The multiyear diplomatic feud between Switzerland and Libya originally set off by enfant terrible Hannibal Qaddafi's 2008 hotel room assault on two of his servants has finally come to an end: 

The new Libyan government made the decision on Sunday and announced the news on Monday, leaving Libya free to do business with Switzerland as well as with Lebanon, which the late ruler Moammar Gaddafi had also boycotted.

The economic sanctions against Switzerland were the result of a diplomatic row between Switzerland and Libya over the arrest of Moammar Gaddafi’s son Hannibal in Geneva in July 2008.

The Swiss assault was just one of several violent incidents in European luxury hotels inolving Hannibal during the last decade. The elder Qaddafi's response to the incident was characteristially over-the-top, involving detaining Swiss businessmen and even proposing at the U.N. that the country be abolished. 

As for Hannibal, the most recent reports are that he's fled to Algeria. 

North Korean state TV, in celebration of the birthday of their new overlord, aired a video collage of Kim Jong Un driving a tank, riding a horse, inspecting a factory, and hobnobbing with generals. The female announcer, her voice trembling in the ecstasies of praise, commends this "genius among geniuses" for his "excellent military leadership."

Bizarrely, the video also shows the youngest Kim at an amusement park, seemingly enjoying himself as he prepares to be launched up to the top of a giant pole in a Tower of Doom ride.

North Korea has entered Juche 101, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung and the year that the country's propaganda claimed that it would bring "moderate prosperity" to its people. North Korea is still one of the poorest countries in the world, but the thinking seems to be that building a fun fair North Koreans can actually enjoy is a concrete example of what the Kims have done for the people.

On the last night of a September visit to the country, my guides announced with great pleasure that we would be visiting this amusement park. Pyongyang, with its tall, decrepit buildings, wide boulevards traversed by rotting trolleys, and citizens who seem to be still even when they're moving, feels like a post-apocalyptic Detroit. Needless to say I had low expectations for the Ferris wheels of Pyongyang.

Boy was I wrong.

The park had brand new rides, allegedly and believably imported from Italy. The pirate-ship ride elicited shrieks from the North Koreans and the foreign tourists because it was a genuinely scary ride and not because we feared it would malfunction mid-swing and hurl us out of the park. North Koreans wandered around, taking pictures with their families, and munched on hamburgers in the park's food stand. It was a shockingly normal experience, except that the guide to the park demanded that the dozens of North Koreans waiting in line for each attraction get out of the way so that we foreigners could ride first.

Leader of a functioning society he's not, but at least Kim Jong Un can boast a great Superman ride.

Note: This is different from Pyongyang's other amusement park on the foreign tourist circuit, the Mangyondae, which seems to be, like the University of Chicago, that fabled place where fun comes to die.

Iowa fallout

After weeks of debate and fluctuating polls, we finally have some actual results from a GOP primary. Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucasus with 24.6 percent, edging out surprise second-place finisher Rick Santorum by only eight votes. In his rambling victory speech, Romney took the opportunity to attack the president on national security. "Iran is about to have nuclear weaponry, just down the road here, and this president, what's he done in that regard? He said he'd have a policy of engagement. How's that worked out?"

The next day, Romney received an endorsement from Sen. John McCain, who said his former 2008 rival was committed, like Ronald Reagan, to a philosophy of , "Peace through strength."

Ron Paul came in third place in Iowa and promised to continue pushing his vision for a noninterventionist foreign policy. "Our foreign policy has been a mess and drains us both economically and our military forces," he said.

After a disappointing fourth-place finish, once frontrunner Newt Gingrich promised to continue to attack "Massachusetts moderate" Romney, (he also called Romney a "liar" in an interview) but took the opportunity to blast Paul's foreign policy views as "stunningly dangerous for survival of the United States."

Rick Perry, who came in fifth with 10.3 percent of the vote, despite spending more money than any other candidate in Iowa, is apparently staying in the race for now.

After essentially finishing last (Jon Huntsman didn't contest the caucuses) Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race, vowing to "continue fighting to defeat the president's agenda of socialism."

Santorum in the spotlight

As the latest "non-Romney" to emerge in the race, Santorum's foreign-policy views are beginning to receive more scrutiny. In particular, Santorum has staked out a position even more extreme than Gingrich on the legitimacy of Palestinian aspirations for statehood.  "All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis, they're not Palestinians... There is no 'Palestinian,'" he told a questioner back in November. (Israel probably wouldn't actually be thrilled with this position, as it would entail full Israeli political rights for Palestinians on the West Bank.)

Santorum has also recently vowed to bomb Iranian nuclear sites if they are not opened for inspections, saying that President Barack Obama's inaction against the Iranian nuclear program risks turning the United States into a paper tiger.

Huntsman's last stand

Huntsman has essentially staked his campaign on Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, opting out of Iowa entirely and campaigning non-stop in the Granite State. "We have to do well in New Hampshire," he told CBS news this week. The Boston Globe endorsed Huntsman this week, pointing specifically to his foreign policy experience. "While other candidates point toward Cold War-style rejection and isolation of China, Huntsman promises deeper engagement. But he had the courage as ambassador to walk among protesters, drawing the ire of repressive Chinese authorities," the editorial read.

Nonetheless, recent polls show that the majority of New Hampshire voters, particularly front-runner Mitt Romney's supporters, which Huntsman was hoping to pick off -- are unlikely to change their mind before Tuesday.

