Morning Coffee - 2 November 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
INCLUDE ME OUT - The independent election commission in Afghanistan has declared Hamid Karzai the winner of Afghanistan's presidential race after the runoff ballot was cancelled due to Abdullah Abdullah's dropping out of the race. Abdullah, the former foreign minister, said he was dropping out because nobody listened to his recommendations to prevent pro-Karzai forces from repeating the massive fraud that necessitated the runoff vote in the first place. Link
MORE VIOLENCE IN PAKISTAN - Two suicide bombers staged attacks in Pakistan today, killing at least 35 and injuring at least 7. The first blast occurred in the town of Rawalpindi, and appeared to be targeting army personnel picking up their paychecks at the National Bank. The second blast hit a police checkpoint in Lahore. Link
BRAZIL WEIGHS BOLD ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE - Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc announced last week that his country is studying ways to deeply cut carbon emissions. The plan could slash Brazil's carbon emissions by 40% vs. it's current projected output for 2020. Brazil is expected to be a leader in climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December. Minc also said that Brazil favors a UN-backed plan for forest conservation. Deforestation, particularly slash and burn agriculture in the Amazon, is a major cause of global warming. Link
BAN LAUDS OBAMA FOR LIFTING HIV TRAVEL BAN - Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised President Barack Obama for announcing that the ban on HIV positive visitors to the U.S. would be lifted. Reducing the stigma of HIV has been a major priority for Ban as Secretary General. “I urge all other countries with such restrictions to take steps to remove them at the earliest,” he said. About 60 countries still have travel restrictions for people with HIV. Link
POLAR BEAR CARE - Canada and Greenland have agreed to work together to manage cross-border polar bear populations. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, on Friday. They agreed to cooperate to set sustainable hunting quotas ("total allowable harvest"). Biologists have argued that current levels of polar bear hunting are not sustainable. Link
Provocateurs
Greg Grandin in THE NATION
"The Honduran crisis may soon be over. Maybe. The leader of the coup government, Roberto Micheletti, agreed to a nine-point plan to end the country's political impasse, brokered by Thomas Shannon, the former US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Barack Obama's yet-to-be-confirmed ambassador to Brazil. The deal would return Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president deposed in a military coup four months ago, to office; in exchange, the international community will end Honduras' diplomatic isolation and recognize upcoming presidential elections, scheduled for November 29. "
Sue Halpern i in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
"This past July, a little over a year after the United Nations Security Council finally declared rape a crime of war, the parents of Taraneh Mousavi, a twenty-eight-year-old beautician from Tehran, received a call from an anonymous stranger. The young woman had been missing for weeks, ever since she'd attended a post-election rally at the Ghoba mosque; it was rumored that she was being held by Basiji militiamen. The caller said that Mousavi had had "an accident," and was in the hospital with "tears in her womb and her anus." Mousavi's parents rushed to the place where she was supposed to be, but she wasn't there. They still have not found her—or her body. "
Martin Sieff in THE DAILY BEAST
"Many spies are gray, anonymous men who were always misfits and developed extreme bitterness because they never achieved the eminence they craved. That kind of motivation certainly fueled Jonathan Pollard, who gave massive quantities of intelligence to Israel in the 1980s, and Aldrich Ames, who betrayed U.S. espionage assets to the Soviet Union dooming them to torture and execution. Nozette exhibited the out of control narcissism and egocentricity typical of many spies. But his case is unusual because his career had in fact been distinguished and satisfying for so long."
Water Cooler

A leaked report shows that the House Ethics Committee is investigating 19 sitting lawmakers. Many of those under investigation sit on the Defense Committee. Investigators are probing everything from home mortgages to Caribbean junkets to earmark abuse. Paul Kane of the Washington Post is trying to spin the report as proof that the secretive Ethics Committee really takes its work seriously. But the real question is not how much dirt the committee digs up, but whether it finds the courage to discipline the offenders.

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