Feb. 9, 2026 - Daily News Digest
On this day: Greece, Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia enter the Balkan Entente in 1934, aiming to maintain the geopolitical status quo of the region and agreeing to present a coordinated front against Bulgarian expansionist aims on their territories.
QOTD: "I am in favour because the experts I know say that it is terribly harmful to children. We must protect our children," [Czech PM] Babis said in a regular video message posted on several of his social media accounts on Sunday, without giving further details.
JAPAN/POL - Japan's Takaichi to pursue conservative agenda after election landslide
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/09/nx-s1-5706602/japan-takaichi-conservative-agenda-election-landslide
Japan's first female Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, brought the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) its biggest electoral victory in its 71-year history, fueling her ambitions to pursue to a political agenda which she herself says could "split public opinion."
Japan's ruling party wins a supermajority in country's lower house
The snap elections for the lower house of parliament were held despite the shortest campaign period in post-war history, and massive snowstorms across much of Japan.
Benefitting from Takaichi's popularity, the LDP won a two-thirds majority in the lower house, enough to override vetoes by the opposition-controlled upper house.
It would also allow the LDP to initiate amendments to Japan's pacifist constitution, which the party has sought to revise since its founding in 1955, and Takaichi said she would pave the way for an eventual referendum on the issue.
It's the biggest majority any single Japanese party has won in the lower house in the post-war era. An unprecedented 90% of candidates fielded by the LDP won.
Japan's Prime Minister and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Sanae Takaichi (R) waves to the people upon her arrival to deliver a campaign speech ahead of the House of Representatives election, at Rekisen Park in Tokyo on February 7, 2026.
Japan's first female prime minister stakes her future on snap elections
Charismatic Japanese leaders, including Takaichi's mentor former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have helped the LDP stage comebacks before.
It's a feature of Japan's politics, which RAND Corporation Japan expert Jeffrey Hornung says "are always very personalistic. People always look to the leader, not so much the party."
Japan's Nikkei stock index jumped to a record high, bond yields went up, and Japan's currency the Yen went down, in anticipation of Takaichi's stimulus spending and tax cuts.
GIFT LINK: The Chinese Factory That Opened in the U.S. and Clobbered Its Rivals
https://www.wsj.com/business/tariffs-china-trump-trade-4495c2a4?st=zCAEGK&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
President Trump spent much of last year courting foreign investment in U.S. factories, promising to replace jobs lost to the global economy. The rise of a Chinese automotive glass plant in the Ohio heartland shows the risks when America’s biggest rival sets up shop.
Ohio’s governor, along with state and federal lawmakers, welcomed Fuyao when the Chinese glassmaking giant took over a closed General Motors factory a decade ago. The project, supported by Ohio taxpayers, was hailed as a step to reviving a battered Rust Belt region. Now, many feel duped.
Competition from the Fuyao Glass America plant is threatening about 250 jobs at a rival glass factory operating since the 1950s. Vitro, the company that owns the longtime plant in Crestline, Ohio, has spent the past year considering whether to shut down, said Carlos Bernal, Vitro’s head of automotive glass.
After announcing plans to close the Vitro plant at the end of 2026, the company told employees last month it would continue operating. Yet the plant’s long-term future is uncertain. Since 2019, Vitro has shut three auto-glass plants in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana—decisions the company attributes in large part to Chinese competition.
The entry of Chinese firms into the U.S. auto industry “not only threatens the safety and security of domestic supply chains,” Bernal said, the companies “jeopardize entire communities that rely on American manufacturing jobs.”
Rivals say they can’t match Fuyao’s lower prices and allege the company employs unfair business and labor practices. The Chinese company supplies GM, Ford, Stellantis and other automakers in the U.S.
Vitro’s concerns reached Washington after federal authorities conducted a raid on the Fuyao plant in 2024. The U.S. alleges that Chinese business owners formed a web of dozens of commercial enterprises in Ohio to “facilitate the harboring, transportation, and employment of illegal aliens at various factories,” including Fuyao, which allegedly funneled $126 million to companies in the scheme, according to a civil forfeiture complaint filed by federal authorities last year in U.S. District Court. No one has been criminally charged in the case.
THAILAND/POL - Thailand's ruling party readies for coalition talks after big election win
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailands-bhumjaithai-prepares-coalition-talks-after-big-election-win-2026-02-09/
Thailand faced a realignment of conservative politics on Monday, with coalition talks expected to start soon after Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's party clinched a stronger-than-expected general election victory.
