Senate to Consider Aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Indo-Pacific After House Approval |
The U.S. Senate is due to consider (NYT) separate packages of support for Israel, Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific after they passed the House of Representatives this weekend with bipartisan support. Together, the four bills total some $95 billion in aid. The largest bill allots (PBS) about $61 billion in support for Ukraine, which could receive (AP) new military equipment within days from Western storage facilities in Europe upon receiving the funding. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked lawmakers “for the decision that keeps history on the right track.”
The bill devoted to Middle East funding includes around $17 billion in defense aid to Israel and $9 billion in humanitarian relief for the Gaza Strip and other war-torn regions. Separately, about $8 billion would go to U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific region. The final bill that passed could result in a ban or forced sale of Chinese social media app TikTok over national security concerns. |
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“The newly authorized U.S. aid package should come just in time—and not a second too soon—to avert a Ukrainian collapse this year. It will provide both a materiel and a morale boost, signaling to Ukrainians they are not being abandoned,” CFR expert Max Boot writes for the Washington Post.
“The ability to hold off Russian pressures on the front lines will not by itself turn the war’s tide in Ukraine’s favor. Success of that kind will depend on whether the Biden administration—and its European partners—are also willing to loosen restrictions they have imposed, or tried to impose, on Ukrainian strategy and operations,” CFR Senior Fellow Stephen Sestanovich writes in this Expert Brief.
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Party of Maldives’ Pro-China President Reportedly Sweeps Congressional Elections |
Interim results suggest the ruling People’s National Congress party and affiliated candidates won a supermajority, gaining seventy-one out of ninety-three available seats in the nation’s parliament, local news platform The Edition reported. President Mohamed Muizzu was elected (Bloomberg) last year on a campaign to reduce India’s influence in the country.
China: Tech giant Apple removed (WaPo) U.S. social media platforms Signal, Threads, and WhatsApp from its app store in China under direction from the country’s internet regulator, which classified them as a security risk. The move comes as the U.S. Congress is debating a national ban on TikTok.
For the Asia Unbound blog, CFR expert Joshua Kurlantzick discusses the implications of a possible TikTok ban.
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Pakistan Requests New IMF Loan |
While Pakistan’s government formally requested (Nikkei) the loan between $6 and $8 billion, officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last week that they were focused on ongoing economic reforms in Pakistan rather than a new, larger deal. The country is still awaiting a final $1.1 billion tranche from the fund as part of its current reform agreement.
India: Election officials are redoing polling (Bloomberg) today at eleven locations in the northeastern state of Manipur after reports of shootings and the destruction of voting machines on Friday. Manipur has seen clashes between its majority Hindu residents and largely Christian tribal groups since last year. |
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Middle East and North Africa |
Israeli Head of Military Intelligence Resigns Over Role in Failure to Respond to October 7 Attack |
Major General Aharon Haliva said (Times of Israel) in his resignation letter that the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate under his command “did not fulfill its task” ahead of Hamas’s attack on Israel and that he supports a thorough investigation into the events leading up to it. Haliva is the first senior Israeli military officer to resign over the attack.
Iraq/Syria: Rockets were launched (AFP) from Iraq yesterday toward a military base in northeast Syria where U.S. troops are stationed, a United Kingdom-based war monitor and Iraqi security forces said. It appeared to be the first such attack against U.S. forces since February, when Iran-backed groups in Iraq halted their attacks.
This article by CFR’s Kali Robinson and Will Merrow describes the web of Iran’s regional armed network.
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U.S. Agrees to Pull Its Troops From Niger |
The United States informed Niger on Friday that it will fulfill its request to withdraw U.S. military forces from the country, three unnamed U.S. officials told the Washington Post. For several years, hundreds of U.S. forces monitored militant groups in the region from a base in Niger, but the country’s military government has sought an end to the U.S. troop presence after taking over in a coup last year.
Nigeria: The country is hosting (This Day) a two-day, UN-supported counterterrorism summit in the capital, Abuja, beginning today that is focused on strengthening regional cooperation in response to terrorist threats. Heads of state and high-level government officials across Africa are expected to attend, among others.
For the Africa in Transition blog, CFR expert Ebenezer Obadare explains the perils of nonintervention.
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Japan, Europe to Share Data for Joint EV Battery Recycling Project |
A Japanese industrial data tracking agency is signing a memorandum of understanding with European counterparts today on a plan to share data on extraction sites and suppliers for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, Nikkei reported. The system, to launch by 2025, is designed to prevent strategic rare minerals from leaving the countries that process them for reuse.
China/Germany: German police arrested (DW) three citizens suspected of passing information to China that could have been used for military purposes, the federal prosecutors’ office said today. |
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Ecuadorians Back Expanded Government Crime-Fighting Authority in Referendum |
Ecuador voted (AP) yesterday to increase government authority to deploy the military against gangs and increase prison sentences for convicted drug traffickers, among other security measures. Voters also rejected (Bloomberg) ballot measures that would have liberalized labor markets and permitted international arbitration for foreign investors in the country.
Colombia: Tens of thousands of people demonstrated (Reuters) in the capital, Bogotá, yesterday against President Gustavo Petro’s proposed economic and social reform policies, while marches also occurred in smaller cities. Petro’s efforts to overhaul the health-care system have so far failed in the legislature, while debate is still underway on his labor and pension reforms.
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