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Tag: political figures – intl

  • Anti-Xi protest spreads in China and worldwide as Chinese leader begins third term | CNN

    Anti-Xi protest spreads in China and worldwide as Chinese leader begins third term | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Jolie’s nerves were running high as she walked into the campus of Goldsmiths, the University of London, last Friday morning. She’d planned to arrive early enough that the campus would be deserted, but her fellow students were already beginning to filter in to start their day.

    In the hallway of an academic building, Jolie, who’d worn a face mask to obscure her identity, waited for the right moment to reach into her bag for the source of her nervousness – several pieces of A4-size paper she had printed out in the small hours of the night.

    Finally, when she made sure none of the students – especially those who, like Jolie, come from China – were watching, she quickly pasted one of them on a notice board.

    “Life not zero-Covid policy, freedom not martial-lawish lockdown, dignity not lies, reform not cultural revolution, votes not dictatorship, citizens not slaves,” it read, in English.

    The day before, these words, in Chinese, had been handwritten in red paint on a banner hanging over a busy overpass thousands of miles away in Beijing, in a rare, bold protest against China’s top leader Xi Jinping.

    Another banner on the Sitong Bridge denounced Xi as a “dictator” and “national traitor” and called for his removal – just days before a key Communist Party meeting at which he is set to secure a precedent-breaking third term.

    Both banners were swiftly removed by police and all mentions of the protest wiped from the Chinese internet. But the short-lived display of political defiance – which is almost unimaginable in Xi’s authoritarian surveillance state – has resonated far beyond the Chinese capital, sparking acts of solidarity from Chinese nationals inside China and across the globe.

    Over the past week, as party elites gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to extoll Xi and his policies at the 20th Party Congress, anti-Xi slogans echoing the Sitong Bridge banners have popped up in a growing number of Chinese cities and hundreds of universities worldwide.

    In China, the slogans were scrawled on walls and doors in public bathrooms – one of the last places spared the watchful eyes of the country’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras.

    Overseas, many anti-Xi posters were put up by Chinese students like Jolie, who have long learned to keep their critical political views to themselves due to a culture of fear. Under Xi, the party has ramped up surveillance and control of the Chinese diaspora, intimidating and harassing those who dare to speak out and threatening their families back home.

    Anti-Xi posters are seen on a university campus in the Netherlands.

    CNN spoke with two Chinese citizens who scribbled protest slogans in bathroom stalls and half a dozen overseas Chinese students who put up anti-Xi posters on their campuses. As with Jolie, CNN agreed to protect their identities with pseudonyms and anonymity due to the sensitivity of their actions.

    Many said they were shocked and moved by the Sitong Bridge demonstration and felt compelled to show support for the lone protester, who has not been heard of since and is likely to face lifelong repercussions. He has come to be known as the “Bridge Man,” in a nod to the unidentified “Tank Man” who faced down a column of tanks on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

    Few of them believe their political actions will lead to real changes on the ground. But with Xi emerging triumphant from the Party Congress with the potential for lifelong rule, the proliferation of anti-Xi slogans are a timely reminder that despite his relentless crushing of dissent, the powerful leader may always face undercurrents of resistance.

    As China’s online censors went into overdrive last week to scrub out all discussions about the Sitong Bridge protest, some social media users shared an old Chinese saying: “A tiny spark can set the prairie ablaze.”

    It would appear that the fire started by the “Bridge Man” has done just that, setting off an unprecedented show of dissent against Xi’s leadership and authoritarian rule among mainland Chinese nationals.

    The Chinese government’s policies and actions have sparked outcries online and protests in the streets before. But in most cases, the anger has focused on local authorities and few have attacked Xi himself so directly or blatantly.

    Critics of Xi have paid a heavy price. Two years ago, Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese billionaire who criticized Xi’s handling of China’s initial Covid-19 outbreak and called the top leader a power-hungry “clown,” was jailed for 18 years on corruption charges.

    But the risks of speaking out did not deter Raven Wu, a university senior in eastern China. Inspired by the “Bridge Man,” Wu left a message in English in a bathroom stall to share his call for freedom, dignity, reform, and democracy. Below the message, he drew a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a crown, with a “no” sign drawn over it. (Xi has been compared to the chubby cartoon bear by Chinese social media users.)

    A protest slogan is scribbled on the wall in a public bathroom in China.

    “I felt a long-lost sense of liberation when I was scribbling,” Wu said. “In this country of extreme cultural and political censorship, no political self-expression is allowed. I felt satisfied that for the first time in my life as a Chinese citizen, I did the right thing for the people.”

    There was also the fear of being found out by the school – and the consequences, but he managed to push it aside. Wu, whose own political awakening came in high school when he heard about the Tiananmen Square massacre by chance, hoped his scribbles could cause a ripple of change – however small – among those who saw them.

    He is deeply worried about China’s future. Over the past two years, “despairing news” has repeatedly shocked him, he said.

    “Just like Xi’s nickname ‘the Accelerator-in-Chief,’ he is leading the country into the abyss … The most desperate thing is that through the [Party Congress], Xi Jinping will likely establish his status as the emperor and double down on his policies.”

    Chen Qiang, a fresh graduate in southwestern China, shared that bleak outlook – the economy is faltering, and censorship is becoming ever more stringent, he said.

    Chen had tried to share the Sitong Bridge protest on WeChat, China’s super app, but it kept getting censored. So he thought to himself: why don’t I write the slogans in nearby places to let more people know about him?

    He found a public restroom and wrote the original Chinese version of the slogan on a toilet stall door. As he scrawled on, he was gripped by a paralyzing fear of being caught by the strict surveillance. But he forced himself to continue. “(The Beijing protester) had sacrificed his life or the freedom of the rest of his life to do what he did. I think we should also be obliged to do something that we can do,” he said.

    Chen described himself as a patriot. “However I don’t love the (Communist) Party. I have feelings for China, but not the government.”

    So far, the spread of the slogans appears limited.

    A number of pro-democracy Instagram accounts run by anonymous Chinese nationals have been keeping track of the anti-Xi graffiti and posters. Citizensdailycn, an account with 32,000 followers, said it received around three dozen reports from mainland China, about half of which involved bathrooms. Northern_Square, with 42,000 followers, said it received eight reports of slogans in bathrooms, which users said were from cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan.

    The movement has been dubbed by some as the “Toilet Revolution” – in a jibe against Xi’s campaign to improve the sanitary conditions at public restrooms in China, and a nod to the location of much of the anti-Xi messaging.

    Wu, the student in Eastern China, applauded the term for its “ironic effect.” But he said it also offers an inspiration. “Even in a cramped space like the toilet, as long as you have a revolutionary heart, you can make your own contribution,” he said.

    For Chen, the term is a stark reminder of the highly limited space of free expression in China.

    “Due to censorship and surveillance, people can only express political opinions by writing slogans in places like toilets. It is sad that we have been oppressed to this extent,” Chen said.

    For many overseas Chinese students, including Jolie, it is their first time to have taken political action, driven by a mixture of awe and guilt toward the “Bridge Man” and a sense of duty to show solidarity.

    Among the posters on the notice boards of Goldsmiths, the University of London, is one with a photo of the Sitong Bridge protest, which showed a plume of dark smoke billowing up from the bridge.

    Above it, a Chinese sentence printed in red reads: “The courage of one person should not be without echo.”

    A poster at Goldsmiths, the University of London, reads in Chinese:

    Putting up protest posters “is the smallest thing, but the biggest I can do now – not because of my ability but because of my lack of courage,” Jolie said, pointing to her relative safety acting outside China’s borders.

    Others expressed a similar sense of guilt. “I feel ashamed. If I were in Beijing now, I would never have the courage to do such a thing,” said Yvonne Li, who graduated from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands last year.

    Li and a friend put up a hundred posters on campus and in the city center, including around China Town.

    “I really wanted to cry when I first saw the protest on Instagram. I felt politically depressed reading Chinese news everyday. I couldn’t see any hope. But when I saw this brave man, I realized there is still a glimmer of light,” she said.

    The two Instagram accounts, Citizensdailycn and Northern_square, said they each received more than 1,000 submissions of anti-Xi posters from the Chinese diaspora. According to Citizensdailycn’s tally, the posters have been sighted at 320 universities across the world.

    Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer and visiting professor at the University of Chicago, said he is struck by how fast the overseas opposition to Xi has gathered pace and how far it has spread.

    When Xi scrapped presidential term limits in 2018, posters featuring the slogan “Not My President” and Xi’s face had surfaced in some universities outside China – but the scale paled in comparison, Teng noted.

    “In the past, there were only sporadic protests by overseas Chinese dissidents. Voices from university campuses were predominantly supporting the Chinese government and leadership,” he said.

    In recent years, as Xi stoked nationalism at home and pursued an assertive foreign policy abroad, an increasing number of overseas Chinese students have stepped forward to defend Beijing from any criticism or perceived slights – sometimes with the blessing of Chinese embassies.

    There were protests when a university invited the Dalai Lama to be a guest speaker; rebukes for professors perceived to have “anti-China” content in their lectures; and clashes when other campus groups expressed support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.

    But as the widespread anti-Xi posters have shown, the rising nationalistic sentiment is by no means representative of all Chinese students overseas. Most often, those who do not agree with the party and its policies simply choose to stay silent. For them, the stakes of openly criticizing Beijing are just too high. In past years, those who spoke out have faced harassment and intimidation, retaliation against family back home, and lengthy prison terms upon returning to China.

    Posters calling for Chinese leader Xi Jinping's removal on a university campus in London.

    “Even liberal democracies are influenced by China’s long arm of repression. The Chinese government has a large amount of spies and informants, monitoring overseas Chinese through various United Front-linked organizations,” Teng said, referring to a party body responsible for influence and infiltration operations abroad.

    Teng said Beijing has extended its grip on Chinese student bodies abroad to police the speech and actions of its nationals overseas – and to make sure the party line is observed even on foreign campuses.

    “The fact that so many students are willing to take the risk shows how widespread the anger is over Xi’s decade of moving backward.”

    Most students CNN spoke with said they were worried about being spotted with the posters by Beijing’s supporters, who they fear could expose them on Chinese social media or report them to the embassies.

    “We were scared and kept looking around. I found it absurd at the time and reflected briefly upon it – what we were doing is completely legal here (in the Netherlands), but we were still afraid of being seen by other Chinese students,” said Chen, the recent graduate in Rotterdam.

    The fear of being betrayed by peers has weighed heavily on Jolie, the student in London, in particular while growing up in China with views that differed from the party line. “I was feeling really lonely,” she said. “The horrible (thing) is that your friends and classmates may report you.”

    But as she showed solidarity for the “Bridge Man,” she also found solidarity in others who did the same. In the day following the protest in Beijing, Jolie saw on Instagram an outpouring of photos showing protest posters from all over the world.

    “I was so moved and also a little bit shocked that (I) have many friends, although I don’t know them, and I felt a very strong emotion,” she said. “I just thought – my friends, how can I contact you, how can I find you, how can we recognize each other?”

    Anti-Xi posters at a university in New York.

    Sometimes, all it takes is a knowing smile from a fellow Chinese student – or a new protest poster that crops up on the same notice board – to make the students feel reassured.

    “It’s important to tell each other that we’re not alone,” said a Chinese student at McGill University in Quebec.

    “(After) I first hung the posters, I went back to see if they were still there and I would see another small poster hung by someone else and I just feel really safe and comforted.”

    “I feel like it is my responsibility to do this,” they said. If they didn’t do anything, “it’s just going to be over, and I just don’t want it to be over so quickly without any consequences.”

    In China, the party will also be watching closely for any consequences. Having tightened its grip on all aspects of life, launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, wiped out much of civil society and built a high-tech surveillance state, the party’s hold on power appears firmer than ever.

    But the extensive censorship around the Sitong Bridge protest also betrays its paranoia.

    “Maybe (the bridge protester) is the only one with such courage and willingness to sacrifice, but there may be millions of other Chinese people who share his views,” said Matt, a Chinese student at Columbia University in New York.

    “He let me realize that there are still such people in China, and I want others to know that, too. Not everyone is brainwashed. (We’re) still a nation with ideals and hopes.”

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  • Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

    Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A political robocall made to tens of thousands of Georgians thanked a vulnerable congressional Democrat and the Democratic nominee for governor for protecting the rights of “birthing persons” to “have an abortion up until the date of birth” – targeting abortion rights tension in the competitive races.

    The calls, which used polarizing language popular with Democratic activists, are made to sound like they are in support of Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop and gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams – but Democrats involved in the races allege that the call, uncovered by CNN’s KFile, is the work of Republicans.

    The call says it is done by a group called American Values – groups operating under that name or similar ones have said they are not behind the call.

    Bishop, who has served in Congress for 30 years, faces Republican Chris West in the race for Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the only competitive House races in the state.

    The Abrams campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports Bishop’s race, said they did not pay for the robocall. Bishop’s campaign declined to comment on the record.

    The robocall is narrated by a woman who gives her name as Jill and her pronouns as she/her and continues to say people who identify as women are under attack in the state.

    “This is Jill, and my pronouns are she/her,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that people that identify as women are under attack, not just in Georgia, but throughout our country. Georgia is lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting for our abortion rights.”