With 94% of votes counted, the ruling Bhumjaithai was way ahead of its rivals after Sunday's vote, securing 193 of the 500 seats in parliament, according to Reuters' calculations based on election commission data.
"We need a strong government," Anutin said in a news broadcast, adding that he wanted to form an administration with a strong majority but was waiting for the final results.
The result drove stocks up 4% in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy, to their highest level in over a year, as the risks of political instability receded and the finance minister vowed to pursue existing stimulus plans.
GIFT LINK: Vietnam’s Leader Has New Power, and He’s in a Hurry
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/world/asia/vietnam-to-lam.html?unlocked_article_code=1.K1A.KJRD.2n03uMQxJduF&smid=url-share
To Lam was already Vietnam’s top leader when last month’s Communist Party congress began. But as it ended on Jan. 23 with him amassing more power, he seemed quicker to smile, to shake hands with comrades in Hanoi’s red-draped convention hall, and in a rush to do more.
At a news conference after the new Politburo list confirmed that he would serve dual roles as head of party and president — a break from Vietnam’s power-sharing norm — he was the first of several officials to enter the room and the first to sit down. His dark wood chair in the center was much larger than the others.
“This congress convenes in a new context, requiring a new vision,” he told a group of mostly state-employed reporters. “This time,” he added, “what’s more important is action.”
Mr. Lam, 68, is now Vietnam’s most powerful leader in decades, consolidating control at a turning point for Asia, with Washington focused elsewhere and Beijing trying to escape a national malaise with dominance in exports and military hardware.
UK/POL - Starmer’s Chief of Staff Quits as Mandelson Furor Engulfs PM
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-08/starmer-s-chief-of-staff-quits-as-mandelson-furor-endangers-pm
Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney quit his post on Sunday, becoming the casualty of a furor over the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington that now threatens the prime minister’s own position.
The loss of his key aide is a hammer blow to Starmer, who as recently as Wednesday said he retained confidence in McSweeney and considered him an “essential part of my team.” With the Irishman the architect of Labour’s 2024 election landslide win and the prime minister’s closest senior adviser, his departure leaves the prime minister exposed at a time when frustrated members of parliament are braying for change at the top.
Starmer’s vulnerability was laid bare in the wake of McSweeney’s departure, when two key Labour-linked groups suggested accountability shouldn’t end with the chief of staff.
Mainstream, a network of Labour politicians from the left of the party, issued a statement saying: “All those involved in the disastrous appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US must be held to account.” Compass, another left-wing pressure group, was blunter, saying in a statement: “in time, a new captain will be needed to steer the party.”
[Lots of news coverage in the past week or so about UK PM Starmer being forced out of office due to Epstein ties. The headlines and the move are dramatic, and anyone with even a passing familiarity with British media and especially its tabloids probably has a full sense of just how much noise will be made over this. But if we step back over the past decade and look at British politics, Starmer is the 5th Prime Minister since Theresa May took office in 2016. If Starmer can make it to July, he’d be right in the two-year average term length of has come to define the general fickleness and wayward nature of the post-Brexit British political scene. Which is not to say it doesn’t matter, but I think the Epstein scandal is more likely to have been the excuse to change up the government rather than the specific reason. -mnno]
PORTUGAL/POL - Portugal Elects a President, With Leftist Beating a Surging Far Right
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/world/europe/portugal-president-elections-chega-seguro-ventura.html
Portugal on Sunday elected António José Seguro, a former leader of Portugal’s Socialist Party with wide establishment support, in a landslide victory over his nationalist opponent, André Ventura.
The government’s election returns website reported that Mr. Seguro had won more than 65 percent of the vote to Mr. Ventura’s 34 percent, with more than 90 percent of districts reporting.
“The Portuguese people are the best people in the world,” Mr. Seguro told reporters as he left his home in Caldas da Rainha, central Portugal, on Sunday evening. He added they had showed “enormous civic responsibility” and “attachment to the values of democracy.”
The convincing victory was embraced by the establishment, in Portugal and beyond, as a reprieve from a rising far-right tide across the Continent. But the far right’s presence in the runoff nevertheless again put Europe on notice. Near-final results showed Mr. Ventura likely to win more than 33 percent of the vote, meaning his party will have outperformed the result of the governing conservatives in the last parliamentary election.
