Iran
Iran sought on Tuesday to rebut assertions that Western sanctions had paralyzed the Iranian economy and severely weakened the currency, pointing to new data from the International Monetary Fund forecasting an economic rebound and lower inflation in 2013. – New York Times
44 on Tuesday signed an executive order tightening sanctions on Iran over its nuclear-enrichment program. – The Hill’s On the Money
Iran appears to be attempting to address global worries over its atomic activities by transforming in excess of 33 percent of its higher-enriched uranium into a powdered form largely unsuitable for use in nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported on Sunday. – Global Security Newswire
Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping company, has stopped port calls to Iran as Western sanctions pressure on the Islamic Republic mounts, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Iran’s state budget is under pressure and the government has cut spending in some areas, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying as the country struggles to cope with Western economic sanctions. – Reuters
A reduction in natural gas exports from Iran would not have much impact on world energy markets, but could hurt Turkey and part of Azerbaijan, according to a U.S. report due to be released on Tuesday. – Reuters
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday Tehran would consider downgrading ties with the United Arab Emirates over three disputed Gulf islands, but state television later denied the Islamic Republic was contemplating such a move. – Reuters
Syria
Iran is providing crucial equipment and technical help to Syria in its effort to track opposition forces through the Internet and other forms of electronic surveillance, according to U.S. officials. – Washington Post
The United States military has secretly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there handle a flood of Syrian refugees, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons and be positioned should the turmoil in Syria expand into a wider conflict. – New York Times
As Turkey sought to increase its military presence along its border with Syria, opposition fighters in Syria were waging an offensive Tuesday to seize a strategic city in Idlib province. – Los Angeles Times
With Syria’s civil strife coursing through major cities and convulsing neighboring countries, the Turkish military sounded a somber warning on Wednesday that it may respond more forcefully after days of shelling from Syria. – New York Times
A jihadist insurgent group that Western intelligence officials have linked to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a multiple bombing by suicide attackers who struck an intelligence compound on the outskirts of Damascus overnight. – New York Times
Daraya’s continuing anguish says much about the evolution – or regression – of Syria’s 18-month-old conflict and the world’s attitudes to it. More than a month after what local people say was the massacre of at least 500 people, the town is in a ghastly limbo, still surrounded by regime forces and aware that another blow could fall at any time with hardly anyone watching. – Financial Times
NATO is ready to defend Turkey, the alliance’s top official said Tuesday, in a direct warning to Syria after a week of cross-border artillery and mortar exchanges dramatically escalated tensions between the two countries. – Associated Press
Up to 335,000 Syrian refugees have registered with the United Nations, ten times more than in March, but the real figure could be as high as 500,000, a U.N. refugee agency official said on Tuesday. – Reuters
U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will visit Syria soon to try to persuade Bashar al-Assad’s government to call an immediate ceasefire in an 18-month-old conflict with rebels, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Andrew Lawler writes: Aleppo’s remarkable history of diversity and tolerance — a model for a region in turmoil — is itself perilously close to becoming history. That past is an important bridge to a prosperous future that requires a well-educated populace linked to the wider world. Amid the destruction of a great city, there is more to mourn than shattered stone. – Washington Post
Libya
Less than two months before the fatal attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, the State Department concluded that the risk of violence to diplomats and other Americans in Libya was high and that the weak U.S.-backed government in Tripoli could do little about it. – Washington Post
The State Department’s top security officer is coming under scrutiny for playing a role in creating a special board that is investigating last month’s fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. – Washington Times
On the eve of the first Congressional hearing on the attack last month at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, members of the House committee investigating the assaults spent Tuesday accusing one another of exploiting the violence to score partisan political points – New York Times
The International Criminal Court opened a hearing Tuesday over the fate of the son of the late Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, who stands accused of crimes against humanity. Yet the question before the international court was not his guilt or innocence –- but where to try him. – LA Times’ World Now
A quartet of Senate Republicans have set their sights on the intelligence community on Tuesday, demanding answers regarding the devastating terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. – DEFCON Hill
The top U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday there was no obvious warning ahead of the deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and rebuffed criticism of the intelligence community’s initial assessment of the incident. – CNN’s Security Clearance
U.S. State Department officials on Tuesday offered their most detailed description yet of the dramatic events in Benghazi that led to the death of a U.S. ambassador, but they backed away from earlier assertions that the events were triggered by protests against an anti-Islam video. – Reuters
