Rishi Sunak will this week kick off his premiership for real, with an international summit in Indonesia that will give a taster of his approach to foreign policy and an economic statement back in London that will define the early months of his government – for good or ill.
On Monday, Mr Sunak will arrive at theG20 summit in Indonesia, where the new PM will impress upon fellow world leaders his style and his policy priorities.
On style, Mr Sunak has signalled a change in approach. Gone is the combative, sometimes abrasive approach of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – you might remember when she joked that the “jury was out” on whether French President Emmanuel Macron was a friend or foe – in favour of a more cordial and collaborative approach.
The prime minister made a point of calling President Macron a friend and seeking a bilateral summit with him at COP27 in Egypt last week in a meeting that was described as “very warm”.
Ask his team, and the focus for the prime minister will be to “call out Putin’s regime” while working with allies on global economic challenges.
But beyond “cementing relationships” with allies, what’s Mr Sunak’s vision for Britain’s foreign policy?
While Mr Johnson and Ms Truss had both been foreign secretaries before becoming prime minister, Mr Sunak has only ever politically focused on the domestic brief. What he thinks about foreign policy and Britain’s place in the world is not something this politician has ever been asked to flesh out, why would he? His main job in government before taking the top seat was dealing with the government’s economic response to the COVID crisis.
So it follows that the PM will try to flex economic credentials as a route into foreign policy, as leading nations grapple with spiking energy prices and inflation triggered in part by the war in Ukraine.
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There is a model for this approach: remember how Gordon Brown used his experience as chancellor on the global stage at the G20 summit in 2009 in London to agree a package of aid for the world economy.
Call for ‘decisive action’
Mr Sunak is untested and relatively inexperienced – he was chancellor for just two years – but he at least has a level of fiscal credibility to contribute to discussions.
But Mr Sunak will have an eye on events in London as his chancellor puts the finishing touches on this autumn statement. His team have been keen to highlight the direct link between the global economy and the challenges back home.
One No 10 official says the new PM will use the G20 to talk about “economic vision with partners, calling for coordinated and decisive action to address the current difficulties which will ultimately benefit the people of the UK”.
This summit is, in a way, a good opportunity for the prime minister to try to lay some of his own economic woes – exacerbated by Ms Truss’s disastrous mini-budget – at the feet of President Putin.
‘It’s going to be very, very tricky’
But his team are in no doubt that the autumn statement next Thursday could be the moment where it gets very bumpy for Mr Sunak as he lays bare the scale of the economic challenge and the extent of tax rises and spending cuts coming our way.
Estimates put the UK’s budgetary hole at around £55bn which Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will look to fill through a combination of squeezing government spending and raising taxes.
This is going to be very difficult territory for Mr Sunak and his chancellor. The prime minister is already deeply unpopular with a chunk of his party for taking the UK’s tax burden to a 70-year high, and this is an attack line which mortally wounded Mr Sunak in the July leadership race.
Further tax rises could whip up the simmering resentment in the party for him and his programme, while the spending squeeze risks further agitating a very disillusioned public.
“It’s going to be very, very tricky,” is how one key ally put it to me this week. “It’s got to be seen as fair [in terms of sharing the burden] and the hope is that it will be received neutrally.”
This will be a huge week for an untested prime minister in which we’ll get a better taster of how he’ll be received abroad as well as how he intends to lead at home. A lot rides on the seven days.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.