom it had diplomatic relations.

While coup leaders tried to assuage critics by releasing the prime minister and three other high-ranking leaders Monday and promising new elections "as soon as possible," overthrowing a democratically-elected leader in the name of democracy isn't going to jive with international opinion.

Still, the fact that Al Qaeda isn't happy about the new leadership, and the promise by new military ruler Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to clamp down harder on Islamic militants may give some Western leaders pause. It's not like we've supported convenient coup leaders with so-so democratic credentials before.

The Hoover Institution, the conservative-leaning think tank located at my alma mater Stanford University, is finding itself in a bit of hot water over some 7 million pages of Baath Party records that both Iraqi and American archivists now say were taken by an "act of pillage" and must be returned to Iraq immediately.

The documents came to Stanford as part of a deal with the Iraq Memory Foundation, a nonprofit group run by Kanan Makiya (above left) -- an Iraqi exile known for his outspoken advocacy for the war in Iraq. Makiya, who stumbled upon the documents during the invasion's nascent period in 2003, maintains the information they contain is too dangerous for general view because they explicitly mention individuals who collaborated with the Hussein dictatorship:

This was not stuff for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to have access to," he said in a recent interview. "This stuff was dynamite."

While the last thing Iraq needs is more dynamite, this episode is yet another example of the United States and a certain cabal of Iraqi exiles thinking they know what's best for the country. As long as there's a reasonable enough guarantee that the documents will be safe, I agree with Jon Weiner's op-ed in Friday's Los Angeles Times: "It's up to the Iraqis to decide what to do with them."

TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images

If going green isn't cool anymore in today's economic climate, this recent batch of news isn't going to help. According to a recent study published in the journal Conservation Letters, farming and eating kangaroos instead of cattle and sheep would made a dent in Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

Unlike sheep and cattle, kangaroos emit little methane, which accounts for 11 percent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The study suggests that increasing the kangaroo population to 175 million while simultaneously decreasing the the number of other livestock would lower emissions by 3 percent over the next 12 years. The plan would have added benefits for soil conservation, drought response, and water quality as a result of reducing the number of hard-hoofed livestock.

Still, there's the small issue of kangaroos being a national icon and all:

The change will require large cultural and social adjustments and reinvestment. One of the impediments to change is protective legislation and the status of kangaroos as a national icon," [the study] said.

For Australians, that's an inconvenient truth not likely to go away any time soon.

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images

Think the declining dollar is a bane for American consumers but a boon for everyone else? Think again. Even in Dubai, where glitz and glamorous construction continues unabated and soveriegn wealth funds prowl international markets, the consequences are showing up where you wouldn't expect:

Taxi drivers have become more fractious as fines for bad driving or declining to pick up passengers have eaten into pay packets that have also been eroded by the weakness of the United Arab Emirates dollar-pegged dirham against currencies in their home countries.

Dubai is now in talks with Pakistan after attempting to deport some 50 drivers who went on strike last month. The drivers were fed up with increased regulations and the rising cost of living, which the declining dirham doesn't help.

But the systemic problems caused by the dollar's slide aren't going to be so easy to whisk away. The emirate's record-setting growth is fueling inflation, and the weakened dirham is making imports more expensive. Despite speculation late last year that the UAE would drop the dollar, nothing seems to have changed since February, when the central banks of the Gulf Arab countries restated their commitment to the greenback. We'll see how long they can hold out.

Andrew Wong/Getty Images

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Olympic security concerns were heightened after two assailants killed 16 policemen and injured 16 more in China's western Xinjiang region on Monday. Authorities said the assault was a terrorist attack by suspects who had been trained abroad. Xinjiang's Uighur Muslims are on edge, and Chinese authorities even more so, locking down the region and beating up two Japanese journalists attemping to report in Kashgar.

With the security crackdown in Beijing also underway, President Bush plans to give a speech in Thailand on Thursday to express "deep concerns over religious freedom and human rights" in China. Authorities have already detained foreign protesters staging demonstrations and are denying visas to those with ties to activism, even former Olympian and Darfur activist Joey Cheek.

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China has failed to keep the promises it made when bidding for the games, McClatchy reports.

Beijing's taxis have been installed with microphones, ostensibly for driver safety, that can eavesdrop on passengers.

Organizers asserted that Beijing's haze was only mist. For more on Beijing's wacky weather, check out FP's Seven Questions intervew with David G. Streets, whose work influenced China's cleanup efforts.

Economy

China's economy is slowing down.

Move over low-end manufacturing: China wants to go high-tech.

Organic farming is taking root.

Politics

Despite a row over food exports, Beijing is improving ties with Japan, as well as Taiwan.

The new United States embassy in Beijing also opens on Friday, complete with special precautions to prevent bugging.

