Iran
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said Iran wouldn’t compromise on its right to enrich uranium, casting doubts on whether the country could reach a deal during talks with international powers in Moscow this month. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Japan, looking to secure a steady energy supply, is pressing the European Union to loosen pending sanctions that would prohibit European firms from insuring its imports of Iranian oil, according to people familiar with the effort. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Might the road to convincing Iran to give up its nuclear arms program go through, of all places, Brasília? World Bank Chairman Robert Zoellick thinks so. – DOTMIL
Israeli President Shimon Peres thanked President Barack Obama on Wednesday for helping to build an international coalition to impose sanctions on Iran and praised him for following through on his pledge to protect Israel. – Politico
Proposals from both Iran and the group of six world powers will be on the table at the next round of talks in Moscow next week, not just the West’s demand to halt Iran‘s highest-level uranium enrichment, Iran‘s top nuclear negotiator said Wednesday. – Associated Press
Iran’s oil exports have fallen by an estimated 40 percent since the start of the year as Western sanctions tear into the country’s vital oil industry, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Japan’s lower house is set to pass a bill on Friday to provide government guarantees on insurance for Iranian crude cargoes, making it the first of Iran’s big Asian buyers to find a way to keep the oil flowing in the face of tough new EU sanctions. – Reuters
South Korea has imposed curbs on exports to Iran – mainly steel, cars and electronics – to reduce its risk of payment defaults as western sanctions disrupt Iranian oil exports, highlighting the growing risk of doing business with the Islamic Republic. – Reuters
Syria
Russia and Iran, Syria’s staunchest allies, castigated the United States on Wednesday for its support of opposition forces battling President Bashar al-Assad and his military, and the Iranians accused the Americans and their allies of sending weapons and troops into Syria. – New York Times
Mrs. Clinton’s claim about the helicopters, administration officials said, is part of a calculated effort to raise the pressure on Russia to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, its main ally in the Middle East. Russia has so far stuck by Mr. Assad’s government, worried that if he were ousted, Moscow would lose its influence in the region. – New York Times
Syrian government forces seized control of the northern town of Haffah on Wednesday after rebels retreated in the face of a withering offensive that saw the army rely heavily on combat helicopters for the first time. – Washington Post
Syria announced on Wednesday that the village of Al Heffa in its Mediterranean hinterland, which United Nations monitors had been physically blocked from visiting to check on fears of a massacre there, had been “cleansed” of armed terrorist gangs, the government’s blanket term for the opposition. – New York Times
U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, according to senior U.S. officials. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
France said Wednesday that Syria has descended into civil war and that all means, including force, should be used under international supervision to help restore peace. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad is receiving new military assistance from Belarus, a tiny nation which appears willing to flout the international effort to isolate the dictator and force him from power. – National Journal
Indications that Syrian armed forces assets might be slipping from government control have intensified fears among Israeli observers over the potential for the militant group Hezbollah to shift Scud D missiles and other armaments from Syria into Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday – Global Security Newswire
A United Nations convoy arrived in the Syrian town of Haffeh on Thursday to find it almost deserted, with burnt down state buildings, abandoned shops and a corpse in the street, a Reuters photographer travelling with the convoy said. -Reuters
Syrian government forces are killing civilians in organized attacks on towns and villages that amount to crimes against humanity, Amnesty International said on Thursday, citing evidence from over 20 locations in the country’s northwest. – Reuters
Editorial: Obama wants his Syrian nightmare to go away before the election, and with Russian helicopters and Mr. Assad’s efficient butchery, it might. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Egypt
The Egyptian government announced Wednesday that military police and intelligence officers have been given the right to detain civilians, a move that appears to reflect concern about the prospect of mass protests linked to the upcoming presidential election. – Washington Post
Since the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, Egyptian banks have faced a currency crisis, a surge in delinquencies and a flight of foreign capital that left them choking on their own government’s debt. They have survived intact, however, thanks to changes over the past decade that revived the country’s sedentary financial sector. – New York Times
The brusque Shafik with his comb-over white hair is all that stands between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and the leadership of this divided nation. That makes him the grudging candidate of choice among the well-to-do in Heliopolis, where amid the lattes and tinkling jewelry there is a weariness with the unrest and economic uncertainty that have gripped Egypt since Mubarak’s fall. – Los Angeles Times
The candidates Alexandrians now must choose from garnered the least votes here. But this also puts Alexandria front and center when it comes to answering one of the biggest questions about Saturday’s runoff: What will happen with a huge group of floating independent voters nationwide, and how will they continue to shape Egypt’s political landscape beyond the election. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Egypt’s parliament has for the second time approved an assembly to draft a new constitution after the first attempt was criticized for including too many Islamists. But the list of 100 names immediately triggered similar objections from liberals and Christians, raising the prospect of fresh legal challenges to the new assembly in the courts – the latest hurdle in Egypt’s bumpy transition to democracy. – Reuters
North Africa
The death of an Estonian explosive ordnance disposal technician in Libya this spring illustrates the continuing problem of loose weapons stockpiles almost a year after Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was driven from power. – New York Times
Rival Libyan militias armed with heavy weapons clashed for the third straight day on Wednesday in fighting that has killed 14 people, underscoring the country’s volatility months after Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow. – Reuters
NATO on Thursday joined international calls for Libya to release delegates from the International Criminal Court (ICC) detained in Zintan on allegations they had smuggled documents to the son of toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi. – Reuters
Veteran Sudanese journalist Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh says he cannot remember a time when there were so many “red lines” – invisible boundaries that the media crosses at its peril. – Reuters
Algeria, a Muslim energy exporter of 37 million people, is basking in its new status as a trailblazer for woman’s rights. – Reuters
Shops reopened in working class districts of the Tunisian capital on Wednesday after an overnight curfew quelled rioting by Salafi Islamists angered over an art exhibition they say insults their religion. – Reuters
A Tunisian court sentenced ousted leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s interior minister and seven of his security chiefs to up to 15 years in jail on Wednesday over the killing of hundreds of protesters in the central towns where the Arab Spring began. – Reuters
Gulf States
A Bahrain appeals court convicted nine medics on Thursday for their role in last year’s pro-democracy uprising, and acquitted nine others, in a controversial case that has drawn international criticism of the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state. – Reuters
Bahrain’s King Hamad said on Wednesday he would not allow any more “insults” of the armed forces in the Gulf state in an apparent warning to leading Shi’ite opposition party Wefaq after criticisms it leveled earlier this week. – Reuters
Omani authorities have carried out a campaign of arrests targeting political activists and peaceful demonstrators to punish criticism of delayed political reforms, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Yemen
[A]s Mr. Hadi tries to assert his new authority and reorganize Yemen’s fractured military, which is engaged in a war against militants with Al Qaeda in the country’s south, the transfer from one military commander to another turned out to be far less smooth than it appeared. – New York Times
Young people like Hadeel may be the future, but Yemen has challenges it must confront before they are old enough to take charge. Its democratic transition has run up against tough obstacles, raising the question of whether such a tribal society can move toward a modern, democratic state. – New York Times
Yemeni troops and tribesmen advanced on the southern coastal town of Shaqra on Thursday, driving out al-Qaeda linked militants in a U.S.-backed offensive to recapture territory, a local official and residents said. – Reuters
Iraq
Today death threats, targeted killings and bombed offices may no longer be as much a daily fact of life as they once were. But Iraqi journalists say that pressure and risks persist in other ways, under the increasingly authoritarian government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. – Christian Science Monitor
With testimony of torture, betrayal and death, the trial of Iraq’s fugitive Sunni vice-president is reviving memories of sectarian killings with witnesses painting an ugly portrait of the underbelly of Iraqi politics. – Reuters
Josh Rogin reports: The current U.S. ambassador to Iraq and his two most recent predecessors joined together to defend the nomination of Brett McGurk to be the next U.S. envoy in Baghdad, countering calls from several GOP senators for President Barack Obama to withdraw the nomination. – The Cable
Eli Lake reports: [W]hat’s received less attention is the website that published those emails, and the man who runs it. John Young founded Cryptome, a clearinghouse for leaked documents from the military and intelligence community, in 1996, roughly a decade before WikiLeaks existed. It has since become a must-read for some people who track the intelligence community and the military. – The Daily Beast
Lebanon
