Let's hope Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales won't find inspiration in Malaysia's threat to use anti-terrorism laws to censor bloggers who insult the Malaysian government.

The move comes as one of Malaysia's leading online commentators has been questioned by police following a complaint by the main governing party. The new rules would allow a suspect to be detained indefinitely, without being charged or put on trial.

Sound familiar? Malaysian double-speak is reminiscent of the nonsense we hear from the American right.

[O]fficials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom.

No, the law is intended to strangle dissent.

How do you measure cocaine use in any location? According to a new U.N. Study, it is lines per people.

Spain has the highest number of cocaine users in the world, followed by the U.S. City-wise, New York City is first, followed by Miranda de Ebro, Spain.

New Yorkers remain the world’s most enthusiastic consumers of cocaine, inhaling an estimated 134 lines of the drug for every 1,000 people. The residents of Miranda are said to get through 97 lines per 1,000 people. This compares with 20 lines per 1,000 in London, 11 in Paris and 2 in Frankfurt.

The Spanish Government, unhappy with these numbers, is bolstering its war on drugs to include restaurant waiters and bartenders who will monitor use of the bathrooms.

Alarmed by soaring cocaine use, the Spanish Government plans to train waiters and barmen in the subtle art of spotting punters who may be using the lavatories too often.

Businesses that comply will receive a special certificate declaring them drug-free.

More....

Venezuala's President Hugo Chavez has closed his country's one private television station because it continually was too critical for him.

This led to protests in Caracas:

Venezuelan police fired tear gas and plastic bullets Monday into a crowd of thousands protesting a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a television station critical of his leftist government off the air.

Police fired toward the crowd of up to 5,000 protesters from a raised highway, and protesters fled amid clouds of tear gas. They later regrouped in Caracas' Plaza Brion chanting "freedom!" Some tossed rocks and bottles at police, prompting authorities to scatter demonstrators by firing more gas.

In an amazingly obtuse Richard Cohen column, filled with a number of howlers, this one stuck out for me:

[I]it is with Iraq that real and long-term damage [to "liberalism"!] has been done. For years to come, his war will be cited to smother any liberal impulse in American foreign policy -- to further discredit John F. Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty." We shall revert to this thing called "realism," which is heartless and cynical, no matter what its other virtues. The debacle of Iraq has cost us -- and others -- plenty in lives. But in the end, it will cost us our soul as well.

This is just about the stupidest thing I have seen written, and boy is that saying something, in a long time.

Forget the pure fantasy that the Iraq Debacle was a "war of liberal impulse," what about the idea that a liberal foreign policy means war first? Are you kidding me? In short, this is madness. War is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing, always to be undertaken only as a last resort after all other FOREIGN POLICY recourses have been attempted. There simply is no first resort liberal war. The idea is moronic, as well as an oxymoron.

One was pregnant. Another were mother and daughter, with baby in tow. Seven women went off to get firewood when men on camels in Janjaweed uniforms surrounded them, beat them and then gang-raped them, leaving them naked to walk hours back to their camp.

Rape is practically an everyday occurrance in Darfur.

U.N. workers say they registered 2,500 rapes in Darfur in 2006, but believe far more went unreported. The real figure is probably thousands a month, said a U.N. official.

Rape is a strategy of war.

In Sudan, as in many Islamic countries, society views a sexual assault as a dishonor upon the woman's entire family. "Victims can face terrible ostracism," says Maha Muna, the U.N. coordinator on this issue in Sudan.

Some aid workers believe the janjaweed use rape to intimidate the rebels, and their supporters and families. "It's a strategy of war," Muna said in an interview earlier this year in Khartoum, the capital.

As to the death tolls,

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have died and 2.5 million are homeless out of Darfur's population of 6 million, the U.N. says.

Save Darfur.

In an increasing sign of Mexico's reliance on and willingness to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement, Mexico has been expanding its wiretapping -- without court orders. Funding for the program comes from the United States.

