Marco Rubio pulls plug on traditional photo op at meeting of foreign ministers after about one-third of countries threaten boycott
The traditional “family photo” to open the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting has been abruptly cancelled in the US after a host of nations – including Australia and the UK – refused to appear beside the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, pulled the plug after several European officials, the UK and Australia made it known they would boycott or walk out of the snapshot that often kicks off such international gatherings.
Rubio still opened the talks in Atlanta with an appeal for unity on the issues that threaten international security and trade.
Is Russia even in the top 20 by GDP? I know they weren’t one of the richest when they were in te G8 or whatever, kicked out after Ukraine.
Their economy sucks, they are fully industrialized but can’t even build their own military gear, scrapping components from consumer goods to make missiles and such like saddamm hussein back around 2000 when he was rumoured to by buying up all the playstations to use for guided missiles.
I digress though, Russia has bad leadership, always has really, so they never met their potential. Only oil and mining and such is really paying out for them last I heard.
According to this website (which claims IWF data), its currently 8th.