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Protestors gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of the oral arguments in two cases that challenge President Joe Biden's $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan.
What We’re Watching: SCOTUS mulling student debt relief, Blinken visiting Central Asia, Biden's partial TikTok ban, Petro’s post-honeymoon phase
US Supreme Court weighs student loan forgiveness
The US Supreme Court began hearing arguments on Tuesday in a pair of cases that will test the limitations of presidential power and could derail Joe Biden’s plan to forgive $400 billion in student debt. Biden campaigned on debt relief, promising to help families burdened by the pandemic-fueled economic crisis. But now the court will decide whether Biden has the authority to forgive student loans. The White House cites a 2003 law aimed at alleviating hardship suffered by federal student loan recipients following a national emergency, but opponents say debt relief should require congressional approval. Biden hopes to fulfill his campaign promise ahead of next year’s presidential race, and millions of millennials and Gen-Z scholars – many of whom could see up to $20,000 of their federal student loan debt wiped away – will be waiting with bated breath. A decision will drop before the court adjourns in June, but so far, justices in the conservative majority seem critical of Biden’s move.
Blinken’s trip to Central Asia
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday met with foreign ministers from five former Soviet Republics: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Blinken wants to signal solidarity with Russia’s neighbors and try to ensure that trade routes in these countries are not used by Russia to evade Western sanctions. The 'Stans are happy for the support because they have all felt pressure from Moscow to form closer ties with Russia. In particular, Putin has pressed Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, without success, to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Tokayev has a reason for concern: Putin has cited the defense of persecuted ethnic Russians in Ukraine as a motive for his war, and Kazakhstan is home to the second-largest population of ethnic Russians among former Soviet Republics. These states, faced with varying degrees of economic trouble exacerbated by the food and fuel inflation that followed the invasion of Ukraine, could also use some direct US help. During the visit, Blinken announced $25 million of new funding to support economic growth in the region in addition to $25 million the Biden administration had already pledged.
Will China respond to Biden’s government TikTok ban?
China hit back at the US on Tuesday for joining the European Union in banning TikTok from government devices. China’s foreign ministry said that Washington’s move – which gives government employees 30 days to remove the social app from their phones – is an abuse of “state power.” Canada, for its part, followed up with a similar ban. These developments come amid fears that the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance but based in Singapore, is being used by China’s Communist Party to gather government data. Will Beijing retaliate? Anna Ashton, a China expert at Eurasia Group, thinks any significant reprisal by Beijing for a partial or even a full TikTok ban in the US is unlikely. “It isn’t clear that Beijing will bear any significant loss if TikTok stops operating in the United States, nor is it clear that there would be any real gain in lashing out over such a ban,” she says, noting that there was no clear retaliation from Beijing when India banned TikTok a few years back. What’s more, Ashton says, “TikTok is a private company, and social media companies (much like online sales platforms) are not strategic priorities in China’s technological development plans.” Meanwhile, Congress will proceed on Wednesday to further a bill that would allow the Biden administration to ban TikTok for America’s 100 million users. Being tough on China is a rare bipartisan policy issue. Still, it’s unclear whether the Democratic-controlled Senate will back the GOP-sponsored legislation.
First cabinet reshuffle in Petro’s Colombia
A clash over healthcare and education reforms has provoked the first reshuffle of Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s government since he took power last August. The left-wing leader’s plans to expand the government’s role in both sectors drew a public backlash from several of his more centrist cabinet officials. Among them was Education Minister Alejandro Gaviria, whom Petro promptly sacked along with the ministers of sport and culture. Petro – a notoriously headstrong former guerilla – was elected on a change platform, but at the outset of his term, he brought in centrist allies to quell fears that he’d govern as a wild-eyed revolutionary. Now, as his honeymoon period melts away, is this reshuffle simply a necessary move to preserve policy unity, or is he starting to show his true colors?North Korean soldiers on a vehicle carrying rockets during a military parade in Pyongyang.
What We’re Watching: Russia buys North Korean arms, EU tilts at windfalls, Indonesians take to the streets
Russia scrambles for weapons
Newly declassified US intelligence claims that Russia is buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea. If true, this is yet more evidence that a Russian military leadership expecting a quick victory in Ukraine following its Feb. 24 invasion has badly miscalculated both Russia’s capabilities and the intensity and effectiveness of Ukrainian military resistance. The weaponry North Korea is providing is not the high-tech, precision-guided munitions that US and European export controls are designed to prevent Russia from producing. These are basic weapons that Russia appears unable to produce in needed quantities. US intelligence also suggests that a significant number of drones Russia has been forced to purchase from Iran have proven defective. These revelations underscore two important problems for Russia. First, Western sanctions are badly disrupting Russian supply lines, making it impossible for the Russian arms industry to produce the weapons that Russia would need to win the war in Ukraine. Second, while China remains happy to buy Russian oil, it has so far proven unwilling to defy US warnings not to violate weapons and parts sanctions against Moscow.
