PHNOM PENH, 06 August 2022, (TON): US Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined the foreign ministers of Russia and China at a meeting with top diplomats from Southeast Asia at a time when the global powers are riven by tensions.

The East Asia Summit of the ongoing Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Cambodia’s capital was the first time the three men were scheduled to take part in the same forum.

China has shown outrage over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit this week to Taiwan, a self-governing island Beijing claims as its own and launched show-of-force military exercises in response.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi patted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the shoulder as he entered the room and gave the already-seated Lavrov a quick wave before taking his own seat. Lavrov waved back in response.

SEOUL, 06 August 2022, (TON): South Korea joined the stampede to the moon with the launch of a lunar orbiter that will scout out future landing spots.

The satellite launched by SpaceX is taking a long, roundabout path to conserve fuel and will arrive in December.

If successful, it will join spacecraft from the US and India already operating around the moon, and a Chinese rover exploring the moon’s far side.

India, Russia and Japan have new moon missions launching later this year or next, as do a slew of private companies in the US and elsewhere. And NASA is next up with the debut of its mega moon rocket in late August.

South Korea’s $180 million mission the country’s first step in lunar exploration features a boxy, solar-powered satellite designed to skim just 62 miles above the lunar surface.

Scientists expect to collect geologic and other data for at least a year from this low polar orbit.

It is South Korea’s second shot at space in six weeks.

ISTANBUL, 06 August 2022, (TON): Three more ships with grain have left Ukrainian ports and are headed to Turkey for inspection, Turkey’s defense ministry said, evidence that a U.N.-backed deal is working to export Ukrainian grain that has been trapped by Russia’s invasion.

The three ships are loaded with over 58,000 tons of corn. Much of the grain that Ukraine exports is used as animal feed, experts say.

Ukraine is one of the world’s main breadbaskets and the stocks of grain trapped were exacerbating a sharp rise of food prices and raising fears of a global hunger crisis.

The departure of the ships comes after the first grain shipment since the start of the war left Ukraine earlier this week. It crossed the Black Sea under the breakthrough wartime deal and passed inspection Wednesday in Istanbul and then headed on to Lebanon.

MOSCOW, 06 August 2022, (TON): The Kremlin called on Turkey not to destabilize Syria with a military offensive ahead of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters “Turkey has legitimate concerns for security reasons, which we, of course, take into account.”

He added “it is very important not to allow any action that could lead to destabilization of the situation in Syria, or that could jeopardize the territorial and political integrity of Syria.”

Putin and Erdogan are due to hold talks later on Friday in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi. Peskov said that Syria will be on the agenda.

The Turkish president has for several months threatened to launch an operation against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

OUAGADOUGOU, 06 August 2022, (TON): Local and security sources said “suspected militants in northern Burkina Faso have killed three soldiers and nine civilian auxiliaries.”

A security source and an official with the VDP auxiliary force said “the twin attacks were carried out in Bourzanga district.”

The landlocked Sahel state is wrestling with a seven-year-old militant insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven some two million people from their homes.

More than 40 percent of the country is no longer under government control, according to official figures.

TEHRAN, 06 August 2022, (TON): Iran issued a public statement said “it is seeking the release of an Iranian national who has been held by Saudi Arabia since this year’s hajj pilgrimage, which concluded a month ago.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s top diplomat Hossein Amirabdollahian issued the call during a phone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart.

Iraq has served as mediator and facilitator of talks between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. The statement did not identify the detainee.

There was no immediate acknowledegment of the detention by Saudi Arabia. Iraq has played a key role facilitating talks between the regional rivals, including hosting several rounds of direct talks between security officials from both countries.

GAZA, 06 August 2022, (TON): According to Palestinian officials “Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes in Gaza, killing more than 15 people, including a senior militant, and wounding another 40.”

Israel said “it was targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group in response to an imminent threat following the arrest of a senior militant in the occupied West Bank earlier this week.”

The strikes risk igniting yet another war in the territory, which is ruled by the militant group Hamas and is home to about 2 million Palestinians.

The assassination of a senior militant would likely be met by rocket fire from Gaza, pushing the region closer to all-out war.

A blast could be heard in Gaza City, where smoke poured out of the seventh floor of a tall building on Friday afternoon.

MONTREAL, 06 August 2022, (TON): Canada announced it will ban the import of handguns beginning on August 19, as part of a wider proposed freeze in the wake of high-profile mass shootings in the United States.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told “such guns have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to kill people.”

Global Affairs Canada added in a statement that the ban for businesses and individuals was a temporary measure, set to “last until the national freeze comes into force,” which is expected to happen by the fall.

