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Daybreak: A’jad Ignites New Nuke Worries

Plus Abbas OKs indirect talks, a mohel’s grandson for VP, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
February 08, 2010

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly ordered further enrichment of uranium, ostensibly for a medical-research reactor. The move immediately heightened tensions over the country’s nuclear program. [WSJ]
• President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to the U.S. model of indirect talks, whereby envoy George Mitchell will present an offer to the Israelis and the Palestinians and then shuttle between articulating the other’s position. [Haaretz]
• The New Israel Fund, a U.S. charity that funds several Palestinian human rights groups, has become a massive political football in Israel, with the right accusing it of enabling the Goldstone Report. [LAT]
• The new vice president of Costa Rica, Luis Lieberman, is Jewish. His grandfather was the Central American country’s first mohel; presumably campaign slogans about cutting out unnecessary spending all but wrote themselves. [Arutz Sheva]
• Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who somehow still chairs the Homeland Security Committee, called on the international community to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. Failing that, he added, there would be military action. [Haaretz]
• Harry Schwarz, who came to South Africa to escape the Nazis and became a major anti-apartheid leader there, died at 86. At various points, he served as Nelson Mandela’s defense lawyer; an important opposition member of parliament; and the ambassador to the United States. [JTA]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.