Taiwan

The Taiwanese national team nearly pulled out of the Olympics after a controversy over the delegation's name. Beijing, however, backed down.

In a sign of improving business ties with the mainland, Taiwan's cabinet will allow Chinese investors to buy into its stock market.

General

A powerful earthquake aftershock killed three in Sichuan province.

China Photos/Getty Images

With the Olympic torch making the final rounds in Beijing, the era of the global torch relay may be coming to a close. According to reports, both the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 torch relays will be confined within Canada and Great Britain, respectively.

The London Olympic Organizing Committee apparently wants to "bring the torch relay back to basics" and showcase the torch within 30 minutes of every British citizen. But the real reasoning is likely to avoid the headaches that marred the Beijing torch route:

Dick Pound, a former IOC vice-president and a representative for Canada, said that the anti-Chinese protests that pursued the torch through major cities on its global tour had brought the Games “close to disaster”. He added that only goodwill generated after a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in May, claiming at least 70,000 lives, averted a boycott.

Sure, Vancouver and London are less controversial than Beijing. But maybe they're worried that some bitter Parisians, having been snubbed in their bid for the 2012 games, will try to grab the torch again.

China Photos/Getty Images

Last month, the Obama campaign announced a $5 million advertising buy during NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics, which was the largest by any presidential candidate on network television in the last 16 years. Not to be outdone, John McCain has made a last-minute ad buy of $6 million for the Olympics, which begin Friday.

The move was savvy beyond the symbolic political gamesmanship, notes Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group at TNS Media Intelligence, in AdAge:

Tracey speculated that the McCain campaign, which is accepting federal funds for the general campaign, made the last-minute buy to use up money it raised for the primary season. That money can't be spent after the Republican National Convention, which is being held the first week in September.

Sure, both McCain and Obama said they'd boycott the opening ceremonies if they were president, but must-see TV is too good to pass up.

Pascal Parrot/Getty Images

Turns out the wine and cheese set isn't as "civilized" as one would think. At least that's the case in France's Languedoc-Roussillon region, which happens to be the world's biggest wine-growing area by volume, Time reports:

Hurting from overproduction and cheap imports and punished lately by the rising cost of gas, a small group of local winegrowers has resorted to "wine terrorism" in a violent attempt to shock the French government into helping them.

Targets have included "public and private buildings, supermarkets, tanker trucks hauling cheap imported wine, and businesses accused of gouging growers with ever shrinking prices." So far, only one of the guerrilla grape growers has been hurt, but the violence and destruction have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of damage.

While the rising cost of gas has exacerbated their situation, the wine terrorists aren't exactly a new phenomenon. Last summer, the guerrilla growers released a video threatening "blood will flow" unless the French government moved to raise wine prices. And in 1907, the French army shot six demonstrators during a revolt of winemakers in the region. These grape gripes, it appears, go back a long way.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

Tuesday's collapse in negotiations in the Doha trade talks was not a complete surprise, yet seemed to amplify the dour mood recently regarding the global economy. As always is the case with trade talks, there were winners and there will be losers.

Despite arguments from some development groups that no deal was better than the one on the table, the Financial Times reports today that poorest countries are the big losers from the breakdown in talks:

The impact of failure is going to be substantial," said Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's trade minister. "It's always the poorest of the poor who carry the biggest burden."

Among the hardest hit are African cotton farmers, who had hoped for a cut in U.S. cotton subsidies, as well as a contingent of banana-exporting countries hoping for a cut in tariffs from the EU. On the other hand, a rival banana bunch from West Africa, the Caribbean, and the Canary Islands pay no EU import tariff and are happy to see the competition miss out on a deal.

Other winners include, of course, developed-country agriculture interests, who remain shielded against foreign competition by a phalanx of tariffs and subsidies. Some farmers in the United States, however, as well as those in the developing world, will miss out on new markets for their products.

That said, before the recent talks began, some poor countries expressed concern that trade liberalization would open markets too quickly. All in all, the cost to the global economy from the Doha round's demise is hard to quantify and, in the end, not all that large. It's not like trade is going to suddenly dry up. But the talks' failure definitely doesn't do much to improve the mood.

SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images

Reeling in the polls and mindful of the criticism generated by his predecessor's trips abroad, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown isn't venturing too far for his summer vacation. But Boris Johnson, London's candid Conservative mayor, thinks this is a bad idea.

In Daily Telegraph column last week, Johnson proclaimed he will eschew the lead of many of his colleagues in British politics and is heading overseas:

Some time before the end of August, I will grab a week's leave, like a half-starved sealion snatching an airborne mackerel, and whatever happens that leave will not be taken in some boarding-house in Eastbourne. It will not take place in Cornwall or Scotland or the Norfolk Broads. I say stuff Skegness. I say bugger Bognor.

