Sri Lanka has told hundreds of thousands of Russians and some Ukrainians staying in the country to escape the war that they must leave in the next two weeks, immigration officers said.

The immigration controller issued a notice to the tourism ministry asking Russian and Ukrainian people staying on extended tourist visas to leave Sri Lanka within two weeks from 23 February.

Just over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data.

Commissioner-General of Immigration said the “government is not granting further visa extensions” as the “flight situation has now normalised”.

However, the office of president Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation of the notice to the tourism ministry in an apparent bid to prevent diplomatic tensions.

The president’s office said that the notice had been issued without prior cabinet approval and the government had not officially decided to revoke the visa extensions, reported the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror.

The exact number of visitors who extended their stay beyond the typical 30-day tourist visa duration remains unclear.

However, concerns have been raised over thousands of Russians and a smaller number of Ukrainians staying in the country for an extended period of time and even setting up their own restaurants and nightclubs.

Tourism minister Harin Fernando told Daily Mirror that the ministry has been receiving complaints of some Russian tourists running unregistered and illegal businesses in the southern part of the country.

Raids were conducted by the authorities following discussions with the Immigration Department, he said.

It comes amid a furious social media backlash over Russian-run businesses with a “whites only” policy that strictly bars locals. These businesses include bars, restaurants, water sports and vehicle hiring services.

In a bid to boost tourism and recover from its worst economic crisis since 2022, Sri Lanka began granting 30-days visas on arrival and extensions for up to six months.

In April 2022, the nation defaulted on its $46bn (£36 bn) foreign debt. The economic crisis triggered violent street protests for several months and ultimately culminated in the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa three months later.

Source: Independent

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Infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the regions could shatter the stability that the Tajik president has been building for so many years.

Next year will mark thirty years of Emomali Rahmon’s presidency in Tajikistan, now the only country in Central Asia that has not seen a change of leadership since the early 1990s. Unsurprisingly, there have been rumors of an imminent transition of power for a decade.

The name of the successor is no secret: it’s Rahmon’s son, thirty-six-year-old Rustam Emomali. But there is no consensus within the president’s large family over the succession. Some of the president’s other children have their own ambitions to run the country, which could upset plans for the transition.

President Rahmon is seventy-one years old, and has reportedly suffered numerous health issues. Arrangements for the transition have long been in place, but events keep getting in the way of its implementation: first the pandemic and its economic fallout, and then the street protests in neighboring Kazakhstan in January 2022, which frightened the Tajik leader and persuaded him it was not a good time to step down. Even Turkmenistan has seen a power transition in recent years. Now Tajikistan is expected to implement its own in 2024.

Rustam has already headed a number of government agencies. Since 2017, he has been mayor of Dushanbe: a post he has combined since 2020 with that of speaker of the upper house of parliament, to whom power would automatically pass if the current president were to step down early.

His supporters argue that as the capital’s mayor, he has improved the city, supported youth initiatives, and started to form his own team of young technocrats. Some are counting on him to carry out at least limited reforms once he is in power, such as those seen in neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Not everyone believes Rustam is ready to take over, however. The future president is an unknown quantity for most Tajiks. All of his public appearances are prerecorded and accompanied by information read out by the broadcaster, meaning that people have not even heard him speak. His nickname on social media is “the great mute.”

More worryingly, the heir apparent has reportedly shot and wounded two people: his own uncle in 2008, and—just last year—the head of the State Committee for National Security, Saimumin Yatimov, supposedly for refusing to carry out orders.

There are those within the presidential family who do not want to see Rustam succeed his father because they fear losing prestigious posts in government and business. They are indignant that there are no relatives within the team he is building. The current president cannot possibly keep everyone happy, and this could threaten the transition, as ambitious clan members prepare to battle it out for the top job in order to retain their privileges.

Rahmon has seven daughters and two sons. The most ambitious of them is generally considered to be the second daughter Ozoda, who has headed up the presidential administration since 2016. She is very experienced, works well with her staff, and has the trust of the security services. Unsurprisingly, given the alleged shooting incident, there is no love lost between Rustam and the country’s main security official Yatimov, who has reportedly been paving the way for Ozoda’s candidacy. In addition, her husband Jamoliddin Nuraliev is also considered a very influential figure, having been deputy chair of the country’s central bank for over seven years.

Another contender for the presidency could be Rahmon’s fifth daughter, Ruhshona, a seasoned diplomat who is well versed in Tajikistan’s political affairs. Her husband is the influential oligarch Shamsullo Sohibov, who made his fortune thanks to his family connection to the president. Together with his brothers, he controls entire sectors of the economy, including transport, media, and banking. Change at the top could deprive the Sohibov clan of both influence and money, so Ruhshona and her husband may well throw their hats into the ring.

They might get the backing of Rahmon’s other children, who also control various sectors of the economy, including air travel (the third daughter, Tahmina) and pharmacies (the fourth daughter, Parvina). There are also plenty of Rahmon’s more distant relatives who owe their fortunes to the president and fear losing their positions under his successor.

Rahmon has relied on the loyalty of various relatives to ensure the stable functioning of his regime. But overly vociferous squabbles within the family could destabilize the situation, and for precisely this reason, Rahmon has tried to temper their ambition. Ruhshona, for example, was sent to the UK as Tajik ambassador to stop her from interfering in the plans for the transition. Her oligarch husband went with her.

