The Archbishop of Colombo, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, announced that Wednesday (April 21) has been declared a special holiday for all Catholic schools in the country.
This is due to the fact that April 21 will mark two years since the Easter Sunday terror attacks that saw six churches and hotels bombed, killing more than 265 people.
The special holiday is applicable to all Catholic schools in the island governed by the Catholic Church.
The Archbishop of Colombo stated that this will allow the students of these schools and their parents to participate in the programmes planned at respective Catholic churches on that day including the observing of 2 minutes of silence.
The Cardinal revealed this while addressing a press conference held in Colombo today (19), regarding the second anniversary of the tragic Easter Sunday bombings.
The Colombo Port City has been gazetted as a land belonging to Sri Lanka and all its activities are being carried out in accordance with the laws of the country, State Finance, Capital Markets and Public Enterprise Reforms State Minister Ajith Nivard Cabraal told Chief Incumbents of the Malwathu and Asgiriya Chapters in Kandy yesterday (18).
State Minister Cabraal visited the Asgiriya and Malwatte Maha Viharaya yesterday (18) morning on the instructions of the President and the Prime Minister, and briefed both the Mahanayake Theras on the functions related to the Port City.
State Minister Lohan Ratwatte and MP Wasantha Yapa Bandara accompanied the State Minister.
Cabraal said the project will create 83,000 new jobs and that this was a turning point in the country’s economy. He stated that some people with vested political interests were trying scuttle the project. The State Minister said the present government has always sought the advice and suggestions of the Mahanayake Theras and that is why the Chief Prelates were first made aware of the misconceptions that were developing regarding the Colombo Port City.
The Port City is governed by a Commission, he said. This project, which brings in a huge amount of foreign exchange to the country, is a turning point in the country’s economy and some people are afraid that this project will bring a huge economic boost to the country. He said that the government hopes to inform the Mahanayake Theras whenever there is any problem or question in this regard and that the present government will act in a very transparent manner and will not do anything secretly. The Most Venerable Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Thera, the Chief Incumbent of Malwatta Chapter said he appreciates the steps taken by the government to inform the Maha Sangha about the Port City. He said people have given a huge mandate in the belief that the present government will not do anything harmful to the country and it is the responsibility of the government to protect that belief.
State Minister Cabraal said that the government will appoint a Committee to study the implementation of the Commission Act pertaining to the Port City. If such a committee is appointed, it should include not only those who are loyal to the government but also educated and moderate people, the Chief Prelate of Malwatte said.
Education Minister Prof.G.L.Peiris yesterday said that those who are filing petitions in the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill, have forgotten the Greater Colombo Economic Commission Act (GCEC) which was passed in Parliament in 1978.
He said the Greater Colombo Economic Commission Bill adopted in Parliament in 1978 exempted usual tax laws of the country such as Inland Revenue Act and Foreign Exchange Act.
The Minister said that a number of groups including the Samagi Jana Balawegaya and the United National Party are involved in a disinformation campaign over the Bill without any basis.
The Education Minister was speaking to the media after calling on the Most Ven.Ittapane Dhammalankara Thera at Sri Dharma Wijayaloka Maha Viharaya in Pannipitiya yesterday. The Minister during the meeting had made the Thera aware of the current situation of the country.
Over 20 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill. But the SJB and the UNP have forgotten what was done soon after former President J.R. Jayewardene came to power in 1977”, he said.
The Minister said the incumbent President has to approve the Master Plan of the Colombo Port City and any revision in the Master Plan too has to be approved by the President under the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill. The accounts of the Commission are required to be audited annually and the final Audit report should to be submitted to the President.
The Minister added that Security Forces and the Police have full access to the Colombo Port city.
The law enforcement authorities can take action if any crime is taking place in the Colombo Port City. The police can take action against any violation of law within the Colombo Port City
He said that the former President Jayewardene believed that an Act in the form of Greater Colombo Economic Commission Bill was the need of the hour to spur development by bringing more and more investments.
This Act passed in the Sri Lanka Parliament in 1978 did not apply to the areas of authority that comes under the purview of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission.This Bill was presented in Parliament within 3 to 4 months of President J.R.Jayewardene forming the UNP government”, he said.
The Minister said that Greater Colombo Economic Commission had allowed banking institutes to accept deposits from non Sri Lankans. This Commission has allowed the banking institutes to operate secret numbered bank accounts of its constituents who are not citizens of Sri Lanka. Powers were given to the Commission to punish those who uncovered the identity of these depositors,” he said.
He said that the Greater Colombo Economic Commission Act introduced by then President J.R.Jayewardene had allowed any fraudster to make deposits in the banking system.
Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith says that the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks were politically driven.
He claims that the Eater attacks were not carried out over religious extremism but a group that attempted to strengthen their political power by using religious extremism as a pawn.
Urging not to use religion, language, or race to harm another, the Archbishop of Colombo advised one to be free of the perspective of killing others to showcase their power and strength.
The Cardinal mentioned this speaking at an event to bless a memorial erected in memory of those who were killed in the Easter attack.
Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith this afternoon ( April 18) blessed two monuments erected in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack on Easter Sunday.
The Cardinal visited the Borella Public Cemetery and blessed a monument erected to commemorate nine victims of the attack. He then blessed another monument erected at the Madampitiya Cemetery to commemorate the victims of the Easter attack.
No Tamil political leader in the
post-Donoughmore period had single-handedly constructed an ideology and changed
the course of national politics, almost overnight, asGanapathipillai Gangaser Ponnambalam (8 November 1901
– 9 February 1977). Not only that, no one else has left such a lasting impact –
albeit a divisive and devastating one — with his ideology on the national
scene as the politics engineered by him. He was, in his own way, an exceptional
figure whose role has been overshadowed by his junior partner, S. J. V.
Chelvanayakam, a charismatic figure who in reality extended and built on the
ideology founded by him. S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike was Ponnambalam’s counterpart
but he did not create the Sinhala-Buddhist ideology. Rather, he adopted
what was already there on the ground and gave leadership to the dormant forces
that were struggling to be born. Ponnambalam, on the other hand, gave
birth to an ideology which he fathered, defined and activated giving
leadership to a political force that entered the blood stream of Tamil
politics. In doing so, he reversed the liberal-democratic movement in Jaffna
and took it back to communalism — a force that dominates the North
to this day.
Ponnambalam arrived on the
political scene just in time to fill the vacuum in the leadership of Jaffna. By
the early thirties the old turbaned Tamil aristocracy was fading away. The last
of the iconic leaders of Jaffna, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, passed away
in 1930. Jaffna was in the grip of the English-educated Tamil youth
who were leading Jaffna up the road of liberal democracy and
comprehensive nationalism without sectionalism. They were virtually laying down
the political agenda of the day. It was a radical movement that went against
the traditional norms of Jaffna political culture. They were the
daring counter force to the dominant Vellala elite which held the reins of
power both as loyal subalterns in the British bureaucracy and as the
traditional supremacists anointed by the Hindu casteism authored by Arumuka Navalar.
