Daily News Brief

September 20, 2024

Top of the Agenda

The UN Security Council will discuss a week of the most intense hostilities in Lebanon and northern Israel in almost a year of war; they have included a barrage of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, rocket attacks, air strikes, and pledges of continued military action both by Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged a “severe reckoning” for attacks on electronic devices earlier in the week, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel had entered a “new phase of the war” on its northern border. Israel said that it struck around one hundred rocket launch sites set to be fired at Israel from southern Lebanon last night and today, as Hezbollah sent off at least 140 rockets into northern Israel. 

Countries including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom have called for restraint; the White House said a diplomatic solution was achievable and urgent. Meanwhile, investigators in multiple countries are still trying to track how explosions occurred in electronic devices shipped to Lebanon; the incident has raised new concerns about the safety of global electronics supply chains. (Reuters, NYT, WaPo)

Analysis

“Hezbollah...knows that a full-scale war with Israel would imperil its future and its regional status, as evidenced in its restrained response to Israel’s recent provocations. A conflict of those dimensions could also further damage Hezbollah’s domestic standing because Lebanon would be hard-pressed to rebuild afterward,” Carnegie’s Mohanad Hage Ali writes for Foreign Affairs. 

“The reality is that hundreds of thousands of civilians—in Lebanon and Israel—are on the brink of a devastating escalation of this conflict if the hardliners get their way. Many are already displaced, injured and killed. They must be [the international community’s] central concern,” University of Oxford’s Tom Fletcher writes in the Financial Times. 

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

Pacific Rim

The two countries struck a deal back in August that includes international monitoring of the release of treated wastewater from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, Chinese state media reported. In return, China pledged to steadily restore purchases of Japanese seafood after imposing a ban on them last year in the countries’ quarrel, Japan’s prime minister said. (Nikkei)

Fiji: Former Fiji businessman George Speight, found guilty in 2002 for plotting a failed coup attempt two years prior, was granted a presidential pardon and released from prison. (ABC)

South and Central Asia

The leaders of Australia, India, and Japan are each sitting down for bilateral meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden before a four-way Quad leaders summit tomorrow. The Quad partnership has been up and running since 2007, but Biden has elevated it during his presidency. It’ll be Biden’s first time hosting foreign leaders at his home in Wilmington. (AFP)

Sri Lanka: Sri Lankans vote tomorrow in the first presidential election since mass protest over economic strains shook the country in 2022. The issue of the economy is just as salient in the election, and polls suggest a close race with chances for two different challengers to defeat the incumbent. (Reuters)

Middle East and North Africa

Ayachi Zammel plans to campaign from jail yesterday after being handed a twenty-month sentence for allegedly falsifying signatures on his candidacy papers. Zammel is one of several opposition candidates who have faced criminal charges in the lead-up to October’s election. His lawyer criticized the fraud charges as politically motivated. (AP)

Sub-Saharan Africa

Mali’s junta-run government has provided little information about Tuesday’s attack in its capital, Bamako, but unnamed diplomatic and security sources told Reuters it killed some seventy people. The scale of the attack runs counter to the junta’s claims that security has improved after expelling U.S. and French forces. (Reuters)

This Africa In Transition blog by CFR expert Ebenezer Obadare warns of the danger when civilians become targets in political skirmishes. 

Africa: The director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that mpox “is not under control” on the continent, with 2,912 new cases reported in the last week and vaccination only having begun in Rwanda. Vaccinations are due to kick off in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mpox’s epicenter, in the first week of October. (Anadolu)

Europe

European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen went public with the plan on a visit to Kyiv today to counter Russia’s “relentless” attacks. This fund is part of an arrangement in which Group of Seven (G7) countries will raise money using the proceeds of seized Russian assets. (DW)

Tune into a conversation held at CFR with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday, September 23, at 8:00 p.m. (EDT). 

France: Michel Barnier, two weeks into his role as prime minister of France, proposed a leadership slate to President Emmanuel Macron last night. His ideas are due to be unveiled by Sunday and will include new figures in all main ministries except for defense. (AFP) 

Americas

The government-funded institute Saskatchewan Research Council built the plant that will process rare-earth minerals from Australia, Brazil, and Vietnam at present and minerals from Canadian mines down the line. Its director said it would churn out enough inputs for five hundred thousand new electric vehicles per year. Currently, China controls almost 90 percent of rare earth processing and refining. (FT)

U.S./Mexico: A U.S. government prosecutorial team recommended a life sentence for former Mexican Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna in a letter to the judge on his case. As public security leader, he was in charge of battling the country’s violent drug trade, but last February, García Luna was found guilty of engaging in a criminal drug enterprise to move cocaine to the United States. His sentencing is set for October 9. (Reuters)

This Backgrounder details Mexico’s long war with the drug trade, crime, and cartels.

U.S. Campaign 2024

The House of Representatives will cast their votes today on a bill requiring the Secret Service to use the same standards for assigning agents to major presidential and vice-president candidates as they would for sitting members of those offices. House Speaker Mike Johnson described the initiative as a bipartisan issue earlier in the week. (AP) 

This Expert Brief by CFR Fellow Jacob Ware details how the recent assassination attempts pose a new test for U.S. democracy.

Friday Editor’s Pick

An investigation by The Guardian sheds light on the harrowing reality of Italy’s agreement with Tunisia to curb the migrant flows from Africa. 

Council on Foreign Relations

58 East 68th Street — New York, NY 10065

1777 F Street, NW — Washington, DC 20006

Shop the CFR Store

Manage Your Email Preferences