On Saturday night, Europe will grind to a halt to mark its annual celebration of the cheesy and the saccharine: the Eurovision finals. This year, the singing competition is being held in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, and the field features the typical collection of over-the-top Europop, earnest acts, and strange sub-plots (the bassist in the Swiss act is 95 years old). 

The competition was first held in 1956 and was conceived as a way of bringing Europeans together around an entertainment program. That hasn't exactly happened, and every year the competiton is riven by petty national rivalries. The Scandinavian, Balkan, and former Soviet countries vote for each other, and the Greeks and Cypriots refuse to vote for the Turks.

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You may not have heard of koro --  a mental syndrome in which a person has an overwhelming belief that his or her genitals are disappearing -- or zar-- a condition that generates dissociative episodes characterized by intense laughter and singing -- but that doesn't mean these are any less universal than, say, anorexia.  At least that was the theme of a fascinating article by journalist Ethan Watters about "the Americanization of mental illness," published in the New York Times Magazine in 2010.  

One of the primary points Watters makes is that the Western mental-health practitioners behind the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-4) problematically placed "culture-bound" disorders -- like those mentioned above --in their own section at the back of ...

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Donald Rumsfeld has never had a reputation for being particularly tactful or articulate (let's all take a moment to remember how Saturday Night Live portrayed him, even before the invasion of Iraq), but he's demonstrated a habit of owning his mistakes -- in his own way. The former defense secretary took his infamous, convoluted, "There are known knowns" comment, made in a press conference in 2002, and appropriated it as the title of his 2011 memoir, Known and Unknown. And now he's doing it again as he promotes his new book, Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life, a collection of aphorisms and rules to live by -- if only Donald Rumsfeld took his own advice.

"You go to war with the Army you have" may have been a gaffe when Rumsfeld said it to a National ...

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Reuters brings us today's reminder that the world is a confusing, intricately interconnected place:

Disgruntled Bulgarian truck drivers blocked traffic at two major border checkpoints with neighboring Turkey on Friday to protest against what they said were Turkish restrictions to their operations.

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In much of the Middle East, Wednesday was Nakba Day, commemorating the 65th anniversary of the exodus of Palestinian refugees in the war that resulted in the establishment of Israel in 1948 -- an event known in Arabic as "al-Nakba," or "the catastrophe."

Predictably, the largest demonstrations were held by Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank; the Associated Press estimates the total number of protesters in the tens of thousands, some of whom skirmished with Israeli police and military forces. But neighboring countries, despite having large Palestinian refugee populations and politicians who pay frequent lip service to the rights of Palestinians, remained quiet.

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On Friday, chaotic clashes broke out in Georgia as an angry mob -- comprised mainly of young men but also including robed priests and some women -- descended on a gay rights rally commemorating International Day Against Homophobia. A day earlier, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church had demanded that authorities stop the rally, calling it a "violation of the majority's right." 

According to EurasiaNet, the mob, which numbered in the thousands, shouted violent slogans while chasing activists away from downtown Tbilisi. Clamors of "Kill them! Tear them to pieces!" and "Where are they? Don't leave them alive!" rang out as police herded activists into municipal buses and away from the area. As the activists left, protesters pelted the buses with stones and overpowered ...

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British consular officials are completely fed up with fielding stupid requests for assistance from Britons abroad. Or, at the very least, that's the clear subtext of a ridiculous press release by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that lists the most bizarre requests British diplomatic posts have received in 2012 and 2013 (it also makes the U.S. State Department's press releases look incredibly boring).

The release describes the requests as "often good natured" but notes that they "can take valuable time away from helping those in genuine distress." To put it less politely: "Dear Britons, we are far too busy dealing with real problems to help you pick out a perfect tattoo during your debauched romp through the Mediterranean."

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It looks like FP collected Ramzan Kadyrov's 11 weirdest Instagrams just in time. Today brought news that the Chechen president is threatening to close his popular account.

According to Radio Free Europe, the threat comes after Kadyrov posted a photograph of himself standing next to Bekkhan Ibragimov, a Chechen who everyone thought was serving jail time for his part in the 2010 killing of a Russian soccer fan.

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The shocking video of a Syrian rebel eating the lung of a pro-Assad fighter spread like wildfire across the Internet earlier this week. The rebel, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Sakkar, has filmed a Youtube video explaining his actions. 

"I am willing to face trial for my actions if Bashar and his shabeeha [militiamen] stand trial for their atrocities," he says. "My message to the world is if the bloodshed in Syria doesn't stop, all of Syria will become like Abu Sakkar."

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In the latest development in the showdown between Taiwan and the Philippines over the death of a Taiwanese fisherman at the hands of the Philippine coast guard, Taiwan is holding military drills near Philippine waters. The Philippines -- its apology having been rejected by Taiwan -- is also standing firm, saying it won't "appease" the Taiwanese, while the United States is urging cooler heads to prevail. The standoff is just the latest in a string of geopolitical showdowns in which fishermen have served -- sometimes unwittingly and sometimes wittingly -- as lightning rods in East and Southeast Asian maritime territorial disputes.

The humble fishing boat, in fact, has been at the center of incidents between China and Russia; between China and Vietnam; between Japan and Taiwan; between China ...

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