FPI Overnight Brief: March 10, 2010

Iran

After keeping a careful distance for the last year, the Obama administration has concluded that the Iranian opposition movement has staying power and has embraced it as a central element in the U.S.-led campaign to pressure the country's clerical government.  Administration officials and some allied governments believe that a combination of domestic unrest and international sanctions targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard offers the best hope for forcing Tehran to yield on its nuclear program, and could even lead to a change in the government.  The administration has made the shift at a time when it is facing sharp domestic criticism over President Obama's failed initiative to launch negotiations with Iran and its perceived unwillingness to strongly back the opposition movement. Meanwhile, the protests sparked by June's disputed presidential election in Iran grew despite a tough crackdown. – Los Angeles Times

Ever since the disputed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June elections led to wide-scale protests, Iran's leaders have been cracking down on the tech-savvy opposition movement with the Revolutionary Guard and police blocking millions of foreign and domestic Web sites, including some Google services, CNN and the BBC. Iran's leaders say these measures are necessary to counter efforts by the United States and other Western countries. "They are trying to defeat the Islamic republic through the Internet," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said in January…Iranian authorities have created cyber-intelligence units that are developing new methods to seek out and snare the opposition, including fake Facebook accounts. Authorities also are contemplating the creation of a national Internet that would approve which sites could be available in the Islamic republic. The government has also enacted a law that threatens bloggers with jail time if they "defame sanctities" -- a broad accusation in Iran -- in their postings. – Washington Post

The outlook for imposing tough new U.N. sanctions on Iran is increasingly grim, as Russia and China work to slow down a U.S. and European drive for swift action, Israel's U.N. envoy said on Tuesday. The United States, Britain, France and Germany have agreed on a watered-down proposal for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and given it to Russia and China for comments. Russia's initial reaction has been negative and China has not reacted, Western diplomats say. "It now seems that Russia and China are still dragging their legs and they are still looking to the diplomatic track," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev told reporters at U.N. headquarters. "We are more than suspicious because these diplomatic overtures took over the last years and the Iranians are mocking them," she said. Western diplomats say they had hoped to get a sanctions resolution through the Security Council next month but that timeframe is now looking increasingly unrealistic. - Reuters

Iran's conservative-dominated parliament has slashed much of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's proposed energy and food subsidy cuts, intensifying a battle over legislation that has the potential of stoking more unrest in the country. The parliament approved $20 billion in cuts, or just half of the savings demanded by Ahmadinejad's government. Lawmakers have said they feared the full $40 billion in cuts would have prompted a 50 percent surge in inflation.  Iran's economy is already struggling under double-digit inflation, high unemployment and sanctions imposed by world powers suspicious of Tehran's nuclear program. The proposed reductions aim at cutting by 40 percent the amount the government spends on subsidies per year. The vote late Tuesday in parliament followed a refusal by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to take sides, effectively giving lawmakers the green light to move ahead. – Associated Press

Israel

Israeli officials are beginning to signal impatience with the slow pace of diplomacy aimed at restraining Iran's nuclear ambitions.  In Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stressed the need for the international community to join a U.S. sanctions push aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear program. He suggested the Iranian leadership's days could be numbered if it continues to seek nuclear capability.  "The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to choose between advancing its nuclear program and advancing the future of its own permanence," Netanyahu said. He added: "I think that the international community and the leading countries in the international community have to join the American effort. And Israel has been helping out with key countries and continues to do so." Netanyahu's message is being reinforced by his deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, who arrived in Washington on Tuesday for urgent meetings on Iran with senior State Department and White House officials, including Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns and White House nuclear expert Gary Samore.  Ayalon traveled to Washington to emphasize Israel's growing displeasure and nervousness with the sanctions debate at the U.N. Security Council, according to a senior Israeli official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive diplomacy.  – Washington Post