It was the Vellalas that dictated and enforced the laws and customs (Tesawalamai)
that guided every aspect of the Jaffna way of life, from the womb
to the tomb. Inside Jaffna the Vellalas ruled with an iron fist to maintain
their supremacy.
Outside Jaffna the
Vellala supremacists campaigned to acquire extra seats in the legislature based
on allotting seats on a communal basis and not on territorial demarcation of
electoral borders. Getting seats on communal representation would
go to maintain their disproportionate share of power in the commanding
heights of the political and administrative institutions. Getting seats
on a territorial basis would not only reflect the will of the people
which is the ultimate goal in any democratic system but would also uphold
the fundamental principles of democracy. The radical Tamil youth of Jaffna
rejected both casteism and communalism and organised their movement to abolish
what they considered to be the two evils of the peninsular political
culture. In the
mid-twenties the Tamil youth of Jaffna were leading Jaffna out of feudalism,
casteism, communalism, dowry-system etc into modernity. When they talked
of nationalism they meant total swaraj for all without narrow domestic
walls” of communalism, or sectionalism”, as the Governor of the day called it
By the late thirties,
however, the Jaffna Tamil Youth Congress had lost its grip. Without the old
turbaned aristocracy and without the radical youth Jaffna fell into a political
vacuum. The political space was open for Ponnambalam to step in as the
anti-thesis of all that was held sacred by the Tamil youth. The political
pendulum swung from liberal-democratic end to naked communalism.
Single-handedly, Ponnambalam reversed the libera-democratic trend and took
Jaffna back to its communalistic and casteist roots. With that he reigned
supreme as the sole representative of Jaffna with no rival in sight until the
arrival of Chelvanayakam. The unique characteristic of his politics is that he
left an indelible legacy which wound its way, through several twists and turns,
until it wound up in its ill-fated historical end in Nandikadal. Chelvanayakam,
though he shone brighter than Ponnambalam as a leader, particularly with
his integrity and commitment to the cause, was merely an ideological
pupil of Ponnambalam. In extending and taking Ponnambalamism to a further
extreme the pupil outshone the teacher.
To get a better view of the
evolving events, it is necessary to step back and take a glance at young
Ponnambalam as he entered the mainstream. Right from the start he was different
from the rest of the pack. To begin with, his contemporaries who went abroad in
the twenties and thirties for studies in leading universities of the West
returned home as committed nationalists imbued with either democratic
liberalism (S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike and Dudley Senanayaker) or Marxism (N. M.
Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Colvin R de Silva, Pieter Keuneman etc). Even the
Tamil students like P. Kandiah and A. Vaidiyalingam returned home from
Cambridge as communists. They were, in fact, the founding members of the Ceylon
Communist Party along with Pieter Keuneman. Only Ponnambalam was the
exception. He went to Cambridge on a scholarship granted by what he
contemptuously called the homogenous state” (i.e., the Sinhala state) and
returned home without embracing either liberal or socialist ideals as
guiding principles for his politics. He opted for a brand of communal politics
minted by him which ran counter to the mainstream politics of the
time.
Nationalists (Nehru) coming
home had to face two enemies : 1. the imperialists and 2. the separatists
(Jinnah) attempting to fragment emerging nations. Ponnambalam,
however, was not inspired by either nationalism for the nation, or
for the Tamils, or by the ideology of separatism / federalism. In fact, he is
on record saying that federalism is bad for Ceylon and worse for the
Tamils.” His formula of 50-50”, or what he called balanced representation”,
was his ideology to revise communalism as the determining force of national
politics, refusing to go along with the prevailing liberal-democratic politics.
His main argument was that 50-50’ would obviate the fears and threats of majoritarianism.
Governor Andrew Caldecott rejected it as a crude arithmetical formula”.
Later Lord Soulbury dismissed it as mockery of democracy”. Jaffna Youth
Congress was most vociferous in condemning his 50-50 ideology.
Faced with an overwhelming
opposition he delivered a marathon speech on March 15, 1939 to the State
Council defending his 50-50” ideology. It was the first time that the Tamil
communalism found a mouthpiece to articulate its seminal ideology that was
afloat in a vague form demanding extra seats for the Tamils to be on par with
the Sinhalese in the Legislative Council. It was seen and rejected as communal
representation by the British and the Jaffna youth. There was a
growing consensus for territorial representation which reflected the democratic
will of the nation.
Ponnambalam’s main
political theme was to focus on evils of the majority oppressing and denying
the rights of the minorities. But Ponnambalam never referred to how the
Vellala majority in Jaffna exploited, oppressed and denied the fundamental
human rights of the non-Vellala castes and slaves, particularly the Nalavars
and the Pallas. He was exploiting the majority-minority theme purely on
communal lines. His main target was the Sinhalese. He did not extend the same
concern for the minority in his own community who were subject to most inhuman
forms of oppression by the majority Vellalas.
To overcome the tag of
communalism Ponnambalam made it an issue between the majority and the minority.
Instead of demanding one or two extra seats like his predecessors he wrapped
the fragmented demands of the old turbaned aristocracy into a consolidated
package of 50-50”. It was communalism on a national scale. He wasn’t asking
for one or two extra seats in the periphery, either in the North or
Western provinces for the Tamils. He was asking for a huge share of power
at the centre to be on par with the majority. In his speech he explored various
theories against majoritarianism and presented his argument as a defence
against the abuses of the majority against the minorities. It was this speech
that made him a figure to reckon with in national politics. Needless to
say, it enhanced his stature in the Tamil community.
In May-June 1939 he shot
into the limelight again with his explosive speech at Navalapitiya
denigrating the Sinhala-Buddhist culture, its history and the people. In the
political heat generated by his 50-50” demand this anti-Sinhala-Buddhist speech
was explosive enough to set the nation on fire. But both events – his marathon
speech and his virulent speech at Navalapitiya – was sufficient to destroy the
communal harmony that prevailed in the colonial and feudal ages. Ponnambalam
ignited the first Tamil-Sinhala riots. The nation that began to bleed in
Navalapitiya in 1939 never stopped until it ended in Nandikadal in 2009.
Ponnambalam’s main theme was on evils of the
majority oppressing and denying the rights of the minorities. But
Ponnambalam never referred to how the Vellala majority in Jaffna exploited,
oppressed and denied the fundamental human rights of the non-Vellala castes and
slaves, particularly the Nalavars and the Pallas. He was focused on communal
politics directed against the Sinhala-Buddhist majority while he was a leader
of the Vellalas who never lifted a finger to liberate the oppressed
Tamils. under his very nose.
Ponnambalam’a success in
reversing the liberal-democratic trend fostered by the Jaffna Youth Congress
was fatal. He was trying to make a case for the Tamils as the victims of the
Sinhala majority. But the ground reality was different. The Sinhala masses were
in the same boat as the masses of the other communities though
Ponnambalam made it look like a Sinhala vs. Tamil issue. The Jaffna Youth
Congress depicted the plight of the Sinhalese succinctly when they wrote
: The
Sinhalese peasantry are suffering from a scarcity of land and are becoming
rapidly pauperised. The business of the island is in the hands of the Europeans
and the Indians. The cocoanut industry is the only industry that remains in the
hands of the Sinhalese. Even in this more than seventy-five percent of the
estates are mortgaged to Indian capitalists. Even in the professions and the
Government service Sinhalese occupy a comparatively inferior place. Whatever
the reason for this state of affairs the Sinhalese are becoming sensitive to
their inferior position and are crudely attempting to reassert their position.