Libya can guarantee the son of its former dictator a fair trial, Libyan government lawyers said on Tuesday at a hearing on whether Saif al-Islam Gaddafi should face justice at home or at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. – Reuters
Eli Lake reports: The former top U.S. diplomatic security official in Libya will tell Congress Wednesday that the State Department reduced security personnel for Libya over his objections. – The Daily Beast
Josh Rogin reports: Prior to the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi late in the evening on Sept. 11, there was no protest outside the compound, a senior State Department official confirmed today, contradicting initial administration statements suggesting that the attack was an opportunistic reaction to unrest caused by an anti-Islam video. – The Cable
Rogin also reports: Darrel Issa (R-CA), the committee chairman leading House Republicans’ investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, has concealed witnesses, withheld documents, publicly aired unconfirmed allegations, and excluded Democrats from a hastily planned trip to Libya last weekend, according to his colleagues across the aisle. – The Cable
Egypt
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s blanket pardon of hundreds of activists arrested during last year’s revolution and its turbulent aftermath was widely viewed as a morally wise but politically timed move from a leader attempting to calm his critics amid social and economic turmoil. – LA Times’ World Now
In Egypt’s restive Sinai, Bedouin leaders are pushing to take matters into their own hands and urging the government to arm their tribesmen by creating a local security force in the peninsula, where the state is struggling to impose its authority and uproot Islamic militants who have attacked Egyptian troops and neighboring Israel. – Associated Press
Iraq
Al-Qaida is rebuilding in Iraq and has set up training camps for insurgents in the nation’s western deserts as the extremist group seizes on regional instability and government security failures to regain strength, officials say. – Associated Press
Russia announced on Tuesday it has signed $4.2 billion in arms deals with Iraq, making it the largest weapons supplier to the Middle East country after the United States. – Reuters
Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday called for elections early next year instead of as scheduled in October 2013, saying that conversations with his coalition partners had proved it would be impossible to pass “a responsible budget” with deep cuts. – New York Times
Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s demands to curtail immunity for U.S. forces will be a main stumbling block in negotiations over the long-term American military presence here, Afghan National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta said, highlighting the issue that derailed similar U.S. talks with Iraq a year ago. – Wall Street Journal
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday extended authorization for the NATO-led force in Afghanistan for a year and welcomed the agreement to gradually transfer full responsibility for security in the country to the Afghan government by the end of 2014. – Associated Press
The killings of more than 130 U.S. and allied forces by Afghan troops or those dressed like them is not deterring NATO countries from the war in Afghanistan, two senior U.S. defense officials said Tuesday. – Associated Press
South Asia
On Tuesday, masked Taliban gunmen answered Ms. Yousafzai’s courage with bullets, singling out the 14-year-old on a bus filled with terrified schoolchildren, then shooting her in the head. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack. All three survived, but on Wednesday a neurologist said Ms. Yousafzai was in critical condition at a hospital in Peshawar, though doctors had been able to remove a bullet. – New York Times
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner expressed support Tuesday for India’s recent steps to open its market to foreign investors, while cautioning that slowing global growth poses a threat to the U.S. and Indian economies. – Wall Street Journal
A long-festering controversy about whether India should allow foreign retailers like Wal-Mart into the country has often been cast as a battle between millions of small shopkeepers and large corporate interests. But in much of the country, including in this eastern city, the issue often divides Indians as much by age as by their livelihoods. – New York Times
East Asia
China on Tuesday slammed as “groundless” a congressional report that called two Chinese telecom companies a threat to U.S. national security. – Washington Post
Officials gathered for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on Tuesday cautioned that territorial disputes involving three of Asia’s largest economies could spill over from the regional level to undermine the global economy. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
South Korea and Japan will let their expanded currency-swap agreement lapse as planned at the end of this month. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
North Korea on Tuesday lashed out at a South Korea-U.S. agreement on extending Seoul’s ballistic missile range to better counter threats from Pyongyang and claimed its own missiles are capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
North Korea claims that it has ballistic missiles that can reach the mainland of the United States. If it does, the isolated Asian nation certainly hasn’t offered any proof in spite of several attempts. – CNN’s Security Clearance
In the year since a sophisticated cyber attack on Japan’s largest military contractor unleashed a flood of revelations about the vulnerability of the country’s most sensitive technical data, cybersecurity has vaulted onto the country’s national security agenda. – Defense News
The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that China’s central bank governor will not lead the Chinese delegation at the IMF’s semi-annual meeting this week, in what appeared to be a snub to host Japan. – Reuters
Southeast Asia
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, is seeing a wave of new, more moderate Muslim preachers…They represent a balancing of the more militant strains of Islam that have proliferated here. – Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court of the Philippines suspended a new Internet law on Tuesday that critics had said could lead to imprisonment for sharing posts on social media. – New York Times
