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Chinese policemen try to save a boy from being crushed by the crowd near a ticket booth at the Olympic Green on July 25 in Beijing, China. Starting today, the remaining 820,000 Olympic tickets, of which 250,000 are for competitions held in the capital city, became available for purchase by individuals at the Olympic venues.

Minot Air Force Base is not having a good news year. Last year, cruise missiles armed with nuclear weapons left the base by accident; this March, the Air Force discovered it had inadvertently shipped fuse components for nuclear weapons to Taiwan in 2006; and in May, Minot's 5th Bomb Wing failed a security test. Now we have news of another mishap, this time involving classified material at Minot.

In a story that more properly belongs in the beginning of a bad made-for-TV drama, a missile crew in possession of a nuclear launch code "component," while waiting for transport in a crew rest area, fell asleep.

An initial report simply said that "a nuclear launch code was lost or misplaced," but the Air Force later clarified that the codes in possession of the sleeping crewmembers had been superseded by a new set and were no longer usable. In addition, according to the press release, the codes were locked up with a combination known only to the crew and the entire facility was secured throughout the incident by Air Force Security Forces.

Now, it is true that the codes were probably never in danger of being compromised. It would also be understandable in almost any other circumstance that the crew would fall asleep while waiting for transport; generally, missile crews consist of three people who rotate watches over a three-day period. These rotations are likely tiring, and indeed the crews have been complaining about the length of the new rotations (for more about life as a "missileer," check out this fascinating article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). And the punishment for the people at fault looks to be swift.

More worrisome, though, is the pattern incidents like these are beginning to reveal. The "loose nukes" incident last year resulted from a whole cascade of minor security slip-ups just like this one, and where one such incident is reported many more are likely present. The prestige of working with U.S. nuclear forces continues to drop -- how do we make sure the ultimate weapons stay secure if things continue to get worse?

They've tackled malaria and AIDS, but now two billionaire philanthropists are taking on another developing world health-scourge: smoking. Former Microsoft Chair Bill Gates and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just pledged $500 million to the fight against tobacco use, most of which will go to developing countries. Check out their discussion with Charlie Rose here:

Gates and Bloomberg have a tough battle ahead of them. In India, a country of 120 million smokers, the death toll from tobacco use could cause more than 1 million deaths a year by 2010. Most of these deaths are likely to result from cardiovascular diseases, tuberculosis, and especially cancer, which is contracted at much higher rates for smokers of bidi (popular hand-rolled cigarettes sold in Southeast Asia) than for smokers of regular cigarettes. Even China, which has stepped up its anti-tobacco campaign in the lead-up to the Beijing Games, is likely to lose 100 million of its male citizens currently under age 30 to tobacco-related death by 2030.

The billionaires' efforts, which include bringing health officials from developing countries to the United States for workshops on lobbying and public service advertising, face other hurdles. Governments collect major revenues from taxes on cigarettes, and the bulk of money for Mpower -- the WHO program the philanthropists are funding -- is spent on lobbying these governments to take actions like prohibiting smoking in public places and raising tobacco taxes. That could mean lots of lined pockets and wasted dollars. Tough anti-tobacco measures in the United States and Europe seem to have worked -- rates of smoking are on a decline -- but only time will tell whether they'll be equally successful in developing countries. Gates and Bloomberg face fierce competition: Phillip Morris, for instance, has been marketing its popular Marlboro line in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Mexico in recent years.

I'm rooting for the rich guys.

The international community may have finally succeeded in creating a safe space where people from all the Balkans' ethnic groups can live together in harmony and respect each others' cultures. The trouble is, it's in a prison for ruthless war criminals awaiting trial at The Hague:

Released inmates say the ethnic rivalries that drove them to fratricide in the bloody wars that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia have faded within the walls of the prison.

Now the detainees, who in 2006 had an average age of around 52, enjoy their common language, cook Balkan food together in the corridor kitchens, watch television and play board games.

[...]

"We Muslims from Bosnia and Kosovo celebrated our religious holidays with the Serbs and Croats," former inmate, Bosnian Muslim general Naser Oric, has said.

