Vaclav Klaus had previously said that he would finally sign the Lisbon treaty, once the Czech constitutional court had ruled on its legality. It seems he's just moved the goalpost back again, by asking for a two-sentence footnote to be added to the treaty:

Mr Reinfeldt said the requested footnote was linked to the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.[...]

According to Mr Reinfeldt, Mr Klaus also wants the new footnote adopted by the European Council, the grouping of EU heads of state and prime ministers.[...]

The Czech president told him he would sign Lisbon if he got the extra footnote and if the Czech Constitutional Court rejected the senators' legal challenge, Mr Reinfeldt said.

Klaus has denied rumors that he is trying to delay the ratification of the treaty until Britain could elect a Conservative government that would call for a new referendum, but this latest move does look like a transparently obvious delaying tactic.

Perhaps all the media attention over the last few days has convinced Klaus he can withstand European pressure. It should be fun to see how many reasons he can come up with not to put his name on a piece of paper over the next few months. 

Now that Seif al-Qaddafi has a graduate degree, the time has apparently come for him to enter the family business. 

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has asked senior administrators to find an official position for his second son Seif al-Islam to allow him to implement reforms, an online newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Islam, widely seen as heir apparent, has no official role and Kadhafi said this is "disrupting his work," according to Libya Al-Youm (www.libya-alyoum.com), a usually well-informed site.

"Colonel Kadhafi has asked thousands of regional administrations and people's committees to find an official post for Seif al-Islam so that he can implement the reform plan he has been leading for the past few years," the newspaper said, quoting a participant at a meeting to which press were not invited.

It's suspected that Seif has been the driving force behind a lot of his father's moves toward modernization and reconciliation with the West in recent years. Some of his ideas about "global democracy" may even have informed his dad's assault on the structure of the U.N. Security Council at the General Assembly last month, though these ideas were somewhat lost in the Colonel's...er...rhetorical excesses.

It seems unlikley that Libya's going to move toward liberal democracy any time soon, but if Saif's being groomed as a successor, that's probably good news. Especially considering the alternative.

Two ships full of Somali pirates spotted a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean, 250 nautical miles off the Somali coast. Ready to pilfer, plunder and otherwise pirate a bountiful booty, they set toward the cargo ship under the dark of night, AK-47s ablaze. That is, until they got close enough to see that their cargo ship full of riches was in fact a French Naval vessel, full of armed soldiers.

What then proceeded is something of a Monty Python skit. The sailors, some of whom had directed commando operations to free French hostages taken by the pirates, chased one of the boats for over an hour. When boarded the ship they found that the boat of would-be thieves jettisoned their water, food and weapons, pretending to just be a bunch of guys hanging out on a dinghy at night on the Indian Ocean.

The other boat escaped and has yet to be found.

Olivier Amalvict/AFP/Getty Images 

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has been implicated in the corruption trial of former police chief -- and former Interpol President -- Jackie Selebi. Convicted drug trafficker named Glenn Agliotti alleges that Selebi warned him about a British police investigation in exchange for cash and gifts. Allegedly, Selebi didn't forget his friends:

Agliotti said he had been asked during a shopping spree with Selebi to buy shoes for the former president.

"I bought shoes for the accused and one other person, ex President Thabo Mbeki. We were at Grays shopping, the accused said he was looking to buy a pair of shoes for the president."

"He indicated to the shop assistant that he needed to buy a size 7, if my memory serves me correctly, because the president had small and broad feet."

Mbeki's office was not immediately available for comment.

Critics of Mbeki accused him of protecting Selebi, suspended in 2008, despite repeated calls for his dismissal. Mbeki always rejected such accusations.

ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images

France isn't the only government dealing with bizarre revelations about a politician's past. It turns out that Mieko Tanaka, a recently elected Diet representative from Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party had a very interesting career prior to entering politics. This included a stint as some sort of cosplay sex columnist:

A publishing company employee explains that Tanaka used to pen a rather racy column in the magazine Bubka titled “Beautiful costume play writer Arisu interviews sex workers: a real battle of beauties” under the name Arisu Shibuya. “She would interview fuzoku [sex industry] girls while she herself was outfitted in some kind of costume. It become somewhat of a topic of conversation because nobody knew why she had to dress up like that,” the employee chuckles.

Tanaka had a bit of a film career as well. She appeared nude in cult director Teruo Ishii's 2005 slasher film "Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf":

Tanaka plays one of four widows named Reiko, and she first appears sixty-eight minutes into the film. The ladies are initially seduced by the blind beast, who in reality is a killer, and succumb to his sensual massage, for which Tanaka is seen writhing in ecstasy as the beast fumbles with her breasts beneath her robe.

