Author Matthew Cordell

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Matthew Cordell

Monday Morning Coffee

Obama won the S.C. democratic primary, and today he picks up a key endorsement. President Bush delivers his final State of the Union tonight. And Bono is engaging in iPod diplomacy.

Top Stories
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>>Right-wing ally of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra, Samak Sundaravej, was elected Prime Minister of Thailand, returning the nation to civilian rule. As well as being a former governor, PM Sundaravej was once a popular TV chef. Some suspect that his only goal as PM will be to rescind the five-year political ban on Shinawatra, so that he can then return to his former position. 

>>In what appears to be Kikuyu retribution for previous violence undertaken by opposition leader Odinga's Luo tribe, gangs armed with rods and machetes rampaged through Rift Valley towns over the weekend, leaving up to 70 dead.  In Naivasha, the home of Kenya's flower industry, eight were burned alive locked inside a house.  In a continuing effort to stem the violence, former Secretary General Kofi Annan met with opposition leader Odinga.

>>In some of the worst violence in Beirut in two decade, eight were shot dead during protests over electricity rationing.  According to Lebanon's military, generally considered impartial, it is not yet clear who is responsible.  The dead have been identified as Hezbollah members of the Amal opposition.   

>>As Russia completed the last of eight uranium shipments for Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor, the Kremlin has barred Michael Kasyanov, the last liberal opponent of Dmitri Medvedev, from the presidential election, claiming that a significant portion of the signatures he needed to register his candidacy were faked. 

>>Former Indonesian dictator Suharto died yesterday after a protracted illness that left the country split on whether he was 'father of the nation' or a 'criminal.'

>>Representatives from more than 100 nations met in Bali at a UN anti-corruption conference to develop new ways to stem the flow of billions of dollars taken by corrupt governments from their people.

Quotes of the Day

"There will be no celebration. I will continue with my normal life."
-New Thai PM Samak Sundaravej

"We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and sisters who have been killed, and nothing will stop us,"
-Anthony Mwangi, Kikuyu involved in the bloodshed over the weekend

Friday Morning Coffee

Roger Federer's grand slam winning streak finally came to an end.  The wife of a Fairfax county school administrator left a message on the answering machine of a student who called her husband at home...and it is all the rage on YouTube.

Top Stories

>>The five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany have agreed on a draft resolution enacting a new round of sanctions against Iran -- including a new restriction on those exporting to Iran and a stricter ban on travel for Iranian nuclear scientists. It is unlikely that the resolution will be introduced in the Council until next month, at which time Iran has agreed to the IAEA to answer remaining questions on its nuclear program.

>>Brazil announced yesterday that the rate of Amazon rainforest destruction increased roughly 400 percent from August to December 2007.  President Lula da Silva has vowed a 25 percent increase in the region's police force.

>>U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates said that the U.S. was prepared to send troops to assist Pakistan in fighting militants. Meanwhile, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir have killed a top commander of the pro-Pakistani Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami militant group, who was the mastermind of three bombings in Uttar Pradesh last November.

>>The EU member states' foreign ministers are expected to agree to a 1,800-person stabilization force for Kosovo on Monday, under the expectation that it will soon declare independence from Serbia.  Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has said that it is only a matter of days.

>>Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi has resigned after losing a vote of confidence in the Senate.  President Giorgio Napolitano is holding emergency meetings with political leaders in an effort to avoid snap elections.

>>Amid continuing violence, warring Kenyan political leaders met for the first time face to face, along with Kofi Annan, who is facilitating the negotiations. Even the most optimistic analysts agree that this is at best the first step in a long process.

The Rest of the Story

Thursday Morning Coffee

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>>Jason Green, who works at an Australian crocodile farm, was attacked by a female of the species only to subsequently shot by a colleague trying to save him. Green survived and is now recuperating post surgery.

Top Stories

>>Egyptian authorities today began to stop the flow of an estimated 350,000 Palestinians who have entered from Gaza through 17 gaps blown in the border wall. According to at least one border guard, Hamas was responsible and had been weakening the wall for months using "oxy-acetylene cutting torches.

>>In preparation for this summer's Olympic Games, Beijing is cleansing both environmentally and socially. Prior to the August event, "problem" citizens, including prostitutes and the homeless, will be relocated. The Beijing Times has reported that the Chinese motor traffic during the games, pulling an estimated 1.65 million cars off the road. In the meantime, athletes are preparing face masks, trying special diets, and delaying their arrivals due to pollution.

>>The European Commission proposed sweeping measures to reduce carbon emissions (20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020) and promote the use of renewable energy sources (20 percent of all power). Responsibilities have been suggested for individual nations, and some are none too happy.

