India's World Podcast: Recent Episodes
India's World
Well! Finally, we can soon see the war in Ukraine coming to end! It seems like US is the first one to blink! Now see this: Progressive Democrats are urging Biden to shift strategy and engage with Russia.
30 Democratic members wrote a letter to Joe Biden and asked him to talk to Russia. The letter read, “Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation, we … believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict.”
Global media calls her Far-right leader, borderline extremist and fascist. But for Italians, she is their new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the country’s first woman to hold this position.
She hails from the ‘Brothers of Italy’ party, an outfit tracing its roots to the post-fascist National Alliance and the Italian Social Movement, founded by the members of the banned National Fascist Party.
In the last elections, the Brothers of Italy party won just 4% votes. This time, however, the party bagged 26% votes, making it the largest of all. Two burning issues played a key role in its success. First, the Russia-Ukraine war. And the second, immigration.
For long, Italy has borne the brunt of droves of immigrants rushing to its shores from North Africa and the Middle East. In 2020, around 10% of the total population of Italy had an immigration background. This gave rise to political as well as social tensions in the country.
Migrants hailing from Islamic nations contributed a lot to the widespread social tensions. A pew research centre report revealed that about 60% Italians held negative views about Muslims dwelling in their nation.
These sentiments were fuelled by a slew of Islamist attacks in France and UK. Italians feared for their safety since every one of three immigrants coming illegally to Italy was Muslim. Banking on such sentiments, Meloni’s populism got wings.
Poland just dropped a $1.3 trillion economic bombshell on Germany. All of a sudden, the Polish government is demanding reparations from Berlin. Poland’s right-wing government has long argued that the country has not been fully compensated by neighbouring Germany
On Monday, Polish foreign minister Zbigniew Rau signed an official note demanding $1.3 trillion from Germany. The minister warned that for Germany to preserve good ties with Poland, the reparation issue must be urgently resolved. He said, “Parties must take immediate steps towards a permanent, complete and definitive legal and material settlement."
But Germany is no simpleton! It firmly believes that Berlin doesn’t owe even a single penny in reparation to Warsaw. It claims the Two-plus-Four Treaty of 1990, on the foreign policy consequences of German unification, settled the issue.
To give a legal basis to its claims, Germany also refers to the treaty Poland signed in 1953 in which it relinquished all rights of reparations. Poland, however, claims that it signed this treaty under unjust pressure from the Soviet Union. So, Poland has declared the 1953 treaty null and void.