In this delicate state of feeling the granting of the 50–50 demand will make
them feel that they are to be reduced to a state of political helplessness, and
will call forth the most violent reaction. Communal propaganda will be openly
carried on by the Sinhalese… The leadership of the Sinhalese will pass into the
hands of avowedly communal elements [like the Sinhala Maha Sabha].” (Communalism
or Nationalism? – Reply of Jaffna Youth Congress to Ponnambalam’s
speech..)
These two events –his marathon speech and the
Navalapitiya attack on Sinhala-Buddhists, both coming one after the
other — coincided with his cry for 50-50” to give birth to a new
political consciousness in the North and the South. As pointed out by the Youth
Congress, the communalism of one was feeding the other. In fact, Bandaranaike
thanked Ponnambalam for his Navalapitiya tirade against Sinhala-Buddhists
because it helped him to mobilise the Sinhalese to his Sinhala Maha Sabha on a
larger scale. With his words and actions Ponnambalam led Jaffna into a
political cul-de sac from which it never
came out. Ponnambalam’s words and actions, when put together, added up to
an ideology of the Tamils consisting of three major factors : 1.
disproportionate share of power in the centre ; 2. whipping up the cry of
victimology and 3. demonising the Sinhala -Buddhists, their history and their
culture. Though Ponnambalam did not put all three factors together and spell it
out as a cohesive ideology the upshot of his tactics resulted in providing the
framework for his successors to build on this triad to push mono-ethnic
politics of the North to the extreme.
A close examination of Northern politics will
reveal that it never deviated from these three factors
identified by Ponnambalam. First, in the post-Ponnambalam period mono-ethnic
extremism escalated incrementally heading straight towards the Vadukoddai
Resolution which declared war against the democratically elected state
demanding a separate state. Tamil extremism encapsulated in the Vadukoddai
Resolution has its roots in Ponnambalamism, especially his disproportionate
demand for 50-50”. Eelam is an extreme version of 50-50”. Second, the
rationale for this demand was the accusation that the Tamils were the
victims of Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarianism and discrimination. In his second
length speech to the Soulbury Commission in 1945 he made the same accusation.
After examining his claim, the British Commissioners dismissed it as an
accusation unsubstantiated by the weight of evidence. Third, for him to make a
demand of this proportion he had to buttress it with just not yesterday’s
politics but on the entire course of history. To claim 50-50” he had to put
Tamil history on par with that of the Sinhalese. Or better still, to denigrate
it as being almost inferior to that of the Tamils. Demonising the
Sinhala-Buddhists and denigrating their history and culture was a primary tool
of Tamil politics.
History was an indispensable element for the
Tamils to claim equal status – i.e., 50-50 at first and then later,
separatism. Hijacking history to back their claims was an essential source. A
whole new industry sprang up, particularly in academia and the NGOs, to
denigrate Sinhala-Buddhist history, culture and heritage. A classic example
is Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri
Lanka – S. J. Tambiah of Harvard University. Though it came with the
with the imprimatur of prestigious Harvard University it lost it credibility
because it was seen as a tendentious tract written to denigrate the
Sinhala-Buddhists – a la Ponnambalam. The cover itself betrayed his political
bias. In it a leading Buddhist monk was portrayed in a
militant pose, indicating clearly the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist mission of
Tambiah. Besides, he begins his book with a stupid question: If Buddhism
preaches nonviolence, why is there so much political violence in Sri Lanka?”
And in the following 203 pages he labours to convince the reader that behind
all the violence were the Sinhala-Buddhists and their ideology.
In other words, he produces a mono-causal thesis
blaming only the Sinhala-Buddhist ignoring the complex of history of
multifarious factors that converged to create the North-South conflict. He
says: …..I have tried to present in narrative form the unfolding of events
over a period of about hundred years …The main question to which I shall probe
is the extent to which, and the manner in which Buddhism as a religion”
espoused by Sri Lankans of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has
contributed to the current ethnic conflict and collective violence in Sri Lanka.”
( p.3 — Ibid). And then he proceeds to detail how Buddhism has contributed in
a significant way to the current conflict. He takes a blinkered view as if
Buddhism had acted as the sole miscreant that caused the violence. The
dialectics of two forces of the North and the South interacting and clashing
does not enter into his account. It’s Sinhala-Buddhism that is blamed all
the way. The fact that Sinhala-Buddhists were reacting to an inimical,
uncompromising, intransigent force from the North, determined to impose its
minority demands at the expense of the rest of the nation, which can naturally
provoke a reaction, has been ignored. What is implied is that as non-violent
Buddhists their duty was to give in to all the demands of the minority. The crisis
could have been avoided if the Buddhist have been more tolerant and
compromising, according to him.
By omitting the roles played by Northern
actors Tambiah has virtually exonerated the Tamils from any
responsibility for the violence. In any case, it is against common sense to
believe that violence came only from the uncompromising attitude of the
majority. It is like believing in the sound of a clap with one hand.
Besides, this claim is factually wrong. For instance, when Ponnambalam was
demanding 50-50” the Sinhala Board of Minister offered him 43 per cent.
Ponnambalam rejected it. Which majority in the world had given 43% to a
minority of 12% on an issue of so fundamental as power-sharing? The Tamil
leadership blundered and the blame is put on the Sinhala-Buddhists.
In contrast, A. J. Wilson, son-in-law of the father
of Separatism, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, has commended Sinhala-Buddhist as the
force that has sustained democracy in a pluralistic society. Calvin Woodward,
in his review of Wilson’s book, Politics in Sri Lanka, 1947 – 1973, states:
The uniqueness of Sri Lanka, Wilson points out, is that it (Sri Lanka) has
faced challenges without veering from the democratic path. Certainly then, the
key to the future lies in an understanding of the past. How and
why, in other words, has the democratic experiment been able to work so well in
Sri Lanka? The author investigates this and concludes that the political
stability so far maintained in Sri Lank is due mainly two factors, one of
indigenous origin and the other the result of Western implantation. Primary is
the Buddhist ethos and the doctrine of tolerance. This, according to Wilson,
has acted to dissuade the majority community from unduly imposing itself on the
minorities and encouraged it to respect the fundamental rights and distinctions
of others in the plural society.” (p. 72 – The Ceylon Journal of
Historical and Social Studies – Vol III, July-December, 1973,
No.1.)
