Iran
As Iran struggles with a plummeting exchange rate and soaring prices, the currency bazaar in Tehran’s old city center has become the focus of a debate about how to solve the country’s financial woes. – Washington Post
Newly published PowerPoint presentations, originally presented by Iran at the most recent high-level nuclear talks with world powers, lay out a maximalist opening position that appears to offer little room for compromise over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. – Christian Science Monitor
A new meeting between senior European Union and Iranian officials has been scheduled later this month as the two sides struggle to find common ground in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. – DEFCON Hill
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is launching an investigation into a United Nations agency that allegedly supplied computers and other sensitive technology to Iran and North Korea. – Hillicon Valley
Tough Western sanctions are forcing Iran to take drastic action and shut off wells at its vast oilfields, sinking production to levels last seen over two decades ago and costing Tehran billions in lost revenues. – Reuters
A prominent U.S. lawmaker has asked the small South Pacific island nation Tuvalu to stop reflagging Iranian oil tankers and warned its government of the risks of running afoul of U.S. sanctions. – Reuters
Syria
Moving further from its strict stance of nonintervention, Russia pressured President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Monday to be more flexible about the future of his ravaged country, insisting that he talk with adversaries, inviting an anti-Assad delegation to the Kremlin and restricting shipments of new weapons to the Syrian armed forces. – New York Times
Kofi Annan, the envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League on Syria, met with senior Iranian officials on Tuesday to seek their cooperation in trying to rescue his foundering peace plan. – New York Times
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his state-oil company are providing vital energy support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and conducting business with Syrian firms blacklisted by Washington and Brussels, according to documents relating to the deals. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Even the RATs are trying to distance themselves from the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown against protesters and armed insurgents. A Remote Access Tool (RAT) is a specialized software program designed to allow remote control of a computer. Widely used by hackers, such programs recently have been employed to spy on pro-democracy Syrian activists and others trying to organize opposition to the regime in Damascus. – Washington Times
Members of Syria’s opposition are headed to Moscow for high-level talks with Russian officials, a sign that the Bashar al-Assad era is nearing its end. – DOTMIL
An opposition group that documents human rights violations in Syria says more than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. – Associated Press
The Syrian people should be left to choose their leader in elections due in 2014 and until then countries should avoid aggravating the bloodshed by interfering on the ground, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday. – Reuters
Egypt
In a raw contest between Egypt’s competing centers of power, legislators on Tuesday defied the country’s highest court and its most senior generals by holding a brief session of the dissolved Parliament, heeding an order by President Mohamed Morsi in the face of opposition from judges and the military. – New York Times
Egypt’s highest court and its most senior generals on Monday dismissed President Mohamed Morsi’s order to restore the dissolved Parliament as an affront to the rule of law, escalating a raw contest for supremacy between the competing camps. – New York Times
The power struggle between Egypt’s president and military leaders is becoming increasingly murky, leaving many Egyptians confused over who is running the country and whether laws and court rulings even apply amid the persistent political disarray. – Los Angeles Times
For the Obama administration, as it navigates the tumultuous effects of the Arab Spring, it’s a complicated day, as well. Long-held assumptions about who is a friend of the United States and who is not have been upset, leaving many Americans confused. – New York Times
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday downplayed reports that President Obama has invited Egypt’s new leader to meet with him, highlighting the political sensitivities surrounding the administration’s outreach to the Islamist leader. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
A judge in Egypt threw out pleas for the release of former president Hosni Mubarak’s two sons from detention on Monday, saying they must remain in prison until their corruption trial resumes in September. – Reuters
Eric Trager writes: It is thus no wonder that, despite Morsi’s defiant restoration of the previously dissolved parliament, Egypt’s streets were mostly quiet, save for a minor earthquake that struck in the mid-afternoon. Tahrir Square was largely empty and, even around the parliament building itself, the security presence was not noticeably thicker. And why should it have been? Until the Muslim Brotherhood—and the broader Egyptian public—figures out what Morsi’s action means, the junta has nothing to fear. – The New Republic
