The news these days has a whiff of the apocalyptic. The prospect of Russia deploying a nuclear weapon into space soon is merely the latest in a run of alarming headlines.
That should be a catalyst for action by the world’s top diplomats as they gather in Rio de Janeiro today. Instead, there’s an air of pessimism over the foreign minister talks.
Trying to find common ground among Group of 20 nations has seldom been more challenging.
The club found its raison d’etre in the 2008-9 financial crisis, but two wars and the most challenging geopolitical climate in decades puts it at risk of paralysis.
The host isn’t exactly helping spur a measured debate. Over the weekend, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva compared Israel’s war on Hamas with Adolf Hitler’s extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. Brazil has no intention of backing down.
Lula wants to use Brazil’s G-20 presidency to cast himself as a leader of the Global South, a loose term encompassing the BRICS grouping also including Russia, India and China that’s seen as a rival to the US-led order.
Several Global South nations were once subject to colonial rule, which goes some way to explain why they find common ground with Russia over the US and its European allies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has slowly been making his way to Rio via Cuba and Venezuela, gleefully stoking anti-Western sentiment along the way.
It’s not hard to stir accusations of hypocrisy for aiding Ukraine in its war against invading Russian forces while refusing to do more to impose a cease-fire in Gaza.
One can only imagine the discomfort around the table when it comes to initiating, skirting or shutting down discussion around the conflicts.— Flavia Krause-Jackson