Iran
Evidence is mounting that the U.S. defense community and the Obama administration view 2013 as the likely window for a bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities. – Aviation Week
Public dissent is already growing over the pace of consumer price inflation and high unemployment, which is caused partly by the international crisis over the country’s nuclear programme. But despite these internal pressures, Iranian analysts do not expect the economic woes to make the Islamic regime halt its nuclear programme. – Financial Times
The United States is accelerating deployment of armed forces assets in the Middle East following a multilateral meeting’s failure last week to establish limitations on Iranian atomic activities that Washington and its allies worry are geared toward establishment of a weapons capability, United Press International reported on Tuesday – Global Security Newswire
Iran’s naval forces, periodically accused by the U.S. of provocative moves in the Persian Gulf, have shown restraint in recent months, the U.S. Navy’s top admiral said Wednesday. – Associated Press
Robert McNally writes: One way or another, Iran’s defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons is going to lead to oil price spikes. A quarantine is technically an act of war, but so is attacking Iran’s facilities with cyberweapons. Quarantine-and-release could add a “fear premium” to crude prices, especially if Tehran chose escalation and conflict. But crude price spikes would be the result of military action or of Iran acquiring nuclear capabilities. Given the urgency and alternatives, there is little to lose in taking this step to stop Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons. – Financial Times
Syria
Kofi Annan, the special Syria representative from the United Nations and the Arab League whose paralyzed peace plan is in danger of collapse, announced in a statement on Wednesday that he was convening an “action group” meeting of influential countries here on Saturday in an effort to revive the plan. – New York Times
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Russian counterpart agreed Wednesday to attend an emergency meeting on Syria this weekend following personal appeals by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan to consider new proposals for a Syrian political transition. – Washington Post
As diplomats prepared for a weekend effort to revive stalled Syria peace plans, regional tensions swirling around the 16-month-old crisis ticked higher on Thursday as Turkey said it was stationing antiaircraft batteries on their common border following the downing of one of its warplanes. – New York Times
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Thursday that Syria needs a period of political transition but reiterated Moscow’s resistance to any plan being imposed by the international community. – New York Times
While the world’s attention has been focused on the military escalation in Syria, the government has also waged an unrelenting campaign of arrests that has snared tens of thousands of people, according to lawyers and activists in Syria and human rights groups. – New York Times
One of the staunchest proponents of more forceful U.S. action in Syria warned Wednesday that the escalating crisis risks undermining U.S. ally and NATO member Turkey. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
Syria’s military remains loyal despite recent high-profile defections, while the opposition remains fragmented and unable to attack as a unified force, indicating a long, protracted conflict ahead, U.S. intelligence officials said. – Associated Press
The violence in Syria has worsened since a cease-fire deal in April and the bloodshed appears to be taking on dangerous sectarian overtones, the U.N. said Wednesday. – Associated Press
The White House on Wednesday condemned all acts of violence in Syria, including attacks by insurgents on supporters of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, such as an assault on a pro-government television station in Damascus. – Reuters
Syrian government forces have committed human rights violations, including executions, across the country “on an alarming scale” during military operations in the past three months, United Nations investigators said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Egypt
The election of an Islamist president in Egypt has raised new questions about the future of those relations and whether the 1978 Camp David accords and the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty that followed — long seen as cornerstones of regional stability — will survive in their current form. – Washington Post
Even as the struggle for control of Egypt’s future has played out in Cairo between the military power brokers and the Muslim Brotherhood, a parallel struggle has been playing out in the farm belt between dispossessed peasants and cronies of the old regime. – New York Times
Voters such as Mr. Abdel-Samee represent a significant challenge to the man who defeated Mr. Shafiq, Mohammed Morsi, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Mr. Morsi long represented: how to recapture the Islamist organization’s traditional base of working-class and lower-middle-class support. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Egypt has a new leader, Mohamed Morsi, the first president to hail from the Muslim Brotherhood. And it also has Ms. Mahmoud, 50, whose profile is so ordinary by contemporary Egyptian standards as to make her elevation extraordinary. – New York Times
The tasks in front of Morsi are daunting. Investment in Egypt has collapsed since Hosni Mubarak was driven from power by a popular uprising in January and February of 2011, the country’s senior officers have demanded an increased share of formal political power, and a politicized judiciary has become an erratic, unpredictable player in the country’s politics – dissolving the freely elected parliament, considering a petition to ban the Muslim Brotherhood that drove Morsi to the presidency, and making pronouncements on the constitutionality of efforts to write a new constitution. – Christian Science Monitor
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be the first foreign official to meet with newly elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s Al-Ahram news website is reporting. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration is pleased so far with commitments made by Egypt’s Islamist president-elect, Mohammed Morsi, but will reserve judgment on his government until it is up and running. – Associated Press
The ambiguous outcome of Egypt’s revolution leaves Washington no choice but to deal with the country’s two major players, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, despite its disagreements with each. – Reuters
