The Islamist Tide In Pakistan Is Turning, And None Too Soon

Such theatrics foreshadow trouble. Sarkozy's approval rating fell last month from 49 percent to 39 percent. Nerves are raw in his UMP party, and his cabinet dreads a reshuffling if it loses the nationwide municipal elections. Last week he called for his allies to maintain "the greatest levelheadedness and the greatest calm," sounding oddly like a president at war, in peacetime.
—Tracy Mcnicoll

Market Watch
Not all emerging markets will fare the same as the U.S. economy heads south. Commodity producers (think Russia, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia and Argentina) are looking robust thanks to full coffers resulting from higher prices on everything from oil to wheat. Others, especially those who haven't got their fiscal house in order (South Africa, Turkey) can look forward to a more perilous ride.
—Rana Foroohar

Note: The index is a ranking of internal and external cyclical and structural measures: inflation, fiscal balances, public debt-to-GDP ratios, current account balances, net international reserves to short-term debt, trade as a share of GDP and foreign d irect investment as a share of GDP. For each indicator, we split the range between the minimum and maximum into 10 levels, assigning numbers from 5 to +5, with the negative number associated with more international exposure or greater vulnerability. The numbers are summed to give the overall vulnerability index. Source: Citi.

Love At First Dance: Uzbeki Idol
What do you get when you take a whisky-swilling Brit who enjoys a good spank and you introduce him to an Uzbeki strip-club dancer? Apparently, an account of diplomat Craig Murray's romance with Nadira Alieva, now adapted as the one-woman stage play, "The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer" (starring Nadira), that runs in London's West End through February 23.

Four years ago, Murray's tale gripped Britain when he was dismissed from his Uzbekistan post over rumors of a penchant for prostitutes, heavy drinking and unseemly behavior. Murray, who did not deny the allegations and left his wife for Nadira, says he was canned because he spoke out against the use of torture on suspected terrorists.

But sex, booze and international scandal can't save the script from its clunky metaphors—tree stumps symbolize truncated Uzbeki lives—and cheesy lines like "the beautiful balloon of a moon." Weirdly, Nadira overacts terribly when playing herself, yet shines when she is pretending to be her former strip-club boss or the policeman who raped her. If she still manages to spin a reasonably compelling tale of a young, desperate woman trapped in the former Soviet Union, one can't help but think: too bad the monologue is not as mesmerizing as the belly dancing.
—Ginanne Brownell

Cultural Outreach: Virtual Diplomacy
Just as it did during the Cold war, the U.S. is betting jazz will boost its image abroad and break down borders—even virtual ones.