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Just a month-and-a-half after taking office, British Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced her resignation as leader of the ruling Conservative Party and said a new party leader and prime minister would be selected next week, Aljazeera reported. Thursday’s development came after her new chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, rolled back virtually all of her economic agenda. Hunt’s move was supposed to be an impetus for growth, but it became Truss’s declaration of political bankruptcy. At the beginning of this month, at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Truss had still attempted to rally the party around her controversial approach of boosting the United Kingdom’s economy. “I have three priorities for the economy: growth, growth, growth,” she said. But what was supposed to be a change from the tumultuous era of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a sense of chaos under Truss unravelled at a pace that is almost unprecedented in British history, Nicholas Allen, professor of politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, told Al Jazeera. “Previous prime ministers’ central policies have unravelled very quickly, for instance – Neville Chamberlain’s leadership during the spring of 1940, Sir Anthony Eden’s Suez adventure, and David Cameron’s campaign to remain in the EU. I can also think of the backlash to Gordon Brown’s decision not to call a general election in the early autumn of 2007,” Allen said. “But no new prime minister’s position has unravelled so early into their premiership or so catastrophically as Truss’s has over the last few weeks.” The 47-year-old, who entered parliament in 2010, found herself in a first cabinet position in 2014 as secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs under former Prime Minister David Cameron. She since served under Theresa May and Johnson in various positions. In 2021, she was handed the top role of foreign secretary. After Johnson’s announcement to step down, she entered the leadership contest and won the race to succeed with 57.4 percent of the members’ vote against Rishi Sunak, who obtained 42.6 percent, according to Aljazeera. She promised radical tax cuts and high spending to curb energy prices, her very own version of supply-side economics. According to her plan, one that her role models former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former US President Ronald Reagan successfully implemented in the 1980s – albeit under very different circumstances – lower taxes, particularly for the wealthy, lead to investments. At the same time, she believed lower taxes benefit lower income brackets via a trickle-down effect, thus generating substantial economic growth, Aljazeera reported.

Mallikarjun Kharge was elected as the new Congress president on Monday after he secured 7,897 out of the 9,385 votes polled. His rival, Shashi Tharoor, however sprung a surprise by securing 1,072 votes, The Hindu reported.

In the report delivered to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Sunday, Xi Jinping said that from this day forward, the central task of the CPC will be to lead the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in a concerted effort to realize the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, China Daily reported. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China with Xi Jinping at the core, China has adopted the right policies both domestically and internationally for common development. Due to his evolving strategy, China has been playing an exceptional role in international relations and global governance. Also, the Xi-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and his call to build a community with a shared future for humankind have been promoting global development. However, despite its growing influence across the world, China has been reiterating that it will never seek to "dominate" the world. Instead, as always, it will respect the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. In fact, unlike the previous US administration's "America first" policy, Beijing has never adopted a "China first" policy because, as Xi said, no country alone can address the many challenges facing humankind and no country can afford to retreat into isolation. The 21st century has seen the emergence of many non-traditional security challenges including climate change, cybersecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic which can be overcome only through a common approach and joint global efforts. Perhaps the adoption of China's governance model can help the international community to meet such challenges. It is because of its governance and development models that China, under Xi's leadership, has eradicated extreme poverty and succeeded in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and maintained a healthy economic growth rate which has helped it remain a major driver of the global economy. And now it is on its path to achieve common prosperity. More important, by eradicating extreme poverty, China has met the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development's target 10 years ahead of schedule and contributed to more than 70 percent of global poverty reduction. China's achievements in science and technology, on the other hand, have made life and work for people within as well as outside the country more convenient while promoting innovation across the world. Under the leadership of Xi, China has supplied medicines, COVID-19 vaccines and medical equipment to many countries to help them cope with the pandemic, and thus strengthened the global fight against the novel coronavirus, according to China Daily. As a result, the Chinese leadership has gained the trust of many countries around the world. In fact, China has been providing assistance for other developing countries without any political strings attached to boost their economies ever since the People's Republic of China was founded. Now, with the ongoing 20th National Congress of the CPC, it is expected that China will continue to help resolve global development issues and implement the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. China's increasing investments around the world have been expanding its global outreach, and prompting it to make more efforts to maintain global peace and stability, in order to better protect its core interests including economic interests. To safeguard its international investments and further expand its global influence, China has also been providing more and more public goods for other countries. The Belt and Road Initiative is a perfect example of such a policy drive. As a global infrastructure development plan, the initiative has now incorporated many new fields of cooperation, including cultural integration, people-to-people exchanges and academic cooperation. By doing so, China has more or less ensured the stability of the global economy and strengthened its ties with partner countries. Given these developments and Xi Jinping's leadership, it is very likely that China will once again enter a golden period of peace and development after the 20th Party Congress. And China's path to modernization will provide one more option for the whole world, especially developing countries, to seek their own modernization, China Daily reported.

Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong recently paid a three-day visit to Bhutan, during which Sun met with Bhutanese leaders and the two sides vowed to promote the development of relations, the Chinese Embassy in India said in a statement on Saturday night, Global Times reported. Sun's visit to Bhutan signifies a step forward in friendly relations between the two neighbors, although the two countries have yet to establish official diplomatic relations, Chinese experts noted on Sunday. They believe the visit is conducive to further improving people-to-people exchanges and implementing the Three-Step Roadmap signed in 2021 to expedite boundary talks. During his visit from October 10 and 13, Sun met with Bhutan's King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Prime Minister of Bhutan Lotay Tshering, Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji and others, according to the statement. During the meetings, Sun said that China is willing to make joint efforts with Bhutan to well implement the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a Three-Step Roadmap, maintain friendly exchanges, expand win-win cooperation, advance the boundary negotiations, and push for new progress in China-Bhutan relations to benefit the two countries and two peoples, the statement said. Sun also expressed appreciation for Bhutan's adherence to the one-China principle and noted that the two countries helped each other and jointly overcame difficulties in face of the challenges of the COVID-19 epidemic. China attaches great importance to China-Bhutan relations and will, as always, respect Bhutan's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the development path chosen by Bhutan according to its own national conditions, Sun noted. Bhutan will continue to adhere to the one-China principle and is willing to strengthen practical cooperation with China, solve boundary issues through friendly consultation and advance the development of the two countries' relations, Bhutanese leader told Sun, according to the statement. The Bhutanese leader also thanked China for its support and help during the COVID-19 epidemic. Sun's visit further promotes the friendly relations between the two neighboring countries and indicates that the boundary issue between the two countries has been developing in a positive direction since the two signed the MoU last year, Zhang Yongpan, a research fellow of the Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, told the Global Times on Sunday, according to Global Times. China and Bhutan signed the MoU in October 2021 in a bid to speed up boundary talks that had been delayed. The MoU is of historic significance and is the result of years of joint efforts and sincere cooperation between the two sides, Chinese analysts said, noting that the move helps expedite boundary talks and advances the process of establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries. Though China and Bhutan have yet to establish diplomatic ties, the two have maintained sound communications in many ways. In the difficult time of the COVID-19 epidemic, China and Bhutan helped each other, people-to-people exchanges have seen a substantial increase and cooperation on hydropower has continued during the period, Zhang said, Global Times reported.