Of course, it didn’t take long for Prof. Wilson to
somersault, like most Tamil intellectuals, after the declaration of war
against Sinhala-Buddhist in the Vadukoddai Resolution endorsed by the
Tamil leadership in May 1976. Tamil and pro-Tamil intellectuals fell in line
with Ponnambalam to denigrate Sinhala-Buddhist history and devalue its culture
in order to push their claim for what Bandaranaike called
outrageous demands”. The intellectual fashion was to follow Ponnambalam
every inch of the way. A whole school of Ponnambalayas rose in academia, NGOs
and among pseudo-Marxist pundits / political scientists to defend Tamil
extremism based on the triad outlined above. The irony is that they imagine
themselves to be original thinkers when they are merely aping
Ponnambalam. Dayan Jayatilleka, the self-styled political scientist, for
instance, is wondering why there are no Gramsci’s in Jaffna. Where are the
Gramscis of Jaffna?” he wants to know. He can look till the cows of
Jaffna come home and he will not find any for the simple reason that
Ponnambalayas do not breed Gramscis.
Of course, in his latest Gramscian”
utterance he has predicted the end of the Tamils if they don’t band together
against the armed Dharmapalas”. The Ponnambalayas in the North – there was no
one else in the peninsular landscape – always survived by similar kind of calls
to arms. Dayan Jayatilleka is a Ponnambalaya of the South raising phobias
against the Sinhalese just like the way Ponnambalam did at Navalapitiya in
1939. Clearly, there is nothing original in regurgitating old Ponna”, as he is
known in demotic parlance.. But, according to Dayan’s latest prognosis,
Ponnambalamism has come to a dead-end. So why is it that the Marxists,
the Gramscian, the ex-JVPers and the political scientists behaving like
Ponnayas?
The Embassy of Sri Lanka, in collaboration with
its ‘Overseas Sri Lankans (OSL) Network’ in the USA, will celebrate Sinhala and
Tamil New Year on Sunday, April 18, 2021, from 11.00 am onwards. Modeled
on the Ratawata Aurudu” programmes done connecting main cities in Sri Lanka
during the New Year, the celebrations conducted via zoom/facebook to allow connecting
small gatherings consistent with COVID guidelines, will be joined by members of
the Sri Lanka community and Friends of Sri Lanka from cities across the USA.
Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian religious blessings will precede the
observance of New Year customs and rituals that will re-create the sense of
festivity and provide an understanding of Sri Lankan traditions and culture,
especially to children who have grown up in the US, as well as to the Americans
who will be joining.
The Message for the New Year from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and greetings
from Ambassador to the USA Ravinatha Arysinha, Permanent Representative to the
UN in New York Ambassador Dr. Mohan Peiris and Consul General in Los Angeles
Dr. Lalith Chandradasa will also be featured during the webcast.
The cultural programme that will follow will showcase 25 colorful dance/musical
items from children, youth groups and adults from Washington D.C and over
15 States across the US – Maryland, California, Missouri, Texas, Georgia,
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Illinois, South Carolina, Massachusetts, New
Mexico, Washington, Florida, and Hawaii.
The Embassy invites Sri Lankans and Friends of Sri Lanka living across the US
to join in these festivities organized as part of the Embassy’s outreach
programme through the recently established ‘OSL Network’, which now spans all
50 States and contributes to advancing Sri Lanka’s interests through political
advocacy, economic empowerment, socio-cultural engagement and several other
cross cutting areas.
Embassy of Sri Lanka
Washington D.C.
16 April 2021
On the evening of March 29, Chinese President Xi Jinping had an important phone conversation with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. This was the second phone conversation between the two state leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a strategic communication with a backdrop of international and regional situation undergoing deep changes, together with economic and social development of the two countries on a critical stage. In the past two weeks, friends from different walks of life in Sri Lanka gave positive comments from different perspectives, which were really enlightening for me. I would also like to share my views on this special conversation.
Firstly, it is essential to keep regular interactions at the top levels of the two countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing the severe challenges caused by the pandemic, the two Presidents had two times of extensive and in-depth phone conversations, reaching broad consensus, and strategically guiding the future development of our bilateral relations. Both sides reconfirmed a state visit to China by President Rajapaksa as soon as the pandemic situation allows. Later this month, the two Presidents plan to virtually attend the Annual Conference of Boao Forum for Asia together. In coming weeks, we are also expecting a series of high-level visits between the two countries, which I believe would greatly strengthen political mutual trust, broaden cooperation fields, and deepen the development of our bilateral relations.
Secondly, the China-Sri Lanka cooperation is based on the alignment of respective strategies. In their recent phone conversation, President Gotabaya expressed once again his strong willingness to learn from Communist Party of China on its governance experience, especially how align Game Samaga Pilisandara” of Sri Lanka with Targeted Poverty Alleviation” and The Rural Vitalization Strategy” of China, and to align Vistas of Prosperity and Splendor” with the high-quality building of the Belt and Road Initiative. President Xi Jinping made positive response his Sri Lankan counterpart and agreed that China and Sri Lanka should learn from each other at the system and governance levels to overcome the challenges of the post-epidemic era.
Qi Zhenhong, Chinese Ambassador in Sri Lanka
Thirdly, China keeps its word, and does what it says. On the second day of the phone conversation between the two heads of state, Sri Lankan Airlines’ cargo plane set off for Beijing. On the third day, 600 thousand doses of Sinopharm vaccines donated by China arrived at Colombo. In addition, the major cooperation projects that leaders of the two countries pay close attention to, including another 500 million USD financial facility extended by China Development Bank, the National Nephrology Specialist Hospital, and the International Finance Centre in the Colombo Port City, have been commissioned or will soon achieve tangible outcomes, which are bringing more and more tangible to Sri Lankan people.
Fourthly, multilateral cooperation has become a new highlight in Sino-Sri Lankan relations. This year marks the 50th anniversary of China’s restoration of its lawful seat in the United Nations, and President Xi Jinping emphasized in the phone conversation that China will never forget Sri Lanka’s valuable support”. At the just-concluded 46th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, China unreservedly supported Sri Lanka as always, while Sri Lanka stood firmly with China and dozens of other countries on issues related to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. In various international fora, China is willing to make continuous joint efforts with Sri Lanka to firmly support each other on issues concerning respective core interests, promote international justice and fairness, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries.
The traditional friendship between China and Sri Lanka has stood the test of time and is facing extensive opportunities for further development. On behalf of the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka, I am willing to work with friends from all walks of life in Sri Lanka to jointly implement the important consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, solidly promote our exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and elevate the China-Sri Lanka strategic cooperative partnership to a new level.
The President of the country would always appoint members to the Colombo Port City Economic Commission, entrusted with running of that city under the proposed CPCEC Bill, State Minister of Money & Capital Market and State Enterprise Reforms, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, yesterday, told the media, in Colombo.
State Minister Cabraal said that most critics of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill had not even read it.
Sri Lankans don’t need to obtain a visa to enter the Port City as some claim. The Port City will be administered by the Colombo Port City Economic Commission and the Bill we have presented details how the area will be governed,” Cabraal said responding to a question posed by a journalist.
The State Minister said that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had asked him to counter the misinformation and fake news that was being spread about the Bill. Once people have read and understood the Bill, most who criticise it would have to change their tune, the Minister said.
