politicodiary

China has declared a self-imposed ban on the South China Sea for fishing, hampering the trade possibilities for Philippines. It now stands that the latter has had to resort to a diplomatic protest against Beijing. There are also allegations on Chinese coastguards violating Philippine access to the waters and harassment of fishermen. Additionally, the foreign ministry in a statement accused the Chinese vessels of disrupting a joint marine scientific research mission as well as energy exploration activities at two sites in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ). China has been trying ways and means of securing its position on the South China Sea. This new development is going to be tricky for the President-elect Ferdinand Marcos. Indeed, he is going to be facing a delicate balancing act in pursuing stronger economic ties with China while not appearing to capitulate over what the military sees as Beijing's unlawful provocations at sea. With Marcos coming to power is ...

  Geetanjali Shree has become the first Indian women to have won a Booker’s Prize for her Hindi novel. The most prestigious award, her book was essentially written in Hindi and has been translated thereafter in various languages like English, French, German, Serbian, and Korean . Hailing from Mainpuri Uttar Pradesh, the 64 years old writer has to her credit many short stories and three other novels too. With this award, she becomes India’s first women writer to be awarded an international award of such feat. Tombs of Sand or Ret Samadhi, has also been republished in the UK in English by Daisy Rockwell and the book itself is set in Northern India.   Reflecting upon becoming the first work of fiction in Hindi to make the Booker cut, the 64-year-old author said it feels good to be the means of that happening.   "But behind me and this book lies a rich and flourishing literary tradition in Hindi, and in other South Asian languages. World literature will be the richer fo...

Despite mass protest, the dictatorial Tunisian President Kais Saied has sought for a referendum on a new constitution. The date fixed for this in July 25, which had earlier been set unilaterally set by him for December. Again, the referendum is being declared so through a presidential decree. While Saied was democratically elected, he seemed to have been dictatorial as he immediately sacked the prime minister and eventually suspended the parliament dominated by the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party.   A popular online consultation organised between January and March, which was largely rejected, voted in favour of the establishment of a presidential system that Mr. Saied is calling for. It’s not getting the support it should now. Mr Saied appointed on Friday a lawyer close to him, Sadok Belaïd, to head a commission in charge of drafting the new Constitution through a "national dialogue", from which political parties have been excluded. Invited to this dialogue, the powe...

There is a manpower crunch in the Ukraine war and Russia is desperate for more heads to join the war that that has shaken up the Western world. The new tactic to recruit is to by offering signing bonus four times as big as a monthly salary and attracting young people to join the army. It’s a three-month contract that most have to sign up to get a huge joining bonus. Advertisements everywhere are offering positions in the army as Russia is short of army recruits.  A recruiter for the military in Chechnya too has also offered a first-month salary of 300,000 rubles ($5,200). As of end of March, 1300 and more soldiers had lost their lives in the war. Ukraine has also lost a lot of lives. Many who have a conscience have quit the war already. These are more of Russian military that Ukrainians. No one is happy with the way there has been loss of lives in large numbers. Looking the way the war has consumed so many lives, Vladimir Lisin, a Russian billionaire, told employees at stee...

The World Economic Forum 2022 had a special address this time. Via a video call, the Ukrainian President addressed the gathering in Switzerland. Sitting in the war zone, he continues to hold the helm with great courage. He received a standing ovation even before he started to speak. The forum expressed great respect for his ‘courageous leadership’ and was eager to what he had to say about a peaceful nation being restored. There was no sign of agitation in him; only mature leadership speaking through and through. President Zelensky has called for ‘maximum’ sanctions against Russia in his speech. The best way you can cripple an economy today is through trade sanctions; if not war. The latter should never be an option. But here, the reasons are completely different. Zelensky, has also stressed on the fact that businesses needed to ‘completely withdraw’ from Russia, and that there should be no trade with the country in order for the world to set a precedent. Indeed, that would be t...