The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend Mexico's constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval in some cases.

The $3 million program is the Communications Intercept System.

The system would allow authorities to track cell-phone users as they travel, according to the contract specifications. It would include extensive storage capacity and allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin operation within the next month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems Inc., a politically connected company based in Melville, N.Y., that specializes in electronic surveillance.

Documents describing the upgrade suggest that the U.S. government could have access to information derived from the surveillance. Officials of both governments declined to comment on that possibility.

More

China and the U.S. have agreed to double the number of commercial air flights between the two countries.

To be honest, I never new they were restricted. I've been to Shanghai twice (and blogged from there both times)and all of the flights and customs were a breeze.

My next trip will either be to Beijing or Vietnam (I've already been to Bangkok, Hong Kong and Phuket.)

Asia, particularly Shanghai, is awesome. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Luxury hotel rooms are much cheaper than in the U.S. and Europe, the hotels provide extras, like sending a driver and a translator to pick you up at the airport in a Mercedes, and they arrange travel guides and similar transportation to take you to all the sights you'd like to visit. Again, for far less than you'd pay here.

I think Shanghai is one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. They build things now they know they won't use for ten years in the future. The art museum, the Bund, and the side trips are time very well spent.

I hope with the greater availability of flights, more people will take the trip.

Andrei Lugovoy, former KGB agent and bodyguard has been charged in the U.K. with the poisoning death of Alexander V. Litvinenko. A third man present at the November 1, 2006 meeting after which Litvinenko fell ill and died, former Russian soldier Dmitri V. Kovtun, was not charged.

Larisa has been following the case from the beginning:

As I have said before, only the hit-man (and maybe some of his team) will get charged and the FSB and Putin won't be touched.

To really understand the questions and issues left unresolved by this "lone shooter" patsy, read through my posts on this case and one of the articles I wrote on it HERE.

Tony Blair has announced he will step down as Britain's Prime Minister on June 27.

Gordon Brown is expected to be his successor and launched his candidacy today.

Brown has Blair's support. Among Brown's positions:

He also denied he would move the government to the left, saying he would continue to "drive forward" New Labour reforms to the public services....in a speech in Knebworth, in Hertfordshire, Mr Brown promised to create a "new kind of politics" in which the government "gives power away so that people in the community can have more power".

As to Iraq:

Mr Brown said: "I accept that mistakes have been made."

Here is Brown's speech in full. So, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Former Russian leader and the country's first elected President Boris Yeltsin has died of heart failure at age 76.

Britain's Tony Blair has this tribute.

Here's a timeline of his life, accomplishments and failures.

Here are some reactions from world leaders.

Every few weeks since 2005, I've been checking the Australian news for updates on Schapelle Corby, a 29 year old Australian who is serving 20 years in a hellhole of an Indonesian prison for smuggling 4 kilos of pot into Bali in her boogie board, a crime of which she has always maintained her innocence.. I only post updates here when there's been some actual news. (All TalkLeft coverage is accessible here.)

Schapelle's sister, Mercedes Corby, and her Balinese husband were spending five months in Bali when Schapelle was arrested. Mercedes'poignant, very moving account of how all their lives have changed is in last Sunday's Telegraph.

Thursday, there was a news article saying Australia and Indonesia are still haggling over words in the draft of their prisoner exchange treaty, which would allow Schapelle to return to Australia to finish serving her sentence.

More....

The 15 captured British sailors are in flight back to Britain.

Mr Ahmadinejad said no concessions had been made by the British government to secure the releases, but that Britain had pledged "that the incident would not be repeated".

Later, television pictures showed the president smiling, chatting and shaking hands with the crew at his palace in Tehran. An unidentified crew member said: "I'd like to say that myself and my whole team are very grateful for your forgiveness. I'd like to thank yourself and the Iranian people... Thank you very much, sir."

Was there a prisoner swap?

More...