Serb nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj and Bosnian Croat paramilitary leader Mladen Naletilic were the unit's biggest jokers, he added.

Radovan Karadzic will join the party when he is extradited early next week.

KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

Appearing today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Iraqi Prime Minister and serving parliamentarian Ayad Allawi stressed that the security gains of the "surge" are only temporary. The surge "did succeed from a military point of view," he told a small group of reporters before the event, but he emphasized that its gains could evaporate unless political reconciliation follows. "The first issue is reconciliation," he said in the public session. But sitting down with his "friends" such as current President Jalal Talabani won’t do the trick. "We need to sit with those people who have been disenfranchised," he said. "Except for terrorists."

More than 4 million Iraqis remain internal and external refugees, he repeated several times, and they need "security and stability" above all before they can return. Allawi isn't impressed by the current Iraqi army and police, which he views as sectarian. "Sectarianism is worse than terrorism," he said during the public question-and-answer session. "The militias are still roaming the streets in Iraq… In Basra, there are 13 kinds of militias, and only one was attacked."

Asked in multiple ways whether he agreed with Sen. Barack Obama's call for a 16-month timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the former prime minister called for any such timetable to be linked to conditions. "I don't know how realistic 2010 is," he said. But when asked what his conditions would be, Allawi said that they go beyond internal factors, such as political reconciliation and nonsectarian institutions, to external issues. "There are regional powers who do not believe in reconciliation," he warned in the press meeting. Iraq needs to protect itself, but its military is not ready. "We haven't seen the Iraqi security forces yet in action," he said.

He blamed himself in part for Iraq's ongoing troubles. "We -- all of us -- we have failed in creating what we promised the Iraqi people."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy comes perilously close to endorsing Barack Obama in his comments to Le Figaro and CNN.

Ben Smith:

Obama? He's my pal," the president told Le Figaro. "Unlike my diplomatic advisers, I never believed in Hillary Clinton's chances. I always said that Obama would be nominated."

Sarkozy added that an Obama victory "would validate" his strategy of reconcilation with the United States.

(Le Figaro does note that Sarkozy is careful not to predict the winner.) And in a separate item from Smith:

Barack Obama's adventure is an adventure that rings true in the hearts and minds of Americans and Europeans," Sarkozy said, per CNN's interpretation. He also recalled his meeting with Obama in 2006.

"One [of the two men] became president, so it's up to the other person to do the same thing," he said.

Some folks have all the luck:

The Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed has tapped a new source of wealth after winning a stake in a tiny oilfield under his Surrey estate despite not knowing it was there for several years.

Be sure to check out the National Aquatics Center and more of China's Olympic architecture rendered in Lego at the Hong Kong Lego blog.

(Hat tip: Gizmodo)

DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers carry shotguns as they walk along a corridor separating what they deem to be the most extreme and dangerous detainees held inside the Camp Bucca detention center located near the Kuwait-Iraq border on May 19, 2008.

Top Story

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

Analysts react to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Berlin, where an estimated 200,000 people turned out to hear the candidate speak: Der Spiegel's Gerhard Spörl writes, "No. 44 has spoken." Steven Erlanger of the New York Times calls the speech "vague on crucial issues." CNN says the Illinois senator won "hearts, not minds." "[I]n Berlin his act jumped the shark," David Brooks grumbles. The Times of London's headline jests, "He ventured forth to bring light to the world." The Economist says Obama was "largely successful."

John McCain, meanwhile, was enjoying some sausage at a German restaurant in Ohio. "[A] throng of adoring fans awaits Senator Obama in Paris — and that's just the American press," the Arizona senator joked. The Washington Post reports today that McCain is considering naming a running mate "in the coming weeks."

Global Economy

WTO chief: "Time is running out" for global trade talks in Geneva.

Honda announced record profits even as Ford reported its worst quarter ever.

Americas

An oil spill on the Mississippi River is blocking commercial shipping.

A previously secret memo that the ACLU says authorizes torture has surfaced.

