Useful foreign affairs updates for you - 13th Nov 2021
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Foreign affairs updates - 13th November, 2021
- World powers hold Libya talks: French President Emmanuel Macron hosted world leaders in Paris for an international conference on Libya’s political transition as the country prepares for elections in December '21. The meeting, co-hosted by Germany, France, Italy and the United Nations, affirmed international support for the electoral process where political stability is missing ever since a NATO-backed force toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011. That the election is set to go ahead while Libya is still divided, and with foreign fighters still present, has fed worries that the vote is being held too soon and will be inevitably tainted. Faced with a situation in which both a contested election or its delay could lead to violence, international powers are expected to opt for momentum over stasis, in the hopes that a democratically-elected government will have more legitimacy to deal with the country’s problems than the current government. Whether the major powers deciding Libya’s future see much to gain from the summit can be deduced by the diplomatic weighting of each delegation. With Gen. Khalifa Haftar considered a spent force after his forces failed to take Tripoli in 2020, power in Eastern Libya now lies with Aguila Saleh, the speaker of Libya’s Tobruk-based House of Representatives, who was criticized in November for forcing through new electoral laws without a parliamentary vote (and previously targeted by the U.S. Treasury for hampering Libya’s transition in 2016).
- COP26 concludes: The U.N. climate summit COP26 ended in Glasgow after two weeks of negotiations over all aspects of climate policy. A draft of the final resolution released early on called on countries to phase out coal as well as fossil fuel subsidies and to “revisit and strengthen” 2030 greenhouse gas reduction targets. Climate activists criticized the initial draft for weaknesses on climate finance and a lack of agreement to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
- Turkey's Erdogan hosted Aliyev: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Istanbul, one year after Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a cease-fire agreement bringing an end to the most recent full-scale conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. The meeting came as Turkey hosted the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan as well as Aliyev for a summit of the Organization of Turkic States, a group formerly known as the Turkic Council before a name change earlier on.
- Xi and Biden on the slopes: Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to invite U.S. President Joe Biden to join him in Beijing in February for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The two leaders are set to meet virtually next week in a bid to smooth over tensions surrounding Taiwan, trade, and human rights. It’s not clear how sincere Xi’s gesture could be, seeing as Western powers have for months mulled a diplomatic boycott of the Games.
- Sudan’s coup update: Sudan coup leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan announced a new transitional council, naming himself as the chair. Representatives of the Forces for Freedom and Change, a coalition of civilian groups instrumental in the overthrow of former dictator Omar al-Bashir, were not named to the 14-member council.
- Spicy food too much: A parents group filed a complaint with South Korea’s human rights watchdog against the country’s Ministry of Education over the kinds of food being served to kindergartners in the public school system. The civic group, Political Mamas, maintains that the food provided by school cafeterias is too spicy. The problem stems from certain schools with elementary education included, the group said, where children as old as 13 and as young as five end up eating from the same menu.
- India Sweden Innovation Meet: On 26 October, 2021, India and Sweden celebrated the 8th Innovation Day. India seems well on its way to meet and exceed its Paris Climate commitments, and Sweden’s goal is of achieving net-zero emissions by 2045 and negative net emissions following that. Both are together in the UN (United Nations) led industrial transition programme (‘Leadership Group for Industry Transition’), and both have the impacts of innovation with the launch of Hybrit Green Steel (with low carbon footprint), in a sector that accounts for approximately 30% of global greenhouse gas emission. The India Sweden innovation collaborations are guided by the India Sweden Innovation Partnership and the Joint Action Plan (JAP). In 2018, the JAP was signed to include smart cities, innovation, and next generation transport, and the Department of Biotechnology is already engaged with Swedish Partners on Incubator Connect, Digital Health Care and Global Bio India programmes, enhancing the partnerships in the field of Biotechnology. Both had a new joint call on Circular economy including the theme such as Health Science and Waste to Wealth. A "Circular Economy" entails markets that give incentives to reusing products, rather than scrapping them and then extracting new resources. Being a member of the European Union, Sweden can play an important role in India’s partnership with the EU and EU countries.
- EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the situation in Libya, and the mess created by Western powers. (2) Why would it make sense for China to make up with the US now? Explain. (3) Comment on India - Sweden relationship.
#ForeignAffairs #Sweden #Libya #SouthKorea
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