Morning Brief, Wednesday, May 17

Today’s all about offers, not least the EU offer to Iran to help build a light water nuclear reactor. Ahmadinejad isn’t impressed:

“Do you think you are dealing with a four year old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him?”

And in India, there’s the offer to reserve nearly half of seats in its colleges in a quota system for lower castes and disadvantaged Indians, a proposal that has led to four days of protests across the country.

Anxiety over whether the EU has offered membership to Bulgaria and Romania too soon. Romania fights back against accusations of ill treatment of its Gypsies by accusing France of mistreating its own minorities.

The African Union pushes for the UN to take over for its tragically hamstrung force in Darfur, and the Security Council gives the nod. Rebel groups in Darfur splinter further and commit their own atrocities.

In Iraq, a UAE diplomat is kidnapped and more than twenty are killed in a Baghdad attack.

The US finds itself in Somalia again, supporting secular warlords in a bid to deprive al Qaeda a base in the country, a move some Somalis consider short-sighted:

“We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals,” the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview. “This is a dangerous game. Somalia is not a stable place and we want the U.S. in Somalia. But in a more constructive way. Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the U.S. is using the wrong channels.”

Ignatius in WaPo: NSA spying needs come under the rule of law. Chinese tourists are the new Japanese.