International panorama: Indians in space and Trump’s dictatorial ambitions
Former employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Yulduz Khaliullin about the absence of stability in the world. Series 1
Today Realnoe Vremya's columnist Yulduz Khaliullin who is a famous Soviet and Russian diplomat and expert in Eastern studies reviews interesting events that have taken place on the last days in different parts of the world but were almost noticeable in the general information flow of the mass media. In the op-ed column, he draws the attention of our newspaper's reader to the first launch of an Indian heavy rocket, Trump's birthday and how Putin positively affected French voters.
India launches a ''monster'' in space
These days Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced a successful launch of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) of 640 tonnes of weight from a cosmodrome located near the Bay of Bengal. It is a good day for ISRO and Indian science: they demonstrated such a powerful rocket through the media for the first time. Its weight is equal to 200 Indian elephants or five modern rocket aircraft. The rocket's height — 43 metres – excels even the American Statue of Liberty (32 metres without foundation).
The Indians are very glad because they had a chance to launch their aircraft into space. A powerful rocket is needed to launch big broadcast, TV, telephone and other communication satellites. Now the Indians have this possibility. Earlier they had to use launch vehicles of other countries.
''At present, ISRO is in a position to launch only satellites weighing between two and 2.5 tons into geostationary orbits,''Ajey Lele from the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses claimed. ''And it was called a ''monster''.
The Indians think that they will be able to send their experts in space by such rockets by 2024, that is to say, in 5-6 years. They want to become the fourth country that can send its cosmonauts on its own (after Russia, the USA and China).
And earlier the Indians also managed to do something similar. They have recently launched their spacecraft (Editor's Note: Mangalyaan — Mars Orbiter Mission) that is flying around Mars now and examining the ''red planet''. They almost simultaneously launched about hundreds of small satellites. The Indians think they have joined the four space powers due to this success.
40% of population and ¼ of world economy
New Delhi can also be glad about other achievements. These days a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation where two countries – India and Pakistan – were included took place in Astana. It is a very positive occurrence. Earlier they had a status of observers. Now they are full-fledged members of this union. It means SCO is becoming an organisation that includes almost 40% of the world population and almost 1/3 of the world economy.
There is a similar organisation – BRICS – consisting of five countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It is a far bigger structure. At the same time, we should admit that BRICS and SCO are quite amorphous organisations at the moment. In any case, the financial and economic power of China occupies the main place.
Trump's dictatorial elements
These processes happening in the SCO and BRICS countries are also observed overseas with great interest. US President Donald Trump celebrated his birthday on 14 June. And all the media follows his actions, how he rules the country through Twitter. And we can note his elements of dictatorship, something new – it is all commented and discussed. Hearings are held in the Senate, his policy is especially followed there. It is a completely new administration for America.
On the other hand, he makes very quick decisions negotiating with neither the Senate nor Congress, for example, on the exit from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It also affects actions of European countries.
For instance, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed on the threshold of September elections in the country they needed to create their common armed forces within the European Union. They don't want to refer only to the United States any more. It goes without saying that there is an element of propaganda here, and the relations of NATO and the USA will continue.
New occurrences in Europe
The appearance of 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron is also an indicator. He did not have his own party. In fact, he is the founder of En Marche that he created almost on the go. It was when two parties were candidates to become a leader – a conservative party created by de Gaulle and a social and democratic party whose members were presidents of the republic four times.
The tendency is curious: a Socialist was the president in the country before him (Hollande), a Republican and Conservative (Sarkozy) was before the latter. These parties were in the shadow of the new movement. Macron's supporters are provided 70% of seats in the parliament, which can't help but concern his opponents. Conservators who were runners-up got about 85 seats and are far from the ruling party. I am not speaking about the socialistic party with 10% and communists with 3,5% (earlier the communist party was strong).
A short meeting of Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron on an exhibition dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Peter the Great's visit to Paris is also a positive moment that positively affected votes during parliamentary elections in France. Such a small step had such an effect.
New occurrences are seen throughout Europe. We are seeing an interesting approach of the British prime minister to the EU through leading countries. After leaving the EU, two leading countries – Germany and France – remained there.
Having lost tens of seats in the parliament after the elections in the United Kingdom, Great Britain's Prime Minister Teresa May immediately decided to visit France. She intends to arrange relations between London and Paris and thus try to choose Brussels as capital of the European Union. She tries to show that England will actively cooperate with France in both economy and politics to protect her country from terrorist attacks.