Obama to meet with anti-ISIS coalition; Kim Jong-Un makes first public appearance in 40 days, walking with cane; police and government officials among those killed in latest violence in Western China; protesters set fire to Mexican government building; 800 Sierra Leone peackeepers quarantined over ebola; and more 

Top of the Agenda

Obama to Meet With Anti-ISIS Coalition

President Barack Obama and U.S. military commanders will meet with the defense ministers (Guardian) of twenty members of the U.S.-led coalition, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to discuss coordination and further action against ISIS on Tuesday. The meeting comes a day after Turkey denied the conclusion of a formal agreement on the U.S.-led coalition's use of its airbases. Meanwhile, Turkish jet fighters bombed (Hurriyet) Kurdish Worker's Party positions in southeastern Turkey late Monday in response to the shelling of a Turkish military outpost.

Analysis

"Mr Obama needs to face up to two things. First, most of the coalition wants to see the back of Mr Assad: his serial brutalities against his own people have appalled Sunnis everywhere. Second, the fight against IS cannot succeed without competent troops on the ground to guide coalition aircraft to their targets, pursue enemy leaders and take and hold territory," writes the Economist.

"What is happening now is a classic problem of diplomacy: a mismatch between means and ends. President Obama wants to destroy ISIS and save the Kurds (and the Yazidi religious minority, and the Iraqi government in Baghdad), but he is willing to do no more than drop bombs. What happens when dropping bombs isn't enough?" writes Dexter Filkins in the New Yorker.

"We will defeat [ISIS] militarily by cutting off the flow of resources they receive —that's external financing, foreign fighters, logistic materiel, it's their ability to access the oil markets with oil they control. We will defeat them by challenging and undermining their ideology, because you can't bomb an ideology out of existence, you have to challenge it and argue it out of existence. And we will defeat it in Iraq by good governance," said British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in an interview with Global Post.

 

PACIFIC RIM

North Korean Leader Makes Public Appearance

Kim Jong-un made his first public appearance (Yonhap) in nearly forty days, visiting a new residential compound for satellite and nuclear scientists, according to state media. Photos released show Kim walking with a cane.

CHINA: Three police officers and three government officials were among the eight killed (Radio Free Asia) in new violence in the western Xinjiang region last week. Meanwhile, China sentenced twelve Uighurs to death on Monday for attacks in Xinjiang in July.

This CFR Backgrounder looks at Uighur militants in western China.

ELSEWHERE:

Protesters set fire to Mexican government building

800 Sierra Leone peacekeepers quarantined over ebola

This is an excerpt of the CFR.org Daily News Brief. The full version is available on CFR.org