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Leading Indicators: Off the Radar News Roundup

Judah Grunstein | Bio | 14 Dec 2009

- Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Central Asia was timed to announce the opening of a new section of a Central Asian gas pipeline that will eventually connect China directly to Central Asian reserves. A rare three-page analysis piece from the People's Daily.

- The People's Daily runs another warning about China's housing bubble. Greenspan already tried the "bubble as recovery" idea and it ended badly. Reminds me of Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results.

- Taiwan said it would thoroughly investigate charges that Taiwanese companies were involved in through-trading nuclear fuel enrichment technology to Iran.

- Pakistan's minister for defense production said that the country would take possession of three more AWACs aircraft next year. Pakistan's first Swedish-made AWAC was delivered last week.

- The PLO is likely to extend the term of PA President Mahmoud Abbas later this week. Abbas' term ends on Jan. 25, but new elections are hostage to a negotiated settlement to the Fatah-Hamas standoff.

- The two main parties in north and south Sudan reached "an important breakthrough" in negotiating an upcoming referendum on the latter's independence.

- The Turkish Supreme Court outlawed the Kurdish DTP party on Friday, a move widely denounced, both at home and abroad, as sabotaging the AKP's Kurdish initiative.

- Chile's first-round presidential voting left a right-wing candidate in the lead, with the outcome in the runoff to be determined by whether the left can unite around its surviving candidate. I feel like I've seen this one before. In this case, the conservative candidate really would represent change, as the left has ruled since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1992.

- Guinea's ruling junta has rejected international calls for a multinational peacekeeping force to protect civilians from violence there. The fact that such a force was proposed suggests to me that French troops based in neighboring countries are at the ready to deploy on the slightest pretext of French nationals being targeted.

Researched by Kari Lipschutz.