Financial Times - Ben Hall / Denmark to revamp defence plan agreed just 8 months ago

• Denmark will have to a rip up a five-year funding plan for defence only eight months after it was agreed, with the prime minister admitting her country will need to spend more because of growing European security risks.

• The government struck a cross-party agreement in April to raise spending by DKr35bn ($5bn) between 2024 and 2028, enough to hit the Nato target of at least 2 per cent of the GDP.

• Speaking on Tuesday at a meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, of northern European countries that are members of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force, a defence grouping, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson appeared to back the 3 per cent goal, saying “2.5 would honestly be too little”.

• Denmark has increased defence spending rapidly since 2022, up from 1.4 per cent of GDP to 2.4 per cent this year, including aid to Ukraine. It has provided €7bn in military aid to Kyiv, according to the Kiehl Support Tracker, making it the second-biggest donor by share of GDP. By comparison, the UK has provided €10bn.

 Al Jazeera / UN warns Syria war ‘has not ended’, urges ‘inclusive’ political process

• The United Nations special envoy for Syria has warned that the war “has not ended yet” despite the removal of President Bashar al-Assad by opposition fighters, highlighting clashes between Turkish-backed armed groups and Kurdish fighters in the north of the country.     

•  “There have been significant hostilities in the last two weeks, before a ceasefire was brokered,” Geir Pedersen told the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday, warning that a military escalation could be “catastrophic”.

• Later on Tuesday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said in a post on X that the group was ready to present a proposal for a “demilitarised zone” in the northern city of Kobane, with the redeployment of security forces under US supervision.

• He said the proposal aims to address Turkiye’s security concerns and ensure permanent stability in the area.

South China Morning Post - Sylvie Zhuang / China-EU trade ties ‘on hold’ ahead of Trump’s White House return: Spanish envoy

•  Tariff talks between China and the EU are unlikely to progress before US president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, Spain’s ambassador to Beijing suggested, as she called for improved trade relations with the bloc. 

•  Since the end of October, the EU has been imposing tariffs of up to 45 per cent on electric vehicles from China in a bid to level the playing field for its local manufacturers.

•  According to Merics, a Berlin-based think tank, Spain’s trade relationship with China – its largest trading partner outside the EU – has become highly asymmetrical in recent years, with a deficit in 2022 of almost 34 billion euros (US$35.6 billion).

• The Merics data put Spain’s imports from China at 41.98 billion euros (US$44 billion), compared to Spanish exports to the Chinese market of slightly more than 8 billion euros (US$8.3 billion) in 2022.

Bloomberg - Simon Marks and Mohammed Alamin / Russian Guns, Iranian Drones Are Fueling Sudan’s Brutal Civil War

• Rocket launchers, bullets and handguns line the walls of Dirar Ahmed Dirar’s cramped office in Port Sudan’s Daim Almadina neighborhood. Ammunition belts for Russian-made machine guns hang from his secretary’s desk, and Chinese assault rifles lie stacked on chairs.

• Toying with a pair of live hand grenades, the Sudanese militia leader described how the national army’s foreign backers helped turn the tide in the brutal 20-month civil war that’s sparked the world’s biggest displacement crisis, sent millions hurtling toward famine and left the mineral-rich country of 50 million people in ruins. Soldiers on both sides of the war have indiscriminately killed civilians and prevented food aid from reaching vulnerable populations.

• The war — fought between two generals jockeying for control of a vast country with a strategic 530-mile Red Sea shoreline — is the bloodiest example of an anti-democratic wave that’s swept Africa’s Sahel region in recent years. Coups from coast to coast have seen military juntas move away from Western allies and closer to Russia — which has deployed mercenaries to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Central African Republic. None have drawn in as many external actors as Sudan—and in contrast to their recent humiliation in Syria, Russia and Iran are currently on the winning side.

• As the war drags on, Russia has sold the army millions of barrels of fuel, and thousands of weapons and jet components, while Iran has sent shipments of arms and dozens of drones – allowing the military to recapture parts of the capital, Khartoum, and wide swathes of territory across the country from its rival, the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. The army’s arsenal has grown so much that earlier this year it built a new hangar at the military wing of Port Sudan’s airport.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Project Syndicate - Ana Palacio / China’s New Social Contract

• Foreign Policy - Gil Barndollar and Matthew C. Mai / Who Lost More Weapons—Russia in Syria or America in Afghanistan?