  Deepika Padukone has done India proud by being called at the Cannes Film Festival. The prestigious originally French festival is considered one of the most popular one. Padukone was selected on the panel of judges where she went onto to say something that has left the social media buzzing, besides her 70s dressing look and bold dark kohled eyes that went along well with a Sabyasachi saree.  She landed up saying, "We are here without the pressure of performance on stage." Indeed, the actor who has struggled at one point of depression was as straight as she could be, expressing in a few words how much stress and depression that actors can go through.  The actor   is serving on Cannes jury alongside  actor-filmmaker Rebecca Hall, Noomi Rapace and Italian actor-director Jasmine Trinca, as well as directors Asghar Farhadi, Ladj Ly, Jeff Nichols and Joachim Trier. The jury will decide which film wins the Palme D’Or.   She is one of the few actors who speaks tru...

  In a recent incident, Boeing has decided to remove 141 planes from its order backlog. The geopolitical situation including the restrictions on sales due to the current situation in Russia and sanctions like those imposed on Russia for its war against Ukraine. The big question in front of Boeing management is whether they will ever be able to sell those planes, stalled due to sanctions. Their current order backlog is 4200 planes. As per the U.S. accounting rules, Boeing regularly can add or remove orders from the backlog, this happens only when a order is cancelled or the buyer's financial problems put the deal in jeopardy. As per a statement by company representatives, the reason for cancellations now is geopolitical. About two third of the 130 Boeing 737s that it removed from the backlog resulted from geopolitical reasons, including sanctions. At present 85 deals out of 90 are affected due to sanctions. Without revealing the final customer’s name, the spokesperson shared...

Photo for representation purpose only There is going to be a new war of raw materials that might reinvent the Electric vehicle dynamics worldwide. The precious material here in controversy in Nickel. With a surge in the EV market, there is more need of batteries that make use of this metal. Not found in large quantities, it takes painstaking effort to mine in from the Earth’s crust. As of now, America has small amounts to spare. In 2020, Tesla's Elon Musk begged miners to “please mine more nickel” and offered a “giant contract” to anyone who could do it sustainably. The problem is acute. Nickel is a key component of electric-vehicle batteries. Thanks to surging EV demand, geopolitics and a lack of new supplies, the high-grade nickel necessary for making electric-vehicle batteries is becoming scarce. As of latest statistics, Australia and Indonesia are tied for the highest nickel reserves in the world, each coming in at 21 million MT. While Australia is only the  fifth larges...

Hezbollah has had a rather surprising but necessary defeat in the Lebanese elections, pushing them to the sidelines of diplomacy and governance. Finally, the Iran based military group has lost its parliamentary majority. The political party is considered to be a terrorist organization and was already sanctioned by the UK and the United States. While the Lebanese forces have taken on most of the Christian seats, Hezbollah and its main Shiite ally are likely to retain the 27 seats allocated to the sect. Indeed, the elections have proved that the political elite are no more welcome and needed to run the country. People’s vote has demanded a change in leadership. Results will still take time between Sunday and today to be declared in full. However, the wave of change can be felt. Among the high-profile losers was leading Hezbollah ally and deputy parliament speaker Elie Ferzli, 72, who was ousted by a candidate backed by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Hezbollah-allied Druze politicia...

  It is stunning but true- social media is becoming a tool to chronologize events. The human atrocities that have been committed in Ukraine will now be preserved through war records assembled from social media sources. Social media companies have therefore been asked to preserve war footages, notes, clips and posts. This includes Meta, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube that have received notices from American politicians asking them to preserve content that could be used to prosecute war criminals. America is not letting Russia get away with murder. War crimes have been committed and there is no easy way to prove this but for evidence to be gathered and crime proven. Letters are said to have been sent by four senior Democrats who chair powerful committees in the House of Representatives relating to oversight, foreign affairs and national security. Not essentially legally binding, the pressure to take Russia to task remains high on agenda. One of the letter states, that gathering su...

