crisis
Sri Lanka in crisis: President flees and ire turns to PM
Sri Lanka’s president fled the country without stepping down Wednesday, plunging a country already reeling from economic chaos into more political turmoil. Protesters demanding a change in leadership then trained their ire on the prime minister and stormed his office.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife left aboard an air force plane bound for the Maldives — and he made his prime minister the acting president in his absence. That appeared to only further roil passions in the island nation, which has been gripped for months by an economic meltdown that has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel.
Thousands of protesters — who had anticipated that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe would be appointed acting president and wanted him gone— rallied outside his office compound and some scaled the walls. The crowd roared its support and tossed water bottles to those charging in.
Dozens could later be seen inside the office or standing on a rooftop terrace waving Sri Lanka’s flag — the latest in a series of takeovers of government buildings by demonstrators seeking a new government.
“We need both ... to go home,” said Supun Eranga, a 28-year-old civil servant in the crowd. “Ranil couldn’t deliver what he promised during his two months, so he should quit. All Ranil did was try to protect the Rajapaksas.”
But Wickremesinghe, who declared a state of emergency, appeared on television to reiterate that he would not leave until a new government was in place — and it was not clear when that would happen. Although he fled, Rajapaksa has yet to resign, but the speaker of the parliament said the president assured him he would later in the day.
READ: Sri Lanka's acting president says military appointed to maintain law, order
Police initially used tear gas to try to disperse the protesters outside the prime minister’s office but failed, and more and more marched down the lane toward the compound. As helicopters flew overhead, some demonstrators held up their middle fingers.
Eventually security forces appeared to give up, with some retreating from the area and others simply standing around the overrun compound. Inside the building, the mood was celebratory, as people sprawled on elegant sofas, watched TV, and held mock meetings in wood-paneled conference rooms. Some wandered around as if touring a museum.
“We will cook here, eat here and live here. We will stay until (Wickremesinghe) hands over his resignation,” said Lahiru Ishara, 32, a supervisor at a supermarket in Colombo who has been a part of the protests since they kicked off in April. “There’s no other alternative.”
Over the weekend, protesters seized the president’s home and office and the official residence of the prime minister following months of demonstrations that have all but dismantled the Rajapaksa family’s political dynasty, which ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades.
On Wednesday morning, Sri Lankans continued to stream into the presidential palace. For days, people have flocked to the palace — swimming in the pool, marveling at the paintings and lounging on the beds piled high with pillows.
At dawn, the protesters took a break from chanting as the Sri Lankan national anthem blared from speakers. A few waved the flag.
Protesters accuse the president and his relatives of siphoning money from government coffers for years and Rajapaksa’s administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy.
READ: Thousands protest against Sri Lanka's new acting president
The family has denied the corruption allegations, but Rajapaksa acknowledged some of his policies contributed to the meltdown, which has left the island nation laden with debt and unable to pay for imports of basic necessities.
The shortages have sown despair among Sri Lanka’s 22 million people and were all the more shocking because, before the recent crisis, the economy had been expanding and a comfortable middle class was growing.
“Not only Gotabaya and Ranil, all 225 members of Parliament should go home. Because for the last few decades, family politics have ruined our country,” said Madusanka Perera, a laborer who came to Colombo from the outskirts the day protesters occupied the first government buildings. He lost his job, and his father, a driver, can’t do his because of fuel shortages.
“I’m 29 years old — I should be having the best time of life but instead I don’t have a job, no money and no life,” he said.
The political impasse has only added fuel to the economic disaster since the absence of an alternative unity government threatened to delay a hoped-for bailout from the International Monetary Fund. In the meantime, the country is relying on aid from neighboring India and from China.
As the protests escalated Wednesday outside the prime minister’s compound, his office imposed a state of emergency that gives broader powers to the military and police and declared an immediate curfew in the western province that includes Colombo. It was unclear what effect the curfew would have: Some ignored it, while many others rarely leave their homes anyway because of fuel shortages.
In his TV appearance, Wickremesinghe said he created a committee of police and military chiefs to restore order.