Journalists also questioned the State Minister on the allegations levelled by MP Wijeyadasa Rajapakse. The State Minister said that Rajapakse had not even asked a question about the Bill during the Parliamentary Group meetings.
As I said earlier, the Port City will be administered by Colombo Port City Economic Commission. All members are appointed by the President. The Chairman of the Commission too is appointed by the President. The President can get rid of them anytime he wants,” Cabraal said.
The State Minister added that no one would be allowed to withdraw money or assets from Sri Lanka and invest in the Port City. This is a special economic zone. We need to attract foreign direct investments. We need to have ease of doing business in this zone and we have to make it an important financial hub in the region.”
Some restrictions will have to be imposed on arrivals from overseas taking into account the uptick in positive cases of COVID-19 among individuals arriving in Sri Lanka, says the Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Sudath Samaraweera.
In a statement, he said Sri Lanka has registered 52,710 coronavirus infections so far in 2021 with 1,593 of them coming in from foreign countries.
Reportedly, a large number of positive cases among those who arrived from the Middle East and some from Europe have been identified.
Sri Lanka’s cumulative infections confirmed in April added up to a total of 52,710 and 538 of them – some 15 percent – were from overseas, the chief epidemiologist stated.
As per Epidemiology Unit’s statistics, Sri Lanka has confirmed 78 coronavirus infections among the arrivals from overseas on Friday (April 16).
Dr. Samaraweera went on to note that some countries have already moved to halt foreign travels as third and fourth coronavirus waves continue to heap positive cases.
In order to maintain the progress Sri Lanka had made recently in controlling the spread of the virus, some restrictions will have to be imposed on the arrivals from overseas, Dr. Samaraweera pointed out.
Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 death toll climbed to 617 today (April 17) as two more persons were confirmed to have died of the virus infection.
One of the deceased is a 73-year-old woman Kelaniya area. She passed away while receiving treatment at the Colombo National Hospital on Friday (April 16). The cause of death was recorded as COVID pneumonia, diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis and cerebrovascular accident.
The other victim was identified as a 71-year-old man from Kurunegala area. He passed away on Friday (April 16) while receiving treatment at a private hospital in Colombo. The cause of death was recorded as COVID pneumonia, diabetes and hypertension.
Five persons have been taken into custody for promoting the now-defunct separatist group LTTE, says Minister of Public Security, Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Sarath Weerasekara.
The arrest has been made by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID).
Three of the arrestees are from Jaffna and the other one is from Kilinochchi, according to Minister Weerasekara.
The Chairman of Deraniyagala Pradeshiya Sabha, who was taken into custody over illegal possession of 98 stolen water meters, has been remanded until the 19th of April.
He was produced before Avissawella Magistrate’s Court under the provisions of the Offences Against Public Property Act earlier today (April 17).
Deraniyagala Police had received a complaint regarding the theft of 477 water meters and other equipment from the National Water Supply & Drainage Board (NWSDB).
The complaint had been lodged by an engineer who is working on a project carried out by the NWSDB.
Subsequently, the Deraniyagala Police had initiated investigations into the matter and arrested a clerk and a driver attached to the project.
Upon further investigating the incident, the police officers managed to recover 98 stolen water meters in the possession of Deraniyagala Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman on Friday (April 16).
Minister of Public Security, Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Sarath Weerasekara says measures will be taken to forfeit the assets of proscribed extremist Islamic organizations.
He made this observation responding to the queries raised by the media in Colombo.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, on April 13, published an extraordinary gazette notification banning 11 extremist Islamic organizations.
The decision was taken with the purpose of ensuring the continuance of peace within the country and in the interest of national security, public order, and the rule of law.
Speaking further, Minister Weerasekara said investigations into these outlawed groups are now under way. Forfeiture will be effected after receiving the reports on their assets and bank accounts and directing them to the Attorney General.
Prof Danny Altmann, from Imperial College London, says it is mystifying” and confounding” that those flying in from the country are not required to stay in a hotel.
He warned that the Indian mutation of the virus could scupper” the UK’s path to further easing of restrictions, despite the lockdown and vaccine programme leading to cases falling to a seven-month low.
Public Health England reported that 77 cases of the B.1.617 variant, which was first discovered in India, have been found. The first were detected in specimens dating back to February, the Guardian reported on Friday.
Officials have designated the new strain a variant under investigation rather than a variant of concern, such as the Manaus (Brazilian) or South African variants.
However, Altmann said he suspected it would be escalated to a variant of concern as, like the South African variant, it holds properties that allow it to evade the coronavirus vaccines currently on offer, and because it is more transmissible, similar to the Californian version of Covid.
I think we should be terribly concerned about it,” the professor of immunology told the BBC.
[Variants of concern] are things that can most scupper our escape plan at the moment and give us a third wave. They are a worry.”
India is not on the government’s red list” for travel, which refuses entry into the UK to people who have been in those countries in the previous 10 days.
British and Irish nationals, or people with UK residency rights, are able to return from red-list countries but must isolate in a quarantine hotel for 10 days.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the government’s red list of travel ban countries was under constant review” when asked why India did not feature on it.
They added that Boris Johnson’s trip to India – his first major international visit since securing a Brexit trade deal with Brussels is still happening later this month”.
It was announced earlier this week that the trip would be slightly shorter” than the initial four days planned, with most of the meetings expected to be shoehorned into a single day.
Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said coronavirus variants were unlikely to set lockdown easing back to square one” because immunity gained from vaccines won’t just disappear”.
He said he expected a gradual erosion” of vaccine protection as the virus evolves but not enough to scupper” the prime minister’s roadmap.
He told Times Radio: We’ve all expected evolution of this virus to occur from the start. I also think that we know from other viruses and previous experience that the immunity that vaccines give won’t just disappear.
It will be a gradual erosion. It won’t be back to square one. I would be really surprised if that happened. So, I think, possibly, that interpretation is a bit pessimistic.”
India recorded a daily increase of 217,353 infections on Friday, the country’s second record in consecutive days, pushing its total since the pandemic began past 14.2m.
It comes amid a continuing decline in coronavirus infections across Britain.
Around one in 480 people in private households in England had Covid-19 in the week to 10 April – the lowest figure since the week to 19 September last year, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics.
Infection rates in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland followed a similar trend of depreciating numbers, the data showed.
Stay alert to stop coronavirus spreading – here is the latest government guidance. If you think you have the virus, don’t go to the GP or hospital, stay indoors and get advice online. Only call NHS 111 if you cannot cope with your symptoms at home; your condition gets worse; or your symptoms do not get better after seven days. In parts of Wales where 111 isn’t available, call NHS Direct on 0845 46 47. In Scotland anyone with symptoms is advised to self-isolate for seven days. In Northern Ireland, call your GP.
Shweta Sharma and Samuel Lovett Courtesy The Independent
An elderly woman gasped for air at the main 1,000-bed Covid hospital in Mumbai, India, even as a ventilator pumped oxygen into her lungs. She collapsed after hours of struggling for each breath, but came round again after doctors performed CPR to stimulate her heart back to life.
Dr Sharad Achwar knew she would not survive. The infection had ravaged her lungs. Her daughter was called from the hospital and told: Your mother has a few hours.”
