A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News. Delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Leading the week
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge will continue to dominate headlines next week as the closure of Baltimore port causes supply chain issues along the eastern seaboard. While events are still fluid as the recovery operation continues, keep an eye out for a potential visit by President Joe Biden, updates on a timeline for refloating the ship and reopening the port, and emergency legislation to support port workers that’s expected to make its way through the Maryland legislature.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will hear oral arguments on Wednesday (April 3) in the federal government’s legal challenge to Texas’ controversial Senate Bill 4 after upholding a preliminary injunction against the law earlier this week. The immigration bill would allow local and state law enforcement and magistrates to arrest, detain and remove people they suspect have entered Texas from another country without federal authorization. The law was slated to take effect on March 5, but that date has been repeatedly extended as the Biden Administration argues in the courts that immigration enforcement is an exclusively federal power.
The crucial case serves as one of many contests between Republicans and Democrats over the border crisis ahead of the November elections. Texas’ approach has inspired other red states to draft legislation to expand local law enforcement’s role in immigration, as Republicans continue to use the migrant influx to paint Biden as incapable or unwilling to address the ‘invasion’ from south of border. Immigration remains a dominant election issue, with some Democrats working to stress their own tough stance on illegal migration to counter the GOP narrative. Following Tuesday’s ruling, the bill will remain on hold until the court issues a decision, which is almost certain to go to the Supreme Court for yet another contentious election year battle.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to Europe next week for talks with European allies, beginning in Paris on Monday and Tuesday (April 1-2), where he meets with Emmanuel Macron to discuss support for Ukraine and the war in Gaza. Blinken and Macron will be looking to come up with a unified line after the French president’s refusal to rule out Western ground troops in Ukraine caused an uproar last month.
Blinken will then travel on to Brussels, where NATO foreign ministers are meeting on Wednesday and Thursday (April 3-4) amid calls for increased international efforts to speed up weapons and ammunition supplies to Ukraine. Ministers will meet privately on Wednesday afternoon before discussing the requests directly with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday during a session of the NATO-Ukraine council. The gathering will also mark NATO’s 75th anniversary on Thursday with a wreath-laying ceremony and speeches from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and many of the bloc’s Baltic and eastern European members.
Blinken wraps up his trip in Leuven, where he co-hosts the sixth (and possibly last) meeting of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council on Thursday and Friday (April 4-5). The forum is expected to focus on co-operation to counter Chinese ‘non-market’ trade practices and excess semiconductor production, as well as funding for secure 6G telecoms networks and research security.
Looking abroad
Africa’s youngest president could be sworn in on Tuesday (April 2), when 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye takes over from Macky Sall in Senegal. Faye had just days to campaign after being unexpectedly released from prison less than two weeks before the March 24 polls, which were controversially delayed from February after a dispute over the final candidate list. His surprise victory in the first round, confirmed in provisional results released yesterday, looks set to usher in an era of change in the west African country following decades of rule by ‘insiders’ from the APR, PDS and PSS parties.
The former tax collector has pledged to reform the CFA Franc currency in a bid to steer Senegal away from its colonial past and into a more pan-African future, and has promised to increase transparency and tackle corruption following years in which opposition politicians and journalists were jailed. Suggestions that Sall could stay on past the end of his mandate on Tuesday were met with widespread protests, but a smooth transfer of power is still dependent on final certification of election results, which is operating on a tight timeline given the election delay.
The Israeli Knesset is due to rise for a six-week recess on Sunday (April 7) despite an ongoing row over new legislation to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service which is threatening to tear apart Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity government. The Supreme Court ruled blanket exemptions illegal in 2017, and the current government resolution instructing the IDF not to conscript yeshiva students is due to expire on Sunday (March 31). Plans to bring forward new legislation faltered this week amid criticism from all sides over reported proposals to retain the exemption while providing for limited gradual Haredi recruitment targets. War cabinet minister Benny Gantz threatened to leave the government if exemptions continue, while ultra-Orthodox coalition parties demanded they remain in place.
The government is due to respond by this afternoon to petitions filed in the Supreme Court claiming the current law is illegal, and is hoping its plans will be enough to warrant another extension until the end of June. If it fails, Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara has warned that the state will be obligated to begin conscripting yeshiva students from Monday (April 1), absent any legal framework for exemption. The Knesset has faced criticism for taking their spring break while the war in Gaza rumbles on and around 130 hostages remain in Hamas hands – Sunday (April 7) also marks six months since the October 7 attacks.