'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

Leaders from Britain, the United States, France and China -- along with Russia, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- have all visited India in the last six months, securing contracts worth a total of around $50 billion.

-- A Reuters report today from New Delhi, where Dmitry Medvedev, President of one of the P-5 countries listed in the snippet, declared Russia's support for giving India a permanent seat on the Security Council of the United Nations. (image credit) Medvedev's announcement follows the New Delhi statement earlier this month, when President Nicolas Sarkozy said France too now supports adding India as a "P-6" -- not to mention President Barack Obama's announcement in November, as we then posted, that "a reformed U.N. Security Council that includes India as a permanent member" is the United States' goal as well. The lining up of these ducks in a row makes for a fascinating study in politico-market emergence.

'Nuff said

'Earlier is clearly better.'

-- Dr. James N. "Jim" Miller (right), Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, quoted in Politico yesterday by Laura Rozen (to whose foreign policy blog we link in our "connections" column at right). Miller was speaking of the Obama Administration's hopes for U.S. ratification of New START, the nuclear weapons treaty that, as we've posted here and here, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed last April in Prague, Czech Republic. As Rozen reported, the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate is supposed to vote today on the treaty. If the Committee approves, the treaty then will be sent to the full Senate. Miller made clear that the administration would like to see this happen sooner rather than later, even as he allowed:

'But we understand that the Senate has to act according to its own timeline and have its own questions answered and we remain committed to provide those answers as they continue their deliberations.'