Iran
A South Korean nuclear inspector on a mission for the United Nations was killed, and a Slovakian inspector was injured, when their car overturned on Tuesday near a nuclear site southwest of Tehran, semiofficial Iranian media reported. – New York Times
A U.S. special envoy will visit India next week to assess the country’s capability to shift crude imports from Iran to other suppliers, an evaluation that will help determine what New Delhi needs to do to head off U.S. sanctions that are set to come into effect next month. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Talks on ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons looked in doubt on Tuesday as the Western official organizing them said he had yet to secure the needed attendance of all countries in the region. – Reuters
Britain is seeking to persuade fellow European Union members to postpone by up to six months a ban on providing insurance for tankers carrying Iranian oil, arguing that it could lead to a damaging spike in oil prices, European diplomats said. – Reuters
Patrick Clawson writes: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, understands the danger of a popular revolution in his country and has done everything in his power to prevent it. If the United States is going to take a risk, it should aim not for a partial, insecure nuclear arrangement but the best return possible — a democratic Iran. – Foreign Affairs’ Snapshots
Syria
Offering a gloomy assessment of the nearly month-old cease-fire in Syria, Kofi Annan, its main architect, said Tuesday that despite some decrease in military assaults, continuing “serious violations” could undermine the full peace plan. – New York Times
Security forces killed at least 10 people in fighting across Syria on Tuesday, activists said, in a 14-month-old revolt that international mediator Kofi Annan, the Red Cross and Arab League warned was deteriorating into a civil war. – Reuters
Syrian rebels killed at least seven militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in an attack on a bus carrying the fighters through a Damascus suburb, opposition activists said. – Reuters
Weapons are being smuggled both ways between Lebanon and Syria, where a 14-month popular uprising has brought the country to the brink of civil war, the United Nations said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Syria is facing a halt in imports of diesel needed to power heavy vehicles including army tanks, as a stream of shipments from Russia and other sources has dried up over the past four weeks, industry sources say. – Reuters
Josh Rogin reports: The United States needs to do more to protect civilians in Syria, including considering setting up safe zones inside Syria and potentially arming the opposition, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) told The Cable in an interview Tuesday. – The Cable
North Africa
A violent attack on the headquarters of the interim authorities by disgruntled former revolutionary fighters was condemned by a spokesman for the Libyan government on Tuesday – Financial Times
Algeria did not explode like much of north Africa last year. But as its military-backed government – dominated by the National Liberation Front (FLN) – prepares to stage what it describes as the most open and transparent parliamentary poll for decades on Thursday, its population is seething with anger, and protests such as Mr Hachichi’s occur almost daily. – Financial Times
Algeria’s authorities say a parliamentary election on Thursday is a stepping stone towards a more democratic state, but many people do not believe their promises, expect only marginal change and will stay away from polling stations. – Reuters
Libya began its first civilian trial of alleged supporters of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime on Tuesday, officials said, as five men accused of planning to create instability by “terrorist acts” appeared in the dock. – Reuters
Leading Islamist Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh and veteran diplomat Amr Moussa are both facing scrutiny over their former affiliations, one to the Muslim Brotherhood and the other to the administration of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. – Reuters
Candidates in Egypt’s presidential election on Tuesday criticized a decision by the election committee to suspend its work after a perceived insult from parliament. – Reuters
Tunisia has rejected as “interference in Tunisian justice” U.S. complaints that the conviction of a television boss in a blasphemy trial raised new fears over free expression. – Reuters
Rebels in Sudan’s western Darfur region said on Tuesday they had seized control of a town from Sudanese government troops, part of their campaign to topple President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government. – Reuters
Yemen
The Pentagon said Tuesday it is sending military trainers back to Yemen for “routine” counterterrorism cooperation with Yemeni security forces amid an intensified battle against an offshoot of the al-Qaida terror network. – Associated Press
Gulf States
