Category: Politics

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in India today (Monday, December 7) to strengthen the military and energy ties with the country. This will be the only second work trip for Putin since the outbreak of Covid19 – he skipped both the G20 and COP26 summits this year.

“The friendship between India and Russia has stood the test of time,” Modi told Putin at a virtual summit in September. “You have always been a great friend of India.”

Due to Russia’s friendliness with China, and India’s good terms with the US, it has been speculated that the relation between India and Russia could go south. But Putin’s visit to India will clear all the doubts.

The Moscow Kremlin said in a statement last week that the talks between Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be driven by defence and energy issues. The boss of Russian energy giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, is also traveling with Putin as a “number of important energy agreements” are on the table.

India and Russia usually hold annual summits, but the leaders of the two countries last met on the sidelines of the 2019 BRICS Summit in Brazil.

United States – Iranian talks on saving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal broke off until next week as European officials showed dismay at sweeping demands by Iran’s new government. The seventh round of talks in Vienna is the first with delegates sent by Iran’s anti-Western President Ebrahim Raisi on how to review the agreement under which Iran limited its nuclear program in exchange for aid from economic sanctions.

After Raisi’s election in June, there was a five-month gap within the talks, which led to suspicions amongst US and European officers that Iran is taking part in for time while advancing its nuclear program.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Iran does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance, which is why they ended this round of talks in Vienna.

Diplomats said the Iranian delegation had asked for big changes to a text that was negotiated in previous rounds and that European officials had said was 70-80% finished.

Europe and the United States have expressed disappointment over Iran’s demands, which they say are incompatible with the deal’s terms or went beyond them.

Myanmar’s junta has protested the United Nations’ decision to deny its chosen representative a seat at the world body and keep in place an envoy appointed by Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted government. Similarly, the representative chosen by the Taliban has also been ignored by the New York body. The committee responsible for approving nominations of ambassadors met on Wednesday but deferred a decision over the rival claims to Myanmar and Afghanistan’s seats.

The deferral keeps in place envoys appointed by both the Myanmar and Afghanistan governments before they were ousted. Myanmar junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP that decisions made by the UN do not reflect the ground reality of their country, and that they will continue submitting according to diplomatic procedure and the right to representation in accordance with international and local laws. The Junta has chosen former soldier Aung Thurein as its envoy to the UN body.

As for Afghanistan, the Taliban asked the UN in September to accept its former spokesperson Suhail Shaheen to succeed Ghulam Isaczai, who is a cabinet member of ousted President Ashraf Ghani’s government. However, Isaczai continues to occupy Afghanistan’s offices at the UN headquarters.

On Wednesday, Russia and a few South-east Asian countries started their first ever joint naval exercise along the Strait of Malacca, which will continue till Saturday.  All 10 members of ASEAN, South-east Asia’s regional bloc, were a part of Wednesday’s drills. While the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia took part as virtual observers, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Singapore and Indonesia provided warships or aircraft.  

The ceremony was attended by Russian Ambassador to ASEAN Alexander Ivanov and Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobyeva.

Russia’s ambassador to the bloc Alexander Ivanov said in a statement that the exercise is about peace, stability and prosperity in the region. The bloc has previously held drills alongside the United States and Chinese navies. The Russian-ASEAN exercises are taking place at a time when China and the US are trying to assert their influence in the region.  

Indonesian Navy First Fleet Command Chief Rear Adm. Arsyad Abdullah said in a statement that the exercise will foster a friendly relationship between Indonesian navy, ASEAN member state navies and the Russian navy, which in turn will increase the navies’ personnel professionalism.

Russia and ASEAN held a virtual summit on October 28, where the decision to hold the first ever Russia-ASEAN naval exercise was taken.

Magdalena Andersson, who was last week sworn in as Sweden’s first woman Prime Minister before she decided to step down due to a budget defeat, has been re-elected as the head of the Government. In a 101 -173 vote with 75 abstentions, Riksdag elected Ms. Andersson as Prime Minister.

She will form a one-party, minority Government and will be formally inducted following an audience with King Carl XVI Gustav, Sweden’s monarch. Ms. Andersson, who has previously served as the country’s Finance Minister, will present her government policies on Tuesday after her cabinet is named. The policies are likely to be welfare, climate and combating violence.

Last week, Ms. Andersson quit as Sweden’s first female prime minister only seven hours after being appointed. The announcement came after she was faced with a budget defeat in parliament. Her coalition partner the Green Party left the government, which compelled Andersson to resign. 

