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By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — The latest United Nations forecast warns that growth prospects have weakened significantly amid the war in Ukraine, upending the fragile economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering a devastating humanitarian crisis in Europe, increasing food and commodity prices and exacerbating inflationary pressures worldwide.
By Ravindra Singh Prasad
SUVA (IDN) — Every year on May 14 Fiji’s Indian community mark the day when the first shipment of their ancestors came here as indentured labourers to work in British sugarcane plantations established in their Pacific Ocean colony.
Girmitiya is how they came to be known over time—the name derived from the term Girmit, a corruption of the English word, agreement.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Seydi Sow, a landowner in Djogo, Senegal, contemplated his eviction by a mining company with joint headquarters in Australia and France and which mines zircon in central Senegal.
The elderly landowner said he was wronged in the compensation process.
With two fields over two hectares in size, he complained he received a small payment, much less than others with smaller farms.
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.
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 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.
Viewpoint by Mahinda Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — Disruptions from war, impacts of climate, and the growing inequities in wealth distribution are some main factors that drive over 160 million international migrant workers to seek work for a living in overseas countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the 3-D jobs (dirty, dangerous, and difficult) that migrant workers face in their host country while exposed to precarious work.
By Jan Servaes*
BRUSSELS (IDN) — This remarkable quote appears on page 6 of Howard French's latest book, published in October 2021, "Born in Blackness. Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World. 1471 to the Second World War". In doing so, he casts a lot of doubt on traditionally held opinions about Africa over the centuries.
Howard French, professor of journalism at Columbia University in New York and former bureau chief of the New York Times in the Caribbean and Central America, West and Central Africa, Tokyo, and Shanghai, tries to make it clear that the way we think about history is often wrong.
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — Expressing solidarity with migrants on the move, “has never been more urgent”, said the United Nations Secretary-General in a message just ahead of International Migrants Day, celebrated on December 25. This year, International Migrants Day falls almost exactly 70 years since the historic Brussels conference that led to the establishment of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
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