Sri Lanka’s new leftist president takes office with economic recovery at stake

Special Sri Lanka’s new leftist president takes office with economic recovery at stake
Sri Lanka’s new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, right, attends his swearing-in ceremony, in Colombo. (AFP/SRI LANKA PRESIDENT’S OFFICE)
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Updated 25 September 2024
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Sri Lanka’s new leftist president takes office with economic recovery at stake

Sri Lanka’s new leftist president takes office with economic recovery at stake
  • Anura Kumara Dissanayake won election with over 5.7 million votes
  • He now faces challenge of reforming political, economic systems, expert says

COLOMBO: Leftist lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake took office as Sri Lanka’s ninth president on Monday, promising clean politics and a commitment to face daunting challenges as the island nation reels from its worst economic crisis in more than 70 years.

The 55-year-old ran as head of the Marxist-leaning National People’s Power coalition and with more than 5.7 million votes defeated opposition leader Sajith Premadasa after a historic second round of counting.

Almost 80 percent of the 17 million eligible voters cast their ballots on Saturday for the first election held since 2022, when Sri Lanka’s financial collapse spurred mass protests and drove former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power.

Dissanayake, who lacks the political lineage of some of his rivals in the election, gained support from voters angry at the country’s political elite, whom they blame for plunging the economy into crisis.

“I understand that we are inheriting a country facing many daunting challenges. Our politics must be clean and the people are expecting a culture of integrity. We are ready to commit to that,” Dissanayake said during his oath-taking ceremony in Colombo.

“We are inheriting a nation in a deep crisis. This crisis cannot be overcome by a government, a political party, or an individual alone … My responsibility is to be part of a collective effort to end this crisis.”

He said Sri Lanka would need international support and that he intended to “work with other nations to benefit our country.”

His presidency comes as the South Asian nation seeks to recover from a severe economic crisis that led to shortages of essentials such as food and fuel in 2022, with many people still struggling to make ends meet because of tax hikes and cuts to subsidies and welfare.

“The Sri Lankan voters have elected him with high expectations and hopes … The public strongly believes that the new president and his team possess the capacity to navigate these critical challenges,” said Dr. Mohamed Shariff Anees, a senior lecturer in the political science department at the University of Colombo.

Popularly known as AKD, Dissanayake is Sri Lanka’s first president with a leftist background. The country’s leaders since independence have had capitalist-oriented policies or mixed economic strategies.

In the 2019 election, his NPP coalition won only 3 percent of the vote.

“Dissanayake will encounter numerous challenges in reforming the political and economic systems of the country,” Anees said.

“Economically, he must address the ongoing crisis characterized by high inflation, dwindling foreign reserves and a reliance on international aid, particularly from the IMF and friendly nations. Politically, he faces public discontent over the previous government’s austerity measures and demands for transparency and anti-corruption reforms.”

Sri Lanka’s economic recovery also relies greatly on its relations with other countries. The US, EU member states and Arab countries are top sources of its foreign income, making them crucial contributors to the economy.

Meanwhile, countries like China, Russia, Japan and India also played important roles in supporting the country through economic assistance, Anees said.

“As a small nation significantly affected by economic challenges, Sri Lanka has a high degree of economic dependency on other countries,” he said.

“It is clear that, amid ongoing globalization, Sri Lanka cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world. The country requires political and economic support from other nations.”

Sri Lanka’s close neighbors India, Pakistan and the Maldives have congratulated Dissanayake on his win, along with China, the largest bilateral creditor.

A.L.A. Azeez, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva from 2018 to 2020, said Dissanayake should seek a “comprehensive” foreign policy approach, adding that previous governments had adopted and failed with their sectoral and fragmented negotiation approach.

“The president and his team would be expected to transform the country’s relationships within the region and beyond into one of enhanced trade and economic engagement that benefits the country in the long term,” he said..