Nor is the heir apparent himself outside the fray. There is evidence that Rustam was involved in leaking information to the media about his sister Ozoda’s alleged affair with her driver: something that, in patriarchal Tajikistan, caused serious damage to her reputation. There are also rumors that Ozoda’s main ally Yatimov will be retired from his post as head of the security services and replaced with a close friend of Rustam, Shohruh Saidov.

Right now, international circumstances are conducive to a swift transition. Tajikistan’s relations with its trickiest neighbors, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, are improving. While the Taliban has yet to be recognized as the legitimate Afghan government by Dushanbe, both sides agreed to strengthen economic ties during the first visit to Tajikistan by a delegation from the radical Islamist movement in March this year. Meanwhile, the Tajik government has pledged to resolve the border dispute with Kyrgyzstan—an issue that has led to several armed clashes in the last three years—by spring 2024. Rahmon is clearly trying to hand over a stable country to his son.

The situation at home, however, is more complicated. There is also considerable opposition to Rustam’s candidacy among the regional elites, who have long supported Rahmon in exchange for access to state resources, and are now seeing many of the most lucrative cash flows appropriated by the presidential family. A transition of power could be an opportune moment to express their displeasure.

Events in Gorno-Badakhshan in spring 2022 were a stark warning of the dangers of that displeasure. After the civil war that ravaged the country in the early 1990s, many of its field commanders settled in the region. Over time, they became informal leaders of the local communities, helping to solve problems that the central government was ignoring, sometimes strong-arming local officials into making the required decision. Rahmon ordered several security operations to rid Gorno-Badakhshan of this dual power system, only for it to reemerge further down the line.

Last spring, protests erupted there after a local man was killed by law enforcement officers. The unrest lasted for several months until Rahmon crushed it by force. Many of the activists were killed or imprisoned, while others fled the country, and the region was brought back under Dushanbe’s control. But the anger simmering in the region could boil over again at the first sign of conflict.

For now, the other regions remain loyal to the regime, but that could change after the power transition if the local elites feel they are not getting sufficient state resources.

By directing all the streams of income and control of the country to his own relatives, Rahmon has painted himself into a corner. Infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the regions could shatter the stability that the president has been building for so many years. Power transitions rarely go to plan in Central Asia, and Tajikistan may be no exception.

Source

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A year ago Germany deported to Tajikistan an activist from that country’s exiled opposition movement who had been living in Dortmund since 2009. What happened next is a shocking example of what can occur when Germany fails to uphold safeguards in its increased efforts to deport unsuccessful asylum seekers. The Bundestag this month gave police greater powers to carry out deportations.

The activist, Abdullohi Shamsiddin, 33, was deported to Tajikistan on January 18 2023. He was detained on arrival by the security services. Two months later he was convicted of trying to overthrow the constitution and jailed for seven years. No credible evidence was presented in an unfair trial.

Tajikistan, a predominantly Musim country of 9.7m people in Central Asia is ruled by one the world’s longest serving autocrats. President Emomali Rahmon has been in power since 1992. He has led a severe crackdown on human rights, especially since 2015, when the main opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and Group 24, another opposition group, were banned. The European Parliament this month expressed concern over “state repression against independent media” in the country.

Since 2021 the government has brutally suppressed protests in the region of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, leading to many deaths.

The German government acknowledged the human rights crisis in Tajikistan last year in response to a parliamentary question on Shamsiddin’s case. “Basic freedoms for citizens, especially freedom of speech and freedom of religion are severely restricted in Tajikistan” it said. Members of the IRPT are regularly “jailed and given long prison terms”, the government added.

Shamsiddin’s father, a refugee in Germany, is a senior IRPT member. This made Shamsiddin’s forced return a particularly precious gift for Tajikistan’s authoritarian leaders.

After his detention Shamsiddin was held for over two months in a darkened isolation cell and has been mistreated, according to family members. He has lost weight and has been denied medical care. When a German embassy official visited him, eight prison guards were present.

Dozens of his friends and relatives in Tajikistan have been questioned based on contacts the Tajik authorities retrieved from Shamsiddin’s mobile phone, a device they obtained because German police officials gave it to them. A cousin of Shamsiddin, Saidumar Saidov was  jailed last July for six years for a short social media post about Shamsiddin’s case.

Shamsiddin should never have been deported because international law, including multiple treaties to which Germany is bound, prohibits “refoulement”, returning a person to a country where they are at risk of torture or cruel or inhumane treatment.

Shamsiddin, who is married and has two small children, made three unsuccessful asylum applications in Germany. His case is complex. He changed his name after arriving in Germany and has several convictions. Apparently for these reasons local authorities and courts chose not to accept experts on Tajikistan who said it was highly likely he would be detained and mistreated if returned.

German authorities were aware of Shamsiddin’s true identity before he was deported, as officials from the Tajik embassy in Berlin had confirmed this in June 2022. Shamsiddin’s wife, a Tajik citizen, has refugee status in the European Union.

Germany’s decision to deport Shamsiddin had severe consequences as Tajikistan is infamous for pursuing its opponents abroad. Many opposition supporters moved abroad after the crackdown in 2015.

In 2016 HRW published findings pointing to Dushanbe’s strategy of assaulting or kidnapping activists living abroad or seeking their deportation. Since then, deportations to Tajikistan of opposition figures have occurred from many countries including Austria as well as Germany.