    The call goes on to say Bishop and Abrams support abortion until the moment of birth. Abrams has campaigned that she does not believe in any government restrictions on abortion, calling it a medical decision not beholden to “arbitrary” timelines. Bishop has voted in the past to ban late-term abortion procedures, indicating some support for restriction, and has said that abortion should be rare, legal and safe and available in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life or health of a woman.

    “While some elected officials are trying to limit abortion rights to six months or even five months after conception, we are so lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting to protect our right to have an abortion up until the date of birth,” the narrator of the call says. “Would you please take a moment to call Stacey Abrams or Sanford Bishop and thank them for standing up for women’s right to abort their babies up to the point of birth.”

    “Government needs to stay out of the reproductive rights of birthing persons,” says the narrator, Jill.

    The robocall ends by saying it was “paid for by American Values and not authorized with any candidate or candidate’s committee” – but several groups who operate under that name or similar names denied to CNN they were behind the call. And there is no political action committee registered by that name in Georgia.

    The call reached approximately 43,000 phones from Friday October 14 through Sunday October 16, according to data from the anti-robocall app Nomorobo.

    The message fails to identify who paid for the call in the introduction and give a call back number, which violates rules from the Federal Communications Commission for autodialed or prerecorded voice political campaign calls.

    The October robocall also invites listeners to press one and two to leave a message for Abrams and Bishop, respectively. If a user presses two, they are redirected to Bishop’s Albany district office. But when a user presses one, the call redirects to the private number of the chair for the local Democratic committee, Sandra Sallee. Sallee called the ploy a “dirty” trick in a phone interview and said she was subjected to harassing phone calls.

    CNN’s KFile reached out to nearly a dozen active federal PACs with “American Values” in their name. Several PACs told CNN they have never used robocalls for messaging and have no plans to; others did not respond to CNN’s comment request.

    “Robocalls are kind of a funny political tactic in so far as they have an almost perfect record of never working,” said Donald Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University.

    Green said the “fairly unanimous conclusion” is that they don’t seem to affect voter turnout or vote choice but are often used because they are very inexpensive. He suggested that the tactic could have been used to generate media attention to the race.

    “It’s pretty unusual to have something that is kind of, you know, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing-type tactic,” said Green. “It’s not unheard of in American politics because nothing is unheard of, but it’s rare.”

    On Thursday, another mysterious robocall littered with falsehoods was made to Georgia voters with a similar modus operandi, but this time it solely targets Bishop.

    “Congressman Bishop is the only candidate with 100% rating with Planned Parenthood and will defend the right to an abortion up to nine months. Do not let Republican Chris West win,” a female narrator says.

    According to data from Nomorobo, this robocall reached 41,000 phones and there is some overlap between the recipients of this call and the one targeting Abrams and Bishop.

    The call failed to disclose who was behind it at the beginning and end of the call. When CNN tried to call the number, an automated message said that “this number is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

    In a statement to CNN, Abrams’ campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd said, “This disgusting and false attack is a new low for the right wing — and comes as misrepresentations and outright lies that have become a feature of the Kemp campaign. Stacey Abrams has been clear about her support for limitations on abortion in line with Roe and Casey. Now it’s time for Brian Kemp to clearly condemn this false robocall and start answering Georgians’ questions about his extreme anti-choice record.”

    Abrams, who once opposed abortion rights, said last month that abortion is “a decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor. That viability is the metric. And that if a woman’s health or life is in danger, then viability extends until the time of birth, but women do not make this choice lightly.”

    Abrams added that no one believes there should not be a limit, but that “the limit should not be made by politicians who don’t believe in basic biology or, apparently, basic morality.”

    A spokesperson from the Kemp campaign, Tate Mitchell, said they were not responsible for the robocalls.

    The Bishop campaign declined to comment to CNN.

    The DCCC said through spokesperson Monica Robinson, “This misleading robocall – paid for by a shady outside interest group – is what desperation smells like. Resorting to lies to win an election is proof that Chris West can’t win honestly or on his own merits. If West has any integrity at all, he’ll denounce these robocalls and call on his special interest backers to stop lying to Georgians.”

    Bishop, a 15-term moderate Democrat, has in the past advocated and voted for some late-term abortion restrictions, and recently reiterated his support for abortion rights. “These personal health care choices should ultimately rest with a woman, her God and her doctor—not with politicians in 50 different state legislatures,” Bishop said in a statement after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

    West’s campaign did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

    This is not the first time a robocall spouting specious claims has occurred in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District in this election cycle.

    In June, the local newspaper the Ledger-Enquirer reported that robocalls were being sent to households in the district that appeared to be affiliated with Republican candidate Jeremy Hunt’s campaign, but the underlying message was meant to drive support away from Hunt, a Black former Army captain.

    One June robocall noted it was time to “celebrate Black independence” and “modernize” the Republican party by supporting Hunt. “We can leave the old ways of the Republican Party in the past and build our party back better,” the narrator said, a nod to Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan. “No more attacks on our capital, no more divisive language from a former President.”

    That robocall also did not identify who paid for it, and both Hunt and West accused the other’s campaign and the super PACs supporting them of sending the call.

    One PAC that supported Hunt in that primary is called “American Values First,” a name partially invoked in the October robocall targeting Bishop and Abrams.

    American Values First is one of the PACs CNN reached out for comment to ask if they are responsible for the October robocall. The treasurer and spokesperson for the PAC, Joel Riter, said that the PAC had nothing to do with the robocalls and has not spent any money in the race for the general election.

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  • Former Chinese leader Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of room as Party Congress comes to a close | CNN

    Former Chinese leader Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of room as Party Congress comes to a close | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s former top leader, Hu Jintao, was unexpectedly led out of Saturday’s closing ceremony of the Communist Party Congress, in a moment of drama during what is typically a highly choreographed event.

    Hu, 79, was seated in a prominent position at the front table in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, directly next to his successor, current leader Xi Jinping, when he was approached by a staff member, video of the meeting shows.

    While seated, Hu appeared to talk briefly with the male staff member, while China’s third most senior leader, Li Zhanshu, who was seated to his other side, had his hand on the chair behind Hu’s back.

    Hu then appeared to rise after being lifted up by the staff member, who’d taken the former leader by the arm, while Kong Shaoxun, head of the party’s secretariat came over. Hu spoke with the two men briefly and initially appeared reluctant to leave.

    Hu was then escorted by the two men from his seat, with the staff member holding his arm, as other party members seated behind the main table looked on. The circumstances surrounding Hu’s exit are not clear.

    On his way out, Hu was seen to pause and appeared to say something to Xi and then patted Premier Li Keqiang on the shoulder. Both Xi and Li appeared to nod. It was not clear what Xi said in reply.

    At one point, while Hu was still seated, Xi appeared to place his hand over a document that Hu was attempting to reach for preventing him from doing so.

    In another moment, after Hu was standing and apparently remonstrating with the two men before making his exit, Li Zhanshu appeared to try and rise from his seat, but was directed back down by a tug on his suit jacket by fellow Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning, seated next to him.

    Hu, who retired in 2013, has been seen in increasingly frail health in public in recent years.

    Due to the opacity of Chinese elite politics, the party is unlikely to offer a public explanation on Hu’s sudden exit. The dramatic moment has not been reported anywhere in Chinese media, or discussed on Chinese social media, where such conversation is highly-restricted. But it has set off a firestorm of speculation overseas.

    CNN was censored on air in China when reporting on Hu’s exit from the meeting Saturday.

    Hu’s departure came after the Congress’s more than 2,000 delegates had rubber-stamped the new members of the party’s elite Central Committee during a private session, and before delegates were called on to endorse the party’s work report during a session open to journalists.

    The newly announced 205-member Central Committee did not include Li Keqiang and fellow Standing Committee member Wang Yang, who are both considered Hu’s proteges. This means neither will retain their seats in the Standing Committee, the party’s top-decision making body, though both are 67, one year short of the unofficial retirement age. Xi, who is 69, is included in the list of new Central Committee members.

    The line-up of the Standing Committee will be revealed Sunday, one day after the close of the Congress. Xi, who is widely seen to have cemented power by eliminating rivals and dampening the lingering influence of party elders, is expected to be re-confirmed as party chief in a norm-breaking move and surround himself with allies.

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  • Giorgia Meloni is set to be sworn in as Italy’s prime minister. Some fear the hard-right turn she’s promised to take | CNN

    Giorgia Meloni is set to be sworn in as Italy’s prime minister. Some fear the hard-right turn she’s promised to take | CNN

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    Rome
    CNN
     — 

    Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader who is due to be sworn in as Italy’s first female prime minister, won the election on a campaign built around a promise to block migrant ships and support for traditional “family values” and anti-LGBTQ themes.

    She heads an alliance of far-right and center-right parties, her own Brothers of Italy chief among them, and is set to form the most right-wing government Italy has seen in decades.

    Meloni’s win in parliamentary elections last month suggests the allure of nationalism remains undimmed in Italy – but her vow to take the country on a hard-right turn still leaves many uncertain what will happen next.

    The new government is made up of a coalition with two other right-wing leaders. One is Matteo Salvini, a former interior minister who became the darling of the hard-right in 2018 when he shifted his party, the League, once a northern secessionist party, into a nationalist force.

    The other is Silvio Berlusconi, the center-right former Italian prime minister widely remembered for his “bunga bunga” sex scandals with young women. Both men have previously publicly expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has prompted questions over what the coalition’s approach to Russia will be.

    And just this week – days before consultations on forming the government were set to begin – secretly recorded audio was circulated in which Berlusconi appeared to lay the blame for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine at Kyiv’s door, and boasted of having reestablished relations with the Russian leader.

    “I reconnected a little bit with President Putin, quite a bit, in the sense that for my birthday he gave me 20 bottles of Vodka and a very sweet letter, and I responded with giving him bottles of Lambrusco,” said Berlusconi in the clip, released by Italian news agency LaPresse on Tuesday. The 86-year-old billionaire and media magnate was speaking with Forza Italia party members at the time.

    A party spokesperson denied Berlusconi was in touch with Putin, saying he had been telling parliamentarians “an old story referring to an episode many years ago.” Berlusconi defended his comments in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Thursday, saying they had been taken out of context.

    Amid backlash over the comments, Meloni, who has been a strong supporter of Ukraine as it battles Moscow’s invasion, sought to clarify where she and and the coalition would stand once in power.

    “I have and always will be clear, I intend to lead a government with a foreign policy that is clear and unequivocal. Italy is fully part of Europe and the Atlantic Alliance. Anyone who does not agree with this cornerstone will not be able to be part of the government, at the cost of not being a government. With us governing, Italy will never be the weak link of the West,” she said.

    Nonetheless, liberals within Italy and the European Union are fearful of what the promised rightward turn may mean for the country and its future – while conservative constituents feel only a strong-arm politician, like Meloni, can lead the country out of crisis amid soaring energy costs and high youth unemployment.

    “Meloni is not expressing the vote choices of radical right-wing voters, because we have data that shows that she has been voted for by mostly the center-right,” political science professor Lorenzo De Sio of the Luiss Guido Carli University told CNN.

    “I would say that the motto for Meloni is to be a sort of new conservative – that is to say, conservativism for the 21st century. She might bear some far-back connection to the post-fascist legacy, but clearly that’s not the core of her political platform now.”

    Meloni grew up in the working-class Roman neighborhood of Garbatella, a historically left-wing part of southern Rome that was built during Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship. She got her political start in the movement Youth Front, a political organization with fascist roots.

    She went on to create her own political party, Brothers of Italy, which in just four years went from taking 4% of the vote to winning 26% in last month’s election. While that doesn’t represent the majority of Italians, thanks to her partnership with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Salvini’s League, the coalition has enough seats in parliament to govern the country.

    Back in the Garbatella neighborhood, among the fruit and vegetable stands that Meloni would go to with her mother, some locals remember her as a child, long before she embraced politics. Opinions on what she will be like as a leader vary widely.

    “I know her very well. I knew her since she was little,” said Aldo, a fruit and vegetable vendor from Garbatella who has run his market stand for decades. “Her mother would come shop here. She always had a book in her hand to study. If she goes forward like she did when she was little, she’ll be strong.”

    He added: “You have to have a strong fist. Period. You understand? That’s how you move forward. Otherwise Italy, kapoof, it goes away!”

    Gloria, a lifelong Garbatella resident, said she is worried about her children's future freedoms after Giorgia Meloni's victory.

    Just across the market, Gloria, who was born and raised in Garbatella and helps her son at his Roman food stand, has very different views.

    “What she has said until now terrifies me,” she told CNN.

    “There are many people that connect with these kinds of conservative ideals because they are racist, because they are not progressive. I have three children and I wonder, will my daughter have the freedom to have an abortion if she wants, to be a lesbian?”

    Meloni has sought in recent times to distance her party from its neo-fascist roots. Her policy proposals have also evolved over time, including walking back some of her more anti-EU ideas.

    Back in 2014, she said, “Italy has to leave the euro!” and called for Congress to revoke sanctions on Russia. Now, according to her proposed plan for government and latest comments, she wants Italy to be a “protagonist within Europe.”

    Emiliano, a local who was shopping at the Garbatella market, said he didn’t bother to vote in the latest election. “Neither the left nor the right deserve a vote. Before, politicians ate but we ate also. Now only they eat,” he said.

