World

The World Bank said Friday it would not offer new funding to Sri Lanka unless the bankrupt island nation carried out “deep structural reforms” to stabilise its crashing economy.

Sri Lanka has suffered an unprecedented downturn with its 22 million people enduring months of food and fuel shortages, rolling blackouts and rampant inflation. 

The South Asian nation defaulted on its $51-billion foreign debt in April and huge protests earlier this month forced then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.

The World Bank said it was concerned about the impact of the crisis on Sri Lanka’s people but was not ready to give funds until the government had bedded down necessary reforms. 

“Until an adequate macroeconomic policy framework is in place, the World Bank does not plan to offer new financing to Sri Lanka,” the lender said in a statement.

“This requires deep structural reforms that focus on economic stabilisation, and also on addressing the root structural causes that created this crisis.”

The World Bank said it had already diverted $160 million from existing loans to finance urgently needed medicines, cooking gas and school meals.

Sri Lanka is currently in bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund but officials say the process could take months.

The island nation has run out of foreign exchange to finance even the most essential imports, and chronic shortages have inflamed public anger.

Motorists stay in long queues for days to get rationed petrol and government officials have been told to work from home to reduce commuting and save fuel.

Inflation rose to 60.8 percent in July for a tenth consecutive monthly record, according to data from the Colombo Consumer Price Index (CCPI) released Friday, while the Sri Lankan rupee has lost more than half its value against the US dollar this year.

The UN World Food Programme estimates five out of every six Sri Lankan families have been forced to buy lower-quality food, eat less or in some cases skip meals altogether.

The crisis came to a head on July 9, when tens of thousands of protesters stormed Rajapaksa’s residence, forcing the president to flee to Singapore and resign.

His successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has declared a state of emergency and vowed a tough line against “trouble-makers”, with several activists who helped lead the mass demonstrations arrested this week.

French leader Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed to work “to ease the effects” of the Ukraine war, Macron’s office said Friday, after talks in Paris that marked the full diplomatic rehabilitation of the Saudi leader.

Like US President Joe Biden who visited Riyadh earlier this month, Macron had been keen to secure extra oil production from the de facto Saudi leader who was a pariah in the West until recently.

A French statement made no reference to any agreement during a dinner on Thursday night, but said the two men had agreed to “intensify their cooperation to ease the effects (of the war) in Europe, the Middle East and the world”.

The meeting outraged rights groups because of bin Salman’s suspected role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Western leaders snubbed the 36-year-old prince after Saudi agents killed Khashoggi inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul.

But the heir to the Middle East’s most powerful throne is being courted again as Europe and its allies urgently seek fresh sources of fossil fuels to replace lost Russian production.

As he left on Friday, bin Salman expressed his “deepest gratitude and appreciation for the warm reception and hospitality” in a statement posted online by the Saudi foreign ministry.

– ‘French values’ –

While Biden fist-bumped bin Salman as he arrived in Riyadh, Macron shook hands on the steps of the Elysee Palace as he welcomed the prince.

“He’s shaking the hand for a long time of a man whose hands are covered in blood,” senior left-wing MP Alexis Corbiere told BFM television on Friday.

Corbiere also took aim at bin Salman’s role overseeing Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen in 2015 against Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Allies of the French president defended a meeting that has been portrayed as a case study in “Realpolitik” — putting practical needs above principles in foreign policy.

Analysts say Saudi Arabia is one of few countries worldwide with the capacity to increase its oil production, though its margin for manoeuvre is seen as limited.

“There are partners, countries that do not all share the same democratic values as France,” French Public Services Minister Stanislas Guerini, a close ally of the president, told Europe 1 radio.

“But I believe it would be a mistake to not speak, to not try to make things happen,” he added.

“French values, the voice of France, human rights, were carried last night, as always, by the president,” he added.

Oil market analysts say an August 3 meeting of the OPEC oil cartel, of which Saudi Arabia is a key member, will be decisive in showing whether Western pressure for extra output bears fruit.

Amena Bakr from Energy Intelligence, a consultancy, told AFP the “most likely outcome is a modest increase or delay.”

A US official told journalists on Thursday that “we’re optimistic that there could be some positive announcements coming out of the next OPEC meeting.”

– ‘Scandalised’ –

Macron’s decision to host the controversial royal sparked fierce criticism at home from human rights groups and left-wing opponents.

The head of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard told AFP she felt “profoundly troubled by the visit”.

The killing of Khashoggi was described by a UN probe as an “extrajudicial killing for which Saudi Arabia is responsible”.

US intelligence agencies determined that the crown prince had “approved” the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death. 

