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-From the Times of London: Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is claiming that he was President Barack Obama's first call to a foreign leader. How does he know? Well, Obama told him so. I was highly critical of then President-elect Obama's silence on Israel's operations in Gaza, so I will be the first to say that, if Abbas is correct, Obama has made a very welcome statement on his commitment to the peace process. Apparently, Obama's first round of foreign calls were to middle east leaders (Egypt, Jordan, Israel), signalling to many that the new US prez is serious about renewed US leadership in the region. On a related matter, in case anyone doubted the political considerations driving Israel's Gaza offensive, the pullout from Gaza was completed today, Obama's first day in office.

-Portugal became the third eurozone country in two weeks to be hit with a downgrade. S&P cut the country's rating to AA minus. According to the FT, the cost of insuring Portugese government bonds through credit default swaps has risen to a record high. The government quickly labeled the downgrade as "unreasonable." In the past week, S&P has issued reviews on 10 highly rated western countries, leading Wolfgang Munchau to ask"what if" a eurozone economy defaulted?

-Foreign Policy has published the Think Tank Index, developed by the IR Department at the University of Pennsylvania. It is advertised as the "first comprehensive ranking of the world’s top think tanks, based on a worldwide survey of hundreds of scholars and experts." Below, the top 5 US and non-US think tanks:

US--> 1. Brookings Institution, 2. Council on Foreign Relations, 3. Carnegie Endowement for International Peace, 4. Rand Corporation, 5. Heritage Foundation

Non-US--> 1. Chatham House, 2. International Institute for Strategic Studies, 3. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 4. Overseas Development Institute, 5. Centre for European Policy Studies