Saudi Arabia reiterated Tuesday it is very well-equipped to fill any gap between global supply and demand thanks both to its ample spare crude-oil output capacity and oil stocks, but suggested that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could potentially discuss a change to the group members’ output when ministers meet next month. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Wednesday oil markets would remain well supplied even after fresh international sanctions against Iran take effect, as global crude oversupply is already as much as 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd). – Reuters
Bahrain vowed on Tuesday to crack down harder on anti-government protests as a leading opposition figure said the government had put a stop to talks on addressing the political grievances that fuelled last year’s pro-democracy uprising. – Reuters
Bahrain began a civilian trial of 13 protest leaders on Tuesday but adjourned the session because hunger striker Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and another defendant were too ill to attend, lawyers and witnesses said. – Reuters
Iraq
In April, Iraq exported more crude than it has in any month since it invaded Kuwait in 1990. This success, according to analysts and policymakers, could jolt the global economy and help offset the loss of oil supplies from Iran. – Washington Post
Israel
Striking a secret deal with the leader of the opposition in the small morning hours, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel significantly expanded his power on Tuesday, creating the largest and broadest coalition government in recent memory, one that no single faction can topple. – New York Times
Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a surprise move to ditch plans for early elections in favor of a national unity coalition would enable his government to serve out its term and signal to the Palestinians that he is serious about peace talks. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
While Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have presented an aggressive stance against Iran, Mr. Mofaz is regarded as a more moderate voice who opposes any rush into military action. After becoming head of the opposition in March, he said in a television interview that an early attack on Iran could be “disastrous” and bring “limited results.” – New York Times
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Tuesday the Palestinians may have “lost the argument” on the international stage for an independent state but cautioned that continued Israeli occupation was unsustainable. – Reuters
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Tuesday that the death of any one of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israel would be a “disaster” and could trigger a backlash that might slip out of control. – Reuters
Dov Zakheim writes: Clearly, Netanyahu’s latest move is a masterstroke, politically as well as in terms of the nation’s security, its economy, and its social cohesion. In the past, national unity Governments have accomplished the mission for which they were established. If Netanyahu can do the same, particularly if Mofaz is able to restrain any Israeli impulse to attack Iran, this latest government will be able to take its place among its distinguished predecessors. – Shadow Government
Turkey
Turkey’s Third Army chief of staff Major General Berkay Turgut was detained on Tuesday amid police raids targeting 10 serving and retired generals in a widening investigation of the 1997 toppling of the country’s first Islamist led government – Reuters
Born of a 1960 coup, Turkey’s OYAK army pension fund has become a potent symbol of military economic power with interests from cement to car production. Now, as the generals’ political influence dwindles with arrests and coup trials, OYAK is attracting unwanted attention. – Reuters
China
The U.S. government is giving another look at the case of a Chinese woman who sought asylum in the U.S. after claiming she was forced to undergo two abortions in China. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is beginning a new push for Senate approval of the Law of the Sea treaty, a long-stalled pact military officials believe is essential to preserve the Navy’s right to conduct exercises in waters near China and to enhance U.S. claims in the Arctic and elsewhere. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The agreement came at the cost of what the officials said was considerable strain on both sides, and it could still fall apart, though Mr. Chen said Tuesday that the authorities had accepted his application to travel abroad. Yet the frenzied days and sleepless nights seem to have averted a major embarrassment for the administration and defused a crisis that threatened to upend relations between the two countries. – New York Times
The U.S. said Tuesday it was “disappointed” with the Chinese government’s decision to effectively expel a reporter for the English-language arm of television broadcaster al-Jazeera this week, China’s first known expulsion of a foreign journalist since 1998. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The Chinese government has begun to help the blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng prepare for leaving the country under a deal agreed with the US government but this is likely to take some time, Mr Chen told the FT on Tuesday. – Financial Times