Riyadh denies this, blaming rogue operatives.

“I am scandalised and outraged that Emmanuel Macron is receiving with all the honours the executioner of my fiance, Jamal Khashoggi,” his fiancee Hatice Cengiz told AFP on Thursday.

The French president first hosted bin Salman in 2018, when he took his guest to an art exhibition at the Louvre Museum. 

The French president travelled to Riyadh in December 2021 for further talks that again raised questions about his public commitment to promote human rights.

“The president will raise it (the human rights issue) in a way as to be the most effective possible, which requires a certain form of discretion,” a presidential aide said ahead of the dinner. 

“Individual cases” would be raised, the aide said, without confirming that Khashoggi would be mentioned. 

The Saudi strongman stayed overnight at his Louis XIV chateau in Louveciennes west of Paris which he acquired in 2015, according to a source who asked not to be named.

The castle was built in 2009 by a company headed by Khashoggi’s cousin Emad and was described as “the world’s most expensive home” at the time of its purchase.

The World Bank said Friday it would not offer new funding to Sri Lanka unless the bankrupt island nation carried out “deep structural reforms” to stabilise its crashing economy.

Sri Lanka has suffered an unprecedented downturn with its 22 million people enduring months of food and fuel shortages, rolling blackouts and rampant inflation. 

The South Asian nation defaulted on its $51-billion foreign debt in April and huge protests earlier this month forced then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.

The World Bank said it was concerned about the impact of the crisis on Sri Lanka’s people but was not ready to give funds until the government had bedded down necessary reforms. 

“Until an adequate macroeconomic policy framework is in place, the World Bank does not plan to offer new financing to Sri Lanka,” the lender said in a statement.

“This requires deep structural reforms that focus on economic stabilisation, and also on addressing the root structural causes that created this crisis.”

The World Bank said it had already diverted $160 million from existing loans to finance urgently needed medicines, cooking gas and school meals.

Sri Lanka is currently in bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund but officials say the process could take months.

The island nation has run out of foreign exchange to finance even the most essential imports, and chronic shortages have inflamed public anger.

Motorists stay in long queues for days to get rationed petrol and government officials have been told to work from home to reduce commuting and save fuel.

The UN World Food Programme estimates the crisis has forced five out of every six Sri Lankan families to buy lower-quality food, eat less or in some cases skip meals altogether.

The crisis came to a head on July 9, when tens of thousands of protesters stormed Rajapaksa’s residence, forcing the president to flee to Singapore and resign.

His successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has declared a state of emergency and vowed a tough line against “trouble-makers”, with several activists who helped lead the mass demonstrations arrested this week.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido’s rival Venezuelan government said Friday it was a step closer to taking control of the oil-rich country’s gold reserves, after the latest judgment by a UK court.

High Court judge Sara Cockerill ruled against President Nicolas Maduro’s regime in a technical ruling concerning appointments made to the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) by Guaido.

She found that rulings by Venezuela’s supreme court, blocking the appointments, could not be recognised in English law.

One factor cited by Cockerill was “clear evidence” that the Supreme Tribunal of Justice had been stacked with Maduro-supporting judges.

“This is an unfortunate ruling that ultimately rests on a narrow issue of law about the recognition of foreign judgments,” said Sarosh Zaiwalla of the law firm Zaiwalla and Co, representing the Maduro-backed BCV.

“The BCV is considering an appeal,” he added.

But in a statement, Guaido expressed gratitude for Britain’s “honest and transparent judicial process”, contrasting it with the Maduro government’s focus on “power and money”.

“This decision represents another step in the process of protecting Venezuela’s international gold reserves and preserving them for the Venezuelan people and their future,” he said.

The ultimate thrust of the case remains to be decided, after the UK Supreme Court last year ruled that the dispute should be heard again by the lower Commercial Court in London.

Cockerill’s ruling put the value of the 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold deposited with the Bank of England at about $1.95 billion. Maduro wants to recover the gold. 

But access has so far been denied as Britain, in line with other countries including the United States, acknowledges Guaido as interim president.

UK judges have already ruled that they are obliged to follow the British government’s decision on which government to recognise but had left open the legal point decided on Friday. 

Further hearings are expected later this year before the case as a whole can be decided.

The United States and Venezuela severed diplomatic ties in 2019 after Maduro was re-elected the year before to a second term in a ballot boycotted by the opposition.

In a tentative sign of a potential warming of relations, however, Washington sent a high-level delegation to energy-rich Venezuela in March, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine. 

Moscow and Kyiv on Friday accused each other of bombing a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-held territory, with Russia saying 40 prisoners and eight prison staff were killed.

