US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are to meet next week in the San Francisco Bay area, two senior administration officials said. The encounter on 15 November will be only their second face-to-face meeting during the Biden presidency. It will be wide-ranging, US officials said, with the Israel-Hamas war, Taiwan, war in […]

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By Sanjeewa Jayaweera The English cricketer Moeen Ali, who incidentally is also the vice-captain of the team, posted on his Instagram page a thought-provoking quote: “If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”. The quote is attributed […]

This week, China is throwing a huge party to celebrate one of its biggest experiments in engaging with the world: its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Officials and leaders from all over the globe are in Beijing to attend a high-level summit marking the BRI’s 10th anniversary. Participants expected to show up range from Vladimir […]

The International Olympic Committee’s executive board has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee “with immediate effect until further notice”. The move comes after the ROC recognised regional organisations from four Ukrainian territories illegally annexed by Russia since its full-scale invasion began in 2022. Olympic Councils from the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zap...

Oil prices have jumped on concerns that the situation in Israel and Gaza could disrupt output from the Middle East. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed by $2.25 a barrel to $86.83, while US prices also rose. Israel and Palestinian territories are not oil producers but the Middle Eastern region accounts for almost a third […]

The G20 joint declaration in Delhi is being described as a significant diplomatic win for India. The agreement of a joint statement looked almost impossible a few days ago, given how sharply divided the group was over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the end, we had a declaration that garnered unanimous support from all G20 […]

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a towering figure in South African politics and outspoken Zulu chief, has died at the age of 95. During the racist apartheid regime, he founded the Zulu Inkatha party after becoming disillusioned with the African National Congress (ANC). Thousands were killed in clashes between supporters of the two parties in the early 1990s. […]

Singaporeans have chosen Tharman Shanmugaratnam as their next president – but many would have let out a small sigh of disappointment as they did so. On Friday, the former top minister won a record 70.4% of the votes, comfortably beating two other candidates in the country’s first contested presidential election in more than a decade. […]

Singaporeans have headed to the polls to vote in their first contested presidential election in over a decade. The president has a mainly ceremonial role in the city-state with few powers and little say in public affairs. But the result on Friday could be a marker of public sentiment on the long-term ruling People’s Action […]

By Jayantha Somasundaram (This articlecontinued from yesterday (25) is based on reporting by the international media on the events in Sri Lanka forty years ago.) “For day after day Tamils were beaten, hacked or burned to death in the streets, on buses, on trains – sometimes in the sight of horrified foreign tourists. Their homes […]

(Excerpted from volume ii of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography) During one of my visits to Colombo I got a call to see the President at ‘Breamar’. Gamini Dissanayake had told him of my friendship with Parathasarathy and he wanted me to help him repair the damage done to their friendship due to the abuse heaped […]

Udeni Kaluthantri, a 54-year-old port worker, became an overnight sensation last year for reasons that had nothing to do with his job. Days after protesters stormed the presidential palace in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, a video surfaced of Mr Kaluthantri lounging on a bed draped with the presidential flag. Pictures of young men jumping […]

Crisis-hit Pakistan has reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over $3bn (£2.4bn) of funding. The deal, which still needs to be approved by the global lender’s board, comes after an eight-month delay. The South Asian nation is facing its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1947. To help secure […]

The muted, panicked voice came through the phone of a friend who croaked she was very confidentially warning Cassandra and advising her. Yours truly was immediately panic infected. With deep emphasis and concern the friend took her time to advise that Cass withdraws all money from banks. Cass was for once glad she was poor […]