The Sunday Subject – October 23, 2022
Liz Truss resigned as Britain’s prime minister after less than two months.
Truss made the announcement after an increasing number of Conservative MPs demanded she resign following a series of severe missteps, beginning with the disastrous mini-budget that sent markets into a panic. Her successor will be Britain’s third prime minister of the year. Frontrunners include Rishi Sunak, former chancellor, Boris Johnson, disgraced former prime minister, and Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons.
Giorgia Meloni was appointed Italy’s first female prime minister on Saturday.
Her Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012, will rule in a coalition with Matteo Salvini’s right-wing League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia party. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed it as a “big day for the European Right,” while French far-right leader Marine Le Pan stated, “Throughout Europe, patriots are coming to power and with them this Europe of nations.”
Xi Jinping secured a third term as head of China’s Communist Party.
Despite a convention that Party leaders serve a maximum of two five-year terms, the congress granted a third to Xi, upending norms designed to prevent the return of one-man rule. Xi unveiled a reshuffled leadership of China’s Communist Party, with the new seven-member Politburo being composed of loyalists to Xi. He also pledged to “reunify” China by bringing Taiwan under its control.
Anthony Albanese and Kishida Fumio, the leaders of Australia and Japan, respectively, signed a pact to further strengthen security ties.
The pair agreed to hold joint training exercises and increase intelligence cooperation. A shared concern about China and American reliability has pushed the two countries’ strategic relationship even closer.
Russia launched Iranian-made drones on central Kyiv, one week after the start of a bombardment intended as revenge against Ukraine’s attack on the Kerch bridge.
The EU, joined by Britain, imposed new sanctions on Iran over its transfer of such “kamikaze” drones to Russia. Britain, France and America stated that Iran and Russia violated terms of the UN Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal of 2015.
