Hello and Welcome. This is The Capitals.
This week, New Delhi hosted the much-awaited Council of Heads meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or the SCO Summit, for the first time as the chair of the grouping.
But New Delhi turned it into a virtual format for some unknown reason.
The leaders were critical of what they said was the negative impact of “unilateral and unlimited expansion of global missile defence systems by certain countries or groups of countries”, without directly referring to NATO’s expansion and Western military assistance to Ukraine.
A Eurasian security and political group formed in 2001 by Beijing and Moscow, SCO includes India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Iran joined the grouping and became its ninth member.
All members bar India also supported China’s vast Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) scheme which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.
Thereby, soon after the summit’s conclusion, debate on Chinese social media took a marked anti-India fervour. Foreign policy analysts welcomed Iran but said that they need to ‘save’ the grouping from India.
Read more in The Capitals this week.
Damascus, Syria
When the simmering tensions in Syria began erupting in early 2010s, Damascus deployed paramilitary groups shabbiha — literally meaning ghosts in Arabic — formalised as Popular Committees who were trained, instructed and armed to defend President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in the West Asian nation, a report by Belgium-based Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) said.
CIJA’s Syria team of 45 people studied the documents to detail the growth of the shabbiha groups from neigbourhood-level loyalist groups to a well-organised militia and later a parallel wing of the army called the National Defence Force (NDF).
Taipei, Taiwan
Taiwan is gearing up to strengthen its diplomatic presence in India by opening the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) in Mumbai during the fourth quarter of this year, WION’s Principal Diplomatic Correspondent Sidhant Sibal reported earlier this week.
The centre will offer visa services, document authentication, and emergency assistance, and will cater to business- people, tourists, and Taiwanese nationals in the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh; and Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman.
The existing Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Delhi, which has been operating as the de facto embassy of Taiwan in India, was established in 1995.
Guatemala City, Guatemala
The Chief Justice of Central American republic’s Supreme Court blocked the certification of the results of country’s first-round of presidential election held on June 25.
Chief Justice Silvia Valds Quezada’s ordered that the process could not go forward until the electoral authorities tally the voting sheets and report on inconsistencies, if any.
Chief Justice’s decision has been deemed strange since she has been the sole judge to sign it. Instead, it should have been signed by all 13 justices of Supreme Court.
In the elections held last month, three popular presidential candidates were banned from contesting for arbitrary reasons.
The two leading candidates, Sandra Torres of Social Democratic Party and Bernardo Arevalo of Semilla (Seed), a young progressive party have demanded that results be officialised at the earliest.
In the general elections held on June 25, Torres (15.86 per cent) and Bernardo Arevalo (11.77 per cent) received the highest number of votes among 22 candidates. These results, while have been counted and reported upon, are yet to be certified.
The presidential runoff is scheduled to take place on August 20, 2023.
That’s all for The Capitals this weekend. See you next week.
