Today, NATO discusses Ukrainian membership, a major setback for Thailand's Progressive Potential Prime Minister, North Korea fires a rocket, and the EU population grows for the first time in years. From TLDR news, this is your daily briefing for Wednesday 12 July, 2023. We spoke yesterday about Sweden's likely entry into NATO, now that Turkey has seemingly dropped its opposition. While Sweden's accession has been somewhat difficult due largely to Turkey and Hungary, it doesn't come close to Ukraine's potential accession.
The question of whether and when Ukraine should join NATO is a big one at the ongoing NATO leaders summit in Lithuania, so let's go through who's saying what. For some quick context, back in 2008, NATO issued the Bucharest summit declaration that recognised Ukraine's aspirations and said, we agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO, but didn't give a timeline. Then, in September last year, President Zelensky formally applied for NATO membership after Russia claimed to annex for Ukrainian provinces. While NATO allies have been pretty united when it comes to supporting Ukraine against Russia, the issue of Ukraine's potential membership is much more contentious.
NATO Chief Jan Stoltenberg said at this week's summit, we will issue an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO when allies agree and conditions are met. Ahead of the summit, President Zelensky tweeted, it's unprecedented and absurd when a time frame is not set, neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine's membership. While at the same time, vague wording about conditions is added even for inviting Ukraine. It seems there is no readiness, uncertainty is weakness, and I will openly discuss this at the summit.
Evidently, Zelensky is unhappy at the lack of clarity about Ukrainian accession, however NATO allies are understandably cautious due to Article 5 of the treaty stating that an armed attack against a member state shall be considered an attack against them all. US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that it would be premature for Ukraine to begin the membership process before the war with Russia is over. He said, I don't think there's unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now at this moment in the middle of a war. So the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO anytime soon, or at least while the war is still ongoing, is basically nil.
However, the summit has seen a number of announcements in support of Ukraine's war efforts, including the establishment of a new permanent NATO-Ukraine Council. Promises are further deliveries of weapons and ammunition, including from France, who have pledged to supply Ukraine with long-range scout cruise missiles. There's more on the way, but be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to make the daily briefing part of your daily routine, or just search for us on your podcast app to listen along. Moving to Thailand now, where the country's State Election Commission has said that progressive politician Pitter Limgeronrat violated election law just one day before votes on whether to make him prime minister.
The election commission has asked the constitutional court to make a final ruling and potentially disqualify Limgeronrat from being a lawmaker, but not necessarily from becoming prime minister. The election commission against him centers on his ownership of shares in a media company while he ran for office. He says no rules were broken and that he'd not been given a chance to defend himself. His youth-oriented move forward party shocked the country by coming first in elections earlier this year, having campaigned on things like reducing the political power of the military, legalizing gay marriage and amending laws that make it illegal to insult the monarchy.
Despite winning the election in May and negotiating an eight-party alliance with a lower house majority, his route to becoming prime minister has significant hurdles. The main one being the vote to make him prime minister and former government is carried out by the entire parliament, which includes the 250 member military appointed senate who aren't exactly sympathetic to his party's progressive agenda. If he is suspended as a lawmaker, he could still become prime minister as the poster does not have to be held by a parliamentarian, although a suspension would make the already uncertain vote even more difficult and will likely delay the formation of a government. The constitutional court has also taken on a separate complaint against move forward as a whole, claiming that the party's plan for reforming the royal insult law amounts to an attempt to overthrow the democratic regime of government with the king as head of state.
The party has 15 days to submit their defense. So that's what's been happening in Thailand today. Let's move and discuss what's been happening in North Korea. This morning, Japanese and South Korean officials reported that North Korea had fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile.
The missile allegedly flew for about an hour before landing just short of Japanese waters. For their part, Pyongyang had claimed that this was in retaliation against what it claims was a recent US spy plane flying over its territory. While North Korea had earlier this week threatened to shoot down such planes, they instead seemed to have simply resorted to firing more ICBMs into the sea. The US has claimed that its actions with spy planes are in line with international law.
This year, security concerns regarding North Korea have ramped up, as a result of this new weapons testing. The fact that this comes following last year, which saw a record number of missile drills from North Korea, demonstrates the risk they posed to the international community. In response to this, the US and South Korea have increased their joint military drills in the peninsula. According to data from the US, the European Union's population grew in 2022 for the first time in three years.
While some countries, such as Japan, are having a problem with their population shrinking, this at least indicates that the EU might not have the same problem. However, while it might seem this way, declining birth rates is still a problem facing the EU. From 2001 to 2021, the fertility rate has declined in 11 of the 27 EU member states, and many member states now have an ageing population. So the birth rate isn't the reason behind the population growth.
The reason is an increase in migration. In 2022, more deaths than births were recorded, meaning that without migration, the population would have actually shrunk. And well, this is what happened in 2020 and 2021. More specifically, the increased population sizes come as a result of an influx of displaced persons seeking temporary protection from Ukraine.
As of March this year, around 4 million people from Ukraine have sought this temporary protection. We end with an uplifting story from the US, where the biggest offshore wind farm has been given the green light. The Biden administration has approved a new project, which will be situated just off the New Jersey coast. That will generate enough energy to power half a million homes.
It's been suggested that the 98 turbine complex will generate about 1,100 megawatts of electricity, and could be up and running by as early as 2025. Speaking about the project, Interior Secretary Deb Harland said, today's approval for the Ocean Wind 1 project is another milestone in our efforts to create good-paying union jobs while combating climate change and powering our nation. That's all we have time for on YouTube, and unfortunately the briefing is over. Usually, there would be an extended version over on Nebula, but due to various staffing issues today, this wasn't possible.
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