Today, the Chinese Foreign Minister's month long absence raises questions. Russia strikes Odessa, a legal battle over a migrant barrier in Texas and a Norwegian politician resigns after stealing sunglasses from TLDR News. This is your daily briefing for Tuesday 25th July 2023. Today marks exactly a month since China's second highest ranking diplomat, Qin Gang, was last seen in public.
His withdrawal from public view has complicated China's diplomacy, prompted cancellations of visits and meetings and raised questions over his whereabouts. 57 year old Qin has had an impressive rise to one of the top foreign affairs jobs in China. He spent years working at the Chinese Embassy in London and served as the Chinese Ambassador to the United States from 2021 to 2023 before being appointed the youngest Minister of Foreign affairs in decades. In the west, he's been labelled as one of China's wolf warrior diplomats pursuing a more combative and confrontational form of diplomacy.
Though this is a label that he's pushed back against. Qin's last public meetings were on 25 June when he met with diplomats from Russia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam in Beijing. He was then due to host Josip Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief. Ten days later, however, this meeting was cancelled at short notice without a specific reason given.
Two weeks after he was last seen, he was absent from a high level summit of ASEAN leaders in Indonesia on 11 July. It was then that questions started being asked and the Chinese Foreign Ministry said his absence was down to health reasons. A prominent Chinese journalist who previously worked for the state owned Global Times wrote on Weibo recently that there's something everyone is talking about that can't be talked about publicly, and adding that there needs to be a balance between keeping the operations running and respecting the public's right to information. More recently, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has reportedly postponed his trip to China amid Qin Gang's absence.
But what's the significance of all of this? China's Foreign Ministry has insisted that its diplomatic activities are moving forward steadily. In many cases, Qin's absence has been filled by other officials, including his predecessor Wang Yi. Analysts like Professor Vivian Zhang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong say that Qin's absence won't have a major impact on China's foreign policy direction, but will surely affect the implementation of many foreign policies, such as the high level meetings.
Nevertheless, his absence had sparked lots of rumours online, including an investigation into an alleged extramarital affair, which when asked about the foreign affairs spokesperson responded with I don't know about this matter. Absence for health reasons is perfectly plausible. And the Chinese government is known to be guarded about the health of its ministers and officials, which would explain why they've given so little information on his condition. But literally minutes before we started filming, news broke that China had removed Qin Gang from office and replaced him with his predecessor, Wang Yi.
And at the time of writing, we still haven't seen Qin Gang or heard any more about his condition, so we'll have to see how the story develops. There's more on the way. Be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to name the daily briefing part of your daily routine, or to search for it on your podcast app to listen long we're going to give you a quick update on the situation in Israel, as we promised in yesterday's episode Yesterday, the Israeli Knesset passed the first path of the wider controversial judicial reform being pursued by Benjamin Netanyahu's government. The bill that passed yesterday strips the Supreme Court of its power to block certain government decisions and was approved by all of Netanyahu's coalition, while opposition lawmakers abstained and walked out in protest.
Protests are continuing on the streets, and Monday night saw some clashes with police who used water cannons to remove protesters blocking highways. The country's main trade union has threatened a general strike, and thousands of military reservists have said that they will not turn up for duty if the law stands. Opposition lawmakers and groups plan on petitioning the Supreme Court to block the law. So that's the update from Israel.
Let's move on and discuss what's been happening in Ukraine as the war in Ukraine continues, Russia has continued to strike the embattled nation this this week, hitting the port city of Odesa. So far, it's been reported that 22 people have been injured and at least one person has lost their life. The strikes against Odesa began on Sunday with 19 missiles heading towards the city. Ukrainian air defenses claim to have shot down nine of the projectiles, but the others managed to get through.
One of the missiles struck the Transfiguration Cathedral, which is one of the oldest and most important Orthodox cathedrals in the world. The attack caused fires and destroyed the roof of the church. Following the strike, workers removed documents, artifacts and other valuables from the building. It was only earlier this year that UNESCO designated Odessa's historic city center as an endangered World Heritage Site.
In explaining why the Russian forces struck at Dessa, Russia's Defense Ministry explained that terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared there as and that foreign mercenaries were hosted there. They added that the missiles didn't hit the cathedral and that the destruction was likely caused by the fall of a Ukrainian anti aircraft guided missile. Yesterday, the U.S. justice Department sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott over his new floating barrier.
This is the Republican's latest tactic to try and prevent migrants crossing the U.S. border from Mexico. Recently, the state of Texas has been installing a variety of tactics to try and prevent migrants passing into the U.S. this has included razor wire fencing and the arrest of migrants on trespassing charges.
The latest floating barrier idea is a long line, roughly 305 meters long of bright orange wrecking ball sized buoys that are designed to prevent people from crossing the Rio Grande river into Texas. The project to install them took two years and has been nicknamed Operation Lone Star. In discussing the decision to take Texas to court, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre told reporters that the actions of Abbott are unlawful and that they are not helpful. She added that it is undermining what the President has put forward and is trying to do.
In a letter the Justice Department gave to Texas, they argue that the buoy wall pose a risk to navigation as well as public safety in the Rio Grande river, and it presents humanitarian concerns A surprising political scandal in Norway has come to an end after the leader of the small, far left Red Party resigned for stealing designer sunglasses from a shop in Oslo. Airport surveillance footage from June 16 shows beyond our mock's nest on the Hugo Boss sunglasses before pocketing them and leaving the store. He was later charged and fined for the incident, but initially maintained that it was an accident. The video went viral in early July, prompting Moxness to go on sick leave.
Then this week, a day before his planned return, he announced his resignation from the position of party leader, a post he'd held for 11 years. In a Facebook post, Moxness apologized and wrote, a lot of people have asked me how I could do something so stupid. I've asked myself that many times in recent weeks. I don't have an adequate explanation.
To end this uplifting news, we look to Paris, which will soon bring back river swimming after a lengthy cleanup process. Back in 1923, authorities banned swimming in the River Seine due to poor water quality. But over the past 20 years, things have improved. Next year, three Olympic and Paralympic events will take place in the Seine during the Paris Olympics, and authorities plan to open three open air swimming zones for the public by 2025.
A huge underground reservoir has been built to act as a runoff during storms and heavy rain, meaning sewage drains shouldn't overflow into the river, so swimmers will soon return to swim in the river when previously you'd have to be in Seine to do so. Rock on, Paris. That's all you have time for on YouTube. But the briefing isn't over.
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