On the foreign affairs front: 1. Fidel Castro has stepped down as president/charismatic authoritarian leader of Cuba. I'll outsource the commentary to Rob, and also to Steve Clemons, who asks, "Which of the presidential candidates is prepared to finally break US-Cuba relations out of the anachronistic Cold War cocoon they have been frozen in and initiate a new course that benefits American interests?" But with Castro's brother, Raúl, set to take power, it may be premature to get too optimistic about change. 2. Kosovo is independent, prompting both celebration and violence in the new state and in Serbia, from which it has broken away. I visited the former Yugoslavia this past August, and the strains of ethnic and religious nationalism there were truly stunning to American eyes. I watched a wedding service at Jupiter's temple in Split, Croatia. During the ceremony, the groom's friends danced around the church waving the Croatian flag and singing patriotic songs. Every happy occasion was cause for national pride. Here's hoping that in Kosovo, inclusive democracy is the outcome. 3. Pakistani voters have rejected Pervez Musharraf's military rule, and Musharraf has agreed to accept the results. I hope we'll have more on this later from our resident Middle East experts. 4. The U.S. State Department is ending its practice of barring HIV-positive individuals from entering the foreign service. The change comes in response to a lawsuit filed by Lorenzo Taylor, a trilingual international affairs specialist who met every qualification for the service, but was rejected when he revealed he had HIV. --Dana Goldstein
