By Prabhat Patnaik After Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Bangladesh has become the third country in our neighbourhood to become afflicted by a serious economic crisis. It has asked for a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF, apart from $1 billion from the World Bank and $2.5-3 billion from multilateral agencies and donor nations. Though the […]

From the viewpoint of the South, the recent visit by a delegation of African political leaders to Russia for the primary purpose of impressing on President Vladimir Putin the need to end the conflict in Ukraine is welcome news. The visit is doubly important for at least two main reasons; first, the mounting economic pressures […]

After much delay, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to China this weekend, hoping to prevent U.S.-China tensions from spiraling further. The bilateral relationship remains the focus of intense attention, but multilateral organizations have long been sites of U.S.-China conflict. The latest arena is UNESCO, which the United States just announced plans to rejoin, largely […]

Mali’s foreign minister has called on the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping force from his country “without delay”. Addressing the UN Security Council Minster Abdoulaye Diop accused the force ‘Minusma’ of having “become a part of the problem in fuelling communal tension”. Minusma has more than 13,000 troops. Its decade-old mission has failed to stop […...

By Y P Prakash The growth of regional industries is crucial for India to realize its ambitions of becoming a global manufacturing hub, and India’s potential in this regard is undeniable. The International Monetary Fund predicts that India’s GDP will grow by 6.1% in 2023, surpassing China’s projected growth of 4.4%. Furthermore, India is expected […]

Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says.

In the recent Group of Seven or G7 Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interactions with several countries’ leaders shows a shift in India’s international diplomacy and also its proactive approach towards its relations with foreign nations, foreign affairs expert Maheep wrote. Maheep is a leading expert of India’s Foreign Affairs and He is the Principal […]

India has done more for Sri Lanka than the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Union Minister for External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar, has told the Indian Express. The IE story, filed from Ahmedabad, said: The Modi government, he [Jaishankar] underlined, is working on developing an “extended neighbourhood” that involves islands in the Indian Ocean, Gulf countries and […]

By Natalia Antonova The fact that authoritarian societies are more brutal seems intuitive. Why shouldn’t a coercive state create coercive relationships between its citizens? Yet the mechanisms of how authoritarianism breeds intimate partner violence in particular are rarely considered—even though authoritarian regimes tend also to be reactionary and patriarchal ones. For many years, domestic viole...

China sought to forge closer economic and security ties with its Central Asian neighbours on Friday as the US and its allies met next door to build a common strategy to curb Beijing’s challenge to the Washington-led world order. Chinese President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in […]

In a vital sense history could be considered as having come full circle in the Ukraine theatre. For those sections of international opinion that began to look upon military invasions of one country by another as things of the past, the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia came as a rude awakening. Power bloc rivalries […]

CPC, CEB need to recover costs until end of Fund’s loan package By Rathindra Kuruwita The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) had to recover costs until the end of the IMF programme, Sarwat Jahan, IMF Resident Representative in Sri Lanka, told a press conference in Colombo yesterday. The IMF also wanted the […]

Pope Francis has told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he is constantly praying for peace after the two met privately at the Vatican. The pontiff also stressed on the urgent need to help “the most fragile people, innocent victims” of the full-scale invasion launched by Russia last year. Zelensky earlier met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni […]

AP photographers Eranga Jayawardena and Rafiq Maqbool were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for images capturing anger over economic collapse in Sri Lanka. The AP images from Sri Lanka captured the full range of human emotion with protesters pumping their fists in the air shouting anti-government slogans, and also shielding […]

The Asian region’s steady rise to economic, political and military dominance in the current world order is bound to have substantial foreign policy implications for the global South in particular. For the more prominent of the region’s powers these foreign policy dilemmas could prove to be considerably challenging. This is particularly so in the case […]

As he kicks off his reelection campaign, President Biden is doubling down on his push for economic engagement with Beijing. Seeking such dialogue makes political sense, but it risks lifting U.S. pressure on China without achieving real gains in return. Biden begins his run for president in a chaotic political environment. The Ukraine war slogs […]

By Shamindra Ferdinando National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa on Tuesday alleged that having failed to thwart Ranil Wickremesinghe’s ascent to presidency, the US was now working with the UNP leader to achieve its objectives. MP Weerawansa, the Chairman of the Uththara Lanka Sabhagaya said that President Wickremesinghe already consented to three of the […]

India, in the last nine years, has been making big strides following Buddha teachings, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Speaking at Global Buddhist Summit 2023 in New Delhi, Modi said that India has followed Buddha’s teachings including the path of Theory, Practice and Realisation. India has progressed rapidly on all these three points. […]