Israel's oldest civil servant, 83-year-old Ministry of Defense adviser Uri Lubrani, has spent his career defying conventional wisdom on Iran. Today, Israel's political and military establishment appears to be tilting toward one of his long-ignored views: Israeli support for Iran's opposition movement—and not a military strike—is the best way to combat the regime in Tehran. Israeli officials have regularly suggested the country is ready to attack Iran to curb its nuclear program, which some Israelis view as a threat to the country's existence.  After the rise of the Iranian protest movement following disputed elections in June, Israeli leaders toned down the rhetoric. In February, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting Moscow, said Israel wasn't "planning any wars" against Tehran.  Instead, U.S. and Israeli officials are pushing for tough economic sanctions they hope will drive a bigger wedge between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the opposition. – Wall Street Journal

All options "should remain on the table" to force Iran to stop its nuclear program, Israel's top general said on Tuesday during a visit to New York. Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of Israel's armed forces, said Iran was the main threat to world peace and accused the Islamic Republic of trying to create instability in the Middle East by funding and equipping militants. "These reflect the Iranian attempts to harvest regional instability through its proxies -- Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations," Ashkenazi told a dinner hosted by the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, "Therefore the international community must stop the Iranian nuclear program for its own sake, while all options should remain on the table," he said at the event, which drew about 100 pro-Palestinian protesters. In November, an Israeli official said Ashkenazi told a parliamentary panel that Israel was readying all options to try to force Iran to halt its nuclear program and had suggested diplomatic or economic sanctions may also help. - Reuters

Middle East

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived [in the West Bank] on Wednesday to meet with Palestinian leaders as the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, expressed dismay at Israel’s announcement a day earlier that it planned to build 1,600 new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem  “It is damaging, for sure,” Mr. Fayyad said. “This is a moment of challenge to the efforts led by the United States to get the peace process going again. We definitely appreciate the strong statements of condemnation by the administration vis-à-vis this action. This definitely undermines confidence in prospects of the political process which we are all working very hard on.”  Mr. Biden was due to see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas afterward.  Hours after Mr. Biden vowed unyielding American support for Israel’s security here on Tuesday, Mr. Biden condemned the announcement of the new housing as “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.”  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was clearly embarrassed at the move by his interior minister, Eli Yishai, leader of the right-wing Shas Party, who has made Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem one of his central causes.  A statement issued in the name of the Interior Ministry but distributed by the prime minister’s office said that the housing plan was three years in the making and that its announcement was procedural and unrelated to Mr. Biden’s visit. It added that Mr. Netanyahu had just been informed of it himself. – New York Times

Top Egyptian cleric Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, whose moderate views angered conservative Muslims, died of a heart attack Wednesday during a visit to Saudi Arabia, the state-owned news agency reported. He was 81. Tantawi was the grand sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's pre-eminent theological institute. Sunni Islam is the faith's mainstream sect, to which the majority of Egypt's 80 million people adhere. Tantawi was a moderate scholar and supporter of women's rights whose views made him a frequent target of criticism from fundamentalist Muslims. Most recently, he infuriated conservatives late last year by barring women from wearing the full face veil known as the niqab at Al-Azhar University. That step was part of the intensifying struggle between the moderate Islam championed by the state and a populace that is turning to a stricter version of the faith. The Middle East News Agency said Tantawi died Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, where he attended a religious ceremony. Saudi officials said he will be buried in the Baqee cemetery in the Saudi holy city of Medina near the shrine of Prophet Muhammad. – Associated Press

Kuwait's Parliament’s committee for women and family affairs will propose legislation this month in an effort to end discrimination against women, the MP Aseel al Awadhi said at a forum celebrating International Women’s Day in Kuwait on Monday. The bill will focus on changing laws that prevent Kuwaiti women who marry non-Kuwaitis from passing citizenship to their children and try to boost the number of women in top positions in the government and judiciary. “We’re working on some changes to some laws that actually don’t treat men and women equally in their civil rights, especially in promotions and getting positions of leadership within the government institutions,” Ms al Awadhi said at the forum, adding that she expects a tough battle to get the measure through parliament. – The National