ISRAEL/SEC - Israel’s security cabinet approves measures to strengthen control over the West Bank
https://apnews.com/article/west-bank-israel-settlement-palestinians-cabinet-328429d96099bc33275035b85244797a
Israel ’s security cabinet on Sunday approved measures that aim to deepen Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and weaken the already limited powers of the Palestinian Authority.
The office of far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a statement announced the decisions that would make it easier for Jewish settlers to force Palestinians to give up land, adding that “we will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
Yonatan Mizrachi, a researcher with the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now, called the decision “very significant.” He said the decision still requires approval by Israel’s top commander for the West Bank.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a statement called the decision “dangerous” and an “open Israeli attempt to legalize settlement expansion” and land confiscation. He called for the United States and U.N. Security Council to intervene immediately.
KSA/SUDA/UAE - Saudi Arabia denounces ‘foreign interference’ in Sudan after RSF attacks
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/8/saudi-arabia-slams-foreign-interference-in-sudan-after-deadly-rsf-attacks
Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed its support for Sudan’s territorial unity and integrity, denouncing “criminal attacks” by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North and South Kordofan states that have killed dozens of people, including women and children.
In a statement on Saturday, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “foreign interference” by “some parties” in Sudan, including the “continued influx of illegal weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters” for the continuation of the nearly three-year-old war.
The statement did not specify the parties, though.
It came a day after the Sudan Doctors Network, a humanitarian group, said a drone attack by the RSF on a vehicle transporting displaced families in North Kordofan killed at least 24 people, including eight children.
The attack followed a series of drone raids on humanitarian aid convoys and fuel trucks across North Kordofan, including an assault on a World Food Programme convoy on Friday that killed at least one person.
In a statement on Saturday, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry stressed that “targeting relief convoys and humanitarian assets constitutes a grave violation of the principles of international humanitarian law and represents a deliberate undermining of efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance to those in need”.
“This attack does not represent an isolated incident, but rather a continuation of a pattern adopted by the militia to obstruct humanitarian work and use deprivation of food as a means of pressure against civilians,” it said, calling on the international community to take necessary measures to ensure accountability for the RSF and its supporters.
[Sudan, after Yemen, is emerging as another proxy battle where Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are seeing themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield. -mnno]
CZECHIA/TECH - Czech prime minister in favour of social media ban for under-15s
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/czech-prime-minister-favour-social-media-ban-under-15s-2026-02-08/
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Sunday he was in favour of banning the use of social media by children under 15, as a growing number of European countries consider similar restrictions.
Countries including Spain, Greece, Britain and France are weighing tougher stances on social media use due to concern over the perceived negative effects on children, after Australia in December became the first nation to prohibit access to such platforms for the under-16s.
ETHIOPIA/ETRITREA/MIL - Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of military aggression, backing armed groups
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopia-accuses-eritrea-military-aggression-backing-armed-groups-2026-02-08/
Ethiopia's foreign minister has accused neighbouring Eritrea of military aggression and of supporting armed groups inside Ethiopian territory, according to a letter seen by Reuters and verified by the foreign ministry.
The two longstanding foes who waged war against each other between 1998 and 2000, signed a peace deal in 2018 and were allies during Ethiopia's two-year war against regional authorities in the northern Tigray region.
But Eritrea was not a party to the 2022 agreement that ended the Tigray conflict, and relations between the two nations have plunged into acrimony since then.
Recent clashes between Tigrayan forces and Ethiopian troops have raised fears of a return to war.
An Eritrean government spokesperson said officials were checking whether the letter had been delivered to the foreign ministry.
The February 7 letter from Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos to his Eritrean counterpart, Osman Saleh, said Eritrean forces had occupied Ethiopian territory along parts of their shared border for an extended period and had provided material support to militant groups operating inside Ethiopia.
RUSSIA/DUBAI/UKRAINE/SEC - Arrest in Dubai after shooting of Russian general — FSB
https://www.dw.com/en/arrest-in-dubai-after-shooting-of-russian-general-fsb/a-75859699
The man suspected of shooting senior Russian military intelligence officer Vladimir Alekseyev in Moscow has been detained in Dubai, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence agency said Sunday.
The FSB named the Russian national in his 60s as Lyubomir Korba, who it said was arrested by police in the United Arab Emirates and then extradited to Russia.
TASS news agency reported Sunday that a second man was arrested in Moscow, while a suspected female accomplice of the gunman has fled to Ukraine, citing the FSB.