Elon Musk is now getting requests from military trapped in Ukraine for help. Money does go places and this is not anything new. The situation of Ukrainians is becoming bad to worse as we see many of them stuck in places of offensive. Right now, Russia is concentrating all its power in places like Mariupol that is home to sprawling Azovstal steel mill. In the mill, we know for sure that there are Ukrainian military is stuck along with its Commander in Chief, Serhiy Volyna. They are dead serious to get help from Musk; and in order to do this, they have even started a new Twitter account to contact him. "Help us get out of Azovstal to a mediating country. If not you, then who? Give me a hint," commander Serhiy Volyna tweeted to Elon Musk. Serhiy Volyna, commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade took to Twitter and said, “Elon Musk, people say you come from another planet to teach people to believe in the impossible. Our planets are next to each other, as I live where it ...

The Asian country which had not taken sides till now, is finally doing so. Japan has now said that it intends to phase the country out of using Russian oil, in a bid to join hands with the G7 nations in their fight against Russia’s war with Ukraine. The humanitarian crises have not been taken very well by anyone in the West. Literally every nation has protested against the humanitarian disaster created by Kremlin in Ukraine and its various cities. The devastation is horrid. On the weekend, leaders from the G-7 countries met online and announced their commitment to ban or phase out Russian oil imports in their latest effort to pressure Moscow into ending its aggression on Ukraine. “It’s an extremely difficult decision for a country that mostly relies on energy imports, including oil,” the Japanese PM Fumio Kishida told reporters the next day. Adding on to his conversation, he said, “G-7 unity is most important right now.”  Kishida said it will be a gradual and slow process of ...

Parag Agarwal’s wife Vineeta Agarwala seems to have been caught in the wrong spot when it comes to Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter. It was Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) – that had agreed to pay $400 million as part of Musk's new $7.1 billion financing commitments. One of America’s top US VC firms apparently, has Vineeta Agarwala as its general partner. Rumour goes that the whole deal is now going to pose a conflict of interest owing to Ms. Agarwala’s association with Twitter and the funding itself. With the possibility of Musk becoming a partial CEO of the newly acquired microblogging platform, Parag’s position now become insecure as CEO. If asked to leave, he would receive nearly $39 million due to a clause in his contract on sudden termination of services. His total compensation for 2021 was $30.4 million, largely in stocks. However, if the deal has come through an ‘under-the-table’ understanding, his exit could mean a huge kickback later, economists feel. All this has come to s...

  Russia decided to take its trade partner to task, as it cut off gas supply to Bulgaria and Poland. Apparently, both countries had decided not to pay Russia for its supply via Turkey in rubles. Russia has refused to accept payment in any other currency. Tensions have been brewing since countries went up and arms against Russia over the war in Ukraine and incessant human rights violations. In response to the threat, the Polish Climate Minister, Anna Moskwa has said, “Poland has the necessary gas reserves and sources of supply that protect our security — we have been effectively independent of Russia for years,” tweeted Anna Moskwa. “There will be no shortage of gas in Polish homes,” she added. Bulgaria has never faltered in its payments. But Russia has used this as a sheer ‘blackmailing’ tactic to get its way through those nations that have been ‘unfriendly’ with Russia. Now, both countries feel they can handle the shortfall; but this can go on only for a short while. There is Fin...

While the Judd sisters humbly accepted the Hall of Fame award on behalf of their mother, it was a teary moment to celebrate the death of a legendary singer who lost her battle with mental sickness. Naomi Judd took her own life fighting a battle to mental sickness last week, leaving fans in America sad and hurt. Mental sickness has been there; but its acceptance and prominence has only started showing now, post the pandemic too. Here is a list of some well-known celebrities that are actively working towards making care and well being more talked about amongst those suffering with mental sickness: Billie Eilish: The peppy youth icon, she has battled with various forms of anxieties but has been open to talk about it. Her songs prove to be of great strength and courage to youth suffering from one or the other form of mental sickness. Adele: The strong voice has openly spoken about struggling with postpartum depression and how she felt ‘I had lost a part of me’. She openly talks about ove...