Morning Brief: Meet Obama’s national security team
Top Story U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name his national security team during today’s press conference in Chicago. The lineup: Robert Gates at defense, Hillary Clinton at state, Gen. James L. Jones (ret.) as national security advisor, and Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations (with cabinet rank). He’s also expected to ...
Top Story
Top Story
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name his national security team during today’s press conference in Chicago.
The lineup: Robert Gates at defense, Hillary Clinton at state, Gen. James L. Jones (ret.) as national security advisor, and Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations (with cabinet rank). He’s also expected to name Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as head of homeland security and Eric Holder as attorney general (the intel team is not quite ready).
What will they do in office? It’s too early to tell, but all of these folks, David Sanger observes, “have embraced a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.”
The press conference is at 10:40 a.m. ET.
Americas
The Pentagon plans to shift 20,000 troops for homeland security duties in the United States.
Asia
The Indian public is demanding accountability for the Mumbai attacks. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is heading to New Delhi this week to show solidarity with India.
Thailand is turning to the Constitutional Court to resolve its political crisis, but protesters have maintained their grip on the airport just in case.
North Korea has carried out its threat to close the border with South Korea.
Chinese President Hu Jintao warned that “China’s traditional competitive advantage is being gradually weakened” as the global economy goes into recession. China’s manufacturing sector is slowing rapidly.
A car bomb killed eight people in Pakistan’s Swat valley.
Middle East and Africa
Israel’s navy turned back a Libyan ship that was bringing 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
At least 32 people have been killed in bomb attacks in Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq. Also, the civilian death toll rose in November.
Europe
Britain is flirting with the euro.
Romania’s general elections, the first since joining the EU, are too close to call.
A senior German general says his country’s performance in Afghanistan has been a “miserable failure.”
Today’s Agenda
NATO foreign ministers meet this week in Brussels to discuss Georgia and Ukraine.
Today is World AIDS Day.
Poznan, Poland, hosts two weeks of U.N.-sponsored climate talks.
Photo: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
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