The Tajik government regularly interrogates Tajikistan-based relatives of exiled activists, to pressure those activists to halt their campaigns. Last September a group of Tajik activists protested in Berlin at the visit there of president Rahmon. In the following days authorities in Tajikistan questioned around 50 relatives of the protesters in Berlin, detaining some for several days.

Several members of the Bundestag are following Shamsiddin’s case. The German government should urge Tajikistan to end its human rights violations, to release Shamsiddin and allow him to leave the country. Tajikistan is currently seeking closer ties with Europe, so Germany has leverage in its negotiations with Dushanbe, if it is willing to use it.

Berlin should also investigate how Shamsiddin was deported to face a known risk of torture or inhuman treatment, to ensure such incidents do not happen again.

This is urgent. In November another Tajik opposition activist was deported from Germany. Bilal Qurbanaliev was one of the protesters against Rahmon last September. He is now in detention in  Tajikistan. And in December a Tajik man was arrested in Germany on terrorism charges. The allegations are serious and should be investigated. But he should not be deported to Tajikistan if there is a danger he could face torture there.

Source: Human Rights Watch

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President Kassym-Joomart Tokayev approved the new government of Kazakhstan under the leadership of Olzhas Bektenov. The names of the ministers were published on primeminister.kz.

Most of the ministers remained from the old government.

Four ministers were replaced: Nurlan Baibazarov was appointed Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of National Economy instead of Alibek Kuantyrov, Madi Takiyev became Minister of Finance instead of Erulan Zhamaubaev, Akmaral Alnazarova was appointed Minister of Healthcare instead of Azhar Giniyat, and Chingis Arinov became the new Minister for Emergency Situations instead of Syrym Shariphanov.

Members of the government who remained in their positions included First Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar, Minister of Foreign Affairs Murat Nurtleu, Chief of Staff of the Government Galymzhan Koishybayev, Deputy Prime Minister Tamara Duisenova, Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, Minister of Defense Ruslan Zhaksylykov, Minister of Internal Affairs Yerzhan Sadenov, Minister of Justice Azamat Yeskarayev, Minister of Energy Almassadam Satkaliyev, Minister of Agriculture Aidarbek Saparov, Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Bagdat Mussin, Minister of Education Gani Beisembayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Yerlan Nyssanbayev, Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, Minister of Culture and Information Aida Balayeva, Minister of Tourism and Sports Yermek Marzhikpayev, Minister of Transport Marat Karabayev, Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population Svetlana Zhakupova, Minister of Industry and Construction Kanat Sharlapaev, and Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev.

There are currently 26 members of the government. The composition was renewed for 16%. There are six deputy prime ministers left. 16% remained women.

President Kassym-Joomart Tokayev decided to resign the government of Kazakhstan on February 5. The duties of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan were temporarily assigned to Roman Sklyar. The next day, the president said the government’s resignation was aimed at providing new impetus and meeting public expectations. In addition, the president promised that the new government will use new approaches.

The head of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan, Olzhas Bektenov, headed the government of Kazakhstan on February 6. His candidacy was proposed by the Amanat party, it was supported by the president, the majority of factions of political parties in the Parliament agreed to the appointment. Olzhas Bektenov replaced Alikhan Smailov, who had headed the Cabinet of Ministers since January 2022.

Source: Akipress

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Budapest (12/8 – 33)

Mahmadzohir will theoretically be eligible to run for president in 2027.

In Tajikistan, only the president is permitted to enjoy an unfettered public profile. An intriguing exception to this norm is emerging, however, with another figure amassing huge levels of apparent popularity and prominence. This person too is a member of the ruling family.

Ismoil Mahmadzohir, who turned 26 last month, is the grandson of President Emomali Rahmon. His mother, Firuza, is one of Rahmon’s seven daughters. He attended the Elite British Prep School Queen Ethelburga’s College and is the CEO of IM Group.

Ismoil Mahmadzohir is born on July 11, 1997. He is son to Mahmadzoir Sokhibov and President Rahmon’s daughter, Firuza Imomali. Nephew of Shamsullo Sokhibov and Rukhshona. He is the CEO of IM Group. He has served as president of the Judo Federation of Tajikistan.

Mahmadzohir – a visually distinctive character on account of his moustache; not a popular fashion choice in Tajikistan – owes his recognizability to a considerable extent to Instagram, where he has 2 million followers. Each post generates hundreds of likes and comments. Mahmadzohir describes himself in English on the platform as an entrepreneur, athlete, and a philanthropist.

Instagram reveals the young man to have a fondness for luxury cars, of which he owns dozens. One is appointed with the vanity plate number 1111. While his videographer films him in designer clothing and riding a gleaming black stallion, he pretends to play buzkashi, a highly rough-and-tumble horse-riding competition in which two teams fight for possession of a headless goat.

Mahmadzohir’s many Instagram accounts,

• https://www.instagram.com/ismoil8/
• https://www.instagram.com/rayison_tj/
• https://www.instagram.com/buzkashi_1111/

There is a more formal, workman-like aspect to Mahmadzohir’s activities too. Since November, he has served as president of the Judo Federation of Tajikistan. In May, Dushanbe hosted the 2023 Judo Grand Prix, an event that serves as a stepping stone to qualification for the Olympics. The event attracted a certain level of positive international media attention for Tajikistan, which tends to mainly make the news for its mass corruption and ongoing human rights abuses.