Libya
An unexplained explosion at a mosque in the eastern city of Darnah on Monday offered a reminder that Libya’s transition to a stable democracy was far from complete, even as international monitors praised the country’s first election in decades as a surprisingly successful expression of the public will. – New York Times
Votes are still being counted, but yesterday, the National Forces Alliance coalition (NFA) claimed an unofficial lead in congressional elections, something the two main Islamist groups acknowledged. Now the question is: with NFA leader and former interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril rejecting both the liberal label and the Islamist, what does the NFA intend? And what do Libyans think it intends? – Christian Science Monitor
Editorial: NATO’s intervention in Libya last year paved the way for Saturday’s landmark election. Now the Obama administration and its allies should help the new authorities attain their goal of a democratic Libya. – Washington Post
Gulf States
Two protesters were killed amid demonstrations in Saudi Arabia over the shooting and capture by security forces of a Shiite cleric who had called for “rejoicing” over the recent death of the crown prince, activists said Monday. – Wall Street Journal
A prominent Bahraini protest leader, Nabeel Rajab, was sentenced to three months in prison for insulting some Bahrainis in a tweet criticizing the prime minister, Rajab’s lawyer and the state news agency said on Monday. – Reuters
Iraq
Now, with the United States military gone, [Muqtada al-Sadr] has emerged as something more prosaic: a mainstream political leader looking for new paths to secure the claims to power that his movement achieved through violent opposition to the American occupation. – New York Times
Iraq’s government said crude-oil exports from the semiautonomous northern region of Kurdistan to neighboring Turkey are “illegal” and threatened on Monday to take “appropriate action,” in a continuation of recent of tensions between the two. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Levant
Flouting international opinion, an Israeli government-appointed commission of jurists said Monday that Israel’s presence in the West Bank was not occupation and recommended that the state grant approval for scores of unauthorized Jewish settlement outposts there. – New York Times
In a dramatic turnabout, Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister of Israel, was cleared on Tuesday by a Jerusalem court on two counts in a high-profile corruption case that cut short his term in office and changed the course of Israeli politics and diplomacy. – New York Times
From his mosque in south Lebanon, Sheik Ahmad Assir, a hard-line cleric, embodies a new trend in the Middle East: the rise of conservative Sunni Islamists openly opposed to their Shiite counterparts and their backers, Iran and Syria. – Washington Post
A Jordanian lawmaker has landed in hot water after he drew a gun, Wild West-style (though without firing) and tossed a shoe at a critic during a live television debate about the crisis in neighboring Syria. – LA Times’ World Now
Sudan
The regime of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, is under severe strain. On the first anniversary of South Sudan’s secession after years of civil war, it is broke, at war and facing a revolt among educated urbanites. – Financial Times
As a result of the crackdown, activists take evasive action. Some don surgical masks and carry leaves to ward off the effects of tear gas. They avoid large gatherings and collect in small groups in their neighbourhoods at night. – Financial Times
Afghanistan
The Taliban struck multiple targets across Afghanistan on Monday, killing five police officers with a roadside bomb in a relatively peaceful province but failing to inflict heavy casualties with their multipronged assault in Kandahar, Afghan officials said. – New York Times
War is an ageless poetic wellspring, yielding wrenching odes to the white heat of combat, the longing for lost loved ones, the dust of graveyards. Now a controversial new anthology unveils a collection of seldom-heard voices: those of Taliban fighters. – Los Angeles Times
In the wake of Ahmad Wali’s death, many Kandaharis were concerned his absence would create a power vacuum that would increase violence here. So far, however, the security apparatus, namely the new police chief, Abdul Raziq, has stepped in to fill the void. While a controversial figure, many locals have attributed Mr. Raziq’s aggressive approach with bringing a measure of calm to Kandahar. – Christian Science Monitor
Schoolgirls and teachers complaining of nausea and other symptoms have reported poisoned water supplies at at least 12 girls’ schools across Afghanistan since 2009. But there have been no fatalities, and despite extensive efforts by the UN’s World Health Organization to get to the bottom of the matter no one has found proof of poison or any other organic cause. – Christian Science Monitor
President Hamid Karzai said Monday he is encouraged by pledges to provide Afghanistan with $16 billion in aid, but warned that corruption in his country cannot be rooted out unless donors themselves take more action. – Associated Press
