Global Briefing April 8, 2011: Old Foes, New Elmo

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Stalemate — Libya is deadlocked. TIME’s Tony Karo offers five reasons western intervention is unlikely to continue and mulls what come next.

On Language — The Economist parses the results of a massive (but not satistically controlled) study of English-language ability, linking fluency to factors like wealth and export dependency.

Old Foes — Why is Pakistan’s Taliban targeting the country’s Muslim majority? Omar Waraich explains in a dispatch from Islamabad.

‘Elmo in Urdu’ — USAID is spending $20 million to re-make Seseame Street in Pakistan, reports the Guardian. Move over Cookie Monster, ‘Rani’ is in town.

State Media — An editorial in Global Times, a English-language newspaper run by the Chinese state, blasts foreign coverage of Ai Weiwei’s disappearance. “China is not the dangerous place of Western description,” it reads.

Pirate Eyes —Over at Spiegal Online, Beate Lakotta tells the story of the trial, in Hamburg, of a group of Somali pirates.  Having no knowlege of German law, many assumed they’d be executed by the judge.

Bittersweet — The Nation traces the conflifct in Ivory Coast to the country’s cocoa industry and the practices of American agribusiness giants.

In Pictures — Light Box features the work of Thomas Dworzak, a photographer on assaignment for TIME in post-revolutionary Cairo, Eypt.