Mahmadzohir is not reticent in trumpeting his charitable works either. Last year, he reportedly paid for villagers in the Khuroson District, in southern Tajikistan, to be connected to the water supply grid. As a result, around 3,000 people received access to safe drinking water. Nobody appears to have questioned why the government didn’t do this earlier. Visits to orphanages do not go unnoticed.

Mahmadzohir is likewise eager to publicize his pious credentials. In 2021, he paid for 20 low-income families to perform the hajj to Mecca. News about this was shared on Instagram.

None of this is to say he purports to be modest in his tastes and spending abilities. His Instagram feed is littered with images of trips to places like France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. He likes nowhere better than the United Arab Emirates though. There, he befriended his “brother”, Osama Ahmad Abdullah Al Shafar, president of the UAE Cycling Federation, VP Of Union Cycliste Internationale, and member of the 4 person Dubai Federal National Council.

_{Above pictures: Al Shafar (in white) and Ismoil Mahmadzohir
Source –https://www.instagram.com/p/CLrQB1PnCmS}

Mahmadzohir has taken a strong lead in trying to popularize Tajikistan’s tourism appeal as well.

In April, Mahmadzohir organized for mega-popular Russian video blogger Gusein Gasanov to visit Tajikistan. Gasanov, who is known mainly for his prize giveaways, a gimmick he seems to have borrowed from U.S. YouTubers like Mr. Beast, toured the country and was mobbed by crowds of fans along the way. At the end of his trip, Gasanov uploaded a video, produced by Mahmadzohir’s IM Group production company, speaking fulsomely about Tajikistan’s appeal as a destination. It has not been stated explicitly that Gasanov was paid for the visit, although it is probably safe to assume he was. But there is a political awkwardness to all this fanfare.

While President Rahmon, 70, has no cause to fear Mahmadzohir’s mounting profile, there is another person who might. It is widely assumed that Rahmon’s eldest son, Rustam Emomali, 35, is being primed to take over running the country at some point in the near future.

Emomali’s apprenticeship for this eventuality has been a decade in the making. Over the years, he has been rotated through jobs, from head of the customs service to chief of the anti-corruption service, and now a double role as mayor of Dushanbe and, much more significantly, chair of the upper house of parliament.

But unlike Mahmadzohir, Rustam is a dour and timid personality who eschews the limelight and appears ill-at-ease when required to attend public functions alongside his father. He has no social media presence.

The challenge from the younger upstart is not purely theoretical. Under changes to the constitution effected in a choreographed referendum in 2016, the age at which a candidate may run for presidential office was lowered from 35 to 30. It was assumed at the time this was being done to pave the way for Rustam’s imminent rise to office. But it so happens that Mahmadzohir will be 30 by the time the next scheduled vote comes around in 2027.

This may all be wild speculation, however. Some question the genuineness and depth of the popularity indicated by those Instagram figures. “I don’t think he has any political ambitions at the moment,” one political commentator who requested to remain anonymous. “For now, he is busy with amassing his business fortunes, including from lucrative trafficking of Afghan opium and heroin.  While most Tajiks live in abject poverty, and millions are forced to seek employment in Russia, Mahmadzohir flashes hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in his videos as a message to his cronies and elite followers that he is the ‘Dollar King’, essentially mocking most Tajiks.”

Mahmadzohir’s untrammelled success as a Tajik influencer is thanks to a well-funded public relations team that not only produces drone videos of his galloping about the countryside on his exquisite steeds or pumping through the streets of Dushanbe in quarter million-dollar Ferraris and Bently’s, but that also manages four different Instagram accounts.

“Those people who would like to write something negative prefer to remain quiet, naturally. They understand that there is a level of risk in this even if the criticism is constructive,” the commentator said, noting the recent arrest of a prominent Tajik doctor and hospital director after he published a book alleging corrupt and dysfunctional practices.

Sure enough, what happens instead is that every time Mahmadzohir posts on Instagram, the replies are filled with praise, including from employees of the state broadcaster, university scholars, civil servants and the like.

In a rich field of competitors, the prize for main flatterer may go to state TV presenter Ulugbek Salimbekzoda, who took to Facebook in July to congratulate Mahmadzohir on his birthday.

“Masculinity and tenacity, gentleness and kindness, generosity and patience are among the least good qualities of our honorable Ismoil Mahmadzohir!” Salimbekzoda said in a post written in English, for reasons unclear. “He has love for the greatness of the seas, his heart is pure and peaceful like a river. We are proud of his presence on earth with all his love and sincerity.”

_{Above pictures: Ismoil Mahmadzohir and his horse collection
Source – https://youtu.be/JuIejW98grs, https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZEpTLzpth6}

Source

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London, (16/11 – 57)

Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe has laid out the bankrupt country’s budget for 2024, drawing mixed reviews as he strives to meet the demands of an International Monetary Fund bailout program without sowing further public resentment ahead of expected elections.

Some observers applauded the proposals, not only for what they included but also what they did not, no new taxes on top of hikes already announced. But others expressed concern that the budget seemed designed to placate certain voters, and only temporarily, while not doing enough to help the struggling masses.