The announcement was welcomed by arms control group PolySeSouvient, which called it an important and innovative measure that will undoubtedly slow the expansion of the Canadian handgun market pending the passage of the handgun freeze.

Experts remain skeptical about the effectiveness of gun control measures taken by Ottawa, pointing to the smuggling of guns from the neighboring United States as the real problem.

VIENNA, 06 August 2022, (TON): Britain, France and Germany urged Iran “not to make unrealistic demands” in the talks to salvage a 2015 deal aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Officials from world powers and Iran were meeting in the Austrian capital for the first time since March, when negotiations which began in 2021 to reintegrate the United States into the agreement stalled.

The three countries known as the E3 group said in a statement “today’s talks in Vienna do not mark a new round of negotiations. These are technical discussions.”

The statement said “the text is on the table. There will be no re-opening of negotiations. Iran must now decide to conclude the deal while this is still possible. We urge Iran not to make unrealistic demands outside the scope of the JCPoA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.”

By TON Sri Lanka

The besieged island nation of Sri Lanka entered a new stage of its continuing crisis as the country’s Parliament selected its next president. The panicked leavings and resignations of former President and Prime Minister, two brothers who ruled over the country’s politics for more than a decade and left the country amid a financial breakdown that triggered mass demonstrations. Now, the new president will preside over an insecure unity government that will pave the way for fresh elections.

However whoever emerges has an unhappily difficult job on his hands, including following a path forward with representatives from the International Monetary Fund. Sri Lanka is bankrupt. It is incapable to pay for imports of necessary goods, including food, medicine and fuel, in part because it is impotent to service current debts given its essentially empty reserves of foreign currency. Frustrating inflation has compelled a vast swath of the country’s 22 million people in need of food help. Schools and many businesses remain closed, while ordinary citizens wait days in long queues for gas.

For the rest of the world, Sri Lanka has become a warning saga of mismanagement and bad luck. The decadence of the former president and his brothers, along with an imprudent plan to change the nation’s farming industry into a solely organic enterprise, collided with a set of factors out of the country’s control. Those included the sweeping impact of the pandemic, which crashed the vital tourism sector, and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted global supply chains and accelerated the inflationary spiral that dragged Sri Lanka’s economy into the abyss.

Countries with high debt levels and limited policy space will face additional strains. Look no further than Sri Lanka as a warning sign,” International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director said during meetings of the Group of 20 finance ministers this weekend.

One of the major players in Sri Lanka’s calamity is China. Beijing is Sri Lanka’s lone biggest creditor, accounting for some 10 percent of the country’s foreign debt. Between 2000 and 2020, it extended close to $12 billion in loans to the Sri Lankan government for a major substructure projects that changed into white elephants including a costly port facility in the former president hometown of Hambantota, which was effectively surrendered to Chinese control half a decade ago after Sri Lankan authorities acknowledged that they could no longer pay off the loans.

After spending vast amounts becoming the de facto creditor of much of the developing world, however, Chinese state banks have in recent years become more interested in debt collecting. A slowing economy at home has restricted Beijing’s appetites for risk abroad.

On the other hand Sri Lanka walked into what Beijing critics have dubbed China’s “debt trap” diplomacy. In 2020, it received a line of $3 billion in easy credit from China to help in the repayment of its existing debts. Sri Lanka opted for this path rather than taking the more painful steps of restructuring its debts in dialogue with the IMF and pushing through strictness measures to deal with IMF.

That seems to have been a blunder. Instead of making use of the limited reserves Sri Lanka had and rearrangement the debt in advance. If you had been realistic, we should have gone to the IMF at least 12 months the Sri Lanka finally financially collapse.

Chinese loans loom large in other debt-ravaged countries, too. China accounts for some 30 percent of Zambia’s external debt. Billions of dollars in Chinese funding for a hydropower facility and rail infrastructure are now edging Laos toward defaulting on its debt. Chinese officials and state commentators resent Western criticism of their methods, arguing that it smacks of a kind of colonial paternalism.

In Sri Lanka’s case, China is hardly the only creditor. India and Japan, among other nations, account for a considerable portion of Sri Lankan debt and are also enmeshed in complicated talks over further repayment and aid. However, China’s commitment with the country has been more noticeable and tricky.

It is evident that Beijing’s actively helped for the ruling former president family and its policies. These political failures are at the heart of Sri Lanka’s economic collapse, and until they are cured through constitutional change and a more democratic political culture, Sri Lanka is unlikely to escape its current nightmare. The legacy Beijing lays down in Colombo will be a symbol for the years to come. This is the first main, hysterical downfall where China is a main creditor.