MALE The Maldives' new government will pull out of a free trade agreement (FTA) with China because it was a mistake for the tiny nation to strike such a pact with the world's second biggest economy, the head of the largest party in the ruling alliance said.
MALE The new president of the Maldives took office on Saturday, declaring the state coffers to have been looted and warned that the country was in financial difficulty after racking up debt with Chinese lenders in an infrastructure boom.
MALE Maldives' President-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih takes office on Saturday, seeking help from India and the United States to climb out from under a mountain of Chinese debt that his predecessor racked up in a breakneck development of the coral islands.
NEW DELHI India's government said it will sell stocks worth millions of dollars seized from people who moved to Pakistan following partition in 1947 and the wars since, as a way to make up for a shortfall in revenues.
NEW DELHI, Nov 9 India's government said it will sell stocks worth millions of dollars seized from people who moved to Pakistan following partition in 1947 and the wars since, as a way to make up for a shortfall in revenues.
COLOMBO Gleaming cranes stretch out on the waterfront in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo as Chinese companies construct a $1.5 billion new commercial district, including hotels, marinas and a motor racing track. They have already built a giant container terminal nearby and a huge port in the south.
COLOMBO Sri Lanka's deposed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the United States and Japan had frozen more than a billion dollars of development aid after his abrupt dismissal raised doubts about the future of democracy in the island.
COLOMBO The European Union will consider stripping Sri Lanka of its duty-free access if it backs off commitments on rights, the EU ambassador said, amid worries stoked by the president's replacing of the elected premier by a wartime nationalist.
COLOMBO Just three years after being voted out in a presidential election in Sri Lanka, strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa is back at the center of power, appointed prime minister by the man who defeated him.
NEW DELHI India, caught flatfooted by the appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka's premier, has opened urgent diplomatic and political contacts with the strongman who drew close to China during his previous tenure as president, officials said.
China has installed a new platform on a remote part of the Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea which could be used for military purposes, according to recent satellite images reviewed by a U.S. think tank.