Islamist President-elect Mohamed Mursi began talks on Wednesday with groups nervous about where he will take Egypt after the generals who have ruled since Hosni Mubarak’s fall make way for the republic’s first civilian leader. – Reuters
North Africa
The Obama administration opposes a congressional measure that would end U.S. foreign assistance to any country that plays host to the genocidal Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, an internationally sanctioned war criminal who has slaughtered scores of women and children. – Washington Free Beacon
The numbers of protesters are nowhere near the size of the crowds that brought down the regimes of dictators Zine El-abiddine Ben Ali of Tunisia or Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, but the persistence of the protests in the face of harsh police crackdowns, the widespread economic discontent, and the very fact that Sudan’s current President Omar Al-Bashir rode to power through street protests and a military coup make this round of protests hard to ignore. – Christian Science Monitor
Tunisia dismissed its internationally well-regarded central bank governor on Wednesday over long-simmering policy differences with the president and prime minister of the moderate Islamist government. – Financial Times
Tunisian parliamentarians are pushing for a no-confidence vote in the Islamist-led government, whose divisive decision to extradite Muammar Gaddafi’s prime minister has caused the country’s deepest political crisis since last year’s elections. – Reuters
Sudanese police fired tear gas at scores of student protesters in the east of the country on Wednesday, witnesses said, as unrest provoked by tough austerity measures stretched into a second week. – Reuters
Gulf States
A Saudi court has sentenced 11 men to up to 15 years in prison for membership of a cell linked to al Qaeda that planned to attack U.S. forces in Kuwait and state-owned Saudi oil giant Aramco, Saudi media reported on Wednesday. – Reuters
While the Gulf state’s Salafis follow an interpretation of Islam that is just as puritanical as that of counterparts elsewhere, the means they use to assert their influence are more sophisticated – lobbying cabinet members, comments on social media and seminars. – Reuters
Iraq
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday warned he will call for early elections if other political parties refuse to negotiate to end a deadlock over power-sharing that has crippled the government. – Reuters
Israel
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Israeli Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz on Sunday, a Palestinian official said, in the highest-level meeting between the sides since peace talks broke down in 2010. – Reuters
Turkey
Turkey’s ruling AK Party plans to abolish special courts used in the trials of alleged coup plotters, a parliamentary official said on Wednesday, clouding the future of a legal process criticized as a tool to stifle dissent. – Reuters
Afghanistan
Ten police officers died in violence across Afghanistan on Wednesday, including the district chief of a counterterrorism unit in Herat Province in the west of the country, officials said. – New York Times
Interviews with more than a dozen people connected to the case suggest that much more is at stake than the fate of an 18-year-old shepherd’s daughter. Her plight illuminates the persistence of tribal custom, the fragility of newly legislated protections for women, and the power of armed men. – New York Times
U.S.-led troop deaths from makeshift bombs in Afghanistan are dropping sharply even though the number of improvised explosive devices planted by insurgents are near record levels, Pentagon data show. – USA Today
Moving supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan via Central Asia costs three times as much as routes through Pakistan, which Islamabad shut seven months ago in anger, a senior U.S. officer said June 27. – AFP
Afghanistan’s top peace negotiator urged Pakistan on Wednesday to free Taliban prisoners and push militant leaders into peace negotiations, saying Islamabad must do more to help bring an end to the 10-year Afghan war. – Reuters
Pakistan
The promise of a longtime prisoner’s release, a gesture meant to boost confidence between wary neighbors Pakistan and India, has left one family with dashed hopes and the Indian public in confusion after a mysterious mix-up. – Los Angeles Times
The assassination of a powerful anti-Taliban figure has added to concerns about the security of key players in the government’s effort to stave off an insurgent takeover in northwestern Pakistan. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani complained to U.S. Gen. John Allen about Taliban incursions from Afghanistan into Pakistan when he met the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, a Pakistani army official said Wednesday. – CNN’s Security Clearance
The Taliban released a video Wednesday that they say shows the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers captured in a cross-border raid from Afghanistan this week and beheaded. – Associated Press
Fazlullah, a burly man in his thirties with a heavy black beard, plots cross-border raids that don’t kill many soldiers but agitate Pakistan’s military, which thought it had defeated him during a Swat offensive in 2009. His activities in the border area, described by U.S. President Barack Obama as the world’s most dangerous place, could complicate efforts to stabilize the region before most foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. – Reuters
India
India’s home minister on Wednesday said there was new evidence of Pakistani state support for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, citing information provided by Abu Jindal, an Indian man suspected of being one of the planners. – New York Times
The 79-year-old economist, India’s prime minister since 2004, took charge of the finance ministry Tuesday, giving himself the power—and responsibility—to push through long-delayed economic reforms. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Harsh Pant writes: There has been a persistent complaint in the corridors of power in New Delhi that the Obama administration sacrificed Indian interests at the altar of pleasing Pakistan, which further allowed Pakistan’s proxies to destabilize Afghanistan. Now that Washington is making it clear that it views Pakistan as part of the problem and India as part of the solution, Delhi dithers. These evolving realities present India with a historic chance. If it doesn’t have the will to consolidate it, it will lose credibility not only with the U.S. but also with ordinary Afghans. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
China