I am going to take a holiday abroad, and in my view it would be absurd, hypocritical and frankly inhumane to do anything else...

Johnson has some words of wisdom for Brown, too, encouraging the embattled prime minister to take a real vacation and "get away somewhere hot." Above all else, however, Johnson considers his overseas holiday to be for the good of Britain:

As I prepare for my last-minute booking, I consider it my patriotic duty to find a destination as sunny and foreign as possible, so that I can push some cash towards hard-pressed UK travel agents, and so that we minimise, on compassionate grounds, the number of British citizens exposed to the sight of my swimming trunks.

Barack Obama, at the very least, must be feeling along the same lines. He'll be heading for his native Hawaii sometime in mid-August.

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Andrew Wong/Getty Images

With just over a week left to go before the Olympics, strong wind and rain have helped improve air quality in Beijing. But the Chinese government isn't taking any chances, eyeing "emergency measures" that still may not be enough to clear the skies. On the ground, officials are hiding buildings and areas considered to be Olympic eyesores behind newly erected walls.

Despite increased security measures, violence broke out among some 50,000 people waiting in line when the final batch of Olympic tickets went on sale Friday. Olympic organizers apologized for a scuffle between police and reporters in Hong Kong.

For more on China's run-up to the Olympics, check out FP's photo essay and list of five ways the Beijing Olympics will be the "biggest, baddest ever."

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China's anti-doping officials are planning the toughest drug-testing program in Olympic history.

What's more, a new sex determination lab will test female Olympians suspected to be males.

U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback suspects the Chinese government is planning to spy on hotel guests during the games.

Politics

Authorities detained a teacher who had posted images of schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake on the Internet.

Vice President Xi Jinping expressed concern over the ICC's case against Sudanese president Hassan al-Bashir, as Sudan's finance minister visited Beijing Tuesday.

The Dalai Lama met with John McCain in Colorado Friday. China's Foreign Ministry was not pleased.

Economy

An unlikely alliance between China and India helped spur this week's breakdown in the Doha trade talks.

An anticipated coal shortage may spark an electricity crisis.

China is spending an estimated $40 billion on fuel subsidies this year, while also accounting for 40 percent of the world's recent increase in demand for oil.

With 253 million users, China is now the world's biggest Internet market.

Hong Kong and the mainland agreed to further enhance economic ties. Hong Kong Disneyland is expected to benefit.

China moment

Aerobic pole dancing is a hit in fitness clubs.

GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images

Russia may be embracing market capitalism, but investors got a reminder recently that Vladimir Putin still holds significant sway over the business world. Two brief remarks from the president-turned-prime minister "helped wipe out half the value" of steelmaker Mechel, the Financial Times reports.

Putin seems to have it out for Mechel's majority owner Igor Zyuzin, who was Russia's 12th richest man before his shares plummeted. Putin accused Zyuzin of price gouging and tax evasion, also questioning the reclusive tycoon's health:

"Sickness is sickness," Mr Putin said. "I think Igor Vladimirovich [Zyuzin] should get better as quickly as possible; otherwise we'll have to send him a doctor to clear up all these problems."

It's a good thing Apple isn't a Russian company.

MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty Images

This should be easy fodder for the anti-globalization crowd. A lobbyist for oil giant Chevron, which is embroiled in a potentially costly lawsuit with Ecuador over the dumping of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon, is complaining of mistreatment at the hands of the big bad South American nation:

"The ultimate issue here is Ecuador has mistreated a U.S. company," said one Chevron lobbyist who asked not to be identified talking about the firm's arguments to U.S. officials. "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world."

Chevron is playing hardball, asking the Bush administration to revoke special trade preferences with Ecuador if the case isn't dismissed. But the plaintiffs have the backing of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, a Hugo Chávez ally, and two years ago secured the support of one Barack Obama, who wrote a letter arguing that the Ecuadorian peasants pressing the case should have "their day in court."

If the Bush administration doesn't act, and Obama wins in November, I wouldn't bet on Chevron in this rumble in the jungle.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

As if we needed more bad news from Afghanistan. Afghanistan's drug lords are now recruiting foreign chemists to help refine raw opium into heroin, the U.N. warns:

Most of the chemists come from Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, the UN says, and are going to some of Afghanistan’s most troubled areas to oversee the mixing of poppy resin with smuggled industrial chemicals to produce heroin of the highest quality.

Christina Orguz, Afghanistan country director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said Afghanistan’s drug lords were behaving like businessmen and recruiting the best talent available. Afghanistan now supplies more than 90 per cent of the world’s heroin.

The refining process requires large amounts of otherwise-legal chemicals, smuggled across the border into Afghanistan. Earlier this year, a shipment was seized in -- you guessed it -- Pakistan.