Sri Lanka’s election-year budget was presented on 13 November, and it straddles line between IMF and its voters. The 2024 plan is praised for ‘sticking to reform,’ but criticized for the apparent contradictions not doing enough to help the struggling masses.

Wickremesinghe unveiled the budget on Monday, announcing his government’s plan to increase tax revenue to 3.82 trillion rupees ($11.67 billion), up from this year’s estimated 2.6 trillion rupees. Two weeks ago, the government had announced a value-added tax (VAT) increase to 18% from 15%, effective from January, as part of efforts to meet targets set by the IMF.

The fiscal deficit target is estimated at 2.85 trillion rupees, or 9.1% of gross domestic product, higher than the revised 8.5% of GDP for the current year. “We are aware of the difficulties faced by the people of this country. The path toward a stable and developed economy is not beautiful. It is difficult, hard and challenging,” Wickremesinghe said in his budget speech, following a recent uptick in protests demanding salary hikes to overcome high living costs.

The president described a country at a crossroads as it attempts to climb out of bankruptcy. “If we successfully navigate through this challenging period, we can create a free and decent society. Instead, if we continue to build sand castles by giving relief to the people based on political motives, the country will again be bankrupt.”

Still, Wickremesinghe proposed new relief measures for civil servants and pensioners. The plans call for handing out an additional 10,000 rupees in cost-of-living allowances to 1.3 million government employees, while raising allowances for 730,000 public pension recipients to 5,025 rupees from the current 2,500 rupees.

Sri Lankans are reeling from an economic crisis that has driven up the costs of essentials, although inflation has slowed.   Meanwhile, in a nod to the IMF, Wickremesinghe proposed a massive 3 trillion rupee allocation for foreign debt restructuring and the settlement of international sovereign bonds under the program. After Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt in 2022, the fund came to the rescue earlier this year with a $2.9 billion bailout.

The country failed its first review of the program in September, but reached a staff-level agreement to unlock a new tranche last month.

According to Wickremesinghe, under the debt restructuring supported by the IMF, public debt is expected to decline from 129% of GDP in 2022 to 95% by 2032. He emphasized the benefits of this shift toward sustainability — greater macroeconomic and financial sector stability — for the nation of about 22 million people.

Wickremesinghe reported that reform measures implemented over the last 18 months have already resulted in significant improvements in Sri Lanka’s macroeconomic position. A primary budget deficit of 5.7% of GDP at the end of 2021 turned into a primary budget surplus in the first half of 2023, he said. Tax revenue grew 50% in the first six months of 2023, despite a deep economic recession. The inflation rate has dropped from 70% in September 2022 to 1.3% in September 2023, and foreign exchange reserves have recovered to above $3.5 billion.

“The economy is being healed due to the correct procedures and methodologies we followed during the past year, building the foundation of this system,” Wickremesinghe argued.

The budget receives much of both applauses and criticism.

Murtaza Jafferjee, chair of the Colombo-based Advocata Institute think tank, praised the president’s budget. “He is sticking to the reform and economic restructuring pathway and is not being excessively political,” he told Nikkei Asia. “This is the kind of budget that we always needed, and the language is not sugarcoated and it is factually correct.”

Mujibur Rahman, a member of parliament representing the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya alliance, pointed out what he sees as an inherent contradiction in the plan. “From January, they are increasing VAT, which means the cost of living will increase further, and at the same time they say they will increase the allowance for government workers. So, he is giving from one hand and taking it from the other.”

Sunil Adihettige, a driver employed by a private company in Colombo, was also disappointed. “I was hopeful that the president will announce some relief so that the prices of food items and our monthly bills will reduce. But he only said government employees will be getting a salary increase, but as we are in the private sector, we won’t even benefit from this.”

“Overall, businesses were significantly affected by extensive taxation, but people are adjusting to these increases as they had no other choice and also because they understood the country’s situation,” said Imtiaz Buhardeen, an entrepreneur and investor in Colombo. “The only fear was the possibility of additional tax increases on Monday, but it’s a big relief that there are no new increases.”

Ranjan Jayalal, a trade union leader, suggested the support for government employees was little more than a ploy. “The allowance is expected to be paid from April onwards, but after another couple of months, there will be elections, and then everything will change,” he said.

The next election must be called by September 2024.

Jayalal added that poor people are facing such hardship that many don’t even switch on the lights in their homes due to high electricity costs.

Source

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Brussel, Frankfurt (16/11 – 23)

A levying of embargoes and export bans, the imposition of sanctions, erection of fearsome “license” (= restriction) protocol: there’s nothing new about this back-and-forth in world trade, in the eternal jousting for advantage among markets and nations. The clever Chinese imagined they had the world tea market all locked up until an earnest Scottish botanist carrying the telling name of “Robert Fortune” snuck into the Middle Kingdom to observe their agriculture, steal tea plants, and pick up tricks of tea processing. The Chinese global tea monopoly was busted wide open.

The fortunate Mr. Fortune was actually in the employ of the insidious British East India Company; today tea is happily cultivated on every continent except Antarctica.

The Government of India is currently banning the export of onions. Read it and weep.

The USA did not approve of Japanese expansion throughout Southeast Asia in the late 1930s, and embargoed oil and rubber, among other critical items. This more or less forced Japan to go to war against the west. Thus Pearl Harbor and the ensuing four years of tragedy in the Pacific.

