Crises

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host leaders from BRICS nations, including Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, for a two-day summit in New Delhi starting Saturday. • The meeting focuses on insulating developing economies from the economic impacts of conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia. • The summit aims to strengthen the voice of the Global South by addressing global trade disputes, energy security, and economic challenges.

• Geopolitical shocks and global conflicts are severely undermining Africa's climate goals by triggering widespread economic and environmental disruption. • These distant crises drive up inflation and increase the cost of energy, diverting critical funding away from vital climate resilience projects. • The situation is critical because it stalls the continent's ability to adapt to climate change, leaving vulnerable populations more exposed to natural disasters.

• Economics professor and financial crisis expert Tuomas Malinen has warned that the United States is currently on the verge of a recession. • Malinen highlights a critical indicator where private sector yields have risen above the bank prime rate, a trend that historically precedes economic downturns. • This specific pattern was previously observed prior to the 2008 financial crisis and again following the COVID-19 pandemic.

• India's stock market has evolved through major crises, including the 1992 scam, the 2013 taper tantrum, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which reshaped its regulatory and technological architecture. • The June 4, 2024, Lok Sabha election results triggered one of the sharpest political market moves in recent history after actual results contradicted optimistic exit polls. • These events highlight India's deep integration with global financial markets, where distant geopolitical shifts now cause immediate domestic economic consequences.

The prime minister tells the Guardian that last year’s diplomatic rift with ally New Zealand could be on voters’ minds as they head to the pollsAs voters in the Cook Islands prepare to head to the polls in a high-stakes general election, they will have much to reflect on. Over recent years, politics in this small island nation has been defined by fierce debates about deep-sea mining, diplomatic rifts with ally New Zealand and a major reshaping of the country’s foreign partnerships.In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, days before Wednesday’s poll, Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown defended his four-year term and the decisions he made that have seen this South Pacific nation of 17,000 people pushed into the international limelight, turning it into a battleground for influence between Beijing and western powers. Continue reading...

• The United Nations has formally launched the global selection process to find a successor for the outgoing Secretary-General, António Guterres. • The search occurs against a backdrop of escalating geopolitical flashpoints and compounding global crises that are currently straining multilateral diplomacy. • This transition is critical as member states face increasing pressure to reform institutional governance to better address modern international challenges.

Government fears social discontent on ‘most important battlefield’ of economy and livelihoods as war takes its toll amid anti-state dissentIran, in the midst of an escalating five-month war with the US, continues to stumble from one internal crisis to another – whether it is over public executions, the rising cost of living, the alleged bias of the state broadcaster or even the post-midnight destruction of pavements outside liberal-leaning Tehran cafes. Very little that happens in Iran, cultural or political, momentous or trivial, does so uncontested.But there is now a growing threat of a long diplomatic deadlock, forged by mutual distrust in which neither side believes the other will stick to any agreement. That impasse has occurred as the war broadens, drawing in Yemen, Iraq and now Egypt. In Iran, at least, the advocates of escalation are winning. As a result, a convergence of Iran’s conflicts, internal and external, becomes more likely. Continue reading...