Iraq

Iraq’s electoral commission said Tuesday that it would announce partial results of parliamentary elections on Wednesday, providing an incomplete picture of the vote that will nevertheless provide the broad outlines of the country’s political landscape.  Party officials have acknowledged that after Sunday’s voting, a relatively small number of seats may separate Iraq’s leading coalitions, a sign that negotiations to form a new government could be protracted. Although the slates of candidates led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister, appear to be doing best, officials with a predominantly Shiite Muslim coalition predicted they would come in third and perhaps second.  The Kurds were expected to fare well, too. Turnout in the three provinces of the autonomous region they control in northern Iraq was among the highest in the country.  “I think all the major four alliances have won between 60 to 90 seats each,” said Hadi al-Ameri, a lawmaker and candidate with the Iraqi National Alliance, the largely Shiite Muslim coalition. “The other major lists won between 5 to 10 seats each.” – New York Times

As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear "package" deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector. The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years. But Iraq lost the chance to capitalize when, months later, a multinational force crushed the Iraqi army and forced Hussein to abandon his nuclear ambitions, according to nuclear weapons expert David Albright, who describes the proposed deal in a new book.  Iraqi officials at the time appear to have taken the offer seriously and asked the Pakistanis for sample drawings as proof of their ability to deliver, the documents show. "With the assurance of [Iraqi intelligence agency] Mukhabarat . . . the offer is not a sting operation," an Iraqi official scrawls in ink in the margin of one of the papers. – Washington Post

With vote counting under way but incomplete, Iraq’s political parties have begun to jockey for position, with the three major blocs all claiming a strong showing in Sunday’s election. The State of Law coalition, headed by the prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, won in key provinces, according to early indicators collected from polling centres. Ayad Allawi, the leader of the Iraqiyya list, appeared to be his main challenger. A senior Iraqi official with access to privileged election information, said initial indications put Mr Allawi ahead in Mosul, Anbar, Diyala and Salahadin. Mr al Maliki was in front in Baghdad, Basra, Karbala and Babil. The official, who is not affiliated to any party and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mr al Maliki appeared strongest nationwide. If accurate, these results would be a blow to the Iraq National Alliance, a largely Shiite coalition made up of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and the Sadrists, followers of the cleric Muqtada al Sadr. They had been tipped as strong contenders. – The National

The War

Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill "or die trying," a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday. Colleen R. LaRose, who dubbed herself "JihadJane," was so intent on waging jihad, authorities said, that she traveled to Sweden to kill an artist in a way that would frighten "the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world." With blond hair and green eyes, the 46-year-old woman bragged that she could go anywhere undetected, boasting in one e-mail that it was "an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for" jihad, or holy war, the indictment said. "Only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target!" she wrote. – Los Angeles Times

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the possibility Wednesday that some of the U.S. forces involved in the Afghanistan surge could leave the country before President Barack Obama's announced July 2011 date to begin withdrawal. Without giving specifics, Gates said, "It would have to be conditions-based." Gates made the remarks during a visit to a dust-blown training ground in Kabul province where Afghan soldiers come for weeks of training under U.S. and British instruction. British Brigadier Simon Levy told Gates that if NATO countries contribute more trainers, the project to expand the Afghan army will keep pace. In a press conference with Gates, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said his country is ashamed to have foreigners assuming its defense, and eager to take over the job. He referred repeatedly to the goal of some handover of responsibility by the fall of next year. The goal is to expand the Afghan Natonal Army to 171,000 by then, and the police force to 134,000. "I hope by that time we will be able to have the responsibility for the physical security of the country in different regions," Wardak said. "That process will continue as we go further and the numbers increase and our capabilites increase." Gates said, "We will begin that transition no later than July of 2011, but the pace will depend also on conditions on the ground." Still, the Pentagon chief said, "We should not be too impatient." – Associated Press

