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This is the second in a series of three articles. Please click here for Part 2.
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *
An Unsinkable Aircraft carrier? Asset stripping a strategic island
COLOMBO (IDN) — Former US Under Secretary for South and Central Asia, Alice G. Well, a few years ago called Sri Lanka a "valuable piece of real estate" in the Indian Ocean, and the country not long ago turned down a Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact and a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
This is the second in a series of three articles. Please click here for Part 1.
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *
Sri Lanka a theatre of US proxy war in the Indian Ocean Region?
COLOMBO (IDN) — Like Lebanon, once known as the Paris of the Middle East, Sri Lanka is a relatively wealthy country in South Asia and listed as a lower Middle-Income Country (MIC). The strategic island is ahead of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan on the SAARC regional poverty count.
This is the first in a series of three articles.
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *
Debt cancellation, not asset stripping is the need of the hour!
COLOMBO (IDN) — In Cherry Blossom lined Washington DC in the glare of global media April 18-23 Sri Lanka became the poster child of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF), Spring Meetings. The strategic Indian Ocean island’s pathetic plight featured on major media and television channels that craft the global narrative, with images of people in queues amid food, fuel, and medicine shortages due to its crashing currency, soaring cost of living and ‘Arab Spring’ style protests.
By Pattama Vilailert
BANGKOK (IDN) — Street vendors have been an iconic attraction for millions of tourists that visited Bangkok each year before the COVID-19 pandemic. In perfect tune with the Thais' approach to enjoying life to its fullest, including eating and shopping, street vendors have set their carts in the heart of Thai people and Bangkok for a century, serving both Thais and foreigners.
Viewpoint by E. Ahmet Tonak and Vijay Prashad *
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
NEW YORK | NORTHAMPTON (IDN) — An article written by authors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge for Bloomberg on March 24 sounded the alarm to announce the end of “the second great age of globalization.” The Western trade war and sanctions against China that predated the pandemic have now been joined by the stiff Western sanctions imposed against Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY (IDN) — The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the region’s leading political and economic policy organisation, has appointed a panel of global experts on nuclear issues to provide independent scientific and technical advice to Pacific nations in their discussions with Japan over its intentions to discharge treated nuclear wastewater from the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean.
Close ties with China ‘a consensus shared by all groups in Pakistan’
This article was issued by Global Times.
Viewpoint by Yang Sheng and Liu Caiyu
BEIJING (IDN) — Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from office in a no-confidence vote in the country's parliament on Sunday (April 10), but such a major political upheaval in Islamabad will not affect the solid friendship between China and Pakistan. Experts from both China and Pakistan are confident in the future of the China-Pakistan ties, as they believe the new government will continue to uphold the country's long-standing tradition to make sure the friendship with China and all China-Pakistan cooperation projects will be unaffected.
This article was issued by the Indian Punchline.
Viewpoint by M. K. Bhadrakumar*
NEW DELHI (IDN) — The phone call to the Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on April 6 by Israel’s alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid adds to the tectonic shifts in the geopolitics of the Middle East of late. Lapid reached out to China within ten days of the visit by the US Secretary of State to Israel.
Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne *
SYDNEY (IDN) — Civil unrest spreading across Sri Lanka in the past few weeks resembles the beginnings of the Arab Spring uprising by youth frustrated with corrupt political systems which left the Middle East in utter chaos, and the youth at the mercy of human traffickers and European governments.
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
The writer, Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, is a Sociocultural and Medical Anthropologist based in Colombo. Her latest publication is 'Multi-religiosity on Contemporary Sri Lanka: Innovation, Shared Spaces, Contestation". (Routledge 2022)
COLOMBO (IDN) — South Asia's Arab Spring is here, amid global Cold War tensions and slow tectonic shifts in power and wealth east, to Asia and the Indian Ocean Region, hastened and heightened by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.