Daily News Brief

November 27, 2023

Top of the Agenda

Both Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas have signaled a willingness to extend (NYT) a four-day cease-fire that is due to expire Tuesday morning if it allows for more hostages and detainees to be released. U.S. President Joe Biden and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) chief Jens Stoltenberg said they support (AFP) an extension, and Qatari negotiators are working today to resolve differences between the two sides. As part of the cease-fire, three groups of Hamas-held hostages have been swapped for Palestinian prisoners; by Sunday, Hamas had freed 39 Israeli hostages, while Israel had released 117 Palestinians. 

The truce, the longest break in fighting in the war so far, has allowed increased amounts of aid to enter Gaza. But tensions related to the war continue to run high outside the Gaza Strip. The United States thwarted (NYT) what it said was a potentially Iran-linked hijacking of a commercial ship yesterday by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, while Palestinian health officials reported yesterday that Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians (BBC) in the West Bank in the previous twenty-four hours.

Analysis

“An extended cease-fire could facilitate the return of more Israeli hostages and reduce the risk of deepening the humanitarian catastrophe among Gaza’s civilians. It could also help calm tensions in the West Bank and reduce the risk that the war could escalate by drawing in outside actors, such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron, Iran,” the Center for International Policy’s Matthew Duss and Nancy Okail write for Foreign Affairs. 

“[The cease-fire] could last a few more days—but it will end, and the fighting that comes next could be worse than what came before,” the Economist writes.

Read the full suite of Foreign Affairs and CFR.org resources on Israel and the current conflict.

Pacific Rim

Foreign ministers from the three countries held their first in-person meeting (Japan Times) in more than four years yesterday. Japan’s foreign minister said it aimed to “restart cooperation” among the three countries. Although the three ministers discussed holding a leaders’ summit at the “earliest” possible time, no date was immediately set.

China: Mosques in China have been widely stripped of their Arabic architectural features in recent years, according to a new Financial Times investigation based on satellite images. Three-quarters of the more than two thousand mosques examined have been modified or destroyed since 2018. Activists for Chinese Muslim rights say this reflects a broader suppression of Islamic culture.

South and Central Asia

While India, the world’s second-largest coal producer, agreed to “phase down” coal-fired energy at the 2021 UN climate summit, the government anticipates demand for coal will rise (FT) from around 1 billion tons last year to 1.5 billion tons by 2030 in order to meet the country’s rapidly growing energy demand.

Bangladesh: Young Rohingya refugees are fleeing (Reuters) Bangladesh by boat in unusually high numbers, aid workers said. While normally more men than women and children make such voyages, UN refugee data showed that of the estimated 1,084 Rohingya people who came ashore in Indonesia’s Aceh province this month, 360 were children.

Middle East and North Africa

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to leverage its role as the host of this year’s UN climate summit to strike potential oil and gas deals with fifteen other countries, according to documents seen by the BBC and the Centre for Climate Reporting. The UAE government did not deny it was privately holding business talks as part of the summit, and said it was also focused on “meaningful climate action.” The UN climate body told the BBC that it expects summit hosts to act without bias or self-interest.

This In Brief by CFR’s Clara Fong explains what to expect at the climate summit in Dubai.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Authorities have arrested most leaders (AP) of yesterday’s attacks on military barracks and prisons in the capital, Freetown, President Julius Maada Bio said. He relaxed what had been a twenty-four-hour curfew to a nighttime lockdown.

CAR: The United States and Russia are competing to take up the security assistance mantle held by the Russian private military company Wagner Group in the Central African Republic (CAR) before the death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the New York Times reported. A security advisor to CAR’s president said his administration was weighing partnering with U.S. officials and would issue a decision by next month.

Europe

Russia foiled twenty-four Ukrainian drone attacks (CNN) across several territories in the last twenty-four hours, including Moscow, Russian officials said yesterday. The attacks came the day after Ukrainian officials said Moscow carried out its largest drone attack on Kyiv since the start of the war.

Netherlands: Gom van Strien, an official named by far-right politician Geert Wilders to explore a viable governing majority after Wilders’ party won the most votes in a parliamentary election last week, abruptly resigned (Reuters) today, underscoring the difficulties of building a coalition.

Americas

Libertarian Javier Milei is due to hold meetings (Bloomberg) in Washington this week with officials from the U.S. Treasury, the White House, and the International Monetary Fund to discuss his plan to aid the country’s struggling economy. In recent days, he has softened some of his election rhetoric against Brazil and China, and yesterday, his foreign affairs envoy invited Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Milei’s inauguration during a visit to the country.

This article by CFR expert Brad W. Setser discusses how Milei’s election draws attention to Argentina’s embattled economy. 

Ecuador: As his first executive action after being sworn in yesterday, President Daniel Noboa Azín repealed permission (AP) for people to carry small amounts of drugs. The 2013 measure was meant to strike a distinction between drug users and traffickers, but Noboa says he will take a harsh anti-drug stance in order to reduce violence.  

In this In Brief, CFR expert Will Freeman unpacks what Noboa’s victory means for Ecuador.

United States

The shooting of three students in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday is being investigated (NYT) as a possible hate crime. Two of the students were wearing kaffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian headdress, and the young men said they were speaking a hybrid of Arabic and English when they were approached by a gunman.

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