    With the skyrocketing cost of energy, the risk for Italian businesses and households is high. The agricultural sector, which represents 1.96% of Italy’s GDP, is facing a shortage of everything from fertilizers, to diesel, to electricity and glass, causing prices to rise rapidly with a devastating impact on farm budgets, according to Coldiretti, the largest association for agricultural assistance in Italy.

    According to a recent report by Coldiretti, rising production costs have forced many small agricultural businesses to shut down for the season because they can’t cope.

    Sabina Petrucci manages her family’s olive oil company, Olio Petrucci, and is also a member of Coldiretti’s European council for young agricultural workers. She feels hopeful and believes the only way to fix the present issues is through strong political leadership.

    “We need a very concrete government who helps us with energy costs and also to achieve the financial aid and financial help we may need in the future,” said Petrucci. “Many of the producers in the area are stopping their production, they really are frightened about the increasing costs.”

    She describes rising energy costs as “the major threat for us,” adding: “We have opened our mill, but the production costs have risen throughout the summer.”

    Sabina Petrucci, the manager of her family's olive oil company Petrucci Oil, said many in her industry are alarmed by rising energy and production costs.

    Italy has the third oldest population in the world, but Meloni and her party have been working to connect with Italy’s youth, the next generation of voters. She herself became involved in politics at 15, after registering with Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party established by Giorgio Almirante, who was a minister in the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s government.

    Francesco Todde is a leader of the National Youth movement, a political movement put in place by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party in 2014 to connect with a younger generation of politically interested Italians who have been frustrated with the political status quo.

    Francesco Todde, Elisa Segnini Bocchia and Simone D'Alpa are members of the Brothers of Italy's youth movement.

    “Giorgia Meloni comes from a political youth path, so she always paid a lot of attention to the youth and made reforms for the youth. At the start of her political career she was minister of youth,” he told CNN.

    Elisa Segnini Bocchia, another committed member of the National Youth movement, responds to why some are quick to associate this movement with fascism, saying: “Our past isn’t our future. So, we don’t look at the past. We look for the new future.”

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  • Who might succeed Liz Truss as UK prime minister? | CNN

    Who might succeed Liz Truss as UK prime minister? | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Britain will have a new prime minister within a week, outgoing leader Liz Truss said in her resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday.

    The fast-track process is in stark contrast to the contest that catapulted Truss into the hot seat – that lasted six weeks at the height of the summer.

    This time, with the Conservatives at rock-bottom in the opinion polls and the markets jittery after a weeks of drama over Truss’ failed economic policy agenda, the party wants a new leader in place as soon as possible and with as little drama as possible.

    Graham Brady, the Conservative official responsible for the process, announced the candidates to replace Truss will need get least 100 nominations from the party’s MPs by 2pm local time Monday.

    If only one candidate meets that threshold, they will automatically become leader. Otherwise, an online ballot of party members will close on Friday October 28.

    The winner of the contest will be the fifth Conservative prime minister in just over six years – and the third within this parliamentary term. But who might the next leader be? Here are some of the main runners and riders:

    Though he has yet to formally declare his candidacy, Sunak has already reached the 100-nomination threshold, Britain’s PA Media news agency reported on Friday.

    The former Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) has proved to be something of a prophet of the government’s demise, as many of the predictions he made during this summer’s leadership about Truss’s economic plan came to pass.

    Sunak warned that Truss’s unfunded tax cuts would lead to a run on sterling, a panic in the bond market and concern from the International Monetary Fund. Perhaps even he would have been surprised by the pace with which he was proved right.

    Sunak has experience of economic crisis-fighting, having guided the UK through the Covid-19 pandemic.

    He also secured the most votes from MPs in the last leadership election – comfortably clearing the new threshold with 137 endorsements. Although Truss eventually won the decisive members’ vote, Sunak only lost narrowly – with 43% of the vote.

    The trust he has among MPs – and the vindication his predictions have gained – may make him the most likely next set of hands to steer the ship.

    The Leader of the House of Commons may have had a dress rehearsal for being prime minister this week, after stepping in for an absent Liz Truss at a debate.

    “The prime minister is not under a desk,” Mordaunt confirmed Tuesday – in a performance that seemed as much about pitching herself as it did about helping the PM.

    Mordaunt confirmed in a tweet Friday afternoon that she was running to replace Truss – the first MP to do so.

    She promised a “fresh start” for the country, aiming “to unite our country, deliver our pledges and win the next general election.”

    Penny Mordaunt

    Mordaunt came third in the last leadership election, narrowly missing out on being put before the members. With 105 votes from MPs in the last election, she too is expected to clear the newt threshold. She is expected to perform well among the party membership, in part due to her military credentials. Mordaunt is a reservist of the Royal Navy and served a short spell as Secretary of State for Defense.

    Like Sunak, she is from the more moderate wing of the party. There was even talk among MPs of the two forming a “dream team” ticket, although this is yet to materialize – and it is unclear if either would accept being chancellor over taking the top job.

    Badenoch came fourth in this summer’s leadership election – securing only 59 votes from MPs – but was consistently rated by pollsters as a favorite among Conservative grassroots members.

    One of the younger MPs in the running, Badenoch quickly won the endorsement of long-serving Tory grandee Michael Gove, who praised her as the “outstanding talent” in the party.

    Badenoch is from the right of the Tory party – and in her previous leadership bid suggested that the government’s climate targets might prove too costly.

    With Truss’s votes from MPs now up for grabs, Badenoch may have an outside chance of clearing the threshold and making it to the members’ vote.

    Boris Johnson is flying back to the UK from his Caribbean holiday and plans to join the race to replace Truss, Britain’s PA Media news agency reported Friday.

    UK Trade Minister Sir James Duddridge, a close Johnson ally, told PA Media that he had been in contact with Johnson via Whatsapp, saying that Johnson had sent him: “‘I’m flying back, Dudders. We are going to do this. I’m up for it’.”

    The minister also said via Twitter “I hope you enjoyed your holiday boss. Time to come back. Few issues at the office that need addressing. #bringbackboris.”

    Sky News said one of its reporters, who boarded the flight Johnson took, snapped a picture of the former prime minister and his wife Carrie Johnson on board, adding that the couple received several boos from fellow passengers.

    Multiple allies have made the case that Johnson could be a unity candidate who could bring stability to the country, despite the fact he resigned in disgrace only a few months ago after a series of scandals came together, making his position untenable.

    When asked by CNN how they could justify Johnson standing to be PM again, one MP who campaigned for Johnson in the 2019 leadership campaign, said: “Socialists will destroy our economy and if you don’t understand that then I genuinely fear for our future.”

    Another MP who supported Johnson in 2019 said he was the only candidate who could comfortably win over both Conservative MPs and members of the Conservative Party.

    Johnson’s closest allies said they were aware he was being actively lobbied in the hours after Truss’ resignation speech, making the case to him that he represented the party’s best shot at stability in the medium term.

    In his final speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street, Johnson made one of his characteristic allusions to ancient history. He said he would “return to his plough” like the Roman statesman Cincinnatus – suggesting a quieter life on the backbenches. But that’s not how Cincinnatus saw out his days. He was called back from his plough to return to Rome for a second term – this time as a dictator.

    Some suspect that the new 100-vote threshold is an attempt by the Conservative Party to render another Johnson term impossible. But Johnson’s campaign has already started to gather momentum. A number of prominent Conservative MPs announced Friday that they will back him – even though Johnson has yet to confirm he will stand.

    As Conservative MPs are currently facing electoral oblivion, their desire for self-preservation should not be underestimated. Less than three years ago Johnson delivered an 80-seat majority, and the right of the Tory party may think he is the only candidate capable of saving their jobs.

    If Johnson was to secure the required 100 votes from MPs, he would be expected to perform extremely well in a vote by the party membership.

    It is a sign of the disorder of the last days of Truss’s government that she elevated Grant Shapps to home secretary – despite not offering him a ministerial role of any sort when she first took office.

    Grant Shapps

    Shapps served as transport secretary under Boris Johnson. He put himself forward to succeed him in the previous leadership election – only to withdraw from the race three days later, after failing to secure the requisite 20 MPs’ votes to proceed to the next round.

    The new threshold will likely prove too high for Shapps – but his criticism of Truss’ government from the outset may have won him the support of more MPs than last time.

    Suella Braverman’s resignation as home secretary on Wednesday night may have been a precursor to a possible leadership bid. The former attorney-general has not run before – but with her hard-line stance on immigration, might look set to drag the party further to the right.

    Tom Tugendhat emerged as a surprise favorite among Tory members and the wider public, despite only coming fifth in the last leadership election. Having not served as a cabinet member before that contest, Tugendhat distanced himself from the moral mess of Johnson’s government and promised a “clean start” for Britain. After serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tugendhat was made security minister by Truss.

    Ben Wallace, defense secretary and another ex-military man, was tipped to succeed Johnson in the last leadership contest – polling extremely well among Conservative members. However, he never ran in that election, and he has now ruled himself out of this race.

    Former prime minister Theresa May has also been floated as a possible “unity” candidate to succeed Truss. May tried to bring together the warring wings of the Conservative party over Brexit, in move that ultimately saw her replaced by Boris Johnson. As the party has proven unable to resolve its disputes this time round, another attempt at compromise may soon be in order.

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  • Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni named as Italy’s first female prime minister | CNN

    Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni named as Italy’s first female prime minister | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Populist firebrand Giorgia Meloni has been named as Italy’s first female prime minister, becoming the country’s most far-right leader since Benito Mussolini.

    She received the mandate to form a government from Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella on Friday afternoon after two days of official consultations, and is set to be sworn in at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Saturday.

    Last month’s general election resulted in an alliance of far-right and center-right parties, led by her ultraconservative Brothers of Italy, winning enough seats in Italy’s parliament to form a government.

    Meloni announced her government picks in Rome’s Quirinal Palace, making the leader of Italy’s far right League party, Matteo Salvini, infrastructure minister.

    Giancarlo Giorgetti, also of the League party, was made economy minister. Antonio Tajani from the Forza Italia party was given the position of minister of foreign affairs while the role of defense minister went to Guido Crosetto, one of the founders of the Brothers of Italy party.

    The new government will be made up of a coalition of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, Salvini’s League party and the Forza Italia party, led by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Brothers of Italy received nine ministries whereas Forza Italia and the League each received five ministries.

    Meloni will be sworn into office during a ceremony at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Saturday morning.

    Pulling together her new cabinet has exposed tensions. This week, the controversial former leader Berlusconi made headlines when audio released by Italian news agency LaPresse revealed the 86-year-old speaking about his “reestablished” relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Berlusconi’s office confirmed to CNN on Thursday that the clips were authentic – having apparently been secretly recorded during a meeting of his Forza Italia party in the parliamentary chamber on Tuesday.

    In the audio, the billionaire and media magnate says he has “reestablished relations with President Putin” and goes on to boast that the Russian leader called him “the first of his five true friends.”

    His comments raised eyebrows, as diplomatic relations between Russia and Western leaders remain strained amid the Kremlin’s grueling military assault on Ukraine.

    Berlusconi has been the subject of multiple corruption and bribery trials during his tumultuous political career.

    Meloni has been a strong supporter of Ukraine as it battles Moscow’s invasion. Amid backlash for her coalition over Berlusconi’s leaked comments, she restated her foreign policy line.

    “With us governing, Italy will never be the weak link of the West. The nation of spaghetti and mandolini that is so dear to many of our detractors will relaunch its credibility and defend its interests,” Meloni said late Wednesday on her Instagram account.

    Speaking earlier Friday after a meeting with Mattarella and her coalition partners, Meloni said it was necessary to form the new government “as soon as possible.”

    “We are ready to govern Italy,” Meloni’s official Facebook page stated. “We will be able to face the urgencies and challenges of our time with awareness and competence.”

    Silvio Berlusconi (left) and Matteo Salvini (right) are expected to be part of Meloni's Cabinet, which will see one of Italy's most far-right governments in recent history.

    Meloni entered Italy’s crowded political scene in 2006 and in 2012 co-founded the Brothers of Italy, a party whose agenda is rooted in Euroskepticism and anti-immigration policies.

    The group’s popularity soared ahead of September’s election, as Italian voters once again rejected mainstream politics and opted for a fringe figure.

    She first made her name as vice-president of the National Alliance, an unapologetically neo-fascist group formed by supporters of Benito Mussolini. Meloni herself openly admired the dictator as a youth, but later distanced herself from his brand of fascism – despite keeping the tricolor flame symbolizing the eternal fire on his tomb in the logo for the Brothers of Italy.

    She has pursued a staunchly Conservative agenda throughout her time in politics, frequently questioning LGBT rights, abortion rights and immigration policies.

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  • The greatest risk to China’s Xi Jinping? Himself | CNN

    The greatest risk to China’s Xi Jinping? Himself | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s economy is faltering. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Endless Covid lockdowns are wreaking havoc on businesses and people’s lives. The property sector is in crisis. Ties between Beijing and major global powers are under strain.

    The list of problems faced by the world’s second-largest economy goes on – and many of those long-term challenges have only worsened under a decade of Xi Jinping’s rule. Yet the Chinese leader’s grip on power is unwavering.