Biden has become notably quiet after the 2024 election and Democrats’ loss

Biden has become notably quiet after the 2024 election and Democrats’ loss
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Biden has become notably quiet after the 2024 election and Democrats’ loss

Biden has become notably quiet after the 2024 election and Democrats’ loss
  • During his six-day visit to Peru and Brazil for meetings with global leaders, Biden declined to hold a news conference — typically a set piece for American presidents during such travel

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden has been notably quiet since the Democrats’ gut-wrenching defeat at the polls.
After warning voters for years that a Donald Trump win would be calamitous for American democracy, Biden has gone largely silent on his concerns about what lays ahead for America and he has yet to substantively reflect on why Democrats were decisively defeated up and down the ballot.
His only public discussion of the outcome of the election came in a roughly six-minute speech in the Rose Garden two days after the election, when he urged people to “see each other not as adversaries but as fellow Americans” and to “bring down the temperature.” Since then, there’s been hardly a public peep — including over the course of Biden’s six-day visit to South America that concluded on Tuesday evening. His only public comments during the trip came during brief remarks before meetings with government officials.
At a delicate moment in the US — and for the world — Biden’s silence may be leaving a vacuum. But his public reticence has also underscored a new reality: America and the rest of the world is already moving on.
“His race is over. His day is done,” said David Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser in the Obama-Biden White House. “It’s up to a new generation of leaders to chart the path forward, as I’m sure they will.”
Edward Frantz, a historian at the University of Indianapolis, said Biden’s relative silence in the aftermath of the Republican win is in some ways understandable. Still, he argued, there’s good reason for Biden to be more active in trying to shape the narrative during his final months in office.
“The last time a president left office so irrelevant or rejected by the populace was Jimmy Carter,” said Frantz, referring to the last one-term Democrat in the White House. “History has allowed for the great rehabilitation of Carter, in part, because of all he did in his post-presidency. At 82, I’m not sure Biden has the luxury of time. The longer he waits, the longer he can’t find something to say, he risks ceding shaping his legacy at least in how he’s seen in the near term.”
Biden’s allies say the president — like Democrats writ large — is privately processing the election defeat, stressing that it’s barely been two weeks since Trump’s win. Biden hasn’t been vocally introspective about his role in the loss, and still has a lot to unpack, they said.
Biden, in his speech after the election, said: “Campaigns are contests of competing visions. The country chooses one or the other. We accept the choice the country made. I’ve said many times you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.”
Biden’s aides say the president’s insistence on following electoral traditions — ensuring an orderly transition and inviting Trump to the White House — is especially important because Trump flouted them four years ago, when he actively tried to overturn the results of the election he lost and helped incite a mob that rioted at the US Capitol.
But that doesn’t mean Biden isn’t privately stewing over the results even as he doesn’t say much in public.
During his six-day visit to Peru and Brazil for meetings with global leaders, Biden declined to hold a news conference — typically a set piece for American presidents during such travel. Biden already was far less likely to hold news conferences than his contemporaries, but his staff often points to off-the-cuff moments when he answers questions from reporters who travel everywhere with him. In this case, he’s yet to engage even in an impromptu Q&A on the election or other matters.
And notably this week, Biden left it to allies Emmanuel Macron of France and Justin Trudeau of Canada to offer public explanations of his critical decision to loosen restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range American weapons in its war with Russia.
Biden, for whom Ukraine has been a major focal point of his presidency, had long been concerned about escalation should the US relax restrictions, and was cognizant of how Moscow might respond had he seemed to be thumping his chest at President Vladimir Putin. But Ukraine has also been a touchy subject because of Trump, who has claimed he’d end the war immediately and has long espoused admiration for Putin.
The GOP victory — Trump won both the popular vote and Electoral College count, and Republicans won control of Congress — comes as the president and Vice President Kamala Harris have both sounded dire alarms over what a Trump presidency might mean. Harris called Trump a fascist. Biden told Americans the very foundation of the nation was at stake, and he said world leaders, too, were concerned.
“Every international meeting I attend,” Biden said after a trip in September to Germany, “they pull me aside — one leader after the other, quietly — and say, ‘Joe, he can’t win. My democracy is at stake.’”
His voice rising, Biden then asked if “America walks away, who leads the world? Who? Name me a country.”
Perhaps the most important moment of his time in South America was a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru. His public comments at the start of that meeting were notably more backward looking than Xi’s, the leader of America’s most powerful geopolitical competitor.
“I’m very proud of the progress we’ve both made together,” said Biden, fondly recalling a visit near the Tibetan plateau with Xi years ago. He added, “We haven’t always agreed, but our conversations have always been candid and always been frank. We have never kidded one another. We’ve been level with one another. And I think that’s vital.”
Xi, by contrast, looked past Biden in his remarks and sought to send a clear message to Trump.
“China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation, and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-US relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said, while urging American leadership to make a “wise choice” as it manages the relationship.
The president also seemed in no mood to engage with reporters throughout his time in South America. Since Election Day, he’s only briefly acknowledged media questions twice.
In one of those exchanges, he responded to a question from an Israeli reporter about whether he believed he could get a ceasefire deal in Gaza done before he leaves office with a sarcastic reply: “Do you think you can keep from getting hit in the head by a camera behind you?”
The terse answers and silence haven’t stopped reporters from trying to engage him.
Over the course of his time in South America, he ignored questions about his decisions on providing anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, reflections on the election, and even why he’s not answering questions from the press.
As he got ready to board Air Force One in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday to make his way home, one reporter even tried endearing herself to the president by pointing to Biden’s 82nd birthday on Wednesday.
“Mr. President, happy early birthday! For your birthday, will you talk to us, sir?” the reporter said. “As a gift to the press will you please talk to us? Mr. President! President Biden, please! We haven’t heard from you all trip!”
Biden got on the plane without answering.


