Morning Brief, Monday, March 5

2008

Presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama briefly put aside their burgeoning rivalry to march together in Selma, Alabama.

Middle East

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have found pushing into Baghdad's Sadr City to be a cakewalk, but British and Iraqi troops raiding an intelligence unit's office in Basra found prisoners there had been tortured.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are making nice, at least superficially.

Asia 

Japan's Nikkei 225 index led stock markets downward across Asia and Europe Monday.

Declaring outright that "Taiwan should be independent" sure can cause a lot of trouble ... if you're the president of Taiwan. China's foreign minister warned Chen Shui-bian he would become "a criminal in history." China plans to increase its defense budget by nearly 18 percent this year.

The environment tops China's agenda this year, says its prime minister.

Europe 

Protestors led by chess master Gary Kasparov tangled with police Saturday in St. Petersburg, Russia, sparking mass arrests.

A supporter of assassinated ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko turned up dead was shot and injured in a Washington, DC suburb.

Following riots in the Danish capital, left-wing activists were finally evicted from a building they had occupied in Copenhagen since the 1980s.

Elsewhere

Get ready for higher food prices, warns a senior economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is asking to donors to put aside their problems with him personally and give $20 billion to the Bank for the next three years.

Judges and lawyers are on strike in Uganda. 

Once a rebel leader, now secretary of defense in Chad.