Iran
There are stirrings of discontent here as the cash-strapped government trims longtime subsidies on fuel and staple goods. Recent U.S. and European Union sanctions on Iran’s central bank and oil industry, in response to the country’s disputed nuclear program, have aggravated the dire situation by weakening the currency, the rial. – Los Angeles Times
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, urged India to do more to reduce its oil imports from Iran, as part of Washington’s continuing efforts to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme by cutting off an important source of revenue. – Financial Times
The United States called on Iran on Monday to take “urgent practical steps” to build confidence during nuclear talks with world powers, and the European Union said Tehran must suspend sensitive atomic activities. – Reuters
Iran’s government denied on Monday it would treble the price of gasoline as part of subsidy reforms that have been commended by the IMF but caused anger at home among a population struggling under Western trade sanctions. – Reuters
Iran’s nuclear strategy could eventually allow it to build an atomic bomb with just 60 days’ notice, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday. – Reuters
Syria
Western hopes for salvaging a nearly four-week-old cease-fire in Syria have all but evaporated, as new assessments raise fresh doubts about the prospects for the U.N.-brokered accord and the chances for removing the country’s repressive leadership in the near term, diplomats and intelligence officials say. – Washington Post
While opposition groups are mostly concentrating on ending the brutish rule of President Bashar al-Assad, they are also positioning themselves for the longer-term question of who will rule in a post-Assad era. For that, they know from watching what happened in other Arab countries like Tunisia and Egypt that they need a good ground game. – New York Times
For months, activists who helped spark the uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad by nonviolent means had seen it slip away as others in the opposition took up arms and the conflict began to resemble a civil war. Now the United Nations-backed cease-fire, which has seen numerous violations but also an easing of the bloodshed, is providing an apt anti-violence backdrop to activists’ efforts to retake the revolution. – Los Angeles Times
Syrians voted in a parliamentary election on Monday touted by authorities as a milestone of political reform but dismissed by the opposition as a facade while people are killed every day in an anti-government uprising. – Reuters
Haitham Maleh writes: Syria has been ruled ruthlessly by one party for nearly 50 years. Sooner or later the Assad regime will end. The international community must help the opposition by funding various opposition leaders to build political parties, so we can be ready to govern. It must help build democratic institutions and educate the population about political accountability, an alien concept to most Syrians, who have known only the anti-democratic Assad regime. – Los Angeles Times
Egypt
Two weeks before Egypt’s presidential election begins, the leading candidates are adopting a deferential tone toward the current military rulers even as the generals make clear that they expect to maintain much of their autonomy and influence after their pledged handover of power. – New York Times
For the third time in a week, deadly clashes erupted near Egypt’s Defense Ministry when military policemen fired tear gas and water cannons and threw rocks to disperse tens of thousands of protesters, in a sign of growing tensions as the country nears the end of a turbulent 15-month political transition. – New York Times
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador returned to Egypt on Saturday, a week after the Saudi government closed its embassy in response to protests there in the worst diplomatic rift in years between the two countries. – New York Times
Aboul Fotouh[’s]…blend of pragmatism and progressive Islam has been unexpectedly praised by ultraconservative Salafis and backed by liberals even as it threatens the Muslim Brotherhood’s dominance – Los Angeles Times
Bahrain
Bahrain’s most influential human rights activist has been arrested, as the government cracks down on the civil disobedience campaign he has played a leading role in organising. – Financial Times
Yemen
A senior Qaeda militant in Yemen linked to the deadly bombing of an American warship there in 2000 was killed in an airstrike on Sunday, the Yemeni government said, in the latest sign of an escalating American campaign to counter the terrorist threat there. – New York Times
Islamist gunmen killed at least 32 Yemeni soldiers on Monday when they stormed a military position in southern Yemen where militants control broad swathes of territory, a military official said. – Reuters
Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday called for early elections, vowing to win a “renewed mandate” and “form the broadest government that is possible” to “guarantee the future of the people of Israel in the land of Israel, for eternity.” – New York Times
As Palestinian journalists and activists, imbued with the spirit of the Arab Spring, become more daring and enamored with the possibilities of new media and social networking sites, the primary instinct of some in the Palestinian Authority has been to crack down. – New York Times
