Morning Brief, Friday, February 2

MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP Global Warming  We did it (global warming, that is). Some people think the new climate change report is too upbeat. Paris turned out the lights on the Eiffel Tour in recognition of the danger of global warming. As you can see, it made a huge dent in Paris’s energy use. Iraq and Middle ...

604317_eiffel_dark_05.jpg
604317_eiffel_dark_05.jpg

MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP

MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP

Global Warming 

We did it (global warming, that is). Some people think the new climate change report is too upbeat. Paris turned out the lights on the Eiffel Tour in recognition of the danger of global warming. As you can see, it made a huge dent in Paris’s energy use.

Iraq and Middle East

The exodus from Lebanon has begun.

Outgoing National Intelligence Director John Negroponte presented the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to President Bush yesterday. It’s grim.

Europe 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering the creation of a “gas OPEC.”

Going to Siberia? Don’t eat the orange snow.

Everybody knows that there’s a place called “Kosovo.” But do they know it’s going to be an independent state soon? 

Whether Ségolène Royal or Nicolas Sarkozy wins the presidency, one loser is already clear: the French establishment.

Elsewhere 

2006 was a good year for ExxonMobil, actually the most profitable year ever for any U.S. company. But Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez wants to take away some of the energy giant’s oil fields.

Quality may be “Job 1” at Ford, but the automaker is now No. 4 in the United States.

The president of Gambia says he can cure AIDS in only three days.

More from Foreign Policy

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment

Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.

How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China

As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.

What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal

Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.

A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.
A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.

Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust

Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.