The air force earlier said in a statement that it provided an aircraft, with the defense ministry approval, for the president and his wife to travel to the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean known for exclusive tourist resorts. It said all immigration and customs laws were followed.
The whereabouts of other family members who had served in the government, including several who resigned their posts in recent months, were uncertain.
Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power, and it is likely Rajapaksa planned his escape while he still had constitutional immunity. A corruption lawsuit against him in his former role as a defense official was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019.
Assuming Rajapaksa resigns as planned, Sri Lankan lawmakers agreed to elect a new president on July 20 who will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.
“Gotabaya resigning is one problem solved — but there are so many more,” said Bhasura Wickremesinghe, a 24-year-old student of maritime electrical engineering, who is not related to the prime minister.
He complained that Sri Lankan politics have been dominated for years by “old politicians” who all need to go. “Politics needs to be treated like a job — you need to have qualifications that get you hired, not because of what your last name is,” he said, referring to the Rajapaksa family.
Sri Lanka president, PM to resign after tumultuous protests
Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister agreed to resign Saturday after the country’s most chaotic day in months of political turmoil, with protesters storming both officials’ homes and setting fire to one of the buildings in a rage over the nation’s severe economic crisis.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he will leave office once a new government is in place, and hours later the speaker of Parliament said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would step down Wednesday. Pressure on both men grew as the economic meltdown set off acute shortages of essential items, leaving people struggling to buy food, fuel and other necessities.
Police had attempted to thwart promised protests with a curfew, then lifted it as lawyers and opposition politicians denounced it as illegal. Thousands of protesters entered the capital, Colombo, and swarmed into Rajapaksa’s fortified residence. Video images showed jubilant crowds splashing in the garden pool, lying on beds and using their cellphone cameras to capture the moment. Some made tea, while others issued statements from a conference room demanding that the president and prime minister go.
It was not clear if Rajapaksa was there at the time, and government spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said he had no information about the president’s movements.
Protesters later broke into the prime minister’s private residence and set it on fire, Wickremesinghe’s office said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was there when the incursion happened.
Earlier, police fired tear gas at protesters who gathered in the streets to march on the presidential residence, waving flags, banging drums and chanting slogans. In all, more than 30 people were hurt in Saturday’s chaos.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a televised statement that he informed Rajapaksa that parliamentary leaders had met and decided to request he leave office, and the president agreed. However, Rajapaksa will remain temporarily to ensure a smooth transfer of power, Abeywardena added.
Read: Why Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed and what’s next
“He asked me to inform the country that he will make his resignation on Wednesday the 13th, because there is a need to hand over power peacefully,” Abeywardena said.
“Therefore there is no need for further disturbances in the country, and I urge everyone for the sake of the country to maintain peace to enable a smooth transition,” the speaker continued.
Opposition lawmaker Rauff Hakeem said a consensus was reached for the speaker of Parliament to take over as temporary president and work on an interim government.
Wickremesinghe announced his own impending resignation but said he would not step down until a new government is formed, angering protesters who demanded his immediate departure.
“Today in this country we have a fuel crisis, a food shortage, we have the head of the World Food Program coming here and we have several matters to discuss with the IMF,” Wickremesinghe said. “Therefore, if this government leaves there should be another government.”
Wickremesinghe said he suggested to the president to have an all-party government, but did not say anything about Rajapaksa’s whereabouts. Opposition parties were discussing the formation of a new government.
Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister in May in the hope that the career politician would use his diplomacy and contacts to resuscitate a collapsed economy. But people’s patience wore thin as shortages of fuel, medicine and cooking gas only increased and oil reserves ran dry. Authorities have also temporarily shuttered schools.
The country is relying on aid from India and other nations as leaders try to negotiate a bailout with the International Monetary Fund. Wickremesinghe said recently that negotiations with the IMF were complex because Sri Lanka was now a bankrupt state.
Sri Lanka announced in April that it was suspending repayment of foreign loans due to a foreign currency shortage. Its total foreign debt amounts to $51 billion, of which it must repay $28 billion by the end of 2027.