Readers should all be familiar with the European/American sanctions on the Russian Federation, attempting to cripple their economy for having started a “Special Military Operation” to halt the oppression and killing of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. Guess who engineered that mess, a conflict now looking lost and forlorn for the noble democracies.

It’s China’s turn. American politicians, many in the pocket of super-affluent Chinese banks and state-controlled industries, have to be portrayed as “fighting China” so they go through the motions, by imposing chip technology export restrictions on what just happens to be their largest banker, supplier of consumer goods and trading partner.

China now responds, in what is essentially a Punch’n’Judy show, by erecting complex “export license” restrictions on gallium and germanium, rare earths technically classified as “minor metals”, not commonly encountered in nature, or refined as the by-product of other processes.

Note that these materials are used in the production of microchips critical to military applications, so it is not surprising that their export would be curtailed.

The Americans are attempting to impede the development of “advanced microprocessor technology”, a sweeping term covering a very large area of consumer, industrial and official applications, by the PRC.

According to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance (CRMA), an industry organ, China is the source of 80% of the world’s gallium and 60% of its germanium. You can be certain that miners around the globe and digging through their tailings to extract any of this trace material.

The export bans are doomed to fail, just as the manifold sanctions on Russian oil and gas have been handily circumvented by buyers and refiners everywhere.

China, like Russia, is acting carefully and prudently in these reprisals and counter-reprisals, assuming that the USA and its Euro-vassal are skidding downhill, with a soon-to-be-worthless currency, but are still dangerous. In short, the Americans are assumed to be insane.

Pause for a moment and imagine what would happen if the People’s Republic of China, producer of ~90% of the antibiotics sold in the United States of America, decided that they’d prefer to keep their medications at home, just in case, or perhaps market them somewhere else. Or that they would demand payment in Renminbi, on par with the wobbly dollar. No antibiotics? No problem.

That’s how crazy it’s getting.  

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When Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as Sri Lanka’s president in July after a popular uprising ousted his predecessor, the South Asian island nation was engulfed in its worst economic meltdown in 75 years.

Since then, President Wickremesinghe has managed to a keep a lid on mass protests, improve supplies of essentials and on Monday, secured a nearly $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that opens the door to restructuring about $58 billion of debt and receive funding from other lenders.

On March 20, the IMF approved a $3 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to support Sri Lanka amid its economic crisis. The approval is expected to pave the way for other financial institutions to extend support to the bankrupt South Asian country.

He has done that despite a deeply unpopular government, his own party commanding just one seat in the 225-member parliament and having to rely for support on the party of the man he replaced.

Hours-long power cuts and queues for fuel that led to the downfall of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa are gone, thanks partly to a fuel rationing system. Tourists are returning, remittances are recovering and foreign exchange reserves are rising, though the economy is still contracting. But due largely to significant hikes in income taxes and power tariffs that were needed to get the IMF on board, the government of the 73-year-old is no favourite of the people. According to a “Mood of the Nation” poll run in February by private think-tank Verité Research, the government’s approval rating was 10%, the same as in October but higher than an all-time low of 3% in June, when Rajapaksa was in power. Only 4% were satisfied with the way things were going in Sri Lanka, down from 7% in October but higher than 2% in June.

There are no known approval ratings for Wickremesinghe as president. “He’s ready to face the people’s anger in the short term, to ensure long-term stability and growth in the country,” said Dinouk Colombage, Wickremesinghe’s director of international affairs. “Even though the president only has one seat in parliament, him carrying forward his agenda, bringing forth the reforms, once the results start showing, I think the people will come out in open support of him.”

Born into a prominent family of politicians and business-people with large interests in the media, the lawyer and six-time prime minister has little support beyond wealthy urban voters. His ability to make policy depends to a great extent on the support of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party, largely controlled by the Rajapaksa family.

For now, Wickremesinghe is enjoying that support, and he said on Sunday that his country was on the right track There’s fuel now, there’s electricity, there’s fertiliser and by April, there will be enough rice and other foodstuff,” he said at an event in Colombo. “We will no longer be declared a bankrupt nation, but a nation that can restructure its debts.”

The bailout is expected to catalyse additional external support, with funding expected from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to the tune of $3.75 billion, the IMF said in a statement.

In recent months, Wickremesinghe successfully negotiated economic support from top lenders China, India and Japan, culminating in the IMF bailout. He flew to Japan in October to apologise for the cancellation of Japanese-funded projects under Rajapaksa, which convinced Tokyo to back Sri Lanka’s request for the IMF bailout.

The Paris Club of creditors, which includes Japan, earlier this year gave financing assurances to support the IMF deal. A Japan-funded $1.8 billion light-railway project, which was suspended in 2019, is among infrastructure projects that Sri Lanka is now trying to restart.

But Sri Lanka still needs to renegotiate its debt, a potentially drawn-out process where Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, will have to deal with demands from China, India and other creditors. He still has to turn around the economy, which shrank 7.8% in 2022 and is expected to contract by 3% this year.

Implementing further reforms under the IMF programme, reducing record-high interest rates and controlling inflation will also continue to pose challenges for Wickremesinghe, who has faced trade union strikes after the tax and power hikes.

Critics say Wickremesinghe’s economy-first approach ignores political and systemic reforms – like stronger anti-corruption measures and more transparency in government decision-making – as demanded by mass protesters who banded together as the “Aragalaya” movement last year.

