Still think China's going to sign on to a new round of tough sanctions against Iran? Think again. China has most likely already passed the European Union to become Iran's No. 1 trading partner, the Financial Times reports:

Official figures say the EU remains Tehran’s largest commercial partner, with trade totalling $35bn in 2008, compared with $29bn with China.

But this number disguises the fact that much of Iran’s trade with the United Arab Emirates consists of goods channelled to or from China. Majid-Reza Hariri, deputy head of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce, said that transhipments to China accounted for more than half of Tehran’s $15bn (€10.9bn, £9.6bn) trade with the UAE.

When this is taken into account, China’s trade with Iran totals at least $36.5bn, which could be more than with the entire EU bloc. No definite conclusion is possible because it is unclear how much of Iran’s trade with Europe is channelled via the UAE.

Iran imports consumer goods and machinery from China and exports oil, gas, and petrochemicals.

Today, China depends on Iran for 11 per cent of its energy needs, according to the chamber.

Look at it this way: Would the United States support hard-hitting sanctions against Saudi Arabia, which in November supplied nearly 8 percent of U.S. oil imports?

For all the criticism Barack Obama has received for his administration's handling of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Flight 253, it doesn't seem like the American public is too concerned.

A new Gallup poll finds that the U.S. president's approval rating on terrorism is 48 percent, just about the same it has been for weeks:

His approval rating on foreign affairs generally is somewhat higher at 51 percent, though the American public seems to be growing concerned that he's not handling the Iran issue properly -- only 42 percent of respondents think he's doing a good job on that front:

With more than 99 percent of the vote counted, there seems to be little doubt left and that Viktor Yanukovych has defeated his one-time Orange Revolution foe Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine's presidential election. But, never one to avoid drama, Tymoshenko has not conceded yet leading opponents and supporters alike to wonder if she plans to take to the streets again. 

Not likely says the BBC's Richard Galpin: 

At a news conference in Kiev on Monday, a team of election observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was blunt in its assessment of Ukraine's post-election landscape.

"Yesterday's vote was an impressive display of democratic elections. For everyone in Ukraine, this election was a victory," said Joao Soares, the team co-ordinator.

"It is now time for the country's political leaders to listen to the people's verdict and make sure that the transition of power is peaceful and constructive."

Those two sentences alone may have been enough to cut the ground from underneath Mrs Tymoshenko's feet.

Challenging the election result in the courts or on the street without the cover of credible allegations of fraud would be a tough sell even to her own supporters.

This time around, there isn't a whole lot of daylight between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych's positions, and it would be hard to imagine her being able to drum up the same level of fervor for an opposition movement.

I'm sad to see that John Murtha, the Pennsylvania congressman and defense spending cardinal, has died after a long and productive life in government.

Whatever your views on Murtha -- and as  someone who grew up in southwest Pennsylvania, I certainly have my own opinions -- this is very bad news for Johnstown, the main town in the district he represented for nearly 36 years. Because if there's one thing Murtha did, it was bring home the bacon. Millions of dollars of it.

There was the John P. Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute, the John P. Murtha Regional Cancer Center, the Joyce Murtha Breast Care Center, the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport, and of course the John P. Murtha Institute for Homeland Security, to name but a few of the places, not to mention a number of defense contractors, kept afloat thanks to the congressman's mastery of the earmark system.The loss of a patron in Washington will be devastating.

Maybe, though, Johnstown will ultimately be better off without Murtha's largesse. The town was crushed by the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, and never really recovered. Murtha's projects, along with some telemarketing and retail business, were about the only source of employment the town of 24,000 had to offer. Yet household income is about half the national average, and the area school system is abysmal. Now, Johnstown will have to attract industry on the region's own merits, rather than relying on its powerful friend on Capitol Hill. It's going to be painful for a while, but I hope this hard-luck town will emerge stronger for it.

The frequent stories of grusome beheadings and seemingly rand mass-murders coming out of Mexico's drug war can make the country sound like its on the brink of anarchy. But as Alexandra Olson points out, by regional and historical standards, the country's violence is not unusually high:

Mexico's homicide rate has fallen steadily from a high in 1997 of 17 per 100,000 people to 14 per 100,000 in 2009, a year marked by an unprecedented spate of drug slayings concentrated in a few states and cities, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said. The national rate hit a low of 10 per 100,000 people in 2007, according to government figures compiled by the independent Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies.

By comparison, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have homicide rates of between 40 and 60 per 100,000 people, according to recent government statistics. Colombia was close behind with a rate of 33 in 2008. Brazil's was 24 in 2006, the last year when national figures were available.

Mexico City's rate was about 9 per 100,000 in 2008, while Washington, D.C. was more than 30 that year.

Of course, all of that is cold comfort to residents of Ciudad Juarez, which had a mind-boggling homicide rate of "173 per 100,000 in the city of 1.3 million, or more than 2,500 murders last year."

Mexico's relative national stability combined with what can only be described as out of control carnage in the drug war zone, supports Jorge Castaneda's argument that Mexico should be looked at not as a state under seige, but as a country increasingly embroiled in a military quagmire inside its own borders.

Things seem to be going from bad to worse in Sri Lanka, as president Mahinda Rajapaksa continues to crack down following his disputed election victory last month: 

General Fonseka, a retired four-star general who lost to President Mahinda Rajapakse in the January 26 vote, was seized by military police who stormed the office of his People's Liberation Front (JVP).

“They forcibly took away General Fonseka while he was having a discussion with three other senior opposition leaders,” a JVP spokesman said.

“He was dragged away in a very disgraceful manner in front of our own eyes,” added Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress.

Fonseka had vowed to challenge the elections results in Sri Lanka's supreme court, but may now be dragged in front of a judge on charges of plotting a coup.

The Sri Lankan government had hoped that the election -- the first one since the end of the country's decades long civil war -- would put the country on a path to normalcy, but it's only serving to confirm the worst fears about the government's instability and Rajapaska's authoritarian tendencies.