The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to try the suspected killers of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, has a political agenda and should not conduct the trial, a defense lawyer for one of the suspects said on Wednesday. – Reuters
OPEC
Ministers from Saudi Arabia and Iran, the leaders of rival factions within OPEC, agreed Wednesday to maintain the current limit on output of 30 million barrels a day, according to OPEC delegates. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Israel
Israel’s state comptroller, the government’s watchdog, issued a report on Wednesday harshly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of a commando raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship in 2010. – New York Times
Human rights activists say a pattern of violence against Africans has emerged as tensions rise between Israeli locals and African newcomers who have settled in a working-class area of southern Tel Aviv. – Washington Post
Fifty international aid groups and United Nations agencies issued a joint appeal on Thursday calling on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas Islamists. – Reuters
Turkey
His unexpected campaign against abortion has opened a new chapter in a simmering culture war between secular, Westernized Turks and the pious majority that forms Erdogan’s base. – Christian Science Monitor
South Asia
Pakistan’s seven-month refusal to allow U.S. and NATO supplies to cross its territory into Afghanistan is costing the United States an additional $100 million a month to fund alternative routes, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday. – Washington Post
A lawyer who is perhaps Pakistan’s most prominent human rights campaigner vows that she’s undeterred by an alleged plot to kill her. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed progress in U.S. efforts to invest in India’s civilian nuclear power industry but said more action is needed to translate improving ties into economic benefits. – Associated Press
Husain Haqqani writes: I had nothing to do with writing and sending that memo. But many people around the world would recognize that its contents suggesting changes in Pakistan’s counterterrorism and nuclear policies reflect reasonable views that are not treasonous and are, in fact, in line with global thinking. – Washington Post
Afghanistan
The U.S. military is preparing to award its last big contract for feeding troops in Afghanistan, a decision made more complicated by a dispute with the current supplier and by Pakistan’s closure of a border crossing. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Children have been increasingly bearing the brunt of the war in Afghanistan, a new United Nations report says, detailing an array of hazards including recruitment of child bombers, school attacks and sexual abuse of minors in government custody. – LA Times’ World Now
Afghanistan is confident it can take full control of its security next year, President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday, despite steadily rising Taliban violence. – Reuters
The U.S. Air Force insisted on Wednesday it had briefed both U.S. defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp and Hawker Beechcraft Corp and got their input on plans to redo a bungled competition to supply 20 light planes to Afghanistan. – Reuters
Jeffrey Dressler writes: The prospects of successfully reconciling the Taliban’s senior leadership as an organization have nearly disappeared and indeed, were never a realistic possibility when substantive reconciliation efforts began several years ago. It is time to confront this hard reality and adjust the desired intent, which is not to bring an end to the fighting by negotiating peace, but instead by tearing the organization apart from the inside. – Institute for the Study of War
East Asia
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said the stalled talks on establishing a bilateral trade pact with Japan could resume if Tokyo took a more positive attitude and addressed the disadvantages that Seoul would face if it gave into Japan’s demands. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The State Department’s top official dealing with Asia says the American relationship with China is “much more challenging, much more complicated than the one we had with the Soviet Union.” – AOL Defense
Japan has evidence that a Chinese company exported to North Korea vehicles capable of transporting and launching missiles, in possible violation of U.N. sanctions, Japanese media reported Wednesday. – Associated Press
Millions of North Korean children are not getting the food, medicine or health care they need to develop physically or mentally, leaving many stunted and malnourished, the United Nations said Tuesday. – Associated Press
U.S. lawmakers are pressing two top Chinese technology companies to disclose their inner workings in a probe into security threats to U.S. telecommunications. – Reuters
Editorial: Absent a free press and real democracy, China has no way to translate rising public anger into a policy platform with popular support. Some of China’s friends in the West have long tried to argue that this is an advantage—that lack of democracy has made Beijing more effective at making hard decisions. China’s slowdown is testing that theory in a way not seen since 1989. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Burma
Nearly a quarter of a century after leaving on what she planned as a temporary return to Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi was back in Europe on Thursday at the start of a lap of honor in European capitals for her role as the steely champion of democracy against military dictatorship. – New York Times
Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday that the state-owned oil and gas company MOGE lacked transparency and accountability, and urged foreign companies not to allow their companies to do joint ventures until it improved. – Reuters
[A]s sectarian violence rages between majority Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in western Rakhine state, the old ways are returning. Censorship is creeping back, raising questions about whether the pre-screening of copy will be dropped, as the government has said. – Reuters
Russia
The back-and-forth this week over Russian support for Syria’s government as it tries to crush an uprising underscored the limits of Mr. Obama’s ability to “reset” ties with Moscow…[O]fficials in both capitals noted this week that the two countries still operated on fundamentally different sets of values and interests. – New York Times
A prominent Russian newspaper journalist fled the nation after what his associate says was a death threat from one of the top law-enforcement officials delivered during a menacing walk in the woods. – Wall Street Journal
Mr. Medinsky, appointed as minister last month, reopened the long, simmering debate about Lenin’s corpse and street names as tensions mounted between the opposition and the government over Tuesday’s rally. – New York Times
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading critic of President Obama’s policies on Russia and Syria, said Wednesday that Russia’s role in suppressing Syrian dissent should be kept separate from an upcoming vote on trade. – The Hill’s On the Money
The search was part of an arsenal of tactics that have drawn chilling comparisons with Soviet-era treatment of dissenters considered “enemies of the state”, and have Russians wondering how far the former KGB officer will go to quash threats to his authority in a six-year term he has hinted may not be his last. – Reuters
Bill Gertz reports: A senior senator called out Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta this week over Pentagon cooperation with Russia’s state arms exporter amid new reports of weapons transfers by Moscow to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. – Washington Times’ Inside the Ring
Europe
About 1,000 police raided scores of buildings across Germany on Thursday in a clampdown on radical Salafist Islamists suspected of plotting against the state. – Reuters
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich stirred up a storm over his jailed rival Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday by linking her to a 16-year-old murder case and indicating he was unmoved by a boycott of Euro 2012 soccer matches by Western governments. – Reuters
United States of America
The global glow has faded for President Obama since he took office, owing largely to disappointment with his foreign policies, a new poll from the Pew Research Center has found. – LA Times’ World Now
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was wrong to accuse President Obama of hypocrisy for opposing a special counsel to investigate recent national security leaks. – DEFCON Hill
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is vowing to break with conservatives in his party and help confirm President Obama’s controversial choice for ambassador to El Salvador when she comes before the Senate, possibly as early as Wednesday. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is joining the advisory council of the nation’s biggest booster for foreign-aid spending, The Hill has learned. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
Latin America
Violence from Mexico’s drug war is slowing, the country’s president said, after years of steadily growing carnage that has traumatized its society, hurt the economy and damaged the nation’s international standing. – Wall Street Journal
Once popular, the UN mission [in Haiti] now is viewed by many as a poor use of money and an unnecessary presence – a result in part of numerous scandals that have rocked the mission in recent years. – Christian Science Monitor
Otto Reich and Ezequiel Vazquez Ger writes: For the sake of Ecuador’s liberties, it is necessary that defenders of democracy around the world raise their voices for freedom in Ecuador and that Mr. Garzon teach Correa the difference between representative democracy and autocracy. – Shadow Government
Douglas Farah writes: Today, democracy is slowly but steadily being suffocated in parts of Latin America, particularly those allied with Chávez’s authoritarian government. The situation is deteriorating as Chávez’s health declines and jockeying for the leadership mantle of the revolution intensifies. It will likely get worse before it gets better. – Foreign Policy
Mali
Fighters from the two main rebel groups occupying northern Mali exchanged fire near the town of Timbuktu on Wednesday, officials and local residents said, highlighting tensions between Islamists and separatists vying for control of the desert zone. – Reuters
East Africa
Mogadishu is losing a label it never wanted in the first place: World’s Most Dangerous City. The seaside Somali capital is enjoying a peace that, except for the infrequent attack, has lasted the better part of a year. – Associated Press
South Sudan said on Wednesday it is seeking international arbitration to settle a dispute with neighboring Sudan over ownership of several contested borderlands. – Reuters
