PHNOM PENH, July 23,2023: The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) declared a landslide victory in a one-sided election on Sunday, clearing the path for a historic leadership transition and the end of the reign of one of the world’s longest-serving premiers.
The contest was effectively a one-horse race, with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s CPP, a political behemoth with a vast war chest, facing no viable opponent after a ruthless, years-long crackdown that has seen hundreds of its rivals flee into exile.
The CPP was leading in ballot counting late on Sunday, with a turnout of 84%, according to the election committee, with 8.1 million people voting in a lopsided contest between the CPP and 17 mostly obscure parties.
“We’ve won in a landslide … but we can’t calculate the number of seats yet,” CPP spokesperson Sok Eysan said.
Self-styled strongman Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for 38 years, had brushed off Western concern about the election’s credibility, determined to prevent any obstacle in his carefully calibrated transition to his anointed successor and eldest son, Hun Manet.
No time frame had been given for the handover until Thursday, when Hun Sen, 70, signalled that Western-educated military general Hun Manet “could be” prime minister next month.
A National Assembly seat would makes him eligible, if backed by the house. Party spokesperson Sok Eysan said it was “very clear” Hun Manet won a seat.
Hun Manet has given few media interviews and no clues over his vision for Cambodia and its 16 million people.
He earned a master’s degree at New York University and a doctorate at the University of Bristol, both in economics, and attended the West Point military academy, helping him rise through the ranks of Cambodia’s military to army chief and deputy armed forces commander.
CLOSELY-WATCHED TRANSITION
Major powers will be watching closely for signs of whether Hun Manet will maintain the authoritarian status quo of his father or pursue greater liberalisation and a more Western style of democracy.
After casting his vote on Sunday, Hun Manet ducked questions about becoming premier and whether he would rule differently from his father.
“No comment please. I’ve just come to vote,” he said in English, smiling.
Analysts had expected the transition to come mid-term, giving Hun Manet time to earn legitimacy with the public and political elite.
A key focus will be if he seeks to steer Cambodia out of the orbit of China and patch up ties with the United States that have perennially been strained by his father’s iron-fisted approach.
A CPP rout was never in doubt after preemptive strikes by authorities that included disqualifying the CPP’s only meaningful rival, the Candlelight Party, over a paperwork technicality.
Former Khmer Rouge guerrilla Hun Sen has been accused by activists of publicly threatening rivals and inciting violence, which led to Meta Platforms’ oversight board recommending his suspension from Facebook. The government has denied persecuting opponents.
Despite the CPP government’s stranglehold over independent institutions, including the poll body, and allegations by activists of complicity in land grabs and environmental destruction, the party has consistently won the rural vote, reflecting improvements in basic infrastructure.
Its selling point has been ensuring peace and stability after decades of war, which spurred average growth of more than 7% until 2019, creating jobs in garment manufacturing and construction.
Hun Sen said the turnout, the highest in three decades, showed his “extremist” opponents had failed to derail the election. He urged those who destroyed ballots not to flee the country and suggested they own up.
New Delhi, July 20,2023: India has sent out invitations to all G20 members, invitee countries and international organizations and is looking forward to welcoming their participation for the G20 Summit scheduled in the national capital this September.
Responding to a question on whether Russia has confirmed participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the G20 Summit, External Affairs Ministry official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said he cannot issue a response on any particular leader.
Putin had skipped the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia in 2022 and sent his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his place.
Earlier today, the office of South African President, Cyril Ramaphose had announced that Putin will not attend the BRICS nations summit. This will be the first summit hosted in person since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent global restrictions. The Summit will be attended by the leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa.
Putin will instead deliver his speech at the summit via video conference, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agency TASS. Peskov also confirmed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will represent Russia at the summit in-person.
Lavrov had this March participated in the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting in Goa. India assumed the G20 Presidency on December 1.
The 18th G20 Heads of State and Government Summit is scheduled to be held in New Delhi on September 9-10. The meeting will be a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials, and civil societies.
A G20 Leaders’ declaration will be adopted at the conclusion of the New Delhi Summit, stating Leaders’ commitment towards the priorities discussed and agreed upon during the respective ministerial and working group meetings, according to the official G20 statement.
The Group of Twenty (G20) comprises 19 countries – Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union. The invited countries are Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain and UAE.
July 20,2023:Iraq has expelled the Swedish ambassador only hours after Iraqi protesters angered by the burning of copies of the Quran in Sweden stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad, scaling the walls of the compound and setting it on fire.
The Iraqi prime minister also recalled his country’s charge d’affaires in Sweden, the government said on Thursday, and suspended the working permit of Swedish telecom company Ericsson on Iraqi soil, according to state media.
Early on Thursday morning, demonstrators at the embassy waved flags and signs showing the influential Iraqi Shia religious and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr, according to Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed in Nasiriya, southern Iraq.
The burning of the embassy was called by supporters of Sadr to protest the second planned burning of a Quran in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on Thursday. While protesters in Sweden kicked and partially damaged a book they said was the Quran, they did not burn it as they had threatened to do.
In Baghdad, all embassy staff were safe, the Swedish foreign ministry press office said in a statement, condemning the attack and highlighting the need for Iraqi authorities to protect diplomatic missions.
Iraq’s foreign ministry also strongly condemned the attack.
“The Iraqi government has instructed the competent security authorities to conduct an urgent investigation and take the necessary security measures in order to uncover the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators of this act and hold them accountable according to the law,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
However, a statement later on Thursday from the government said that it would sever diplomatic ties with Sweden if a second Quran burning takes place in the country.
“The Iraqi government has informed the Swedish government through diplomatic channels that any recurrence of the incident involving the burning of the Holy Quran on Swedish soil would necessitate severing diplomatic relations,” the statement from the prime minister’s office said.
July 18,2023: A day after pulling out of the wartime grain deal and renewing global fears over food security, the Kremlin has warned that shipping grain out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports could be risky in the absence of Russian security guarantees, claiming Ukraine uses the waters for military activities.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov issued the warning on Tuesday, amid suggestions that Turkey could step in to protect Ukrainian grain shipments.
The Black Sea grain deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey was signed by Russia and Ukraine last July to ensure that Ukrainian ships could transport grain from its Black Sea ports of Yuzhny, Odesa and Chornomorsk to the Bosporus, without being attacked.
With it came a separate agreement to facilitate shipments of Russian food and fertiliser, but Moscow has long complained that parts of the deal relating to these exports have not been implemented.
As Russia withdrew on Monday, officials said their repetitive demands to boost Russian grain and fertiliser exports through the pact had not been met.
In a statement on Telegram, Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow’s termination of the deal also means the “withdrawal of navigation safety guarantees, curtailment of the maritime humanitarian corridor, and restoration of the regime of a temporarily dangerous area in the northwestern Black Sea”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement, “Even without the Russian Federation, everything must be done so that we can use this Black Sea corridor.”
“We are not afraid. We were approached by companies that own ships. They said that they are ready, if Ukraine and Turkey are ready to continue, then everyone is ready to continue supplying grain,” Zelenskyy added.
The Ukrainian leader has been in talks with the UN chief Antonio Guterres to discuss restoring grain supply through the Black Sea routes.
World leaders have condemned Moscow for backing out of the deal, saying the move threatens global food security and will lead to a hike in prices.
Nairobi ( Kenya ),July 18,2023: Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has called for three days of anti-government protests starting on Wednesday.
The latest demonstrations are against tax hikes and follow two previous sets of protests this year against the soaring cost of living in East Africa’s economic hub and alleged malpractice in last year’s presidential election, which Odinga lost.
The new taxes were to take effect on July 1, but a Nairobi court halted their implementation pending further legal proceedings. Still, a tax increase on petroleum products was imposed, increasing fuel costs.
Odinga said more protests could be held after this week.
July 17,2023: Social media giants Facebook and Instagram will soon be temporarily banned in Norway from tracking users online to target them with advertising.
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority ordered U.S. technology firm Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to stop showing users in Norway personalized ads based on their online activity and estimated locations. The ban kicks in from August, according to an order obtained exclusively by POLITICO and sent to Meta on July 14.
Meta’s advertising practice on Facebook and Instagram currently involves the “processing of very private and sensitive personal data through highly opaque and intrusive monitoring and profiling operations,” wrote Norway’s Datatilsynet agency.
The ban on so-called behavioral advertising will last three months, starting from August 4. Facebook and Instagram will be able to show people customized ads but only based on information given by users in the “about” section of their profiles.
Meta will face daily fines of 1 million Norwegian Krone (€89,500) if it doesn’t comply with the order.
The temporary ban could be lifted if Meta finds a way to legally process personal data and give users the rights to opt out of targeted advertising based on tracking, the order said.
The restriction comes after the Court of Justice of the European Union on July 4 ruled that Meta was unlawfully collecting people’s data to target them with ads without their explicit consent and based on the firm’s “legitimate interest.”
Meta is also currently under scrutiny from its lead privacy regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, over its advertising practices. The Dublin-based authority fined the social media company in January a total of €390 million for infringing Europeans’ privacy. It ordered Meta to find a new legal basis for its business model. The tech company has appealed the decision.
The Irish Data Protection Commission plans on making a decision on Meta’s legal basis for its targeted advertising operations “by no later than mid-August,” said the agency’s Deputy Commissioner and Spokesperson Graham Doyle.
The Irish regulator oversees Meta under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the whole of Europe because the tech company has its regional headquarters there. Other European countries such as Norway are able to issue national decisions for a time limit of three months in a “case of urgency” under the GDPR.
“The persistent state of non-compliance following the [Irish] decisions demand[s] immediate action to protect the rights and freedoms of European data subjects,” wrote the Norwegian data agency in its order.
The Norwegian regulator is the first European privacy authority to severely restrict Meta’s data-driven business following the EU’s top court ruling. It said it also plans to request an urgent binding decision from the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) — the region’s network of privacy regulators — to decide on final measures.
The Irish Data Protection Commission said it has consulted with other European authorities and sent them a provisional assessment of Meta’s compliance with the GDPR for targeted advertising following the new court ruling. Authorities have until July 21 to make their submissions to the Irish DPC, Doyle said.
In a response, Matt Pollard, spokesperson for Meta, said: “The debate around legal bases has been ongoing for some time and businesses continue to face a lack of regulatory certainty in this area … We continue to constructively engage with the Irish DPC, our lead regulator in the EU, regarding our compliance with its decision. We will review the Norway DPA’s decision, and there is no immediate impact to our services.”