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West Africa, which had been largely under French colonial rule, never saw decolonisation of the sort that India did. For a start, the erstwhile French colonies’ currency continued to be linked to the French franc at a fixed exchange rate, which meant that they could not pursue any fiscal and monetary policy of their choice (for that would have threatened the fixed exchange rate). Not only were their foreign exchange reserves kept by France, as had been the case with colonial India where its gold reserves, acquired through enforced borrowing (since all its annual export surplus earnings were taken by Britain) had been kept in London; but France also effectively controlled their fiscal and monetary policy despite formal decolonisation. Control over their natural resources remained with metropolitan corporations.

In quick-paced developments, Myanmar’s ruling junta has invited the armed rebel groups to stop fighting and participate in political talks. “We invite ethnic armed groups, terrorist insurgent groups, and terrorist PDF groups which are fighting against the state to give up terrorist fighting and communicate with us to solve political problems politically,” the junta said in a statement.

BERLIN: A day before last Sunday’s vote for a new parliament in the east German state of Brandenburg, opinion polls had the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the far-right AfD neck and neck. The SPD finished up on 30.9 per cent, with the AfD on 29.2 per cent. The Christian Democrats slumped to 12.1 per cent, while the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance — Reason and Justice (BSW), on its first outing, won 13.5 per cent.

Ministerial utterances on policy matters are pointers to a profound shift but sometimes drops more than a broad hint about an impending change in the socio-political landscape if utterance of France' s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau on immigration is anything to go by.

LONDON: Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is not Tony Blair’s. The lessons from its troubled conference last week demonstrate this in multiple ways. Some mark positive differences from the last Labour government. Then TUC leader John Monks said unions were treated as “embarrassing elderly relatives” by Blair; now they are clearly influential actors within Labour, helping to shape legislation — most obviously in the case of the New Deal for Workers employment rights package.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the Janata Vimukti Perumana (JVP) and the National Peoples’ Power (an alliance of Left and progressive parties) won the presidential elections held on September 21 in Sri Lanka. He polled 57,40,179 votes (42.3 per cent) in these elections, which is a significant increase from the 4,18,553 votes (3.16 per cent) he could obtain in 2019. This is a historic victory, as, for the first time, a Left leader won the presidency in Sri Lanka.

The Chinese economy is seeing deflation —that is, prices are really falling in real time— for 23 months straight. This has really raised the concerns of the Chinese political bosses which was reflected in the central bank move on Tuesday.

NEW YORK: Vice President Kamala Harris’s entrance into the 2024 presidential race has transformed a limping electoral contest into a full-blooded dash to the finish line. Perhaps what seems to be the most underappreciated is Harris’s expressed recognition of this unprecedented moment in the nation’s life—bloodthirsty, stultifying tyranny vs. forward-looking democratic freedoms.

WASHINGTON: Democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders, one of the lone critics on Capitol Hill of Israel’s carnage in Gaza, is set to introduce a joint resolution this week to block the ongoing billions of US dollars in arms sales to Israel. “Much of the carnage in Gaza has been carried out with US-provided military equipment,” said Sanders. “That’s why I will introduce a resolution to block this $20 billion arms sale to Israel.”

Debates alone don’t win a presidential election, but they can certainly influence the outcome in a closely contested race. The last presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was marked by numerous arguments and counter-arguments, but much of the discussion focused on economics and how each candidate plans to address the aspirations, ambitions, and dreams of the American people.