Morning Brief, Tuesday, August 14

Europe

STR/AFP

Turkey's ruling Islamist party once again nominated Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, as its candidate for president. Will this provoke another showdown with secularists and the Army?

It's been a busy August so far for the European Central Bank.

Did Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Cécilia skip out on hamburgers with the Bush family?

Middle East 

U.S. troops launched a major offensive operation against Sunni militants in Diyala, Iraq.

John Burns of the New York Times profiles Gen. David Petraeus, whose style differs from that of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Hamas is cracking down on security in Gaza. 

Asia 

Sonia Gandhi, the head of India's Congress Party, declared her support for the U.S.-India nuclear deal in the face of vocal opposition to the agreement, mostly from the left.

Pirates are back in the Malacca Strait, where over a third of the world's commerce passes each day.

The world's oldest person, a Japanese woman aged 114, died in a nursing home.

Elsewhere

The U.S. Coast Guard is sending a ship to the Arctic to map out U.S. territorial claims there; it's the third such mission since 2003.

Goldman Sachs injected $3 billion into a struggling quantitative hedge fund on Monday. Desperation or "cautious optimism"? If the performance of yesterday's markets is any guide, it's the latter.

The discovery of a Venezuelan businessman who tried to enter Argentina with $800,000 in cash is causing problems in Buenos Aires.

Today's Agenda

• Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki holds an emergency summit in Baghdad.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting Hamid Karzai in Kabul.
• OPEC board members are meeting in Vienna. The International Energy Agency is urging the oil cartel to raise output at its next ministerial meeting in September.
• China's President Hu Jintao will visit Kygyzstan to discuss regional cooperation, followed by a trip to Russia to watch joint military exercises.
• Hezbollah plans to commemorate the end of last year's war with Israel.
• Climate-change activists are beginning a week-long protest near London's Heathrow airport.
• Pakistan celebrates 60 years of independence.

Yesterday on Passport

• Arctic sea ice melting faster than ever
• Chinese media admits Tiananmen massacre ... for a few hours
• Photo: Big Ben gets a tuneup