Morning Brief, Thursday, April 19

Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images Middle East The death toll in Baghdad from yesterday’s bombings has climbed to at least 171, and another suicide attacker rammed into a fuel truck today, killing 11. Iran’s Supreme Court overturned the convictions of six members of a volunteer militia with a history of both radicalism and ties to clerical leaders ...

By , a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
602473_070418_fueltruck_05.jpg
602473_070418_fueltruck_05.jpg

Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

Middle East

The death toll in Baghdad from yesterday’s bombings has climbed to at least 171, and another suicide attacker rammed into a fuel truck today, killing 11.

Iran’s Supreme Court overturned the convictions of six members of a volunteer militia with a history of both radicalism and ties to clerical leaders for killing five “morally corrupt” individuals.

Iran is operating over 1,300 centrifuges for processing uranium, higher than previous Western estimates.

Iraq may hold twice as much oil as once thought.

Europe

Nicolas Sarkozy, the likely next president of France, is a Yankee Doodle Dandy—or so the Washington Post reports.

U.S. and Russian officials will talk Thursday in Brussels on U.S. plans to install a missile shield in Eastern Europe.  

Asia

The fallout from the Virgina Tech shootings continues to roil Asia. South Koreans recoil in horror at revelations that the shooter was Korean, while the Chinese government criticized U.S. media outlets, several of which originally identified a Chinese student as the murderer. And in Taiwan, two legislators falsely reported that students had been taken hostage at a top university, ostensibly to test the police’s response time. 

China’s economy grew at an 11.1 percent clip in the first quarter of 2007. And more of it came from doing business with areas of the world other than the United States.

Did Yahoo! abet torture in China

Elsewhere

Gun battles continue to rage in Somalia between insurgents and Ethiopian troops as the son of a notorious warlord, who happens to be a former U.S. Marine, announced an anti-Ethiopian alliance.

Nigeria’s military says it killed some 25 radical Islamic extremists. Nigeria’s presidential elections are slated for Saturday.

Peru’s coca growers are escalating their protests over the Peruvian government’s stepped-up eradication program.

Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.

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