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Afghans on Wednesday to push energetically for a peace settlement with Taliban insurgents and said Afghanistan's neighbors must support such an agreement. Miliband's conciliatory comments, in a speech to be given in the United States later on Wednesday, reflect growing acceptance in the West that Taliban fighters who break ties to al Qaeda have a role to play in the country's future. "Now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort," Miliband said in excerpts published in advance of a speech he is to give at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In a separate appearance in Boston on Tuesday night, Miliband said there was no longer a military solution for Afghanistan. "The truth about an insurgency and a counterinsurgency is that it's never ended militarily, it's only ended politically," he said at a Kennedy Library foreign affairs forum. - Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived on Wednesday for a visit to Afghanistan, after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he was wary of Tehran's influence in the country. With careful timing that Gates described as "clearly fodder for all conspiratorialists," Ahmadinejad arrived in Kabul just before Gates departed at the end of his own three-day visit. Earlier this week, Gates accused Tehran of playing a "double game" in Afghanistan, professing support for President Hamid Karzai's government while trying to undermine the U.S.-led military effort that protects it. Speaking to reporters before departing on Wednesday, Gates said he had told Karzai Washington wanted Kabul to have "good relations with all of its neighbors." "But we also want all of Afghanistan's neighbors to play an up front game dealing with the government of Afghanistan." Washington, which will have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year, says it believes Iran provides some support for militants there, although not nearly on the same scale as in Iraq, another Iranian neighbor where U.S. troops are fighting. - Reuters

Defense

When President Obama got on the telephone with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia last month, he was under the impression that they were finally close to wrapping up a long-delayed arms control treaty that he had originally expected to sign in December.  But to Mr. Obama’s surprise, Mr. Medvedev was not ready to sign off on a deal and raised issues that required more discussion, American officials said. As he hung up, the officials said, a frustrated Mr. Obama realized that the two sides were not as close as he had thought and sent negotiators back to the table.  The fitful effort to fashion a treaty that would be a signature achievement of his presidency has demonstrated the hurdles Mr. Obama faces in his drive to reset relations with Russia after years of tension.  After months of delay and discord, administration officials said, they have learned that when it comes to deal-making with Moscow, nothing is done until it is done, and rarely will it go as smoothly as anticipated.  Negotiators are making a fresh effort this week to break the logjam and finish by the end of the month, so they can showcase the new treaty at an international summit meeting on nuclear nonproliferation that Mr. Obama will host in Washington in April. Underscoring his determination to seal the deal, he sent Ellen Tauscher, the under secretary of state for arms control, to Geneva to help resolve remaining differences, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to travel to Moscow next week.  – New York Times

The U.S. Air Force plans to spend more than $800 million to build a new nuclear-armed cruise missile for its bomber aircraft, according to little-noticed details buried inside the Obama administration's fiscal 2011 budget request delivered last month to Capitol Hill.  A "Follow-on Long-Range Stand-off Vehicle," or LRSO for short, would replace 375 aging AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missiles, expected to retire from the fleet by 2030. The Defense Department has estimated the new effort could cost a total $1.3 billion, Global Security Newswire has learned. "The current system is experiencing obsolescence of parts [and] components," the Air Force stated in one budget document. "Missile components and support equipment are becoming non-supportable." The service is closely monitoring "critical components" -- such as the missile's fuse, guidance and electrical power systems -- for age-related malfunctions, according to the text.  – Global Security Newswire