The daughter was furious at first, replying: Do not say this doctor, all I have is her.” But like hundreds of thousands of other Indians in this pandemic, she had no choice but to accept the toll taken by Covid-19 on her family.
India was hit hard by coronavirus last year, recording one the highest caseloads in the world alongside the US and Brazil. But numbers started declining rapidly after last summer and by January this year, as vaccines started to roll out, the health minister proclaimed the country had reached the end of the pandemic.
But after months with few restrictions, and just as life was starting to look normal again, cases have suddenly exploded, with a tsunami of infections sweeping the country and putting ICUs into what doctors have called a war-like” situation.
With many other nations making rapid progress on vaccinations, the country is now the global epicentre for the disease, while concerns are mounting about the new variants involved.
Doctors in the Indian states facing the worst pressure paint a grim picture, describing a chaotic and overwhelming intake of desperately sick patients.
Loved ones wailing outside hospitals, ambulances queued up with patients, crematoria and graveyards drowning in dead bodies, failed resuscitations and families scrambling for beds, plasma, and even basic medical supplies such as oxygen, stretchers and ventilators: these are common scenes witnessed across India.
What we are dealing with here is a catastrophe. I have to look after 75 beds of an ICU daily and the input of patients is way more than the output. We are at full capacity,” Dr Achwar says.
Patients are dying suddenly of hypoxia. There are more patients here than the doctors could attend and all the monitoring equipment has been exhausted. We are suffering,” a resident doctor from Mumbai’s state-run Sion hospital tells The Independent, on condition of anonymity.
Maharashtra, the state where Mumbai is located, has for several weeks been painted as an outlier in terms of the new outbreak, but the situation is now no better in the capital Delhi, where Dr Atul Gogoi of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital says ICU beds and even general wards are out of capacity. He says the situation is becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day.
Having to remain aloof” during this war-like” fight against the disease is taking its toll, he says. We are worn out physically as the workload is constantly increasing, [but also] mentally as we regularly deal with emotional breakdowns of elderly people.”
India’s outbreak is worse now than it was at any point last year, with the country registering a series of grim milestones in the past few weeks. As well as overtaking Brazil in total caseload, the country has recorded daily spikes of more than 200,000 new infections over a 48-hour period in the last week.
While there remains insufficient data to attribute the new wave to any one cause, scientists say an indigenous variant of the virus called B.1.617 is likely to be fuelling the flames, coupled with a fatigue with safety precautions that has seen a return to crowding and a reluctance to wear masks across the country.
It may be that multiple more infectious variants are at play here. Testing has shown the presence of the UK’s B.1.1.7, South Africa’s B.1.351 and Brazil’s P1 spreading among the population. These variants have been found in Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, and Karnataka states, which between them contribute a high proportion of new cases.
Gallery: True or false? Facts and myths about vaccination (Espresso)
However, the greatest concerns swirl around India’s B.1.617, which has been dubbed the double mutant” variant in media reports, although it actually has 15 mutations from the original virus. This is because it carries two specific and concerning mutations in its spike protein that have cropped up elsewhere during the pandemic – known as E484Q and L452R. It is the first time that these genetic changes have evolved together in a single variant.
Based on experience from other countries about E484Q and L425R strain we expect it to spread faster and to evade antibody responses in people who had infections or vaccination,” says virologist Shahid Jameel, who is part of India’s Covid genomics consortium (Insacog), an association of 10 national laboratories formed in January by the government to conduct genomic sequencing of variants.
India is restricted by the fact it is currently sequencing less than 1 per cent of Covid-19 samples. Experts believe both B.1.617 and the UK variant are likely to be far more widespread than the figures suggest, but it’s impossible to know just how prevalent they have become.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one component of the increase is this variant,” says Professor Deenan Pillay, a virologist at University College London echoing opinions of several other experts.
This biologically distinct double mutation could make things even worse overall,” says Aris Katzourakis, a professor of evolution and genomics at Oxford University, and raises the possibility that B.1.617 is very well-adapted to reinfecting those individuals who have acquired immunity through infection or injection.
However, Prof Pillay explains that the variant’s defining characteristics will be the result of a whole constellation of mutations” that it has acquired in the so-called spike protein – the part of the virus responsible for gaining entry to human cells.
If this three dimensional structure” changes significantly through evolution, he says, the virus can better penetrate our cells or evade the neutralising effects of antibodies, which are designed to latch on to the spike proteins and prevent the binding process.
In worst-hit Maharashtra, which has 50 per cent of the current national caseload, laboratory testing has shown that B.1.617 accounted for 61 per cent of sampled infections between January and March. To the north, in Punjab, some 80 per cent of cases have been caused by the highly transmissible UK variant instead.
But Prof Jameel’s hunch is that the virus has spread across several states,” including West Bengal, where election rallies continued unabated, and the northern state of Uttrakhand, where millions gathered to take a dip in the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela festival – the largest human pilgrimage anywhere in the world, and which was allowed to go ahead in spite of the pandemic.
The attendees of the festival, who numbered in their millions on some days, might have now carried the virus to the length and breadth of India.
The prevalence of the Indian variant in Maharashtra is certainly evidence that the B.1.617 variant is more infectious than the older strain” as it has replaced it so rapidly, says Prof Gautam Menon from Ashoka University in Delhi.
Anecdotally, compared to the first wave there seems to be a larger proportion of asymptomatic infections as well as patients with non-standard symptoms. The overall age of those with the disease seems to be younger than earlier,” Prof Menon says.
India has been slow to study the B.1.617 variant, says Dr Gagandeep Kang, microbiology professor at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, a lapse that is leaving officials in the dark about what level of interventions will have to be put in place. She said we know nothing” about the variant as government officials are not putting together data to draw conclusions”.
What we did is we sequenced a bit initially and then we took a holiday and then after variants came back we started sequencing again. Even now we have not ramped up to a level we should,” she says. Doing patchy on-again-off-again surveillance, reporting randomly, is not how a surveillance system is conducted.”
As to how B.1.617 first emerged, Professor Julian Tang, a virologist at Leicester University, speculates that it could be the product of what is known as a recombination event”. This involves the sporadic co-infection of two different variants in the same person,” he says.
Under these circumstances, the different viruses can swap chunks of their genetic coding relevant to the spike protein to produce a progeny” that carries a combination of the different mutation patterns”. Regardless of how it came into being, B.1.617 is potentially a worrying variant to keep an eye on,” adds Prof Tang.
Even so, scientists are hopeful that the current generation of vaccines will remain effective against the variant, and others like it, even if they have developed the power to evade parts of the body’s immune response.
Vaccines becoming a bit less effective over time is a phenomenon seen with many diseases and some protection is always better than no protection,” says Prof Pillay. And that protection is what could make the difference between a person who doesn’t develop symptoms at all, and one who ends up becoming hospitalised and dying.
However, with the clock ticking in the face of this latest surge, the real challenge is rolling out India’s vaccine supplies as quickly as possible. The pace of vaccination is relatively better than in most countries but not at the desired level,” says Giridhara Babu, a professor of epidemiology at the Public Health Foundation of India.
