But this Allah (or whoever does the talking for him) doesn’t sit on the International Olympic Committee. And the IOC mandated that any country wishing to participate in its games must be compliant with certain standards by 2010. One of the standards: all member states must set up women’s sports clubs.

Saudis like their soccer. Their men are pretty good at it, actually. So they’re going through the motions. They’ve set up women’s clubs over the past year, and they’re growing. Just last week, the country held its first women’s soccer game at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University campus in front of a large number of female fans. No men were allowed. The referee staff was entirely female. The game ended in a tie, 2-2.

And that’s how Saudi appeased the IOC. But, makes you wonder, this IOC… did they just twist the arm of Allah or what? It’s not the first time they’ve done such a thing, either. Just last year, they got Mao to do political jumping jacks. After China announced it would host the Beijing Summer Olympics, threats of a boycott coaxed the world’s fastest growing economy to scale back their oil interests with stiff-armed Sudanese power-mongers.

IOC, IOC, you’re the man, if the U.N. can’t do it, surely you can!

• Gulfnews: Saudi Arabia to establish sports centres for women
• NYT China’s response on Darfur

Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (published on Nov. 21).

pakProtest,
uploaded by brownistan.

By the time I got there, the protest wasn’t much more than a sparse gathering on the corner of Grove and Van Ness. A child in pink hid behind her mother as a passer-by took a few snapshots. Two women in burkas shied from the cameras — the handful of young men happy to fill the camera’s field of vision.

Khurram, draped in a Pakistani flag and sunglasses, shuffled through at least 10 double-sided signs with a different messages condemning the emergency rule imposed by Gen. Musharraf. As he moved between his cohorts, discussing the undiscussed — “what will this emergency do to stop terrorism” — several messages spilled onto the sidewalk. He waited until the end of his conversations to pick them back up.

In San Francisco, Khurram and his peers are trying to stay connected to the violence occurring back at home in Pakistan. Lawyers and intellectuals and shopkeepers together are being beaten by the sticks of a Machiavellian government. But, with the advent of globalization, these San Franciscans know their government can do just as much to stop the tumult as the broken ranks of protesters.

The UN is taking a stronger stance. The Netherlands immediately rescinded its aide, hoping others would follow. So far, no one has.

And the Bush Administration… they’ve started with words:

Musharraf, “you can’t be President and head of the military at the same time.”

Wise words…

Columbia Protests,
originally uploaded by anupkaphle.

“In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”

Despite a polarized audience at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in Columbia today, youthful piss and vinegar actually distilled some interesting questions.

More than we can say for Scott Pelley and his 60 Minutes interview, which seemed to care more about giving the Iranian president a piece of the American mind rather than trying to get into his. (Mr. Pelley’s preparations yielded questions such as this: “What, if anything, do you admire about President Bush?”)

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