Dana Milbank files a snarky Washington Sketch, complete with accompanying video, about a press conference with Sudanese Ambassador to the US, John Ukec Lueth Ukec yesterday. Ukec was responding to President Bush's new sanctions regime which was greeted cooly by advocates and legislators alike. Ukec's apparently erratic comments included threats on the nation's carbonated beverage supply as well as the usual denials of any genocide happening in Darfur:

Khartoum Karl went on to say that, all evidence to the contrary, his government does not support the murderous Janjaweed militia. "It cannot happen," he said, "so rule it out." As for the Sudanese regime itself: "We are the agents of peace, people like me, my colleagues who are in the central government of Sudan."

What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.

"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.