Morning Brief, Wednesday, December 6

Iraq

The Iraq Study Group (a.k.a. the Baker Commission) will release its findings at 11:00 a.m. EST today. The press conference promises to be the Washington equivalent of the Nintendo Wii launch, but President Bush has said the report is just one of many ideas.

PM Nouri al-Maliki now favors a regional conference on Iraq’s future, joining Kofi Annan and the Arab League. President Jalal Talibani, a Kurd, and Shi’ite kingmaker Abdel Aziz al-Hakim oppose the idea.

Washington

Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates was approved unanimously by the Armed Services Committee yesterday (transcript), and the full Senate will likely confirm him today.

Mary Cheney, Vice President Cheney’s openly gay daughter, is expecting her first baby in the spring.

Europe

German PM Angela Merkel backed off her call for an 18-month deadline for Turkey to allow trade with Cyprus, which is an EU member.

Elsewhere

Chinese bureaucrats are aiming for 8% growth next year. That would actually be a slowdown from this year’s 10.7% (so far). 

Hezbollah supporters remain camped out in Lebanon’s main square. Their aim is to bring down the pro-Western government.

Egyptian police arrested twelve Westerners, including one American, for plotting terrorist attacks in Iraq and beyond.

The contract of Nawaf Obaid, a consultant to the Saudi government who warned starkly last week in the Washington Post that the Saudis would intervene to protect Iraq’s Sunni Arabs if the U.S. withdraws, was cancelled by the Saudi ambassador.

A struggling Yahoo! announces a major overhaul aimed at catching up with the Google juggernaut. Good luck with that.