Morning Brief, Friday, June 16

Let's review. Maliki backtracks from the limited amnesty offer floated yesterday. Shiite militias control Iraqi prisons.

"We cannot control the prisons. It's as simple as that," said the deputy minister, Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei, an ethnic Kurd. "Our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."

And in the must-see update on the state of Iraq from the excellent Nina Kamp and Michael O'Hanlon, we see an increase in the number of daily attacks, an increase in the number of insurgents, a huge jump in the incidents of sectarian violence, and a big drop in the percentage of Iraqis optimistic about the future over the same period last year.

Good thing all of these important issues and developments are being debated in the House. I mean, it would be crass for it to degenerate into an ugly partisan fight, right? Apparently not. More farcical details from Capitol Hill:

In a highly unusual attempt to influence the debate, the Pentagon sent a 74-page "prep book" to several members of Congress, outlining what it called "rapid response" talking points to rebut criticism of Mr. Bush's handling of the war and prewar intelligence. The Pentagon sent the book to Democratic leaders on Wednesday night, apparently in error, then sent an e-mail message two hours later asking to recall it.

Rosa Brooks in the LAT: Bush's new Iraq plan? Let the Iraqis figure it out.

At Shanghai summit, Ahmadinejad praises the nuclear incentives package and calls it a "step forward." 

In a first, Nepal's Maoist leader is meeting for talks with the country's prime minister to end the decade-long insurgency. FP recently spoke with Kunda Dixit of the Nepali Times about the effect the fighting has had on the country and where the king will go from here.

A third of the world's urban population lives in slums. In Angola, that translates into a cholera outbreak. 

EU summit trying to chart a path forward. Soweto uprising anniversary. North Korea getting closer to a possible missile test. Attacks by men on horseback in Chad force refugees to flee into Darfur. And Miami Dade school board votes to ban a book portraying life in Cuba as idyllic.