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Manmohan Singh was asleep when he got a call in June 1991 from Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s principal secretary telling him he was going to be India’s next finance minister. Singh was surprised. As an economist, government advisor, and former central banker, he certainly understood the intricacies of the economy, but his role […]
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief—the last edition of 2024. This year produced many surprising developments in South Asia. In May, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu made good on a campaign pledge to expel all Indian troops from his country, a close partner of New Delhi. Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief—the last edition of 2024. […]
Davit Okruashvili, a 33-year-old information security analyst, still bears the marks of his recent beating, with both eyes blackened. “It was Nov. 29, around 11 p.m., behind the parliament, when the riot police came down on us mercilessly,” he recalled. “Forty minutes after I arrived, the crackdown began. I tried to retreat as the riot […]
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the likely ouster of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, a no-confidence vote against French Prime Minister Michel Barnier, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump butting heads with NATO over how to approach Russia-Ukraine peace talks. ‘Grave Act of Rebellion’ Six South Korean opposition parties submitted a motion […]
The headlines coming out of COP29—the recently concluded United Nations climate conference—focus on one key number: $300 billion. This is the annual amount of climate finance the governments of wealthy countries are responsible for generating for developing countries by 2035. But to focus solely on whether the number is too big or too small misses […]
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January holds both promise and peril for Southeast Asia. On the one hand, the incoming administration appears poised to reinvigorate the Indo-Pacific strategy devised during Trump’s first term, which focused on countering China and included the strengthening of alliances and partnerships throughout the region. Several […]
In late September, China’s stock market, beleaguered by weak economic indicators and a crumbling property sector, experienced an unexpected rally. After previous hesitation over major interventions, Beijing’s stimulus measures sparked a surge in Chinese equities, briefly reigniting optimism. Yet what truly puzzled market observers was Beijing’s newfound approach to managing the market itself. After allowing […]