How the right won in Sweden
Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we look at Sweden’s change political landscapeUSA safety assistance to Taiwan, and Mexico’s arrest of a retired general.
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The right-wing bloc wins Sweden’s election
Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we look at Sweden’s change political landscapeUSA safety assistance to Taiwan, and Mexico’s arrest of a retired general.
If you would like to receive the Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
The right-wing bloc wins Sweden’s election
Sweden’s political landscape is undergoing a seismic shift after a right-wing bloc won the country’s election this week, narrowly defeating Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s centre-left coalition.
The victorious block—composite of the Sweden Democrats and the Moderates, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats — won in the end three more parliamentary seats than Andersson’s coalition. They were driven to victory by Far to the right Sweden Democrats, which secured more than a fifth of the votes and is now Sweden’s second biggest party, ddespite a historical extremist reputation and neo-Nazi origins.
Negotiations is now underway to form a new central government to be led by the Moderates, as the bloc previously decided. But experts says The Sweden Democrats are also poised to have greater influence in shaping the future of Swedish politics, given their clear popularity during the elections.
“Because the Sweden Democrats are so phenomenally strengthened, power is actually not just shifting from one side to the other side of the political divide – it’s moving quite significantly to the right,” says Elisabeth Braw, FP columnist and senior fellow at American Enterprise Inleda.
“It is not clear whether they will be invited to be part of the government, but either way they would have an important role in parliament, she added.
As questions about gang violence and immigration dominated the election, the Sweden Democrats promised to drastically curb immigration, rattling civil society and immigrant groups. The leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, has it promised to “make Sweden great again.”
Entering foreign policy, Bravo claimed that the left’s negative campaigning ultimately helped catapult its opponents to victory. “Their fascist scaremongering drove the far-right Sweden Democrats to a stunning result … and helped the center-right bloc win an unexpected victory,” she wrote.
After the election results became clear, Andersson notified her departure on Thursday. Ulf Kristersson, the leader of The moderatesis now set to create the country’s new government in one long-term process expected to take weeks.
– We have an election result, we have the change mandate we requested, says Kristersson said on Wednesday. “I will now begin the process of forming a new government for Sweden and all its citizens.”
What we follow today
Military support to Taiwan. The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has introduced a bill to dedicate $6.5 billion military support to Taiwan, a move that drew criticism from Beijing. Chinese officials said the bill sent “a serious false signal to Taiwan independence separatist forces,” which Reuters reported.
Mexico’s arrests. The Mexican government has arrested four people during the 2014 abduction and disappearance of 43 students from Iguala, Mexicoincluding a retired general who oversaw a military base in Iguala Right then. Last month, a state truth commission declared that the case had been a “state crime”.
“The federal, state and municipal authorities had knowledge of the students’ movements at all times,” the commission reported. “Their actions, omissions and participation enabled the disappearance and execution of the students, as well as the murder of six other people.”
Keep an eye on
Russian strikes in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said they were able to contain flooding in Kryviy Rih, Ukraine – the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky – after a Russian attack on a dust flooded city streets with water, flooding homes and forcing others to do so evacuate.
“Snapped off [the] Ukrainian army on the battlefield, Russian cowards are now at war with our critical infrastructure and civilians, says Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted afterwards. “Russia is a terrorist state and must be recognized as such.”
Nigeria’s rising inflation. Nigeria’s Inflation Rate skyrocketed to a painful 20.5 percent in August – the highest level in 17 years – as shock waves from the war in Ukraine exacerbated the country’s ongoing economic challenges.
• Russia supplies Ukraine with lightly used tanks by Jack Detsch
• Putin has a new opposition – and it’s furious over defeat in Ukraine by Alexey Kovalev
• Queen Elizabeth II was not innocent of the sins of her empire by Howard French
From former British Chancellor Rishi Sunak to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, world leaders have long given US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen—a reputed dedicated stamp collector—rare stamps as gifts.
There’s just one problem: Yellen doesn’t actually like stamps as much as everyone thinks she does, despite bequeathing her mother’s collection. “Stamps really mean nothing to Janet at all,” her brother John Yellen told The Wall Street Journal. “That collection is basically forgotten. It’s in a safe … I guess at some point it will be passed on.”
She actually prefers rocks, a fascination that began after visiting the Museum of Natural History in New York as a child. So far, only Canadian officials have gotten it right: They gave her a piece of limestone weighing 10 pounds.