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The socioeconomic and political crisis wracking Sri Lanka has worsened after the country defaulted on its loans for the first time in May and sent representatives to Russia and Qatar in hopes to secure cheap fuel, according to a report.
“Two ministers are going to Russia and I will go to Qatar tomorrow to see if we can arrange concessionary terms,” Kanchana Wijesekera, Sri Lanka’s energy minister, told reporters according to Al Jazeera.
He said the country was essentially out of petrol due to supply chain issues and “banking” issues, the report said.
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on Sri Lanka’s financial troubles that has sparked massive protests. (See “SRI LANKA ROCKED BY PROTESTS, FURTHER CEMENTING ‘NEW WORLD DISORDER’ FORECAST” and “NEW WORLD DISORDER: SRI LANKANS TAKE TO THE STREETS.”)
Food inflation in the island country located in Southern Asia in the Indian Ocean, skyrocketed 57.4 percent and its currency collapsed by 80 percent. As Gerald Celente has often noted, “When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”
The Associated Press reported that some are even skipping meals due to food shortages.
The report said about nine out of 10 families on the island are skipping meals and 3 million of the 21.92 million are receiving emergency aid from the UN World Food Program.
The country’s economic crisis has been brought on by skyrocketing prices for cooking gas and a lack of fuel.
Colombo is also running out of foreign currency.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Sri Lankan government defaulted for the first time ever in May.
Reps from the International Monetary Fund visited the country last week to discuss financial assistance because the country can no longer afford imports, the report said. The country is also looking for financial help from India and China.
Facing their worst financial crisis in history, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said, “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity, and food.”
Economists say the crisis is due to years of corruption and poor leadership. The country has also been impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns and a terror attack that hurt its important tourism industry, according to Voice of America.
The U.S. announced $158.75m in new financing in the past two weeks to help Sri Lankans, The Guardian reported. The country has been surviving on $4 billion in credit lines from India.
TOP TREND FOR 2021: “YOUTH REVOLUTION”
As we had forecast in December 2020, the uprisings and revolutions that were sweeping the world before the COVID War will accelerate dramatically, as billions of people sink deeper into economic despair.
In response, governments will again attempt to use the COVID War as a “legal” justification to prohibit protests. Thus, we maintain our forecast that “protests will escalate into civil wars, and civil wars will spread to regional wars.”
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has been highlighting its “New World Disorder” trend for more than two years.
We point out that politicians across the globe are fighting for survival against angry mobs who want to overthrow them. The COVID-19 War and the Ukraine War have been a devastating one-two combination for many economies.
Russians are some of the most frequent visitors to the island and that business has all but dried up.
Consumer prices are up 39.1 percent from a year ago and food inflation hit 57.4 percent.