Clean up your act
International Atomic Energy Association chief Mohammed El-Baradei has insisted that Iran must clear up its nuclear track-record with IAEA investigators before 22 November, when El-Baradei is next due to report to the agency's board of governors.
"Bandits" killed a Shia cleric in a village near the city of Khash in the restive Iranian province of Sistan ve Baluchestan. Ethnic Baloch, largely Sunni separatists are active in the region, with alleged support from the United States and Pakistan.
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Sign up to receive toD's daily security briefings via email by clicking hereIran's foreign minister has insisted that despite rumours of US plans to attack Iran, Washington is in "no position" to commit itself to another war.
Not enough to insist on uranium enrichment
In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Gareth Evans, the head of the International Crisis Group, argues that the EU and the Bush administration must drop their stubborn insistence that Iran suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition to further diplomatic negotiations.
In toD, Kanishk Tharoor urges the EU's negotiating team to embrace the IAEA's efforts to circumvent the current diplomatic impasse.
Love thy neighbour not
US Democrats, including former presidential candidate John Kerry, have called on China and India - the two "biggest players" in Burma - to sever ties with the country as it continues its crackdown against dissidents after a week of protests.
Kurds spark oil disputes
Recent oil deals signed between the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq and American, Canadian and French energy companies have stoked the flames of a growing rift between Baghdad and Erbil. Lawmakers in the Iraqi capital believe that such independently-made deals contravene the Iraqi constitution and undermine efforts to centralise control and distribution of oil resources.
Hamas in Iraq?
Responding to accusations by al-Qaida fighters in Iraq, a faction of the Sunni insurgent group the 1920 Revolution Brigades calling itself "Hamas in Iraq" has accused al-Qaida of routinely killing and beheading Sunnis in the country. With (and without) US and Iraqi government intervention, the "Sunni insurgency" is fragmenting internally.
The Iraqi government was forced to order $100 million worth of weapons from China recently due to American inability to meet Iraq's demand.
Calls for patience in tribal belt
Militants in Pakistan's restive northwest have allegedly killed three out of over two hundred kidnapped soldiers in South Waziristan.
Speaking to the US Council on Foreign Relations, Pakistani foreign secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan has asked Washington to be patient as Pakistan tackles Islamist militants in the northwest of the country. Policy-makers in Washington are growing frustrated at Islamabad's slowness in flushing militants out from the rugged border region.
Nearly three months after it was the scene of a bitter and controversial siege that left a hundred people dead, the Red Mosque in Islamabad is set to reopen.
Ethiopia bristles at sanctions threat
The US Congress has approved a bill that would levy sanctions and cut military aid to Ethiopia unless it puts democratic reforms in place. Ethiopia has hit back at the bill, suggesting that such sanctions would undermine regional stability. Addis Ababa has been the Bush administration's main ally in the Horn of Africa, leading the toppling of Somalia's former Islamist rulers in January.
Ethiopia has also pledged 5,000 troops to the African Union force in Darfur, where rebels recently overran a peacekeeper garrison, killing 10.
Formal end to Korean war?
After the signing of a landmark nuclear deal between North Korea and several major powers, both Pyongyang and Seoul have committed themselves to working towards a peace deal that would put a formal end to the Cold War-era conflict.
Shia activist detained in Egypt
Mohamed El-Derini, a leading campaigner for the rights of Egypt's small Shia minority, has been arrested on charges including contempt for religion. El-Derini is the second Shia activist to be arrested in recent months as the regime of Hosni Mubarak attempts to negotiate a period of transition.
Fewer bodies in the crowd, but more points in the polls
As the Iraq War has grown increasingly unpopular in the United States, anti-war demonstrations have shrunk in size. This trend stands in stark comparison to domestic opposition to the Vietnam War, in which protests grew in strength and frequency as the public turned against the war.