The politician then reappears at around the eighty-three-minute mark, when she tricks the sightless creature into thinking a doll is her body and subsequently flees in desperation.

Thanks to Tanaka's election, sales of "Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf" are apparently through the roof.

Tanaka is one of the so-called "Ozawa girls," a group of young female politicians recruited by DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa to unseat ageing, male LDP incumbents. 

Between Tanaka's cult-film past and first lady Miyuki Hatoyama's close encounters, Japanese voters may have gotten more change than they bargained for with the DPJ. 

Photo: Democratic Party of Japan

If you've been following Nigeria for the past few weeks, you know that -- after years of foot-dragging -- the government finally pulled together an amnesty plan for fighters. You probably also heard that, just hours after the program began, rebel group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta promised to renew attacks. What gives?

Just about everything is wrong with the amnesty deal that just took place, despite hooplah and praise to the contrary. In principle, offering fighters a way out of their violent profession is great. But context is everything.

First off, there was never a political settlement to the conflict in the Niger Delta -- a conflict that is primarily about the sharing of the country's massive oil wealth, the underdevelopment of the Niger Delta, and the environmental destruction that petrol has wraught on the communities therearound. None of those questions have disappeared. Thousands are still jobless; living standards for the masses are abominable; and no large-scale clean-up efforts have restored the environment to its past vibrance. There has been no political agreement on the rebels' demand that the Niger Delta recieve a greater percentage of the country's oil revenues. Nor has there been any effort to stem the local corruption that enriches local officials at the expense of pretty much everyone else. In short, if you were considering being a rebel, there are still a lot of reasons to do so.

But perhaps more alarming is the fact that the Nigerian government has just created juicy incentive to become a rebel. If this amnesty was anything like past attempts to co-opt top rebel leaders, a hefty paycheck came along with that promise of no prosecution. So what lesson has Abuja just taught MEND? If you become just frightening enough, you, too, can win a juicy deal from the government in Abuja to stop fighting.

I don't mean to be curt, and I hope Nigeria proves me wrong. But here's the picture I see: In a region where there is no economic opportunity for young men and women, joining a rebellion that pays well -- with the promise of a handsome retirement someday in Abuja -- is not just an option, it's the obvious choice. As one rebel once told me, a hungry man will fight for anything. And since the problems of the Niger Delta aren't getting any better, there's plenty (right or wrong) to fight for.

It's not very smart (or legal, or moral) to patronize underage prostitutes. If you do engage in such behavior, it's not very smart to write about it in your memoir. If you do write about it, it's not very smart to then seek political office. If you do somehow reach political office, it's not very smart to use your position to defend someone else from child sex charges.

Frederic Mitterrand is apparently not very smart.

When the French culture minister -- who is the also the nephew of former French President Francois Mitterand -- led the French government's charge in denouncing the arrest of director Roman Polanski, he might have thought about the fact that his own autobiography, published before the former television presenter went into politics, contains details of his paying for sex with young boys in Thailand. A sample:

"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

Opposition leaders are calling for Mitterand to resign (unfortunately, the campaign is being led by the far-right National Front, which puts the Socialists in an awkward spot) but this does seem like an inevitable scandal that Sarkozy's government could have easily avoided.  Comment dit-on "vetting" en Français?

DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images

There's some interesting Kremlinology in Charles Clover's Financial Times piece today about President Medvedev's decision to hire two new speechwriters:

Mr Medvedev’s new head speechwriter, Eva Vasilevskaya, previously worked with him when he was first deputy prime minister and has been a member of his speechwriting team since he came to the Kremlin. She will play a central role in drafting the annual address to the general assembly, expected in late October or early November, the most important speech of the year for Mr Medvedev.

Alexei Chadaev, a conservative political commentator, is expected shortly to be named as a speechwriter working alongside the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, who oversees management of the Kremlin’s domestic political machine. Mr Chadaev is known for a public criticism of Mr Surkov’s ideology in January. Yet to be confirmed, his appointment has been widely reported by Moscow papers with close links to the Kremlin and people in the Kremlin have confirmed that background checks are being carried out.

The reshuffle underlines a new ideological direction Mr Medvedev appears to be taking, away from that of his predecessor and mentor, Vladimir Putin, prime minister, who remains the hegemonic figure in Russian politics. Until now Mr Medvedev has made only a handful of appointments, mostly federal governors, and overwhelmingly those surrounding him are Mr Putin’s former staff.

It's easy to read too much into moves like this and it's hard to see how new speechwriters will make Medvedev more politically independent if the people surrounding him actually implementing policy are still Putin loyalists. Still, expect plenty of tea leaf reading after the assembly speech as analysts search for signs that Vova and Dima aren't getting along. 

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images