Morning Coffee - 27 October 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
IRAN "WILL ACCEPT NUCLEAR DEAL," KINDA - Iranian state TV is reporting that the country will accept the nuclear deal offered by the UN, but only with "very important change," though those "changes" weren't reported. According to El Am TV, Iran is expected to give the nod to the International Atomic Energy Agency within 48 hours. Under the agreement Iran would enrich uranium but export most of it to Russia to be turned into nuclear fuel. Link
MANISHEVITZ IS FOR DRINKING, WATER IS FOR FIGHTING OVER - There's an old saying in the West: Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over. Turns out there's a corollary in the West Bank. Amnesty International says that Israel is depriving Palestinians of water. According to Amnesty, the average person in Israel consumes 300 liters of water a day, while the average person in the West Bank and Gaza consumes just 70. Israel says the figures are misleading because they reflect internal distribution rather than total consumption. The real ratio, officials claim, is closer to 400 liters per Israeli to 300 liters per Palestinian. Link
SEX AND THE SAUDIS - The King of Saudi Arabia commuted the sentence of a female journalist, Rozanna al-Yami, facing 60 lashes for speaking frankly about sex on the air. Some of al-Yami's male colleagues and guests are still in prison for their roles in the explicit show on LBC TV, a Saudi-owned Lebanese TV station. Link
HAITI PM FACES OUSTER - A small but powerful clique of Haitian lawmakers is agitating for the removal of Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis. They aren't alleging any specific misconduct, but they say she has moved too slowly to address Haiti's problems. Pierre-Louis has received summons to appear before the Senate this week. Haiti's constitution gives the Senate the power to fire the prime minister. Link
SCIENTOLOGY CONVICTED OF FRAUD - The self-proclaimed Church of Scientology has been convicted of fraud in France. (Unlike the U.S., France has never recognized Scientology as a religion.) Two branches of the sect and several of its leaders have been fined for taking adherents' money under questionable pretenses during the 1990s. The court stopped short of banning Scientology outright, but a ban is still a legal possibility. Link
Provocateurs
Juan Cole in SALON
"Why can't the administration of President Barack Obama get the word out about its policy successes? President Obama campaigned on an ambitious platform of withdrawing from Iraq, engaging Iran on its nuclear program and persuading the Pakistani government to take on the Taliban and al-Qaida . Despite the charge by critics from both the right and the left in the wake of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize that he has accomplished little so far, in fact he has already set in motion significant change on several of these fronts -- despite the enormous domestic tasks that have inevitably preoccupied his administration. Yet you'd never hear about these successes from the mainstream media. "
Ricken Patel in NEW YORK TIMES
"One month ago over 150 people were gunned down by soldiers in the West Africa country of Guinea. Women were raped on the streets, and opposition leaders were locked up. This was the response of a brutal military junta to a group of brave citizens who dared to hold a peaceful pro-democracy rally. On Monday, E.U. foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg to consider targeted sanctions on this military regime. There are several reasons why this is the right thing to do. "
Jeremy Scahill in REBEL REPORTS
"Despite grave human rights abuses at the hands of U.S. private military contractors in Iraq, the private military industry is currently expanding in unprecedented ways. Contractors far outnumber U.S. military in Afghanistan and peacekeeping and security operations throughout Africa have become a multi-billion dollar industry for these corporations. "
Water Cooler

Janos Pasztor, the director of the UN Secretary General's Climate Change Support Team says it's unlikely that the upcoming Copenhagen climate change summit will produce a deal to replace the Kyoto treaty. The major stumbling block is the U.S., which has yet to pass climate change legislation. In principle, the Obama administration backs laws to control carbon emissions, but health care reform has burned up all the political oxygen in D.C. this fall.

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