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.
The Ministry of Health reports that another 30 persons have tested positive for Covid-19 bringing the tally of fresh cases detected within the day to 159.
All new cases are close contacts of Covid patients from the Peliyagoda cluster.
Accordingly, the total number of coronavirus cases from the Minuwangoda, Peliyagoda and prisons clusters has increased to 90,852.
The death toll due to the virus in Sri Lanka currently stands at 615.
Although the
Indian Politicians and Kavtillyan bureaucrats think they are masters of
statecrafts they little realize that all ways it is not the case. For example
they never thought Rajiv will be assassinated by the LTTE when the Indian Government
subversively nurtured the Tigers to fight against the Sri Lanka government in
1980s by providing them military training all over India, gave them 32 million
US $ and provided arms and all other facilities to fight against the Sri Lankan
Forces and to kill thousands of Sinhala and Tamil people. They opened up
training camps all over India with headquarters in Tamilnadu for the LTTE Rajiv
even gave his bullet proof Jacket to Prabhakaran to protect himself from Sri
Lankan fire and to engage in his killing spree. The ungrateful Prabhakaran
using the same facilities assassinated Rajiv on May 21, 1991, at Sriperumbudur,
in South India. This was how a South Indian Dravidayan Prabhakaran returned his
gratitude for benefactor, a North Indian Brahamin ruler and all mighty God
punished India and its leader who conspired to destabilize Sri Lankan State in
the 20th century by empowering the LTTE and its most dangerous
leader Prabhakaran.
It was when
Rajiv gave his bullet proof jacket to Prabhakaran, I wrote a letter just about
a month before his murder on 21st May warning him of his follies
explaining in detail why he should not support the LTTE outfit against the
Sinhala nation and the Land of the Gautama Buddha as he could be a victim in
retribution to what he was doing to this country. This letter was sent under
the Signature of the most Venerable Paliipana Chandananda Mahanayaka Thero of
the Asgiriya Chapter of the Siamese Sect, to add weight to my argument. But
Rajiv being the typical arrogant north Indian
Brahamin, he never took any
notice of that warning. Finally he had to pay the toll for trying to destroy
this country just to take revenge from JR.
I am addressing this open note to the present
day political leadership of India not very much different from their predecessors in their duel objectives of winning over the support of Tamilnadu
politicians at Home , by supporting the Tamils in Sri Lanka ,rather
deceptively, to maintain political stability in New Delhi and wanting us to
fall in line with India’s stand in the Indo Pacific region negating our own interest as an Independent
nation in our dealings with countries like Pakistan and China.
Similarly now I see
a parallel episode taking place , that is going to be more detrimental to India
than to Sri Lanka in the near future if the Indian Government continues to
pursue this course without realizing the imminent dangers bound to emerge.
In this context
I strongly advise India to immediately stop interfering in our domestic
politics by supporting Lankan Tamils for separation for the above said
subversive objects. If they don’t stop this dirty game I will assure India that
the balkanizing date of India is not very far. If India helps Tamils in Sri Lanka,
to set up their separate EELAM they will thereafter merge with Tamilnadu with
or without the other seven provinces and declare their dream EELAM that was banned In 1963,by the Government of India led by Jawaharlal
Nehru, declaring secessionism as an illegal act.
This is the first
step in balkanizing India. Thereafter they will pursue the formation of Dravida
Nadu is the name of a hypothetical “sovereign state” demanded by
Justice Party led by E. V. Ramasamy and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led
by C. N. Annadurai for the speakers of the Dravidian languages in South India
as give in the following map.