With Vietnam’s economy struggling after years of breakneck growth, Hanoi’s Communist leaders set down a new rule for party members this week: No more lavish weddings. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Some of the attacks posted on the site and two other blogs had to come from party insiders, according to a party member who declined to be identified and several academics who follow Vietnam’s secretive politics. They say the sites reflect intense infighting over how to deal with the country’s debt-ridden banks and state firms. – Reuters
Indonesian police have warned of possible attacks on commemorations for the tenth anniversary of bomb blasts on the island of Bali and have brought in reinforcements to protect the thousands due to attend, including Australia’s prime minister. – Reuters
Joel Brinkley writes: [A]ll this idolization brings with it a possible down side — a widespread expectation in the West that if Suu Kyi, 67, is free to travel and talk, all must be right with the political transition in Myanmar. But it isn’t. – Politico
Central Asia
The United States on Tuesday accused Kazakhstan of using its justice system to “silence opposition voices” after a prominent critic of President Nursultan Nazarbayev was jailed for inciting violence. – Reuters
Russia
With their court appeal coming up this week, videos have been leaked showing members [of the Russian feminist punk rock band] Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina talking about their prison conditions from their jail cells. – RFE/RL’s Transmission
Old munitions exploded Oct. 9 at a military disposal site in central Russia, sending a white plume of smoke into the sky and forcing authorities to partially evacuate residents of nearby villages. – AFP
Europe
French police have discovered bomb-making materials and weapons during their continuing investigation into a group of young Islamic radicals arrested on Saturday, Paris Prosecutor François Molins, said in a statement on Wednesday. – New York Times
Days after the British authorities finally succeeded in extraditing five terrorism suspects to the United States, immigration authorities in London were set to resume a protracted effort on Wednesday to send a prominent Muslim cleric to face charges in Jordan. – New York Times
British police have arrested a man and a woman at London’s Heathrow airport as part of an investigation into travel to Syria in support of “alleged terrorist activity”, police said in a statement on Wednesday. – Reuters
The billionaire who is likely to become Georgia’s next prime minister said on Tuesday he was confident the former Soviet republic would soon join NATO. – Reuters
Analysis: Finding that middle path between confrontation and capitulation will be one of the toughest tasks for Ivanishvili, who lived and worked in Russia in the 1990s and who until recently held Russian citizenship. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
NATO
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced the approval of two more multinational security burden-sharing “projects” under the banner of “Smart Defense,” at the defense ministers meeting happening in Brussels on Tuesday. – The E-Ring
NATO ministers wrestled on Tuesday with how to prevent austerity-driven defence cuts in many member countries from undermining the power of the 63-year-old Western alliance. – Reuters
United States of America
There’s a generational and gender change afoot in the Senate Hawks Club: Joe Lieberman’s out and Kelly Ayotte’s in. The 44-year-old New Hampshire freshman has found her way to the cool kids’ table on the Armed Services Committee, huddling often with other GOP senators, including John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. – Politico
Starting next week, former Ambassador to Georgia John Bass will take up his new post as executive secretary of the State Department, a crucial high-level position. – The Cable
If [Fluornoy and Kahl] applied to 44 the kind of sharp-eyed standards they applied when they were on the opposition bench, the results would be a withering critique of the last four years. – Shadow Government
Latin America
An ebullient President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday hailed his comfortable re-election as evidence of Venezuela’s “perfect” democracy and mocked his foes’ depiction of him as a dictator. – Reuters
Executives of three foreign businesses shut in 2011 ostensibly for corrupt practices have been held by Cuban authorities for a year or more and still have not been charged with a crime, sources with knowledge of the cases said this week. – Reuters
It remains to be seen if the 44th administration will restore some sanity to its liberalized travel regime to Cuba by truly making it purposeful and people-to-people…Because the status quo is having the exact opposite effect: by further enabling the Castro brothers to suffocate the Cuban people’s legitimate aspirations for freedom and a better future. – Shadow Government
West Africa
France has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution asking for a detailed plan within 30 days on an international military intervention in Mali in a bid to revive stalled attempts to help government troops reclaim the country’s north from extremists. – Reuters
Exiles supporting Ivory Coast’s former President Laurent Gbagbo have established a base in neighboring Ghana from which they are working to destabilize the current Ivorian government, according to excerpts from a new report by a U.N. expert panel. – Reuters
East Africa
Uganda is trying to broker direct peace talks between rebels who have seized parts of eastern Congo and the country’s government, but Kinshasa officials so far have refused to negotiate, rebel and Ugandan government sources said on Tuesday. – Reuters
South Africa
The South African government, amid continuing labor turmoil, has preferred to let companies and unions hash out their differences. But as the strife drags on, the government’s image and the country’s currency are taking a beating. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