US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials
Updated 21 November 2024
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US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials
  • Gautam Adani, 62, was charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday with securities fraud
  • Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged

NEW YORK: An Indian businessman who is one of the world’s richest people has been indicted in the US on charges he duped investors in a massive solar energy project in his home country by concealing that it was facilitated by alleged bribery.
Gautam Adani, 62, was charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday with securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud.
He is accused of defrauding investors who poured several billion dollars into the project by failing to tell them about more than $250 million in bribes paid to Indian officials to secure lucrative solar energy supply contracts.
Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged.
Gautam Adani is a power player in the world’s most populous nation. He built his fortune in the coal business coal in the 1990s. His Adani Group grew to involve many aspects of Indian life, from making defense equipment to building roads to selling cooking oil.
In recent years, Adani has made big moves into renewable energy.
Last year, a US-based financial research firm accused Adani his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” The Adani Group called the claims “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”
The firm in question is known as a short-seller, a Wall Street term for traders that essentially bet on the prices of certain stocks to fall, and it had made such investments in relation to the Adani Group.


Ukraine fires UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia, a day after using US ATACMS

Ukraine fires UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia, a day after using US ATACMS
Updated 20 November 2024
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Ukraine fires UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia, a day after using US ATACMS

Ukraine fires UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia, a day after using US ATACMS
  • Biden let Ukraine use ATACMS two months before he leaves office
  • US closes embassy out of "abundance of caution" after airstrike scare