Read: Sri Lanka holds its breath as new PM fights to save economy
Months of demonstrations have all but dismantled the Rajapaksa political dynasty, which has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades but is accused by protesters of mismanagement and corruption. The president’s older brother resigned as prime minister in May after violent protests saw him seek safety at a naval base.
With fuel costs making other forms of travel impossible for many, protesters crowded onto buses and trains Saturday to get to the capital, while others made their way on bicycles and on foot. At the president’s seaside office, security personnel tried in vain to stop protesters who pushed through fences to run across the lawns and inside the colonial-era building.
At least 34 people including two police officers were hurt in scuffles. Two were in critical condition, while others sustained minor injuries, according to an official at the Colombo National Hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Privately owned Sirasa Television said at least six of its workers, including four reporters, were hospitalized after being beaten by police while covering the protest at the prime minister’s home.
Sri Lanka Medical Council, the country’s top professional body, warned that hospitals were running with minimum resources and would not be able to handle any mass casualties from the unrest.
Protest and religious leaders said Rajapaksa has lost his mandate and it is time for him to go.
“His claim that he was voted in by the Sinhala Buddhists is not valid now,” said Omalpe Sobitha, a prominent Buddhist leader. He urged Parliament to convene immediately to select an interim president.
U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung on Friday asked people to protest peacefully and called for the military and police “to grant peaceful protesters the space and security to do so.”
“Chaos & force will not fix the economy or bring the political stability that Sri Lankans need right now,” Chung tweeted.
Why Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed and what’s next
Sri Lanka’s prime minister says the island nation’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” as it runs out of money to pay for food and fuel. Short of cash to pay for imports of such necessities and already defaulting on its debt, it is seeking help from neighboring India and China and from the International Monetary Fund.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office in May, was emphasizing the monumental task he faces in turning around an economy he said is heading for “rock bottom.”
Sri Lankans are skipping meals as they endure shortages, lining up for hours to try to buy scarce fuel. It’s a harsh reality for a country whose economy had been growing quickly, with a growing and comfortable middle class, until the latest crisis deepened.
HOW SERIOUS IS THIS CRISIS?
Tropical Sri Lanka normally is not lacking for food but people are going hungry. The U.N. World Food Program says nearly nine of 10 families are skipping meals or otherwise skimping to stretch out their food, while 3 million are receiving emergency humanitarian aid.
Doctors have resorted to social media to try to get critical supplies of equipment and medicine. Growing numbers of Sri Lankans are seeking passports to go overseas in search of work. Government workers have been given an extra day off for three months to allow them time to grow their own food. In short, people are suffering and desperate for things to improve.
Read: Sri Lanka holds its breath as new PM fights to save economy
WHY IS THE ECONOMY IN SUCH DIRE STRAITS?
Economists say the crisis stems from domestic factors such as years of mismanagement and corruption, but also from other troubles such as a growing $51 billion in debt, the impact of the pandemic and terror attacks on tourism, and other problems.
Much of the public’s ire has focused on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. The latter resigned after weeks of anti-government protests that eventually turned violent.
Conditions have been deteriorating for the past several years. In 2019, Easter suicide bombings at churches and hotels killed more than 260 people. That devastated tourism, a key source of foreign exchange.
The government needed to boost its revenues as foreign debt for big infrastructure projects soared, but instead Rajapaksa pushed through the largest tax cuts in Sri Lankan history, which recently were reversed. Creditors downgraded Sri Lanka’s ratings, blocking it from borrowing more money as its foreign reserves sank. Then tourism flatlined again during the pandemic.
In April 2021, Rajapaksa suddenly banned imports of chemical fertilizers. The push for organic farming caught farmers by surprise and decimated staple rice crops, driving prices higher. To save on foreign exchange, imports of other items deemed to be luxuries also were banned. Meanwhile, the Ukraine war has pushed prices of food and oil higher. Inflation was near 40% and food prices were up nearly 60% in May.