Russian newspaper Kommersant cited a source close to the investigation on Saturday as saying that two suspects in the shooting "will soon be interrogated" and charged.
SPAIN/PORTUGAL/WEATHER - Farmers report 'catastrophic damage to crops as Storm Marta hits Spain and Portugal
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/farmers-report-catastrophic-damage-crops-storm-marta-hits-spain-portugal-2026-02-07/
Farmers in Spain warned on Saturday that torrential rains and high winds had left fields submerged and caused millions of euros worth of damage to crops, as Spain and Portugal braced for more extreme weather.
The Iberian Peninsula has already experienced a succession of storms in recent weeks, bringing heavy rain, thunder, snow and strong gales before the arrival of Storm Marta on Saturday.
A snowplow driver died on Saturday when his vehicle plunged 20 meters (65 ft) down a slope in the El Pico mountain pass, in Avila in northern Spain, where it had been snowing heavily, emergency services said.
RSA/ECON - They Came for Its Riches, but Big Business Is Souring on South Africa
https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/they-came-for-its-riches-but-big-business-is-souring-on-south-africa-27937c50?mod=world_lead_story
The corporate exodus from what was supposed to be Africa’s breakout economy is accelerating, propelled by a toxic cocktail of corruption, lawlessness and poor infrastructure.
Foreign investors from Shell to British American Tobacco are downsizing in South Africa. Those decisions could mark a watershed moment for a country where the government’s ability to deliver basic services has become so limited that private firms have taken over many basic civic functions.
Africa’s biggest and most-developed economy has long been plagued by logistical problems, including failing infrastructure and rising electricity costs. Firms have put up with those drawbacks for access to South Africa’s deep seam of mineral wealth and its growing consumer market.
But a catalog of recent high-profile corruption scandals, often linked to laws intended to right the racial wrongs of apartheid, has eroded South Africa’s reputation among investors and exacerbated the country’s fundamental problems, including regular dayslong water and power outages.
Legislation designed to improve the lot of South Africa’s Black majority has also deterred investment. Elon Musk’s SpaceX was in talks with South African officials about launching its Starlink internet service in the country—which could have boosted the fortunes of the country’s economic backwaters—but the world’s richest man is demanding an exemption from a rule that requires foreign companies to give up 30% of their local operations to Black South Africans.
The World Bank estimates that crime costs South Africa’s economy at least 10% of gross domestic product annually, including stolen property, the extra costs of security and insurance, and missed economic opportunities.
A spokesman for South Africa’s presidency said that the movements of the companies had to do with their “global restructuring processes.”
“As those firms have left, others have come in,” said Vincent Magwenya. He pointed to Chinese car manufacturer Chery’s agreement to purchase a manufacturing plant in Rosslyn, South Africa, from Nissan.
US/CHINA/AUSTRALIA/MIL - The U.S. Navy’s New Insurance Policy for War With China Is an Australian Base
https://www.wsj.com/world/the-u-s-navys-new-insurance-policy-for-war-with-china-is-an-australian-base-764af616
If the U.S. and China come to blows over Taiwan, this naval base in Western Australia offers a berth to bring American nuclear-powered submarines close to the fight—and a haven if things go wrong.
Washington plans to deploy up to four submarines to HMAS Stirling in the coming years, with the first due to arrive in 2027, advancing a process of military integration with a Pacific ally with the aim of deterring China. Australia is investing billions of dollars in the base and a maintenance precinct nearby.
For the U.S., the arrangement offers a crucial advantage for a potential conflict with China. The U.S. bases submarines at Guam, but China could hit the U.S. territory with a missile barrage early, possibly knocking out the island’s military facilities.
Doing submarine maintenance in Western Australia also gives the U.S. another option for repairs—in a spot that is relatively close to regional flashpoints, chiefly the South China Sea and Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own territory, to be seized by force if necessary. A lot of maintenance is currently performed on Guam, at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or the U.S. mainland, defense analysts said, and U.S. shipyards are struggling to keep up.
“If you were in some kind of conflict, and your ships are getting damaged, you’re going to want to return to the fight quickly,” said Rear Adm. Lincoln Reifsteck, who commands an American submarine group, during a recent visit to the base. “So having this geography to enhance what you have in Guam, to enhance what you have in Pearl Harbor…it’s going to make the U.S. Navy able to get back to it faster.”