The Ghanaian government will implement bold and deliberate decisions in the coming days to deal with the country’s economic crisis, Ghanaian Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia said yesterday.
The ongoing changes in the world economic order, with rising inflations and disruptions in global supply chains, meant developing countries, including Ghana, could no longer operate in a business-as-usual mode but should rapidly pivot and become self-reliant, Bawumia said at the second edition of the Standard Chartered Digital Banking, Innovation and FinTech Festival.
Noting that Ghana is facing an economic crisis that has to be addressed in different dimensions, Bawumia said ‘the first and most important issue which affects the confidence in the economy is to make sure that we have fiscal discipline and debt sustainability.’
Ghana has been plagued by soaring inflation, currency depreciation and many other economic challenges in recent months. In response, the Ghanaian government embarked on talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July for a fund-backed economic revitalization program.
The government’s negotiation with the IMF for a bailout requires ‘very bold, difficult, but firm decisions,’ Bawumia said.
XINHUA
2 (TEHRAN, 27 OCT, AFP) – At least 15 people were killed yesterday in an attack on a key Shiite Muslim shrine in southern Iran, state media said, with the Islamic State group claiming the assault.
The attack carried out by an armed ‘terrorist’ during evening prayers at the Shah Cheragh mausoleum in the city of Shiraz also wounded at least 19 people, state television said.
Earlier reports said 13 people were killed and 40 wounded, and that three assailants were involved.
Local judiciary chief Kazem Mousavi told state television that ‘only one terrorist was involved in this attack’.
The assailant ‘fired indiscriminately on worshippers’ gathered at the shrine, local governor Mohammad-Hadi Imanieh told the broadcaster.
AFP
3 (WASHINGTON, 27 OCT, AFP) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads today to Canada for talks expected to focus on Haiti, with an American official voicing hope for progress on setting up an intervention force to address the impoverished Caribbean nation’s spiralling security and health crises.
Haiti’s government and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have both appealed for international intervention as armed gangs take over vast stretches of the country and a cholera outbreak worsens.
President Joe Biden’s administration has made clear it has no desire to send US troops in harm’s way but a top official rejected pessimism that no country would step forward amid discussions at the UN Security Council.
‘I am very optimistic that the international community and the Security Council will come together around another resolution that would create a multinational force for Haiti,’ said Brian Nichols, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere.
The Security Council last week unanimously approved a resolution that targeted gang leaders but it did not address a multinational force.
AFP
4 (BEIJING, 27 OCT, AFP) – President Xi Jinping said China and the United States must ‘find ways to get along’ to safeguard world peace and development, state media reported today, as he embarks on his precedent-breaking third term in power.
China and the United States have butted heads in recent years on issues ranging from Beijing’s aggression towards self-governing Taiwan to its crackdown in Hong Kong and alleged rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Washington has also accused Beijing of providing diplomatic cover for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Xi sealed another five years as China’s leader at the end of a twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress on Sunday.
‘The world today is neither peaceful nor tranquil,’ Xi wrote in a congratulatory letter to the National Committee on US-China Relations — some of his first remarks since the Congress — according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
AFP
5 (JAKARTA, 28 OCT, AFP) – Southeast Asian foreign ministers met in Jakarta today to discuss the political crisis in Myanmar ahead of November’s ASEAN leaders’ summit, without a representative from the country’s military junta.
Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup in February last year, with more than 2,300 killed in the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has said it is ‘gravely concerned’ over escalating human rights abuses there, but its efforts to resolve the crisis are yet to bear fruit.
A five-point ASEAN plan from April last year would be one of the focuses of Thursday’s emergency talks at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has said.
A foreign ministry spokesperson said Marsudi would give a news briefing about the talks, in the afternoon.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