“One year on, there is no real structural change in governance or system change,” said Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher at Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives. “The president does take this line that his priority is addressing the economy over everything else, but you can’t have that silo-ed approach and think people are going to be okay with it.”

A crisis-weary public may still have to absorb years of continuing hardship as Sri Lanka tries to fix its economy during the four-year IMF programme, warned Jayadeva Uyangoda, a senior political analyst. “Wickremesinghe has managed to neutralise the Aragalaya and that was a major success, but the economic and social crisis goes on,” he said.

“Economic stability will take at least another couple of years.”

Source : Reuters

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Frankfurt (18/12 – 14)

That there are remarkable advantages in being ignored is not generally recognized. Central Asian countries, historically under the thumb of Moscow, all through the 70+ years of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were more or less cut off from the outside world. There was little trade or other exchange.

The USSR was in fact a grab-bag of ethnicities, religions and languages, controlled with an iron fist by Stalin and afterwards with unbroken dominance through subsequent regimes.

Under Soviet management, Central Asia had stayed poor and ignored; it had not developed any hydrocarbon resources to lure western and European petro-buccaneers of the transatlantic Empire. With the sudden collapse of the USSR, renewed interest in the jigsaw puzzle of the various “-stans” arose in the west, partly in order to sniff out mineral resources of potential value – Kazakhstan has oil – but also in an effort to “contain” the newly-established “Russian Federation”, still a prickly opponent armed with ICBMs, and with tempting land and mineral resources. Western hegemony has steadily crept into Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, all Muslim, Turkic-speaking nations relieved to finally slip away from Russian domination.

“Hope Springs Eternal”, and there are western political figures and think-tankers who propose to bust up the Russian Federation into smaller, more malleable nations, docile ones easier to raid for tasty resources (such as was documented after 1991, when the Russian oligarchs conspired with western companies to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down). That the Russians themselves might not acquiesce in seeing their nation broken up and exploited is outrageous to the west, which considers the world its oyster (evidence: cheap extraction of resources from Africa & Latin America, with little profit for those who live there, with unbroken western hegemony).

The charming fantasy of breaking Russian military potential would allow Washington to fulfill its dreamy dream of “total spectrum dominance” (actual Pentagon term – not made up), having all but gutted the European economy through its quixotic Ukrainian adventure: destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline cut off the cheap Russian gas driving West European industry and consumer markets. Meanwhile, a sizable American military continues to occupy Germany, the UK and Japan.

The USA exacts tribute from its vassals through a negative trade balance and the relentless sale of Treasury Bonds, financial instruments whose intrinsic value becomes ever more questionable, and overpriced armaments.

With the Russians embroiled in the Ukrainian “Special Military Operation”, ostensibly to protect Russian-speaking areas under attack since 2014 by neo-Nazis, NATO saw an opportunity to beguile Central Asia, following the peaceful lead of the People’s Republic of China, whose “Belt & Road Initiative” has already made inroads, first in primitive Tajikistan and considerably more developed Kazakhstan.

China has also built the world’s longest oil pipeline, stretching from its oil fields in Kazakhstan over the Tien Shan mountain range separating it from Central Asia.

Now, the Americans, working through NATO and its usual-suspect NGOs, are attempting to tempt the Central Asian republics away from Russia, hoping that the traditional resentment of Soviet abuse and exploitation will draw them toward alliances with the west.

An example of Russian mistreatment: its nuclear weapons tests and space launches are being carried out in Kazakhstan.

One Andrei Serenko, Director of the Analytical Centre of the Russian Society of Political Scientists and head of the Centre for the Study of Afghan Politics, has warned that a resurgent terror movement, originating in brutal Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, poses threats to countries of Central Asia, primarily to Tajikistan. The Jamaat Ansarullah movement (also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Tajikistan, or TTT, or the “Tajik Taliban”), has begun to train suicide bombers, consisting mainly of candidates from desperately-poor Tajikistan.

Jamaat Ansarullah is said to be based in the Afghan province of Badakhshan, bordering Tajikistan. In the past six months, according to Serenko, it has significantly expanded its ranks.

“If earlier the number of militants in this group was in the dozens, now it is in the hundreds,” wrote Serenko.

“Jamaat Ansarullah was able to solve problems with its financing, as well as with weapons—its militants gained access to modern American and NATO armaments left in Afghanistan in August 2021.” That was when the US and its allies, tails between their legs, ignominiously fled from Afghanistan, after a twenty-year slaughter and a failed twenty-one trillion dollar military adventure.

The Jamaat Ansarullah suicide bombers also originate from other post-Soviet countries; their training takes place in a special madrassa located in Nusay District (Darwaz-i-Bala) of Badakhshan Province.

Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), has stated that “a “belt of instability” is being created on the “southern borders of the CIS”; Bortnikov reported that militants were being recruited from international terrorist organizations operating in Iraq, Syria and a number of other Asian and African countries, and were being transferred to northern Afghanistan.

A former Afghan spy chief claims that the Taliban regime now ruling Afghanistan is ambitiously exploring options to obtain tactical nuclear weapons.

Now we are talking. Suicide bombers are like mosquitoes in western society: they can cause damage but a SWAT team can just swat them away. Nuclear weaponry (including a simple-to-build “dirty bomb”) are another matter altogether. Even a small tactical nuke can take out a major part of a city – and drive the rest of the population to panic, thus ruining social cohesion and daily routines.

