Daily News Brief

February 27, 2024

Top of the Agenda

Sweden has cleared (FT) the last political hurdle to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after receiving approval from Hungary’s parliament yesterday. NATO officials celebrated the news, which together with Finland’s accession last year will give NATO control over almost the entirety of the Baltic Sea and double the alliance’s land border with Russia. “Sweden’s membership will make us all stronger and safer,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. 

French President Emmanuel Macron, emphasizing Western resolve against the threat of Russia, said at a conference yesterday that sending Western troops to fight on the ground in Ukraine was not “ruled out” (NYT), though there was no immediate consensus on the matter. Meanwhile, the new head of the European Investment Bank said she would like to see its investment rise (FT) in defense projects. 

Analysis

“The length of the Russia-NATO border has jumped fourfold since Putin's invasion. Yet people glibly say that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is winning. Strategically he's still losing,” the Financial Times’ Edward Luce posts.

“Rather than wring my hands over the delay in Swedish membership, I choose to celebrate the fact of NATO’s imperfect democratic decision-making. A vengeful and determined Putin could slow but not ultimately undermine NATO’s intrinsic resilience—a fact that should be celebrated every bit as much as Sweden finally taking its formal seat at the NATO table,” the Atlantic Council’s Christopher Skaluba writes.   

This Backgrounder by CFR’s Jonathan Masters discusses NATO.

Pacific Rim

Seven countries are the main participants (Khaosod) in the forty-third annual Cobra Gold drills, the largest and longest-running joint military drills in Southeast Asia. Personnel from a total of thirty countries will participate. For the first time this year, the drills will include training (The Nation) on aerospace and cyber threats. 

Australia: New data required to be made public by a 2023 Australian law reveals (The Guardian) that dozens of firms have gender pay gaps of more than 50 percent. Almost five thousand private firms released their data today. Australia’s national pay gap is 19 percent.   

South and Central Asia

The Adani Group’s new factories are set to produce (Bloomberg) 150 million rounds of ammunition per year, around 25 percent of India’s needs, primarily for the armed forces. Adani’s manufacturing plans prop up India’s efforts to boost local production of military supplies.

India/Uzbekistan: An Uzbek court sentenced (Reuters) twenty-three people to jail terms yesterday in relation to the deaths of sixty-eight children linked to contaminated cough syrup. Indian pharmaceutical firm Marion Biotech produced the cough syrup, and India’s government canceled (AFP) the firm’s production license after the syrup was found to be contaminated.

Middle East and North Africa

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched (Times of Israel, Reuters) a barrage of rockets at the Golan Heights region yesterday in response to Israeli strikes on the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces said another strike in southern Lebanon killed a senior Hezbollah leader.

Iran: The country reduced (WSJ) its stockpile of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels for the first time since it started producing the material in 2021, the UN atomic watchdog said yesterday. The move comes as Tehran and Washington have sought to avoid direct confrontation in the regional conflict in the Middle East. 

This Backgrounder by CFR’s Kali Robinson unpacks Iran’s nuclear negotiations. 

Sub-Saharan Africa

President Macky Sall announced he would send (AFP) the bill to the country’s legislature tomorrow as part of attempts to de-escalate tensions in the country following his decision to delay elections originally scheduled for this month. Rights groups said more than one thousand people have been detained during anti-government protests since 2021. The amnesty would cover actions taken between 2021 and 2024, Sall said.

Nigeria: Trade union umbrella group Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is carrying out (BBC) a nationwide protest today against poor economic conditions in the country due to the Bola Tinubu government’s reforms. NLC leader Joe Ajaero called on (Vanguard) the government to implement a new minimum wage.

For the Africa in Transition blog, CFR expert Ebenezer Obadare explains why Nigeria needs a change of direction, not a change of government. 

Europe

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was on the verge of being traded in a prisoner swap before his death in Russian state custody this month, one of Navanly’s top aides said yesterday. She said the deal would have exchanged Navalny and two Americans imprisoned in Russia in exchange for a Russian man jailed in Germany for killing a former Chechen separatist in 2019. An unnamed U.S. official familiar with the negotiations told the New York Times that such talks had not been in their final stages, but that “early discussions” had been underway.

Americas

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that Caribbean countries called on more Francophone nations to contribute to the security force yesterday after she announced (Reuters) Benin’s offer. Plans are being put together for the deployment of a Kenya-led mission to help stabilize Haiti.

Brazil: The country’s development bank will partner (Reuters) with a private sector alliance of asset managers to finance climate projects, bank director Aloizio Mercadante said. A co-chair of the alliance said the new partnership would resemble a “more comprehensive” version of Just Energy Transition Partnership financing efforts to phase out coal-fired power in Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam. 

This In Brief by CFR’s Noah Berman and Clara Fong looks at the state of global climate finance. 

United States

The pair of cases discussed yesterday before the court weighed to what extent (NYT) social media firms should be able to moderate content on their platforms. The court could issue a decision later this spring, which could shape the future of internet discourse.

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