Read: Sri Lankan Cabinet reshuffled to counter economic crisis
WHY DID THE PRIME MINISTER SAY THE ECONOMY HAS COLLAPSED?
Such a stark declaration might undermine any confidence in the state of the economy and it didn’t reflect any specific new development. Wickremesinghe appeared to be underscoring the challenge his government faces in turning things around as it seeks help from the IMF and confronts criticism over the lack of improvement since he took office weeks ago. He’s also fending off criticism from within the country. His comment might be intended to try to buy more time and support as he tries to get the economy back on track.
The Finance Ministry says Sri Lanka has only $25 million in usable foreign reserves. That has left it without the wherewithal to pay for imports, let alone repay billions in debt.
Meanwhile the Sri Lankan rupee has weakened in value by nearly 80% to about 360 to $1. That makes costs of imports even more prohibitive. Sri Lanka has suspended repayment of about $7 billion in foreign loans due this year out of $25 billion to be repaid by 2026.
WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING ABOUT IT?
Wickremesinghe has ample experience. This latest is his sixth term as prime minister.
So far, Sri Lanka has been muddling through, mainly supported by $4 billion in credit lines from neighboring India. An Indian delegation was in the capital Colombo on Thursday for talks on more assistance, but Wickremesinghe warned against expecting India to keep Sri Lanka afloat for long.
“Sri Lanka pins last hopes on IMF,” said Thursday’s headline in the Colombo Times newspaper. The government is in negotiations with the IMF on a bailout plan and Wickremesinghe said Wednesday he expects to have a preliminary agreement with the IMF by late July.
The government also is seeking more help from China. Other governments like the U.S., Japan and Australia have provided a few hundred million dollars in extra support.
Earlier this month, the United Nations began a worldwide public appeal for assistance. So far, projected funding barely scratches the surface of the $6 billion the country needs to stay afloat over the next six months.
To counter Sri Lanka’s fuel shortage, Wickremesinghe told The Associated Press in a recent interview that he would consider buying more steeply discounted oil from Russia to help tide the country through its crisis.
Sylhet, Sunamganj facing worst flood 'in 122 years': State Minister for Relief
Sylhet and Sunamganj, the two frontier districts, had not faced such a terrible flood in the last 122 years, said State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Dr Md Enamur Rahman.
“Already 64 upazilas of 10 districts have been hit by flood,” said the minister during a press briefing on the overall flood situation in the country.
The state minister said, “Flood situation will worsen further in Sylhet and Sunamganj but the water level will lower from Tuesday or Wednesday. Meanwhile the country’s central zone will get flooded.”
Read: Flood: Sylhet city dwellers hit hardest
“The prime minister and all government agencies are working jointly to overcome the disaster. We have enough relief and rescue operation resources,” he said.
Army, Navy and Coastguards are conducting rescue operations and it will continue, he added.
EXPLAINER: How did Russia-Ukraine war trigger a food crisis?
Russian hostilities in Ukraine are preventing grain from leaving the “breadbasket of the world” and making food more expensive across the globe, threatening to worsen shortages, hunger and political instability in developing countries.
Together, Russia and Ukraine export nearly a third of the world’s wheat and barley, more than 70% of its sunflower oil and are big suppliers of corn. Russia is the top global fertilizer producer.
World food prices were already climbing, and the war made things worse, preventing some 20 million tons of Ukrainian grain from getting to the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.
Weeks of negotiations on safe corridors to get grain out of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports have made little progress, with urgency rising as the summer harvest season arrives.
“This needs to happen in the next couple of months (or) it’s going to be horrific,” said Anna Nagurney, who studies crisis management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is on the board of the Kyiv School of Economics.
She says 400 million people worldwide rely on Ukrainian food supplies. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization projects up to 181 million people in 41 countries could face food crisis or worse levels of hunger this year.
Here’s a look at the global food crisis:
WHAT’S THE SITUATION?
Typically, 90% of wheat and other grain from Ukraine’s fields are shipped to world markets by sea but have been held up by Russian blockades of the Black Sea coast.