Therefore I advise the Indian politicians and bureaucrats to reassess and rethink on their folly of ill- treat ing this country at least now if they love India before it is captured by the South Indian Dravidayan tribal forces who harbor a historical enmity against Brahamin North Indians for centuries if not for millennia.to read Samuel Livingstone’s book, Sinhalese and the Aryan Theory (1971) Letters of a Tamil Father to his Son. Even his dream world Tamil empire called Ehelam as dreamt by Livingstone does not come true, the declaration of the EELAM with Sri Lanka and South India will definitely lead to balkanizing of British India in the near future if Indian politicians and mandarins don’t stop their dirty game with Sri Lanka. If they want to wants to realize the gravity of my prediction I invite them to read specially the Chapters 1 to 13 of the above book which I suspect to be probably a compendium of letters written by a shroud Englishman under a pseudo name. Every line of this collection clearly displays the animosity the Dravidayans harbor against North Indians who call themselves Aryans. If you carefully analyze the content of their thesis you will definitely see that they are a worse enemy of India than China. It is particularly in this backdrop I invite the Indian politicians and mandarins to revisit their dirty subversive aggressions against this country, in their own interest.
Therefore I
request India not to interfere with our internal matters and mind its own
business at Home. On the other hand if you are so concerned about the Tamils
presently living in Sri Lanka, calling them only as people of Indian origin,
completely forgetting that we Sinhalese are also of the same Indian stock, you
are most welcome to take them back to Tamilnadu without bothering us by
interfering in our internal matters as we are not a part of your country. Though
we Sinhalese are also said to be of Indian origin you treat us as foreigners.
We will look
after our citizens the way we had been doing for the past 2500 years in spite
of numerous invasions from the 2nd century BC in historical times and
even before going back to the days of Rama in pre=historic times.
The political
and social upheaval caused by the 1956 government received a mixed reaction in
Sri Lanka society. 1956 had different connotations
for different groups. For the
English speaking elites in Colombo and elsewhere
in the island, the world turned upside down.
From 1948 to 1956 political power in Ceylon had been
held by the English educated elite. This
elite was highly westernized, Anglophile, right wing and Christian. Many had close ties to the UNP. its
right to rule had never been challenged. Up to 1956, the ideal politician was one who belonged
to the westernized Ceylonese elite and behaved like an Englishman. Now their
political power was under threat.
The political role of the English educated elite began to
erode before their eyes, said Wiswa Warnapala. When the rural group and the lower
middle class became MPs in Parliament and ministers in SWRDs government, the
elite classes were in a rage. The
position given to common persons was unbearable to the elite who thought that a
seat in Parliament was their prerogative alone.
The elite took the view that the rural sector was not entitled to a
place in the sun. That was reserved for the westernised elite alone. The elite looked down
on the rural MPs as ‘miserable backwoods creatures who had been washed into
prominence by the unexpected tidal wave that hit the island in 1956’ (Flybynight).
This elite opposed the
dethronement of English, the arrival of Sinhala, the election of rural MPs, the
revival of Buddhism and free education. They objected most to the enthroning of
the Sinhala language. For some, it was a never to be forgotten monumental event. As the Sinhala speaking segment rose, their
own position would be affected, especially since their own Sinhala was not that
good.
There was animosity
also to the rise of the whole Sinhala Buddhist segment.
This segment had risen upwards due to two innovations, Free education and
Swabhasha. The cartoonist Aubrey Collette (1920-1992) responded to this. He drew two mocking cartoons of GP
Malalasekera fondling his OBE medal and CWW Kannangara pointing to the Pearl of
great price, Free education. These two cartoons are featured in Neville Weeraratne’
book ’43 group’ and belong to the
Brendon and Yasmine Gooneratne collection.
Collette was the
cartoonist at Ceylon Observer in the 1956 years. His cartoons reflect the attitude of the
westernized elite. The first cartoon given below suggests that change is not
necessary for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka should not be changed in any way. it should
continue as it did under British rule. the second and third cartoons imply that
Sinhala was a backward primitive language,
used in ancient times, by natives who were
no better than monkeys. the Sinhala
Only” policy of 1956 would take us back
to the same primitive level and turn us into apes.
