Useful foreign affairs updates for you
SHARE:
Foreign affairs updates - 12th August, 2021
- Mediterranean wildfires: Nations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea continue to battle wildfires worsened by extreme heat across the region. At least 65 people have been killed following blazes in Algeria, while Greece evacuated 20 villages as firefighters enter a tenth day combatting fires in the Peloponnese region. In Italy, authorities say they launched more than 3,000 operations in Sicily and Calabria on Wednesday alone. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has declared three days of mourning for the country’s dead.
- Afghan FM quits, leaves nation: Afghanistan’s acting finance minister Khalid Payenda has resigned and left the country after the Taliban captured key customs posts bleeding the administration of revenue, reinforcing the government’s isolation as the militants make swift gains. Afghanistan is grappling with declining revenues after the takeover of the custom posts. With US and NATO troops slated for a complete exit by Aug. 31, a resurgent Taliban have overrun several provincial capitals in recent days. The militants have also seized several crucial custom posts causing President Ashraf Ghani’s government to lose as much as $30 million in import duties in one month alone. The taxes account for about half of Afghanistan’s total domestic revenues, estimated to be about 216.5 billion Afghanis in 2021. The Taliban capture of Faizabad, capital of the northeastern province of Badakhshan, came as President Ashraf Ghani flew in to Mazar-i-Sharif to rally old warlords to the defence of the biggest city in the north as Taliban forces close in. After hours of heavy fighting the ANDSF retreated (national security forces). With the fall of Faizabad the whole of the northeast has come under Taliban control. Badakhshan borders Tajikistan, Pakistan and China.
- China sentences Canadians: Michael Spavor, a Canadian businessperson detained by China as an apparent political hostage, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on trumped-up espionage charges. He was detained in December 2018 in response to Canada’s arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou for extradition to the United States. Another Canadian arrested at the same time, Michael Kovrig, faces sentencing soon. The case of the two Michaels has wrecked China’s reputation in Canada. Beijing unjustly imprisoned Canadians and others of Asian descent for years without a strong response from Ottawa. Even today, detained Chinese Australian journalist Cheng Lei and other individuals of Chinese descent receive less attention than white prisoners. Spavor’s sentence is not the worst possible outcome, but it currently offers little hope of release, although some westerners imprisoned in China have been deported long before their sentences formerly concluded.
- Lithuanian ambassador out: China withdrew its ambassador to Lithuania and demanded Vilnius recall its own from Beijing after the country set up a representative office in Taiwan. Typically, retaliatory state media editorials have followed the diplomatic spat, including one describing Lithuania as a “crazy, tiny country.” In recent years, Lithuania has increasingly opposed China’s influence in Europe, including pulling out of a key China-Eastern Europe group. Its long history as a target of Russian imperialism in part makes it sympathetic to China’s threatened neighbors. Beijing is presumably aware these moves will only worsen its ties with Vilnius, but it seeks to intimidate others through its extreme response.
- Forbidden songs: Chinese authorities are forming teams to check the playlists of karaoke joints nationwide for unapproved songs, instead encouraging them to offer material that promotes “socialist core values.” When crackdowns reach this level of pettiness, they’re not really about ideological danger. Instead the initiative reflects a combination of extortive opportunism and officials’ need to demonstrate they are doing something. The censorship machinery must justify its own existence.
- Foreign investment risks: The recent harsh crackdown on private businesses has drawn attention to a long-taken-for-granted part of foreign investment in China: variable interest entities (VIEs). Foreign ownership is illegal in many Chinese business sectors, but VIEs circumvent this: Under the business structure, holding companies set up in offshore locations give foreign firms the chance to invest without offering them control over the company.
COMMENTS