Some grain is being rerouted through Europe by rail, road and river, but the amount is a drop in the bucket compared with sea routes. The shipments also are backed up because Ukraine’s rail gauges don’t match those of its neighbors to the west.
Read: Food safety a must for BD to be a developed country: Minister
Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister, Markian Dmytrasevych, asked European Union lawmakers for help exporting more grain, including expanding the use of a Romanian port on the Black Sea, building more cargo terminals on the Danube River and cutting red tape for freight crossing at the Polish border.
But that means food is even farther from those that need it.
“Now you have to go all the way around Europe to come back into the Mediterranean. It really has added an incredible amount of cost to Ukrainian grain,” said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.
Ukraine has only been able to export 1.5 million to 2 million tons of grain a month since the war, down from more than 6 million tons, said Glauber, a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Russian grain isn’t getting out, either. Moscow argues that Western sanctions on its banking and shipping industries make it impossible for Russia to export food and fertilizer and are scaring off foreign shipping companies from carrying it. Russian officials insist sanctions be lifted to get grain to global markets.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other Western leaders say, however, that sanctions don’t touch food.
WHAT ARE THE SIDES SAYING?
Ukraine has accused Russia of shelling agricultural infrastructure, burning fields, stealing grain and trying to sell it to Syria after Lebanon and Egypt refused to buy it. Satellite images taken in late May by Maxar Technologies show Russian-flagged ships in a port in Crimea being loaded with grain and then days later docked in Syria with their hatches open.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia has provoked a global food crisis. The West agrees, with officials like European Council President Charles Michel and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Russia is weaponizing food.
Read: WTO Conference: Bangladesh speaks against sudden ban on food export
Russia says exports can resume once Ukraine removes mines in the Black Sea and arriving ships can be checked for weapons.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov promised that Moscow would not “abuse” its naval advantage and would “take all necessary steps to ensure that the ships can leave there freely.”
Ukrainian and Western officials doubt the pledge. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said this week that it may be possible to create secure corridors without the need to clear sea mines because the location of the explosive devices are known.
But other questions would still remain, such as whether insurers would provide coverage for ships.
Dmytrasevych told the EU agriculture ministers this week that the only solution is defeating Russia and unblocking ports: “No other temporary measures, such as humanitarian corridors, will address the issue.”
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Food prices were rising before the invasion, stemming from factors including bad weather and poor harvests cutting supplies, while global demand rebounded strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Glauber cited poor wheat harvests last year in the United States and Canada and a drought that hurt soybean yields in Brazil. Also exacerbated by climate change, the Horn of Africa is facing one of its worst droughts in four decades, while a record-shattering heat wave in India in March reduced wheat yields.
That, along with soaring costs for fuel and fertilizer, has prevented other big grain-producing countries from filling in the gaps.
WHO’S HARDEST HIT?
Ukraine and Russia mainly export staples to developing countries that are most vulnerable to cost hikes and shortages.
Countries like Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt and Sudan are heavily reliant on wheat, corn and sunflower oil from the two warring nations.
“The burden is being shouldered by the very poor,” Glauber said. “That’s a humanitarian crisis, no question.”
Beside the threat of hunger, spiraling food prices risk political instability in such countries. They were one of the causes of the Arab Spring, and there are worries of a repeat.
The governments of developing countries must either let food prices rise or subsidize costs, Glauber said. A moderately prosperous country like Egypt, the world’s top wheat importer, can afford to absorb higher food costs, he said.
“For poor countries like Yemen or countries in the Horn of Africa — they’re really going to need humanitarian aid,” he said.
Starvation and famine are stalking that part of Africa. Prices for staples like wheat and cooking oil in some cases are more than doubling, while millions of livestock that families use for milk and meat have died. In Sudan and Yemen, the Russia-Ukraine conflict came on top of years of domestic crises.
UNICEF warned about an “explosion of child deaths” if the world focuses only on the war in Ukraine and doesn’t act. U.N. agencies estimated that more than 200,000 people in Somalia face “catastrophic hunger and starvation,” roughly 18 million Sudanese could experience acute hunger by September and 19 million Yemenis face food insecurity this year.