The most sneering contemptuous opposition to SWRD came from this English speaking elite drawn from all communities, said HLD Mahindapala. It is this group who led the 1962 coup.(continued)
...the broadly held view the world over, [is] that the devolution of power to ethnic minority areas, making for a measure of autonomy, is the best vaccine against separatism.”-Dayan Jayatilleke, Advisor to Sajith Premadasa (Colombo Telegraph, April 7, 2021)
If the Tamils’ cry for separatism is given up, the two communities could solve their problems and continue to live in amity and dignity.” -M.C. Sansoni, CJ (Sessional Paper No. 7 of 1980)
Unreasonable
demands
When Barak
Obama became U.S. President in 2009, Neville Jayaweera, ex-CCS officer who gave
up Buddhism and became a propaganda head of a world Christian organization,
floated the idea of a Tamil Obama in Sri Lanka, but he could not find a
deserving candidate. Now in 2021, TNA and other Tamil separatists are facing an
erosion of domestic oxygen for their game. All their eggs are now in the UNHRC
handbag, an agency acting as proxy to US and India, demanding 13-A plus. It is an open secret now that 13-A plus plan
is nothing but a substitute for the buried but not dead MCC Trojan horse. This
is a fact that cannot be ignored by the expert committee.
The
unreasonableness of trying to use 13-A for self-rule in a mythical homeland by
a handful of Tamil politicians is ignored stupidly by a set of Sinhala black white politicians,
solely due to selfish reasons and personal gain. How many of these national and
local politicians cherish democracy, rule of law, human rights or the happiness
of their electorate? It is amazing how those who got people killed leading them
on demonstrations against 13-A in 1987, are now using the PC system as gold
mines or bottomless corruption pits.
Tamil
Aspirations
An argument
presented by Robert Blake, Hilary Clinton, then, and Narendra Modi or Dayan
Jayatilleka, Sajith Premadasa’s international advisor now, that there has to be
<meaningful> devolution to Tamils
(Sinhala people did not ask and did not get any benefit via 13-A) so that their
national aspirations (separate identity) could be achieved, is proven to be a
fake geopolitical trick to divide the country.
The proof comes on a weekly basis from video clips by Arun Siddharthan,
a Tamil Che Guerra of <low caste> Tamils in Jaffna. What kind of
aspiration one could have living in slums with
no water and toilets! Maslow with hierarchy of human needs must be
turning in his grave. Empowerment of people at small community level is what
Arun is doing. Then only Tamil people (not a handful of separatist politicians)
can think of a Tamil culture and a Tamilness, harmless to Sinhalaness.
Historically, Sinhala Buddhism did not oppose Tamilness, Christianism, Hinduthva,
or Musalman way of living, prior to it becoming a sharia-wahabi agression.
Geography
against 13-A
Geography
provides all the evidence needed to
understand why the 13-A path is a disaster and how Tamil people could be
empowered to overcome the spatial inequities they as well as the other
communities are experiencing at present under a false system of capitalist
representative democracy. We are now experiencing how an EVIL TRIANGLE
-politician- officer- civil society (NGOs, businesses)- has created a
cancer-causing democracy while preaching rule of law, freedom of speech,
liberal economy etc.
The expert
committee has an historic opportunity to save democracy for people from
politicians by taking a path not taken by lawyers who prepared all previous constitutions
starting with Ivor Jennings in 1947. Instead of Euro-centric constitutional
principles, Buddhist literature provides systems of thinking needed to foster a
society full of happiness. These rules
are simple and practicable. The Euro-American new remedies for the problems
they themselves created by divide and rule colonial strategy, so called
non-majoritarian constitutional solutions (Horowitz-Nye formula backed by the
R2P weapon), did not solve any conflict in the world. Instead, these <solutions>
split countries apart fighting with each other. Border wars in Sudan, East
Timor, Lebanon are just two exapmples.
13-A is one such dead-rope given to Sri Lanka. Donald Horowitz, who was a
Fulbright scholar in Sri Lanka, did not discuss Gamsabhava (or Panchayathi
concept in India) in his many writings.
