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  • Monthly Review Essays

About Farwa Sial

Farwa Sial is Asia Regional Director, Research and Policy at the International Development Economics Associates Limited (IDEAs) and Research Associate at the Department of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
  • A row of heads of state and diplomats onstage at the opening ceremony of the ASEAN summit.

    ASEAN Summit 2025: Imperialism, Monetary Subservience, and Racial/Class Divisions

    Farwa Sial and Fadiah Nadwa Fikri

    The 47th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), held in Malaysia in October 2025, was a pivotal moment in the ongoing attempts by the United States to redefine the socioeconomic trajectory of Southeast Asia. While much analysis of the Summit has focused on the impact of US tariffs, there has been less […]

  • New World Order Against Tariffs

    New World Order Against Tariffs: SCO Development Bank as an Anti-Sanctions Tool?

    Originally published: IDEAs (International Development Economics Associates) on September 7, 2025 (more by IDEAs (International Development Economics Associates))  |

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO’s) 2025 summit in Tianjin produced a series of outcomes that, although modest in appearance, are strategically significant. The most prominent developments were the agreement in principle to establish an SCO Development Bank, seeded with approximately ¥2 billion in grants and a further ¥10–14 billion in concessional loans from China.

Monthly Review Essays

  • Nikolai Gogol’s Department of Government Efficiency
    Andy Merrifield A 1926 Soviet illustration of a production of Gogol's play The Government Inspector, showing audience members in the foreground, and actors on stage in the background.

    Almost two centuries after its opening night, Gogol’s five-act satirical play The Government Inspector continues to create a stir with every performance, seemingly no matter where. Maybe because corruption and self-serving double-talk aren’t just familiar features of 19th-century Russia, but have become ingrained facets of all systems of government and officialdom, making them recognizable to […]

Lost & Found

  • Strike at the Helm: The First Ministerial Meeting of the New Cycle of the Bolivarian Revolution
    Hugo Chávez Mural of Chávez in Caracas. (Univision)

    On October 7th, 2012, after hearing of his victory as the nation‘s candidate with 56 percent of the vote, President Hugo Chávez Frias announced from a balcony in his hometown that a new cycle was beginning the very next day, October 8th.

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