Morning Coffee - 20 October 2009

Welcome to Morning Coffee, brought to you by Lindsay Beyerstein with additional links from the UN Dispatch team. Every morning we survey foreign affairs and foreign policy news so you don't have to. We begin with the "Starting Five" items of the day -- these may not always appear on A-1, but they *are* the kinds of stories that will be buzzing in foreign capitals, the UN and wherever foreign policy minds roam.
Starting Five
KARZAI SAID TO ACCEPT RUNOFF - Reports indicate Incumbent Afghan president Hamid Karzai will accept the UN election monitor's verdict that he received less than 50% of the vote in August's election. Since Karzai received less than an absolute majority, he will face first runner up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah in a run-off election. Karzai had publicly grumbled that the UN was using an invalid formula to calculate the true vote total, which was plagued by massive fraud. Link
MALDIVES HOLDS UNDERWATER CABINET MEETING - Ministers in the Maldives held a cabinet meeting at a table bolted to the floor of the Indian Ocean to highlight the threat of global warming. Rising sea levels threaten to swallow their tiny island nation, which is only a few meters above sea level. The agenda?...Signing a document calling on all nations to reduce their carbon emissions. Link
CHOPPER DOWN - Drug gangs shot down a police helicopter in Brazil. In response, the authorities dispatched 4,500 heavily armed officers into the slums of Rio to do battle with the gangs. Brazil has been gripped by a savage drug war between gangs and the state. This latest surge of violence raises questions about whether Rio will be secure enough to host the Olympics in 2016. Link
NEW SUDAN PLAN - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has unveiled a new plan for dealing with human rights in Sudan. The new policy includes both incentives and penalties for the pariah regime of Omar al-Bashir. Clinton called on Bashir to halt war crimes in Darfur and to negotiate a peace deal between the northern and southern halves of the country. The new strategy is the fruit of a recent review of U.S. policy in Sudan. Link
ANOTHER SWINE MESS - Agriculture officials say they've found the H1N1 virus in a pig in the United States. Pig Zero was a show pig at the Minnesota State Fair. Show pigs are isolated from farm pigs, but authorities expect swine flu to spread to the general agricultural swine population this year. U.S. officials are reportedly scrambling to reassure trading partners that the dreaded swine flu cannot be spread by eating pork products. Link
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