KYIV: Ukraine fired a volley of British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia on Wednesday, the latest new Western weapon it has been permitted to use on Russian targets a day after it fired US ATACMS missiles.
The strikes were widely reported by Russian war correspondents on Telegram and confirmed by an official on condition of anonymity.
Moscow has said the use of Western weapons to strike into Russian territory far from the border would be a major escalation in the conflict. Kyiv says it needs the capability to defend itself by hitting Russian rear bases used to support Moscow’s invasion, which entered its thousandth day this week.
Russian war correspondent accounts on Telegram posted footage they said included the sound of the missiles striking in Kursk region. At least 14 huge explosions can be heard, most of them preceded by the sharp whistle of what sounds like an incoming missile. The footage, shot in a residential area, showed black smoke rising in the distance.
The pro-Russian Two Majors Telegram channel said Ukraine had fired up to 12 Storm Shadows into the Kursk region, and carried pictures of pieces of missile with the name Storm Shadow clearly visible.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his office would not be commenting on reports or operational matters.
Britain had previously allowed Ukraine to use Storm Shadows within Ukrainian territory. The Kyiv government has been pressing Western partners for permission to use such weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia, and obtained the all-clear from US President Joe Biden to use the ATACMS this week, two months before Biden leaves office.
Biden’s successor, President-elect Donald Trump, has said he will end the war, without saying how. The warring sides have interpreted this as likely to involve a push for peace talks — not known to have been held since the war’s earliest months — and are trying to seize a strong position before negotiations.
The Storm Shadows have a range in excess of 250 km (155 miles) and would give Ukraine the ability to hit targets far deeper into Russia than before.
Kyiv says Moscow, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, has previously taken advantage of limits on its use of weapons, particularly to strike Ukrainian cities from the air with heavy guided bombs.
Western countries say the arrival of more than 10,000 North Korean troops to fight for Russia in recent weeks was an escalation that merited a response.
The first use of the US ATACMS on Tuesday, fired at a Russian arsenal in the Bryansk region, prompted firm words from Moscow, which announced a change to its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of atomic weapons. Washington has said it sees no need to adjust its own nuclear posture and accused Moscow of resorting to irresponsible rhetoric.
Military analysts have said the longer range missiles are unlikely to give Ukraine a decisive edge in the war but could help it strengthen its position, especially in the battle for a sliver of land inside Russia’s Kursk region it seized in August.

With tension higher over the use of the missiles, the United States shut its embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday morning “out of an abundance of caution” due to what it called the threat of a significant air attack.
Later, after an air raid siren in the early afternoon jangled nerves in the capital. Ukraine’s military spy agency ultimately said the threat was fake and accused Russia of trying to sow panic by circulating online messages about a looming missile and drone attack.
“The enemy, unable to subdue Ukrainians by force, resorts to measures of intimidation and psychological pressure on society. We ask you to be vigilant and steadfast,” it said.
A US government source said the embassy closure was “related to ongoing threats of air attacks.” The Italian and Greek embassies said they too had closed their doors. The French embassy remained open but urged its citizens to be cautious.
The Kremlin said it had no comment.
Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said in an interview published on Wednesday that Moscow would retaliate against NATO countries that facilitate long-range Ukrainian missile strikes against Russian territory.
The war is at a volatile juncture, with nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, North Korean troops deployed in Russia’s Kursk region and doubts over the future of Western aid under Trump, whose nominees for administration posts include skeptics of support for Kyiv.
On Sunday, Russia staged a missile and drone strike on Ukraine’s national power grid that killed seven people and renewed fears over the durability of the hobbled energy network.


Under-fire Spain minister defends state agencies’ role in floods

Under-fire Spain minister defends state agencies’ role in floods
Updated 20 November 2024
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Under-fire Spain minister defends state agencies’ role in floods

Under-fire Spain minister defends state agencies’ role in floods
  • Doubting state agencies was “deeply unfair and deeply dangerous,” Ribera told parliament
  • “I would like to thank the work and dedication of the public servants who issued the information as was their duty“

