Morning Brief, Thursday, November 29

Global Economy

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

Wall Street traders lapped up Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn’s hint of a Dec. 11 rate cut, but his actual message was grim: Credit for businesses is drying up in a way not seen since 1973, when the Fed began tracking these flows.

Asia

A black-clad, teary-eyed Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as Pakistan’s president minutes before telling a crowd of foreign diplomats, “There is an unrealistic or even impractical obsession with your form of democracy, human rights and civil liberties, which you have taken centuries to acquire.”

Rebellious soldiers in Manila seized the Peninsula Hotel in Manila, demanded the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and then surrendered after a seven-hour standoff.

North Korea is expected to account for all of its nuclear secrets soon.

Middle East

Saudi Arabia arrested more than 200 militants accused of plotting attacks on oil facilities, clerics, and government forces. Earlier this week, the Saudis released some 1,500 ex-militants who said they had renounced their past views on jihad.

U.S. President George W. Bush held White House meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli PM Ehud Olmert Wednesday. He also appointed retired Gen. James L. Jones, a former NATO commander, to watch over the security arrangements.

Olmert told Haaretz in an interview that the two-state solution is Israel’s only hope.

In Iraq, U.S. combat deaths stayed down in November and another 6,000 Sunni Arabs have signed up to ally themselves with the United States.

Europe

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the only candidate who matters for the upcoming Duma elections.

The riots in the Paris suburbs appear to be ebbing. 

Sweden tops a new index of aid donors ranked by humanitarian effectiveness.

Elsewhere

“While President Uribe is president of Colombia I will have no type of relationship with him or with the government in Colombia,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced. And he’s now threatening to kick the U.S. envoy out of the country.

In Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani locked horns over which of the two Republican presidential contenders had been more indulgent toward illegal immigrants. And John McCain compared Ron Paul to Neville Chamberlain.

Rebel fighters in Chad are threatening to attack European peacekeepers.

Today’s Agenda

• President Bush hosts Elias Antonio Saca, the president of El Salvador. On the agenda: drugs, crime, and terrorism.
• Algeria is holding local elections.
• Today is the 60th anniversary of the U.N.’s failed 1947 partition plan for Palestine.
• America’s most-hated football team plays the Green Bay Packers.

Yesterday on Passport

• So, an Israeli and a Palestinian walk into a movie theater…
• The best foreign-policy books of the year
• Dawkins publisher may face prosecution in Turkey

Web Exclusive

• Seven Questions: Sandy Berger on the Prospects for Peace
  Was the Annapolis conference just a glorified photo shoot? Or could it lead to real peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Either way, “there is no going back,” says former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, a veteran of the Clinton-era peace negotiations.