Rights advocate Chen Guangcheng says the Chinese government quietly has promised him it will investigate abuses he and his family suffered at the hands of local authorities, in a rare instance of Beijing bowing to demands of an activist. – Associated Press
China’s ruling Communist Party is seriously considering a delay in its upcoming five-yearly congress by a few months amid internal debate over the size and makeup of its top decision-making body, sources said, as the party struggles to finalize a once-in-a-decade leadership change. – Reuters
As China confronts the prospect of an aging population that will drive up wages, Beijing will be compelled to let market forces play a larger role in managing the economy, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Joseph Nye writes: The development of soft power need not be a zero-sum game. If Chinese soft power increases in the U.S. and vice versa, it will help make conflict less likely. All countries can gain from finding attraction in each others’ cultures. But for China to succeed in this, its politics must unleash the talents of its civil society. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Jeffrey Smith writes: Our consistent support of dissidents during the cold war played a key role in the collapse of Communism, and American officials must keep this history and our values in mind as they struggle with each case. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got it right when she sought a solution to the Chen incident “that reflected his choices and our values.” That must never change. – New York Times
Hao Qun writes: The leadership in Beijing needs corruption and actually encourages it. Corruption is the system’s natural lubricant, without which everything would grind to a halt. There’s no shortage of upright people in China, but in this system even the upright must study the crooked arts simply to survive. Not a single person in China can completely break free from corruption, and not a single road is straight. – International Herald Tribune
Afghanistan
After more than a year of sporadic contacts, U.S.-Taliban talks have been stalled for months, deflating Obama administration hopes that progress toward a political solution to the Afghan war would be well underway this spring. – Washington Post
Iran is raising pressure on Afghanistan to scuttle a newly signed security accord with the U.S., threatening to deport Afghan refugees and migrant workers if Afghanistan’s parliament ratifies the deal. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Taliban insurgents ambushed a convoy of Afghan education officials traveling in a southeastern province close to the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, killing five officials and wounding three others, the police and the provincial governor’s spokesman said. – New York Times
A relatively new program to reintegrate Afghan Taliban and other insurgents into society may, in fact, be one of the most hopeful routes to a successful–or at least less than disastrous–U.S. withdrawal in 2014. – National Journal
A top NATO official said Tuesday that the alliance was committed to helping Afghanistan’s military “for the longer term,” hinting that if some countries opt out, others will take their place. – DOTMIL
Afghan authorities have reportedly arrested two men on charges of spying for Iran and attempting to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Better healthcare and more girls attending school have knocked Afghanistan from its position as the worst place on earth to be a mother, Save the Children said in a major report on Tuesday, but stressed the precarious nature of any gains. – Reuters
The price of opium cultivated in Afghanistan is set to rise as the security forces step up their eradication efforts and a fungus ravages the poppies that yield it, squeezing supply and stirring violence, the country’s drug chief said on Tuesday. – Reuters
South Asia
No doubt, this week’s diplomatic choreography — with the Americans on one side of the capital and the Iranians on the other — could easily have been interpreted as a deliberate provocation at a moment when the once-shiny partnership between India and the United States seems to have dulled. But if the scheduling was poorly planned, the situation actually provided an illuminating window into the realpolitik of Iranian sanctions and of how the United States and India, as well as China, are all trying to achieve their divergent goals. – New York Times
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda chieftain who took control of the group after last year’s death of Osama Bin Laden, continues to run operations from sanctuaries inside Pakistan, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. – DEFCON Hill
Jane Harman writes: Just as the killing of Kadafi in Libya may teach that giving up weapons of mass destruction makes you vulnerable, so [India’s] tests — without serious responses — may also spur reckless conduct. Wisdom counsels zero tolerance. – Los Angeles Times
East Asia
At news briefings in Seoul and Tokyo Tuesday, the militaries of both countries said they are finalizing two cooperation pacts that will be signed at a bilateral meeting of defense ministers in coming weeks. – WSJ’s Korea Real Time