FARC agreed to hand over eight detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Asia

A series of small explosions struck Bangalore, India.

Japanese inflation is accelerating at the fastest rate in 15 years.

China is restricting business visas for the Olympics.

Middle East and Africa

An Israeli committee approved new settlement homes in the West Bank.

Israeli officials are miffed that they weren't warned of the Bush administration's diplomatic shift on Iran.

The U.S. Embassy announced it would expand visas for Iraqis who have worked with the United States.

Europe

The Labor Party lost a key by-election in Scotland, spelling trouble for PM Gordon Brown. "I'm getting on with the job," Brown said.

France, all of a sudden, is moving quickly on economic reform.

Today's Agenda

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is visiting Spain. No hugs.

Obama does Paris.

McCain meets with the Dalai Lama in Aspen, Colorado. 

AFP/Getty Images

This week's arrest of the Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic has made headlines almost as big as those announcing the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic back in 2001. The shocking photos of Karadzic disguised as a bearded Dr. Dabic have painted the whole story ridiculous; statements from Brussels highlighting the arrest as a milestone trumpet the news that Serbia has really chosen a European future; and re-reported accounts from Bosnian Muslim victims have added an element of remorse for the fact that justice had not been brought sooner. But a lesser story today, that of Dinko Sakic, illustrates the long-term significance of Karadzic's overdue arrest.

Sakic, the last living commander of Jasenovac, the Croatian World War II concentration camp, died this week. Long after fleeing to Argentina, where he lived a rather vocal life in support of Croatian nationalism, Sakic was eventually tried and found guilty of killing thousands of Serbs and Jews -- but not until 1999, decades after his crimes were committed and years after those very crimes were used by Croat and Serb leaders alike to stir up nationalist fervor and inter-ethnic fear during the last bloody days of Yugoslavia.

Fortunately the losses at Srebrenica and Sarajevo will not go the way of Jasenovac, whose significance and death toll still remain in question. Thanks to the work of the ICTY, the former Yugoslavia's crimes of the 1990s have been investigated and documented in great detail, leaving far less room for future finger-pointing and fear-mongering. And with the EU promising future membership to all the countries of the Western Balkans, they'll need all regional stability they can get.

For more reflections what Karadzic's capture means, check out FP's interview with Richard Holbrooke, the man who did as much as anyone to bring peace to Bosnia. He's thrilled:

I got the news on a train from New York to Washington. I’ve rarely been so excited about any news event in a positive sense. The world gets so much bad news, and to bring this man to justice, this terrible man, ranks right up there with capturing Saddam Hussein.

KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

Assuming all goes as planned, I'm going to get a chance to speak with Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi tomorrow. Given the format of the event, I'm only likely to get to ask just one or two questions. So, dear readers, what should I ask him? Send me your thoughts and I'll ask the best question you all come up with (And no, "Why is your Web site so bad?" does not make the cut).

Also, if you have questions for Yasheng Huang, the author of our July/August cover story on what India can teach China about economic growth, send them to letters@ForeignPolicy.com by July 25 (tomorrow), and we’ll post his answers on July 30 at: ForeignPolicy.com/extras/huang.

Well, sort of. The seemingly ubiquitous presidential candidate has shelled out $5 million to join McDonalds and Anheuser-Busch as major advertiser during NBC's coverage of next month's Olympics.

The ad buy is the largest by any presidential candidate on network television in the last 16 years, AdAge reports:

While Rudy Giuliani's campaign did a tiny buy to air political ads on "Fox News Sunday" in consecutive weeks, the Obama campaign's spending on the high-rated and expensive Olympics top anything that has been done on network TV by presidential candidates in years.

Traditionally, campaigns target cheaper cable ads in crucial swing states. The last candidate to buck the trend was Bob Dole in 1996. Flush with youthful exuberance and record-breaking cash on hand, the Obama team thinks its campaign will meet a different fate than Dole's.