Michael O’Hanlon writes: The next Afghan leader has a chance to restore U.S. faith and to help forge the kind of enduring security partnerships that the United States gradually developed with Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, South Korea and Taiwan. Afghans must be persuaded to defeat the crooks and warlords who may seek to replace Karzai. Thirteen years of American effort and treasure — and the Afghan people’s ability to escape what has become a generation of war — depend greatly on achieving a sound election process and outcome in 2014. – Washington Post
South Asia
Angered by the reopening of NATO supply lines through their country, prominent jihadis and right-wing politicians mounted a determined show of force in the heart of the Pakistani capital on Monday, led by a man with a $10 million American bounty on his head. – New York Times
Pakistan is doubling the capacity for NATO trucks at a key border crossing, officials said July 9, to speed up processing for an expected influx of supplies for troops in Afghanistan. – AFP
Sadanand Dhume writes: [B]oth Indians and international investors need to become more skeptical of promises not backed by actions. Singh may have presented a reform-friendly image to the outside world based on one small slice of his past. But his government’s domestic priorities on the ground, even when freed of the compulsion of seeking communist support after re-election in 2009, remained solidly redistributionist. Of course, for Singh himself these lessons likely won’t matter. With less than two years to go in what is almost certainly his last term in office, it may be simply too late to pick up the pieces of his halo. – Foreign Policy
China
A Chinese priest who publicly quit the state-sanctioned Catholic Church and was made bishop with the pope’s approval was taken away by officials last weekend and is being held in his seminary, a source said on Tuesday, in a move likely to further strain relations between Beijing and the Vatican. – Reuters
Josh Rogin reports: Technology and information penetration in China will eventually force the Great Firewall of China to crumble and even lead to the political opening of the Chinese system, according to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. – The Cable
Mongolia
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an unmistakable message to China delivered in a speech from this neighboring country, said Monday that economic success without meaningful political openness was an unsustainable equation that would ultimately lead to instability. – New York Times
Julian Dierkes writes: It’s true that a DP-led coalition may not change specific policies. What’s more, if the public doesn’t see steady improvement in governance and a fall in corruption over time, the lack of trust could undermine the legitimacy of elections. Yet, even without an ideological profile, an effective government through a grand coalition may still contribute to the building of trust in political parties and thus the continued institutionalization of democracy in Mongolia. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Koreas
After a failed missile launching, aborted diplomacy with Washington, and continuing international pressure over the country’s nuclear program, North Korea’s untested young leader has tried once again to take a dramatic step with his isolated, impoverished nation, this time with a bit of unapproved help from Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. – New York Times
North Korean media have disclosed so little about leader Kim Jong Un’s personal life that no one outside of his innermost circle knows his age or marital status. Now Koreans on both sides of the divided peninsula have a new mystery to ponder: Who is that elegant young woman at his side? – LA Times’ World Now
South Korea is working to persuade delegates at a major diplomatic gathering this week to issue a broadside against North Korea’s failed April rocket flight, the Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday – Global Security Newswire
The frontrunner to win South Korea’s presidential election, Park Geun-hye, launched her third bid to become the first woman to lead the country on Tuesday, abandoning earlier tough policies with an inclusive message aimed at winning over younger voters. – Reuters
East Asia
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on a whirlwind tour of Asia this week, hoping to convince allies that the administration’s much-touted “pivot to Asia” is about promoting human rights and democracy, rather than curtailing China’s rise. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
Japan has rejected protests from China and Taiwan over plans to buy islands at the centre of a bitter territorial dispute from their private owner, saying the move was aimed at “calm and stable” management of the uninhabited archipelago and nearby seas. – Financial Times
Two of 26 missiles missed their targets when Taiwan’s military carried out a live-fire exercise on July 9, but officers in charge said they were happy with the result. – AFP
Analysis: Japan’s prime minister appears to be trying to dampen tensions with China with a proposal to buy islands at the center of a row with Beijing, instead of letting the nationalist governor of Tokyo proceed with his own provocative plan to purchase them. – Reuters
Southeast Asia