Wheat prices have risen in some of those countries by as much as 750%.
“Generally, everything has become expensive. Be it water, be it food, it’s almost becoming quite impossible,” Justus Liku, a food security adviser with the aid group CARE, said after visiting Somalia recently.
Liku said a vendor selling cooked food had “no vegetables or animal products. No milk, no meat. The shopkeeper was telling us she’s just there for the sake of being there.”
In Lebanon, bakeries that used to have many types of flat bread now only sell basic white pita bread to conserve flour.
WHAT’S BEING DONE?
For weeks, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been trying to secure an agreement to unblock Russian exports of grain and fertilizer and allow Ukraine to ship commodities from the key port of Odesa. But progress has been slow.
A vast amount of grain is stuck in Ukrainian silos or on farms in the meantime. And there’s more coming — Ukraine’s harvest of winter wheat is getting underway soon, putting more stress on storage facilities even as some fields are likely to go unharvested and because of the fighting.
Serhiy Hrebtsov can’t sell the mountain of grain at his farm in the Donbas region because transport links have been cut off. Scarce buyers mean prices are so low that farming is unsustainable.
“There are some options to sell, but it is like just throwing it away,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden says he’s working with European partners on a plan to build temporary silos on Ukraine’s borders, including with Poland, a solution that would also address the different rail gauges between Ukraine and Europe.
The idea is that grain can be transferred into the silos, and then “into cars in Europe and get it out to the ocean and get it across the world. But it’s taking time,” he said in a speech Tuesday.
Dmytrasevych said Ukraine’s grain storage capacity has been reduced by 15 million to 60 million tons after Russian troops destroyed silos or occupied sites in the south and east.
WHAT’S COSTING MORE?
World production of wheat, rice and other grains is expected to reach 2.78 billion tons in 2022, down 16 million tons from the previous year — the first decline in four years, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Wheat prices are up 45% in the first three months of the year compared with the previous year, according to the FAO’s wheat price index. Vegetable oil has jumped 41%, while sugar, meat, milk and fish prices also have risen by double digits.
The increases are fueling faster inflation worldwide, making groceries more expensive and raising costs for restaurant owners, who have been forced to increase prices.
Some countries are reacting by trying to protect domestic supplies. India has restricted sugar and wheat exports, while Malaysia halted exports of live chickens, alarming Singapore, which gets a third of its poultry from its neighbor.
The International Food Policy Research Institute says if food shortages grow more acute as the war drags on, that could lead to more export restrictions that further push up prices.
Another threat is scarce and costly fertilizer, meaning fields could be less productive as farmers skimp, said Steve Mathews of Gro Intelligence, an agriculture data and analytics company.
There are especially big shortfalls of two of the main chemicals in fertilizer, of which Russia is a big supplier.
“If we continue to have the shortage of potassium and phosphate that we have right now, we will see falling yields,” Mathews said. “No question about it in the coming years.”
Australia commits to reducing greenhouse emissions by 43%
Australia’s new government on Thursday formally committed to a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target of 43% by the end of the decade in fulfillment of a key election pledge.
The previous conservative government was dumped by voters at the May 21 election after it stuck to a seven-year-old pledge to reduce Australia’s emissions by only 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had written to U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Patricia Espinosa Cantellano to inform her of Australia’s new 2030 target.
Albanese said legislation to enshrine the new target in law would be introduced to the new Parliament which will sit for the first time on July 26. However the target did not depend on Parliament’s approval.
Investment in Australia’s energy sector had been held up during the previous government’s nine years in power due to the administration’s failure to agree on a climate policy, Albanese said.
“What businesses have been crying out for is investment certainty,” Albanese said. “The certainty that they need to invest over a longer time frame than the political cycle of three years.”
Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and liquified natural gas which makes reducing dependence on fossil fuels a politically vexed issue. The previous government was widely considered a laggard among wealthy countries in combating climate change.
