Morning Brief, Tuesday, December 11

Europe

YURI KADOBNOV/AFP/Getty Images

This is too cute: Vladimir Putin's protégé and designated successor, First Deputy PM Dmitri Medvedev, says he wants the Russian president to be his prime minister.

In an unusual turn, France's secretary of state for human rights strongly condemned her own government's welcoming of Libyan dictator Moammar al-Qaddhafi to Paris.

German investors are depressed.

2008 Election

First, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was against the embargo of Cuba before he was for it. Huckabee is pulling even with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in nationwide polls, though, so perhaps he's eying the Florida primary on January 29.

Middle East 

Bombs have killed more than 45 people in Algiers.

A suicide bomber detonated himself near the offices of former Iraqi PM Ayad Allawi.

An Iranian opposition group that the U.S. State Department considers a terrorist organization says that Iran restarted its nuclear-weapons program in 2004, contrary to the NIE.

Israeli tanks and bulldozers have entered Gaza in a bid to root out Hamas militants.

Asia

China's inflation rate reached 6.9 percent in November, an 11-year high.

Regular freight-rail service between North and South Korea has begun.

Afghanistan wants a 200,000-man army.

Elsewhere 

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal put the risk of a U.S. recession at 38 percent.

Former CIA interrogator: waterboarding is torture, but it "probably saved lives."

A "former senior intelligence official" told the New York Times that CIA lawyers consented in writing to destroying tapes of interrogations of two top al Qaeda prisoners.

The solar system is "dented," NASA's Voyager 2 space probe has found.

Today's Agenda

• Today marks the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. Have we stopped global warming yet?
• UNICEF releases its annual report on the state of the world's children.
• The U.N. Human Rights Council expects to hear an update on the situation in Burma.
• The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to lower interest rates.
• U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes Italy's president to the White House.

Yesterday on Passport

• Venezuela falls behind the times
• What We're Reading
• What are the qualifications for White House press secretary?