The saga of Oh Kil-nam’s misguided venture into North Korea in the 1980s and the destruction it brought to his family took another sad twist Tuesday as word came from Pyongyang that his wife had died. – WSJ’s Korea Real Time
U.S. intelligence agencies are closely monitoring North Korea for signs the Kim Jong-un regime is set to conduct a new military provocation that could trigger another conflict on the Asian peninsula, according to U.S. officials. – Washington Free Beacon
While North Korea is adept at getting political mileage out of showy military displays, Pyongyang’s attempts to show off its strength are, just as often, reminders of its weaknesses – and a nuclear test likely would fit that pattern. – Associated Press
Southeast Asia
China said it was pessimistic about resolving a standoff with the Philippines in the resource-rich South China Sea and was prepared for tensions there to escalate further. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Myanmar has finalised a new foreign investment law as it seeks to exploit what the International Monetary Fund has described as an “historic opportunity” for it to become the next Asian boom economy. – Financial Times
Donald Kirk writes: The commander of the U.S. Marines in the Pacific, Lieutenant General Duane Thiessen, said last month that the U.S.-Philippine treaty “guarantees that we get involved in each other’s defense.” Just the fact that he made the remark on a visit to Palawan, the southwestern island that is closest to the Spratlys, created great excitement in the Philippine media. Expect the question of U.S. bases to percolate every time there’s another standoff with Beijing. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Australia
Key U.S. ally Australia slashed Aus$5.5 billion ($5.57 billion) from its defense budget May 8 as part of sweeping cuts by deferring or scrapping jet and weapons deliveries and by sacking 1,000 staff. – AFP
Russia
A day after stepping down as Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev was confirmed as prime minister on Tuesday, completing a long-planned political transition that was nevertheless marred by unusual opposition to his candidacy in Russia’s Parliament. – New York Times
Russia would require at least another decade to equip its armed forces with a planned ICBM designed to evade U.S. missile interceptors, a missile production company in the country stated in Tuesday comments reported by RIA Novosti – Global Security Newswire
Police on Tuesday broke up a demonstration by hundreds of opposition activists who had spent the night outside the presidential administration offices to protest Vladimir Putin‘s return as Russia’s president. – Associated Press
Guy Verhofstadt writes: Russia is a proud country with a proud people. The international community should speak out plainly and act firmly. But ultimately change must and will come from within. Watch out Putin, spring is coming. – International Herald Tribune
Eastern Europe
Authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has used a quote from Russian classic novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to label personal freedom an “unbearable” burden for which Belarus was not yet ready. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Ukraine has postponed a regional summit of Central and Eastern European leaders which it was due to host this week in the city of Yalta. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Ukraine’s jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, whose plight in prison has soured relations between the country’s leadership and the West, was moved to a local hospital on Wednesday, eyewitnesses said. – Reuters
NATO
In Chicago, NATO leaders will adopt a package of measures under the alliance’s “Smart Defense” initiative, which aims to prioritize capabilities, specialization and multinational cooperation. Many of the improvements will draw on the lessons of Afghanistan and NATO’s Operation Unified Protector action in Libya last year. – Aviation Week
United States of America
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will decide on removing an Iranian dissident group from the U.S. list of foreign terror groups only after all its members have left a camp north of Baghdad, a Justice Department lawyer told a federal court Tuesday. – Washington Times
Venezuela
Venezuela’s cancer-stricken president, Hugo Chávez, resurfaced Monday night after a week’s silence, telling a state television show via telephone that he will be back in Venezuela in coming days and is in the final stages of his radiation treatment. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Somalia
Islamist rebels armed with mortars and machine guns attacked African Union forces in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu overnight, sparking a battle that killed at least nine people, officials and residents said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Katherine Zimmerman writes: It is too early to herald the end of the al Qaeda threat from Somalia, however. Islamist leaders there have navigated multiple iterations of groups like al Shabaab—al Ittihad al Islamiyya and the Islamic Courts Union, for example—and nothing prevents the leadership from morphing al Shabaab into something new. Whether al Shabaab will remain on the decline will be seen. – AEI’s Critical Threats Project