Read: Climate change wipes out $525 bn over last 2 decades: Report
The United States has committed to reductions of between 50% and 52% below 2005 levels by 2030. Britain has pledged to cut emissions by 68% below 1990 levels.
Albanese’s government could face pressure in a new, greener Parliament to adopt an even more ambitious target.
Several seats have yet to be declared as counting continues following the election.
The center-left Labor Party administration will likely hold a narrow majority of 77 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives where a majority of lawmakers is needed to form government.
Read: Climate change threatens access to water, sanitation
A record 16 lawmakers in the House will not be aligned with either the government or opposition.
The minor Greens party is on track to secure four seats, up from a single lawmaker in the last Parliament. The Greens want a 2030 reduction target of 75%. Newly elected independent lawmakers have called for a 60% target or at least 50%.
Greens senators could hold a balance of power in the upper chamber where major parties rarely hold a majority and need support from outside government to pass laws.
The 2030 commitment comes as much of Australia’s population faces soaring electricity and gas prices due in part to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Large parts of southeast Australia face the threat of blackouts for a range of reasons including an unusually cold start to the Southern Hemisphere winter and unscheduled outages of aging coal-fired generations that will be shut down within years and are not being adequately maintained.
50,000 people marooned by flood in parts of Kurigram
A flood-like situation has been prevailing at Kurigram’s Roumari upazila for the past one week.
“Water is everywhere. Can’t move anywhere as going out means additional costs. Flood has exacerbated my already prevailing sufferings to a great extent,” said Nojir Hossain, a day laborer from Kheyarchar village under Jadurchar union of the upazila.
Flooding has swept across five unions of Kurigram’s Roumari and Rajibpur upazila due to the swelling of Jinjiram, Kalo and Dharani rivers that flow directly from India. Although flood water has affected the east side of the Dhaka-Roumari highway, the west side of the highway, through which Brahmaputra, Holholiya and Sonabhori rivers run, has remained unaffected due to low water levels in the respective rivers.
According to the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) of Roumari upazila Md Ashraful Alam Rasel, at least 50,000 people from a total of 45 villages under the five unions have become stranded due to the flooding.
“Around 30 km road networks have gone under water. A total of 32 educational institutions have been shut down. Besides, crops cultivated in 283 hectares of land have been totally damaged,” added Rasel.
Rasel mentioned that the upazila administration has provided Tk 300,000 for buying emergency relief items including flattened rice, parched rice, sugar, salt, and candles. The items will be distributed among the flood victims soon.
Read: Flood in Kurigram getting worse
“Although floodwater hasn’t entered our house, it has destroyed all the vegetables that we had cultivated in our yard. Now we’ll have to buy vegetables from the bazaar, which will result in increased living costs. This is happening at a time when my husband can’t even go out to search for work due to the flooding,” said Nazma Begum, a housewife from Bokbandha Beparipara village.
Nazrul Islam, Member of Kheyarchar ward no 1, said that floodwater has inundated more than 600 houses in his area.
“Besides, the flood victims of my constituency haven’t received any relief item yet,” added Nazrul.
According to Roumari Upazila Parishad Chairman Sheikh Abdullah, the public representatives of the area have been instructed to prepare a list of the flood-affected people.
“Around 5,000-6,000 workers of the Roumari Land Port have become jobless due to the flooding. I’ve requested the district administration so that they can receive help from the government,” added Abdullah.
Sunamganj: Thousands affected by second round of flooding
Renewed floods triggered by incessant rain and onrush of water from upstream hills have inundated vast areas of Sunamganj for the second time in weeks, putting thousands of people in extreme misery.
People from Surma, Lakhsmipur, Bogula, Banglabazar, Norsingpur and Doara unions of Sunamganj Sadar upazila have been the worst hit by this flooding, said district officials.
Although water from the first round of flooding late last month is yet to receded fully, the latest blow came within just three weeks causing untold suffering for the people of the affected areas.
