Morning Brief, Wednesday, April 25
Outer Space Gliese 581 c, a new planet just 20.5 light-years away, could have the right conditions to support life, a team of Swiss scientists say. It’s not often you find a press release punctuated with exclamation points, but if this “new super-Earth” doesn’t merit it, I don’t know what does. Read the scientific paper ...
Outer Space
Outer Space
Gliese 581 c, a new planet just 20.5 light-years away, could have the right conditions to support life, a team of Swiss scientists say. It’s not often you find a press release punctuated with exclamation points, but if this “new super-Earth” doesn’t merit it, I don’t know what does. Read the scientific paper here (pdf).
Middle East
The U.S. House of Representatives will likely pass a bill today that sets a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
The U.S. military says it killed a top al Qaeda leader in Iraq.
Europe
Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush were among those paying their respects to Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Communist president, who died on Monday of heart failure.
Meanwhile, in today’s Russia, Gazprom is moving to sell CO2 credits to Europe along with its gas, and Russia’s finance minister has transformed a country wracked by debt crises into a model of fiscal restraint.
This just in: Turkey’s got a religious middle class.
Asia
Bird flu is quietly killing about one person per week in Indonesia. If bird flu doesn’t kill you, China’s food exports very well might.
Beijing announced a special Chinese version of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act on Tuesday.
The Chinese government detained four U.S. citizens who were protesting the Beijing Olympics and calling for a “free Tibet” at the base of Mount Everest.
Heading to the United States on Friday, Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe will no doubt face questions about his handling of the sex slaves controversy.
Elsewhere
Ethiopian separatists killed over 70 people in a brazen attack on a Chinese-run oil installation. It could be just the tip of the iceberg for Chinese companies in Africa.
Somalia’s transitional government has sewn the seeds of it own destruction.
The number of annual deaths due to climate change will rise to 300,000 by 2030, according to a forthcoming World Health Organization estimate.
The Nigerian elections were bad, but Umaru Yar’Adua, the winner, is good, the Washington Post reports. The Economist slams Yar’Adua as “barely credible,” however.
Mexico City legalized first-trimester abortions.
More from Foreign Policy
A New Multilateralism
How the United States can rejuvenate the global institutions it created.
America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.
The Endless Frustration of Chinese Diplomacy
Beijing’s representatives are always scared they could be the next to vanish.
The End of America’s Middle East
The region’s four major countries have all forfeited Washington’s trust.
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