Sweden, known for being one of the most progressive countries in terms of gender equality, was yet to have a female Prime Minister. Ms. Andersson took over the top post from Stefan Lofven, who stepped down in June, was sworn in again and stepped down again in August.

Barbados forged a new republic on Tuesday after ditching Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as head of state and appointing it’s first-ever president to leave their colonial past behind. Sandra Mason was sworn in as Barbados’s first president in the shadow of the Barbados’s parliament. The last country to ditch the Queen was the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in 1992.

To make sure that the relation between the UK and the island continues to remain friendly despite Queen Elizabeth’s exit, Prince Charles is expected to deliver a speech. He was in attendance when Barbados bid farewell to the Queen. A 21 gun salute fired and the national anthem of Barbados was played at the Heroes Square when the constitutional change was made.

Singer Rihanna was also in attendance, and was declared a national hero by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the leader of Barbados’ republican movement for her work in the field of music.

Prior to being elected as the President, Mason was the governor-general of Barbados, a position she served in for almost three years.

Barbados is now the fourth former British colony in the Caribbean to become a republic after Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica.

The United States has no nuclear communication to Beijing. The two countries have never discussed the American missile defenses in the Pacific or China’s experiments to blind U.S. satellites. China has never been keen on having any nuclear talks, saying that the U.S. and Russia have five times more nuclear warheads than Beijing. But President Joe Biden is keen on having a conversation.

As per the New York Times, the U.S. is trying to get China to speak about its nuclear capability. U.S. officials have said that the American president Mr. Biden wants to start the talks by speaking on avoiding accidental conflict, followed by discussing each country’s nuclear strategy.

Earlier this month too, in a virtual summit, Biden raised the possibility of “strategic stability talks” with Xi Jinping, the president of China. And while the two Presidents have agreed to talk, there has been no strong word on whether the talks will include the topic of arms control. Earlier this year, the Pentagon said that China could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by the year 2030.

In world politics, the relationship between the U.S. and China is considered to be one of the most unfriendly bilateral relationships.

Just seven hours after being voted in as Sweden’s first female prime minister, Magdalena Andersson has put down her papers after being faced with a budget defeat in parliament. Her coalition partner the Green Party left the government, which forced Andersson to resign. 

The government’s budget proposal was rejected and the one proposed by the opposition – the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats – was approved. The vote was 154-143 in favour of the opposition’s budget proposal.

Following the defeat, Andersson, who has also served as the finance minister of the country, told reporters that she does not find it appropriate to lead a government where she is not respected. However, she is still interested in leading a Social Democratic one-party cabinet.

The appointment of a female Prime Minister became one of the most historical days in Sweden’s history. Andersson took over the top post from Stefan Lofven, who stepped down in June, was later reinstated, and then stepped down again in August. The Riksdag – Sweden’s supreme decision-making body, will have to elect a new Prime Minister. The Green Party has said it would support Andersson, but not be a part of her cabinet. The next election is less than a year away in September 2022.

United States President Joe Biden has invited nearly 110 countries to a virtual summit on democracy in December. The list of invitees also includes India.

While Taiwan is invited, rival country China has not been sent an invitation. In November, Biden had said the US opposed China’s unilateral efforts to disrupt peace in the Taiwan Strait.  

Among the countries of the Middle East, only Israel and Iraq have been invited. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, tha traditional Arab allies of the US are not invited. South Asian countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have also been excluded.

Russia has been excluded from the list presumably because the US had accused Russian intelligence officers of hacking the presidential elections in 2016.  The While House has said in a statement that the summit urges initiatives across three areas -defending against authoritarianism, fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights.

Among other major countries not invited is Turkey. The United States State Department has said in a statement that the summit will provide the US an opportunity to engage and learn from a diverse range of actors who are important to global democratic renewal. 

French President Emmanuel Macron is in Rome this week to sign a new treaty with Italy, which will strengthen ties between two founding EU members. Mr Macron will seal the pact with Prime Minister Mario Draghi and President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday, and on Friday, he will meet Pope Francis to talk about child abuse at the French Catholic Church.

The ‘Quirinal Treaty’ — named after the presidential palace in Rome where it will be signed – will reinforce ties on economy, tourism, trade and other areas. The two countries are already bound by cultural, historical, and linguistic ties.

The treaty was first proposed in 2018 under the then Italy Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, but after Gentiloni was succeeded by the populist government of the League and the 5-Star Movement, relations between Paris and Rome went south. Despite the fallout between the two countries under the Italian populist government, they are now trying to reinforce all ties under Mario Draghi, who was elected as Prime Minister in February.

As per several reports, the document is being signed only a few weeks before France takes over the EU Presidency and will thus hold “symbolic value”.