Morning Brief, Wednesday, October 18, 2006
North Korea Condoleezza Rice's crisis tour is underway. Her first stop was Tokyo, where she appeared intent on silencing the Japanese rumblings about developing their own nukes. She extracted this concession from FM Taro Aso: We do not need to acquire nuclear arms with an assurance by US Secretary of State Rice that the bilateral ...
North Korea
North Korea
Condoleezza Rice's crisis tour is underway. Her first stop was Tokyo, where she appeared intent on silencing the Japanese rumblings about developing their own nukes. She extracted this concession from FM Taro Aso:
We do not need to acquire nuclear arms with an assurance by US Secretary of State Rice that the bilateral alliance would work without fault."
The United States is touting radiation monitoring as a way of keeping North Korean nukes from leaking to the outside world.
A few papers are reporting that a second test is imminent.
A dispatch from the Chinese-Korean border suggests that it's business as usual.
In the northeastern city of Dandong, cargo trucks rumbled across the Friendship Bridge that spans the Yalu River between the two countries and there appeared to be no slowdown in trade. Officials checked drivers' papers and opened the backs of trucks to look inside. But none was seen unloading or thoroughly inspecting cargo, and most trucks were through the checkpoint in no more than a minute or two.
Iraq
A bloody day for U.S. troops.
Commanders say American troops are more exposed to attack at the moment because of stepped-up operations to tackle sectarian violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Two senior Iraqi police commanders are cashiered. Shiite militias had reportedly thoroughly infiltrated their units.
Elsewhere
The Christian Science Monitor offers a peek inside the oily lobbying between Venezuela and Guatemala for a Security Council seat.
[D]iplomats referred to Chávez's nearly two-year-long campaign to win a Council seat and noted that Chávez, as leader of a major oil- producing nation, had signed numerous bilateral trade pacts while pursuing his campaign. As one diplomat noted in a tongue-in-cheek explanation for the sudden spurt in support for Venezuela in one ballot: "They upped the ante – now it's a full tanker in every port!"
Ahmadinejad predicts defeat for the West as he breaks his fast.
The London Times splashes the account of a former janjaweed fighter in Darfur. International Criminal Court investigators will no doubt be clipping this article.
NGOs in Russia face a deadline for registering with the government.
One of the best-known groups, Human Rights Watch (HRW), says it made repeated efforts to register, but that officials constantly changed the list of documents they require.
The peacekeeping force in Lebanon is boosting the local economy. Whether it will do anything else useful is less clear.
Juan Peron moves to a new resting place.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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