Why rising costs of food and other essentials are leading to protests around the world.
Sri Lanka’s president finally resigned. Protesters celebrated, and they had reason to: Their mass demonstrations — including a takeover of the presidential mansion — drove President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from office.
Sri Lanka’s economy is in free fall. The country doesn’t have enough money to buy essentials: food, medicine, and especially fuel. Buses can’t run, schools can’t open. The economic crisis was years in the making because of mismanagement, but terror attacks in 2019, and later the Covid-19 pandemic, which shriveled Sri Lanka’s tourist economy, pushed it to the brink.
But the domestic political turmoil unfolding in Sri Lanka also links back to the instability across the globe, including the war in Ukraine and all of its consequences.