The
socio-political-economic model based on the
Trinity of village-water reservoir- temple, is still the best solution
for 70% of Sri Lanka’s sick democracy. Decentralizing governmental powers to such
local entities, Gamsabha (Jana Sabha, Pradeshiya Sabha) level is the solution
to the PC dilemma. Demarcating them using natural (geographical) boundaries as
in New Zealand is as important as teaching Sinhala and Tamil to Tamil and
Sinhala students in schools from grades 3-10.
History is past
geography and two generations deprived of history and geography as school
subjects, including lawyers in the Island, (in western countries one cannot go
to law school without a four-year first degree) cannot be blamed if they do not
understand the geography behind the statecraft. Discussed below are some food
for thought, starting with geography and politics and concluded with geography
of water and population.
Geopolitics
K. M. Panikkar
(1895-1963), the Malayali (Kerala) statesman and strategist wished Ceylon to be
under the Indian suzerainty.
Chelvanayagam’s willingness to hand over Trincomalee to India in 1949,
it was honey in Nehru’s ears. A
committee of five ex-British prime ministers reported the military importance
of the Trico harbour, a century ago. At that time they did not know that Trinco
harbour has geologic troughs deep enough to hide nuclear submarines from enemy
detection. For air power, Sri Lanka has the lowest gravity on earth (Did king
Ravana know this?). Now a US Navy admiral says the significance of Sri Lanka is
its location, location and location. This is absolute location as well as the
relative location. For example, Sri Lanka’s only next door neighbor is South
India. However, it is separated from a narrow and shallow sea, which prevented
it becoming part of South India, just like Japan saved from China or England
escaped from Napoleon and Hitler. The expert committee ought to understand that
13-A is directly linked with the geopolitical plan of
USA-India-Japan-Australia-New Zealand, to encircle China. Sri Lanka could be
used in this plan if the central government is weekend or the country is
divided on ethnic lines.
Russian need
for a warm water port
When Colonel
Olcott came to Ceylon in 1880 with the Russian
Helena Blavatsky, colonial government suspected him as a Russian
agent. Anglo-Afghan wars (1839, 1878,
1919) were British attempts to block the
Russian bear coming to Indian Ocean. Colonially- created Pakistan was a result
of British suspicion of an independent India becoming a strategic friend of
Russia. Lord Soulbury, therefore, did not want to propose any federal-type arrangement in Ceylon, which
would have given India room for directly interfering with Jaffna’s federal
politics, once freedom is bestowed. Thus, his <hindsight> apology to math
professor cum separatist C. Sundaralingam, regretting his constitutional
<error> was not sincerely made. Defense agreements, Clause 29, Senate,
electorate concessions and appointed MPs were all examples of what Soulbury
could give on the face of a future Russian-Indian axis. Japan bombing Colombo
was a warning in this regard. It was geopolitics in the 1940s.
Gondwanaland
and Ranil’s tunnel and bridge to Tamilnad
When the
Gondwanaland split, and India drifted away from Africa, the island of Sri Lanka
tried to maintain a separate geological boundary. This was the reason for a
regular boat service from Dhanushkodi to Talaimannar to bring cheap Indian
labor to tea plantations in Ceylon, but the plan by Ranil W after 2000 to link
India to Sri Lanka by a railway bridge or a tunnel was only black white attempt
to sabotage the Sinhala Buddhist heritage. With his love for India, he said
Lord Buddha was an Indian. The same mouth uttered that Poson was the first
Indian invasion!
The Theravada
Buddhism was planted in this island for a reason. It had the protection of the
Continental Drift. Buddhism got wiped out in India with the end of King
Ashoka’s Just Rule. India interfered boldly in Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh
politics. In fact it created B’desh. If a land connection was there the Indian
army would have occupied Jaffna under any pretext it wants. Both Indira and
Rajiv lied to the world denying that they were arming or training Tamil
terrorists. As the new Jaffna phenomenon of a Tamil Che Guerra, Arun
Siddharthan pointed out recently, the Indian embassy branch in Jaffna is but a
RAW field office.