The White House cautioned March 9 it would not "rush" a long-awaited new arms reduction treaty with Moscow, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the deal could be ready within three weeks. Russian and U.S. negotiators have been holding intensive talks to agree a new treaty to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that expired in December without a successor agreement in place. The talks have been complicated by disagreements over a range of issues, including U.S. plans for a missile defense system in eastern Europe. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said both sides were working through the last remaining sticking points in the way of agreeing a new treaty and that the U.S. side hoped for a successful conclusion "in short order." But Gibbs also appeared to hint that the Americans would not fast-track the process just to get a new deal signed before President Barack Obama's nuclear nonproliferation summit in Washington in April. "If it takes, quite frankly, many more weeks past April to get something that we believe is in our best interest, then we're not looking to rush the negotiations," to allow time for a pre-summit signing ceremony, Gibbs said. – AFP

China

China has hit back at a report in The Times that it is behind a surge in international cyber attacks, saying that it is as much a victim of such attacks as any other country and opposes internet warfare. The Global Times, an English-language newspaper run by The People’s Daily, quoted Li Daguang, a military expert, as saying that some Western powers may have adopted a strategy to sabotage China’s IT development by exaggerating the threat it poses. The expert from the National Defence University said: ‘The high-profile criticism of China’s cyber abilities in The Times report is essentially a pre-emptive strike on China.” The Times reported this week that cyber attacks originating from China were increasing rapidly and had hit government and military institutions in the United States. EU systems were so vulnerable that restrictions have been placed on the normal flow of intelligence. – Times of London

A top editor of a weekly newspaper who recently called for the reform of China’s onerous household registration system, which restricts where people can live, has been forced out of his job in a fresh warning that journalists who boldly challenge government policy face retribution.  The dismissed journalist, Zhang Hong, had been deputy editor in chief of the Web site of the Economic Observer, which is based in Beijing. Two Chinese media sources reached by telephone said he was fired because of his efforts to unite a group of journalists to criticize the registration system, which ties Chinese to their parents’ hometown if they want government services.  Reached by telephone Tuesday night, Mr. Zhang would not comment on the details of his dismissal.  But in a letter leaked to selected Chinese and foreign journalists on Tuesday, Mr. Zhang wrote that after the editorial was published, “I was punished accordingly; other colleagues and media partners also felt repercussions.”  He also wrote in the letter that his editorial had been “the product of a few editors working behind closed doors, only the impact it stirred up went beyond our first expectation.” – New York Times

Tibet

Hundreds of Tibetans have been rounded up in Lhasa and armed paramilitaries are patrolling the streets in the run-up to the anniversary of a bloody riot in 2008. The authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of the anti-Chinese attacks that left about 20 people dead when Tibetans rampaged through the streets of the Himalayan city setting fire to shops, offices and banks.  March 10 is regarded by Tibetans as the anniversary of the start of an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 that resulted in the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India.  The armed police patrols that have become routine in the Tibetan heart of Lhasa since the anti-Beijing unrest that spilled over into violence in March 14, 2008, have been expanded to include cavalcades of trucks packed with paramilitaries. – Times of London

The Dalai Lama blasted Chinese authorities Wednesday, accusing them of trying to "annihilate Buddhism" in Tibet as he commemorated a failed uprising against China's rule over the region. The Tibetan spiritual leader's angry comments appeared to signal his frustration with fruitless efforts to negotiate a compromise with China. However, he said he would not abandon talks. Beijing has demonized the Dalai Lama and accused him of wanting independence for Tibet, which China says is part of its territory. The Dalai Lama says he only wants some form of autonomy for Tibet within China that would allow Tibetan culture, language and religion to thrive. The dispute turned violent two years ago, when anti-government protests erupted in Tibet and China cracked down on the region. The police presence in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa has been heavy ever since, but was stepped up even more in recent days with rifle-toting police guarding intersections and demanding to see ID cards at checkpoints, hotel workers said. – Associated Press