    In the past decade, Xi has consolidated control to an extent unseen since the era of Communist China’s strongman founder, Mao Zedong. He’s the head of the Chinese Communist Party, the state, the armed forces, and so many committees that he’s been dubbed “chairman of everything.” And now, he is poised to step into a norm-breaking third term in power, with the potential to rule for life.

    But absolute power can often mean absolute responsibility, and as problems mount, analysts warn Xi will have less room to avoid blame.

    “I think the worst enemy of Xi Jinping’s longevity in ruling China is Xi Jinping himself,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “It is when he makes a huge policy mistake that causes havoc in China that could potentially start the process of unraveling Xi Jinping’s hold to power.”

    Mao’s rule from 1949 until 1976 was marked by rash policy decisions that led to tens of millions of deaths and destroyed the economy. After those decades of turmoil, the Communist Party developed a system of collective leadership designed to prevent the rise of another dictator who could make arbitrary and dangerous decisions.

    China’s next leader, Deng Xiaoping, set an unwritten rule and precedent that the Communist Party’s General Secretary – the role from which China’s leader derives true power – would step down after two terms.

    From Mao to Xi: A history of China’s leadership

    When Xi assumed power in 2012, China’s economy was booming as it integrated more closely with the rest of the world. Just four years before, China had stunned the world with the extravagant Beijing Summer Olympics. But to Xi, the party was in a state of crisis: overrun by corruption, infighting, and inefficiencies.

    Xi’s solution was to return to dictatorial and personalistic rule. He purged political enemies in a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, silenced internal dissent, abolished presidential term limits and enshrined “Xi Jinping Thought” into the party’s constitution.

    According to analysts, many dictatorships fall into a pattern of abuse of power and poor decision-making when a lack of critical advice reaches the leader. They point to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly costly war against Ukraine as a concern that Xi’s similarly unquestionable power to the Russian President could one day lead to equally disastrous consequences.

    Putin and Xi “suffer from the same strongman-syndrome problem, which is that they turned their policy advice circles into echo chambers, so people are no longer able to speak their mind freely,” Tsang said. “We are seeing big mistakes being made because that internal policy debate has been reduced or indeed eliminated in terms of its scope.”

    In recent history, no country has modernized as rapidly as China. The Communist Party claims its leadership helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, turning backwater villages into stunning megacities. But that growth miracle has slowed. And many longstanding challenges in China’s economy have only been exacerbated by Xi’s policies.

    Xi has made it his mission to strengthen the party and its control over business and society. He unleashed a crackdown on the once-vibrant private sector that’s led to mass layoffs. Beijing claims the tougher regulations restrict overly powerful corporations and protect consumers, but the measures have suffocated private businesses, sending chills through the economy and sparking fears about future innovation.

    screengrab bankrupt victims

    China’s once vibrant private sector suffocating under Xi’s crackdown

    Beijing started clamping down on easy credit for property firms in 2020, which led to cash crunches and defaults for many developers, including giant conglomerate Evergrande. Housing projects have stalled and desperate homebuyers across the country are refusing to pay mortgages on unfinished homes. Disruptions in the property sector have an outsized impact on China’s broader economy, as it accounts for as much as 30% of the country’s GDP.

    But during Xi’s leadership, nothing has rocked China’s economy and society as much as zero-Covid. In year three of the pandemic, China has clung to the harsh policy, which relies on mass testing, extensive quarantines and snap lockdowns to stamp out infections at all costs, even as the rest of the world has learned to live with the virus.

    The country continues to lock down entire cities over a handful of infections, while sending all positive cases and close contacts to government quarantine facilities. Lining up for Covid tests and scanning a tracking health code to enter any public space have become normalized. Beijing argues the policy has prevented China from spiraling into a health care disaster like the rest of the world, but zero-Covid is wielded at enormous and growing costs.

    china corona nyc

    Artist wears 27 hazmat suits to protest China’s policies

    Constant lockdowns have dramatically shrunk the pace of growth in China’s economy. Record youth unemployment has reached nearly 20%. Pocketbooks are shrinking. Heavily indebted local governments are forced to spend on mass Covid testing. Experts say resources would be better spent on increasing vaccination rates rather than building costly testing sites and quarantine facilities. China has still not approved any foreign mRNA vaccines proven to be more effective against the highly contagious Omicron variant than the inactivated vaccines used in China.

    At the start of the pandemic, Beijing censored – and in some cases punished – doctors, experts, and citizen journalists who tried to warn of a deadly in virus in Wuhan.

    Nearly three years on, as most international experts advise China to find a way to live with the virus, Beijing has doubled down. Earlier this year, Shanghai – a metropolis with a population more than three times that of New York City – was locked down for two months. People struggled to get enough food and basic necessities. Desperate residents broke out of home confinement and clashed with enforcement workers in rare street protests. Many patients were denied life-saving health care.

    When the World Health Organization criticized the zero-Covid policy as “not sustainable,” China censored the statement on social media.

    Susan Shirk, director of the 21st Century China Center and author of “Overreach,” a book on Xi’s leadership, says China’s leaders “compete with one another to prove how loyal they are to him because Xi promotes loyalists, not the most competent people.” That leads to subordinates going over the top in executing policies to try to please Xi, she said.

    Shirk said this has played out with zero-Covid, as Xi has directly tied his leadership to the strategy, so local officials have zealously followed it to show loyalty to the leader and protect their careers.

    “A lot of the pain in China’s economy has been self-inflicted by China’s leader,” Shirk said.

    “So what this suggests, and this is a pretty disturbing idea, is that the Chinese Communist Party no longer brands itself as a developmental party, putting economic development as its primary objective. But instead, it’s Xi Jinping’s hold on power.”

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  • Liz Truss Fast Facts | CNN

    Liz Truss Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Liz Truss, prime minister of the United Kingdom.

    Birth date: July 26, 1975

    Birth place: Oxford, England

    Birth name: Mary Elizabeth Truss

    Father: John Kenneth Truss, math professor

    Mother: Priscilla (Grasby) Truss, nurse and teacher

    Marriage: Hugh O’Leary (2000-present)

    Children: Frances, Liberty

    Education: Merton College, University of Oxford, B.A., 1993-1996

    Youngest female cabinet minister in UK history.

    Appointed the most ethnically diverse Cabinet in UK history.

    Former president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats.

    Met her husband at the 1997 Conservative Party conference.

    As a child, joined her parents at protests against nuclear weapons and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

    1994 – As a university student, Truss calls for abolishing the monarchy at a Liberal Democratic conference, “We do not believe people are born to rule.”

    1996 – Truss joins the Conservative Party.

    1996-2000 – Works for Shell, eventually becoming a commercial manager.

    2000-2005 – Economic director at Cable & Wireless.

    2006-2010 – Councillor in the London borough of Greenwich.

    May 2006 – A Daily Mail article exposes an extramarital affair between Truss and MP Mark Field, who had been assigned to her as a political mentor. The affair is thought to have ended in June 2005.

    2008-2010 – Deputy director of Reform, a think tank.

    2009 – Truss is selected to be the Conservative MP candidate for South West Norfolk. After a demand by some local party members that she end her candidacy, citing her past affair with Field, Truss survives a vote and remains the candidate.

    2010 – Elected MP for South West Norfolk.

    2012 – Co-authors “Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity,” a book that describes the British people as ‘among the worst idlers in the world,’ who ‘are more interested in football and pop music’ than working hard.

    September 2012-July 2014 – Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Education and Childcare.

    July 2014-July 2016 – Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

    February 20, 2016 – In a Twitter post, Truss announces that she supports the “Remain” position on Brexit.

    July 2016-June 2017 – Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

    June 2017 – Truss is demoted to chief secretary to the Treasury. She serves in the position until July 2019.

    October 11, 2017 – Truss tells BBC2 she would now vote to leave the European Union if the Brexit referendum were to be held again, “I have changed my mind….I believed that there would be major economic problems. Those haven’t come to pass and I have also seen the opportunities.”

    July 2019-September 2021 – Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade

    September 2019 – Is appointed minister for women and equalities.

    December 2019 – Is appointed chief post-Brexit negotiator with the EU, tasked with settling the Northern Ireland protocol.

    September 15, 2021 – Is appointed foreign secretary.

    May 17, 2022 – In a statement delivered to the House of Commons, Truss announces she will introduce legislation to make changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, a portion of Britain’s withdrawal agreement from the EU.

    July 10, 2022 – In an op-ed published in The Telegraph, Truss announces that she is joining the race to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.

    September 5, 2022 – Is elected leader of the Conservative Party. In her victory speech, Truss promises a “bold plan” to cut taxes and build economic growth.

    September 6, 2022 – Appointed prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle.

    September 20-21, 2022 – In her first foreign trip as prime minister, Truss meets with foreign leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, including US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.

    September 23, 2022 – Truss’ government announces sweeping tax cuts which would wipe £45 billion ($50 billion) off government revenues over the next five years, representing the largest cuts in 50 years.

    October 3, 2022 – Truss cancels her plan to slash the top rate of income tax, after a rebellion among lawmakers and a week of financial and economic turmoil.

    October 14, 2022 – Truss says she is scrapping plans to reverse a rise in business taxes, a move that will save £18 billion ($20 billion), after a revolt by investors and members of her own Conservative Party worried about the impact of soaring government borrowing at a time of decades-high inflation. Truss also fires finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng.

    October 20, 2022 – Truss announces her intention to resign just six weeks into her term after a growing number of her own Conservative Party’s lawmakers say they cannot support her any longer. She will remain prime minister until her successor is chosen.

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  • Under Xi Jinping, zero-Covid is accelerating China’s surveillance state | CNN

    Under Xi Jinping, zero-Covid is accelerating China’s surveillance state | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    As a new, deadly virus overtook the central city of Wuhan and spread throughout China in early 2020, the country’s ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping were faced with a crisis on a scale not seen in decades.

    In Wuhan, there was chaos. The city shut itself off from the outside world, while hospitals were overrun with the sick and dying – but it was too late to stop the virus’ advance. Huge swaths of China, too, locked down, grinding the country to a halt. Online, public outrage over apparent delays in the official release of information – and the silencing of whistleblowers – lit up social media faster than the censors could repress it.

    Outside China, observers watching the start of what would become the Covid-19 pandemic began to ask: could this be a catastrophe so big it calls into question the legitimacy of the Communist Party and its leader?

    Nearly three years later, however, Xi is poised to cement his place as China’s most powerful leader in decades, when he is anointed with a likely norm-breaking third term as the party chief on Sunday.

    In the months following that initial outbreak, Xi oversaw the assembly of a toolbox of brute-force lockdowns, enforced quarantines, and digital tracking. All that was used to bring the virus to heel and largely keep it outside China’s shuttered borders – an approach that initially appeared to earn broad public support as China lived largely virus-free and the pandemic raged overseas.

    But, now, as Xi steps into an expected new era of his rule, that system – known today as the “dynamic zero-Covid” policy – is facing both social and economic pushback.

    Public frustration – the true scale of which is difficult to gauge – appears to be rising over lockdowns that can shutter people in their homes for weeks on end with fleeting advance notice, digital health codes that dictate where people can move, and the constant threat of being sent to centralized quarantine. Meanwhile, the country’s economy is faltering, with both the IMF and World Bank recently downgrading China’s GDP growth forecasts, citing zero-Covid as one of the major drags.

    As China’s Communist Party National Congress meets this week to approve the party’s priorities for the next five years, many are watching for signs restrictions could be loosened. But with Xi having personally tied himself to the policy, any change would need to come straight from the top – and from a leader, who throughout his rule, has sought to extend, not curtail, the party’s control on daily life.

    China’s advanced online ecosystem – run on mobile phone superapps and ubiquitous QR codes – has offered arguably unrivaled convenience for consumers to shop, dine and travel. Now, those technologies play a role in constraining daily life.

    Mobile phone health codes are the backbone of a system designed to track citizens and designate whether they are cleared to enter various venues, upping state control on people’s movement to an extent never before seen in China.

    Across the country, basic activities like going to the grocery store, riding public transport, or entering an office building depend on holding an up-to-date, negative Covid test and not being flagged as a close contact of a patient – data points reflected by a color code.

    Going out in public can be a risk in itself, as being placed under quarantine or barricaded by authorities into a mall or office building as part of a snap lockdown could simply depend on whether someone in the general vicinity ends up testing positive.

    “(You see) all the flaws of big data when it has control over your daily life,” said one Shanghai resident surnamed Li, who spent a recent afternoon scrambling to prove he didn’t need to quarantine after a tracking system pinned his wife to a location near to where a positive case had been detected.

    Li, who’d been with his wife at the time but received no such message, said they were eventually able to reach a hotline and explain their situation, ultimately returning her health code to green.

    “If you don’t complain, the next step is your neighborhood committee seals up your door,” he said.

    The clear message from Beijing is that these steps are necessary to prevent large-scale loss of life and overwhelmed medical systems.

    “The essence of persisting with dynamic zero-Covid is putting people first and prioritizing life,” read a recent editorial in the People’s Daily – one of three along similar lines released by the party mouthpiece last week in an apparent bid to lower public expectation about any policy changes ahead of the Party Congress.