The Israeli military has established a “depth corps” force to coordinate and execute multi-disciplinary missions far from the country’s borders. The primary task of the corps, says Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, chief of the general staff, will be to extend joint operations into strategic theaters. – Aviation Week
China
U.S. officials spoke with their Chinese counterparts and with Chen Guangcheng, the blind lawyer and activist who sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, to discuss arrangements for his departure from China to study in the U.S., according to a person familiar with the talks. – Wall Street Journal
Chen Guangcheng, the self-taught lawyer who has become the center of a diplomatic crisis between the United States and China, said Sunday that he has not been able to have a face-to-face meeting with American diplomats since Friday and that his friends and supporters, as well as journalists, are being barred from the hospital where he is confined. – Washington Post
The Chen saga, based on interviews with government officials, activists and others in the negotiations, began with the promise that American relations with China had entered a new, mature phase. It ended demonstrating how much distance and suspicion remain between the two powers. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
As the diplomatic storm around Chen Guangcheng calms, supporters and relatives of the blind activist now fear a tempest of retribution, a frequent feature of Communist Party crisis management known as “settling accounts after the autumn harvest.” – Washington Post
Two Republican senators plan to introduce a congressional resolution urging the Obama administration to grant blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng political asylum despite a tentative deal already struck on Friday to bring him to the United States. – Washington Post
[J]ust as the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 froze President George H.W. Bush’s plans for Sino-American comity, the travails of Chen, the blind lawyer, have now punctured what human rights campaigners deride as the Obama administration’s “illusions” about China’s ruling Communist Party. – Washington Post
Based on past experience, China is often all too pleased to see its most nettlesome dissidents go into exile, where they almost invariably lose their ability to grab headlines in the West and to command widespread sympathy both in China and abroad. – New York Times
The round-the-clock use of Twitter and other social media by Chinese activists kept foreign journalists and human rights groups overseas apprised of developments in real time, even as authorities tried to isolate Chen and his supporters. – Washington Post
Fu’s role at Thursday’s hearing was the most striking example of how the founder of a once obscure evangelical group has emerged as a key contact for some U.S. officials in the controversy surrounding Chen, the blind activist whose status has strained U.S.-China relations. – Los Angeles Times
Mr. Bo’s undisputed talents were counterbalanced by what friends and critics alike say was an insatiable ambition and studied indifference to the wrecked lives that littered his path to power. Little is known about career maneuvers in China’s cloistered leadership elite, but those who study the topic say that Mr. Bo’s ruthlessness stood out, even in a system where the absence of formal rules ensures that only the strongest advance. – New York Times
In seeking to airbrush Mr. Bo out of public life, party mandarins in Beijing have dusted off a strategy perfected during the Cultural Revolution and further tweaked during the political purges that followed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. – New York Times
China’s defense minister and a delegation of military officials will visit sensitive U.S. military facilities this week, raising fresh concerns that the Pentagon may not be fully abiding by a 2000 law restricting Chinese military visits. – Washington Free Beacon
Editorial: The message is reminiscent of the journalists who joined demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989 with banners that apologized for having lied to the public on the party’s orders. For every authoritarian regime, there is a tipping point at which anger over the mechanisms of control overcomes fear. The harder Beijing grips, the sooner it will come – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Editorial: It will be important that the administration keep pushing if, as seems probable, Mr. Chen seeks to return to China after spending time in the United States, in order to establish the principle that human rights activists can work within the law without persecution. As Ms. Clinton herself put it Friday: “This is not just about well-known activists. It’s about the human rights and aspirations of more than a billion people here in China . . . and it’s about the future of this great nation.” – Washington Post
Jerome Cohen writes: I and countless others hope that Chen’s luck will last and that he will soon be granted one of those rights, even if he didn’t initially prefer to exercise it: the right to leave his country. Many of those who have helped him and are now in grave danger may wish that they could have the same right. – Washington Post
Wei Jingsheng writes: Human rights have been overpowered by economic interests; the cause is as hopeless as that of the big United States trade deficit with China. With the loss of any viable economic means to pressure and penalize the Chinese Communist Party, one has to ask: On what basis does America believe that the Chinese government will keep the promises it makes? – New York Times
