International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol remarked on Wednesday that India would soon overtake China as the largest driver of global oil demand. Birol mentioned that the rapid electrification of cars and buses in China is one of the reasons behind it.
India’s internet economy will grow six times to a trillion dollars by 2030, a report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company said. The report noted that households will double their income in the next seven years, and the internet economy’s share in India’s GDP will increase from 4-5 % to nearly 12-13% in 2030.
The IMF criticised Pakistan’s budget announced this week for the next fiscal year, saying that the government failed to broaden tax bases and reduce tax expenditure. The financial institution also noted that it was ready to help Islamabad introduce the necessary changes before the parliament passed the budget.
On Wednesday, India’s Union Tourism Secretary, V. Vidyavathi, said that the government had accounted for Cyclone Biparjoy while making arrangements for the G20 tourism ministers’ meeting in Goa. The discussions will take place from 19-22 June. The cyclone is scheduled to make landfall on India’s western coasts on 15 June.
North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, has reportedly issued a secret order to ban suicide in the country after suicide rates spiked by 40%. The dictator called the act “treason against socialism” and ordered local governments to take preventative measures. Local government officials will be “held accountable” for preventing suicides in their areas.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stated on Wednesday that given what he claimed was Western complicity in the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, Moscow had had no reason not to destroy its enemies’ undersea communications networks.
On Wednesday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that his country had started receiving tactical nuclear weapons from Russia. He claimed that some of these weapons were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Germany released its first national security strategy paper on Wednesday, calling China a “partner, competitor, and systemic rival.” It accused Beijing of putting international security and stability “under increasing pressure” and disregarding human rights.