    But as local officials pursue Beijing’s edict of stopping the spread of the virus above all other considerations – the system too, over and over again, has led to human tragedy.

    The past year is marked by grim examples well-known across China: the expectant mother in Xi’an who miscarried after being denied treatment due to expired test results, the off-duty nurse who died from an asthma attack in Shanghai as a hospital branch was closed for Covid-19 disinfection, and, last month, the 27 passengers who died in a crash in the middle of the night as they were bussed into a different jurisdiction for compulsory quarantine.

    “What makes you think that you won’t be on that late-night bus one day?” read a viral comment, which garnered more than 250,000 likes before it was censored – one of a number of glimpses into rising frustration with the cost of the policy.

    Last week, a rare political protest in Beijing saw banners hung from a bridge along the capital’s busy Third Ring Road that zoned in on social controls under the policy.

    “Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” one banner read, while the other called for the removal of “dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.”

    Speaking before some 2,300 mostly surgical-mask clad Communist Party members at the opening of the party’s five-yearly leadership reshuffle on Sunday, Xi gave a sweeping endorsement of China’s Covid controls, saying the party had “protected the people’s health and safety to the greatest extent possible” and “made tremendous, encouraging achievements in both epidemic and social development.”

    The impact of those controls is becoming sharper, as lockdowns – which have repeatedly left people struggling for access to food and medicine and grappling with lost income and a mental toll – have become more frequent.

    Last month, CNN counted more than 70 Chinese cities placed under full or partial Covid lockdowns in a period of a couple weeks, impacting more than 300 million people.

    In the run up to the Party Congress, controls amplified – as local authorities around the country sought to tamp down on outbreaks coinciding with the major political event.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping meets with medical workers at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in March 2020.

    “Maintaining the zero-Covid strategy is now substantially more costly than it was a year ago, because the latest (viral) strains are so much more transmissible and outbreaks are occurring more frequently,” said epidemiologist Ben Cowling of the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health.

    “At the same time, the threat posed by Covid is reduced because of the higher vaccine coverage and the availability of antivirals. Taken together, I think the point has already been crossed where continuing zero-Covid could be considered a cost-effective strategy,” he said, adding that maintaining high vaccine coverage was key for a planned transition away from zero-Covid.

    Xi’s proclaimed success over the virus and China’s accompanying propaganda campaign is one reason why it may be difficult for China to change course.

    “The issue is Xi Jinping already associated himself with the ‘successful’ model of fighting Covid, so the zero-Covid policy now is a de facto Xi Jinping policy,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, adding that China’s handling of the virus in comparison to other countries remains a point of national pride for many Chinese.

    And backing away from the policy will come with significant consequences. Allowing the virus to spread within the country of 1.4 billion would likely increase Covid-19 deaths to unseen levels in the country, experts say – and China so far has staked its policy around preventing those outcomes at all costs.

    Outside experts say that, since the virus will stay in circulation beyond China, keeping tight controls and closed borders is just delaying the inevitable, and the focus should be on preparing, for example through raising elderly vaccination rates and increasing ICU capacity, as well as getting or expanding access to the most effective vaccines and treatments.

    While China backed a massive vaccination campaign since early 2021, it has relied on homegrown shots, which produce lower levels of protective antibodies than mRNA vaccines developed in the West.

    So far, however, China has appeared most focused on bolstering the pillars of zero-Covid: mass testing capacity and mass quarantine facilities.

    “The vaccines take time, the ICU expansion takes time – and if you don’t see effort to prepare for the change, that implies that they are not planning to change the policy any time soon,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

    And while experts say it’s possible economic and other considerations could see China loosen certain controls in the coming year, an eventual end to zero-Covid may not see an end to all of its vestiges – especially as Xi, including in his Sunday address, has made clear his focus on increasing “security” in China.

    Already the health code system has been used to diffuse social protest – with petitioners who lost their savings in rural banks barred from protesting after their health codes inexplicably turned red.

    “One scenario is that (China) might drop the zero-Covid policy, but some of the key components of the policy might be retained and repurposed,” said Huang, pointing to Xi’s focus on maximizing security in China, including via high tech means.

    “Zero-Covid has provided a proof of concept – this actually works,” he said.

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  • Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister | CNN

    Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister | CNN

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    Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons in London, on October 19.

    Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament/AP

    Liz Truss’s resignation brings to an ignominious end her catastrophic tenure in Downing Street, which appeared doomed ever since Truss’s flagship economic agenda sent markets into panic and led to a fall in the value of the pound.

    She won support from Conservatives members by promising low-tax, pro-growth policies – derided by her critics as a lurch towards trickle-down economics – but within weeks of coming to power she disavowed the plans in a humiliating pivot, firing her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and ditching virtually all of the fiscal agenda in the wake of a market backlash.

    It came after investors rejected an announcement by the Truss government in late September that it would slash taxes while ramping up borrowing in a bid to produce faster growth, citing concerns that the plan would push up inflation just as the Bank of England wants to bring it down. 

    Fears also crept in about the sustainability of government debt at a time of rapidly rising interest rates. 

    The pound crashed to a record low against the US dollar, while bond prices slumped, sending yields soaring. That pushed mortgage rates much higher, and brought some pensions funds to the brink of default. 

    The Bank of England was forced to announce three separate interventions to avoid a full-scale meltdown in the UK government bond market.

    Truss meanwhile failed to regain control of an increasingly mutinous Conservative Party, and her Home Secretary Suella Braverman launched a blistering attack on her leadership after leaving the role on Wednesday.

    A final chaotic display saw Truss allies accused of manhandling lawmakers to force them to vote against a fracking ban on Wednesday evening.

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  • How the Gandhis went from ‘Kennedys of India’ to the political wilderness | CNN

    How the Gandhis went from ‘Kennedys of India’ to the political wilderness | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    He has about 2,500 kilometers to go until his journey is complete. But the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister appears determined.

    Dressed head-to-toe in white, Rahul Gandhi is walking 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) across India to meet voters and revive interest in the Indian National Congress, a once powerful political party now struggling to win votes.

    Each leg is documented on live feeds and social media, but Gandhi is no longer the party leader – and won’t be taking his followers to the next national election in 2024.

    That will be down to Mallikarjun Kharge, a Congress veteran, who was appointed to the top role on Wednesday, in a move that means for the first time in more than 20 years the party will be led by someone other than a Gandhi.

    That a Gandhi is not going to be the face of India’s oldest political unit is almost unthinkable to many – a member of the family has been in charge of it for 40 out of its 75 years of independence, and involved in the leadership for much of the other 35 years.

    But analysts say as the country shifts into a new era, riding on a wave of right-wing, nationalist politics, the family and the Congress has little significance in the country’s political present, driven in part by numerous corruption scandals and mismanagement within the party.

    “The Gandhis today are completely dwarfed and overshadowed by Narendra Modi,” said New Delhi-based political commentator Arati R. Jerath.

    “It’s hard to predict the future, but for a family that ruled much of independent India, it is unlikely we will see a Gandhi leader of the country again.”

    As a powerful political dynasty, some have likened the Gandhis to the Kennedys, having for decades carefully navigated a series of personal tragedies alongside a tough power balancing act.

    The family doesn’t take its name from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the country’s famed independence leader.

    Instead, they are the descendants of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was instrumental in the country’s independence movement from British rule and in 1947 became its first prime minister. Nehru’s daughter Indira adopted the Gandhi name through her marriage to Feroze Gandhi, another party member unrelated to its leader.

    Indira would later succeed her father, before handing the leadership to her son, Rajiv. Later, his wife, Sonia Gandhi, and son, Rahul, would take over.

    Nehru ruled for 17 years after independence from British rule, ushering India into a new era after its bloody partition, that led to the creation of Pakistan, caused the deaths of 2 million people and uprooted an estimated 15 million more.

    Nehru united the impoverished nation by planting the seeds for decades of economic, social and political development.

    “He was part of the freedom struggle, and so he wanted to ensure that India reach her potential and grow,” Jerath said. “He wanted to lead his people into a brave new world.”

    Throughout his time in power Nehru promoted democracy and secularism, invested in science and technology, built leading educational institutes, and promoted gender equality in the deeply patriarchal country.

    When he died while in office on May 28, 1964, tributes poured in from all over the world. Two years later, his daughter, Indira Gandhi (who adopted her husband’s last name), would fill his shoes as the country’s first – and so far only – female prime minister.

    Groomed for the position from an early age, Indira Gandhi was considered an astute, strong-willed, and to some, autocratic leader.

    Former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi at Delhi's historic Red Fort.

    She was elected prime minister from 1966 to 1977, and again in 1980. But her years in office were marked with both personal tragedy – her son Sanjay died shortly into her second stint – and turbulence, owing, in part, to a war with Pakistan, droughts, famine and an economic crisis.

    Faced with growing discontent, Indira Gandhi proclaimed a controversial state of emergency in India for 21 months in 1975 – suspending basic liberties, imposing press censorship and imprisoning opposition members.

    Her years in power came to a tragic climax when, on October 31, 1984, she was shot dead at her home in New Delhi by her Sikh bodyguards, four months after she ordered Indian troops to storm the Golden Temple – one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines – to flush out separatists.

    “The mood of the nation changed following the assassination,” said Rasheed Kidwai, author of “Sonia, A Biography” and visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation. “But the tragic part of it is, it has a law of diminishing returns. These days, not a lot of our young children know of the sacrifices and tough decisions that were made by her.”

    Indira Gandhi’s son, Rajiv, took over from her after her death.

    Rajiv Gandhi and his Italian-born wife, Sonia, during a campaign trip.

    Known as the “unwilling” prime minister who never wanted the job, Rajiv Gandhi became the youngest leader at the age of 40. But he served less than a decade, losing the 1989 general election following a corruption scandal, and was assassinated two years later by the Sri Lankan separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

    During his tenure, he signed peace accords with insurgent groups in states where religious tensions were high, and is credited for developing India’s science and technology sectors, giving him the moniker “Father of Information and Technology.”

    With no Gandhi at the helm, and the emergence of the BJP in the 1990s, the Congress struggled. In the years that followed, India’s leadership swung between parties.

    It wasn’t until Rajiv’s Italian-born widow, Sonia, took over as leader of the Congress in 1998 that they made a political comeback.

    Six years later, she led the party to victory in the general election – but stopped short of taking the top position and instead appointed economist Manmohan Singh as prime minister.

    But with the ascendance of a new wave of right-wing politics, their party now lurks in the political wilderness, analysts say. In 2014, Modi was elected prime minister with a roaring majority.

    “(The Gandhis) exude the tragic glamor of the Kennedys,” said Jerath, the political commentator. “This was a family that built India’s education, health care and technology institutions. Their legacy is still felt today.”

    On July 3, 2019, following a humiliating and crushing defeat in the Indian general election, Rahul Gandhi publicly resigned as leader of the Congress.

    Modi’s BJP had just won a historic majority in the lower house of parliament, cementing the antithesis to Gandhi’s Congress as the most formidable political force in Indian politics in decades.

    “Modi has perfected the narrative that the Gandhis are the liberal elite, the dynasty that shouldn’t be in power,” said Kidwai, the author. “And as the country shifts towards the right, his politics are proving tremendously popular.”

    The BJP has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing-Hindu group that are adherents of Hindutva ideology – to make India the land of the Hindus.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi gives a victory speech after winning India's general election, in New Delhi on May 23, 2019.

    Nearly 80% of the country’s 1.3 billion people are Hindus, and analysts say Modi’s populist politics appeal to the masses.

    “India is changing. As democracy has deepened, we have seen the rise of a new class of people – and this class really is not schooled in the Nehruvian principles of democracy,” Jerath said. “They are willing to buy into Hindutva politics of the Modi-led BJP. And this is something that this generation of the Gandhis have not been able to counter.”

    Moreover, analysts point to decades of infighting and mismanagement within the Congress party, that have weakened its position in the country. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi have also been accused of corruption – allegations they deny.

    The second term of the last Congress prime minister to govern India was riddled with allegations of corruption and bribery scandals running into tens of millions of dollars.

    Modi’s humble beginnings as the son of a tea seller, versus the Gandhis’ privileged and Western-influenced upbringing, also makes him more relatable to an emerging middle-class population, Jerath said. Nehru, like Rajiv and Rahul, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His daughter, Indira, at Oxford University.

    “Rahul Gandhi kept looking for success but it was rather elusive,” Kidwai said. “That’s why he’s taken on a different role and gone on this campaign across the country.”

    As Rahul Gandhi continues on his journey to unite the country, he may succeed in rebuilding the image of the Congress. But it seems unlikely he will ever become prime minister of the country, like his father, grandmother and great-grandfather before him. He never married and has no children. His sister, Priyanka, also a member of the party, has two young children – but it is unclear if they will ever foray into political life.

    All eyes will be on the next leader, as he attempts to get enough votes to unseat Modi in 2024.

    “Modi certainly has a grip on power,” Jerath said. “But if the Congress can get their act together, then we may just see a comeback.”

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  • Exclusive: Bob Woodward releasing new audiobook ‘The Trump Tapes’ with eight hours of recorded interviews | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Bob Woodward releasing new audiobook ‘The Trump Tapes’ with eight hours of recorded interviews | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    During a December 2019 Oval Office interview with then-President Donald Trump, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward asked whether his bellicose rhetoric toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had been intended to drive Kim to the negotiating table.

