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The Asia Pacific region is facing three main risks, including due to global financial tightening and a slowdown in China, according to an IMF official. Shanaka Jayanath Peiris, Division Chief of Regional Studies Division, Asia Pacific Department at the IMF, also said that currencies in the region have depreciated sharply while public debt ratios have increased. "We have identified three main risks to the region -- global financial tightening, Ukraine-Russia war, which has raised commodity prices, but (has) also slowed external demand particularly from Europe and the slowdown in China," Peiris told PTI. He was speaking on the sidelines of the NSEIMF Seminar on Regional Economic Outlook for Asia-Pacific here on Wednesday. At the seminar, he shared the IMF's views on the current risks that the Asian economies face and the implications for India. "We have revised down the (growth) forecast but India is still relatively a bright spot in the outlook for the region... we have 6.1 per cen
Facing a complex set of challenges that try humanity as never before, world leaders convene at the United Nations this week under the shadow of Europe's first major war since World War II a conflict that has unleashed a global food crisis and divided major powers in a way not seen since the Cold War. The many facets of the Ukraine war are expected to dominate the annual meeting, which convenes as many countries and peoples confront growing inequality, an escalating climate crisis, the threat of multiple famines and an internet-fuelled tide of misinformation and hate speech all atop a coronavirus pandemic that is halfway through its third year. For the first time since the United Nations was founded atop the ashes of World War II, European nations are witnessing war in their midst waged by nuclear-armed neighbouring Russia. Its Feb 24 invasion not only threatens Ukraine's survival as an independent democratic nation but has leaders in many countries worrying about trying to preserve
The U.N. food chief warned Thursday that the world is facing a global emergency of unprecedented magnitude, with up to 345 million people marching toward starvation and 70 million pushed closer to starvation by the war in Ukraine. David Beasley, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, told the U.N. Security Council that the 345 million people facing acute food insecurity in the 82 countries where the agency operates is 2 times the number of acutely food insecure people before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. He said it is incredibly troubling that 50 million of those people in 45 countries are suffering from very acute malnutrition and are knocking on famine's door. What was a wave of hunger is now a tsunami of hunger, he said, pointing to rising conflict, the pandemic's economic ripple effects, climate change, rising fuel prices and the war in Ukraine. Since Russia invaded its neighbour on Feb. 24, Beasley said, soaring food, fuel and fertilizer costs have driven 70