MADRID: Spain’s under-fire ecological transition minister, a candidate for a top European Commission post, on Wednesday said questioning the role of state agencies during the country’s devastating floods was “dangerous.”
The state weather and environment services have faced intense scrutiny over their response to the October 29 disaster that wreaked widespread destruction and killed 227 people.
The European Parliament has blocked Teresa Ribera’s appointment to an influential EU commission role encompassing environment and competition, with opponents accusing her of neglecting her duties during the floods.
Regions are in charge of disaster management in Spain’s decentralized political system, but the hardest-hit Valencia region’s conservative leader Carlos Mazon said he received “insufficient, inaccurate and late” information.
Doubting state agencies was “deeply unfair and deeply dangerous,” Ribera told parliament, in a veiled retort to the conservative opposition.
“I would like to thank the work and dedication of the public servants who issued the information as was their duty,” she added.
Mazon defended his handling of the catastrophe last week, citing an “information blackout” and criticizing a government agency responsible for monitoring river levels.
But Ribera said “there was never an information blackout” and enumerated a lengthy list of warnings issued by public bodies to the regional authorities.
Although the national weather agency issued the highest red alert in the morning of October 29, Valencia residents in many cases only received telephone warnings when water was already gushing through towns.
The socialist-led central government has argued Mazon bore responsibility for the late issuing of the emergency alert.
“Having all the necessary information is of little use if the one who must respond does not know how,” Ribera added.
The right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) has accused the government of abandoning the Valencia region before and after the floods for political gain.
Anger has coursed through Spain over the authorities’ perceived mishandling of the country’s deadliest floods in decades and the ensuing political polarization has spilled over at EU level.
The conservative EPP parliamentary group to which the PP belongs refused to approve Spain’s nomination for the commission until she reported to the Spanish parliament.
“The European Commission does not deserve to come into existence with a candidate under suspicion,” PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo wrote on X.
The Socialists and Democrats group have complained that the Spanish right was trying to make Ribera “the scapegoat” for its own failure to manage the floods in Valencia.
By doing so, it was “pushing the entire European Union to the brink in the most irresponsible way,” it said.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday said his party always backed PP candidates for the commission and urged “reciprocity” from them.


Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years

Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years
Updated 20 November 2024
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Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years

Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years
  • The policy aims to expand the aging country’s workforce and allow foreigners living in Spain without proper documentation to obtain work permits and residency
  • Spain has largely remained open to receiving migrants even as other European nations seek to tighten their borders to illegal crossings and asylum seekers

MADRID: Spain will legalize about 300,000 undocumented migrants a year, starting next May and through 2027, the country’s migration minister said Wednesday.
The policy aims to expand the aging country’s workforce and allow foreigners living in Spain without proper documentation to obtain work permits and residency. Spain has largely remained open to receiving migrants even as other European nations seek to tighten their borders to illegal crossings and asylum seekers.
Spain needs around 250,000 registered foreign workers a year to maintain its welfare state, Migration Minister Elma Saiz said in an interview on Wednesday. She contended that the legalization policy is not aimed solely at “cultural wealth and respect for human rights, it’s also prosperity.”
“Today, we can say Spain is a better country,” Saiz told national broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has often described his government’s migration policies as a means to combat the country’s low birthrate. In August, Sánchez visited three West African nations in an effort to tackle irregular migration to Spain’s Canary Islands.
The archipelago off the coast of Africa is seen by many as a step toward continental Europe with young men from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and elsewhere embarking on dangerous sea voyages there seeking better job opportunities abroad or fleeing violence and political instability at home.
The new policy, approved Tuesday by Spain’s leftist minority coalition government, simplifies administrative procedures for short and long-term visas and provides migrants with additional labor protections. It extends a visa offered previously to job-seekers for three months to one year.
By mid-November, some 54,000 undocumented migrants had reached Spain this year by sea or land, according to the country’s Interior Ministry. The exact number of foreigners living in Spain without documentation is unclear.
Many irregular migrants make a living in Spain’s underground economy as fruit pickers, caretakers, delivery drivers, or other low-paid but essential jobs often passed over by Spaniards.
Without legal protections, they can be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Saiz said the new policy would help prevent such abuse and “serve to combat mafias, fraud and the violation of rights.”
Spain’s economy is among the fastest-growing in the European Union this year, boosted in part by immigration and a strong rebound in tourism after the pandemic.
In 2023, Spain issued 1.3 million visas to foreigners, according to the government.