EU tilts toward windfalls
With energy costs now firmly in the stratosphere, the EU will propose a fresh bloc-wide windfall tax on energy companies. The proceeds of the temporary measure, which EU energy ministers will debate on Friday, would be used to support households and energy-intensive industries struggling amid the continent’s worst energy crisis in half a century. In a twist, the measure will include even renewable energy companies that do not depend on hydrocarbons. After all, these companies have also seen record profits over the past year because all European energy prices are now based on gas prices, which have soared due to post-pandemic supply crunches and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Italy and Spain have already tried versions of these taxes, and Germany last weekend unveiled a $65 billion scheme of its own that depends in part on windfalls. The EU hopes the measure — combined with fresh caps on Russian gas prices and other incentives to cut energy consumption voluntarily — will help the bloc weather its worst energy crisis in half a century. But there are questions about how to structure a windfall tax that is both legal and fair. Now that we’re into the months that end with “r”, Brussels has precious little time to figure it all out. Winter, as they say, is coming.
Indonesians protest fuel price hike
Thousands took to the streets on Tuesday to demand that Indonesia’s government reverse its whopping 30% fuel price hike to cover the rising cost of energy subsidies, which have tripled this year to $34 billion amid soaring global prices. But this is a sensitive political issue in Indonesia, where in 1998 a similar move triggered a public uprising that toppled longtime dictator Suharto. President Joko Widodo — aka Jokowi — has failed thus far to cut decades-long energy subsidies that the state can no longer afford due to its declining oil and gas output, but now felt he had no choice but to introduce the first hike in eight years. The protests are a rare public rebuke of the otherwise popular Jokowi, whose approval rating has almost always been north of 60%. Demonstrators say they won’t go home until the hike is scrapped, but the president — in the middle of his second and final term — is unlikely to back down. One candidate running to replace him in 2024 is hardline Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto — a big fan of the authoritarian rule of his father-in-law, Suharto — who lost to Jokowi in 2014 and 2019.Demonstrators celebrate after entering the Sri Lankan PM's office in Colombo to demand his resignation as interim president.
Sri Lanka slipping into anarchy
Things have gone from bad, to worse, to outright crazy in Sri Lanka since the beginning of the year.
We warned you early on that the country would default on its huge sovereign debt, which it did in May. Since then, the economic crisis has quickly morphed into full-blown political turmoil and a social catastrophe the likes of which the region has not seen for a long time.
And there’s no easy fix.
The backstory. Thanks to the double whammy of COVID killing tourism and dismal economic policies — like banning chemical fertilizers to grow more organic food — the island nation depleted its foreign currency reserves weeks ago.
Sky-high inflation has pushed food prices through the roof and left one-quarter of Sri Lankans hungry. Life in Colombo has become a dystopian nightmare of empty schools by day and dark streets by night to save power since the country is virtually out of fuel.
Long-simmering public fury at deeply unpopular President Gotabaya Rajapaksa boiled over last weekend, when protesters occupied the presidential palace to demand his resignation. The president, from a dynasty that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for two decades, reluctantly agreed but has not been seen or heard from since.
The latest. Rajapaksa fled the country on Wednesday, and from the Maldives appointed his also-reviled PM Ranil Wickremesinghe as caretaker president. Wickremesinghe — who’d previously promised to quit himself — then declared a nationwide state of emergency, which protesters defied by storming his office. The interim leader responded by ordering the army to do "whatever's necessary" to maintain order.
We’re still waiting for Rajapaksa's official resignation letter, and no one seems to know who's really in charge.
So, what might happen next? Don’t count on a swift resolution, says Akhil Bery, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Even if Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe keep their promises to step down and MPs appoint successors, Bery believes a new interim government will lack a popular mandate, and be too weak and unstable to pass the tough economic reforms the IMF requires to bail out Sri Lanka. What’s more, Rajapaksa’s party controls parliament, having won a two-thirds majority in the 2020 election.
Finally, opposition leader and presidential hopeful Sajith Premadasa is also quite unpopular, and he lost big in the 2019 presidential election against Rajapaksa.
What about a coup? Bery says a military takeover — which would be Sri Lanka’s first — is unlikely because the army so far hasn’t cracked down hard on protesters. And the institutions, especially the judiciary, remain strong.
The only way out seems to be to hold a general election. But no one is talking about that, the cash-strapped government can hardly afford the cost, and the people are clearly in no mood to wait four months to vote.
The scarier and more likely scenario is continued unrest. What would that look like?
"Anarchy," predicts Bery, drawing a comparison to crisis-ridden Lebanon. "Sri Lanka has gone from having one of the highest development indicators in South Asia and being on the cusp of becoming an upper-middle-income country to [...] going backward. You could be staring at a lost generation here."
Meanwhile, the anger will keep bubbling. "There's as much frustration with the political situation and the capture of politics by the elite as there is with the economic crisis," Bery says.
"The no. 1 big political risk in South Asia is food inflation. People don't care about much, but if you can't put food on the table, that's when they take to the streets."
Modi's 'free cooking gas' programme leaves bitter taste for some Indians
NAUBATPUR, INDIA (AFP) - Madam Reena Devi says her life changed when she got a cooking gas connection under a billion-dollar programme championed by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meaning she no longer has to cook with wood or coal and breathe in smelly, toxic fumes.