Category: Politics

Liberal rights advocate Natasa Pirc Musar has won a run-off vote to become Slovenia’s first female president since the country became independent after the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991.

Since no candidate won an outright majority in the first round of the Slovenian election on October 23, a run-off was held on November 13 between conservative candidate Anže Logar and lawyer Natasa Pirc Musar. With nearly all of the votes counted, Pirc Musar led Slovenia’s conservative former Foreign Minister Anze Logar by 54 percent to 46 percent.

A prominent lawyer, Pirc Musar, 54, had represented former US First Lady Melania Trump in copyright and other cases in her native country, Slovenia. Musar trailed Logar in the first round of voting two weeks ago. But since none of the seven contenders who competed in the first round managed to gather more than 50 percent support to claim victory, Logar and Pirc Musar went to a run-off.

Pirc Musar will succeed President Borut Pahor, a centrist politician who has served two terms. Her election is seen as a boost to the country’s liberal bloc after the centre-left coalition’s victory in Slovenia’s parliamentary election in April.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a formal visit to Bali, Indonesia, from November 14-16, to attend the 17th G20 Summit. The summit is also likely to be attended by US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, among others.

The summit will see G20 leaders deliberating extensively upon key global issues under the Summit theme of “Recover Together, Recover Stronger”. The three working sessions will be on food and energy security; health; and digital transformation.

The Indian Prime Minister will hold bilateral meetings with some of his counterparts on the sidelines of the summit. He is also scheduled to address and interact with the Indian community in Bali.

At the closing session of the G20 summit, Indonesian President Joko Widodo​will symbolically hand over the G20 Presidency to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India will formally assume the G20 Presidency from December 1, 2022. Last week, the Prime Minister unveiled the logo, theme and the website of India’s G20 presidency.

The G20 is the premier forum for international economic cooperation representing around 85 per cent of the global GDP, over 75 per cent of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.

The multilateral naval exercise, Malabar 2022, between India, Japan, the United States and Australia began on Wednesday at Yokosuka in Japan.

The opening ceremony was hosted by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) onboard JS Hyuga. Rear Admiral Sanjay Bhalla, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet, led the Indian delegation that included commanding officers and the crew of INS Shivalik and INS Kamorta. Vice Admiral Yuasa Hideki, Commander in Chief, Self Defense Fleet JMSDF, Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, Commander, US Navy Seventh Fleet, and Rear Admiral Jonathan Earley, Commander of Australian Fleet, participated in the ceremony together with personnel from their respective navies.

Indian naval ships Shivalik and Kamorta arrived in Japan on November 2 to participate in exercise Malabar 2022 and International Fleet Review (IFR) conducted by the JMSDF at Yokosuka on Nov 6 to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of its formation. Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral R Hari Kumar is on an official visit to Japan where he witnessed the IFR.

In 1992, Malabar Exercise was started as a bilateral naval exercise between the navies of India and the US. Japan joined the exercise in 2015, making it a trilateral endeavour. In 2020, Australia became part of Malabar, making it a quadrilateral naval exercise. The four countries are also part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD).

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop one of the world’s largest onshore wind projects in Egypt. The MoU was signed between the UAE’s renewable energy firm Masdar alongside its joint venture with Egypt’s main renewable energy developer Infinity and Hassan Allam Utilities on the sidelines of the ongoing COP27 climate summit in Egypt’s coastal city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

On completion, the wind farm would be part of Egypt’s Green Corridor initiative. It is a grid dedicated to renewable energy projects and aimed at ensuring that renewable energy serves 42% of the country’s energy mix by 2035. The wind project would save Egypt about $5 billion in annual natural gas costs. The country’s total installed power capacity was around 59.5 GW in 2019/2020, the country’s renewable energy authority said in an annual report.

In April, Masdar and Hassan Allam Utilities had signed two MoUs with Egyptian government backed organisations to cooperate on the development of 4 GW green hydrogen production plants in the Suez Canal Economic Zone and on the Mediterranean coast. In the first phase, a green hydrogen manufacturing facility will be up and running by 2026, able to produce 1,00,000 tonnes of e-methanol yearly.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday unveiled the logo, theme and website of India’s G20 Presidency, asserting that G20 in 2023 will be a chance to present India’s developmental progress aimed at advancing global good. India will assume the presidency of the powerful grouping from current chair Indonesia on December 1.

The logo has the Earth juxtaposed with the lotus and theme, “Vasudhaiva Kutumba-kam” or “One Earth One Family One Future.” Elaborating on the theme, he said that India is working on the vision of bringing the whole world together for a common objective, for a better future.