    “No. No. It was designed for whatever reason, it was designed. Who knows? Instinctively. Let’s talk instinct, okay?” Trump said. “Because it’s really about you don’t know what’s going to happen. But it was very rough rhetoric. The roughest.”

    Trump then instructed his aides to show Woodward his photos with Kim at the DMZ. “This is me and him. That’s the line, right? Then I walked over the line. Pretty cool. You know? Pretty cool. Right?” the president said.

    Trump on his interactions with Kim

    Trump’s take on his relationship with Kim – and his admission that he didn’t have a broader strategy behind the threats he made about having a “much bigger” nuclear button – are part of a new audiobook that Woodward is releasing. Titled, “The Trump Tapes,” the book contains the 20 interviews Woodward conducted with Trump from 2016 through 2020.

    CNN obtained a copy of the audiobook ahead of its October 25 release, which includes more than eight hours of the journalist’s raw interviews with Trump interspersed with Woodward’s commentary.

    Simon & Schuster

    The interviews offer unvarnished insights into the former president’s worldview and are the most extensive recordings of Trump speaking about his presidency — including explaining his rationale for meeting Kim, his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s detailed views of the US nuclear arsenal. The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward the letters Kim wrote to him – the letters that helped spark the DOJ investigation into classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago.

    “And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?” Trump told Woodward.

    Woodward said in the book’s introduction that he is releasing the recordings in part because “hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet.”

    He describes Trump as “raw, profane, divisive and deceptive. His language is often retaliatory.”

    “Yet, you will also hear him engaging and entertaining, laughing, ever the host. He is trying to win me over, sell his presidency to me. The full-time salesman,” Woodward said. “I wanted to put as much of Trump’s voice, his own words, out there for the historical record and so people could hear and judge and make their own assessments.”

    Most of the interviews were conducted for Woodward’s second Trump book, “Rage,” which revealed that Trump told Woodward on February 7, 2020, that Covid-19 was “deadly stuff” but still downplayed it publicly.

    While the blockbuster revelations were published in Woodward’s book, the audio clips of the interviews are a stark reminder of how Trump acted as president and provide a candid look into Trump’s thinking and motivations as he gears up for another potential run for the White House in 2024.

    In the interviews, Trump shares his views about the strongmen he admires – including Kim, Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and reveals his overarching conviction that he’s the smartest person in the room.

    In a June 2020 interview, which followed the nationwide protests over George Floyd, Woodward asked Trump whether he had help writing his speech in which Trump declared himself the “president of law and order.”

    “I get, I get people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine,” Trump told Woodward in a June 2020 interview. “Want to know something? Everything is mine. You know, everything. Every part of it.”

    The 20 interviews contained in the audiobook begin in March 2016, when Woodward and his then-Washington Post colleague Robert Costa interviewed Trump while he was a presidential candidate. The rest of the interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020.

    Trump on process of writing his speeches

    In the December 2019 interview, Woodward questioned Trump about North Korea’s nuclear program, prompting the president to boast about US nuclear weapons capabilities while seemingly revealing a new – and likely highly classified – weapons system, which was one of the more eye-raising episodes from “Rage.”

    Woodward says that he never could establish what Trump was referring to, though he notes that Trump’s comment reaffirmed the “casual, dangerous way” the former president treated classified information.

    “I have built a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump told Woodward. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”

    Throughout the interviews, Trump references his relationship with Putin, blaming the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference for ruining his chances to improve the relationship between the two countries.

    “I like Putin. Our relationship should be a very good one. I campaigned on getting along with Russia, China and everyone else,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview. “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, all right? Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear f***ing warheads.”

    In a moment of rare self-reflection, Trump noted that he had better relationships with leaders “the tougher and meaner they are.”

    “I get along very well with Erdogan, even though you’re not supposed to because everyone says what a horrible guy. But you know for me it works out good,” Trump said in a January 2020 interview.

    “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know?” he continued. “Explain that to me someday, okay. But maybe it’s not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.”

    Woodward’s audiobook also includes never-before-heard interviews with Trump’s then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien, his deputy Matthew Pottinger, as well as behind-the-scenes audio with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

    During a call with Woodward in February 2020, Trump hands the phone over to Kushner to set up interviews with other Trump advisers.

    “What I heard from the president is basically that I now work for you, so I will make myself available around that schedule and I will make sure I get you a good list,” Kushner said.

    Jared Kushner on plans for Woodward to talk to other Trump advisers

    “I want you to know I have no illusions that you work for me. I know you work for Ivanka, right?” Woodward joked.

    Kushner laughed. “Okay, fine, you get it. You get it. That’s probably why you’re Bob Woodward. That’s true.”

    Throughout the recordings, a cast of Trump advisers, allies and family – including Donald Trump Jr., Melania Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Hope Hicks and others – can be heard in the background. The audio gives an inside glimpse of Trump’s inner circle, like an exchange from 2016 when Trump was asked whether he expects government employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, and his son chimed in.

    “I’m not getting next week’s paycheck until I sign one,” Donald Trump Jr. joked.

    Donald Trump Jr. on signing non-disclosure agreements

    In the epilogue of “The Trump Tapes,” Woodward declares that his own past assessments critical of Trump’s presidency did not go far enough. In “Rage,” Woodward wrote, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

    Now, Woodward says, “Trump is an unparalleled danger. The record now shows that Trump has led — and continues to lead — a seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which in effect is an effort to destroy democracy.”

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  • China delays the release of GDP and other economic data without explanation amid Party Congress | CNN Business

    China delays the release of GDP and other economic data without explanation amid Party Congress | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    China has abruptly delayed the publication of key economic data, one day before its scheduled release, as the ruling Communist Party gathers at a major political meeting against the backdrop of a faltering economy.

    The country’s National Bureau of Statistics updated its schedule on Monday, with the dates for a series of economic indicators – including the closely-watched GDP growth – marked as “delayed.” The indicators, which had been scheduled for release on Tuesday, also include quarterly retail sales, industrial production and monthly unemployment rates.

    The bureau did not give a reason for the delay or set a new publication date.

    Separately, the country’s customs authority also postponed the release of monthly trade data, which were initially scheduled to come out on Friday.

    The delay of the highly anticipated data coincides with the week-long 20th Communist Party National Congress in Beijing, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to secure a norm-breaking third term in power. Priorities presented at the gathering will also set China’s trajectory for at least the next five years.

    “The delay suggests that the government believes that the 20th Party Congress is the most important thing happening in China right now and would like to avoid other information flows that could create mixed messages,” said Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING Group, in a research note on Tuesday.

    Other analysts believe it could be because the data sets are not pretty.

    “My forecast is for a further decline of 1.2% [on a quarterly basis for China’s GDP]. This would mean China had joined the US in a technical recession,” said Clifford Bennett, Chief Economist at ACY Securities.

    The delay would make sense “from an image management perspective,” he said. Some economists call two consecutive quarters of contraction a technical recession.

    China’s GDP declined 2.6% in the second quarter from the previous one, reversing a 1.4% growth in the January-to-March period. On a year-on-year basis, the economy expanded 0.4% in the second quarter.

    Analysts have widely expected third-quarter growth to remain weak, as strict Covid curbs, an intensifying crisis in real estate, and slowing global demand continue to pressure the economy.

    Economists polled by Reuters have expected China’s GDP to expand by 3.4% in the third quarter from a year earlier. That would fall far short of the government’s full-year growth target of around 5.5%.

    Many international organizations, including the IMF and World Bank, have recently downgraded China’s GDP growth forecasts for this year.

    Bennett expected the third-quarter GDP data to be released after the Party Congress.

    “Whenever the release occurs, we should all be prepared for some global financial market reaction if the world’s two largest economies are both in recession this year, ” he said.

    China’s economy is facing mounting challenges. Growth has stalled, youth unemployment is at a record high, and the housing market is in shambles. Constant Covid lockdowns have not only wreaked havoc on the economy, but also sparked rising social discontent.

    In the 20th Party Congress report released on Sunday, Xi renewed his pledge to grow China into a “medium developed country” by 2035.

    That would mean China needs to grow at an average growth rate of around 4.7% a year from 2021 to 2035, according to Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group.

    Hu added that the target might be hard to meet, as the economy faces several structural headwinds, such as the property downturn, an aging population, and rising US-China tensions.

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  • Xi Jinping’s speech: yes to zero-Covid, no to market reforms? | CNN Business

    Xi Jinping’s speech: yes to zero-Covid, no to market reforms? | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    Even though China’s economy is beset by problems ranging from a real estate crisis to youth unemployment, Xi Jinping did not offer any grand ideas to set the country back on track during his two-hour opening speech at the Communist Party Congress on Sunday.

    The Chinese leader is expected to secure an unprecedented third term in power at the week-long congress. Priorities presented at the political gathering of more than 2,000 party members will also set China’s trajectory for the next five years or even longer.

    In his speech Sunday, Xi struck a confident tone, highlighting China’s growing strength and rising influence under his first decade in power. He also repeatedly underscored the risks and challenges the country faces, including the Covid pandemic, Hong Kong and Taiwan — all of which he claimed China had come away from victorious.

    But experts are concerned that Xi offered no signs of moving away from the country’s rigid zero-Covid policy or its tight regulatory stance on various businesses, both of which have hampered growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

    “Yesterday’s speech confirms what many China watchers have long suspected — Xi has no intention of embracing market liberalization or relaxing China’s zero-Covid policies, at least not anytime soon,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a DC-based think tank.

    “Instead, he intends to double down on policies geared towards security and self-reliance at the expense of China’s long-term economic growth.”

    China is the world’s last major economy still enforcing strict zero-Covid measures, which aim to stamp out chains of transmission through border restrictions, mass testing, extensive quarantines, and uncompromising snap lockdowns.

    And China’s economy is in bad shape. Growth has stalled, youth unemployment is at a record high, and the housing market is in shambles. Constant Covid lockdowns have not only wreaked havoc on the economy, but also sparked rising social discontent.

    Last week, two large banners were hung on an overpass of a major thoroughfare in Beijing, protesting against Xi’s Covid policy and authoritarian rule. It was a rare protest against the top leadership in the country, signaling the frustration and anger among the public.

    Many international organizations, including the IMF and World Bank, have recently downgraded China’s GDP growth forecasts for this year, citing zero-Covid as one of the major drags.

    Xi, however, praised the government’s adherence to zero-Covid, saying it has “achieved significant positive results.”

    Xi’s speech — a summary of the Communist Party’s work report, or action plan — was similarly short on concrete solutions to other challenges facing the economy in the near term.

    “We believe the ongoing Party Congress may not be an inflection point for major policy changes,” Goldman Sachs analysts said on Sunday, adding that they believe China may not loosen its Covid restrictions until at least the second quarter of 2023.

    On the property sector, Xi emphasized the need to provide affordable housing and dampen speculative demand — but there was no specific mention of the slump in real estate, which has mushroomed into a major crisis over the past few years, threatening both economic and social stability.

    “We maintain our view that a comprehensive solution to the beleaguered property sector might not be introduced until after March 2023, when the political reshuffle is fully completed,” said Nomura analysts on Monday.

    Nor did Xi mention record youth unemployment, which is mainly a result of his year-long crackdown on the tech industry set against the backdrop of punishing zero-Covid policies.

    In the full version of the official 20th Party Congress work report, which was published shortly after his speech, Xi emphasized the need to continue the party’s “anti-monopoly” crackdown and regulate “excessive incomes,” a sign that he will continue to get tough on big businesses and wealthy individuals.

    Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the country’s private sector, under the banner of Xi’s “common prosperity” campaign, has pummeled several companies in sectors ranging from tech and finance to gaming and private education.

    The government has defended the campaign as necessary for “social fairness” and narrowing income gaps.

    In his speech, Xi also made clear that development was the “top priority” and stressed continued focus on “high-quality growth.”

    That may dispel some market concerns that the government no longer cared much about economic growth, UBS analysts said.

    However, to achieve Xi’s target of making China a “medium developed country” by 2035, the country’s annual real GDP growth needs to average around 4.7% a year from 2021 to 2035, the UBS analysts said. That could be “quite challenging,” they noted, adding they expect China’s potential growth to average between 4% to 4.5% a year this decade, and fall lower after 2030.

    Meantime, a comparison between this year’s speech and the last one delivered by Xi in 2017 at the 19th party congress revealed a potentially worrying trend.

    The frequency of words such as “security,” “people,” and “socialism” used in 2022 had increased compared to 2017, while that of “economy,” “market” and “reform” declined, Goldman analysts said.

    The change was also noticed by Nomura analysts, who said it could point to “a shift in the party’s mandate.”

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  • ‘Walled-in’ China under Xi Jinping poses long-term global challenges | CNN

    ‘Walled-in’ China under Xi Jinping poses long-term global challenges | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.


    Beijing
    CNN
     — 

    During China’s National Day holiday in early October, several expatriate friends and I took our young children – who are of mixed races and tend to stand out in a Chinese crowd – to the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing.

    As we climbed a restored but almost deserted section of the ancient landmark, a few local families on their way down walked past us. Noticing our kids, one of their children exclaimed: “Wow foreigners! With Covid? Let’s get away from them…” The adults remained quiet as the group quickened their paces.