A woman who found herself at the center of a firestorm over China’s one-child policy after local officials forced the abortion of her seven-month-old fetus said she was being kept in the hospital against her will and that her husband has disappeared. – Wall Street Journal
China’s central Henan province appears to have beaten a hasty retreat on a proposal to ease housing-market curbs in an about-face reminiscent of several earlier episodes across the country, illustrating continued tensions between Beijing and local governments over property policies. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
As Hong Kong prepares to mark the 15th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule with celebratory fireworks and also angry street protests, Cheung Kwok-wah, a senior education bureau official, is grappling with a particularly sensitive task: how to teach students in this former British colony to identify more with China. – Washington Post
As senior U.S. diplomats prepare for a high-level summit next month with Asian leaders, the Obama administration is sounding a warm-and-fuzzy tone toward China, its biggest rival there. – DOTMIL
The family of the disgraced Chinese leader Bo Xilai bought luxury London properties through a front company with the help of a French architect, a Financial Times investigation has found. – Financial Times
The Chinese government has warned that “cruel” application of its one-child policy could harm its image after local officials forced a woman to abort her seven-month pregnancy, in a case that has sparked national outrage. – Financial Times
Chinese President Hu Jintao oversees the swearing-in of Hong Kong’s embattled leader on Sunday, stepping beyond his comfort zone of staid one-party rule in Beijing into a former British colony used to scandal and raucous protest. – Reuters
China’s top newspaper slammed both U.S. presidential candidates on Thursday for playing the “China card” in their election campaigns, saying the real economic problems confronting the United States were being ignored in the process. – Reuters
Miles Yu reports: A Chinese general recently offered an alarming assessment that a future conflict with the United States is coming as a result of U.S. “containment” policies. – Washington Times’ Inside China
East Asia
Overcoming lingering historical animosities with its former colonial master, South Korea said on Thursday that it would sign a treaty with Japan that would encourage the sharing of sensitive military data on their common concerns: North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and China’s growing military expansion in the region. – New York Times
The United States should take a back seat to China and South Korea when it comes to applying pressure on North Korea, according to an influential, retired U.S. general. – Defense News
Southeast Asia
A spat between China and Vietnam over energy rights in the South China Sea intensified on Wednesday as Vietnam’s biggest company called on China to scrap its plans to develop areas near the Vietnamese shore. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The United States will stress “engagement and cooperation” with China at security talks next month in Southeast Asia where nations are wary of getting caught in superpower rivalry, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. – Reuters
The United States said on June 27 it saw momentum in talks between China and Southeast Asia on agreeing to a code of conduct to ease deep friction over competing claims in the South China Sea. – AFP
Josh Rogin reports: U.S. senators grilled Derek Mitchell, nominated by President Barack Obama on May 17 as the first U.S. ambassador to Burma in two decades, in a confirmation hearing Wednesday, but they used the session primarily to urge the administration to allow American investment in the country’s oil and gas sectors. – The Cable
Editorial: The state-owned oil company has been on the wrong side. Until it takes steps to shift over, the United States should show that it meant what Ms. Clinton said. Rather than give in to oil-industry arguments against leaving the field to other nations, the United States should lead those nations in insisting on transparency as a condition of investment. – Washington Post
Trans-Pacific Partnership
A majority of House Democrats admonished U.S. trade officials for failing to consult with Congress and disclose details of negotiations on an Asia-Pacific trade deal. – The Hill’s On the Money
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (Calif.) sent a letter to U.S. trade officials requesting that he and his staff be able to observe the upcoming round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) starting July 2 in San Diego. – The Hill’s On the Money
Russia
The governor of the region surrounding Moscow took direct control Wednesday of the corruption-ridden city of Sergiev Posad, still reeling from the assassination of its mayor last year. He forced the resignations of the new mayor and the acting head of the city administration, who for months have refused to recognize each other’s authority. – Washington Post
The U.S. Northern Command and joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command said two Russian bombers violated U.S. airspace near Alaska during recent arctic war games. – Washington Free Beacon
This little change in lawmakers’ social habits is indicative of a larger transformation of the Duma, which is showing signs of becoming less of a rubber-stamp body that simply does the Kremlin’s bidding. The increased infighting in the legislature, analysts say, reflects deep discord within the broader ruling elite over Russia’s direction. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she’s optimistic that relations with Moscow will not suffer despite planned legislation in Congress that would impose tough sanctions on Russian human rights violators. – Associated Press
West Africa
Al Qaeda-linked Islamists militants seized control of the headquarters of the local separatist rebels in the north Mali town of Gao on Wednesday after a bloody battle that killed at least 20, residents said. – Reuters
The Nigerian army said on Wednesday it killed 17 suspected Islamist militants in gun battles in the northern city of Kano overnight, and militants shot dead one policeman. – Reuters
East Africa
An Ethiopian court convicted prominent journalist Eskinder Nega, along with a group of others including political dissidents and activists, on terrorism charges Wednesday, alarming human rights groups. – LA Times’ World Now
Somalia’s president on Wednesday accused the international community of refusing to fund the creation of local security forces capable of tackling piracy and al Qaeda-linked militants and urged them to pay up. – Reuters