“The terrorists’ priority goal is to seize power in the countries of Central Asia, primarily in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and include them in the so-called ‘global caliphate’,” Bortnikov added, alleging that “this is being done with the active participation of American and British intelligence services.”

This would be no surprise, considering how the western military adventurers behaved in Iraq, Libya and Syria: sponsor, fund, then destroy. Rinse & repeat.

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Brussels (08/11 – 50)

On March 20, the IMF approved a $3 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to support Sri Lanka amid its economic crisis. The approval is expected to pave the way for other financial institutions to extend support to the bankrupt South Asian country. IMF program was made possible largely due to the untiring efforts of the President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The IMF links financial assistance to a country to policy reform, a conditionality that usually imposes political as well as economic changes in the recipient nation. The logic behind IMF conditionality is multifold. It is supposed to prevent moral hazard by governments that receive loans. These conditions allow the IMF to monitor the behavior of the recipient states and allegedly promote best practices and good governance.

Sri Lanka has been to the IMF 16 times before; five of these since 2000. The full amount of the IMF loan was not disbursed on six occasions because Sri Lanka did not fully comply with the conditions of the loans. This included the previous EFF in 2016, when the conditions imposed by the IMF built additional pressure on the domestic economy. There has been much skepticism about Sri Lanka adhering to the more stringent IMF conditions this time around.

Despite the skepticism that prevails among journalists and economists, the IMF is very happy about the progress Sri Lanka is making on the commitments it made as a part of the IMF’s four-year EFF to the country.

An IMF delegation, which was in Colombo recently to assess the progress of the agreement, is optimistic. IMF Director of Asia and Pacific Department Krishna Srinivasan told a press conference in Colombo on May 15 that the Sri Lankan government has shown “commitment to the reform effort” that is a part of the agreement with the IMF.  He added that the “authorities are making good faith efforts to negotiate with all the creditors, both private creditors and official creditors.”

Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as President of Sri Lanka in July 2022 when the country was in the middle of its worst economic and political crisis since independence in 1948. On March 20, 2023, the IMF approved a $3 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to support Sri Lanka amid its economic crisis.

Peter Breuer, IMF’s Senior Mission Chief for Sri Lanka, Asia, and Pacific Department said they “see things developing more or less in line with expectations.”

Srinivasan added that Sri Lanka had to complete a number of prior actions before the IMF approved its bailout package. These actions were extensive and required a significant commitment from the Sri Lankan government.

Among these are cost-reflective of a number of goods and services that the government had subsidized for decades.  Sarwat Jahan, the IMF Resident Representative in Sri Lanka said the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) would have to recover their costs until the end of the IMF program.

The government met all these requirements, which shows that they are serious about implementing the reforms necessary to address the country’s economic crisis, Srinivasan said.

The conditions attached to IMF loans often involve actions aimed at discontinuing industry subsidies, avoiding exchange rate manipulation, adjusting budget priorities, and regulating wage levels. Leaders, who face diverse political limitations, differ in their willingness to engage in an agreement with the IMF and make compromises in these four areas.

Considering that IMF loan conditionality agreements usually involve implementing fiscal austerity measures, leaders with larger winning coalitions will encounter more challenges when attempting to negotiate an agreement for IMF financing.

On the other hand, when a regime maintains power through a narrower network of closely-connected supporters, he or she finds it easier to enter into an agreement with the IMF.

Miles Kahler, a senior fellow for global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, in his 1993 book chapter titled “Bargaining with the IMF: Two-Level Strategies and Developing Countries,” outlines two key aspects of domestic politics that influence the process of loan negotiations: firstly, the degree to which a technocratic elite is insulated from economic interests, and secondly, the frequency with which elites face political challenges like elections.

Another factor that can impede the formation of a loan agreement is the presence of multiple veto actors, such as a separation of powers or the existence of multiparty governing coalitions.

Kahler says that when a country has a higher number of veto actors capable of obstructing a loan agreement, the scope of domestic political consensus becomes narrower, resulting in increased negotiation costs for the IMF. Typically, the count of veto actors is determined by assessing the number of parties in a government coalition in countries where genuine political competition exists.

This explains why it was extremely difficult for former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who came into power through a coalition of populism and with the support of a number of interest groups, from big businesses to professional associations, to enter into negotiations with the IMF.

On the other hand, Wickremesinghe is the head of the United National Party, a political party that obtained around 250,000 votes from 15 million eligible voters. He has one MP in Parliament, Wajira Abeywardana, who is a staunch loyalist. Wickremesinghe is backed in parliament by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), whose MPs depend on him for political survival and would vote for any legislation that he brings forth.

Sri Lankan legislators are entitled to several perks at the end of the full tenure of five years and most of the SLPP MPs that back Wickremesinghe are adamant on completing their terms. Wickremesinghe has also indicated that there will be no elections until the economy is stabilized and it is likely that the first election Sri Lankans will see is a presidential election, probably in 2024.

Therefore, Wickremesinghe can implement the IMF recommendations completely, as he is not answerable to any political coalition or interest groups. Neither does he face an election. Wickremesinghe’s personal ideology also aligns with that of the IMF. It is unlikely that these factors were ignored by the IMF when the loan was approved and when they evaluate whether Sri Lanka will adhere to IMF conditionalities.

Source

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