All Blog Posts from World Watch

This story was filed by CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk at the United Nations.

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The leak of information about Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and his alleged connection to the CIA and tribal drug lords is curious. Leaks always are. But in this case, the release of this sensitive information is troublesome and potentially game-changing in a dangerous war.

Ahmed Wali Karzai admitted to giving the agency information, but has denied receiving any money from the CIA, or being part of the lucrative Afghanistan opium trade – making him, at least in Washington-talk, that much more guilty.

The report itself will change the political and military landscape in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The insurgents will use it as proof of the U.S. meddling at the highest level of the Afghan government. In Pakistan, where the use of drones is already being questioned by the U.N. envoy for extrajudicial killings — and the Pakistani Parliament questions the strings on the $7.5 billion U.S. aid package — the equation of the U.S. government to the CIA is devastating.

So, the obvious, unanswered question is: who leaked the information?

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This story was filed by CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk at the United Nations.

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Eight years ago this month, the war in Afghanistan began, and in the coming weeks, President Obama will decide, after intense deliberation with his war council, what to do next.

The most puzzling, and troubling aspect of the deliberations, is how many genuinely basic questions remain unanswered. What are the goals? Who is in charge of the country where 100,000 troops are serving under U.S. and NATO command (and Mr. Obama is considering a dramatic increase)? And, of course, why?

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Going into Thursday's high-stakes negotiations with Iran, President Obama will soon see for himself the corner into which the Islamic Republic has thrust his predecessors.

Iran has the world over a barrel, literally. The country's vast oil reserves will undermine Obama administration efforts to increase U.N. sanctions, and Iran knows it.

U.N. sanctions only work when they are airtight. Despite the White House's message that the veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council (the P5 as they are called: the U.S., Russia, France, China, and the U.K.) and Germany are unified in their response and that the Iranian missile tests of last week were a game changer, they are dodging the harsh reality that China is not even close to being "on board" for tough sanctions.

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As President Obama heads to Camp David for the Labor Day weekend, his vacation reading is the sobering Afghanistan war report by U.S. and NATO General Stanley A. McChrystal, but he would be well-advised to add to his bedside literature the United Nation's new report on the increase of drug cartels in Afghanistan.

"Afghan Opium Survey 2009," was released Wednesday in Kabul by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The report reads like a John Le Carré spy novel. The headline is that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is down, but UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa also concludes the war-torn country now has its very own drug cartels.

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President Obama’s trip to Guadalajara will focus on trade and drugs at a difficult time for the U.S. - Mexican relationship, in part because the administration has postponed its comprehensive immigration reform program until 2010.

The Mexico "three amigos" trip will focus on issues important to the U.S. domestic agenda even more than foreign policy – because Mexico remains the main transit point for drugs entering the U.S. and because Mexican drug gangs' principal source of guns is from the U.S.

For the Obama administration, visiting Mexico is high on the President’s agenda particularly since the U.S. Census bureau reported a few months ago that 14 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic and Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment, with 25 percent of live births nationwide.

On the U.S. – Mexico – Canada agenda are other issues related to the proximity of the three neighbors and their North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ties, including climate change and the spread of the H1N1 swine flu virus.

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With two American journalists' freedom at stake, former President Bill Clinton has arrived in Pyongyang to talk to the North Koreans. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested by North Korean authorities near the border with China and were sentenced to 12 years in a prison camp for illegal entry and "hostile" acts.

Thus far, negotiations with Kim Jong Il's regime have lead North Korea to ban International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, walk away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and restart its nuclear testing — even during the days of direct engagement under the Clinton Administration.

Hillary's tricky mandate for Bill: Return with the American journalists and reduce tension between the two countries, without compromising the Obama administration's commitment to the six-party talks. No small task.

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In an unprecedented effort to deliver a message to Washington, North Korea's Ambassador to the U.N., Sin Son Ho, initiated a call to CBS News and its affiliate, Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), to talk about denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

What followed was a clear message, from North Korea's viewpoint, about what has derailed negotiations with the government of Kim Jong Il: The United States.

"We are not against the dialogue," said Ambassador Sin. "We are not against any negotiations for the issues of common concern," but the failure of these talks, he added, "is not because of us."

CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk reports that, according to Ambassador Sin, Pyongyang is prepared to negotiate directly with Washington about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program: "We are ready, any time," he said.

But the Obama administration has stuck to the framework of the six-party talks. Those negotiations, involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the U.S., have been unhinged several times, with Pyongyang returning to the development of its nuclear program and the testing of ballistic missiles.

For North Korea, those negotiations will not restart.

"We have already made our position very clear," Ambassador Sin told CBS. "The six-party talks are gone forever. We will never participate in the six-party talks again. Never again."

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Hundreds of protesters, some wearing green sashes to indicate they're on hunger strike, have gathered in tents across from U.N. Headquarters for the start of a three-day event in support of Iran's beleaguered opposition movement.

At noon on Wednesday, as Iranian-born diva and protest organizer Googoosh gave her opening speech, organizers say the crowd swelled to about 500. That number included almost 200 hunger strikers. Most of the participants are Iranian Americans — all of whom spoke of events back in Tehran, where protests are not being tolerated.

As police and Basiji militiamen crackdown hard on potential demonstrators in Tehran, the protesters, including academics and some big names from the Iranian entertainment world gathered, hoping to bring visibility to the pro-democracy movement.

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The United Nations' three-day Head-of-State Summit on the global financial crisis had promise. The goal was to convene a summit of world leaders at U.N. Headquarters in New York to assess the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression. Over 100 million people per year, the summiteers noted, will fall into extreme poverty.

On the first day, the message was clear: developing countries are the victims of the financial crisis and they need money. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "surely, if the world can mobilize more than $18 trillion to keep the financial sector afloat, it can find more than $18 billion to keep commitments in Africa."

Security ahead of the "United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development" was tight. New York City Police blocked the perimeter of the U.N., and plans were readied for the red carpet treatment of presidents arriving at the General Assembly.

The problem was, almost no one showed up. Of the 140 nations participating, only a dozen presidents and prime ministers are attending, and it was postponed from early June because the "outcome document" – a set of proposals for the reform of the world financial system – had no consensus.

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“The situation is volatile,” John Holmes, under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said Monday at the United Nations, after U.N. High Commissioner Antonio Guterres returned from a three-day visit to Pakistan, including refugee camps in Peshawar.

In just over two weeks, the total number of displaced Pakistanis is now over 2 million – most of whom have fled the fighting between the Taliban and the Pakistani military since May 2. The number of displaced is so large, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR says, that it has forced more people out of their homes since the Rwanda crisis almost 20 years ago.

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