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Friday's global agenda: New chance for Syria?
Your morning global affairs speed-read
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in St. Petersburg on Friday evening ahead of weekend talks on a political transition in Syria. United Nations/Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan called the emergency meeting to salvage his six-point peace plan.
Annan could release a proposal for a national unity Cabinet that includes opposition figures during the meeting in Geneva, The New York Times reports. Annan told Reuters television on Friday that he's hopeful about the talks, but Russia has continued to oppose any political transition imposed by the international community.
“In order to overcome the Syrian crisis and to finally establish stable rights and norms which satisfy all groups in the Syrian population, it is necessary to have a transitional period, this is obvious,” Lavrov said at a news conference Thursday. But “we will not support and cannot support any interference from outside or any imposition of recipes...This also concerns the fate of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad.”
Euro-hope: Eurozone leaders agreed Friday to directly inject EU bailout funds into teetering Spanish financial institutions, the Financial Times reports, allowing Spain to keep the $126 billion bailout off its sovereign books.
Trouble in Africa: Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa holds a hearing on the Tuareg revolt in Mali and its implications for national security. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson and U.S. Agency for International Development Assistant Administrator Earl Gast are slated to testify.
In other news:
The U.S.-Egypt relationship is in flux as the Muslim Brotherhood seeks the Obama administration's support while the former U.S. allies in the military feel betrayed. [The Wall Street Journal]
Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is expected to sail to victory as Mexico's next president this weekend. [Associated Press]
South Korea postponed its first post-World War II military cooperation pact with Japan. [The New York Times]
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State Department exempts China from Iranian oil sanctions
Chamber of Commerce CEO says he pushed US accession to Law of the Sea Treaty
Jewish Democrats oppose World Heritage designation for Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity
