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Europe
European Council
30 June 2023 EU leaders broke off migration talks early Friday (30 June) as Poland and Hungary blocked 'progress'. Migration has been one of the most contentious issues for the EU since the 2015 "migration" crisis, since when the bloc had tried and failed to overhaul the bloc’s process for welcoming and relocating 'asylum' seekers. On the eve of the summit, Italy was among nine EU countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea have urged the bloc to create a formal ‘southern partnership’ with African countries based on cooperation on energy and migration. Earlier this month, Warsaw and Budapest were outvoted when EU home affairs ministers, after months of tense negotiations, 'agreed' on reforming the bloc’s rules on the relocation of migrants and procedures for processing asylum seekers. 'The final compromise' had set quotas for willing countries and mandatory financial contributions of €20,000 for each migrant for countries that refuse to relocate migrants. The blueprint, which still needs to be approved by the European Parliament, gives a derogation for countries that have accepted at least one million asylum seekers. Poland and Hungary voted against the position adopted by a qualified majority, meaning 55% of member states, representing at least 65% of the EU population, voted in favour. EU leaders called off yesterday’s summit talks after last-ditch efforts by France and Germany and European Council President Michel to break the stalemate with Poland and Hungary. Warsaw and Budapest used the summit to express their discontent. Warsaw argues that since an estimated 1.5 to 2 million refugees fleeing Ukraine following Russia’s invasion last February are still housed in their country, they should be exempted. “We don’t have to be taught what solidarity is,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters before heading into the summit talks, pointing to his government’s support for Ukrainian refugees for which he later demanded financial support from the EU. “We cannot treat in a discriminatory manner people from Ukraine and people from the Middle East or Africa,” added the Polish premier. Warsaw had also proposed to hold a referendum on the issue. Budapest, meanwhile, has consistently opposed any attempts to create a compulsory EU policy on relocations. “The Poles and Hungarians en bloc are saying that they do not recognise the validity of the agreement, they want to return to the logic of 2018 whereby decisions are taken by consensus,” a French diplomatic source said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte proposed to counterparts to discuss the issues again at their next summit. Viktor Orbán’s political director, Orbán, summed up the discussions by tweeting: “Heavy fight against the pro-migration forces of Brussels!” But some EU diplomats suggested the topic will likely stay - the migration deal struck earlier this month will remain in place. 'Although neither country can veto the position which has been agreed by ministers' and will now be negotiated in trilogues with the European Parliament, Poland tabled an amendment to the post-summit conclusions stressing the need for a voluntary approach to relocations and for unanimity among EU governments. The proposal was rejected 'by all other EU leaders'. Alongside the debate on migrant relocations, EU leaders also discussed the prospect of striking more cash for migrant control and deals with African states following the agreement of a €1 billion pact with Tunisian President Saied. The details of a memorandum of understanding for Tunisia are still being thrashed out. A separate group of member states have been working on 'innovative solutions' to address migration flows, including third-country agreements. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told reporters in Brussels that “on migrants, Tunisia and flexibility of resources allocation, the Council’s conclusions are quite a satisfactory starting point.” “We are very pleased to have a paragraph on Tunisia, not only regarding migration but also on establishing a strategic partnership with North African countries,” she added. A draft of the post-summit communiqué suggested that EU leaders were expected to endorse the European Commission’s ambitions to broker further agreements with Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria. 'We have made a lot of progress on migration, and in the area of the migration pact, there has been clear progress,' Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo told reporters. (Source: euractiv)
Russia
June 30, 2023 Western accounts often fall victim to a lack of documented factual information and the same Western analytic bias, which stubbornly believes that Russia and Russians are just like Westerners, only with crappy weather and better literature and ballet. Russia functions in a manner foreign to Western expectations. Those who tried to ascribe deep political astuteness to Prigozhin on Saturday woke up with egg on their face on Sunday, when it turned out that there was no real thought, much less political, in any of his actions. A coup that really wasn’t in a country that resembles a functioning state less and less. Prigozhin’s tantrum over the weekend made everyone look ridiculous, most of all his patron in the Kremlin and all those trying to find method to his madness. Even those closest to the halls of power privately acknowledge that they have no idea of what is happening and what, if anything, Putin is thinking. The most interesting, if completely farcical, explanation of the entire affair was offered by Kadyrov, whose troops, invariably, were once again last to the battle and first to claim success. He wrote an extensive post claiming that Prigozhin’s actions were driven by recent business deals gone bad, including his daughter not getting a coveted piece of land in St. Petersburg. The claim is silly and irrelevant. The more they speak in an effort to explain or downplay what happened, the more lies are revealed, and the clearer the picture of a criminal rather than a statesman mentality is revealed. The fact that the Police, National Guard and military either laid down their arms or refused to fight altogether or simply evacuated cities in anticipation of Wagner’s arrival has already been forgotten. In his effort to deflect blame, Putin stumbles into openly acknowledging that the Russian state has allocated $1bn in 2023 to finance the Wagner group. To put this into perspective, here are the annual budgets of some of Russia’s largest cities: Kazan ($473mn), Voronezh ($490mn), Rostov ($675mn), Krasnodar ($812mn), Ekaterinburg ($828mn) and Novosibirsk ($952mn). The ruthless world depicted in the mafia epic "The Godfather," offers a more authentic lens through which to examine and comprehend Russia than the dry analysis of scholarly treatises. It transcends the limitations of guesswork and fabricated narratives. It stands as an enduring masterpiece, meticulously chronicling the rise of Corleone from the depths of poverty to the heights of the criminal world and the subsequent descent of son Michael from a wartime hero into its treacherous underworld. The vivid characters in the film are true political powerhouses. They have clear goals, formulate brilliant strategies and employ surgical tactics to achieve their ultimate vision. Putin’s refusal to treat Prigozhin in a manner befitting a traitor only highlights his weakness and the lack of unity within the regime he created. His refusal to put down a rabid dog does not seem to be a reflection of his desire, as he is infamous for his intolerance of treachery. It is rather an affirmation of his weakness and of powerful elements within his government that may be holding back his hand. The same can be said of his inability to deal with Shoigu, a man who has proven his abject incompetence as a Defence Minister time and again, yet Putin either refuses or is unable to replace him. The labyrinth of lies that have been created to keep Putin isolated and docile has come back to bite him and his handlers at the worst possible moment. Woltz understood that anyone in a position of power cannot afford to look ridiculous if they are to stay in power. Putin and the political machine he created cannot seem to look ridiculous and incompetent. It resembles less a state and more like a criminal organisation, and that leads to failure to draw the right conclusions. Prigozhin’s outburst shattered the last remnants of Putin’s regime as a political entity, further exposing the lies and reinforcing the image of a criminal mentality rather than statesmanship. In any other situation, if tens of thousands of lives were not on the line, this would provide exceptional theatre; in the current environment, not so much. Prigozhin signals the start of Putin’s problems, not the end, and the West needs to wake up to the fact that it is dealing with a fragmented criminal clan and not a functioning country. (Source: bneIntelliNews)
Asia
India
June 30, 2023 Christians make up 41.29 percent of the hilly northeastern Manipur state’s 3.2 million people. Manipur is gripped by violence and bloodshed since May 3. Tribal groups, comprising mainly Christians, are fighting against the majority Meitei Hindu community opposing the Meitei demand for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe category. Christian leaders say some 50,000 Kuki people are displaced and live in some 300 relief camps, and they get little support from the state administration, headed by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Many have taken shelter in the forest and close to 300 churches have been set on fire. Indian prelate Catholic Archbishop Pamplany of Tellicherry has termed the ongoing sectarian violence in Manipur state “ethnic-cleansing of Christians” and criticized BJP-led government for its failure to restore peace after nearly two months and more than 130 deaths. A realistic head count could increase the number considerably. The prelate, in one of the strongest criticisms of the BJP from any Church leader in India, equated the sectarian violence in Manipur to the 2002 riots in the western Gujarat state, where some 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was its chief minister. “When such ethnic cleansing is happening in our country, our prime minister told the American Congress that there is absolutely no discrimination in India,” Pamplany told a solidarity meeting in Kannur, in Kerala, on June 28. In an official release from the Syro-Malabar Church today, Archbishop Pamplany from the southern Kerala state dared Modi to repeat his claim in the US during a press conference with President Biden that “there was no religious discrimination in India.” Archbishop Pamplany had courted controversy in March after he offered the BJP help to win a parliamentary seat from Kerala in exchange for increasing the rubber prices to Rs. 300 (US$4) for a kilogram. Syrian Christians in Kerala are mostly farmers, a majority of them engaged in rubber cultivation. Antony, a lay Catholic leader of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (ATM) in Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, lauded the prelate for his stand in a video message today. “At least now, the Syro-Malabar Church leadership understood the reality in Manipur and responded positively.” "It is better to be late than never.” The Syro-Malabar Church was seen as hobnobbing with the pro-Hindu party ahead of the 2024 national elections while ignoring its agenda of turning India into a theocratic Hindu nation. Amid the rising persecution of Christians and Muslims, Cardinal Alencherry, head of the Syro-Malabar Church, too, had given a clean chit - a controversial statement in an interview published by The New Indian Express on April 9 - to the BJP, saying Christians do not feel insecure under its rule in the country. Many influential BJP leaders have met Eastern rite bishops as part of an outreach program to woo Syrian Christians in the tiny state. Their bonhomie had invited criticism from within the Church as Archbishop Machado of Bangalore along with other Christian groups had filed a petition in the country's top court seeking direction to end the persecution of Christians. (Source: UnionofCatholicAsianNews)
North America
United States
June 30, (2023) This week CIA Director Burns called the head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service Naryshkin after last week's aborted mutiny in Russia to assure the Kremlin that the United States had no role in it. The phone call was the highest-level contact between the two governments since the attempted mutiny, the Wall Street Journal said. President Biden said on Monday, June 26, the brief uprising by Russian mercenaries against the Kremlin was part of a struggle within the Russian system and that the United States and its allies were not involved in it. (Source: Reuters)
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