>>The WHO has created a database to keep tabs on avian flu strains collected around the world.

Quote of the Day
  • "In my opinion boxers are probably the finest athletes in the world. But they didn't think they could make it three rounds in Beijing."
    -Frank Filiberto, a physician for the U.S. boxing team
Yesterday in UN Dispatch The Rest of the Story

Wednesday Morning Coffee

Oscar nominations were released yesterday. If you haven't seen No Country for Old Men yet, do yourself a favor. Meanwhile, the Fed made the largest interest rate cut in over 20 years.

In other news:

>>The five UN permanent representatives to the Security Council and Germany reached a deal yesterday on a third round of sanctions, a "moderate tigthening," against Iran. The resolution will be introduced in the Security Council "in the next few days." In the meantime, Shrek, Elmo and Spongebob Square Pants hit hard by existing sanctions.

>>Russia continued to flex its muscles at the UK by practising strike tactics and test-launching nuclear-capable missles yesterday in the Bay of Biscay. RAF fighters were scrambled. Meanwhile, a criminal investigation was launched against Russian opposition leader, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, putting his Presidential candidacy in doubt. Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's chosen successor launched his campaign.

>>The junta that ousted Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 has stepped down, a day after a newly elected parliament was sworn in. The parliament is dominated by the Shinawatra-friendly People's Power party, which promises to bring him home from exile.

The End of an Error Quote of the Day

"We might be deprived of BMWs but we still have the Nissans and the Peugeots of the world. And if you've been in an [Iranian] Paykan, then a Peugeot seems great."
Bijan Khajepour, chairman of the Atieh Group business consultancy, on sanctions against Iran

The Rest of the Story

Tuesday Morning Coffee

Over the long weekend, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney won the Nevada caucuses, while John McCain outlasted the dirty politics of South Carolina. Last night the Dems had a firey debate in Myrtle Beach (C&L has video. )

In Other News...

>>The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and rebel general Laurent Nkunda have reached a peace agreement possibly ending a conflict in eastern DRC that has driven 400,000 people from their homes and threatened the fragile, newly elected government. United Nations peacekeeping forces will maintain a buffer zone between the two forces.


Prince Charles in holographic message to energy summit

>>The five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany are meeting in Berlin to discuss a possible third Security Council sanctions resolution to further pressure Iran to dismantle what some believe is a nascent nuclear weapons program. Russia and China have hardened their position against sanctions in light of the National Intelligence Estimate released earlier this year that stated that Iran discontinued its program in 2003.

>> Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi called for votes of confidence in both the Chamber of Deputies, where he has a decisive majority, and the Senate, where victory is not so certain. Prodi's coalition took a hit yesterday when a small Catholic party led by the Justice Minister, Clemente Mastella, quit. Mastella is under investigation for corruption.

>>Stock markets around the world declined yesterday amid fears that the U.S. economy is in recession. Analysts see this as a blow to the theory of "decoupling," which suggests that markets in Europe and Asia are now less dependent on the U.S. economy.

Climate Change News of the Weird
  • Prince Charles reduced his carbon footprint by appearing as a hologram at an alternative energy summit in Abu Dhabi.
  • Lower-altitude ski resorts, endangered by climate change, are selling for $1.
  • The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala has received a grant to measure the greenhouse gases emitted when cows belch.
The Rest of the Story

Outlook on Bali and American Involvement

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing yesterday on the upcoming climate negotiations in Bali. While many have noted that the prevailing idea seems to be that the world is in a holding pattern for the next U.S. President to see how the post-Kyoto agreement will shake out, we shouldn't give up hope that there can be significant forward movement in the short term, at least according to two former climate negotiators who testified.

‘The Diplomat’?

This story in today's Times, reporting the State Department's announcement that a "team of American experts had arrived at North Korea's sole functioning nuclear reactor and begun the work of disabling the facilities," reminded me that I've been wanting to write about John Bolton's recent destructive tactics with regard to North Korea and Iran. Bear with me. If you haven't been following the Syrian-North Korea story, on September 6 the Israeli Air Force attacked a site inside the borders of Syria that "Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons." According to the same Times article:

Many details remain unclear, most notably how much progress the Syrians had made in construction before the Israelis struck, the role of any assistance provided by North Korea, and whether the Syrians could make a plausible case that the reactor was intended to produce electricity. In Washington and Israel, information about the raid has been wrapped in extraordinary secrecy and restricted to just a handful of officials, while the Israeli press has been prohibited from publishing information about the attack.

Boiling down the UNCLOS “debate”

While Gail Collins's shtick on the political attention being paid to the Convention on the Law of the Sea does her readers a bit of a disservice considering its actual importance, her column in Saturday's Times does a pretty good job of boiling down the "debate."