The relevance
of these geology-based factors of absolute and relative location of the Island
is that they do not support the 13-A plan,
aggressively promoted by local black white agents and their foreign
masters led by Indian, EU and American politicians. Which Sinhala politician or
party showed any interest in understanding such basic issues. This dilemma becomes
clearer when we direct our attention from the geological base to surface of the
earth (landscape).
Physical
geography and human geography
Sri Lanka’s
physical geography shaped its cultural geography. A simple example is to
overlay on the relief and drainage (topography)
map, an irrigation (canals and reservoirs) map of the island. To this
one can add the climatic, soil, forest, groundwater and ecological zones. A map
of agro-ecology regions reflects applied aspects of this nature and human
interface. What we have is a tropical island with such diversity, that within 50 miles from a
coastal city like Colombo, one could reach cool weather and climate in the hill
country such as Nuwara Eliya.
Sri Lanka’s
history is shaped by this diversity in its natural environment, unique for a
small island. This fostered the evolution of a diverse cultural environment.
While the elements of physical diversity acted in unison to create one physical
entity, prior to European invasions it exhibited a cultural unity in diversity
of a land called SINHALE. Sinhala
Buddhist heritage had been the foundation of this unity in diversity. From the
Gamsabhava upwards there was a system of
administration in sync with the natural environment.
With a central
mountain mass, known as the Heartland of the tiny island, 103 rivers radiate to
the ocean. The mountains affect the
Monsoon seasons creating a southwest wet zone, small in area, and a vast area
of dry and arid zones of east, southeast, north and northwest. Ancient
irrigation civilization was an example of how Sinhala kings solved this spatial
deficit of water availability. A river for Jaffna is the only new issue in this
regard, and Vigneswaran as CM-NP had already raised the question of how much
water North will get from the Moragahakanda dam, the last project under
Mahaveli irrigation system.
Water wars
When the
proposed Eelam bounday is marked on a river basins map of the island, the
suicidal nature of a 13-A plus solution to the Sinhala Buddists becomes obvious
(see essay water wars attached). Water wars are a regular feature among south
Indian states at the village level. Imagine the magnitude of this when an NP or
a merged NP and EP complains to UNO or
UNHRC that it is not provided with adequate amounts of water when drought dry
out rivers. From the words and actions of the 13-A plus lobby, the expert
committee cannot have any doubts that 13-A is only a way station on the march
to Eelam.
Population
geography
Sri Lanka’s
population distribution map is like a scrambled egg. It cannot be unscrambled.
If ethnicity/language based PC units or any other units of lower level are
created, there is no way to think that the <Tamil genocide> myth by the
Tamil separatist lobby would vanish. So many Tamils are living happily in the
South, practically in any town or village, but the design by Tamil separatists
is to have a mono-ethnic N-E Region. This was the plan Mrs. Chandrika and
Neelan Thiruchelvam prepared during 1995-2000, which just missed fruition by a
shortage of 7 votes in the parliament. The Marxist who worked with them on this
deal, later prepared the Orumitthanadu plan with Sumanthiran in 2019, was
Jayampathy Wickramaratne, who is now marking time in Geneva.
Perhaps, the
situation in Sri Lanka is unique in the world in this regard. Not just for the
past 40 years, but even today if a Tamil from Jaffna could not move to a European or other white destination, he or
she would move to Colombo or any other location in the South. But, when
Sinhalese move to North it is branded as government-aided Sinhalization of a
mythical Tamil homeland! There is no Sinhala Thesawalamai in the south to block
Tamils buying land. Even the excavations of archaeological sites are resisted
as encroaching Tamil private property, while a monk cannot build even a toilet
in such land without official permission.
The danger of
any language-based units is that the heartland of the island, the Hill Country,
will become an unstable, Eelam play ground. If as Mrs. Chandrika’s plan of
using the majority of an electorate as the criteria for demarcating ethnic
units, then a separate Malayanadu will become a reality, which could opt to
join with NP+EP union.