The affected people are enduring various water-borne diseases as the tube wells have submerged and the sanitation system has broken down in the flooded areas. Besides, road communications between Surma, Lakhsmipur, and Bogula unions and the upazila Sadar have been cut off due to the flooding.
Read: Flood situation worsens in Sunamganj; 11 upazilas flooded
Thousands of people incurred huge losses as their paddy and vegetable fields were inundated during last month’s flooding. Just when they started to recover from their losses, the latest bout of deluge has compounded their plight.
Most of the rivers running through the Sunamganj Sadar upazila were flowing above the danger mark until Friday morning. Increased water flow submerged most of the houses and roads of the upazila in the last 24 hours.
Upazila Nirbahi Officer(UNO) of Sunamganj Sadar Farzana Priyanka said that the district administration was keeping in touch with the Water Development Board (WDB) constantly. Besides, they’ve also kept their flood monitoring rooms open.
“The administration and the public representatives are always active to deal with any emergency. We’ve also stored up enough relief materials for the flood-affected people,” said Farzana.
Possible security threats likely to complicate Rohingya crisis: Experts
The future of the Rohingya crisis, with the bleak possibility of Rohingya resettlement and the likely emergence of several security threats, might further complicate the situation, experts have said.
They said the Rohingya crisis, one of the greatest human catastrophes of the 21st century, is getting more complicated since the takeover by the Myanmar military junta.
The Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS)-Dhaka Tribune Roundtable "Revisiting the Rohingya Crisis: What Lies Ahead?" was held Sunday evening at a city hotel.
Several diplomats, scholars, security experts, and youth representatives from various disciplines joined the discussion.
Shafqat Munir, research fellow at BIPSS, highlighted the contemporary situation and noted that Bangladesh has to ramp up its approaches on all frontiers to resolve the issue, which is becoming more entrenched and prolonged.
READ: PM seeks more international support to ensure Rohingya repatriation
Asif Munier, a national expert on migration and displacement, emphasised the major dimension of the crisis.
He dissected the regional and global political dynamics and the underlying pragmatism and interest-driven approach behind it.
Asif highlighted the three categories of the Rohingya influx throughout the years.
He talked about the vulnerabilities that the Rohingya youths face in terms of being exposed to radicalisation and different violent militant outfits.
Air Vice Marshal Mahmud Hussain (retired), vice-chancellor of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Aviation and Aerospace University, illustrated the key thematic concepts, including the wider geopolitical ramifications of the issue and the reaction it will induce from various actors across the region and abroad.
He also highlighted how Bangladesh might want to consider reinventing its foreign policy approaches.
Mahmud then said: "Military powers are lenient if you speak in their language – military language. In Myanmar, the military is the state. We have to get the right states onboard."
He talked about the necessity to draw the attention of major players like the US and underline the importance of solving this issue to preserve and promote the Indo-Pacific strategy in the upcoming days.
Shafqat emphasised the necessity of a pragmatic yet humanitarian approach.
He also highlighted the necessity to develop Bangladesh's capability and ensure the strengthening of its institutions.
Bangladesh should develop an early warning mechanism to better understand situations like these, and take preemptive actions to either prevent or alleviate the consequences, Shafqat added.
US to work closely with ASEAN for peaceful resolution to crisis in Myanmar: Sherman
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has said her country would continue to work closely with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other partners in pressing for a just and peaceful resolution to the crisis in Myanmar.
Many Southeast Asian leaders are now in Washington for the US-ASEAN Special Summit.
Sherman Thursday held a meeting with representatives of Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), an administration set up by opponents of the February 1 military coup that plunged the country into chaos.
She met the NUG representatives, including Zin Mar Aung, in Washington.
Sherman underscored robust US support for the people of Myanmar in the face of the regime's brutal crackdown and pledged to continue providing support to all those working peacefully towards the restoration of Myanmar's path to inclusive democracy.
The deputy secretary thanked Zin Mar for her courage and dedication to the people of Myanmar and offered US support for an inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous democracy for all.
Also read: Dhaka seeks pro-active support from Manila, ASEAN for early repatriation of Rohingyas