Explaining the logo, the Prime Minister said, “India’s G20 presidency is coming at a time of crisis and chaos in the world… The world is going through the after-effects of a disruptive once-in-a-century pandemic, conflicts and a lot of economic uncertainty… The symbol of the lotus in the G20 logo is a representation of hope in this time. No matter how adverse the circumstances, the lotus still blooms. Even if the world is in a deep crisis, we can still progress and make the world a better place.”

He added that the seven petals of the lotus represent the seven continents. Seven is also the number of notes in the universal language of music, and creates a perfect harmony together while being unique. Similarly, the G20 aims to bring the world together in harmony while respecting diversity.

India and France will conduct joint surveillance and ocean mapping of the Mozambique Channel, Mauritius and South-West Indian Ocean from November 9-11 with Indian Navy’s Boeing P 8 I and French Navy’s Falcon 50. The announcement was made after the successful completion of India-France Air Force exercise over Rajasthan sector on Tuesday.

The announced joint surveillance of France and India will be their second after the surveillance conducted on the eastern board of Africa in March 2022.

In addition to joint surveillance and ocean bed mapping, the strategic allies have committed to combat piracy, drug trafficking, arms smuggling and presence of extraneous powers on the eastern seaboard of Africa under maritime security cooperation. The surveillance is crucial with the presence of Chinese surveillance, ballistic missile tracking ship Yuan Wang 6 currently located around 90 degree East Ridge of the Indian Ocean south of Indonesia.

French Defence Minister Sebastian Lecornu will be visiting India for two days from November 28 to hold talks with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. He will also meet the Prime Minister, External Affairs Minister and the National Security Advisor.

The two countries enjoy close defence ties, and France has committed to jointly develop with India aircraft engines, aircraft, submarines, and missiles under the country’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has returned to power, as the final vote count from elections last week declared a clear majority in parliament, the Knesset, for him and his far-right allies. Last week’s election was Israel’s fifth election in less than four years.

The results released by the country’s electoral commission last week declared that Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party had got 32 seats in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu’s Likud party won 32 seats, while ultra-Orthodox parties secured 18 seats, and a far-right alliance accomplished 14 seats, said the Israeli electoral commission on Thursday.

Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister. He was elected as the premier for the first time almost 26 years ago. With his latest win, the 73-year-old leader will not only head the largest party in the Knesset, but also lead a 64-strong majority bloc of his religious and right-wing allies in the Israeli parliament. He is the second world leader after Brazil’s Lula da Silva to return to power in the span of just one week.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu for being re-elected as the Prime Minister of Israel. The Prime Minister also thanked former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid for his priority to the India-Israel strategic partnership. 

The heads of delegations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states discussed priority steps to increase trade, economic, cultural, and humanitarian cooperation within the eight-member group in a meeting on Tuesday.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang hosted the 21st Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of member states of the SCO via video link. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was a part of the virtual meeting. The other heads of government and representatives of SCO member states that participated in the meeting included Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming and Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Ruslan Mirzayev.

The SCO heads of the state held their first in-person summit after two years at Uzbekistan’s Samarkand last month. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The SCO was launched in Shanghai in June 2001 with six founding members, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined as full members in 2017. India is the current chair of the SCO Heads of the State and expected to hold the summit of the eight-member grouping in the middle of next year.

Algeria is hosting the 31st summit of the 22-member Arab League that held its last summit in 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. In the last three years, new challenges have emerged and significantly reshaped the region’s agenda, especially after a string of normalisation deals with Israel that have divided the region and the consequences of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The summit presents an opportunity for Algeria, Africa’s largest country by territory, to display its leadership in the Arab world. The nation is a major oil and gas producer and a potential supplier to Europe amid the global energy crisis.

The summit is expected to see discussions on food and energy crises, which have had devastating consequences for Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and other Arab countries facing difficulties in importing wheat and fuel for their population. Somalia, a new Arab League member, has been facing the worst drought in several decades with some of its areas on the brink of famine.

The summits of the Arab League try to reach consensus and resolutions on regional and local crises. The first Arab League summit was held in 1964 in Cairo. Syria has been suspended from the summit since the start of its bloody civil war in 2011.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in an election, making a comeback to the top post. The leader won 50.8% of votes compared with 49.2% for Mr. Bolsonaro. This will be the third term for the senior leader, who has challenges of a slow economy, hunger crisis, climate change and budget constraints to overcome.

Mr da Silva, in his victory speech, highlighted the need for “a Brazil of peace, democracy, and opportunity.” He also emphasized on gender and racial equality and the pressing need to deal with a hunger crisis that is affecting 33.1 million people in the country. He also assured that “the wheel of the economy will turn again.”

The future of the Amazon rainforest and its impact on the global climate made the Brazilianpresidential election important for the world. The senior political leader also committed to its conservation. “Brazil is ready to take back its role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all of our biomes, especially the Amazon forest,” he said, adding, “Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon.”

Many world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden, congratulated the Brazilian President-elect for winning the elections.