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) on Monday wrote to President Obama asking him to fire the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam over what Wolf called his “sidelining” of human-rights issues in the communist country. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi attended the new session of Myanmar’s parliament on Monday, a scrum of media recording the start of her first real step into the country’s novel lawmaking process after formally taking the oath of office in May. – Reuters
Ian Storey writes: China can oppose other major powers from “meddling” in the South China Sea dispute all it wants, but its own actions have forced Japan to “meddle.” Tokyo seems resolute on helping South East Asian countries find a favorable resolution, even if that means some sparks fly as a result of this week’s Phnom Penh summit. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
Trans-Pacific Partnership
U.S. trade officials told Congress on Monday that Mexico will join talks over an Asia-Pacific trade deal. – The Hill’s On the Money
Russia
Hearings in a multibillion-dollar battle between aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska and his former associate Michael Cherney began in London’s High Court on Monday, reflecting the lingering shadow still cast by the conflicts common in Russia’s rough-and-tumble transition to capitalism in the 1990s. – Wall Street Journal
The Senate Finance Committee is looking to hold a highly anticipated markup of Russia trade and human rights measures next week, sources said Monday. – The Hill’s On the Money
The Russian-language edition of community-sourced online encyclopedia Wikipedia has made itself temporarily unavailable to users to protest proposed amendments to the Russian information law. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
President Vladimir Putin said on Monday the West’s influence was waning as its economy declines but warned Russian diplomats to be on their guard against a backlash from Moscow’s former Cold War enemies. – Reuters
Russia’s highest court ruled on Monday that a hard-won deal to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) that will oblige Moscow to cut import tariffs and open up key sectors in its economy to foreign investment was in line with the constitution. – Reuters
Editorial: Mr. Putin no doubt figures the West will ignore this as it has his other authoritarian habits. But Members of Congress should consider it one more reason to pass the Magnitsky Act sanctioning Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses. The Obama Administration wants to offer Mr. Putin most-favored trading status without Magnitsky, which it views as a diplomatic irritant. But Congress should care more about sending a message to the Russian people that it supports their fight for freedom and self-government. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Europe
Prosecutors opened their war crimes case against Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commandant, with emotional testimony from a Bosnian Muslim survivor of a 1992 massacre committed by Mr Mladic’s troops. – Financial Times
The tax evasion trial of Yulia Tymoshenko was put off until July 23 due to the former Ukrainian prime minister’s inability to attend hearings on health grounds, a court ruled on Tuesday. – Reuters
Latin America
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday declared himself fully recovered from cancer and ready to return to the streets for his re-election campaign ahead of an October vote. – Reuters
Colombia’s FARC rebels have stepped up extortion and attacks on the oil and mining industries to finance their war as changes to the way the government distributes industry royalties have cut into the group’s revenues, the energy minister said on Monday. – Reuters
Paul Bonicelli writes: Only Nixon could go to China, another saying goes. And perhaps only the PRI can take Mexico fully into a future of free trade, free labor, and freely flowing — and abundant — foreign investment in the moribund Mexican energy sector. The United States should not squander the opportunity to give this new leader and this hopefully newly reborn party a chance to prove his critics wrong. – Shadow Government
West Africa
Nigeria’s government imposed a curfew on the city of Jos, a fault line in volatile ties among Christians and Muslims, after ethnic violence left scores of people dead over the weekend. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
East Africa
Sudan and South Sudan are playing a dangerous economic version of Russian roulette that threatens the success of both countries, the top U.S. official for the region said on the first anniversary of South Sudan’s independence. – Reuters
Tens of thousands of South Sudanese gathered under a sweltering sun on Monday in the capital, Juba, to celebrate the first birthday of the world’s youngest nation — an event marred by dire economic hardships and a near-constant threat of war. – Associated Press
Eritrea said on Monday the United Nations was considering imposing sanctions on two Eritrean military officials over allegations they had helped Islamist militants in Somalia, and accused Washington of being behind the plan. – Reuters
Central Africa
An offensive by rebels led by a renegade general in the Congo has approached a major eastern city and threatens to choke the country’s exports of tin ore, gold and a rare metal used in smartphones and computers. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