Wang Dan writes: I understand and respect the reasons he might hesitate to leave. Perhaps [Chen] thinks that he would no longer be able to take part in China’s struggle for civil rights, or that his influence would diminish if he lived abroad. But if he feels that way, he is too pessimistic. – New York Times
Jon Huntsman writes: Chen Guangcheng has given us an opening that we can either see as a source of conflict or as an opening for expanding our dialogue on issues that increasingly matter to so many in China. The world will be watching. – Wall Street Journal
Dan Blumenthal and Lara Crouch write: [B]oth sides need to prepare for the possibility that by the time the next big summit rolls around, China may be in decline and America may still be on the rise. – Foreign Policy
Will Inboden writes: How Obama responds now will determine much about the near-term future of U.S.-China relations. And while investing a president’s reputational capital is always a risky move, it is not as risky as trusting the assurances of the Chinese Communist Party. – Shadow Government
Afghanistan
The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks. – Washington Post
The leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees said Sunday they believe that the Taliban has grown stronger since President Obama sent 33,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2010. – Washington Post
After signing a 10-year lease and spending more than $80 million on a site envisioned as the United States’ diplomatic hub in northern Afghanistan, American officials say they have abandoned their plans, deeming the location for the proposed compound too dangerous. – Washington Post
An Afghan court has delivered a 10-year prison sentence to three in-laws of a 15-year-old girl who was imprisoned and tortured for five months for refusing to become a prostitute, the girl’s lawyer and government and humanitarian officials said late on Thursday. – New York Times
An attacker in an Afghan Army uniform opened fire on coalition soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing one service member. It was possibly the latest in a recent string of so-called green-on-blue assaults on coalition soldiers by their Afghan partners this year. – New York Times
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, spelled out in detail Sunday what Washington expects from its NATO allies at the upcoming summit in Chicago: a long-term financial commitment to Afghanistan. – National Journal
The Marine Corps will shift its main focus in Afghanistan to security force assistance as it pulls thousands of personnel from Helmand province this summer, the top commander in the region said Saturday. – Military Times
Two top lawmakers demanded the Obama administration tag a Pakistani-based terror group with ties to the Taliban as an official enemy of the state. – DEFCON Hill
President Obama’s pledge to not build any permanent military outposts in Afghanistan could throw a wrench in the Pentagon’s postwar plans for the country, once U.S. troops leave in 2014. – DEFCON Hill
Pakistan
A U.S.-Pakistan deal to reopen critical supply routes to Afghanistan won’t be finished in time for a key NATO summit this May, a top U.S. official said Saturday. – DEFCON Hill
Mr Khan, the head of Karachi’s “Anti-Extremist Cell”, believes he can stop militants from sowing more chaos in Pakistan’s commercial capital – provided they do not stop him first. – Financial Times
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday that Pakistan had not taken enough action against Hafiz Saeed, the Islamist blamed for masterminding the 2008 attack by Pakistan-based gunmen on Mumbai, India’s financial capital. – Reuters
An American drone fired a volley of missiles into a house close to the Afghan border on Saturday, killing eight suspected militants and indicating U.S. resolve to continue with the attacks despite renewed Pakistani opposition, officials said. – Associated Press
South Asia
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s three-day trip to India, starting Sunday after a weekend stop in Bangladesh, comes amid reduced expectations and political distraction on both sides and a relationship increasingly marked by incremental movement on a variety of issues. – Los Angeles Times
The economic slowdown in India is one of the world’s biggest economic stories, but it is commanding only a modicum of attention in the United States. – New York Times
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday urged Bangladesh’s squabbling political factions to resolve their differences as she arrived in the country, which has been beset by weeks of general strikes, demonstrations and violence since an opposition politician disappeared last month. – Los Angeles Times
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a trip to Bangladesh, raised concerns about the recent killing of a labor-rights activist and the disappearances of a number of political figures. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
East Asia
The unusual detention of Mongolia’s former president could last until the eve of next month’s elections, throwing into doubt his political comeback and dealing a setback to what had been considered a relatively healthy democratic system. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Angry at the cost of upgrading its existing 146 F-16A/B fighters and enticed by the possible U.S. release of new F-16C/D jets, Taiwan might delay signing a letter of acceptance (LoA) with the U.S. government to upgrade its existing F-16 fleet. – Defense News
