Russia’s Vladimir Putin, America’’s Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping will all be Shenzhen, China next week for a meeting off the 21-members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC).

Putin has said that he wants a trilateral meeting with Trump and Xi. Trump said he wants a summit with Putin and Xi. And the Chinese president has said…well, maybe.

The Russian and American leaders believe they have everything to gain. After his bruising defeat in the mid-terms, Trump wants to re-establish his political credentials and foreign policy is one area where the American president retains maximum powers. At the top of his agenda is nuclear arms control, trade concessions, maintaining American dominance and a withdrawal from Iran.

Putin wants three things: Chinese and American recognition of Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine; an end to sanctions and recognition of Russia’s standing alongside China and America as a great power.

Xi is a bit more circumspect. As host for the APEC meeting he is conscious of the need not to annoy the other 18 participating countries by focusing too much on trilateral summitry.

Xi also wants to avoid conflict with either Europe or Ukraine, both of whom are angry at the prospect of the three powers discussing Ukraine without their presence. He is also opposed to including China in any nuclear arms control deals before it has achieved parity with Russia and the US. At the moment China has an estimated 610 nuclear warheads, the US 3,708 and the Russians 4,477.

There are other problems. Trump prefers an open, free-flowing discussion with no fixed agenda and decisions being made by the leaders.Putin leans in that direction. Xi likes everything to be agreed beforehand and for the actual summit to be a carefully orchestrated rubber-stamping exercise without surprises.

The Chinese leader has the final say. He is the host and if he wants to scupper a trilateral summit all he has to do is veto it.

For that reason– if the meeting does take place– it is unlikely to reach any substantive conclusions. At the very most, the three leaders are likely to meet on stage, shake hands, smile for the cameras and agree to talk about talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would benefit enormously from resumed US-Israeli military strikes against Iran.

That is why he was in Washington with his Mossad chief Roman Gofman on Friday. If they can persuade Donald Trump to renew attacks then Netanyahu could save his premiership and stay out of prison.

The logic is simple: You don’t change political horses in the middle of a war.

Israel’s October 27 general election left Netayahu’s Likud coalition the biggest bloc in the Knesset but well short of the 61 seats needed to form a majority government. Instead, the balance of power now rests with Israel’s Arab parties. They are determined to eject Netanyahu from the premiership.

The result is that President Herzog has given opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot first crack at forming a government. Eisenkot has in turn expressed concern that Netayahu is planning to take unnecessary military action for political purposes.

Eisenkot’s warning has not deterred Netanyahu. As soon as the midterm results were known, he was on the phone to Trump to try and persuade him to renew the fighting. His decision to fly to Washington with the Mossad chief is a tag team approach. Gofman is meeting with CIA Director Jon Ratcliffe and then flying to Miami for talks with Steve Witkoff. Netanyahu, in the meantime, is concentrating on the political arguments with Trump.

On the surface, it appears Netayahu has an uphill battle. Trump has already admitted that one of the main reasons for his midterm “shellacking” was the Iran War. He is also said that he has plans to resume military attacks and instead plans to concentrate on sanctions, the naval blockade and diplomacy. Netanyahu, however, can be persuasive.

Good news and bad news in South Africa. Mainly bad. Especially bad for the African National Congress (ANC) which suffered a “catastrophic” result in the recent local elections.

The tenure of António Guterres as Secretary-Geeneral of the United Nations ends on the last day of this year. His successor will inherit an organisation struggling to maintain its relevance in a world increasingly divided by war, nationalism and great-power rivalry.

Guterres is a former Portuguese prime minister and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, His decade at the helm has been marked by the UN becoming increasingly irrelevant as an instrument for resolving international conflicts.

His critics argue that Guterres has been too cautious, too willing to accommodate power and ineffective in confronting international aggression. It has, in short, become less like the UN of 1947 and more like the League of Nations of the 1930s.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a particularly serious test. As a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia has a veto over its decisions. Guterres struggled to influence Moscow or bring the conflict to an end.

The war in Gaza was anotheer challenge. Guterres has repeatedly condemned attacks on civilians, called for humanitarian access and demanded ceasefires. However, he has been unable to secure a lasting political settlement or prevent the humanitarian catastrophe. His critics argue that his statements have not been matched by sufficient diplomatic influence.

Then there is Sudan. The devastating civil war has continued despite international diplomatic efforts, while competing foreign interests have complicated attempts to secure peace.

It would be unfair to attribute all these failures to Guterres. The Secretary-General does not command an independent military force or possess the authority to overrule sovereign governments. The Security Council, particularly its five permanent members, ultimately determines what action the organisation can take. Guterres has also championed climate change, humanitarian assistance and gender equality, and achieved gender parity in the UN’s senior leadership team.

A big part of Guterres’s problems can be laid at the door of Donald Trump. The US president has repeatedly and loudly made clear his dislike of the UN. The UN represents international law. Trump flouts the law in pursuit of the philosophy of might is right.

Trump has withdrawn the UN from several UN institutions. In September he paid UD $827 million towards the UN budget. But America still owes $1.312 billion. The United Nations relies on contributions from its member states to pay for peacekeeping operations and other activities. Because of the dominance of the US economy, America is assessed at 22 percent of the UN’s budget. Trump’s failure to pay America’s fair share has brought the organisations to the brink of financial and political collapse and left Guterres’s successor with a major headache.

There is also the question of institutional reform. The Security Council still reflects the balance of power that existed at the end of the Second World War. Its five permanent members – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – enjoy veto powers denied to the other ten members.

Countries such as India, Brazil, Japan and Germany argue that the Council should be expanded to reflect today’s economic and political realities. African countries also want permanent representation. However, agreement on reform remains elusive because the existing permanent members are reluctant to surrender their privileges.

So, who is likely to succeed to what has increasingly become a diplomatic poison chalice. As of this week, eight candidates remain in the running. Five are women, raising the possibility that the UN could appoint its first female Secretary-General since its foundation in 1945.