The Hill reported this afternoon that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wants to hear more from Mitt Romney on foreign policy, particularly the Arab Spring:

“It’s an economic-driven election; I can understand his policy team saying stay on the economy,” Graham told reporters.

“I do wish Romney would speak more about how Syria and Iran, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, how all of this comes together to go one way or the other. There’s a lot going on in the Arab world right now, and I would like to hear Romney articulate his vision about how to handle the Arab Spring,” he said.

Romney toyed with talking about Syria but it seems that seeing his policy isn’t all that different from the Obama administration’s, he hasn’t been talking about it much lately.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee used to attack President Obama for “leading from behind” in Libya but Romney hasn’t touched that issue in a while either.

But Graham is right that Romney doesn’t seem to be all that interested in talking foreign policy, as one of his top advisers told the New York Times recently. So unless the trip aboard Romney is reportedly taking pans out, the South Carolina Republican might be disappointed.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been known to promote paranoid conspiracy theories and in recent weeks, she bought into one promoted by Islamophobic chieftain Frank Gaffney that the U.S. government has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

In letters to several government agencies demanding an investigation, Bachmann and several of her GOP colleagues targeted specific names and individuals in the government. The letter to the State Department Inspector General singles out Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and asserts that Abedin is the perfect example of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “deep penetration” in the administration. Bachmann’s letter claims that three of Abedin’s family members are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and implies that Abedin’s proximity to Clinton is no coincidence as the department has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) called out Bachmann for her fear campaign:

If she has sources for this type of information, she owes it to the country to reveal them to the proper authorities, but definitely not this way. If she doesn’t have this type of information, she should not be whipping up fear and hysteria about a very important matter.

Abedin was born in the United States, attended college at George Washington University in Washington D.C. and the popular Clinton aide is also married to former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner (NY). But the letter, co-signed by Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Thomas Rooney (R-FL), and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), offered no evidence of Abedin’s alleged nefarious connections, and instead cited Gaffney’s Muslim Brotherhood in America website.

–Angela Guo

Yesterday, an Israeli government-appointed panel of judges issued a report declaring that Israel’s presence in the West Bank does not constitute an occupation, and therefore Israel is not bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilians, and free to build as many settlements and transfer as much of its own population into the West Bank as it wants (see the English language PDF summary here).

The committee’s findings were not exactly a surprise. The committee chair, Edmond Levy, is known to be a supporter of the settlements, and was the sole dissenter in the 2005 Israeli Supreme Court decision ruling the Gaza withdrawal to be legal. Versions of this argument have also been made before, perhaps most notably by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in a 2005 Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The difference here, said Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, who has brought dozens of cases against settlements in Israeli courts, “is that this is a supposedly committee of jurists, and this is a legal position that they are taking,” not just a political position. “It’s one thing to be a politician and to hold certain views about what ought to be. That’s fine and legitimate. It’s a completely different matter to make legal assertions.” Many countries have territorial demands and disputes with other countries, Sfard said, “but they don’t simply ignore the legal consensus about the status of these territories. They conduct their disputes diplomatically in international affairs.”

According to Sfard, while Israel may have legitimate territorial aspirations in the West Bank — “I don’t agree, but it’s legitimate” — it tries to materialize those aspirations though negotiations with Palestinians and other countries. “Holding negotiations is legitimate, and it’s legitimate for a government to say ‘here’s what we want,’” Sfard said. “It’s a different matter to simply deny the legal framework that applies.”

“International law is based on consensus,” Sfard continued, “and if most of the jurists of international law, all U.N. organs, the International Court of Justice, multiple U.N. Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, the International Committee of the Red Cross, all agree that [the West Bank] is occupied territory, it is highly immodest for this committee to say otherwise, and for the government of Israel to even reflect on adopting this, sorry, but bizarre position.”

Asked about the report, U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell reiterated the U.S. position on the illegitimacy of settlements. “Obviously, we’ve seen the reports that an Israeli Government appointed panel has recommended legalizing dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” he said, “but we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity and we oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts.”

Wikipedia’s Russian site has gone dark for 24 hours to protest a censorship bill headed to the Russian parliament today.

Russian Wikipedia is replicating the site’s January 18 black-out in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills here in the United States, which replaced its usual homepage with an explanation of the controversial Internet policing proposals. Today, visitors to the Russian Wikipedia are greeted with a message saying, according to a translation by BBC News:

The State Duma is expected to hold a second hearing about amendments to the Information Act, which could lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the entire internet in Russia, including banning access to Wikipedia in the Russian language.

Today the Wikipedia community voices protest against the introduction of censorship, which is dangerous for the freedom of knowledge – something which must be open-access for all mankind.

The Information Act, according to the Associated Press, ”would give the Russian government sweeping powers to blacklist certain sites, the latest in a flurry of legislation that appears aimed at neutering a growing opposition movement that has protested President Vladimir Putin’s rule.” Defenders of the bill claim it is meant to protect children from pornography and other unsavory websites. The law was introduced by lawmakers from Putin’s party and will almost definitely pass.

Russian Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov tweeted in response to the black-out: “I do not support the idea of shutting down Wikipedia. Its step is an important reaction by the web community which says that the law [submitted to the Duma] needs to be improved.”

Unlike China, the Russian government has mostly left Internet access unregulated. Anton Nossik, media director of Russia’s most popular blogging platform, told the AP:

For the past 12 years I was sure that the Russian government was smart enough not to censor the Internet. Now they are scattering any doubt that Russia is on the path of government regulation that is senseless and ruthless.

Russia has been rocked by protests since Putin won the presidency in a contest called a “fraud” by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In response, Putin has used the law to crush opposition to his presidency. Last month, new laws meant to restrict public assembly were met with huge demonstrations in the streets, where tens of thousands of Russians calling for “Russia without Putin.”

Last month, hopes were raised that Saudi Arabia would allow women to compete on their Olympic team, bringing the kingdom in line with Brunei and Qatar, which are sending their first female competitors to the London Olympics. But yesterday, Saudi Arabia reported that no Saudi women qualified for the London Olympics, meaning the Saudi Arabian Olympic team will continue to be all-male.

The news was confirmed by the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat which announced that Saudi male athletes have qualified to compete in track, equestrian and weightlifting at the games but there would be no “female team taking part in the three fields,” said an unidentified Saudi official. The official added that no female athlete had taken part in qualifying events in Saudi Arabia.

Hope for a Saudi female Olympian had come to focus largely on Dalma Rushdi Malhas, a 20-year-old showjumper, but her participation in the games appears to have been cut short by an injury to her horse.

In June, Saudi Olympic officials announced that they were lifting a ban on women athletes representing the conservative Gulf monarchy at the Olympics but rights groups doubted the Saudis’ resolve. “It is 100% the case they knew she couldn’t compete when they made the announcement,” Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch told the Wall Street Journal after Malhas failed to qualify. HRW is one of the international organizations that has called for Saudi Arabia to be banned from the London Olympics if the country declines to send women athletes.

Worden added that the initial Saudi announcement of including females on their Olympic team “was total spin for the west… But on the other hand, it pins them down to finding a woman.” The latest news would suggest that Saudi Olympic officials have been unable, or unwilling, to place a female athlete on the team. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s track record of discriminating against women and girls may have ultimately undermined the Saudi Olympic team’s ability to find a suitable female athlete.

“[H]aving banned its women and girls from engaging in sports at home, finding one who’s had access to Olympic-level training is a long stretch,” opined Lara Setrakian in the International Herald Tribune last week.