Southeast Asia
Reports of the resignation of one of Myanmar’s two vice-presidents, influential conservative Tin Aung Myint Oo, have heightened speculation about an imminent cabinet reshuffle. – Financial Times
The United States will double military aid to its ally the Philippines, which is engaged in a prolonged maritime standoff with China, the foreign department in Manila said on May 4. – AFP
Editorial: In the unseemly rush for minerals and other natural-resource contracts, developed-nation companies and their governments are giving the impression that a 7 percent solution is good enough. The people of Burma deserve better. – Washington Post
Russia
Striding through the Kremlin’s gold-encrusted doors and applauded by the modern nobility, Vladimir Putin returns to the Russian presidency Monday in the throne room of the czars, now a dangerously weakened autocrat. – Washington Post
The police and antigovernment protesters clashed just outside the Kremlin walls on Sunday, adding the images of flying bottles, smoke bombs and thumping nightsticks to those of Vladimir V. Putin’s third inauguration as president. – New York Times
Russia needs annual growth rates of 5-6 percent and will have to “run after investors” to increase them, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters on Monday. – Reuters
Richard Boudreaux reports: Since the last decade of the Cold War, I’ve chronicled the decline of autocrats in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, and know the early-warning signs. Russia’s winter of civic awakening felt much like the first widespread pot-banging protests against Gen. Pinochet in 1983—a noisy, unmistakable signal that Chileans had lost their fear and were turning against him, although he would hang on for another seven years. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Leon Aron writes: [W]hat we may be seeing is a Russian version of a familiar post-authoritarian democratization that swept through Greece, Portugal, and Spain in the 1970s, South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s, and Mexico in the 1990s. Having reached unprecedented prosperity and personal freedom, the middle class in each of these countries began to demand a say in how its country was governed. – Foreign Policy
France
French voters elected Socialist Party candidate François Hollande as president Sunday, choosing a national leader who has pledged to shift the burden of economic hardship onto the rich and to resolve the protracted euro sovereign-debt crisis by softening the current prescription of austerity. – Wall Street Journal
Serbia
An ardent advocate of the European Union and a populist rival seemed headed for a runoff in Serbia’s presidential election on Sunday, while the governing Democratic Party appeared to lag in parliamentary races here. – New York Times
Eastern Europe
Christopher Walker writes: Domestic press freedom defenders, other European governments, and international organizations should step in early and remain vigilant to prevent the current regional backsliding on media independence from threatening the overall democratic gains of the last two decades. – Freedom House’s Freedom at Issue
United States of America
The Defense Department has inadequately protected from reprisals whistleblowers who have reported wrongdoing, according to an internal Pentagon report, and critics are calling for action to be taken against those who have been negligent. – Washington Post
Latin America
Criticism of the leader of the Catholic Church in Cuba, who has been negotiating with the communist government to expand religious and political freedom, intensified last week when the head of Radio and TV Marti called the archbishop of Havana a lackey who is colluding with an oppressive regime. – Washington Post
The [U.S.] effort [in Honduras] draws on hard lessons learned from a decade of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, where troops were moved from giant bases to outposts scattered across remote, hostile areas so they could face off against insurgents. – New York Times
A nationalistic television ad on the disputed Falkland Islands by the Argentine office of Y&R Advertising has triggered a diplomatic flap and prompted a sharp condemnation from the agency’s corporate parent. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
A member of a Colombian guerrilla group said in a video released on Sunday that it was holding a French journalist and considered him a prisoner of war. – New York Times
When Mexicans head to the polls this summer they will have the chance to elect the country’s first female president. But in candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota they also will face a dilemma: Whether to hand Mexico’s ruling party, which has presided over drug wars and limited economic growth, a hold on power that would total nearly two decades. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
South Africa
Africa’s largest economy isn’t creating many jobs. The economy grew 3.1% last year and is projected to grow just 2.7% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, far below the government’s target of 7%. Government leaders have all but abandoned a target to create five million jobs by 2020, after just above 200,000 were added last year. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
