Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, El Salvador.

Today's three stories you should know.

Thanks so much to everyone who responded to the “introduce yourselves” thread. The responses have been so lovely to read and it’s great to make a proper connection with the people behind the anonymous list of email addresses.

If you haven’t said hello yet, and would like to, the discussion is here.

Bests,

Barry.

Sri Lanka

As mentioned in a previous newsletter, Sri Lanka is enduring its worst financial crisis since achieving independence in 1948. The government has now asked India to extend it a further $1bn of credit, according to a report from the Reuters news agency. Sri Lanka is so broke it is struggling to pay for imports of food, fuel and medicine. The government already has debt of about $4bn it needs to pay before the end of the year.

More from Reuters here.

Zimbabwe

Some really interesting by-election results out of Zimbabwe. A brand new opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change, won 19 out of 28 parliamentary seats. The ruling Zanu PF, the party of Robert Mugabe, has been in power since independence in 1980. Though Mugabe was toppled in a coup in 2017, he was replaced by longtime ally Emmerson Mnangagwa in a move that most saw as maintaining the status quo.

More from Africa News here.

El Salvador

More than 600 suspected gang members have been rounded up in El Salvador and a state of emergency declared after a staggering 87 people were murdered over just Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The country has been overwhelmed by violence from powerful drugs gangs, some of which control entire areas of capital San Salvador. President Nayib Bukele also ordered that food rations be reduced for gang members in the country’s prisons and that they be locked down. “They are not to go out even to the patio,” Bukele wrote on Twitter. He added: “A message to the gangs: because of your actions, now your homeboys will not see even one ray of sunlight.”

More from AP here.