Daily News Brief

September 10, 2024

Top of the Agenda

The Kremlin has received shipments of short-range ballistic missiles from Tehran, and Washington will respond by moving to punish those involved, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today. Iran this week denied having sent weapons to Russia. Blinken spoke at a joint press event in London with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy; the two will visit Ukraine tomorrow. 

The U.S. assessment comes as Ukraine continues its summer strategy of carrying out strikes within Russian territory. Russia said that it destroyed more than 140 Ukrainian drones overnight that flew over several regions including Moscow. It was one of the largest Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil since the start of the war more than two years ago. A woman died in an apartment building outside Moscow, while three of the city’s international airports shuttered operations and diverted flights to other destinations for several hours. Russian strikes have killed more than ten thousand civilians in Ukraine since the war began, according to the United Nations. (AP, WaPo)

Analysis

“[Iranian missile shipments to Russia] would mark a qualitatively different level of cooperation as well as changing dynamics in the Middle East, which might have served as a driving force behind Tehran’s decision,” the European University’s Emil Avdaliani writes for the Stimson Center.

“Washington should focus on helping Ukraine hold the line and preventing further Russian military advances. It should continue to impose economic and diplomatic costs on Moscow but not expect them to have much effect; the main purpose of such pressure is to send the right message to U.S. allies and hold a point of leverage in reserve for a post-Putin Russia,” the Center for a New American Security’s Peter Schroeder writes for Foreign Affairs.

Pacific Rim

Today’s long-anticipated conversation aimed to reduce the risk of “misperception or miscalculation,” the White House said. It’s part of a restoration of military-to-military communication that Beijing slashed with Washington in August 2022 after then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Taipei. (CNN)

China/Spain: On a trip to Beijing, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for resolving China-European Union (EU) trade tensions “within multilateral frameworks.” Chinese President Xi Jinping and Sánchez also pledged to strengthen their countries’ bilateral relationship. (AFP, Reuters) 

South and Central Asia

As part of the international activities of the CHIPS and Science Act, the U.S. State Department announced that it will help India map out opportunities and needs in its semiconductor sector. It is the eighth country where the United States has signed such a partnership. (India Today, FP)

Pakistan/Netherlands: A Dutch court convicted two Pakistani religious and political leaders in absentia for calling on their followers to murder anti-Islam Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders. However, the convicted men are believed to be in Pakistan, which does not have an extradition agreement with the Netherlands, making it unlikely they’ll be turned over to face the charges. (AP)

Middle East and North Africa

Gaza’s health ministry recorded the deaths along with another sixty wounded in today’s attack. Their toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Gazan authorities said they were still working to uncover bodies under rubble. (WaPo)

Lebanon: After being detained last week, the former head of Lebanon’s central bank for three decades, Riad Salameh, was issued an arrest order by a judge yesterday as part of an embezzlement probe. Salameh has denied the accusations. (AFP) 

Sub-Saharan Africa

The country’s finance minister said yesterday it will open a public consultation process for new tax and revenue policies after mass demonstrations led the Kenyan government to renege on previously planned tax hikes in June. (Reuters) 

For the Africa In Transition blog, CFR expert Ebenezer Obadare explains how African countries’ fiscal crises are actually governance crises. 

Kenya: The highest court blocked a deal to lease Nairobi’s main international airport for thirty years to Indian firm Adani, saying the deal was an “irrational” use of public money. Adani did not immediately comment. (Bloomberg)

Europe

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the government will add new patrols on several borders in order to reduce irregular migration by next Monday. The government has been under pressure to toughen border measures after a Syrian national who failed to secure an asylum bid killed three people last month in a knife attack. The move comes days after the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party made surprising leaps in securing local elections. (BBC)

In this YouTube Short, UN migration director Amy Pope points out that incoming migrants can help economies. 

Americas

Fifty-nine percent of the country was under stress from drought in August, the most drastic since government records began more than seventy years ago. This year’s dry season began earlier than usual; smoke from fires blanketed the city of São Paulo yesterday. (AP)

Colombia: The country maintained its ranking of the world’s most deaths for environmentalists and land rights defenders in 2023 with a record seventy-nine killed, watchdog Global Witness said in a report yesterday. Its government said in a statement that it recognizes the “serious situation” facing defenders. Colombia is set to be the host for the UN biodiversity conference later this year. (Reuters)

U.S. Campaign 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have prepared to face off on an array of foreign policy topics including immigration, U.S.-China competition, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine onstage tonight in Philadelphia, NBC reports. (NBC)

CFR’s Noah Berman and Diana Roy round up what to know about foreign policy in tonight’s debate.

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