Morning Coffee - 24 November 2009

Welcome to Morning Coffee, brought to you by Lindsay Beyerstein with additional links from the UN Dispatch team. Every morning we survey foreign affairs and foreign policy news so you don't have to. We begin with the "Starting Five" items of the day -- these may not always appear on A-1, but they *are* the kinds of stories that will be buzzing in foreign capitals, the UN and wherever foreign policy minds roam.
Starting Five
BLACKWATER'S SECRET WAR IN PAKISTAN - For months we've been reading slightly condescending English-language news reports about how Pakistanis believe the private security firm is operating with impunity in their country. Well guess what? Jeremy Scahill reports in the Nation that Blackwater is indeed operating on behalf of the U.S. in Pakistan. Blackwater personnel are reportedly doing "snatch and grab" assassinations in the unstable country. Link
EXPECT DELAYS - Iraq's presidential election, scheduled for January, will almost certainly be delayed. The Iraqi Parliament disregarded a veto by one of Iraq's vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, and passed some new amendments to a recently passed election law. The vice president promises to veto those, too. This time, Parliament doesn't seem to have the 60 percent majority necessary to override the vice presidential veto. American and UN diplomats tried unsuccessfully to broker a compromise that would satisfy al-Hashimi. Link
TARGET: EMISSIONS - The White House announced that the U.S. will reveal an emissions reduction target before next month's Copenhagen summit. The target is expected to be in line with that outlined in climate legislation before the Senate--a 17-20% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. The European Union has pledged to cut 20% over the same period, or 30% as part of a global deal. Link
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER - After years of delays, the UK is launching an official inquiry into the country's decision to join the Iraq war in 2003. The inquiry is expected to last 18 months. Key figures, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, are slated to testify. On Tuesday, the committee heard from high-ranking officials who said that their counterparts in Washington were talking about "regime change" as early as 2001. Link
UN STAFFER'S REMAINS FOUND IN LEBANON - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offered his condolences to the family of a UN staffer whose remains were recently discovered in Lebanon. The staffer, Alec Collett, was abducted near the Beirut Airport in 1985. At the time of his disappearance, Collett was a former British journalist on assignment with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Link
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