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New NATO head selected; former Norway PM boosted his defense budget
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-new-nato-head-jens-stoltenberg-20140328,0,2666245.story
Jens Stoltenberg, formerly prime minister of Norway, holds a news conference in Oslo on Friday after having been appointed as the new secretary general of NATO. He will take office on Oct. 1, 2014.
New NATO head selected; former Norway PM boosted his defense budget
By Henry Chu
March 28, 2014, 12:40 p.m.
LONDON – NATO named a new leader Friday, tapping a former Norwegian prime minister as it seeks to shore up the alliance amid fears of a new Russian expansionism.
Jens Stoltenberg will take the reins from current NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in October, becoming the second consecutive Scandinavian to occupy the post. Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish premier, has headed the 28-nation alliance since 2009.
The scheduled change in leadership comes as the West confronts what some fear is a newly aggressive Moscow, which under President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea earlier this month after Russian forces invaded the peninsula and wrested it away from Ukraine.
The incursion is a major issue for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which was forged in the Cold War and has tried to define a new role for itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union.