A new strategy for the Pentagon

On Thursday, the president announced a new military approach which aims to trim roughly $450 billion from the defense budget by shrinking the Army and Marines, focusing more heavily on Special Operations and drone forces, and making a strategic "pivot" from the Middle East and Central Asia to the Pacific.

With the exception of Paul and Huntsman, the Republican candidates all oppose large-scale defense cuts. Romney has ridiculed the idea of a strategic shift to Asia in the past, saying, "President Obama seems to think that we're going to have a global century, an Asian century. I believe we have to have an American century, where America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world."

What to watch for

The candidates will meet for two final televised debates in New Hampshire on Saturday night and Sunday morning before voters head to the polls on Tuesday. Real Clear Politics' New Hampshire poll average shows Romney with a commanding 20 point lead over Paul, followed by Santorum, Huntsman, Gingrich, and Perry -- in that order.

Then it's on to South Carolina for the Jan. 21 primary, where Romney currently holds a 19 point lead over Santorum, his closest challenger.

The latest from FP

Scott Clement looks at why Huntsman's experience as ambassador won't help him win over skeptical GOP voters.

Joshua Keating says farewell, Michele and recounts Bachmann's "greatest hits" on foreign policy. Also, what's behind Santorum's strange fixation with Honduras?

David Kenner says Santorum's views on Israel could be "profoundly damaging to U.S. and Israeli interests."

Daniel Drezner argues that Paul would make an even worse president than Gingrich -- and that's saying something.

David Rothkopf wonders why Obama has been so modest as a communicator and lists some of the president's underappreciated successes he should be crowing about.

Peter Feaver criticizes the Paul campaign for having a soldier in uniform speak at a campaign event and says the Iowa results prove there will not be a crack-up in the Republican Party over foreign policy.

Defying rumors of his death, Blogger Fidel is back with a new column, weighing in on, of all things, the debate over hydrofracking, calling it a "march into the abyss" : 

"It is sufficient to point out that among the numerous chemical substances injected with the water to extract this gas is found benzene and toluene, which are substances terribly carcinogenic," he wrote.

The information on shale gas was something "no political cadre or sensible person could ignore," he said.

Castro said he was so intent on getting the word out, he had "let the festive days of the old and new year pass by" working on his column.

Castro has weighed in on enironmental issues before, denouncing ethanol subsidies, crticizing the U.S. over the handling of the Gulf oil spill and promoting energy efficient lightbulbs.  

Of course, Cuba's own oil drilling plans have raised some red flags for environmentalists as well. 

Singapore's intensely competent, scrupulously uncorrupt, and slightly dictatorial Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has accepted a 36 percent pay cut, bringing his salary down to a still-comfortable $1.7 million a year.  After an embarrassingly close victory in last year's elections, Lee set up an independent review committee on governmental salaries to check populist anger. And yesterday, the panel announced changes including Lee's cut, a slightly larger dock for ministers, and a more than 50 percent drop in the salary for the (mostly honorific) office of the presidency. Say what you want about Lee (actually, better not: the country has some of the most fearsome libel laws of any developed nation), he listens to his constituents.

While Lee is likely the highest paid world leader in the world, Chinese president Hu Jintao, leader of the world's second-largest economy, sits near the other end of the spectrum. If government statistics are to be believed, Hu makes just over $10,000 a year.  Officials at the ministerial level make that same amount, and lower ranking Party apparatchiks can make as little as a few hundred dollars a month.   "While the benefits, like housing, are very good, the salary is low, that's definite," says Yiyi Lu, a Beijing-based China analyst. Even with benefits, Chinese government salaries encourage corruption by bestowing high power but low salaries on people who have very little transparency over their actions. Whereas in Singapore ministers remain clean in part to keep their seven-figure salaries, in China one always wonders how those officials making, say, $1500 a month can afford those Rolexes.

While the investors and credit ratings agencies may be mulling over the economic turmoil gripping France, one set of investors is seeing opportunity. In Le Monde, Arthur Frayer profiled the efforts of Qatar to create a 50 million euro investment fund for the banlieues, France's poverty-stricken, largely-immigrant suburbs.

The initiative, formally announced in December, began after the National Association of Elected Local Diversity (French acronym ANELD), a group of officials who are descendents of immigrants to France wrote to the Ambassador of Qatar to France earlier this fall. In their initial correspondence, they asked for help for the people of the poor banlieus, areas that have suffered nothing but "abandonment from the French state."  These neglected suburbs have been especially hard hit by France's weak labor market.

"For once, our identity was promoted and was no longer a handicap," Kamel Hamza, the president of ANELD told Le Monde about the announced investments.

The fund would invest in small entrepreneurs living in the banlieu, encouraging small businesses to access capital that they would not have necessarily had access to.  Already, ANELD has received hundreds of applications for possible projects.

However, the initiative has received mixed reviews. Renaud Gauquelin, a former local official, was appreciative of the money, but was more critical of the state of affairs which required foreign investment to rescue the neglected areas. Former Senator Claude Dilain saw it as another example of the "disconnect" between French society and the suburbs. Previously, the State Department had reached out to these disaffected suburbs to stem anti-American sentiment

The Qatari investment is part of a broadening effort by the small country to expand its international presence through investment and diplomacy.  Besides opening an office in Doha to broker talks between the U.S and the Taliban, it is hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and gradually expanding its international development assistance programs.