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama voiced his support on Wednesday for an ethnic minority in China's troubled Xinjiang province, risking worsening further his fraught relations with Beijing. In an address marking 51 years since he fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama referred to Xinjiang as "East Turkestan," the name given to it by pro-independence exiles. The region is populated by an ethnic minority Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking largely Muslim people. "Let us also remember the people of East Turkestan who have experienced great difficulties and increased oppression," he told about 3,000 Tibetans in Dharamsala, the northern Indian hill town where he has lived for five decades. "I would like to express my solidarity and stand firmly with them." - Reuters

Horn of Africa

As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report.  The report, which has not yet been made public but was shown to The New York Times by diplomats, outlines a host of problems so grave that it recommends that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon open an independent investigation into the World Food Program’s Somalia operations. It suggests that the program rebuild the food distribution system — which serves at least 2.5 million people and whose aid was worth about $485 million in 2009 — from scratch to break what it describes as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors.  In addition to the diversion of food aid, regional Somali authorities are collaborating with pirates who hijack ships along the lawless coast, the report says, and Somali government ministers have auctioned off diplomatic visas for trips to Europe to the highest bidders, some of whom may have been pirates or insurgents.  Somali officials denied that the visa problem was widespread, and officials for the World Food Program said they had not yet seen the report but would investigate its conclusions once it was presented to the Security Council next Tuesday.  – New York Times

Democracy and Human Rights

A U.S. media group has criticized Kazakhstan for effectively banning an opposition newspaper, saying the move violated the core values of Europe's main democracy watchdog, chaired by Kazakhstan this year. Distribution of the main opposition Respublika newspaper was halted in February after a court ruled a story published by the paper last year had triggered a bank run on deposits of Kazakhstan's BTA Bank. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom watchdog, in a statement late Tuesday, described the ruling as "shameful." "The ongoing politicized prosecution of the independent weekly contradicts the mission and core values of the OSCE," said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Coordinator Nina Ognianova in a statement. "We call on Kazakhstan's courts to overturn this shameful ruling and allow Respublika ... to function without fear of harassment." - Reuters

Indian lawmakers approved a historic bill Tuesday that would set aside one-third of all legislative seats for women, a move aimed at overturning six decades of male-dominated decision-making in this country. The bill, which drew fierce opposition before its passage in the upper house of parliament, would guarantee seats for women in the national legislature and all state assemblies in the world's largest democracy, where women have been largely kept on the sidelines of the legislative process. The bill must be approved by the lower house of parliament. It is expected to pass, although analysts say opponents could use political maneuvers to delay the bill. "This is a momentous development in the long journey of empowering our women. Women are facing discrimination at home. There is domestic violence, unequal access to health and education. This has to end," India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said after legislators approved the bill. The new quotas, he said, will be "living proof that the heart of Indian democracy is sound and is in the right place." – Washington Post

The ruling military junta in Myanmar announced a new election law Wednesday that will prevent Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s leading opposition figure, from participating in upcoming parliamentary elections.  The new law, the Political Parties Registration Law, prohibits anyone convicted of a crime from being a member of an official party. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the head of the National League for Democracy, has been under detention or house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.  The law also could force Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi out of her own party. The National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 1990 in the last democratic election in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, although the junta ignored the results and has remained in power.  The Supreme Court two weeks ago dismissed an appeal of her latest conviction, for breaching the terms of her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American man to stay overnight at her lakeside home in central Yangon. – New York Times

Americas

The Obama administration on Tuesday warned Haiti against a long delay of elections previously scheduled for early next year to ensure that the billions of dollars in international aid pledged after the January earthquake are spent by a legitimate government.  During a visit to Washington to thank the administration for its massive rescue and relief efforts, Haitian President Rene Preval said a parliamentary vote planned for February is likely to be postponed because of the devastation caused by the Jan. 12 quake.  "Everybody will understand that, due to the conditions, how difficult it will be to respect that timetable and to organize elections," Mr. Preval told reporters at the State Department after meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Political stability is something fundamental for the development of a country," he said. "That is what constitutes a guarantee for investors, for the population, that there is some guarantees, that there is some security about their future." - Washington Times