Economy and Finance

Photo: BlackRock Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City (cropped from top). CC BY-SA 3.0

Privatizing Sri Lanka ex-ante IMF Bailout of BlackRock

India's Adani Greenwash in Mannar and Pooneryn

Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake

COLOMBO (IDN) — The Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, was rocked again by massive protests against austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have been taking place since July 2022. Structural reforms with austerity have resulted in soaring inflation, currency depreciation, poverty and inequality that is eroding Argentine society and economy while enabling bail-out of private lenders and vulture funds like BlackRock.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 26 August 2022

Russia and the EU Continue Transition to Wartime Economies

Viewpoint by John P. Ruehl

This article was produced by Globetrotter. John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications. He is currently finishing a book on Russia to be published in 2022.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; Russia; 07 August 2022

Photo: Sri Lanka in crisis. Source: Daily Times

Sri Lanka Needs a Balanced Economic and Foreign Policy

Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *

COLOMBO (IDN) — A shortage of exorbitantly privileged American Dollars, the global reserve fiat currency, which is not backed by gold, silver, oil or drugs, is the purported reason for Sri Lanka's compounding crisis and the international media narrative of 'famine' in the country.

The financial crisis that has brought the strategic Indian Ocean Island nation to a standstill, which coincidentally stymies protests, originated with an International Sovereign Bond (ISB), debt trap and Default in April this year.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 07 July 2022

A New Coalition Issues a Statement on the Crisis in Sri Lanka

Southern Voices to be Heeded: A Call for Debt Justice, Debt Jubilee and Debt Cancellation

COLOMBO (IDN) — The Coalition for Economic Democracy in Sri Lanka (CEDSL) is a group of concerned academics, activists, agricultural, fisheries and industrial workers, students, businesspersons, trade unionists, and professionals based 'in country' and overseas, including the diaspora, who uphold the values of economic rights and justice in public policy making.

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 03 July 2022

Famine is a Policy Choice: The Afterlife of Covid, Institutional decay, and Privatization—Part 2

This is the second in a series of two articles. Click here for Part 1

COLOMBO (IDN) — What was never mentioned in connection with power cuts and soaring fuel and energy prices was the privatization of sale of the Yugadanavi power plant to an American New Fortress company in a corrupt mid-night deal in November 2021 by former US citizen President Rajapakse, before he took wing to New York to address the United Nation’s General Assembly to boast about his green energy and fertilizer policies that had bought Sri Lanka to the current disaster!

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 18 June 2022

Photo: Millions of people globally are on the brink of famine. Credit: WFP/Marwa Awad

Famine Is a Policy Choice: IMF Talks, Geopolitics and Disaster Capitalism—Part 1

Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *

This is the first in a series of two articles.

Them belly full but we hungry
A hungry mob is an angry mob
A rain a-fall but the dirt, it tough
A pot a-cook but the food no ‘nough

A hungry man is an angry man
— Bob Marley and the Wailers

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 17 June 2022

Image Credit: RepublicWorld.comImage Credit: RepublicWorld.com

A Staged Default: Sri Lanka’s Sovereign Bond Debt Trap and IMF’s Spring Meetings Amid Hybrid Cold War – Part 3

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).

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 25 April 2022

A Staged Default: Sri Lanka’s Sovereign Bond Debt Trap and IMF’s Spring Meetings Amid Hybrid Cold War – Part 1

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.

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 24 April 2022

Photo: Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka on April 13, 2022 in front of the Presidential Secretariat. CC BY-SA 4.0

Sri Lanka: The Story of the Situation Going from Bad to Worse

Viewpoint by Alan Keenan

This article was issued by the International Crisis Group and is being republished with their permission. Alan Keenan is Senior Consultant at the Crisis Group.

BRUSSELS (IDN) — Protests, which had been building from late February in response to Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in nearly 75 years of independence, have now morphed into a nationwide uprising. Protesters are demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the removal of the Rajapaksa family from politics.

The protest wave gained momentum as the results of the government’s financial and economic mismanagement became increasingly visible amid rapidly disappearing hard currency reserves and widespread shortages.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 19 April 2022

Crisis-Ridden Sri Lanka Negotiates for an IMF Bailout

Viewpoint by Nandi Jasentuliyana

The writer is a former Deputy Director-General, United Nations.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (IDN) — Sri Lanka is experiencing a severe foreign exchange and debt crisis resulting in a shortage of food, fuel, power, and every other commodity to be purchased at exorbitant prices that the suffering masses cannot afford, forcing them to the streets protesting against the governing authorities.