Any
ethnicity/religion-based creation of units has a new problem with the recent
discovery of Sharia/wahabi project. The establishment of Muslim pockets all
over the South with systematic buying of land and supporting baby-producing
factories with the Arab oil money is a threat that the expert committee ought
to pay attention in dealing with 13-A
related matters.
The solution to
this 13-A dilemma, lies within the triangle of the Buddhist Middle Path,
Reasonableness doctrine in law and the Regional geography, which identifies
spatial units as organic space.
The increasing
trend of lawlessness, foreign-funded NGO and opposition politician attempts to
derail the 2019 election victory, compels one to ask are we living with the
Sixteen Dreams of the king Pasenadi Kosol. One solution is to create a Jana
Sabha (or pradeshiya Sabha) system representing people, military and the
temple, a Buddhist form of checks and balances at the local level. The officer
will become real servants accountable for their actions and omissions.
Dayan
Jayatilleka, who has become the self-appointed UNHRC and Modi’s agent in Sri
Lanka, to promote MCC via 13-A, must
answer if what CJ Sansoni said in 1980 is
still a valid opinion. I wonder if Marxist, Christian, Euro-centric
Dayan could meet Arun Siddharthan, who is a Tamil Che Guerra in the making, an
anathema to Jaffna Eelam establishment.
CHINA has released a white paper on poverty
alleviation which outlines the success of policies implemented, the methods
employed and her desire to share the unique social experiment with other
developing countries. Sri Lanka being a friendly international partner of China
should make use of this opportunity to study the program and plan a scheme and
send a team to China to learn the activities conducted under the scheme so that
Sri Lanka will be able to handle the fight against the poverty successfully.
China achieved the largest scale battle
against extreme poverty worldwide, as 98.99 million people had been lifted out
of absolute poverty, creating a miracle in human history” These people were
living in 128 ,000 villages all over in China. China through a sustained
program was able to achieve its poverty reduction targets set out in UN 2030 agenda,
10 years ahead of its schedule.
A quote from a report released by the BBC
outlines the success achieved by China.
:” In 1990 there were more than 750 million people in China living below
the international poverty line – about two-thirds of the population. By 2012, that
had fallen to fewer than 90 million, and by 2016 – the most recent year for
which World Bank figures are available – it had fallen to 7.2 million people
(0.5% of the population). So clearly, even in 2016 China was well on the way to
reaching its target This suggests that overall, 745 million fewer people were
living in extreme poverty in China than were 30 years ago. World Bank figures
do not take us to the present day, but the trend is certainly in line with the
Chinese government’s announcement. (Another large country, India, had 22% of
its population living below the international poverty line in 2011 (the most
recent data available) …:”}
The people living in extreme poverty suffer from the lack of extremely
basic amenities such as food. safe drinking water, sanitation, health, shelter,
and education. It is a fact that those who come under this category are trapped
in a vicious circle and for generations they cannot escape the deprivations.
Some of the policies followed by China in achieving the enviable outcome
are discussed in the White paper. The most important condition to be fulfilled
is the acceptance of the fact that governance of a country starts with the
needs of the people and their prosperity is the responsibility of the
government. To achieve success, it is of utmost importance that the leadership
have devotion. strong will and determination. and the ruling party and the
government assumes their responsibilities to the people. play a leading role,
mobilize forces from all quarters and ensure policies are consistent and stable’.
China has provided the poor with the guidance, direction and tools while
educating them to have the ambition to emerge from poverty, Through farmers’
night schools, workshops and
technical schools create the improvement of skills. The government
identifies the economic opportunities in consultation with the people, then
provides finances, loans for the selected projects, and strengthens the
infra-structure facilities including the marketing outlets.
While the macro aspects for the poverty alleviation is planned
centrally, the activities are executed provincially and locally.
