Morning Brief, Monday, January 29

Iraq and Middle East QASSEM ZEIN/AFP/Getty Images Three Israelis are dead after a suicide bomb attack in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. Multiple Palestinian groups are taking credit. Meanwhile, the factional fighting goes on in Gaza. Iran’s ambassador to Iraq says his country plans to expand ties with its neighbor, despite the increasingly ...

By , a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
604479_scorpion_brigade_05.jpg
604479_scorpion_brigade_05.jpg

Iraq and Middle East

Iraq and Middle East

QASSEM ZEIN/AFP/Getty Images

Three Israelis are dead after a suicide bomb attack in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. Multiple Palestinian groups are taking credit. Meanwhile, the factional fighting goes on in Gaza.

Iran’s ambassador to Iraq says his country plans to expand ties with its neighbor, despite the increasingly aggressive moves from the United States.

The U.S. military says that 250-300 insurgents are dead after a pitched battle for Najaf on the eve of the Shiite religious holiday of Ashura. The insurgents were apparently hoping to kill senior Shiite clerics.

Lebanon is on the brink of civil war, warns Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor

Europe

How about a Chunnel between Spain and Morocco? A Swiss firm is drafting the blueprints.

Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein promises to cooperate with the police for the first time.

Asia

Are India’s markets heading for a correction? The Financial Times thinks so

Hamid Karzai is ready for peace talks with the Taliban. 

Elsewhere 

Small-scale fighting in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. In next-door Ethiopia, U.N. chief Ban Ki Moon called for joint U.N.-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.

Give credit to Davos for sparking a mini-revival of Doha Round trade talks. The Economist is excited that the EU and the United States now seem serious about a deal.

Russia came to Davos with a mission this year: to fix its image in the West. 

Vista, Microsoft’s first new operating system in five years, hits stores tomorrow.

Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.

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