Weekend Box #116: Life's No Beach at G7 Resort & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business and cultural news from around the world.
Image credit/Italian Government/License
LIFE’S NO BEACH AT G7 RESORT
World leaders assembled in Italy this week as the G7 members meet for their annual summit. For most, the summit will be a beachside respite from troubles back home. Of the seven world leaders gathering at a resort in Bari on Italy’s Adriatic Coast this week, six are under serious threat domestically.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has taken time out of the election campaign to join the summit, is on track to lose to Labour in July. Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron both suffered losses to the far right in the European elections last weekend. France’s right-wing party the National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, finished so strongly in the EU elections that Macron has called a snap election.
US President Joe Biden is under threat from former President Trump ahead of the November US elections and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is facing unrest within his Liberal Democratic Party and could lose his premiership by autumn. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada is also facing a discontented population at home after eight years in power and is currently trailing his conservative counterpart in the polls.
Only the G7 summit’s host – Italy’s Georgia Meloni – could be said to be in a comfortable position, having been fortified by the European elections. Her right-wing party took nearly 29% of the vote.
The first order of business in Bari will be urgently negotiating a plan to channel profits from frozen Russian sovereign assets into aid for Ukraine. Around $280bn in Russian assets have been frozen since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, most of it held in the EU. The proposal would see G7 countries agree to use the profits to lend up to $50bn to Kyiv to help it fight the war against Russia.
HISTORY OF HORROR REPEATS IN DARFUR
The civil war between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has reached a new nadir, as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court seeks evidence of potential war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict.
The prosecutor, Karim Khan, expressed his concern about the “ethnically motivated nature” of attacks on civilians, particularly in Sudan’s Darfur region, and about “allegations of widespread international crimes being committed” in El Fasher, the capital city of the state of North Darfur. These include the alleged use of “sexual violence, shelling of civilians and attacks on hospitals.”
Earlier this week, the last hospital in El Fasher, the only capital not under RSF control in the entire Darfur region, was closed after RSF attempted to seize the city in an attack. Since early May, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières conservatively estimates that 192 people have been killed and over 1230 injured in El Fasher, as the war has consumed the city which has previously served as a “key humanitarian hub” for the Darfur region.
In May, a report by Human Rights Watch stated that “ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity [had] been committed against ethnic Masalit and non-Arab communities” by RSF and its Arab allies in the West Darfur city of El Geneina. RSF itself arose from Arab militias known as Janjaweed created to suppress a Masalit rebellion in the 2000s. The residents of El Fasher are “mostly drawn from communities, including the Masalit,” who were targeted during this conflict, which saw approximately 300,000 killed.
Evoking this bloody history, Karim Khan has said it is an “outrage that we are allowing history to repeat itself once again in Darfur. We cannot and must not allow Darfur to become the world’s forgotten atrocity once again.”
Image credit/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações/Edited/License
BUILDING WITH BRICS+
Just before the G7 summit in Italy, a rival meeting took place this week in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, where the Foreign Ministers of the BRICS+ bloc of nations convened.
The meeting followed the last BRICS summit held in South Africa, which brought together original members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and precedes the next summit in October in Kazan, Russia. This interim meeting included new members Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE, who all joined earlier this year, as well as other Foreign Ministers from 15 other nations being courted to join, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Thailand.
The BRICS+ pitch is essentially to offer an alternative to the Western-led, democratic values-based agenda of the G7 that has united against Russia’s war in Ukraine and wielded or threatened sanctions against those who have cooperated with Russia, including China and India. It offers a diplomatic, trade, and development network which Russia says is centred on three tracks of “politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian ties." It complements initiatives that Russia and China already undertake in the developing world to secure resources and partnerships and puts business before other concerns.
Russia’s ambitions for building a parallel system include an alternate fibreoptic submarine cable network to provide communications that can’t be monitored by the US and allies. Handy for sanctions busting, yet for existing and additional members choosing to join BRICS+, this may not be an exclusive choice and more a case of ‘diplomatic promiscuity,’ or as one diplomat put it, dining at the “global buffet, where you pick the rules you like, when you like.” With BRICS+ already spanning 30% of global GDP, 46% of population, 43% of oil reserves, and 25% of global exports, there’s plenty of business to be done.
HOW RED WAS MY (SILICON) VALLEY?
Silicon Valley has traditionally been safe hunting ground for Democrats: a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won in California since the 1980s and in 2020 Joe Biden scored 85% of San Francisco’s vote against then-president Trump.
While polls suggest the state isn’t likely to go red just yet, the Valley’s tech moguls are increasingly turning to Trump and the Republicans, with several citing Biden’s excessive business regulation as the reason. Last week, a select group put their money where their mouth is, raising $12m at a Trump fundraiser in San Francisco.
The event, hosted by venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, was a sell-out, with top tickets going for $500,000 per couple. The crowd included a strong crypto contingent, including Coinbase executives and crypto investor twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. The crypto industry has faced significant scrutiny from investors and politicians following a string of bankruptcies in 2022, including the infamous Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. The crypto influence at the event was notable as the industry and its regulation, or lack thereof, is becoming a key battleground between Trump and Biden.
According to sources, Trump was vocally supportive of the controversial sector in his speech, declaring that he would be the ‘crypto president.’ Referring to the measures Biden’s administration has taken to impose checks and balances in the crypto industry, a guest said: "President Trump made clear that the Biden-Gensler [SEC Chair] crusade against crypto will grind to a halt within one hour of a second Trump administration." Another guest said that the candidate, who is the first convicted felon running for US president, offered no further specifics on his crypto policies.
There was little commentary from guests on Trump’s recent guilty verdict; if anything, this seems to be having a positive impact on his campaign. In the 24 hours after the announcement, the campaign raised $52.8m online, shattering its own fundraising record.
CRICKET’S COMIN’ HOME
True cricketing anoraks will know the first ever game of cricket played between two nations was Canada vs the United States, held in New York in 1844. So it is perfectly accurate to say the USA hosting the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup is returning the sport to its international origins.
The news of the USA, considered a ‘minor’ cricketing nation, co-hosting a major global tournament was met with derision from some corners. Yet as a host and as a cricket team, the USA has outperformed.
Its stadiums in Dallas, Lauderhill, and New York (purpose built in less than a year) have proved excellent venues.
Meanwhile, Team USA has defied all expectations, with a stunning victory in a thrillingly close game against Pakistan, a major cricketing nation and previous World Cup winner. The US brushed aside local rivals Canada and performed creditably against India, possibly the world’s best team.
The melting pot that is the US – attracting people from south Asia and the Caribbean – has led to a gradual increase in interest and engagement in cricket. Last year saw the launch of Major League Cricket, the first serious attempt at an American domestic tournament, created with largely Indian-owned teams.
Expanding cricket’s geographical reach and commercial potential is broadly thought to be good for the game. For most of the 20th century, only eight countries considered cricket an international sport. The American continent is something of a final frontier.
But the proliferation of tournaments like Major League Cricket threatens to undermine test cricket, the traditional, long-form version of the game. Massive pay packets for a few weeks’ work have led to some of the best players giving up on playing for their country and instead opting to freelance on the tournament circuit.
The battle between cricket purists and big money-makers will rage louder after this American success.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audleyadvisors.com.
For now, that’s The Weekend Box officially closed.