Sri Lankans living under the national
poverty line was 4.1% of the population in 2016 (World Data Atlas). The impact
of Covid 19 in 2020-21 has dealt a severe blow to the living standards in Sri
Lanka and it is assumed that the people living under the poverty line would
have reached approximately 8% of the population by 2021.
The President Gotabya Rajapakase has
realised this gloomy truth in his interaction with the poor in the villages on
his visits to the remote areas in Sri Lanka. I would request him to study the
success story of China and to work out a similar NATIONAL program in
consultation with China. In the white paper China says that that she is ready
to share her experience with other countries who desire to reduce the poverty
levels. The President should appoint a TASK FORCE of capable and nationalist
minded to individuals to steer the program with given targets as PRIORITY
VENTURE. If Sri Lanka can plan a comprehensive program for poverty alleviation
and implement with determination under the capable, dedicated and willing leadership of the President, nearly 2 million
Sri Lankans who live below the poverty
line wallowing in darkness will benefit
and would start contributing to the growth of the nation productively.
At least 41 Sri Lankan women, the majority of whom are migrant domestic workers, have spent months on end arbitrarily detained at a deportation center in Saudi Arabia, awaiting repatriation to their home country, Amnesty International revealed today.
The women have been held at a Deportation Detention (Tarheel) Centre in Riyadh for periods ranging from eight to 18 months. At least three of them have young children detained with them, and one woman is in urgent need of medical care and treatment which she is not receiving.
Their plight is a stark illustration of how domestic workers remain caught up in the inherently abusive kafala (sponsorship) system. In March 2021 Saudi Arabia brought in reforms to its kafala system, however these reforms excluded migrant domestic workers who make up 30% of the country’s 10 million migrant workers.
Detaining migrant workers for prolonged periods of up to 18 months when they have done nothing wrong and are victims themselves is cruel and inhumane. These women left their homes and families behind to earn a livelihood in Saudi Arabia only to find themselves locked into an abusive sponsorship system that facilitates exploitation and abuse. Now they are indefinitely detained with no opportunity to challenge their detention and no indication of when they can be reunited with their loved ones,” said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
Their ordeal clearly illustrates the urgent need for Saudi Arabia to extend labour law protections and reforms to its kafala system to migrant domestic workers. The Saudi Arabian authorities should immediately release all women detained solely for their migration status and work with the Sri Lankan authorities to facilitate their return home.”Detaining migrant workers for prolonged periods of up to 18 months when they have done nothing wrong and are victims themselves is cruel and inhumane. Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International
None of the women have been informed of any charges brought against them; nor have they been granted access to a lawyer or received any consular assistance. Many were detained after they were unable to obtain an exit permit from their employer to leave the country or a work permit to regularize their stay in the country. Under Saudi Arabia’s kafala system which ties migrant workers to their employer, this is grounds for indefinite detention.
Detained in limbo with no end in sight
Amnesty International interviewed 11 individuals with close knowledge of the detentions, including migrant domestic workers, an activist and an official from the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh.
In at least five cases, women were detained because they fled from an abusive employer and had not obtained an exit permit from their employer to leave the country.
One of the women awaiting repatriation said she left her job as a domestic worker in October 2020 following months of irregular pay since she first began working in Saudi Arabia in mid-2018, which left her significantly out of pocket for the work she had done. Her employer even deducted the cost of toiletries from her salary. When she resigned, her employer gave her some money for an airline ticket and left her on the street near the airport to find her own way back to Sri Lanka. She was handed over to the police by airport officials then detained after trying to buy an airline ticket as she did not have an exit permit.
Another woman who has been arbitrarily detained for four months tried to change jobs due to unpaid wages and extremely long working hours. When she called the police to ask for help they instead picked her up, took her into custody and transferred her to the detention centre.
During a global public health crisis such as COVID-19, detention solely for migration-related reasons cannot generally be considered a necessary or proportionate restriction on the right to liberty. Amnesty International opposes detention solely for immigration purposes, with only the most exceptional of circumstances.
For many of the women the anxiety of their prolonged detention is compounded by the fact that they have families at home who depended on the money they sent from their jobs in Saudi Arabia.
One of the detainees had run away from an employer who regularly beat her. After she sought help at the local police, she was sent to the detention center where she has now been held for eight months. She is a mother of three girls, and her family in Sri Lanka rely on her income.
Plight of domestic workers in Saudi Arabia
Migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia routinely suffer abuse derived from the kafala system. Less than half of them are women, who often come from South Asia, work in private households to cook, clean and provide childcare. According to testimonies obtained by Amnesty International, they often face grueling working conditions and work long hours without breaks or days off. Many migrant workers have also faced irregular or non-payment of their agreed wages. They also face verbal and physical abuse and have their passports regularly confiscated by abusive employers who act with impunity. They are not allowed to leave the country without the permission of their employers, which makes the workers extremely dependent on them and increases their vulnerability to abuses of rights, including forced labour and physical and sexual assault.
In March 2021, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Labour introduced limited reforms to its kafala system, allowing migrant workers to exit the country and leave jobs without the permission of their employers if they fulfil certain conditions. However, these will do little to eliminate the risk of labour abuses and exploitation faced by migrant workers face who continue to be tied to employers who retain tremendous control over them.The recent changes announced are a step in the right direction but barely scratch the surface of this inherently abusive system. They cannot be celebrated while they exclude migrant domestic workers who remain trapped in abusive situations Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International
The recent changes announced are a step in the right direction but barely scratch the surface of this inherently abusive system. They cannot be celebrated while they exclude migrant domestic workers who remain trapped in abusive situations. The government needs to extend the protection of the labour law to domestic workers who make up almost 30% of the migrant workforce as required under the UN and ILO treaties Saudi Arabia has ratified,” said Lynn Maalouf.
Expedite release and repatriation
Most of the Sri Lankan women detained in the deportation centre wish to return to their home countries. Prison officials have repeatedly informally told the women that they would be released and repatriated imminently, but no concrete steps have been taken so far.
Amnesty International wrote to the Sri Lankan and Saudi Arabian authorities on 31 March to demand they expedite the release and repatriation of the detained women. A Sri Lankan official at the Embassy in Riyadh told Amnesty that they are unable to routinely visit the women due to capacity issues and the need to make a specific request They have also not provided the women legal assistance. The official also said that the Embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are liaising with Saudia airlines” in Colombo to arrange a flight home. The women have yet to receive any confirmed information about such arrangements. Amnesty has not yet received a response about the findings from the Saudi Arabian authorities.
The 41 Sri Lankan women are among hundreds of women migrant workers from other nationalities detained at Exit 18 Deportation Detention Centre.
We call on the Sri Lankan authorities to facilitate the voluntary, safe and dignified repatriation of all these women as soon as possible, and ensure consular support to all those detained. In the interim, Saudi authorities must ensure the conditions of detention conform to international law and standards and that the women can access adequate health care and legal support,” said Lynn Maalouf.
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Four new COVID-related deaths were confirmed in Sri Lanka on Monday (April 15), says the Director-General of Health Services.
Following the new development, the country’s death toll has climbed to 608, according to the Department of Government Information.
1. The deceased is a 62-year-old male resident in Pannipitiya. He was transferred from Colombo South Teaching Hospital to Base Hospital Mulleriyawa where he died on 12.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid 19 infection with hepatorenal failure.
2. The deceased is a 72-year-old female resident in Ellakkala. She was diagnosed as infected with the Covid-19 virus at Base Hospital Wathupitiwala and transferred to Base Hospital Minuwangoda where she died on 14.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia.
3. The deceased is a 78-year-old male resident in Kapuliyadda. He was transferred from District Hospital Marassana to National Hospital Kandy where he died on 15.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
4. The deceased is a 34-year-old male resident in Deniyaya. He was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 at Apeksha Hospital Maharagama and transferred to IDH Hospital where he died on 14.04.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Leukemia and Covid-19 pneumonia.