    That moment has lingered on my mind. It feels like a snapshot that illustrates how China has changed since its strongman leader Xi Jinping took power a decade ago – it’s become an increasingly walled-in nation physically and psychologically – and such transformation will have long-term global implications.

    Understanding the big picture is timely as Xi is poised to break convention to assume a third term as the head of the Chinese Communist Party – the real source of his power instead of the ceremonial presidency – at the ruling party’s twice-a-decade national congress, which opened in Beijing on Sunday.

    The Great Wall, a top tourist attraction that normally draws throngs of visitors during holidays, stood nearly empty when we went thanks to Xi’s insistence – three years into the global pandemic – on a policy of zero tolerance for Covid infections while the rest of the world has mostly moved on and re-opened.

    China’s borders have remained shut for most international travelers since March 2020, while many foreigners who once called the country home have chosen to leave.

    With the highly contagious Omicron variant raging through parts of the country, authorities had discouraged domestic travel ahead of National Day holiday. They are also sticking to a playbook of strict quarantine, incessant mass testing and invasive contact tracing – often locking down entire cities of millions over a handful of cases.

    Unsurprisingly, holiday travel plummeted during the so-called “Golden Week” along with tourism spending, which fell to less than half of that in 2019, the last “normal” year.

    And it’s not just one industry: Pessimism blankets other sectors, from automobile to real estate, as the world’s second-largest economy falters.

    Children visit the Great Wall of China on October 6, 2022.

    The Chinese economic slowdown poses a massive political challenge for Xi, whose party’s legitimacy in the past few decades has relied on rapid growth and rising incomes for 1.4 billion people. It’s also a harsh reality check for the international community: the world’s longtime growth engine is sputtering, just as the prospect of a global recession emerges.

    But Xi’s costly “zero-Covid” intransigence is a natural outcome of the unprecedented amount of power he has amassed. For many Chinese officials, this policy is less about science and more about political loyalty to the country’s most powerful leader in decades.

    Online videos abound of local health workers swabbing fruits, animals and even shoes for Covid testing despite the absence of sound scientific basis. China’s only Covid-related deaths in September were 27 people who were killed when their bus crashed on its way to a quarantine facility. Still, officials nationwide have doubled down on enforcing draconian rules, especially ahead of the party congress, helped by the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technologies.

    China had boasted more security cameras than any other country even before Covid. Now, in the age of smartphones, mandatory apps allow the government to check people’s Covid status and track their movement in real time. Authorities can easily confine someone to their home by remotely switching the health app to code red – and they did just that on several occasions to stop potential protesters from taking to the streets.

    Whether physical lockdowns or digital manipulation, these measures born out of “zero-Covid” have proven such effective means of control in a system obsessed with social stability that many worry Xi and his underlings will never ditch the policy.

    A series of recent articles published by the party’s mouthpieces had reinforced such concern by stressing the policy’s “correctness” and “sustainability,” even before Xi hailed “zero-Covid” as a resounding success story in his two-hour speech Sunday. And state media fills its coverage with depictions of the “grim reality” in foreign countries where leaders supposedly turn a blind eye to mass fatalities and suffering caused by Covid – in contrast to China’s apparent triumph in saving lives with “minimal overall cost.”

    For years, Xi’s cyber police have been fortifying the country’s so-called “Great Firewall” – perhaps the world’s most extensive internet filtering and censorship system that blocks and deletes anything deemed “harmful” by the party. Now supported by artificial intelligence, censors quickly scrub clean any posts seen as contradicting the party line – including on Covid.

    This potent mix of propaganda and control under Xi appears to have had its desired effect on a large segment of Chinese society, creating a buffer for the leadership by convincing enough people of the superiority of China’s system even as millions of their fellow countrymen grow resentful of “zero-Covid.” But this approach, combined with prolonged border closure and escalating geopolitical tensions, also provides fertile ground for xenophobia.

    The local child’s remarks on the Great Wall reflected that. But the true danger of the “blame the foreigners” sentiment comes when adults in powerful positions take advantage of it in the face of mounting pressure on the domestic front.

    screengrab xi speech 2021

    Here’s Xi Jinping’s vision to make China great again

    Since his ascent to the top in 2012, Xi’s ruling philosophy has become increasingly clear: Only he can make China great again by restoring the party’s – thus his – omnipresence and dominance, as well as the country’s rightful place on the global stage.

    With China’s increasing economic and military might, coexistence with the West has given way to confrontation with the United States and its allies. Gone are the days of “hiding your strength and biding your time” – Chinese diplomats under Xi are proud warriors training fire on anyone who dares to question their government.

    Underpinned by rising nationalism, China has started flexing military muscle beyond its shores. Tensions over Taiwan poses a real threat of war in Asia, as few doubt that “reunification” with the self-governed democratic island – long claimed by the Communist leadership despite having never ruled it – would be seen as the crown jewel of Xi’s legacy.

    That outward power projection goes hand in hand with China’s sense of besiegement in a US-led world order, which Xi has made no secret of trying to reshape along with other autocrats like Russian President Vladmir Putin. Until that happens, though, the Chinese strongman’s instinct and demand for total control at home seem to have meant the erection of ever-higher barriers – in the real world and cyberspace – to keep out pesky outsiders, the perceived source of dangerous viruses and ideas.

    A history paper released recently by a government-run research institute has gone viral as it, like Xi, upended a long-held consensus. Instead of denouncing the isolationist policy adopted by China’s last two imperial dynasties as a cause of their backward turn and eventual collapse, the authors defended its necessity to protect national sovereignty and security when faced with Western invaders.

    The emperors of those dynasties, who also rebuilt parts of the Great Wall, failed to reverse their country’s decline back then. But the tools at their disposal were no match to the high-tech ones in the hands of China’s current ruler. Xi seems confident that his “walls” – among other things – will help him realize his oft-cited ultimate goal: the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

    Whether or not he succeeds, the world will feel the impact for years to come.

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  • 12-meter floods to inundate thousands of properties, Australian emergency services warn | CNN

    12-meter floods to inundate thousands of properties, Australian emergency services warn | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese toured flooded areas of the southeastern state of Victoria Sunday – as emergency services warned waters up to 12 meters were expected to inundate thousands of properties.

    Albanese said the scenes were “devastating” on his visit to the town of Bendigo and on a helicopter ride over the town of Rochester, where a 71-year-old man was found dead in a flooded backyard Saturday.

    “By the end of today over 100 ADF [Australian Defence Force] personnel will be on the ground in Victoria,” Albanese told reporters.

    ADF personnel are assisting in the flood rescue, recovery and efforts to protect against the water levels expected to rise in the coming days.

    Speaking alongside Albanese, Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews said 355 roads remain closed in Victoria due to flooding and “around 6,000” properties around the town of Mooroopna remain without power.

    “There is a really significant challenge there – just the amount of water and the levels it’s reaching,” Andrews said.

    Emergency warnings are in effect in and around the Shepparton area, including a “too late to leave” warning for residents.

    Floodwaters in that area are expected to rise to 12.2 meters, which would flood more than 7,000 properties, the Victoria State Emergency Service’s Tim Wiebusch said on Sunday.

    The death on Saturday of the 71-year-old brought the number of people killed in flooding across Australia’s southeast this past week to two.

    On October 11, the body of a 46-year-old man was discovered in a submerged vehicle near Bathurst in New South Wales.

    Victoria Police said the exact circumstances surrounding the latest death, of the 71-year-old, remain unclear.

    Hundreds of people have been rescued already, according to Wiebusch, who has warned that more evacuation orders will be issued over the coming days.

    Wild weather has battered Australia recently. The historic rainfall, brought about by La Niña conditions, has caused rivers to swell beyond their banks and left thousands homeless.

    Speaking on Saturday, Andrews had said the number of flooded houses and isolated communities would “almost certainly grow as we see flooding peak.”

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  • Xi’s expected coronation begins as China’s Communist Party convenes congress to extend leader’s rule | CNN

    Xi’s expected coronation begins as China’s Communist Party convenes congress to extend leader’s rule | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The expected coronation for China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping has officially begun, as the ruling Communist Party convenes a week-long meeting to extoll his first decade in power – and to usher in a likely new era of strongman rule.

    Amid heightened security, escalated zero-Covid restrictions and a frenzy of propaganda and censorship, the party kicks off its most consequential national congress in decades in Beijing on Sunday morning.

    At the 20th Party Congress, Xi, who came to power in 2012, is poised to secure a third term as the party’s general secretary, breaking with recent precedent and paving the way for potential lifelong rule.

    The expected anointment will cement the 69-year-old’s status as China’s most powerful leader since late Chairman Mao Zedong, who ruled China until his death aged 82. It will also have a profound impact on the world, as Xi doubles down on an assertive foreign policy to boost China’s international clout and rewrite the US-led global order.

    At the heart of the Chinese capital, nearly 2,300 handpicked party delegates from around the country have gathered in the Great Hall of the People for the highly choreographed event.

    Sitting in neat rows with face masks on, they await Xi to deliver a lengthy work report that will take stock of the party’s achievements over the past five years and lay out in broad strokes its policy priorities for the next five.

    Observers will be closely watching for signs of the party’s policy direction when it comes to its uncompromising zero-Covid policy, handling of steep economic challenges, and stated goal of “reunifying” with Taiwan – a self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own despite never having controlled.

    The meetings will be mostly held behind close doors throughout the week. When delegates reemerge at the end of the congress next Saturday, they will conduct a ceremonial vote to rubber stamp Xi’s work report and approve changes made to the party constitution – which might bestow Xi with new titles to further strengthen his power.

    The delegates will also select the party’s new Central Committee, which will hold its first meeting the next day to appoint the party’s top leadership – the Politburo and its Standing Committee, following decisions already hashed out behind the scenes by party leaders before the congress.

    The congress will be a major moment of political triumph for Xi, but it also comes during a period of potential crisis. Xi’s insistence on an uncompromising zero-Covid policy has fueled mounting public frustration and crippled economic growth. Meanwhile, diplomatically, his “no-limits” friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin has further strained Beijing’s ties with the West following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

    In the lead-up to the congress, officials across China drastically ramped up restrictions to prevent even minor Covid outbreaks, imposing sweeping lockdowns and increasingly frequent mass Covid tests over a handful of cases. Yet infections caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant have continued to flare. On Saturday, China reported nearly 1,200 infections, including 14 in Beijing.

    Public anger toward zero-Covid came to the fore Thursday in an exceptionally rare protest against Xi in Beijing. Online photos showed two banners were unfurled on a busy overpass denouncing Xi and his policies, before being taken down by police.

    “Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” one banner reads.

    “Go on strike, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping,” read the other.

    The Chinese public have paid little attention to the party’s congresses in the past – they have no say in the country’s leadership reshuffle, or the making of major policies. But this year, many have pinned their hopes on the congress to be a turning point for China to relax its Covid policy.

    A series of recent articles in the party’s mouthpiece, however, suggest that could be wishful thinking. The People’s Daily hailed zero-Covid as the “best choice” for the country, insisting it is “sustainable and must be followed.”

    On Saturday, on the eve of the congress, party spokesman Sun Yeli told a news conference China’s Covid measures have ensured the country’s extremely low rate of infections and deaths, and enabled “sustained and stable operations of the economy and society.”

    “With everything considered, China’s epidemic prevention measures are the most economical and effective,” Sun said.

    “Our prevention and control strategies and measures will become more scientific, more accurate, and more effective,” he said. “We firmly believe that the dawn is ahead, and persistence is victory.”

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  • ‘They hated him.’ Former subordinate recalls serving under Russia’s new top commander in Ukraine | CNN

    ‘They hated him.’ Former subordinate recalls serving under Russia’s new top commander in Ukraine | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s devastating war on Ukraine is faltering. Now, there’s a new general in charge – with a reputation for brutality.

    After Ukraine recently recaptured more territory than Russia’s army took in the last six months, Russia’s Ministry of Defense last Saturday named Sergey Surovikin as its new overall commander for operations in the war.

    Notably, he previously played an instrumental role in Russia’s operations in Syria – during which Russian combat aircraft caused widespread devastation in rebel-held areas – as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

    CNN spoke to a former Russian air force lieutenant, Gleb Irisov, who served under him in Syria.

    He said Surovikin was “very close to Putin’s regime” and “never had any political ambitions, so always executed a plan exactly as ​the government wanted.”

    Analysts say Surovikin’s appointment is highly unlikely to change how Russian forces are carrying out the war but that it speaks to Putin’s dissatisfaction with previous command operations. It is also, in part, likely meant to “mollify” the nationalist and pro-war base within Russia itself, according to Mason Clark, Russia Lead at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think-tank.

    Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has called for Russia to “take more drastic measures​” ​including the use of “low-yield nuclear weapons” in Ukraine following recent setbacks, welcomed the appointment of Surovikin, who first saw service in Afghanistan in the 1980s before commanding a unit in the Second Chechen War ​in 2004. Praise from Kadyrov, who is ​a key Putin ally, is significant, perhaps, as he himself is notorious for crushing all forms of dissent.

