Gabon and Togo’s recent decision to join the Commonwealth seemed like a blow to France – but was it?
On the face of it, France seems to be losing ground in Africa. It was forced out of Mali and appears to be losing popular support elsewhere in the Sahel. And then last week, two Francophonie members, Gabon and Togo, joined the Commonwealth at its biennial summit in Kigali.
As Mozambique looks to move on from its violent past, a UN-led programme is supporting efforts to reintegrate former combatants, and give them a chance to lead productive, peaceful lives in their communities.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held “substantive and constructive” talks on Beijing-Washington relations and major international and regional issues of common interest, on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
The statement called untenable the White House’s claims that the weapons supplied to Kiev are used for defensive purposes, and denounced that they are used to destroying cities in the Donbass region and constantly attack residential areas in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Joe Biden took office looking to reshape U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, putting a premium on promoting democracy and human rights. In reality, he has struggled on several fronts to meaningfully separate his approach from former President Donald Trump’s.
The first cohort of Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom have no previous military experience, have arrived in the U.K. for combat training as the eastern European nation races to replace troops killed and wounded in the war against Russia.
After weathering numerous storms that would have sunk others, Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister comes to an ignoble end, mired in scandal and having lost the support of nearly all his MPs.
The resignation didn’t come out of nowhere – Johnson was already losing support from his party, narrowly surviving a confidence vote in early June. Just two weeks later, things were looking even grimmer, after losing two byelections in supposedly safe seats.
The US dollar has been on a major surge against major global currencies in the past year, recently hitting levels not seen in 20 years. It has gained 15% against the British pound, 16% against the euro and 23% against the Japanese yen.
The recent dramatic events that led to the resignation of UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, on July 7 2022 raise the issue of how politics – and economic policy uncertainty more specifically – affects the UK economy. The answer, of course, is that it does, and sometimes for as much as two years.
71 million people in the developing world have fallen into poverty in just three months as a direct consequence of global food and energy price surges. The impact on poverty rates is drastically faster than the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Targeted cash transfers to households are more equitable and more cost-effective than blanket energy subsidies –but governments need support from the multilateral system to make ends meet.