India needs to cover at least 10 million doses per day to protect the vulnerable in the next few months. The expansion and faster coverage of vaccines can be more helpful in reducing mortality.”Read More
April 16 (AFP) – An 86-year-old car that once belonged to Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is now the centrepiece of a seaside museum in Sri Lanka.
The prince, whose funeral will be on Saturday, was a car aficionado who bought the 1935 Standard Nine for 12 pounds when he was based in Colombo with the British Navy in 1940.
When he came back in the early 1950s, he came and saw the car,” said Sanjeev Gardiner, who has kept the vehicle at his Galle Face Hotel in Colombo.
When he saw the car he said, ‘I hope the brakes work. They didn’t work then.’”
According to Mr Gardiner, the prince acknowledged that the Standard was the first car he bought.
He also became a patron of the Standard Motor Car club.
Mr Gardiner’s hotel, one of the oldest in the former British colony, has built a museum around the silver and black sedan, preserving it for the enjoyment of guests and tourists.
At the time he bought it, the prince reportedly failed to beat down the asking price for the second-hand car, though he did manage to get a payment plan of two equal instalments within a month.
According to museum records, he first drove the car from Colombo to a naval base in Trincomalee, 260 kilometres away.
The car, which has 93,040 kilometres on it, has been restored several times and can still be driven.
But Mr Gardiner said the prohibitive insurance cost means it is not taken out anymore.
The vehicle was bought by Gardiner’s father Cyril in the early 1950s.
Mr Gardiner said his father also loaned the royals the Cadillac used by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip during their first official Sri Lanka visit in 1954.
That along with another used by the royal family are being restored at the moment,” he said.
Prince Philip, who died at the age of 99 last week, was known to love cars and often chose to drive himself.
But in 2019, he surrendered his driving licence at the age of 97 after a collision that flipped his car and injured two other people.
During the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral procession on Saturday, a bespoke Land Rover Defender that he helped design will bear his coffin to St George’s Chapel.
Colombo, April 16: On Thursday, April 15, US President Joe Biden imposed a new round of sanctions against Russia. The Treasury Department blacklisted six Russian technology companies that supported the cyber program run by Russia’s intelligence services. Eight persons and entities associated with Russia’s actions in Crimea were also sanctioned as were 32 entities and individuals who had allegedly carried out Russian government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election through disinformation spreading and interference.
In response, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s (the upper house of parliament) Committee on Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Dzhabarov said: There will be a response, a tit-for-tat one.”
Sanctions, as a US foreign policy tool, was initiated by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, when he said: A nation that is boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need for force. It does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted, but it brings a pressure upon the nation which, in my judgment, no modern nation could resist.”
Since then, the US has been imposing sanctions with regularity. Nowadays, sanctions take the form of arms embargoes, foreign assistance reductions and cut-offs, export and import limitations, asset freezes, tariff increases, revocation of Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status, negative votes in international financial institutions, withdrawal of diplomatic relations, visa denials, cancellation of air links, and prohibitions on credit, financing, and investment. Economic restrictions may include denial of access to the US financial system, freezing assets under US jurisdiction, or the prohibition of certain exports.
In his 2020 article titled The Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions as aSecurity Tool,” Mark Tarallo notes that small scale sanctions have also been clamped by the US. In 2018 the US added nearly 1,500 people, companies, and other entities to sanctions programs managed by the US Treasury Department, nearly 50 percent more than in 2017.
According to Dursun Peksen, a sanctions expert at the University of Memphis in Tennessee, conventional trade and financial sanctions have resulted in some meaningful behavioral change in the targeted country about 40% of the time.” But others do not paint such a rosy picture.
Although the US has used sanctions continuously in dozens of contexts, the success rate has been poor says economist Kimberly Ann Elliot, writing for the Peterson Institute of International Economics. According to her, even the global, comprehensive, and vigorously enforced sanctions” against Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, produced, at best, limited results. In some cases, military force had to be used to back sanctions as in Mali. Since 1970, unilateral US sanctions had achieved foreign policy goals only in 13% of the cases.
Further, in 1995, sanctions hit US exports to 26 target countries to the tune of US$15 billion to US$ 19 billion. 200,000 or more jobs were lost in the highly lucrative US export sector. US sanctions led to increasing tensions between the US and its allies or trading partners around the world, Elliot observes. US firms could be regarded as unreliable suppliers.” Sanctioned countries might avoid buying from US exporters even when sanctions were not in place, thus giving firms in other countries a competitive advantage in those markets, she warns.
Secondary Sanctions
Richard N. Haass writing in brookings.edu in 1998, pointed out that the US resorted to secondary sanctions” to compel others to join its sanctions effort. But this could cause serious harm” to a variety of US foreign policy interests, he points out. This happened when sanctions were clamped on overseas firms which violated US sanctions vis-à-vis Cuba, Iran, and Libya. Anti-American sentiment went up in countries subjected to secondary sanctions. They created discord in the World Trade Organization (WTO). And all the while, attention was drawn away from the provocative behavior of the target governments,” Haass pointed out.
Sanctions could cause distress in the targeted countries which could be described as human rights violations. For example, sanctions on Haiti triggered an exodus. In former Yugoslavia, sanctions created a military imbalance. The arms embargo weakened the Muslim Bosnian side while Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats had larger stores of military supplies and greater access to additional supplies from outside sources,” Haass recalled.
Military sanctions against Pakistan increased its reliance on the nuclear weapons option and affected the reliability of the US as an ally. Former US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and a seasoned US State Department, Robert Blake, said in Colombo a few years ago that the US lost touch with a whole generation of Pakistani military officers because of military sanctions. Pakistan has now gone over to the Chinese side.
Sanctioned countries may see the strengthening of extreme nationalism and authoritarianism as a reaction. Also, sanctions fatigue” may settle in, over time, weakening international compliance.
Haass recommends that sanctions be employed only after careful consideration of the gains and losses. Sanctions are meaningless if they hurt the sanctioning country. Since unilateral sanctions tend to fail, multilateral support for economic sanctions should normally be a prerequisite”. Secondary sanctions are to be avoided. Instead, consensus should be built with other countries on the matter. Further, instituting sanctions against those who do not comply with the sanctions is an admission of a diplomatic failure to persuade,” he avers.
Very importantly, Haass says that sanctions should not be used to hold major or complex bilateral relationships hostage to a single issue or set of concerns. This is especially the case with a country such as China, where the United States has to balance interests that include maintaining stability in South Asia and on the Korean Peninsula,” he explains.
He further states that a nearly identical argument could be made about the wisdom of applying broad sanctions against Russia or India because of their transgressions in one realm. The alternative to broad sanctions in such instances is either to adopt narrow sanctions that are germane to the issue at hand or to turn to other policy tools.”
Innocents should not be made to suffer any more than is absolutely necessary, Haass insists. Lastly, policymakers should prepare and send to Congress a policy statement before or soon after a sanction is put in place. Such statements should give all sides of the picture, details of the potential gains and losses, and the risks too. There should be an annual Congressional review of the sanctions and the President should be given the power to call off or fine tune sanctions in the light of the ground situation and other relevant factors.