Drudge posts Barack's Obama's prepared remarks. Some of the rhetoric may sound familiar to those of you who have seen the Illinois senator's stump speech, but this is the European touch:

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen -- a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

It's official. Iraq won't be competing in Beijing:

The International Olympic Committee says Iraq will not compete at Beijing because of Iraqi government interference.

The IOC suspended Iraq's national Olympic committee in June after Baghdad dismissed elected officials and installed its own people who are not recognized by the IOC.

SEBASTIAN WILLNOW/AFP/Getty Images

The scuttlebutt on Barack Obama's speech in Berlin, due to hit in less than an hour now, is that he's going to use the occassion to demand more of Europe, particularly when it comes to boots on the ground in Aghanistan.

Coming from the lips of George W. Bush of John McCain, it's the kind of appeal that would go mostly unnoticed. But coming from Obama, it's going to seem to many like a "Sister Souljah moment" -- the act of telling a friendly audience what it needs, but doesn't necessarily want to hear. With Obama seen in many quarters as too Europhilic, (gently) criticizing Europe is savvy campaigning.

Politics aside, it's doubtful Europe can rise to the challenge. German officials and politicians have been fretting for days that Obama would ask them to send more troops, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to resist the Illinois senator's entreaties. Germany is already planning to send an additional 1,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in the fall, and that was hard enough politically for Ms. Merkel to pull off. Nicolas Sarkozy has talked tough, but is in the midst of downsizing the French military. Britain may be able to redirect some of the forces it is planning to withdraw from Iraq, but British officers are already complaining loudly of being overstretched.

It'll be interesting to see if Obama comes up with any creative workarounds, such as an appeal to newer NATO powers to step up. But given that he isn't visiting anywhere east of Berlin, that would be an odd move to make.

UPDATE: Der Speigel reports that "tens of thousands of people" are making their way to the speech site.

Many Passport readers may not be aware of a resource we've been quietly experimenting with in the background -- our "Must Reads" section. We come across a great deal of good stuff on the Internets in the course of our work, and we can't blog or use it all. But we think readers will appreciate a quick and easy place to go to find links to interesting news stories and analysis elsewhere.

We're definitely still tinkering with the format, so let us know if this is a resource you think we can improve.

Also on the top "Quick Links" bar, we have a handy link to the latest free articles posted on ForeignPolicy.com, a.k.a. "the mothership." This week, for instance, we have a list on the world's worst advisors, an argument for why the Ivory Tower and the Pentagon don't mix, and an interview with McClatchy reporter Nancy Youssef on the politics of Barack Obama's trip to Baghdad. Every Monday through Thursday, we post new Web exclusives online, so check back in regularly for the latest and greatest.

And of course, our print edition goes online every two months, though you need to subscribe for the low-low price of $19.95 to read most of it, as well as our extensive archives of back issues.

Finally, if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like us to cover, shoot me an e-mail or weigh in via the comments section below.

Apparently Russia isn't the only country ready to play politics with its resource exports, BBC reports:

Libya's state shipping company says it has halted oil shipments to Switzerland in protest at the brief arrest of leader Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son.

Yes, the son's name is Hannibal. He was charged with assault. It's not the first time he's been in trouble, either.

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images

Moving to disarm critics and follow through on promises made to the International Olympic Committee, China announced yesterday that it will allow demonstrations in special "protest pens": three public parks that are no closer than several miles to the Olympic Stadium.

Unsurprisingly, activists are unmoved. Demonstrations must first obtain formal approval by local police, and it's not clear whether Chinese laws banning political protest "harmful to national unity and social stability" will apply:

We never get it no matter how many times we try," said Jiang Tianyong, a lawyer and legal-rights advocate who has been rejected numerous times [attempting to schedule a protest]. "This is only a show for foreigners. Otherwise, I'd love to see these three places be kept after the Olympics so we can let our voices be heard, too."

That said, such "free-speech zones" are really nothing new for the Olympics. They've also been employed at other large international gatherings such as the G-8, as well as American political conventions. China certainly stands out for its political suppression before and after the Olympics, but during the games, for better or for worse, it's par for the course.

Marc Ambinder reports, you decide:

With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation's 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition.