Day: September 10, 2023

Xi Jinping’s decision to stay away from the Group of 20 summit may have been intended to deny India its moment. Instead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi — along with the U.S. and Europe — figured out how to more effectively counter China on the world stage.

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Fellow G20 nations hailed India’s success in reaching agreement on a joint communiqué that remained in doubt just days before world leaders gathered in New Delhi for their most significant annual diplomatic event. Apart from finding consensus on Russia’s war in Ukraine, the most difficult issue, they also elevated the African Union as a full G20 member and took action on issues like climate change and debt sustainability that are priorities of emerging markets.

The final outcome irked Ukraine, which saw the compromise on war language as weaker than what leaders produced just 10 months ago in Bali, Indonesia. But for the U.S. and its allies, criticism of a communiqué that on substance was similar to Bali and has little impact on the ground is a small price to pay for giving Modi a win that bolsters India’s status as a rising power capable of blunting China’s global influence.

U.S. President Joe Biden led the charge, seeing in India his administration’s best hope of isolating China and Russia — and providing a booster shot to the U.S.-led world order. The result showed that Washington is finally learning the language of the so-called Global South, with India as its principle guide.

Read More: What Does the ‘Global South’ Actually Mean?

“Some commentators are pointing to watered-down language on Russia-Ukraine as a sign of Western ‘climbdown,’” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But there’s another way of looking at it: The West is also invested in making sure India got a win. A lack of consensus would have been a huge disappointment for India.”

If there was a moment that illustrated the summit dynamics, it was Biden’s meeting on Saturday to discuss White House-led efforts to deliver more financing to developing nations.

Along with World Bank President Ajay Banga, the first Indian American to hold the role, Biden was pictured with Modi, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa — key members of the BRICS grouping, minus China and Russia. That bloc expanded earlier this month, posing a challenge for the Group of Seven advanced economies.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer swiped at China by referring to those nations as “the three democratic members of the BRICS,” saying they and the U.S. were all committed to the G20’s success. “And if China is not, that’s unfortunate for everyone,” Finer said. “But much more unfortunate, we believe, for China.”

And the U.S. didn’t stop there. It separately announced a deal with India, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries to develop an ambitious rail and maritime network across the region. Biden hailed it as a “game-changing regional investment,” cementing the deal with a three-way handshake that included Modi and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the U.S. president had cast as a “pariah” ahead of the last American election.

That kind of pronouncement is more likely to appeal to Middle East interests than badgering over human rights, even if the project’s time line and funding remains vague. The U.S. denied it was meant to counter China’s growing influence in the Gulf, but a French official acknowledged it was designed to provide competition for Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), saying that wasn’t a bad thing.

“I want to see China succeed economically,” Biden told reporters Sunday in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he flew after the G20. “But I want to see them succeed by the rules.”

Xi’s move to skip the G20 summit for the first time since he became president in 2013 marked a shift in behavior from last November, when he cast himself as a statesman with a responsibility to “get along with other countries.” China’s negotiators also risked appearing petty in looking to thwart India’s progress, taking a stand on minor issues like Modi’s use of a Sanskrit phrase and the U.S.’s bid to host the G20 gathering in 2026. The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, called the U.S. “just a copycat” for its Mideast infrastructure plan.

In a further blow to Beijing, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of the summit that her nation plans to withdraw from the BRI while still looking to maintain friendly relations, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. At a press conference after the G20, Meloni said she spoke to Li, representing China in Xi’s absence, about the BRI but a decision had yet to be made.

Going into the summit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accused China of acting as a brake on progress toward a joint statement. At one point in the deliberations behind closed doors, Beijing raised the issue of access to semiconductors in a discussion of climate action, people familiar with the talks said. That prompted National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan — a leading advocate of U.S. export controls on chips and chip technology to China — to decry “the idea of holding climate hostage” to unrelated issues.

China’s Li told leaders that the G20 “needs unity instead of division, cooperation instead of confrontation,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. That followed a commentary posted hours earlier by a Chinese think tank affiliated with the country’s top spy agency, which criticized India for having “sabotaged the atmosphere for cooperation” at the G20 by pushing its own agenda.

But China relented on its opposition to the communiqué, and India drew praise from all camps for negotiating a compromise. People familiar with the discussions said the breakthrough occurred after India, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa jointly put forward a proposal on language describing the war.

“This consensus itself shows the cemented role of India as a trustworthy fulcrum of a world bitterly divided on geopolitical issues like the Ukraine war,” said Swasti Rao, an associate fellow at the Europe and Eurasia Center at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. “There is little doubt that middle order powers wish to keep the global economic order multipolar and not fall into the Chinese game of dominating it.” 

While the final language on Ukraine made some U.S. allies uneasy, supporting the compromise presented a bigger opportunity to align more closely with major democracies in the Global South that ultimately serve as key swing nations when it comes to Russia’s war and other world issues. G7 leaders publicly praised the outcome, with Sunak insisting that the language adopted was “very strong” and that “Russia is completely isolated.”

‘Just and durable’

For the U.S., any move that bolsters India and amplifies other democracies in the Global South helps to counter China and Russia’s influence, particularly when it comes to bringing about the G20’s call for a “comprehensive, just and durable peace” in Ukraine. Back in May at the G7 summit in Japan, the U.S. and its allies struggled to convince Modi, Lula and Indonesia’s Joko Widodo to side with them on Ukraine, even after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a surprise appearance. Zelenskiy wasn’t invited to address India’s G20.

A senior European Union official said the agreement effectively saved the G20 as the last global forum bringing together the world’s major powers. Moreover, the official said, it helped bridge the gap between the G-7 and emerging markets, who would now be partners in holding Russia to account if it doesn’t follow through on seeking a just peace in line with UN principles.

Other senior European officials said China shot itself in the foot by staying away from the summit, allowing India to cement its leadership of the Global South and providing the U.S. and Europe a clear path to strengthen ties with emerging markets.

Even Russia, represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after Vladimir Putin stayed home, saw the agreement as a win. Moscow was pleased that BRICS democracies served as interlocutors with the G7, according to a person familiar with the situation, underscoring China’s status as an outsider looking in.

The U.S., of course, could yet stumble in its bid to appeal more to the Global South. Ahead of the G20, Biden skipped a summit in Indonesia hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a move that appeared like a snub to Widodo. The U.S. president sought to do damage control in Delhi, meeting the Indonesian leader briefly and pledging to meet him at the White House in November, when world leaders head to the U.S. for the APEC summit.

More significantly, however, was India’s ability to grasp the moment to assert a global leadership role. Modi — who is on pace to extend his decade in power next year — declared that “history has been created” while his chief negotiator, Amitabh Kant, called India “the spokesperson of all the Global South.”

“More than anything else, it has amplified the voice of Global South,” Kant said of the summit outcome. “It has also demonstrated that India has a huge capacity of bringing the world together and leading the world in developmental and geopolitical issues.”

—With assistance from Samy Adghirni, Selcan Hacaoglu, Alex Wickham, Philip J. Heijmans, Akayla Gardner, Justin Sink, Ruchi Bhatia, Alberto Nardelli, Jorge Valero, Michael Nienaber, Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Jing Li and Simone Iglesias.

During the second set of Novak Djokovic’s historic U.S. Open victory over Daniil Medvedev on Sunday night, Djokovic, 36, was starting to show his age. Djokovic and Medvedev played a match that featured a slew of fabulous rallies—36 shots, 31 shots, 28 shots, 27 shots, 26 shots—and they appeared, at times, to be playing like two friends enjoying a hit-around at the park, except for the shots firing like rockets at one another, each man summoning the strength and concentration to return the ball over the net.

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Those long points, however, cause fatigue. And Djokovic, more than his 27-year-old opponent, was breathing hard. At one point in that second set, which took a full 104 minutes to complete, Djokovic smacked his legs with his racquet, as if that would energize them. The longer this match went on, the more trouble loomed for Djokovic. Not even Djokovic, perhaps the greatest men’s tennis player of all time, can fight the physics of aging. 

“I was losing air on so many occasions, and my legs, as well,” Djokovic said. “I don’t recall being so exhausted after rallies really as I have been in the second set.”

The set went to a tiebreaker. With Medvedev holding a 5-4 tiebreak lead, Djokovic won the key point. Djokovic kept hitting the ball to Medvedev’s backhand, turning up the head on each shot, making Medvedev lean further and further to his left, until he was so off balance, he puttered a shot wide left. Medvedev couldn’t capitalize. Djokovic was then able to win the next two points to win the set. There would be no opening for the Russian.

Only victory for Djokovic, whose 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 win over Medvedev gave him his 24th Grand Slam title, tying him with Margaret Court for the most singles majors won by a tennis player in history. What’s more, the victory finishes off a stunning transformation for Djokovic. He’s no longer a tennis heel. He’s a hero.

At the start of his run of titles, Djokovic was the cocky upstart from Serbia who crashed the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal rivalry. Their dual domination would morph into a trio, and fervent Federer and Nadal supporters never forgave him. But now that Federer is retired, and Nadal has said he expects next year to be his last, some Djokovic haters have softened their stance. They have no choice but to admire his all-time greatness.

He also earned many critics during the Covid-19 pandemic. He created a mini-tour that spread the coronavirus in June of 2020. He refused the Covid-19 vaccine, and was deported from Australia in 2022 when he refused to comply with regulations. He could not compete in the U.S. Open last year, since he was not vaccinated. 

His stance may have been maddening for many. But it’s hard to hold it against Djokovic forever, especially now that we’re in a post-pandemic era. 

Plus, he did everything right on Sunday. In the third set, Medvedev fell on his back on the court. He lay still for a few seconds, fiddling with his elbow. Djokovic walked to the other side of the net, to offer encouragement and a helping hand. After the match, he walked into the stands and hugged his six-year-old daughter, Tara, and eight-year-old son, Stefan; credited his parents, who supported his burgeoning tennis career in the 1990s even as war raged in the former Yugoslavia; and disclosed he was wearing a t-shirt honoring his late friend Kobe Bryant (Djokovic’s major tally now matches the No. 24 Bryant wore with the Lakers).

Djokovic used a serve and volley to rattle Medvedev; in the key second set, he won an amazing 21 of 23 points at the net. Two years ago, in the U.S. Open final, Medvedev denied Djokovic a chance to become the first player to win all four major tournaments in a calendar year since Steff Graf in 1988. Djokovic shifted his mindset this time around. 

“I really did my best in the last 48 hours not to allow the importance of the moment and what’s on the line get to my head,” Djokovic said in his post-match press conference. “Because two years ago that’s what happened, and I underperformed and I wasn’t able to be at my best and I was outplayed. So I learned my lesson. My team, my family knew that the last 24 hours, don’t touch me, don’t speak to me about, you know, the history of what’s on the line.”

He can do it all on the court, and is still fit and defying age. He’s now the oldest man to ever win the U.S. Open: since the start of 2021, he’s won 7 of the 10 Grand Slams in which he’s appeared. Next up for 2024: winning a 25th major, and sole possession of the all-time mark. “I’m going to keep going,” Djokovic said on Sunday. “I don’t want to leave this sport if I’m still at the top.” Those cheers you heard filling up Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York—“Novak! Novak! Novak!”— may be surprising, given Djokokvic’s history. But here’s a safe bet: they’ll start to sound mighty familiar going forward.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Novak Djokovic would not let Daniil Medvedev spoil his date with history a second time as he battled past the Russian 6-3 7-6(5) 6-3 to win the U.S. Open on Sunday and equal Margaret Court’s record haul of 24 Grand Slams.

Djokovic’s victory, his fourth in 10 Flushing Meadows finals, capped another remarkable season after his wins at the Australian Open and Roland Garros, and he will return to the top of the world rankings when they are updated later on Monday.

No man has won a calendar Grand Slam in 54 years, though Djokovic came close once again, losing in five sets to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final.

But for the moment he is savouring his 24th Slam.

“It obviously means the world to me,” he said. “I’m really living my childhood dream.

“To make the history of this sport is something truly remarkable, it’s hard to describe the words.

“I had the childhood dream when I was seven, eight, I wanted to become the best player in the world.”

As he continues to live his dream Djokovic is also staking his claim to the mantle of greatest tennis player of all time.

At 36 Djokovic also becomes the oldest U.S. Open men’s winner in the Open Era but the Serb’s Grand Slam hunger has not dimmed and he had some bad news for his younger rivals.

“Eventually one day I will leave tennis in about 23, 24 years,” he joked. “Until then, I guess you’ll see me a bit more.

“I don’t put any number right now in my mind on how many Slams I want to win.

“I’ll continue to prioritize them as my most important tournaments and where I want to play the best tennis.”

After clinching his historic title on Sunday Djokovic threw his racquet into the air and dropped to his knees as the crowd roared.

He picked himself up and found his young daughter court-side for an emotional hug before going back to the bench and pulling out a T-shirt with ‘Mamba Forever’ on the front and the number 24 on the back.

The shirt was a tribute to both his achievement and to his late friend Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant, who wore the number throughout much of his all-star career before dying in a helicopter crash.

“I thought of doing this T-shirt, eventually, if I get the chance to win the tournament,” said Djokovic. “Kobe was a close friend, we chatted a lot about the winner’s mentality.

“When I was struggling with injury he was one of the people I relied on the most.”

Neither Djokovic nor Medvedev have been fully embraced by the New York crowds and until the end of the match there was little of the electricity that crackled through Arthur Ashe during the women’s final on Saturday.

As the match started Djokovic walked out onto court and stared across the net at Medvedev, the man once again standing between him and history just as he had two years ago.

The last time the two clashed at the U.S. Open was in the 2021 final, when the Russian captured his only major and denied the Serb that elusive calendar Grand Slam.

Djokovic did not speak of revenge on the road to the final and only referenced that loss as a learning experience.

“I haven’t played any tournament on American soil for two years,” said Djokovic, who missed last year’s Slam due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“I really did my best in the last 48 hours not to allow the importance of the moment and what’s on the line get to my head.

“Two years ago that’s what happened and I wasn’t able to be at my best and I was outplayed.

“So I learned my lesson.”

As expected of a contest featuring the sport’s two premier hardcourt players, almost every point was contested with long rallies as both men pounded away from the baseline.

Djokovic came out playing with purpose and applied pressure right away, breaking the third seed at the first opportunity on his way to a 3-0 lead.

That would be the only break Djokovic would need against a surprisingly flat Medvedev, who could not raise his play to the “12 out of 10” level he said he reached in beating defending champion Alcaraz in the semi-finals.

During a marathon one hour and 44 minute, lung-bursting second set Medvedev came to life, forcing a faltering Djokovic into long grinding point after long grinding point.

But the tireless Russian’s hard work failed to pay dividends and he was unable to convert a break chance at 6-5 that would have given him the set.

Medvedev charged in front 3-1 in the tie-break but again could not land the knockout blow as Djokovic came off the ropes to take it 7-5 for a 2-0 lead.

If there is one thing Djokovic possesses it is a killer instinct and the Serb wasted no time in pressing home his advantage, breaking Medvedev to go up 3-1 in the third.

A defiant Medvedev answered with his first and only break of the match but it was not enough with Djokovic hitting right back with another break then holding serve the rest of way to clinch the title.

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The biggest and most underreported story in politics these days is that Donald Trump comes off as obviously senile in his every public appearance, yet no one in the media (on either side) ever acknowledges it. Trump now sounds like a pale confused imitation of his former self.

But now the media is finally starting to lightly touch on the fact that Trump is clearly exhibiting symptoms consistent with dementia. The Wall Street Journal is even asking poll question about Trump’s age and cognitive abilities. Accordingly, Trump is throwing a fit about it on social media, bragging that he took a “mental acuity test” and “ACED IT.” Yes, Trump is now back to bragging about the whole “Person woman man camera TV” thing. But it gets worse.

Trump is now challenging various public figures to take a mental acuity test alongside him: “I will name the place and the test, and it will be a tough one. Nobody will come even close to me! We can also throw some physical activity into it. I just won the Senior Club Championship at a big golf club, with many very good players.”

This is clownishly over the top stupid, we’re not even sure where to start. In fact we suspect Trump’s babysitters may have written this, in an attempt at sounding like him, while Trump stared feebly at the TV and muttered incoherently all day.

But hey, at least we’re now finally on the verge of having that long overdue discussion about the drastic multi-year collapse of Donald Trump’s cognitive abilities. If Trump’s cognitive abilities were worrisome when he was in office, they’ve since become far, far worse since he’s been out of office. Since this guy is still pretending he’s running for President, his severe senility should be the big headline every day. It’s overdue, but at least we’re getting there.

The post Senile Donald Trump has berserk meltdown about needing to take a “mental acuity test” appeared first on Palmer Report.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to the United States this month, his office said Sunday, but is not expected to meet with President Joe Biden amid months of tensions.

The planned visit would be Netanyahu’s first trip to Israel’s longtime ally the United States since reelection late last year.

The Israeli premier is due to land in San Francisco on September 18 for Silicon Valley meetings, before heading to New York, where he will be attending the United Nations General Assembly, a statement from his office said.

A spokesman for Netanyahu said there were no plans for meeting with U.S. officials during the trip, an unusual case for visiting Israeli leaders.

Biden has criticized the judicial overhaul Netanyahu’s hard-right government is advancing, which critics describe as a threat to democracy in Israel.

The U.S. president recently hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role.

Netanyahu, however, has yet to be invited to the White House since returning to power in December at the helm of what Biden had described as “one of the most extremist” administrations in Israeli history.

In July, the White House said Biden and Netanyahu would “meet in the United States later this year,” without providing further details.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to reassure Ukraine on Sunday that it will have continued support from its Western allies. Russia, however, just had local elections in four Ukrainian areas it illegally annexed and Moscow appears determined to solidify its gains. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details.

Novak Djokovic beat Daniil Medvedev 6-3 7-6(5) 6-3 in the U.S. Open men’s final on Sunday to match Margaret Court’s all-time record haul of 24 Grand Slam titles.

For Djokovic, the win marked his third Grand Slam title of the year after having won the Australian Open and French Open before losing in the Wimbledon final.

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