The US should shed its grandiose but outdated notion that it is the sole world power and act unilaterally. Even a supposedly defeated power like Russia can rise again to pose a serious challenge. The US has to contend with China’s economic power and it global reach, unimaginable a few years ago. Getting out of sticky situations as in Afghanistan can be more challenging than sending troops there and sinking trillions of dollars. Even traditional White allies in Europe could play truant when the US needs their cooperation desperately. Seeking consensus and cooperation are the prerequisites of a successful foreign policy, including the use of sanctions.
The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In order to enter the cell, the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike glycoprotein of this virus is known to attach to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor.
Due to such pivotal role of the spike glycoprotein, it is of no wonder that it represents the main target for antibody-mediated neutralization. And while most of the vaccines for preventing COVID-19 are two-dose vaccines, some vaccines (such as the Johnson and Johnson adenoviral vector vaccine solution) comprise a single dose.
However, we are not sure whether a single dose of Oxford–AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines can also be protective enough; furthermore, many variants of concern with mutations in the spike glycoprotein have emerged, increasing in turn disease transmission and potentially affecting vaccine efficacy.
In order to appraise the immunogenicity of a single dose of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in a real-world setting, a research group (led by Dr. Chandima Jeewandara from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura) assessed antibody and T cell responses in a large cohort of health care workers in Sri Lanka.
Appraising antibody and T cell responses
The study population consisted of 607 naïve and 26 previously infected health care workers 28 to 32 days after a single dose of the vaccine. None of the study participants reported having COVID-19 infection during this one month.
Hemagglutination tests for antibodies to the RBD of the wild-type virus, UK variant (B.1.1.7) and South African variant (B.1.351), as well as the surrogate neutralization assay, have all been carried out in 69 naïve and 26 previously infected individuals.
Finally, specific T cell responses for spike protein (with S1 and S2 pools S1) were measured by the ex vivo enzyme-linked immunospot interferon-gamma assays in 76 study subjects by using freshly isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
An abundance of antibodies
This study has shown that 92.9% of previously naïve individuals actually seroconverted to a single dose of the vaccine, irrespective of their gender and/or age. In other words, a single dose produced a high amount of ACE2 blocking antibodies (detected in 97.1% of naïve vaccine recipients), as well as those aimed towards RBDs of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.
More specifically, albeit high levels of antibodies were demonstrated to the RBD specific for the wild type virus, the titers for UK strain (B.1.1.7) and South African strain (B.1.351) were lower in previously naïve health care workers. Furthermore, ex vivo T cell responses were found to S1 in 63.9% and S2 in 31.9% of health care workers.
The ACE2 blocking titers (as measured by the SARS-CoV-2 surrogate virus neutralization test) substantially increased from a median of 54.1 to 97.9% of inhibition in previously infected health care workers. Finally, antibodies to the RBD for the UK and South African variants also rose significantly.
Superb immunogenicity of a single dose
In short, a single dose of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was shown to be very immunogenic in previously naïve individuals and able to induce antibody levels that exceed those following a mild or asymptomatic natural infection.
Our results suggest a single dose of vaccine based on the original sequence may still induce a significant increase in antibodies cross-reactive with the variants of concern – perhaps sufficient to ameliorate disease”, say the authors of this study.
It would be important to find out if these individuals who had a poor serological response to the vaccine would be more susceptible to infection in future in prospective studies,” they further caution in this medRxiv paper.
As many countries worldwide have a partially immunized population, with only a single vaccine dose administered, studies like these leave us with very important data and may tailor our future vaccination and public health approaches.
*Important Notice
medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Tokyo, April 16 (Jiji Press)–The mother of a Sri Lankan woman who last month died at a detention facility in central Japan run by the Immigration Services Agency demanded Friday that the authorities tell the whole truth about her death. The deceased woman was Wishma Sandamali, 33, according to a support group. Meeting the press from her home in Sri Lanka, Wishma’s mother, Sriyalatha, 53, teared up while saying that her daughter had been kind and liked living in Japan. She then urged the Japanese authorities to give full explanations about why Wishma became ill at the facility in Nagoya and why she died there. According to an interim report released by the agency, Wishma was taken to the detention center in August last year for illegal overstaying her visa.
Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage said there were foreign forces behind opposition politicians whipping up public criticism against the piece of legislations to govern the Colombo Port City.
The Minister told a press conference that the proposed law is well in consistent with the constitution as informed by the Attorney General.
However, he said the Supreme Court would determine it.
Seven new COVID-related deaths were reported in Sri Lanka today (April 16), the Director-General of Health Services confirmed.
The new development has pushed the country’s death toll from the pandemic outbreak to 615.
1. The deceased is a 69-year-old male resident in Pasyala. He died on 14.04.2021 while undergoing treatments at National Hospital Colombo. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 infection, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, heart disease and asthma.
2. The deceased is a 76-year-old male resident in Rathnapura. He was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 virus while undergoing treatments at Teaching Hospital Rathnapura and transferred to Base Hospital Mulleriyawa where he died on 15.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, chronic kidney disease and heart disease.
3. The diseased is a 60-year-old male resident in Kalmunai. He was diagnosed as infected with Covid 19 virus and transferred from Base Hospital Kamburupitiya to Base Hospital Mulleriyawa where he died on 10.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid pneumonia, Septic Shock, diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
4. The diseased is a 75-year-old female resident in Kalawana. She was diagnosed as infected with Covid 19 virus and transferred from Base Hospital Kalawana to Base Hospital Mulleriyawa where she died on 10.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid pneumonia and Pulmonary embolism associated with bronchial asthma and hypertension.
5. The deceased is a 63-year-old male resident in Thondaimanaru. He was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 virus and transferred from Base Hospital Point Peduru to Base Hospital Mulleriyawa where he died on 11.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid pneumonia, chronic kidney disease and diabetes.
6. The deceased is an 86-year-old male resident in Thalangama. He was diagnosed as infected with Covid 19 virus and transferred from National Hospital Colombo to Base Hsopital Mulleriyawa where he died on 16.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and heart disease.
7. The diseased is a 59-year-old female resident in Chawakachcheri. She was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 virus and transferred from Teaching Hospital Jaffna to IDH Hospital where she died on 15.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as septic shock, Covid-19 infection, and chronic Leukemia.
The national program titled ‘Jeeva Thuru Udanaya,’ organized by the State Ministry of Agriculture to make the general public aware of the nutritional and economic value of the Moringa (drumstick) tree, is expected to kick off tomorrow (April 17).
Manusath Derana, the CSR initiative of TV Derana, will join hands with this program to distribute a total of 1 million Moringa plants.
Speaking to Ada Derana ‘BIG FOCUS’ earlier today, State Minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa’s Private Secretary Sanjeewa Wijekoon said the initiative will be implemented at 2,5000 temples across all districts.
Chairman of Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya meanwhile pointed out that the drumstick plant was used to reinstate the undernourished regions in the world.