Russia’s defence ministry said the Ukrainian strikes were carried out with US-supplied long-range missiles, in an “egregious provocation” designed to stop soldiers surrendering.

It said that among the dead were Ukrainian forces that had laid down their arms after repelling Moscow’s assault on the sprawling Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.

The claims came as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited a port in southern Ukraine to oversee a ship being loaded with grain for export under a UN-backed plan aimed at ending a food crisis.

Ukraine’s presidency said exports could start in the “coming days” under the plan aimed at getting millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain stranded by Russia’s naval blockade to world markets.

– ‘Petrifying war crime’ –

Following the strike on the prison, Russian state-television showed what appeared to be destroyed barracks and tangled metal beds but no casualties could be seen.

Ukraine’s military denied carrying out the attack saying its forces “did not launch missile and artillery strikes in the area of Olenivka settlement.”

It instead blamed Russia’s invading forces for “a targeted artillery shelling” on the detention facility, saying it was being used to “accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, as well as to hide the torture of prisoners and executions”.

“Russia has committed another petrifying war crime by shelling a correctional facility in occupied” Olenivka where it held Ukrainian POWs, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. 

Ukraine’s forces in May ended a weeks-long siege of Azovstal, with around 2,500 combatants surrendering after calling a halt to their first resistance. 

Moscow’s state media has reported that some officers — including those from the controversial Azov regiment — have been taken into Russia. 

Kyiv says it has captured thousands of Russian troops during the invasion and has begun putting some on trial for alleged war crimes. 

A Ukrainian court on Friday reduced the life sentence handed to a Russian soldier in May for pre-meditated murder in the country’s first war crimes trial, instead jailing the serviceman for 15 years.

– Mykolaiv strikes –

Russian strikes elsewhere in Ukraine killed five people and wounded seven more on Friday on the heavily bombed city of Mykolaiv near the country’s southern frontline, the regional governor said.

“They shot at another area near a public transport stop,” governor Vitaliy Kim said in a statement on social media.

Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, has seen roughly half of its estimated pre-war population of nearly 500,000 people leave and the city has been shelled daily for weeks.

It is the largest Ukrainian-controlled urban hub near the frontlines in the Kherson region, where Kyiv’s army has launched a counter-offensive to regain control of the economically and strategically important coastal territory.

The Ukrainian presidency said Friday that Russian strikes on the city a day earlier had struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and injured three people.

In the eastern Donetsk region, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko also said Friday that Moscow’s forces had killed eight people and wounded 19 more in attacks over the previous day.

– Grain ship loading –

The ceaseless violence on the ground comes as Ukraine looks to push ahead with restarting crucial grain exports under a plan brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to lift Russia’s Black Sea naval blockade. 

Ukraine’s presidency released footage of Zelensky standing in front of Turkish ship Polarnet in the port of Chornomorsk on a visit to inspect grain being loaded.

“The first vessel, the first ship is being loaded since the beginning of the war,” Zelensky said in a statement. 

Zelensky said Kyiv was “waiting for a signal” from Ankara and UN to start exports that it is hoped will help mitigate a global food crisis that has seen prices soar. 

The hike in food costs is just one of the shock waves that Moscow’s war in Ukraine has sent reverberating around the world.

Energy prices have also risen dramatically as Moscow has cut gas supplies to Europe and the turbulence has wracked the oil markets. 

The French presidency said that leader Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had agreed to work together to limit the impact of the war at talks in Paris. 

Macron took the meeting despite fierce criticism from rights groups in a bid to get major crude producer Saudia Arabia to up its production. 

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The death toll from a major earthquake in the northern Philippines rose to 10 Friday after another four bodies were found in rubble, authorities said, as aftershocks continued to rock the mountainous region.

Rescuers in the town of Luba in the hardest hit province of Abra retrieved the remains of the men on a section of road that was buried by a landslide during Wednesday’s 7.0-magnitude quake, the provincial civil defence office told AFP.

Landslides and collapsing structures killed six others in Abra and nearby provinces, authorities had said previously. More than 150 people were injured.

The powerful quake rippled across the hilly region, damaging thousands of homes as well as toppling buildings and shaking high-rise towers hundreds of kilometres away in the capital Manila.

Military helicopters were flying food aid and other emergency supplies to the region, where nearly 5,000 people remained in evacuation centres, the social welfare department said.

Crews of workers braved aftershocks to clear debris blocking key roads in the region.

More than a thousand aftershocks have been recorded since the quake hit, the state seismology office said Friday.

The Philippines is regularly rocked by quakes due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.