    “I personally ​have know​n Sergei very well for almost 15 years. I can definitely say he is a real general and warrior, experienced, headstrong and foresighted commander who always takes patriotism, honor and respect above all,” Kadyrov posted on social media, following news of Surovikin’s appointment last Saturday. “The united army group is now in safe hands,” he added.

    Irisov, Surovikin’s former subordinate, left his five-year career in the armed forces after his time in Syria because his own political views conflicted with what he experienced. “Of course, you understand, who is right and who is wrong,” Irisov said. “I witnessed a lot of stuff, being inside the system.”

    Irisov then began what he hoped would be the start of a career as an international journalist, as a military reporter with Russian state news agency TASS. His wife worked there and he felt at the time it was “the only main information agency” that tried to ​cover news in an “unbiased” way, with “some opportunity of freedom of speech,” he said.

    Gleb Irisov is pictured at the beginning of his military career, during winter military training near Moscow, Russia.

    Gleb Irisov is pictured during his service with the Russian Air Force in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave.

    “Everything changed” on February 24, 2022, when Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began and TASS received orders from the FSB security service and defense ministry “that everyone will be prosecuted if they don’t execute the propaganda scheme,” Irisov said.

    He had family in Kyiv, hiding in bomb shelters, and told CNN he knew “nothing could justify this war.” He also knew from his military contacts that there were already many casualties in the first days of the war.

    “For me it was obvious from the beginning,” Irisov recalled. “I tried to explain to people this war will lead to the collapse of Russia… it will be a great tragedy not only for Ukrainians but also for Russia.”

    Irisov fled Moscow with his pregnant wife and young child on March 8, 2022, after standing against the invasion. He had quit his job at TASS and signed petitions and an open letter against the war, he told CNN. After traveling to Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and finally Mexico, where they contacted the US embassy to ask for help, they are now working to start a new life in West Virginia.

    Gleb Irisov is pictured with his wife, Alisa Irisova, in the last photo taken before they left Russia by air for Armenia, in March 2022.

    While serving at Latakia air base in Syria in 2019 and 2020, the 31-year-old says he worked on aviation safety and air traffic control, coordinating flights with Damascus’ civilian airlines. He ​says he saw Surovikin several times during some missions and spoke to high-ranking officers under him.

    “He made a lot of people very angry – they hated him,” Irisov said, describing how the “direct” and “straight” general was disliked at headquarters because of the way he tried to implement his infantry experience into the air force.

    Irisov says he understands Surovikin had strong connections with Kremlin-approved private military company the Wagner group​, which has operated in Syria.

    The Kremlin denies any connections to Wagner and insists that private military companies are illegal in Russia.

    Surovikin, whose military career began in 1983, has a checkered history, to say the least.

    In 2004, according to Russian media accounts and at least two think tanks, he berated a subordinate so severely that the subordinate took his own life.

    And a book by the think tank the Washington DC-based Jamestown Foundation says that during the unsuccessful coup attempt against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, soldiers under Surovikin’s command killed three protesters, leading to Surovikin spending at least six months in prison.

    CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on Surovikin’s appointment and regarding allegations about his harsh leadership.

    In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named him as “someone who may bear ​command responsibility” for the dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure in violation of the laws of war​” during the 2019-2020 Idlib offensive in Syria. ​The attacks killed at least 1,600 ​civilians and forced the displacement of an estimated 1.4 million people, according to HRW​​, which cites UN figures.

    Vladimir Putin (left) toasts with then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev next to Sergey Surovikin after a ceremony to bestow state awards on military personnel who fought in Syria, on December 28, 2017.

    During his time in Syria, the ​now-56-year-old was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.

    In February this year, Surovikin was sanctioned by the European Union in his capacity as head of the Aerospace Forces “for actively supporting and implementing actions and policies that undermine and threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine as well as the stability or security in Ukraine.”

    Irisov believes there are three reasons why he has been put in charge in Ukraine now: his closeness to the government and Putin; his interbranch experience with both the infantry and air force; and his experience since the summer commanding Russian forces in the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea. These are areas that Putin is trying to control “at any cost,” said Irisov.

    Just two days after Surovikin’s appointment on Saturday, Russia launched its heaviest bombardment of Ukraine since the early days of the war.

    Surovikin is “more familiar with cruise missiles, maybe he used his connections and experience to organize this chain of devastating attacks,” Irisov said​, referencing the reports that cruise missiles have been among the weapons deployed by Russia in this latest surge of attacks.

    But Clark, from the ISW, suggests the general’s promotion is “more of a framing thing to inject new blood into the Russian command system” and “put on this tough nationalist face.”

    His appointment “got widespread praise from various Russian military bloggers as well as Yevgeny (Prigozhin), who’s the financier of the Wagner Group,” Clark said.

    He believes what’s happening now is a reflection of what happened in April, when another commander, Alexander Dvornikov, was appointed overall commander of the operations in Ukraine.

    “Similarly, he before then was a commander of one of the groupings of Russian forces and had sort of a master reputation in Syria much like Surovikin for brutality, earning this sort of name of the ‘butcher of Aleppo,’” Clark said.

    Dvornikov was also seen at the time as the commander “that was going to turn things around in Ukraine and get the job done,” he added. “But an individual commander is not going to be able to change how tangled Russian command and control is at this point in the war, or the low morale of Russian forces.”

    Colonel General Sergey Surovikin, then-commander of the Russian forces in Syria, speaks at a briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow, on June 9, 2017.

    Andrea Kendall-Taylor, director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, also told CNN this week that Surovikin’s appointment “reflects the ascendancy of a lot of hardline voices inside Russia… calling on Putin to make changes, and to bring in someone who would be willing to execute these ruthless attacks.”

    Clark reasons that “from what we’ve seen, it’s highly ​probable that Putin is involved in decision-making down to a very tactical level and in some cases bypassing the senior Russian military officers to interact directly on the battlefield.”

    Surovikin personally signed Irisov’s resignation papers from the air force, he says. Now, Irisov sees him put in charge of operations in Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine – but what impact the general will or can have is not yet clear.

    According to Clark, “there isn’t a good Kremlin option if Surovikin doesn’t perform or if Putin decides that he is also not up to the task. There aren’t many other senior Russian officers and it’s just going to lead to a further degradation of the Russian war effort.”

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  • Putin has ‘no regrets’ over missile barrage in Ukraine, but says no need for more ‘massive’ strikes for now | CNN

    Putin has ‘no regrets’ over missile barrage in Ukraine, but says no need for more ‘massive’ strikes for now | CNN

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    Kyiv, Ukraine
    CNN
     — 

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he had “no regrets” over his deadly missile attacks on civilian targets across Ukraine earlier this week, but said there was no need for more “massive” strikes for now.

    The wave of missile attacks on cities across Ukraine began on Monday in response to a blast on a strategically vital bridge connecting the annexed Crimean Peninsula to Russia over the weekend. It’s unclear what caused the explosion, but Putin on Monday blamed it on Kyiv and called it a “terrorist attack” that could not be left unanswered.

    The intense bombardment that followed over the next two days killed at least 19 people and leveled civilian targets across the country, drawing global outrage. The strikes also caused major damage to power systems across Ukraine, forcing people to reduce consumption during peak hours to avoid blackouts.

    Putin said that while he did not regret the strikes and believes that Russia’s actions were correct, he did recognize that “what is happening now is unpleasant.”

    Putin also defended his partial mobilization of Russians that began in September, telling reporters it is expected to end in two weeks and that some 222,000 troops had already been drafted into the army.

    The mobilization got off to a chaotic start last month, sparking rare protests throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands of people – mostly fighting-age men – fled Russia, pouring into neighboring countries like Georgia and Kazakhstan to avoid conscription.

    Putin also said that Russia does not seek to “destroy” Ukraine, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western leaders have previously alleged. His comments come seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion and as Moscow attempts to annex four Ukrainian regions in violation of international law.

    The Russian leader was speaking at a rare news conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, where Putin had traveled for a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a regional intergovernmental organization made up of former Soviet states.

    When asked if he would meet with US President Joe Biden, Putin told a reporter that he “does not see the need for negotiations.”

    Biden was asked a similar question in an exclusive interview with CNN earlier this week. The US President said he did not see “any rationale” for meeting his Russian counterpart, though he said he would perhaps make an exception to discuss the fate of imprisoned American basketball star Brittney Griner.

    Russian authorities said civilian evacuations would begin Friday in the occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, where the Kremlin has suffered a string of defeats at the hands of Ukrainian forces.

    Further to the east, Russia’s embattled forces have managed to make some small gains in Donetsk, toward the city of Bakhmut, aided in large measure by Wagner mercenaries, or private military contractors. Moscow likely views the city a jumping-off point toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – the largest urban areas held by Ukraine in Donetsk, the British Defense Ministry said.

    Bakhmut is currently under Ukrainian control, but it has been bombarded by Russian artillery for months. Reports from pro-Russian analysts and in Russian state media alleged that Kyiv had begun withdrawing some forces from the city, but CNN could not independently verify those claims. Ukrainian officials have not commented on them, but they have noted that Bakhmut is being fiercely contested.

    Meanwhile, the outlook for Russian forces in Kherson and the northeastern region of Luhansk remain bleak. Kyiv has continued to make significant gains along the western side of the Dnipro River, a major waterway that flows across Ukraine and Eastern Europe, as they push toward the city of Kherson.

    A man walks near anti-tank obstacles in the frontline town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on Tuesday.

    Fighting near Kherson city continued to rage on Friday. Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-backed administration in Kherson, said Moscow’s forces were “courageously and professionally holding back the daily attempts of the militants of the Kyiv regime to break through the defenses.”

    Though Stremousov said civilians should be at a “safe distance from the hostilities” and that Kherson residents appeared to have begun evacuating. The governor of the eastern Russian region of Rostov, Vasily Golubev, said Thursday that local authorities were preparing to receive residents of Kherson fleeing the front lines, Russian state news agency TASS reported. Golubev said the first group of evacuees would arrive on Friday.

    Golubev’s comments came after Russia’s deputy prime minister confirmed Moscow would assist with evacuation efforts, heeding calls from the head of the Kremlin-backed administration in Kherson who had pleaded for help.

    A destroyed apartment remains is seen Tuesday in Bakhmut.

    There is now concern that Ukrainian citizens in occupied territory may be forced to go to Russian territory against their will. Reports emerged early in the war of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians being forcibly sent to so-called “filtration centers” before being moved to Russia. Moscow denounced the claims as lies, alleging that Ukraine has hindered its efforts to “evacuate” people to Russia. But allegations of these centers stirred painful memories of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s forced deportation of millions from their homelands.

    Over the summer, Ukrainian officials in the contested region of Zaporizhzhia appealed to citizens who were in Russian-occupied territory to move away from front lines and into other Ukrainian-controlled territory. If that option was not possible, they advised Ukrainians to use Crimea or Russian territory as a transit route toward Ukraine or a friendly country.

    Those on the frontlines in Kherson are now being advised by Ukrainian officials to avoid traveling to Russia altogether.

    “Under no circumstances should you go to the Russian Federation,” warned Oleksandr Samoylenko, a top Ukrainian official in the Kherson region, on Friday. Samoylenko said that Ukrainian forces were only targeting Russian positions and equipment using high-precision weapons.

    Samoylenko’s and his deputy, Yurii Sobolevskyi, both accused Russia of trying to Ukrainian citizens out of the region so they could repopulate it with “zombies who are 100% loyal to Moscow.” Sobolevskyi alleged that a similar scheme was carried out in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

    Kherson is one of four regions Russia is now attempting to annex from Ukraine. The others are Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine and Donetsk and Luhansk, two eastern Ukrainian regions where fighting against Russian-backed breakaway republics has raged since 2014.

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  • British PM Liz Truss fires finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng | CNN

    British PM Liz Truss fires finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng | CNN

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    Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons in London, Engalnd, on October 12.

    (Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament/AP)

    Spare a thought for British Conservative members of parliament. 

    The governing party of the United Kingdom thought they had it bad with scandal-stricken Boris Johnson wrecking their poll numbers and turning what was once called the natural party of government into an exploding clown car. 

    But having spent an enormous amount of energy removing a reluctant Johnson from office this summer, exhausted MPs say his replacement, Liz Truss – just 37 days into the job – seems hellbent on making the bad situation worse. 

    After her mini-budget – which proposed unfunded tax cuts, huge government borrowing and let energy companies off from a windfall tax – sent the pound tumbling and caused all manner of wider economic chaos, they are faced with the grim reality of having a leader they deem to be more damaging than Johnson but will be even harder to replace. 

    “Even if you think she’s awful, we can’t replace her this soon,” a former cabinet minister and Truss supporter tells CNN. “I am not optimistic about the future, but we need to try and ride this out and learn from the mistakes.” 

    The mistakes in question were, most MPs agree, terrible communications from the government and trying to do too many things too fast, without being adequately funded.

    “They committed to huge spending, rightly, to help people with energy bills, then immediately started talking about tax cuts,” a senior Conservative says. As a result, they are not “even getting credit for spending a load of money. When you announce policy like this you have to roll the pitch like mad. Why didn’t they roll the pitch?” 

    Truss may be forced into a U-turn on Friday and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, is battling to save his job.

    Read more about the dire mood in the Conservative Party here.

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